Thursday, June 30, 2005

Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic

As happens to me frequently, I think something, wonder if I am crazy, do some checking and then find I am not the only one that is crazy. I need to put that on one of my t-shirts.

The other day I was going to Mars Hill Michigan, where I frequently download the teachings of Rob Bell. I close to wholeheartedly agree with the teachings of Rob Bell. I find him not trying to be "emergent" but rather emphasizing living in the way of Jesus and following Him closely.

Anyways, I always get their url wrong, so I yahoo searched it and saw a link to it from a gender magazine. Thinking that was interesting I read the article. Ends up the magazine is very complementarian, which means they hold to an understanding of the Scriptures that ignores cultural influences. (For example, if it says women shouldn't be elders in the New Testament times, then women shouldn't be elders now either.) They also rip on Mars Hill and on Rob Bell personally. It's an interesting read if you'd like.

For a long time I have held to male only elders, though I thought women pastors were fine as long as the SP was male. I held to that, because I thought that if I allowed women elders, then I had to make other concessions to the Scriptures as well, including allowing homosexuality. So, I was, basically, opposed to women church leadership because I was pretty sure that God didn't like homosexuality.

Weird...now that I write it out. I'll have to call my mom - we talk about this often.

So, from the article I also found that Rob Bell holds to a hermeneutic called "Redemptive Movement" that has been brought further into the mainstream by a professor William Webb (who is working in Canada, thank you very much).

It seems this Redemptive Movement Hermeneutic is focused on the desire of God as it moves through the Scriptures. It then extrapolates to find the heart of God in the "ultimate" desire of God.

So, I have to do some more reading on this, but I think it might help me explain what I am thinking in process salvationism. I am going to have to email Brian McLaren and William Webb to find this out. But you can check out some of the links and comment about what you think...

4 comments:

Nick said...

This post has me thinking and reading. I'm going to check it out as well. I'm not sure if you know Dave Livermore or Steve Argue. They used to work for Sonlife and now they regularly write for Group as well as a ministry of their own. I believe that they know Webb and could probably explain somethings to you/us to clarify this hermeneutic.

Thanks for a great post!

Nick said...

http://www.intersectcommunity.com

There's the link to Dave and Steve's website. Steve has always been cool about answering any questions I have, anytime I'm with him I learn so much.

T said...

this just proves that I am never going to be a bible scholar. There's actually people who find the "ultimate" heart and desires of God through the scriptures? I'm sure that'd be an awesome job- but most likely only for deep and abstract thinkers.

beautifulmess said...

t- I don't think you need to be an abstract or deep thinker to read the scriptures and come to a deeper understanding of the desires of God. I'm definitely not a Bible scholar, yet there have been times where I've been surprised by what God has to say and I've come away learning something knew about his character and passion for his people. You'll find it too.

Great post James!