I want to point everyone to an incredibly important critique of Doug Pagitt's work by Jeremy Bouma who compares Pagitt's theology to the ancient heretic Pelagius. I think Bouma is on to something and is saying something that many have been almost afraid to say for some time. The correlations between the two men are astounding and Bouma needs to be taken seriously. Bouma has a unique advantage by being considered part of the Emergent conversation. Though he has since started distancing himself, he still remains close to many of the movers and shakers and has the credibility needed to offer such a critique.Here are the links:
1. Introduction
2. Pagitt and Pelagius On Human Nature
3. Pagitt and Pelagius On Sin
4. Pagitt and Pelagius On Salvation
5. Pagitt and Pelagius On Discipleship and Judgment
6. Conclusion
When one sounds eerily similar to persons like Pelagius, the Church as historically used words like heretic for a reason. At the end of the day, Pelagius rejected the gospel. To reject the gospel means to cease to be Christian. I believe that many in the Emergent conversation, including Pagitt, have ceased to be Christian.
2 comments:
The problem is that Catholicism was never Christian so when the Reformation took us back to Augustine's Catholicism it took us back to something that was as unchristian and antichristian as the then current version of Catholicism was. Pelagius and Marcion are both far more Christian than Luther, Calvin, and Augustine, and anyone who goes back to their teachings will be blessed. They were martyrs for the Lord, killed by the Catholic church for teaching the truth.
If you combine Pelagianism and Marcionism you come up with the best form of Christianity. Jesus shed his blood on the cross to buy us from the schitzophrenic Old Testament god that Paul calls 'the god of this world' and now we look forward to a judgment by Jesus who is just and merciful and will punish only proportionally to our sins (Paul says we will receive what we have done in our bodies, i.e. proportional punishment) not by the OT god who would have condemned all to hell eternally as a matter of course since everything infinitely offends the OT god since he's such a weak being. It is Marcionite for the opposition of Jesus as the Better God to the OT god. It is Pelagian because it doesn't discount future judgment and because it views the judgment as proportional rather than ludicrous over the top cruel eternity in hell for every little thing.
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