Comments on: Epistemology and the Emerging Church (EC BIOLA #6) http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6 Helping plans come together, one post at a time Sun, 03 May 2015 14:00:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.9 By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-291 Sat, 29 Jul 2006 16:11:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-291 How then can McLaren criticize Carson for not being truly conversant with the emerging church?

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-290 Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:13:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-290 Yes, but according to postmodern thought, it doesn't matter what the author intended, it's what it means to the reader that counts. What does it mean to you?

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-289 Sat, 21 May 2005 18:07:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-289 I think one of the major problems in this whole enchilada has been the fact that McLaren uses philosophical and theological terms in different ways than they are understood by philosophers and theologians within evangelical Christianity, so understanding what McLaren believes has been extremely difficult.

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-294 Sat, 21 May 2005 14:14:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-294 'Twas indeed Tocqueville, and it was also discussed by Mill. Although I can't say for sure, my guess is that Schaeffer referred to the “tyranny of the majority” in How Should We Then Live? while arguing against moral relativism.

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-293 Sat, 21 May 2005 03:18:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-293 Do I understand that right in it saying that McLaren cites Schaeffer for “tyranny of the majority?” Francis Schaeffer? Another Schaeffer?
I'm nearly certain it was Tocqevillle. Sorry for the tangential post.

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-292 Fri, 20 May 2005 15:35:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-292 Andrew, here's a quote from a blog on a seminar with Brian McLaren (see http://www.deepsoil.com/2004/03/pluralism_revis.html):
“Relativism is chemotherapy for the problem of absolutism. It

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-288 Fri, 20 May 2005 09:35:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-288 i am a little lost. Was Smith actually saying that McLaren believes, as Moreland says, that postmodernism is the “cure” for the church's problems and a philosophcial ANSWER to modernity's excesses? I just cant remember McLaren saying that, nor do i think he would agree with what he was accused of. I have heard McLaren say that postmodernity is the water the church swims in, but that is a very different thing.
Surely the emerging church, as i understand it, is attempting to bring a prophetic transformation through the gospel into a world described (sometimes incorrectly) as postmodern . . and NOT . . bringing pomo thinking to a world looking for a new philosophy.

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-287 Thu, 19 May 2005 03:47:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-287 Right. MacIntyre is criticizing the fact/value distinction whereby moderns divided what we can know for sure between those “facts” that can be proved scientifically, or perhaps rationally, and those “values” that we believe but aren't really factual. He's criticizing the most hyper-rationalistic elements of the Enlightenment and the is/ought distiction.
MacIntyre is defending the pre-modern, and entirely Christian, belief that we can know moral truths, such as the evil of slavery, and that we can rationally speak about human nature adn a teleology whereby we can judge whether an action is just, and indeed whether an entire life is well-lived. There are moral facts as well as physical facts.
I don't know what McLaren gets from Macintyre, though MacIntyre does espouse a notion of “narrative” by which we understand actions and morals, and he does argue that there are different traditions that are logically consistent but mutually incompatible. That said, he still maintains that some are more defensible than others, though there is an internal tension here (i.e., what system is MacIntyre accessing in order to judge the various traditions, he can't stand in a vacumm). Ultimately I think his foundation is a (broadly Catholic) Christian one, but he's probably better known for his indictment of modernity than he is for his positive project (which may be why McLaren cites him).

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-286 Thu, 19 May 2005 02:39:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-286 I should read and comment, this is afterall right up my alley of interest. I'll try to get back here and give it a read.

]]> By: Anonymous http://afcmin.org/ateam/102/epistemology-and-the-emerging-church-ec-biola-6/comment-page-1#comment-285 Wed, 18 May 2005 19:50:00 +0000 http://afcmin.org/ateam/?p=102#comment-285 Thanks, Micah. As for MacIntyre, Smith offers these quotes as indicative of his influence on McLaren (both come from Whose Justice? Which Rationality?):

To “conceive of a realm of facts independent of judgment or of any other form of linguistic expression” is highly misleading (pp. 357

]]>