Disappointed

Dr. Brad Braxton has a very distinguished career.  He has been a professor at Wake Forest, McCormick Theological Seminary and will soon assume an endowed chairmanship at Southern Methodist University.  Dr. Braxton has also been the pastor of the prestigious Riverside Church in New York where his compensation package exceeded $600,000 (Big Bucks).  I know that Paul said that the worker deserves his wages but this was quite exorbitant.  The church was split because of the monetary issue and Braxton resigned in less than a year.  I recently stumbled upon an interview conducted with Dr. Braxton on McCormick's website (Braxton Interview) and I was really taken aback by what I read.  It was actually confirmation of something a friend of mine told me as I drove to church to our men's meeting tonight.

I first encountered Dr. Braxton when I was a postdoc at the University of Maryland.  He was the guest speaker at our church graduation celebration.  I was thoroughly impressed.  He spoke glowingly about his wife and their dogs that he humorously referred to as their children (he does actually have a daughter now).  He gave a powerful message that was enlightening and uplifting at the same time.  I remember vividly that he was livid over black men calling each other "dog" as a euphemism for friend and he said something to the effect of taking his belt off and whipping the next person that he heard call someone a dog.  Suffice it to say, I was impressed with his preaching and his personality.  He preached from a three ring binder with neatly typed notes and I was taking notes as well.  Pulpit etiquette and the whole nine.  I was paying attention to this brother.

Now Dr. Braxton is joining the "emergent church" movement (the website Apprising Ministries, www.apprising.org, has some very good information regarding the emergent church) and has started his own church in Baltimore, "The Open Church".  He is openly courting the LGBT community which is not a bad thing if your goal is to evangelize them and to exalt Jesus as Lord and Savior.  I think that all sinners should be welcomed into God's house without exception.  However, one of the central tenets of Christianity is that we must actually confess our sins to be forgiven.  Herein lies the problem because the LGBT community does not even consider their lifestyles sinful.  So, what exactly is going to be preached?  How can you preach repentance from sin with a congregation filled with folks who refuse to do just that?  It is totally pointless.  Why even start a "church" unless Christ and EVERYTHING that He taught, and EVERYTHING that the Bible teaches as it pertains to life and godliness are going to be communicated to the ears of the congregation?  Will he even preach from the Bible?  The Bible becomes more of a fairy tale and less of a light if he preaches anything other than the gospel or if he waters down the gospel to suit itching ears. 

While I applaud Dr. Braxton’s social justice efforts and his desire to be progressive, this is a slippery slope.  While Dr. Braxton is quite a dynamic speaker and he has distinguished himself, I cannot agree with this “Open Church”. Where is the emphasis on the gospel and on change or transformation? Years of seminary training and teaching and this is the best that he could muster? Having a lesbian agnostic, with an M. Div might I add,  (read the interview for yourself, 9th paragraph down) speak the first words in his initial church meeting? Wow. This has completely turned me against attending seminary. If seminarians come out with lots of fancy words like “messy eclecticism”, which is how Dr. Braxton defines what the Open Church will be like, but forget the main Word, Jesus, then I want no part of that.

This entire “emergent church” movement is drifting further and further away from orthodoxy.  I pray that the “Open Church” becomes a real church where people come to be set free from sin and to become disciples of Christ.  Here is some advice, Read the bible- not in a technical scholarly way, but in a plain way.  Read the book of James, read the fourth chapter and go down to about the fourth verse.  This is a passage of scripture that passes the first test of hermeneutics which is, if a plain reading of the text is clear, interpret it the way that it reads.  This is for the scholarly folks that put more emphasis on exegesis, which I deem very important, than they put on Jesus.  Read it with me:

"You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

OK.  This isn't out of context, it passes muster upon the plain reading, no need to ask what James means here or what thought he was trying to communicate...it is plain and simple.  The emergent church is trying to be friends with the world and as a result are making themselves enemies to God.  Please wake up brothers and sisters.