of course paul is going to talk about evidence. it would be stupid for a man who had seen and spoken to Jesus, been blinded by Him, and been healed after following His guidance to NOT talk about evidence.
could you imagine paul NOT using his evidence and witness in conversation with every non-believer?
“well, funny you should mention Jesus because i’ve got this great stor…. forget it… i don’t want to bore you with details.”
i don’t feel like the Biblical example presented makes Rob Bell wrong at all… he’s talking about first century churches, not apostles… the churches stuck out but not because logical proofs for the existence of a benevolent God… they didn’t have the eyewitness accounts of Paul but they certainly had experienced the living God in an unexplainable way… where explanation and proof were insubstantial in the early church’s words, evidence and proof were communicated clearly by their love. and i don’t see how this would throw apologetics/reason/logic out as witnessing tools… they stay in the utility belt secondary to love.

i think the doctor meant ‘contagious’ not dangerous! :) just kidding!

Dangerous? I love it! Ooohh. I read the post on Stand to Reason. They are so absorbed in their way of thinking, that they totally missed your point. Thanks for being “dangerous”!

Hey Mark,

I’m not sure how to take your comments. I didn’t call you dangerous, I said your IDEAS “may be dangerous,” referring to the danger they may pose to the faith of believers. I’m sure that you would agree that false ideas are “dangerous” to our walk with Jesus in the sense that they can seriously keep us from experiencing life with him the way he intended. Now, maybe I’m wrong that your ideas are false but it’s the ideas that are up for discussion, right?

It seems you may have taken my comments personally. I certainly didn’t intend for them to be a personal slam. In fact, I complimented you so people might recognize the positive contributions you have made. If you’ve taken offense to me referring to your ideas as “dangerous” I’d be more than willing to edit my post.

And if you think my ideas are wrong, off-the-mark, etc. please engage them and show me where I may be missing the point. I’m very open to correction. That way, we may be able to get some constructive conversation going that’s free of sarcasm & personal attacks and that may be helpful to others.

For the Kingdom…

I love it! Dangerous huh? Congrats!

Being a truth-teller always presents danger!

i don’t think i took it personally, brent. i rather enjoyed it.

it’s the kilt, babe

marko…

i would love to hear you respond to kunkle’s point… what about the example of paul?

what role do you think apologetics should play in christian life?

It seems to be a fairly typical response to completely ignore the argument and resort to claiming being called “dangerous” as if it was some sort of personal attack. It was the IDEAS that were dangerous not Mark personally. I have often wondered if it is an inherent trait of the emergent crowd to sort of throw out some trite remark rather than actually address the idea. In reality most “young” people in terms of actual demographics are turned off by this sort of posture.

This sort of “dodge the argument” game followed by a laugh and a giggles routine will last a couple of more years tops. It’s similar to the one guy who is pointing out to everyone not to drink the arsenic-laced cool-aid and everyone laughs at him.

Can someone actually be so arrogant to think that they are so right in their ideas that they basically resort to laughing away every challenge to their idea? It is somewhat similar to every debate about evolution you see, the evolutionist is laughing and never actually addressing what the ID guy is saying because they are just “so right.”

I am going to throw the word “babe” in this post so I can be considered “really cool.”

Marko-
Have always enjoyed your thoughts and reflections on the significant and the mundane. Keep it up..its refreshing.

J.R.

What are you complaining about? The STR readers have called me every name in the book.

Tony Montano of www.gregiswrong.com

Tony, that’s because you use the STR blog (and apparently this one now) for advertising your website while often hijacking the conversation like it’s your own blog.

Oh, and I just thought they didn’t like me.

Eitherway, your blog is next…

nate, tony, roger: everyone take a step back, breathe deeply, drink a tall cold something, and be nice. please.

I drank a tall cold 40 and i’m even more pissed!

:)