Sunday, January 29, 2006

Barna's Revolution

Three professors from Indiana Wesleyan University have penned a letter to their students, encouraging them not to buy into Barna's Revolution book.

Here's the outline:

First, from a biblical standpoint, this text would fail any and all of our exegesis classes.

Second, from a theological perspective, the ecclesiology espoused by Barna is plagued with problems.

Finally, from a practical effect (especially among younger people) is to encourage them to drop out of church attendance and practice a do-it-yourself religion.

Keith Drury--one of the signers--writes in a separate post:

"Simply put this book is heresy. Not only is it classical doctrinal heresy but Barna enthusiastically recruits people to his imagined second reformation. Open Theism is a gnat of an error next to the outright heresy of this book. The fact that many evangelicals will not even notice the doctrinal error here says even more about the state of the church than anything about good brother Barna himself."

Best line from Drury:
“Church-less Christianity is like sex-less marriage—it can only last one generation.”

(HT: Todd Bolsinger)