Chris Lyons, Tim Reed - A Response To Postmodernism, Emerging Church Ideas

S T A T E M E N T - O T 0 8 0 7

Responding To Chris Lyons and CRN.INFO:

"It seems like the Reformation
has gone enough off the rails,
dare I say like the Catholic church."

Those words, spoken by Chris Lyons
on his podcast represent the ongoing challenge by his CRN.INFO website, to the Protestant Reformation and the beliefs that were affirmed in it. He is joined on the podcast by his blog contributor Tim Reed who is Senior Minister of Owosso Church of Christ. Tim and Chris are postmodernist followers of the "No Creed But The Bible" Restoration Movement (stemming from 19th century Stone-Campbellism). So it is that you will find them militating against the Confessions of Faith and Systematic Theologies which have always been an important part of Protestant Christianity.

As you listen to the second half of that podcast, you will note their certitude in declaring various Reformational beliefs (most notably Reformed soteriology) as being emphatically untrue. While calling for those who hold such beliefs to behave less certain about them, they themselves demonstrate dogmatic certitude that such beliefs couldn't possibly be true.

While I believe that reasonable critique of the so called 'watchdog' website has value, I am troubled by the highly questionable methods employed by CRN.INFO in doing so. I stand against the site's lopsided attack of almost anything relating to the Reformation, their misrepresentation of Systematic Theology as being contra-biblical, and against their extremist views of detailed belief statements as being necessarily detrimental.

The site not only circulates a tremendous amount of misinformation pertaining to the Christianity of the last few centuries, it is also a virtual clearinghouse for the agenda and beliefs of various Emerging Church leaning 'new-thinkers' such as Erwin McManus. Readers have noted - due to the frequency in which Rob Bell's views are promoted, the site seems to be somewhat of an ongoing advertisement of Bell's particular brand of postmodernism. The errant views of Open Theism (described as unorthodox by numerous apologetics thinktanks including equip.org) are also promoted on CRN.INFO by one of the site's writers. Phil Miller regularly comments there in support of Open Theism and openly promotes the works of author Greg Boyd. While Open Theism is not the majority view of the other CRN.INFO writers, it is rarely challenged when it is brought up; this reflects the overall ecumenical mood of the website. It is that ecumenical atmosphere that seems to attract the participation of - even supporters of those with radical views, such as Emergent leader Brian McLaren.

Provacative Posts on CRN.INFO:

Separation Celebration, Chris Lyons' swipe at Reformation Day, and his reminder to us of Luther's sins.
Note: James Swan of aomin.org has provided this page and this one for the missing context of these objections.
Systematic Theology Leads to Divisive Failure, Chris Lyons shows his dogmatic certitude that TULIP and other man-made creeds do not reflect scripture and are only meant to divide wheat from tares.
Bring Out Your Dead, With rhetoric like "who needs Jesus words when we have Charles Spurgeon" (they label Spurgeon as 'pompus'), Chris Lyons makes accusations of 'idol worship' about those who cite the opinions of past leaders. While CRN.INFO's readers may not realize it, they are often being exposed to the site owner's own Stone-Campbellite traditions, a hint of which is seen in Tim Reed's comment "I stand on the shoulders of giants" (dead Restorationist giants that is).
Systematic Theology Kills People,
Chris Lyons floats the old claim that the "awful doctrine of election" (his words) is a detriment to evangelism. Never mind church history; anti-anything to do with election is one of the favorite topics there.
Preach It and Only Preach It
In a discussion about 'death metal' music Nathan Neighbour promotes the idea that there are no types of music that cannot be used in worship. Nathan, who is on staff at the Mosaic Emerging Church which uses drama, film, dance, and art during worship services. The amazing comments on this thread by the CRN.INFO regulars - dogmatically assert that the Regulative Principle of Worship (info), which is an interpretation of scripture held by churches for centuries, is supposedly "elevated to the level of scripture" extra-biblically.

Pages Addressing CRN.INFO's Ideas:

Belief Statements Create Harmful Borders? Answering Tony Jones of the Emergent Church.
Unity Starts With Defining True Doctrine - part 1 and part 2 from Martyn-Lloyd Jones.
The Dangers of "Non-Essential". The problems that arise when we flippantly regard some of what the HS inspired as being "non-essential".
The Idea of Systematic Theology,
BB Warfield
God Has Spoken With Clarity on Predestination - Aomin.org refutes the common objection that predestination is entirely a mystery.
The Justification of Systematic Theology as an Intellectual Discipline,
by Robert Reymond
Did Irenaeus Believe in Predestination and Election? Early church fathers.
Calvinism Q&A's, So much of what's on CRN.INFO stems from a disdain for election and predestination based not on scripture but on personal opinions.
The Legitimacy and Use of Confessions of Faith, Dr. Robert Paul Martin

Responses To CRN.INFO:

Predestinarians Produce Bad Fruit?
Answering Chris Lyons' claim that belief in Election somehow results in bad fruit / poor evangelism.
Chris Lyons: Heaven's Not Big Enough For You, Me, & Your Theology.
In response to this post, Chris Lyons issued a statement stating that not all Calvinists are hellbound; he seems to make a distinction based on how "tied to the system" a Calvinist is. Based on such a standard, one can only wonder how many of the Puritans, Pilgrims, hymn writers, and bible commentators are now eternally lost, due to how ardently they believed in the Calvinistic "system". And so it is that while Lyons' beliefs are seemingly ecumenical on the one hand, they are also selectively narrow and exclusive on the other hand. The amount of charity afforded to other Christian views seems to be dependant upon how 'systematized' he subjectively determines their beliefs to be. This is a misguided outworking of his Restorationism.

Responses From Triablogue:

Pachyderm Theology
Refuting Chris Lyon's claims against systematic theology, and predestination vs science.
White Elephant Theology
Steve Hays steps in to make further observations on the response from the CRN.INFO crew.
Half-baked Science Meets Half-Baked Relativism - How Chris Lyons' rejection of Systematic Theology has lead to self-refuting relativism; Lyons' science lingo sounds a lot like Depak Chopra.

Responses on Strange Baptist Fire:

No Views Contradict
A Postmodernist Guide To Keeping God Out of a Box. A response to Chris Lyons' BOTH/AND 'mystery' theology.
Postmodernism's Clash With Reformed Certitude, Answering CRN.INFO's Henry (Rick) Frueh and his "Great Heresy" accusations.

Responses From Other Sites:

Chris Lyons' Typically "Modern" Oversimplification - Phil Johnson blogspots Lyons' canard about Hebrew vs. Greek influences and "eastern" vs. "western" way of thinking. TeamPyro Blogspot
Chris Lyons Defends Rob Bell's Narrative Belief Statement, While rejecting mainstream Confessions, CRN.INFO promotes this emerging church 'narrative' belief statement.
Embracing Emerging Spirituality,
A favorite CRN.INFO blog topic is Rob Bell. While many today feel that Bell is deconstructing Christianity, Chris Lyons gives this thumbs-up review of his "Everything is Spiritual" tour. While Rob Bell and Chris Lyons both reject any connection with the Emerging Church, the similarities are hard to overlook.

This section is subject to frequent updates and changes,
for an up to date copy of this page, go to:

www.OldTruth.com/CRN.info-Chris-Lyons.cfm

This page was last modified on 2/2/08

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