Robert Webber at Tyndale

Ed and I attended a lecture by Robert Webber today at Tyndale. Robert Webber is a man I greatly respect. One of his books, The Younger Evangelicals, should be required reading for church leaders. Webber described the rise of contemporary worship since the 1960s, and talked about the hunger that exists today to move beyond the superficiality of consumer Christianity. He says that younger evangelicals today see through that, and long for an encounter with God, and for depth in worship. So far, so good. Webber did lose me at two points. He argued that we should lose that part of our worship that resembles “making love to God” (songs like Hold Me Close, or, as someone calls them, “Jesus is my boyfriend songs”). I’m with him to a point. I get tired of the sappiness too. But when someone asked about a Psalm like Psalm 63 (“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you…”), Webber said that we should understand that as the expression of praise from Christ, and not from the worshipping community. Hello? I have to disagree with him there. Second, he argued that typology is on its way back, since we can’t always find the intent of the original author. It’s okay to allegorize. If true, this scares me. I love about 90% of what Webber says. If only his lecture had ended 10 minutes sooner…