Be The Fruit

The Old Heresies look like the New Ones

by Bill Blair on 21/11/08 at 10:32 am

Al Mohler has some very interesting reflections after visiting the site where Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a speech to aspiring ministers at Harvard University in 1838 calling them to reject teaching the Bible, but to rather focus on teaching their own intuition and religious sentiments.  Read the article here.

Mohler rightly points out that these ideas are alive and well today:

Standing in the chapel in Divinity Hall last evening, I was struck by how contemporary Emerson’s argument sounds.  The call he issued 170 years ago is the very message we now hear from others — Christianity must change or die.  We cannot simply preach a book that is two thousand years old.  God still speaks, and a slavish dependence on the Bible is both offensive and ineffectual.  Doctrines must go — intuition and sentiment will be enough.

I see so much of this in popular Christianity today.  Much of what I see are trends and materials that promote laying aside the Scriptures to seek some “word from the Lord” through feelings and experience if not through alleged direct communication from God.  Mohler explains what we need:

…the need of the church is for preachers who are skilled in the art of preaching the Word of God — rightly dividing the Word of Truth, while holding without apology to the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

I could go on for days about the need to recognize the sufficiency of Scripture, and maybe I will.  Is that not what blogs are for.   I have been on a bit of a blogging break this month so maybe that can be a new focus.  We will see.

Check out Mohler’s article here.