I Used to Be Smart.

We all know that I’m no fan of Al Mohler.

While looking over his blog recently, I found an entry that reinforce to me that Mohler just doesn’t get it.

This is the entry in question. Read the entry, then come back to my comments.

This article sheds much light on while Mohler does not understand the post-modern/emergent movement. The entirety of the article shows Mohler’s love affair with modernity. Mohler does not believe that modernity has failed us. That is his mistake.

From my perspective, Mohler is telling me to, “grow up,” to be like my parents, and to be responsible. However, as myself and others my age look at our parents, we don’t like what we see. Mohler laments these “twixters” lack of a desire for marraige. However, Mohler fails to document how the modern paradigm of marraige has failed. He fails to document that more than half of marraiges end in divorce. He fails to document how many of these twixters are children of broken homes. Marraige, as Mohler sees it, may not be all it is cracked up to be.

Mohler laments the twixters lack of steady career paths and even seems to be frustrated that they are obtaining college degrees based on interest alone rather than marketability (like my Religion major). What the twixters see is a generation (their parents) working in jobs that they often hate. However, they are so dependent on those jobs BECAUSE of their major investments — like homes — that they cannot break away from those jobs are pursue passion. The twixters (who are nothing more than postmoderns) see that, and refuse to suffer the same fate as their parents, hating work, but being stuck in that career because of the committments they have made.

Mohler is enamored with modernity, and his love affair with his constructs makes it impossible for him to see the ways in which those constructs have failed, and he cannot take seriously the critiques of modernity in the ways that the “twixters” have. For Mohler, if the twixters could embrace modernity’s way of doing things, America would be a better place to live. From where I stand, Mohler lends no possibility to the idea that the twixters have a point. He only construes them as lazy and arrogant, shirking their “responsibilities” and operating against the way the Bible would have us live.

I’m sorry, Al. I’m sorry that you just don’t get it.

For the unaware — here is what Justice Sunday was. I’m gonna skip summarizing the article. If you don’t feel like reading the article, then my comments probably don’t mean that much to you.

The most frustrating thing about all of this is that the judges in question look just like the protestors. Frist, Dobson, Mohler and company are upset about violations of so-called “religious liberty” against people who look just like them — conservative evangelical Christians.

If the Republicans were involved in a fillibuster against liberal judges, does this rally ever happen?

The conservative, evangelical church in America is sleeping with the powers that be in the U.S. government. As folks say here in Kentucky, “If you sleep with a dog, don’t be surprised if you wake up with fleas.”

Think about it.

Google it, and I’ll get back to you.

Passed out on the overpass
Sunday best and broken glass
Broken down from the bikes and bars
Suspended like spirits over speeding cars
You and me were kings over the parkway tonight
And tonight will go on forever while we
walk around this town like we own the streets
and stay awake through summer like we own the heat
Singing “everybody wake up (wake up) it’s time to get down”
(everybody, everybody wake up its time to get down)
And when I pass the bottle back to Pete
on the overpass tonight, I bet we laugh

I’m gonna stay eighteen forever (cut me open)
So we can stay like this forever (sun poisoned)
And we’ll never miss a party (this offer…)
cause we keep them going constantly (…stands forever)
And we’ll never have to listen (new haircut)
to anyone about anything (new bracelet)
cause it’s all been done and it’s all been said (eyeliner)
we’re the coolest kids and we take what we can get

The hell out of this town
Find some conversation
The low fuel lights been on for days
It doesn’t mean anything
I’ve got another 500, ‘nother 500 miles
before we shut this engine down,
we shut it down

I’m gonna stay eighteen forever (cut me open)
So we can stay like this forever (sun poisoned)
And we’ll never miss a party (this offer…)
cause we keep them going constantly (…stands forever)
And we’ll never have to listen (new haircut)
to anyone about anything (new bracelet)
cause it’s all been done and it’s all been said (eyeliner)
we’re the coolest kids and we take what we can get (wait forever)

(you’re just jealous cause I’m young and in love)
Eighteen forever (first kisses)
(your stomach’s filled up but you’re starved for conversation)
So we can stay like this forever (new stitches)
(you’re spending all your nights growing old in your bed)
And we’ll never miss a party (collar weekend)
(and your tearin up your photos cause you wanna forget… it’s over)
cause we keep them going constantly (appearance ticket)
(you’re just jealous cause I’m young and in love)
And we’ll never have to listen (November to…)
(your stomach’s filled up but you’re starved for conversation)
to anyone about anything cause it’s all been done (…remember)
(you’re spending all your nights growing old in your bed)
and it’s all been said (nightswimmers)
(and your tearin up your photos cause you wanna forget… it’s over)
we’re the coolest kids and we take what we can get

Just jealous cause we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cause we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cause we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cause we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous cause we’re young and in love
You’re just jealous…
–Brand New

Which IS more important? Knowing about the Bible or knowing the God of the Bible?

In a second, I would pick the latter. I think shifting our focus in such a way makes all of the difference the world. The Bible turns from an encyclopedia full of chopped up facts to be pulled by number and verse into a much more powerful collection of idead.

It works like this. The most we can know about God, we find in the person of Jesus. In the incarnation, we find all that we need to know about who God is. That is our starting point. We use this “Christological key” to interpret the rest of the Bible. Because of Jesus, we can look at the Bible, and find what God was up to in that period of history, and we can continue to see what God is up to in the world today, and join God where God is at work for the sake of the world.

Doesn’t that change everything?

What is the goal:

Knowing about the Bible?

or

Knowing the God who inspired the Bible?