The challenge of liberalism Personal background Organisational interest Faithful Bible Teaching Servant Leadership Apprenticeships for fresh graduates Training for pastors and church workers A confused term Liberalism in Kenya A confused
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Presentation Transcript
01
The challenge of liberalism<br>
02
Personal background<br>
03
Organisational interest Faithful Bible Teaching
Servant Leadership Apprenticeships for fresh graduates
Training for pastors and church workers<br>
04
A confused term Liberalism in Kenya<br>
05
A confused term
Latent liberalism Liberalism in Kenya<br>
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Latent: adj. 1. concealed, dormant. 2. existing but not developed or manifest [Latin latere – ‘be hidden’] (Concise Oxford English Dictionary)<br>
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A confused term
Latent liberalism
Plenty of exceptions Liberalism in Kenya<br>
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Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) What is liberalism?
A brief history<br>
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Attempt to make Christianity acceptable to modern man
Personal religious experience not history
Bible as the word of men not the Word of God
Hard empiricism / agnosticism / search for the historical Jesus / moralism
Expiation but not propitiation
Social gospel
Church replaces Christ What is liberalism?
A brief history<br>
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Echoes & trends: Do we see these things in our churches or latent or threatening?<br>
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Echoes & trends: Influences:
ATR
optimism
cultural shifts & postmodernism
internet access
theologians, theological colleges & money
spiritual warfare<br>
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"These narratives [of liberation] have been for me the bearer of good news. Therefore inspite of entrenched patriarchal and ethnocentric prepositions [sic] of the Bible, it is a book I cannot dispense with and indeed may not since I remain in the Christian community and that community means more to me than my personal hurts.”
“The Bible is an extremely dangerous book. We have to be careful with its blanket usage. We are re-reading, not re-writing the Bible. We are also reading supplementary texts. Revelation has not ended. We believe God is in control and working in both men and women.“
(Prof. Mercy Oduyoye, Ghana)<br>
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“Suspicion [as a model of Bible reading alongside cultural hermeneutics and neo-orthodox hermeneutics] is based on the fact of writing history, and the idea that history is written from the perspective of victors”
Rev. (Dr.) Lydia Mwaniki, lecturer in gender and theology at St. Paul’s University Limuru<br>
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Experience is everything Echoes & trends:<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me Echoes & trends: “The bible is never really on the driving seat of most of our evangelicals. It is a tool to be used from time to time-a slave, not a master to our teaching and preaching.” (Harrison Mungai describing the contemporary scene)<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me
Reading history as parable Echoes & trends:<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me
Reading history as parable
Discussion but not declaration Echoes & trends:<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me
Reading history as parable
Discussion but not declaration
Inclusive gospel and cheap grace Echoes & trends:<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me
Reading history as parable
Discussion but not declaration
Inclusive gospel and cheap grace
Culture following / hermeneutic of comfortableness-with Echoes & trends: “The bible’s truths are embraced to the extent they don’t rub us the wrong way. When they do, we take the same western path – ‘It was Paul’s culture.’ Then we begin to pick and mix what we can use and what to dump – pragmatism” (Harrison Mungai describing the contemporary scene)<br>
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Experience is everything
The Bible beside or below but not above me
Reading history as parable
Discussion but not declaration
Inclusive gospel and cheap grace
Culture following / hermeneutic of comfortableness-with
High sacramentalism / crypto-Catholicism
Ecumenism; Inter-faith worship/prayer
Social gospel
Language bending Echoes & trends:<br>
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Exposure
Practice
Inoculation
Explicit teaching of doctrine of Scripture, from the Scriptures
Luke 17:28-31
Luke 24:25-27, 46-47
Acts 9:15
Acts 26:22-23
Acts 28:23 How do we respond?<br>