Background on “Christian”

Andy Stanley started an 8-part series a couple of months ago at North Point Community Church, called “Christian”.  The overarching premise is that “Christian” is a malleable word (a poor adjective) that can mean most anything these days.  It was a word given to Jesus-followers by outsiders, not the followers, themselves.  What the followers called themselves, and what Jesus called them, is much better defined: disciples.  As such, we, as followers of Christ, ought to try to live up to what Jesus expected us to be (disciples), not take the squishy road of “Christian”. [I highly recommend the entire series, FWIW.]

• Part 1: Brand Recognition – This is the basic premise of the entire series, relayed above, where Stanley lays out Christianity’s reputation, outside the church as “judgmental, homophobic moralists, who think they are the only ones going to heaven and secretly relish the fact that everyone else is going to hell”, and then goes on to describe the difference between “Christian” and “disciple”
• Part 2: Quitters – Picking up from Part 1, Andy tells the story of Anne Rice – leaving the church, rediscovering her faith, and then disavowing “Christians”, saying “Today I quit being a Christian.  I’m out.  I remain committed to Christ, as always, but to being ‘Christian’ or being part of ‘Christianity’.  It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group.“  Stanley then goes on to describe the defining characteristic given to disciples by Jesus (see 1 John 4:7-8), that should differentiate us from the world around us, so that we don’t settle for the brand “Christianity”.  Key quote: We give up our leverage in society when we opt for anything other than LOVE.
• Part 3: Insiders Outsiders – Andy follows the evolution of the early church – from a small, persecuted minority to a movement that toppled the Roman Empire.  He points to this event in time as a point where Christians stopped leveraging love as their distinguishing characteristic, and started leveraging other things – like political power – to impose their faith on others, by threat or force.  He examines how Christians should treat those outside the faith, and that we should not expect those who don’t follow Jesus to live as he commanded his followers to live.  (This sermon shared points with the incredibly good 1-sermon series last summer, The Separation of Church and Hate.)  Over time, though, Christians morphed the Great Commission into “Therefore, go and impose my teaching, values and worldview on all nations, threatening them with judgment and destruction if they don’t obey everything I have commanded you.“  The main point he comes to is that we are to judge disciples (who are acting against his commands), not outsiders (who never signed up to follow his commands).  [He uses Mark & Grace Driscoll's appearance on The View as an example of how to demonstrate this.]
• Part 4: Showing Up -  The Sunday before Easter, Andy preached this sermon on how disciples should live – as salt and light – in the world.  He traces this from the experience of the early persecuted church, up to how we ought to live now – where how we treat one another and how we treat those outside the church (by “showing up”) – is to be such examples of Christ that when people see us, they see what he is like.  This is messy, and is not always immediately (or ever) visible to us, but our good deeds should shine in such a way that others speak well of Christ from seeing how we act.  “The way we act may make them feel guilty, but it should not make them feel that we are condemning them.”  (i.e. it should be their conscience that convicts them, not our criticism.)
• Part 5: When Gracie Met Truthy – In a theme common here, Andy touches on the tension that exists between grace and truth.  His basic premise, spoken several times and several ways:  “A tension exists between grace and truth.  If we try to resolve that tension, in either direction, we lose something.”  He goes through multiple examples in Jesus’ ministries where Jesus, described by John as the perfect embodiment of grace and truth, gives both grace AND truth.  For example, in the woman who committed adultery and as brought before him, Jesus response was “I do not condemn you” (grace) and “go and live in sin no more” (truth).  As Brendt quoted this sermon, “… people may misunderstand your grace towards sinners as somehow condoning their sin, but that is not the case.“  This was a very good, but very difficult lesson (and the source of the controversy, covered below).
• Part 6: Angry Birds – This sermon covers similar territory the previous week – this time via Jesus’ teaching, whereas Week 5 dealt with Jesus’ actions.  It examined Jesus’ teaching to the disciples about how to treat sinners, followed by the story of the Two Lost Sons (sometimes called The Prodigal Son).  In the first part, he says that if Christians are doing what Jesus did and following what he taught, we, too, should end up attracting the “tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes”, which will likely result in the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law to mutter that we’re associating with the wrong sorts of people.  Even though we have more in common, and nearly identical theology, to the ‘Pharisees”, the way we live our belief – if we’re doing it right – will likely result in the sinners feeling welcome and the self-righteous feeling … self-righteous and put out.  Basically, as Stanley follows on, we should be modeling the role of the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
• Part 7: Loopholes – This sermon continues on, examining how “Christians” (and, to some degree, non-Christians) try to use “loopholes” which allow our own sinful behavior, while condemning/damning the sins of those who are different than them.  He contrasts this with what Jesus taught – “Love God, and love your neighbor – all other laws flow from/are subservient to these”.  In the context of loopholes, Andy sums this up – to the Pharisees – as “Don’t you dare take a verse or a passage of Scripture and use it to unlove someone else, you hypocrites” and then continues: “Disciples don’t look for workarounds or loopholes – ‘Christians’ do that – Disciples ask ‘What does love require of me?’“  [I loved this particular bit, as well: "'Christians' use the Bible like a mace - 'Disciples' use the Bible like a mirror."]  If you only have time for one sermon in the series, I’d go here.  Very challenging stuff.  Stuff I often suck at.  Stuff that will make you uncomfortable.  Stuff that doesn’t require you to compromise, but requires you to love people who are not like you.
• Part 8: Working It Out – In the final sermon of the series, Andy picks up from the final question of Week 7:  What does love require of me? In it, he notes that the people who have shaped us the most are either a) those who really loved us; and b) those who really hurt/abused us.  Originally, Jesus gave us a new commandment: Love one another.  Our defining characteristic was to be how we love one another, but over time it has evolved from being more about how we behave to being almost completely about what we believe.  If we want to re-brand “Christian” to become synonymous with “Disciple”, we need to follow the new commandment he gave us.  “We represent the commander, not the commandments.”  He finishes up the series by talking how to prepare ourselves to live in love: 1) Don’t do anything that will hurt you; 2) Don’t do anything that will hurt someone else; and 3) Don’t be mastered by anything.
• All in all, this was an incredibly good series, and one that is challenging (for good reasons).  I encourage you to watch/download/listen to it all.  Twice.

Got it?  OK – now for the controversy:

Gracie and Truthy

Part Five of the series, When Grace Met Truthy, landed on ODM radar because Andy, purposely or accidentally, broke an unspoken commandment in modern Evangelicalism:  If you mention homosexuality in a sermon or sermon illustration, you must also – as quickly as possible – make sure that everybody knows that it is a sin and it is not tolerated in your church.  If you fail to do so, it will be automatically assumed that you are condoning it.

Not only did he break this commandment once, but he did it twice in the same sermon.

First: Early in the sermon, about 5 minutes in, Stanley mentioned that he knew a number of LGBT folks who visited/attended North Point, having left the “predominantly gay” churches.  He said that they said, when asked why they had made the switch, that the gay churches spent a lot of time “affirming homosexuality”, but that North Point “teaches the Bible”.  The implication, being, that the two (”affirming homosexuality” vs. “teaching the Bible”) were opposed to one another.  \

As we have learned here, often over the past 6 years, if the ODM crowd is lacking in anything, it is a complete lack of recognition of nuance and subtlety.  It’s not that they don’t understand homosexual practice is a sin (they do, and we do).  It’s not that those who are outside the church don’t understand that the church teaches that homosexual practice is a sin (every single survey of non-Christians about Christians – see Barna – tells us that non-Christians understand this more than any other truth about the church), or that the ODM’s and self-proclaimed “watchdogs” don’t know this (because they do).  And it’s almost never some sort of altruistic desire to “protect” the flock that doesn’t realize what their church’s teaching is on homosexuality (because you can pretty much guarantee that they do, whichever way their church falls on the issue).  It really comes down to making sure that they (homosexuals, liberals, ‘outsiders’) know that they are wrong on this issue and we (the true church) are right about it.  [See week 7's message, above, "Loopholes".]

But that wasn’t enough.

Secondly, (around the 25-minute mark) Stanley relayed an illustration that began 5 years ago.  In it, there was a married couple with a daughter.  The man left the woman to be with another man.  The woman kicked the husband out of North Point, immediately.  The man and his partner later attended another North Point campus (Buckhead church), and their first Sunday, volunteered to be part of the “Host Team” (a group that parks cars, opens doors, passes out programs, or leads first-time guests to classrooms, etc.).  The wife approached Andy to let him know that the partner’s divorce was not finalized and that the relationship was still adulterous.  Andy stepped in, met with the ex-husband and partner, and told them they could not serve while they were living in overt sin (adultery).  The two left the church, very upset.  Over time (the point of the illustration), the wife began showing grace to her ex-husband and his partner, and became much less bitter toward them.  Last year, she invited them to come sit with her at the Christmas services at North Point.  Andy quipped that, looking at them, it reminded him of Modern Family (the TV show).

The end.

Right after I heard that particular illustration, I knew that the ODM’s – if they heard the illustration – would go bonkers.  Why?  Because in the story, Andy had focused on the adultery and said nothing about the homosexual issue (see above for ODM capabilities in understanding nuance and subtlety).  In Culture War Evangelicalism, when one speaks on homosexuality without a neon sign (”<<<—THIS IS A SIN”), silence is considered acceptance, and to not condemn is assumed to condone.

It doesn’t matter that, after the illustration, Pastor Stanley said “… people may misunderstand your grace towards sinners as somehow condoning their sin, but that is not the case.“  Andy had an open shot on goal and passed up the shot.  He had a wide-open receiver in the end zone and took a sack.  He had a two-foot putt for par and took a double-bogey.  Insert your own sports/war metaphor here.

My first comment, when the sermon was over, was “the folks that complain about this will be the same folks that, in doing so, will demonstrate they didn’t listen to the message.”

Over the coming weeks, I was (almost) pleasantly surprised.

Along Came Al

A couple of weeks went by, with only a few rumblings in ODM-land [links intentionally not provided].  Andy Stanley rarely makes their radar, so most of them don’t dissect him on a weekly basis.  He rarely gives media interviews (see here for his excellent reasons why not), his dad is respected by some of the ODM’s (and their canaries-in-a-coal-mine at the Gospel Coalition), and he rarely says things that are all that controversial.

At the same time, there is a bit of jealousy in the SBC that North Point is purposely non-denominational, even though Andy’s dad is, and that it has done so well (25,000 attenders across 7 Atlanta campuses each Sunday).  Also, it is a megachurch that operates as a “church for the unchurched”.  So it has only been a matter of time before someone at the SBC would toss a grenade at it in public.

And along came Al Mohler, the president of the SBC.  Fretting if megachurches will all go the way of liberalism, Mohler wrote an article complaining about Stanley’s sermon, and requesting/requiring an answer from Pastor Stanley as to his church’s “stance” on homosexuality.  (To which, Rick Warren got in a brief Twitter spat with Mohler over the tar-and-feathering of megachurches over one perceived slight.)  Andy Stanley’s response to Dr. Mohler was that he didn’t find interviews and press releases to be all that helpful, but that Dr. Mohler ought to listen to the seven online sermons and the final sermon, Part 8, on Sunday.

A brilliant response.  [I'd have likely replied with something snarky, and less gracious or brilliant.  Which is why I'm an engineer, not a pastor.]

And that is all the response that has been given (and I hope will ever be given).

The Fallout

Since then, the regular ODM’s and their (predominantly Calvinist) ilk have gleefully demonstrated what Anne Rice meant with her public comments, just in case anyone was confused as to what she meant by ‘Christians’ as a “quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group”. [And no, no linky goodness for them.]

Even so, there have been some very good responses to the mess.  Probably the best two are from Scot McKnight (unsurprisingly) and Out of Ur.  As comments go, one of the briefest and best to sum it up, on a site that was critical of Stanley’s message, was this:

I don’t understand why everyone needs clarification of this topic when it was not the subject of the message. This sermon was not about SIN, it was about how we treat SINNERS. I think Andy answered that question quite eloquently. Additionally, the brilliance of the message was that I think he intentionally chose this very applicable story to point out that the “Christian” community doesn’t treat all sinners equally, and from judging the uproar that resulted, his point was well proven.

The silly thing about all of this is that North Point’s “stance” on homosexual practice (that they believe the Bible declares it to be a sin) is well-documented over the past 15 years, and – for the folks who have called them and asked if NPCC allows practicing homosexuals to serve in the church – their volunteer applications list multiple sexual sins (all homo-sexual sin and all extramarital heterosexual sin, including “shacking up”) as reasons for individuals to not volunteer for service, for their own good, as well as the church’s.

In this particular instance, I expect a) the hubub over this sermon will soon die down; b) more juicy targets will come along for the “Christian” bottom-feeders to attack and devour;  c) North Point will now be monitored much more closely for perceived heresy (all in the sanctimonious garb of “protecting the flock”, of course); d) member of NPCC and those who listen to Andy Stanley will better represent Christ in the world; and e) if they do a good job of representing Christ, they can expect to be shot in the back with much more frequency and intensity in the future.

Where We’ve Been

I’m not going to spend a lot of time here, but we have covered this particular topic several times before.

• We do agree that the Bible says that homosexual practice (the act) is a sin, as defined in the Bible.
• We also agree that the church in the past several decades, in particular, have handled this sin incredibly poorly.  So much so, that many/most homosexuals do not feel that they would be accepted into a relationship with Christ.  To say that again: The church has become a place that sinners do not feel they would be accepted, because they are sinners.  The church of the past few decades have singled this sin out (since most in it are not tempted by it) as a “special” sin, worthy of particular note and scorn.
• We also have seen that some churches (and some commenters, like our ex-pastor friend Chad)  “square this circle” by searching for loopholes to affirm this lifestyle as OK.  (With all of the accompanying weasel-words around “loving, monogamous, etc.” to try and avoid calling sin sin.)  This is just as bad as declaring it a “special sin”.
• As we’ve noted before, there has to be somewhere between these poles – Andy Stanley refers to it as a “tension” – where we must act as a church.

The truth is, most of us – unless we have close family/friends dealing with this sin – have no true empathy or sympathy for what these folks are dealing with.  When we tell them to “go and sin no more” (and constantly bring up 1 Cor 5, which we only reserve for the “really bad” sins like this one), what we fail to realize is that we’re also saying “Your only choices in life are to live single and alone, or to marry someone whom you have no – or little – attraction.”  And that’s if they are not already in a relationship.

And if they have kids, that’s even messier.

How callous is it to flippantly demand someone “quit sinning” before God will accept them, when “quit sinning”, in our definition, may entail breaking off a relationship and making arrangements for a child?

Sin is horribly messy, and it’s awfully arrogant for us to try and take over for the Holy Spirit, when it comes to convicting someone of sin and how they need to deal with it.

I think of a friend of mine who works with Masai people in Africa.  Many of the Masai men are married to multiple wives.  When they become Christians, the missionaries do not demand that they leave their polygamous relationships – which would often leave women and/or children destitute.  With young, unmarried men the missionaries teach “one and done”, but for those already entangled in polygamy, there is no such easy answer.

This is why one of the best churches I’m familiar with, in dealing with the sin of homosexual practice, makes absolutely no public statement about homosexuality (though they consider it to be defined as sin in the Bible).  When people come to them/call them and ask what their “stance” is on homosexuality, they first ask if the caller or a loved one is struggling with it.  If so, they ask them to come in and meet, and then they counsel them as best fits their situation.  If they or a loved one do not struggle with that particular sin, then their answer is “What is it to you?”

And this is brilliant.

Because the church has responded so poorly to this in the past, and the public perception of its treatment of it as a “special sin” (while comparatively ignoring rampant sins like divorce and adultery in the church) is so close to truth, the proper response of the church very well may be such an approach, to take the lightning out of the lightning-rod issue.

Oh, And the World

Most of the Stanley/Mohler kerfuffle has fallen completely beneath the radar of normal people, which is fine and good.

At the same time, the North Carolina Constitutional Amendment last week, coupled with Zero’s “evolved” (but not really changed) position on same-sex marriage, will likely keep this topic close to the top of the headlines for the next six months.  It is my hope that most Christians will avoid the stereotype – balancing both grace and truth – and stay out of those headlines, and that we will find a way to make “tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes” far more comfortable with us than the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, and that it will be because we are emulating Jesus.

[Edit: I changed my characterization of the blog whose comment I quoted above, upon reviewing more of the posts at that particular blog.]

Let me start by saying that this is going to be about the Andy Stanley kerfuffle. If you’ve missed out on what I’m talking about, hit your knees and thank God — even if you’re an atheist.  Also, if you fall in that category (blissfully ignorant) — and here I’ll commit a major sin of authorship — I suggest that you read no further, as your curiosity may be piqued. Then you’ll go and hit Google and start reading up on what this is all about. And then I’ll be partially responsible for you being exposed to articles and comments that have all the civility of Johnny Knoxville burping the alphabet during the prayer at a royal wedding.

In the sermon that everyone’s carping about, one of the other things that Andy said was:

“… people may misunderstand your grace towards sinners as somehow condoning their sin, but that is not the case.”

The story of the woman caught in adultery is a prime example of this. A cursory reading of the passage makes it look like Jesus totally let her off the hook. Actually, forget “cursory” — there’s a level at which I still don’t get it. And it’s probably a safe bet that you’re in the same boat.

Yes, He said “go and sin no more”, but He didn’t even specifically state that the act in which she was caught was sin. Based on nothing more than that single isolated instance (notice a pattern here?), we could just as easily conclude that He was telling her to stop smoking those funny cigarettes.

When Jesus told parables, people misunderstood all the time. And it wasn’t simply an issue of Him knowing in advance that this would be the case and thinking “c’est la vie“. Part of the reason that He used parables was specifically because people wouldn’t understand.

By sheer definition, not everyone can be the sharpest knife in the drawer. When we show grace, some people are going to misunderstand. The only way to avoid misunderstanding is to stop showing grace altogether.

Is clarity of your beliefs that important to you?

I asked if he was doing what he believed God wanted him to do and he affirmed excitedly that he was and gave me a couple of recent examples in which he had seen God working through him at his job. Then I noted to him that being a pastor was a logical choice back when we were kids, given the environment that we were in. Back then, it was made clear to us (caught, if not necessarily taught) that a man who wished to truly follow God’s will for his life — and Shawn did want that — would be in “full-time Christian service”. This pretty much limited the options to (1) preacher, (2) missionary, or (3) Christian school teacher. A woman had the options of #2 or #3 or (better yet) the spouse of any of those options. There was lip-service paid to the legitimacy of the “Christian businessman”, but the overall influence showed that it was merely lip-service to the guy who actually paid the bills, er um, tithes.

In short, if you weren’t one of the big three, you were a second-class Christian.

Fast-forward to today. I saw a video whose overall theme still has me a bit puzzled, but it had a particular thought in it that conjured up the same tired old images of second-class Christianity. In addressing the Christian viewer about having heard and believed the gospel, the speaker threw a frickin’ bone to those who may have heard it differently than he did:

even if it’s a gospel that a guy like Barnabas would preach, as opposed to an apostle like Paul

Say what? When did Barnabas get ranked below Paul in anything?

If anything, in those days, Barnabas had a better grasp on grace than Paul did (Acts 15:36-39), something of which Paul apparently later repented (2 Timothy 4:11). But I digress.

I was so confused that I felt like I had to keep listening, in the desperate hope that he’d explain that gem.

The speaker’s text was Acts 11:19-26. I’m going to divide the passage into a few pieces so as to comment on the story as it progresses.

Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

OK, so we’ve got unnamed guys (”from Cyprus and Cyrene”) who were preaching Jesus and leading people to the Lord.

Then news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch.

Hey, this sounds pretty cool. Go check it out, Barney.

When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

Barney confirms that it is way cool. And he encourages them in their faith.  A few good things are recorded about him, and apparently his influence led to others finding Jesus, too.

Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

Hey, Paul, you gotta see this! And so Paul comes and the two of them stay there for a whole year, teaching.

So, we’ve got a movement of the Spirit that starts with guys that the Bible doesn’t even bother to name, then Barnabas gets to throw in, and then Paul does too. It definitely seems that this whole thing is all about God, both from just the general gist of the story and that whole “the hand of the Lord was with them” thing in verse 21.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ !!!! Wrong !!! Thanks for playing.

This isn’t about God. This is about Paul. You see, according to the speaker, the reason that Barnabas went for Paul was because the people at Antioch wanted to know more than Barnabas could teach them. And Paul knew the Scripture better than Barnabas and had actually had a (brief) physical encounter with Jesus.

Yeah, I’m not sure what bodily orifice the speaker got that one out of, either. Is it possible that there was such a need/desire and that Paul could better fulfill it? Sure. But nowhere near with the factual certainty that the speaker classified it.

Oh, and the disciples in Antioch being called “Christians” — that was a direct result of Paul teaching them.  (See previous bodily orifice reference.)

When it comes to doctrine, Paul could kick anyone’s asterisk-dollarsign-dollarsign. So it’s really a toss-up as to whether this junk is Paul-olatry or doctrine-olatry. Either way, though, it ain’t good.

In short, Barnabas was (in the speaker’s mind) a second-class Christian. I guess the unnamed guys were third-class. So brush up on your doctrine, boys and girls. Otherwise, you’re disappointing God.

If you’re reading this, that means that the world has not ended yet, and I am over there renewing my membership and finding out from those gracious people how to be saved before I’m eternally damned.

And if you believe that last line, when I return from RR, I want to talk to you about a bridge in New York that I can sell you for a really good price.

when people endorse one another’s book and speak at the same conferences and write on the same blogs, there is something of a discernible movement afoot.

Never mind that none of these actions — either separately or together — really mean anything, let alone that they constitute “a discernible movement”.

More recently, on his post about the term “Young, Restless and Reformed”, DeYoung states that he is

afraid the label is often used in a way that makes YRR sound like an organized movement with official standards and spokesmen.

He then goes on, in detail, to show how it is not.

Four years ago, he declared that A+B+C=D.  Now “D” (by that declaration) applies to his team. And he doesn’t like it.

Changing horses mid-stream is a tricky thing.

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Mike Godwin has written about the law that “its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust.”

And this is the spirit in which I’ve always understood it. There are, indeed, thought processes and rationalizations that are eerily similar to “Hitlerian rhetoric” (if I may paraphrase Stephen Fry). And so, there are times when such a comparison may be valid. But more times than not, the comparison is inaccurate and made out of sheer laziness, as though ole Adolf was a trump card.

But Godwin’s Law is mostly only applicable to political discussions. Yes, sometimes the issues are moral or spirtual, but they still have a distinct political bent to them (e.g. issues surrounding abortion). Yet the same laziness that made Godwin’s Law necessary is prevalent in many online theological discussions.

My first thought was how Matthew 7:16 gets twisted to mean that if you do one thing that I don’t like, then I am capable of reading all of your innermost thoughts and commenting on them definitively and publicly.

Or how “another gospel” (Galatians 1:9) has been twisted to mean “anything with which I disagree”.

And let’s not forget the all-purpose barn-burner: emergent (which apparently encompasses everything I don’t believe in — even when two thoughts are contradictory).

But we really need a person, not a concept.

Brian McLaren? Nah. He’s so last decade.

Rob Bell? Nah. He’s so earlier this year. Even the recent announcement of his departure from the pulpit only produced a brief ripple in all but the craziest corners of the blogosphere.

Besides which, there are plenty of people who haven’t heard of either of these guys.

Rick Warren? Now we’re getting somewhere with the recognizability factor. But more and more of the criticisms of him are either over old stuff, misinterpretation of stuff, or can’t withstand any real logic (or some combination of the three). So he’s not really a legitimate whipping boy anymore.

So who then? And then it hit me.

As an online theological discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Oprah Winfrey approaches 1.

As with Godwin’s Law, there are cases where the comparison rings true. But let’s be honest. For quite a while and probably for many years to come, Winfrey has become the poster child for “any spiritual belief that is less rigorous than my own”.

So in the words of Phil Esterhaus, let’s be careful out there — let’s not play the O-card too quickly.

Waters’ Corollary to Godwin’s Law. I’ll be over here holding my breath, waiting for the Wikipedia update.

“Having recently completed six years of research on the question of how God transforms us, I can tell you that genuine transformation is about love God and people with everything you have. To reach that state, you must be permanently changed. First, you have to be broken by God–broken over your sins against Him, over your focus on self, and over your reliance on society for your cues and marching orders. And it gets tougher once you are shattered by what you’ve done and who you’ve become. At that point, you have to surrender the fullness of your life to God and submit yourself to His will. That’s a searing process: being humbled by your bad choices, getting over yourself, recognizing the holiness of your creator Father, accepting His forgiveness and love, and returning that love by throwing out your own plans and expectations and completely adopting His. Only then can you truly love God and others. Without this kind of inner transformation, you’ll choose to love yourself more than Him. When push comes to shove and difficult choices have to be made, you’ll opt for those things that advance you rather than God. Brokenness, surrender, submission, and deep love–those are the ‘big four’ that most of us ignore in our lives to our own detriment and that of the people we’ve been placed on earth to love and serve”–George Barna, Futurecast, 222-223

Here’s the link that I reference (to the actual interview): John Piper interviews Rick Warren

I’ll note that if I hated Rick Warren with a passion, I’d still only have to change about 5% of this video. So a laundry list (given in the comment thread) of his errors will not be germane to the OP. Not that that’ll stop anyone. I’m pretty darn good at derailing myself. Just sayin’…

GROUND RULES

I’m going to concede a lot of ground to the critics.  In some cases, I agree with some of these points anyway, but I can make my argument even if I disagree with some of these points.

• Let us assume that the criticized person is 100% in error theologically.
• Let us assume that the critics are 100% accurate theologically.
• Let us assume that everyone who does not disagree completely with the criticized person are sheeple who are totally lacking in discernment, will consume and espouse everything that the criticized person says, and desperately need the critics to straighten out this problem.
• Let us assume that the error being disseminated by the criticized person is so grave that the critics have carte blanche to use any methodology they choose to confront it, without even the remotest possibility that they will err in their methodology or that their methods will turn off any of the aforementioned sheeple.
• Let us assume that the method that Jesus gave in Matthew 18:15ff is totally inapplicable.

SIDEBAR

I find it interesting that the Matthew 18 passage gets batted down so quickly.  While I understand that Jesus was particularly referring to more “private”, one-on-one sins, I have searched several translations and have yet to find one with a verse where Jesus says “unless it’s a public sin, then all bets are off”.  The ludicrous speed* with which the applicability of the passage is dismissed speaks not so much of someone who wants to move on as it does of someone who is so loathe to try one-on-one confrontation, that any loophole is seized desperately as a lifeline.

WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED POST

But let’s play nice.  As I said, let’s assume that Jesus’ command is inapplicable in this situation.  Does inapplicability automatically mean that we are commanded not to use this method sometimes?

Let me put it another way — the way that (sadly) seems to be the de rigueur method for how this is played out.

SCENARIO #1

1. The criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates error. In his efforts, he manages to reach and convince 1000 sheeple. **
2. The critics recognize the error and scramble to publicly disseminate the truth in response. ***  In their efforts, they manage to rescue 995 of those sheeple from the error. ( Highly improbable that the critics will turn around that high of a percentage, but hey, let’s be generous. )
3. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates more error. Because of some past success, in his efforts, he manages to reach and convince 2000 sheeple.
4. The critics recognize the error and scramble to publicly disseminate the truth in response. Their astronomical success rate remains steady so that, in their efforts, they manage to rescue 1990 of those sheeple from the error.
5. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates more error. Because of some past success, in his efforts, he manages to reach and convince 3000 sheeple.
6. The critics recognize the error and scramble to publicly disseminate the truth in response. Their astronomical success rate remains steady so that, in their efforts, they manage to rescue 2985 of those sheeple from the error.
7. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates more error. Because of some past success, in his efforts, he manages to reach and convince 4000 sheeple.
8. The critics recognize the error and scramble to publicly disseminate the truth in response. Their astronomical success rate remains steady so that, in their efforts, they manage to rescue 3980 of those sheeple from the error.
9. Ad infinitum (or would that be ad nauseum ?)

So, at the end of six years (all but that last bullet), you now have 50 people who have bought into the errors disseminated by the criticized person.

This scenario is particularly self-damning for the critic who chooses to do a series of blog posts detailing the errors of the criticized person over the years. ****

But what happens if we change it up a bit?

SCENARIO #2

1. The criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates error. In his efforts, he manages to reach and convince 1000 sheeple.
2. The critics recognize the error. One critic approaches the criticized person and convinces him of his error.  The criticized person then disseminates a mea culpa, and manages to rescue the same 995 people that the critics rescued in the first scenario.
3. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates truth in some manner.
4. The critics only needed response is to praise God and send the criticized person notes of encouragement.
5. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates truth in some manner.
6. The critics only needed response is to praise God and send the criticized person notes of encouragement.
7. Two years later, the criticized person espouses and publicly disseminates truth in some manner.
8. The critics only needed response is to praise God and send the criticized person notes of encouragement.

Some other things that might happen if this second scenario occurred:

• Because of the dissemination of truth by the criticized person (in steps #2, 3, 5, and 7), God is glorified and people are brought closer to the truth.  Hard to believe otherwise.
• The criticized person and the critic (who originally approached the former) cultivate a strong friendship from which both benefit spiritually.  Hard to believe otherwise.
• Let’s dream really big and assume that in six years, the critics and the criticized person are able to convince the original 5 (who they didn’t rescue originally) of the truth.

BOTTOM LINE

So, when a critic chooses to go with Scenario #1, he’s treating the symptom while the disease goes on unabated.  So what is he really trying to accomplish?  Is he really rescuing the sheeple *****, or is he just showing off his mad Bible skillz?  Is he really trying to “gain his brother”, or is he merely auditioning for some spiritual MMA league?

No, really.

* yes, that was a Spaceballs reference

** I recognize that these numbers are probably too small.

*** How they do this is irrelevant.  We’ve already established carte blanche in the ground rules.

**** OK, that one was, admittedly, about the Rob Bell situation.  But I’m not giving any Google juice to the critic, so if you don’t know specifically what I’m talking about, c’est la vie.

***** which, it is to be noted, quickly becomes Sisyphean