Several weeks ago I listened to a 2-part lecture by Dr. David F. Wells at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary on Emergent Spirituality. What an absolutely fantastic lecture this was. Dr. Wells is the Andrew Mutch Distinguished Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Dr. Wells explains very clearly how postmodernism and the so-called Emergent church are not something new, but rather are the culmination of years of Enlightenment thinking. It took the entire 20th century to get us where we are today.
"...it is not a spiritual renewal like that of the First and Second Great Awakenings earlier in our church life in America. Those spiritual renewals established Christian truth and Biblical orthodoxy, and this new spirituality at best is indifferent to Biblical truth and very often hostile to it." Dr. David Wells
And just yesterday I finished listening to an interview of Dr. Wells by Todd Wilken of Issues, Etc. on Christianity and Postmodern Culture. That interview was excellent as well.
NOTE ON PODCASTING: I work for a bank in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan and every day I walk approximately one-quarter mile each way from my parking spot to the office. Last summer I bought an iPod Mini and has that thing been a blessing! I can download MP3 files like some of those linked below and redeem time that would have normally been wasted. And you needn't spend that much on an MP3 player. The way I use it, I put 3 or 4 messages on the thing, listen to them, delete and repeat! No need for a full 4 or 20 gigabytes of storage. Just a tip in case you're in the market for one.
Back to Dr. Wells. This morning I noticed that Reformation 21, the blog site of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals has as their January Feature, a roundtable discussion of Dr. Wells and his work by Ligon Duncan, Philip Ryken and Carl Trueman.
I bought Wells' No Place for Truth about a year ago and it was an excellent book. His latest book, Above All Earthly Pow'rs looks to be excellent as well.
Below are links to all the stuff I've managed to ramble on about! :-)))
Grace and peace,
R.J.
Lecture on Emergent Spirituality at SBTS
Look for 2 downloads, one on Nov. 9 and one on Nov. 10
Issues, Etc. Interview of Dr. Wells
Look for 2 separate files on December 12th.
Reformation 21 January Feature
David Wells: An Appreciation from the Land of Braveheart