Christian Standard promoting Shane Claiborne and Brian Mc Laren

[billiefan2000]

this dont surprise me:

The Christian Standard aka the trade magazine for the


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Churches_and_Churches_of_Christ

has been a big time cheerleader of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels for years now.



I BTW for the record am a member of a Independent Christian Church and I am starting to notice the PDL and Emergent agenda affecting Denom. as well




http://christianstandard.com/articledisplay.asp?id=873

They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Vote by Mandy Smith

Quote:

The media is providing us with a new option—politically liberal, yet theologically conservative.

In a new tack, the latest releases from conservative/evangelical publishers

are beginning to tackle how Christians should respond to issues of poverty,

the environment, and justice.



For example, Zondervan publishes titles like

Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals and Serve God

Save the Planet: A Christian Call to Action. And Thomas Nelson now prints books like

Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (on environmentally friendly paper, of course).


And an irreverent comedian named Stephen Colbert (named in 2006 as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people)


has helped Christians find a voice outside of the Republican right.



While his satirical show,


The Colbert Report frequently pokes fun at Christians (and everyone else),

the comedian himself is outspoken about his faith.


As he declared in a magazine interview:

“What is worthy of satire is the misuse of religion for destructive or political gains.

That’s totally different from the Word, the blood, the body and the Christ.

His kingdom is not of this earth.”


whole article at http://christianstandard.com/articledisplay.asp?id=873



BTW: Mandy Smith is a associate pastor with University Christian Church of Cincinnati Ohio



and her church's website


http://www.universitychristianchurch.net/resources.html

has the Ooze aka the "church" runned by Spencer Burke and Relevant Magazine listed as links

and is promoting Brian McLaren's book on their church's website as book worth "recomending"



this has me going :ohno cause I am wondering how infected with apostasy is our denom. gotten, considering this and how infected will may become

[billiefan2000]

BTW I like Brandon Baun comment on this at

http://www.christianstandard.com/letterseditor.asp


'I Must Take Issue with a Few of the Conclusions'
(posted 4-7-08)
While I appreciate the candor and passion Mandy Smith showed in her article,

“They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Vote” (April 6),

I must take issue with a few of the conclusions she makes:


1. Although she implies we need to put away the rhetoric that divides,

she uses some of it on the second page of her article:


“The media is providing us with a new option—politically liberal, yet theologically conservative.

In a new tack, the latest releases from conservative/evangelical publishers

are beginning to tackle

how Christians should respond to issues of poverty, the environment, and justice.”


I understand what she is saying—to a point.

However, the very wording of this paragraph assumes that only politically liberal people

are concerned with issues dealing with poverty, the environment, or with justice.

That is not at all the case! Many politically conservative people are just as concerned about these issues!

Though she wants us to assume that not all liberal voters are liberal theologians,

she assumes that all conservative voters are, in fact, people who care nothing about these issues.

In my mind, that seems a little unfair.

2. In that same paragraph, there are examples given of people who are both politically liberal and theologically conservative.

Unfortunately, the examples cited are completely wrong!


For starters, Shane Claiborne one of the authors of Jesus for President is nowhere near theologically conservative.


Then, the work of Brian McLaren is cited as another example.


Again, McLaren is far from being theologically conservative.


Someone who denies the existence of a literal Hell and questions the validity of the atonement seems to be far from that category.

So, these so-called “examples” don’t really hold up.



3. On the very last page, Smith asserts,


“Jesus said they’ll know we are Christians by our love, and so we certainly should vote according to the loves that drive us.


Whether our love is for God’s creation, unborn children, small businesses,

our freedoms and rights, single mothers, inner-city children, underpaid workers in the Third World, prisoners, or the elderly,

we should vote in a way that shows it.”


Once again, the sentiment of that statement is noble.

However, I believe her application is faulty.

Jesus didn’t say that the world would know we are Christians by our (generic) love.

According to John 13:35 Jesus said: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”


Love for our brothers and sisters is what identifies us as Christians, not our love of causes.[/SIZE]

So, Jesus’ words really seem to be ripped out of context there.

Let me reiterate: I do understand her sentiment and I do agree with most of it.

Issues of politics should not be divisive in the church.


[SIZE="2"]Christians need to be involved in combating injustice, poverty, and prejudice.

However, we must also stand for truth. We cannot trade one for the other.

Each of us must take responsibility for our own personal role in doing both.


Brandon Braun of Shiloh, Illinois

[JoelH]

Putting aside the Christian issue and if we only look at things from a purely political angle, wasn't the dispute between free market capitalism and nanny state statism in the name of social/environmental justice irrevocably settled in 1989, when the Communist bloc in Eastern Europe was overthrown? Aren't Brian McLaren and co beating a dead horse in this case by promoting that Olde Fashioned Traditional Social Democracy?

Even the Socialist International has abandoned much of the idea. If you go and ask Helen Clark (the atheist Socialist/Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand) she will tell you she no longer holds much of what McLaren believes politically.

Has America been so politically backwards that a sizeable number of people are still promoting the discredited version of socialism??