Someone recently posted a comment on our blog, letting us know that Donald Miller is going to hell. This kind of surprised me, since if Don's going to hell, I'm screwed.
I wanted to find out why Mr. Miller might not make it past those Pearly gates, and so I asked my friend Google what was up.
According to Google, there is a blogger named Ingrid Schlueter who hates Donald Miller, and she also hates something called The Emerging Church. She blogs at Slice of Laodicea and has some rather strong words for The Emerging Church. (Thankfully, JP and I are running a Business Church, not an Emerging Church, so I think we're okay.)
I read most of her blog and found that I have a love/hate relationship with Ingrid. I love her for her disgust with Megachurches. And I hate her, because well, umm…. "Bitch Crazy!" Ingrid quotes long scriptures condemning Don and the Emerging Church. But she essentially just believes that her Bible is more important than Don's Bible. Which got me thinking that we as Christians all have our own little Bible that we like to use to support whatever we believe.
For example:
Frank Damazio's Bible is filled with wonderful stories about seeds, and Johnny Appleseed is the Messiah.
Donald Miller's Bible is about a Blue-dog Democrat, who likes Jazz, and is trying to reconcile with His Father, God, for sending him to earth to die.
And my Bible focuses primarily on a Jesus who goes to parties, changes water into wine, and genuinely makes sure everyone is having fun.
I don't really have a point for this blog. I just started thinking about how everyone has a personal Bible, made myself laugh and then wanted to try to fit it into this blog. So I did….
…Now Go Back to Work!
I still need to get that picture posted of you and me at church a few weeks back.
Thought I should drop this into the discussion (this coming from someone who knows): The pastoral staff up at CBC have read Don Miller’s books and, though they differ on certain points, by all accounts they have a great deal of respect for the man.
One of the beauties of the internet is, that no matter what you believe, someone out there thinks you are a heretic and is willing to devote a webpage to it!
Humm…..like City Business Church?
Yepp, ain’t it beautiful!
“how everyone has a personal Bible”
If the incorrigible Ingrid Schlueter sees this line you might make the next rant. This would probably be seen as evil “postmodernism,” as if she understands what that is.
I agree with that statement you made. The Bible is written for all humanity in differing life situations. Most of us look and find the parts that appeal to us. Moreover I think it is a sign of our spiritual growth is to see how it grows over the years. The blatant evangelical that grows in their realization of their social responsibilities has a Bible which has changed and that is good.
Now for the next obscene joke someone will market this idea…
[Comment ID #13496 Will Be Quoted Here]
Interesting!!!
A lesson on thinking exegetically: The Bible can never mean what it never meant!! The task of any reader is to ask “what is the point” of the text, which is the the contextual question. I believe profusely in a “personal” Bible; however, I believe more adamantly in a “responsible hermeneutic”: what do the words of the text mean to “us”!?!
How would you answer the critic of “the redemptive movement hermeneutic”? Or if that does not make sense; in other words, are there dangers in being to subjective?
What if a man thinks its ok to kill because he felt the “redemptive ” spirit move him to do so. Is that ok?