Numerous emergent church and other Christian leaders are beginning a new campaign to transform the theology of the Christian Church [see http://transformingtheology.org/]. Personally, I feel uninvited to their alleged Big Tent.
I write this because most of their animosity is aimed at my particular view of the Bible, a view that takes the Bible seriously and attempts to interpret it in a historical and grammatically accurate way [Baldock, Big Tent Artifact, eBook, p. 5 and Clayton, p. 12].
I will be glad to set aside the semantics and join their Big Tent, but I do have two aspects of their action plan that I will watch closely. In two areas the Big Tent leaders tend to have loose connections. The first loose connection is between the Big Tenters and the mainstream liberal view of America. I see that loose connection as they claim openness to many views but tend to be open to only their own views [I saw this clearly at the one meeting I attended on AZ SB1070].
They are also, in a scary way, more connected with the LGBT 'church'. I have no problem inviting LGBTs to church, nor do I have a problem worshiping with them. My problem is that LGBTs and Big Tent people believe homosexual behavior is acceptable to God. As far as I am concerned their 'church' would be parallel to a racist church gathering that thinks God accepts racism.
Seriously, I do not need the Bible to tell me that homosexual behavior is not good. I only need the Bible to tell me that it is evil. Anatomy, hygiene and the medical field convince me that anal intercourse is not good. Anal intercourse always causes injury and exposes both partners to chronic, contagious and deadly diseases. Those that hate homosexual men condone or glorify [through their promotion of gay marriage] anal intercourse. In my view, the Bible condemns homosexual behavior that is anal intercourse. The Bible, in fact, seriously condemns anal intercourse between any two people. God loves homosexual men. Why does the Big Tent hate them?
If the connection between the LGBT 'church' and the Big Tent remains open to homosexual behavior they can count me out. If their movement were open to accepting racism they could count me out as well.
The other loose connection of the big tent movement is their connection with teaching the Bible. While attacking conservative views of the Bible consistently they keep their own mention of the Bible to a minimum.
Unless their Big Tent is more closely connected to the Bible and less closely connected to political liberalism, the tent is going to be much smaller than they expect.
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