What is Acts 29?
You may recall Pastor Winfield Bevins from my post last week. Pastor Bevins’ byline on the Resurgence blog lists him as an “Acts 29 Pastor.” Curious as to what that was, I first tried to look up Acts 29 on Bible Gateway, but apparently it doesn’t exist. (Acts stops at 28.) So, I followed the link at the bottom of the Resurgence site to Acts 29 Network.
I couldn’t find any explicit explanation of the name on their site, but I assume their intention is to imply that their work is the “next chapter,” as it were, of the “Acts of the Apostles” (or the “Acts of the Holy Spirit,” whatever you prefer to call it). Their About section says that “Acts 29 Network exists to start churches that plant churches.” They go on to say that their intention is “to plant 1,000 new churches in the next 10 years.” (That’s one new church about every three and a half days, so… good choice not to have a starting date prominently displayed. Good luck with that!) The page explaining their doctrine says that they are “first Christians, second Evangelicals, third Missional, and fourth Reformed.”
Well, okay, so what does this doctrine actually say? Most of it is pretty straightforward. I did like the line: “First, we are Christians which distinguishes us from other world religions and cults.” Heh. Okay, if you say so. As Evangelicals they “believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God,” and you already know what I think about that subject. I’m curious which parts of the Bible they’re choosing to care about when they say that, as Missionals, they “believe that our local churches must be faithful to the content of unchanging Biblical doctrine,” and I also wonder how their churches can do that and simultaneously “be faithful to the continually changing context of the culture(s) in which they minister.” All the bullet points under the list for being Reformed sound pretty traditional to me; some other time I’ll look into what the term means in this context.
Of perhaps more note are the things which Act 29 Network does not endorse. There is a long list.
For example, they write, “We are not fundamentalists who retreat from cultural involvement and transformation, but rather missionaries faithful both to the content of Scripture and context of ministry.” They also write, “We are not liberals who embrace culture without discernment and compromise the distinctives of the gospel, but rather Christians who believe the truths of the Bible are eternal and therefore fitting for every time, place, and people.” (Aside: note the implication that “liberal” and “Christian” are mutually exclusive… also, that liberals don’t use “discernment.”)
First of all, I’m not sure I would say that fundamentalism is generally known for advocating retreat from attempts to transform culture. But even if we take that for granted, what exactly does it mean when they say they’ll be faithful to the context of ministry, if they think there is one set of rules for everyone at every time in every place? It sure sounds like they respect cultural differences, but they have two distinct bullet points in this list proclaiming that they are not “relativists.” I guess they remain faithful to the context of ministry by telling people to change only in the specific ways they need to. But they’re not fundamentalists! They just think the Bible has only one set of truths which absolutely everyone ought to live by!
They also have a statement called Acts 29 and Alcohol [PDF] which lists vomiting as among one of many sins resulting from drunkenness (citing three verses, none of which seem to really say that it’s a sin, just that it’s nasty). I guess you’re just out of luck if you get the flu or food poisoning!
But my favorite thing that Acts 29 Network doesn’t like, other than fundamentalists, liberals, and vomit, is egalitarianism. Yeah, that totally crazy notion that people should be treated as equals, with the same rights. In a blockquote so you can’t miss it:
We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders/pastors should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ.
Well, that sheds some light on this mysterious no-girls-allowed event that Act 29 is apparently promoting in Columbus, OH called Act Like Men. I know many evangelical Christians think wives should be subservient to their husbands, but I always thought “egalitarian” was an unambiguously positive word. If you were going to say that you didn’t think men and women have equal worth, I’d expect you’d find some more positive way to say it. Maybe you “believe in traditional gender roles,” or perhaps you “believe in celebrating the naturally different strengths of men and women.” Both of those are crap (the first slightly more than the second), but at least they don’t sound so blatantly awful. It’s really demonstrative of exactly how anti-woman this group is, that they don’t even perceive a negative connotation from saying, “We are not egalitarians.” Even a genuinely stingy person would probably describe themselves as frugal instead.
I know that some people are less than thrilled when I do these “somebody is wrong on the internet” kind of posts. To be honest, it’s not my favorite thing either. But it feels important. This isn’t just somebody; this is a large group of somebodies trying to start a new church every three or four days. This is truly a network of organizations, spread out all over the world. The Resurgence blog, just one part of the Acts 29 Network, has a sidebar promoting their Facebook page where they have over 14,000 fans. They have more fans than Fareed Zakaria, even if you add together the page for just himself and for his CNN show. I know that’s a silly, random measure, but I think it’s enough to say that if it’s worth discussing Zakaria’s opinions here, it’s worth discussing Acts 29′s.
Also, I hope that a couple of those 14,000+ fans, and some prospective future ones, stumble across this post and give it some real thought. Does this group’s belief system really make sense to you? (If so, please explain it to me.) Is this really the kind of group you want to be a part of?
Comments
4 Responses to “What is Acts 29?”
Leave a Reply
I’m not certain what “masculine love” is, but from what I’ve read of Jesus- I get the feeling he’d be more okay with a woman who’s head of her household than these people.
I’m not sure exactly what they think “Acting like a man” entails, but I don’t think I want to know, either. I can’t help but feel like that conference will be a step backwards for gender issues.
Don’t know this blog, don’t know this author – stumbled across it while LOOKING for information on the “Act Like Men” event. I don’t intend to debate the whole philosophical viewpoint, but it would be worthwhile for me to point out something that might help you understand things a bit. When Acts 29 says they’re not “egalitarians”, they mean they don’t subscribe to the viewpoint of “egalitarianism”, which is one side of an intra-church debate about the authority of Scripture regarding gender roles.
Naturally, inside the context of that debate, you would still oppose Acts 29 and others who advocate “complementarianism”. But it’s worth distinguishing between egalitarianism in the church, and the broader equal-rights, equal-value, equal-worth principle in culture, which Acts 29 wholeheartedly cherishes. (We’re big on everybody being made in the image of God, which OUGHT to squelch all racism, ageism, and sexism. If only.)
Likewise, calling somebody a “liberal” inside the church context is quite different than in other arenas, like politics or classical thought or finances.
Don’t know this blog either, but I assume you are a professing Christian and would suggest checking out some of the stuff from the Acts 29 guys before concluding that believing 1Tim/Titus is grounds for them being shovanists or something.
All I got out of this is that you need to do more research and take the motive of peoples hearts before slamming their ministries.
God Bless.
I was going to let the first comment go, but now that there are two I feel like I should say something to those of you who may find this page and feel compelled to comment about how I just don’t know enough about Acts 29 yet to understand how awesome it is.
I am not a “professing Christian.” I’m surprised that that is not obvious to someone happening upon my blog (in particular someone who alleges to have read this post), but there it is. I’m an atheist.
I think the dichotomy between social and religious egalitarianism is a silly one. Honestly, is there an aspect of your life that you do not think your religious values guide you in? If you believe in a God who only trusts men to teach their children religious values and to guide their families, and believe that men should be in charge and women should follow their commands, you have in fact taken a stance on “the broader equal-rights, equal-value, equal-worth principle in culture.” You are not on the side that squelches sexism.
I do not confuse political liberalism with religious liberalism in this post. I have many friends who are liberal Christians and would resent the implication that liberal and Christian are two separate things. I am not religious at all, and I resent the attempt by any religious person to decree what the one correct way to be religious is.
I subscribe to the Resurgence blog now, out of some kind of morbid fascination or possibly self-loathing, and I am quite familiar with “the stuff coming from the Acts 29 guys” by now. My mind has not been changed. They sound like very friendly people, but religion has long been a disguise to make unfriendly (and ridiculous) beliefs sound loving and inclusive. I could spend my entire time blogging here just refuting things I see them post — but my intention was to have this be a more general-interest blog, not just focus on my atheism and at that, not just focus on one particular flavor of Christianity. It would get dull for everyone.
We could probably all afford to do a bit more research into the motive of people’s hearts before we assume things, eh?
Also, it’s spelled “chauvinists.”