Bill MacKinnon writes about the wannabe Pope, Johnny Mac ex communicating Doug Pagitt.

There is no Truth War in Jesus’ command. Let me be blunt. MacArthur is as much promoting another gospel as he claims the emergent crowd are. His Darbyist dispensational theology has as many holes as the theology of Brian McLaren. I wouldn’t deign to say that MacArthur isn’t my brother. But I would say this. The man is an… I can’t even say that. Though I wish I could.

Might I suggest, however, that it is time for the more irenic of the Calvinist wing of Christianity to disassociate themselves from the man who wants to be Pope of the Truly Reformed.

But the real gold here is Brant Hansen’s comment:

I’m not one of these namby-pamby, post-mod types who think Truth will be just fine, thank you. I know it’s much, much weaker than that.

If it weren’t for men like John McArthur, the Truth would disappear into thin air. It is not enduring on its own. It will not last without bold leaders to defend it, to much applause, by preaching it to the same people week after week and selling books about it to them.

The Truth is very, very fragile, indeed. If anything, Paul himself was weak-kneed. He claimed he couldn’t even judge himself, and it was up to the Lord to look at men’s motives, not him. McArthur realizes the folly of that kind of false humility.

Chesteron thought that we should be confident of Truth, but less confident about our own selves. McArthur doesn’t fall for that post-mod ruse, either. He’s quite confident that his own take is the Truth, period.

McArthur knows that the church is to do one thing: 1) Defend the truth. 2) Proclaim the truth. 3) Live the truth. That’s it. One thing.

I used to be one of those mod-hip guys who think that Truth will last without McArthur, but now I know better.

Oh snap!

I am sure Chris Rosebrough got all giddy when he read this blog from a pastor renouncing the emergent movement.  I thought to myself, “oh goodness, another watchdoggie pastor, that’s just what Christendom needs.”  So, I went to Chris Elrod’s blog, pastor of Compass Point Church in Lakeland, Florida, and was impressed by one line

It is not my place to name names or expose those “voices” of Emergent. They do not fall under my accountability…nor do I have access to them. However, their heretical views and false teachings have now been brought into the field of the Compass Point flock…and it IS my job to protect the sheep.

He is not calling out names, making sure the world knows who is, and isn’t a heretic… he is simply protecting his sheep.  If all the Watchdoggies just did this… took care of their flock, instead of worrying about every other church in America, they actually might be somewhat effective.   Somehow their message gets lost on the name calling, outlandish accusations, and getting the story by any twisting of logic necessary.  I support Pastor Elrod’s move.  I may not stand eye to eye with him in some of his methods (for the record…I do not support most emergent movements either), but I can respect how he is going about this.  Maybe it is possible to have a positive move towards truth without having to shout insults from the rooftops of the blogsphere.

There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4.4-6

The streets of my community has many churches on them.  Several Baptist churches, two instrumental Churches of Christ, three Lutheran churches, and at least four of the non-denominational variety.  All in all there is probably at least 20 churches in this small town of 15,000 people.  One way to interpret this verse with the reality of the church today would be to conclude that the church has been so badly damaged, so fractured, and is so far from what was intended by God for his bride that there is no possibility of the church looking like, well, the church.  If we accept this interpretation there’s really only some variety of two ways of looking at this.  First, we can conclude the church is a complete and utter failure.  That whatever there was of God in it is gone, and what’s left is as dried up and useless as a branch that failed to graft to the tree it was placed on.  Or you can conclude that out there somewhere is the church that got it right.  That out of all those congregations, denominations and churches there’s one of them that is unified that got it right enough to be called the bride of Christ.  Unfortunately that’s what at least some Christians have concluded.

But, if we take a look at the verses just prior to these there might be another way to frame the issue.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4.1-3

I don’t think what Paul is urging here is a lock-step theological unity*.  If that were the case it wouldn’t be couched in terms of a lifestyle of humbleness, gentleness, and patience.  Instead it would be urgings toward studying, holding fast to the faith, and remembering what was of first importance.  But that’s not what’s going on here.

I don’t think Paul is talking primarily about doctrinal unity here.  Rather he’s talking about relational unity.  Whether or not we are obedient to these scriptures has little to do with how many churches we have, or how many strains of doctrine exist within the body.  What these verses have to do with is our relationships with each other, both in terms of the others within our respective churches, and the other found in other churches.  This command given by Paul would not necessarily be fulfilled even if we all got together in some kind of massive, theologically monolithic, Voltron-esque church. 

This command is only fulfilled when we are humble, gentle and patiently bearing in love with those who we disagree with. There is one Lord, one savior, on baptism, and one God and Father over all and through all, and well all need to live a life worthy of our calling, especially towards those we disagree with.

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