Three thoughts:

1. Even if Phil was wearing a suit when he wrote it, he isn’t in this picture. How can we take seriously someone who takes his coffee so lightly?
2. Phil gets the Kevin DeYoung “Over-generalization? What over-generalization?” Award for today.
3. Phil has a long history of having almost as big a problem with TSK as he does with iMonk.

My comment might be unclear. Do we all agree that any communication that obscures or changes the original meaning is unacceptable?

PS. I meant to say “If the central message is altered to the point that the message means something else entirely, than it is wrong.”

Then with that as a backdrop, everyone agrees but whether the original meaning is changed is all subjective. So we’re back to square one. Rick Warren uses the “mulligan” example to explain redemption and I say that changes the essence of redemption and others say it doesn’t.

So one man’s contextualization is another man’s creative communication. In the words of Alexander Graham Bell, “Are you there?”.

this has nothing to do with this post, but in case you haven’t been to Spicy Laodicea today, Ingbiscuit said:

You can’t have strong families…without Jesus Christ

yeah! no strong Jewish families…no strong Muslim families…no strong Hindu families (they’re so weak they feel they have to live together with their extended families just for show, i guess)…

*groan*

I really don’t get the other Phil’s side of the argument. I have never met, (outside of a few pragmatists which think anything goes as long as people come to Jesus) that change the story. In fact, I see them taking the story and relating it to the Christian and biblical world viewpoint. Most literature and movies use the “christian” story.

Funny thing is Team Pyro contextualize all over… Has anyone seen the Golam team pyro logo? TLOTR is a cultural thing that TP uses… as well as that they sell t-shirts to promote their site which is a cultural thing (but what about promoting Jesus? I mean when did TP die for me?) These guys are very slick in their promotion of themselves… meaning they are very adapt at contextualizing their own message!

Funny though they cannot see this but would rather cast stones at straw men and lie about people who do not always wear suits when they preach… or view that “pastors” are servants and not priests that are to be set higher than other people. The “pulpit” does not make anyone better or more holy than everyone else… in fact this “respect” teaching cuts across the teaching in James against favoritism.

Personally TP has alienated many of us who used to read and respect them though we did not always agree… but they had good things to say. Now, it seems that they have many re-runs on things that are so none issues that all I see is divisiveness and argument people who care little in communication only in being right and showing other wrong. They say something is a sin, then turn around and in their christian ghetto, do the same thing… Mostly I see they preach to the choir. I know of very few insider (Christians) outsiders that even have heard John MacArthur let alone TP… I know of many more outsiders that are listening and hear the gospel through emerging and emergents…

iggy

Amen choir to nc.

Evan,

“Let the strong say “I am weak”

I read the first paragraph and bailed – any argument that begins with such a poorly conceived stereotype as its foundation is not worth the bandwidth nor the time to bother with it…

Neil

Neil, snap and ditto.

But this comment is brilliant (and I mean that)

Sometimes when I read the backs and forths of some of these kinds of blog posts, I feel like I’m a kid standing in the kitchen as Mom and Dad are yelling at each other in the living room. Neither are listening to the other, and neither are willing to give much or any ground.

And I suppose if the primary bloggers represent Mom and Dad in a rapidly dissolving marriage, then a good handful of the commentors seem awfully similar to the extended family members that come from each side, clearly holding a bias that isn’t changing anytime soon.

So seriously, who’s a kid supposed to listen to in this discussion? I mean, everyone is yelling, and everyone seems so sure they’re right. And everyone can defend it all day long. Using Scripture, even. But all I hear is yelling and nobody seems to be truly listening to each other.

Welcome to what’s going on inside the hearts of a lot of people in my generation.

I can almost imagine that someone’s internal, if not expressed, response will be “See, look how they’ve confused the kids”. And of course, that will be coming from both sides pointing toward the other.

Like I said, I am a “kid” in all these discussions.

Amen Ryan!

The thread on Pyromaniacs is really a battle of strawmen, so the analogy of a fighting couple is pretty good. I think that debate on the internet really feeds this type of thing too. It’s a lot easier to present a false picture of someone when you’re not talking to them face to face.

I guess in a way, I almost see that some sort of “divorce” is inevitable, too. I see a lot of people unwilling to admit that they might be wrong, and without doing that what can you do?

I guess one reason fundamentalism started was actually an attempt to separate itself as “true Christianity”. It seems this desire is in their DNA. Now I do believe there are such things as false Christians and false teachers, but I think that the witch hunt that has been going is the absolute wrong way to go about dealing with this.

I think that most of these issues need to be dealt with at a local level, and actually I think that’s what people forget when they read the epistles. Paul was writing to a relatively small group of people as the primary audience. I don’t think we can assume that the way he addresses a false teaching is a universal fiat for all time. I think he actually was guided by the Holy Spirit in each instance, and He should guide us today, too.