Scott,

Amen! This is one of the gripes I have had with broad evangelicalism for some time. It is no accident that Dr. Longman is the "Robert H. Gundry" professor of New Testament at Westmont. I took about 32 units of NT and Greek under Bob Gundry (who officiated at my wedding 34 years ago). As he followed the no-boundaries evangelical tradition, this dear and pious man eventually went from dispensational fundamentalist roots to view Matthew as Midrash (the star and magi were a non-historical gentilization of the shepherd motif, etc.), get himself kicked out of the ETS, and eventually take his stand against imputation in Paul. Yikes! I am one life-long evangelical who is moving rapidly toward confessional Christianity. While it is no easy cure solution, everything else is too dangerous to my soul.

IMHO, you nailed it with the line: "The question here is not whether the Bible is normative. The question is whether one person's reading of Scripture is normative for everyone else." Over the decades, I have watched dear friends crash and burn because they followed the individualism of evangelicalism (the "me and Jesus" route). Now we have the McLaren nonsense of "generous orthodoxy" which, truth be told, is neither.

__________________
Dennis E. McFadden, Ex Mainline Baptist (in Remission)
Atherton Baptist Homes, CEO
First Baptist Church of Alhambra, Member, Transformation Ministries (CA)

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