1

I wonder. Is the significance of a person directly proportional to the number of hits that come up when Googling on that person’s name? Here are my results as of this moment:

Rick Warren: 837,000
Bill Hybels: 69,800
Stanley Grenz: 8,110

I'd like to break it down further, into hostile as opposed to non-hostile.

2

John MacArthur - 905,000 ( Yay! )
John Piper - 1,600,000
A.W. Tozer - 79,400 (!!!)
Charles Swindoll - 93,200
Charles Stanley - 1,650,000
David Jeremiah - 1,080,000
Charles Spurgeon - 267,000
John Bunyan - 391,000
John Calvin - 3,610,000
Martin Luther - 8,640,000
Pope John Paul II - 12,600,000 (heh.)
Antichrist - 1,360,000

Hrmm. Look at Tozer , Bunyan and Spurgeon.
The Antichrist beats em.

Tozer is way, way more significant than google says, imho. As is Bunyan, etc, etc. I doubt it. It just means they are current, and popular - which means their name gets dropped more often.

P.S. - read MacArthur's "Rediscovering Expository Preaching" - and then give it to your pastor. I just went through it, to learn more about expositional writing - and it's friggin' fantastic.

3

Nice summary, Joe.

Grenz' theology retained plenty that was distinctly evangelical. Ultimately his rejection of foundationalism, his hedging on inerrancy, his willingness to reimagine doctrines like Providence in fairly radical terms, and his fixation on "community" as a controlling theological paradigm will not do good things, but at the end of the day, I thin it's fair to count him in. I mean, the guy affirmed the age of accountability, for Pete's sake. (Not that this is a good thing, but it strikes one as parochially Baptist when set against the backdrop of being Mr. Boundary-Stretching Emergent Church Sweetheart.*)

I consider the late Dr. Grenz to be one of those thinkers who hasn't left the camp in which he came of age, but whose students very likely will.

Tim

*No disrespect intended to our sleeping brother. I'm quite sure he meant to stretch boundaries, and I don't know what he thought specifically of the Emergent Church movement, but I have a hard time imagining that he was critical of it.

4

The antichrist beats them? LOL

Maybe the antichrist is more interesting. :)

5

Wow! I'd never heard of Grenz. He sounds quite interesting.

>Ultimately his rejection of foundationalism, his hedging on inerrancy, his willingness to reimagine doctrines like Providence in fairly radical terms, and his fixation on "community" as a controlling theological paradigm will not do good things

If you mean that these arguments will fall on deaf ears in the Evangelical camp, I'm afraid you might be right. There's always hope, though, right? When doctrinal beliefs bordering on knowledge-claims come to nothing, faith, love and the hope that people will listen to valid critiques remain.

6

When doctrinal beliefs bordering on knowledge-claims come to nothing, faith, love and the hope that people will listen to valid critiques remain.

Tyler,

Is that statement a "knowledge-claim"? Or should I disregard it as meaningless?

7

I just heard a critique of Dan Brown's book _The DaVinci Code_ and it occured to me that Mr. Brown's story is a compelling narrative, perhaps more compelling than competing historical narratives. But a lot of Christians object to Mr. Brown's claim of historicity.

When Karl Barth was asked, "Did the snake speak?" He deflected the question saying, "What did the snake say?" In Barth's case, the historicity of the Eden story was irrelevant to the moral lesson of the narrative. Fine and good, we get to avoid all those embarassing questions about the first chapters of Genesis. But this leaves Dr. Barth no defence against fellows like Mr. Brown.

So, would Dr. Grenz with his focus on shared narrative have any defense against competing narratives where Jesus swoons on the cross, survives to flee to England, marry Mary Magdalene, and have kids that become the Merevingian dynasty?

Is that last question a knowledge-claim that comes to nothing?

8

It seems to me that people want to make up fables about the Bible, rather than taking it at its word. Why would we ever consider dropping the first 3 chapters of Genesis?
I believe the Bible to be infallible and is inerrant. Why can't we just believe what it says and study the Bible with that kind of mentality.

9

The knee-jerk reaction to things like narative and piety are inwarranted and imprecise. Even Taylor's edited volume that mostly is against Grenz doesn't take in the full scope of his work. Sadly, many evangelicals continue with their modern-day brand of MccArthyism by charging anyone who doesn't kiss the ring of Luther, Calvin, and Hodge with denying biblical authority.

Let those like Grenz continue to flourish.

10

Is that statement a "knowledge-claim"? Or should I disregard it as meaningless?

For present purposes, treat it as having the form of a knowledge claim whose truth emerges out of the intersubjectivity of our linguistic community.

11

Steve -- if you read Grenz carefully, you'll see that he supports a robust concept of Biblical authority. You would have strong grounds for rejecting the legitimacy of Dan Brown's "narrative" under Grenz's view of scripture and truth. See my post on Grenz's treatment of "sola scriptura here as well as another related post here.

Incidentally, before he died, I corresponded with Grenz about my post and he confirmed that it accurately reflected his understanding of "sola scriptura."

12

For present purposes, treat it as having the form of a knowledge claim whose truth emerges out of the intersubjectivity of our linguistic community.

God I miss college. If I could just get someone to pay me to go full-time, then I'd be set.

13

Using somewhat more mathematical methodology, Stanley Grenz came in with an HIV (Heresy Index Value) of 79.3—that’s not too good, about 20% backslidden, but it’s still in the positive range.

See my “Know Your Heretic” list at Lunar Skeletons.
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