I feel as if I do not have the background at all to try to comment to you as I have just a very rudimentary understanding myself of Christian history and the small amount of reading I've done.
In reading your post I can hear "McLarenism" in it. This is one of the things he is trying to say - that God is revealing something "new" to us in this postmodern generation. Now I don't know for sure if this is where this question is stemming from and making you think, but I do know that you've said you've been reading books from some emergent authors like McLaren.
Well my first thought is that the development of "doctrine" that we have is in response to error a lot of times. Am I correct here? For example I believe the Council of Nicea where the "Trinity" was born is in response to error that was going on right?. Also interesting to me was finding out the history of Armenianism and how the TULIP came about.
The issue is that these doctrines that have developed are because some false teaching came up challenging the truth. The truth of scripture was just made more clear in the doctrines we have.
The other real issue here is what is correct doctrine???
You ask:
Why do we condemn many, if not most, "new" understandings of some of our doctrines without question, yet, at the same time, accept what was newly revealed to men like Luther and Calvin without question?
Why are some "new" understandings of doctrine (like McLaren's) condemned? Probably because they are in error biblically. Why are Luther and Calvin accepted?? Hmmm.... could it be that Luther and Calvin are simply in line with what Scripture really says??
Well I haven't actually ever read anything from Luther or Calvin yet, but I do know that a large part of the body of Christ has accepted them. Whereas someone like McLaren and some of the "new" things he's trying to say are not. And after reading much of McLaren for myself I can tell you his "new" spin on things just simply doesn't line up with what God says in Scripture.
Also what about false doctrine?? How do you test what is true?? I'm all for trying to be open to reading someone's "new" spin on things, but it has to square with Scripture. Period.
You also asked:
Is God not still revealing more of Himself through Scripture and guiding us to a fuller understanding of doctrine or did He stop doing that at some point?
Good question. In light of your post one of my thoughts is this-- You brought up the development of doctrine and one of the examples was the Trinity. Well are you saying that God actually revealed more of himself through Scripture when the Trininty was born???? There was nothing new revealed that was already not there. The Trinity was just a clarification of what was already existing in Scripture.
Also I might be totally wrong, but doesn't the fact of our living in the age of the printing press change a lot of things. Because of this invention the ability for people to simply express and write more has brought more things to light. And don't forget that there are now even MORE people who are false teachers and have wrong ideas being published and read because of this day and age we live in.
I might be totally wrong, but I believe the real issue with your questions is who's right and who's wrong. Are the "new" things being said by the emergent church right or wrong?? Is Luther and Calvin right or wrong??
What I can tell you is that the stuff I'm seeing coming out the Emergent Church movement is a different thing than what I know from being a Christian for over 20 years and from basically just reading Scripture.
