Mike Wittmer

Category: Emergent Church

  • tony’s unoriginal sins

    Here is my brief assessment of Tony Jones’ blogposts that deny the traditional Christian doctrine of original sin.  Besides the immaturity (“Watch out, Brian, the NeoReformed stormtroopers went after Scot McKnight last week, and they’ll probably come after you here!”), Tony’s posts suffer from ignorance and arrogance. 1. Ignorance:  Tony reduces original sin to original…

  • push back

    I have been a bad blogger this week, distracted by the real life demands of teaching and preparation for teaching.  This weekend I get to speak on vocation to about 200 participants at The Chapel in Akron.  Next week I get to grade student confessions and papers! In the meantime, Doug Phillips emailed me this…

  • Brian McL. on Brian McL.

    I’m spending the weekend with David Naugle at his Paideia Student Conference at Dallas Baptist University.  It’s 80 degrees here!  Tomorrow I give a lecture and answer questions on Heaven is a Place on Earth.  It is used as a textbook here in some classes, and some of the students think I’m way off base, so Dave invited me…

  • the beginning and the end

    As we enjoyed our complementary cookies and punch after Udo Middelmann’s economy lecture on Saturday night (which was a better value than Dave Ramsey, who charged at least $40 for his talk on Thursday and made people buy their own food), his wife Debbie said something which I’ve been thinking about all weekend. Debbie said…

  • original sin and the eastern church

    Like Pelagius in the 4th century, Emergent leaders Doug Pagitt and his best friend Tony Jones deny the doctrine of original sin.  And just as Pelagius and his followers found refuge in the East, so Pagitt and Jones say that their view, while heretical to Western Christians, is acceptable in the (Eastern) Orthodox Church.  This…

  • emergent oscars

    In my first annual Oscar preview (if I start watching movies again I’ll do a second), I want to share a couple of quotes from past Academy winners that appeared in a recent Newsweek. Here’s Meryl Streep:  “…I mean I guess I’m in awe of and in love with what I don’t know.  All the…

  • what Bavinck says

    Since I already know John Calvin pretty well (having studied under Richard Muller and taught a course on Calvin several times), I’ve decided to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth by reading Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics (Baker). In my reading for today, I came across some quotes which, though perhaps not persuasive to many…

  • c’mon people!

    I just noticed that Tony Jones’ blog picked up on Kevin Corcoran’s blog in which Kevin describes our recent conversation at the Emergent panel and on this blog.  Kevin said that my question assumed “the view that belief is belief that,” where “the idea is that belief is belief that certain propositions are true.”  Kevin went on,…

  • what are you hearing?

    This question is for those of you who disagree with my conviction that we need to believe in Jesus and follow him/obey his commands/love our neighbor in order to be saved.  I clearly say that we need both right belief and right conduct, yet you seem to only hear the right belief part.  For example, Susan warned…

  • the beginning of the end

    I’m sorry that I’ve been absent from my own blog for the past three days.  I had a most enjoyable time speaking in chapels and classes at my alma mater, Cedarville University.  I wish everyone could have the opportunity to return to their college 20 years after graduation, to reconnect with former profs and meet…