At his Seeker Sensitive Cowtipping blog post, Josh -- who I will continue to characterize as seeker sensitive, until he realizes the error of his ways and the ways of Emmaus Lutheran in Bloomington MN, Living Hope Church St Michael MN, and Good Shepherd Camarillo CA (and by extension, the myriad of other churches preaching the same message), somehow managed to appreciate the excellent article "Dude, Where's My Gospel?"
Since Josh seems to have pulled my latest responses, one to 'mom' and one to him, so I will post them here:
Mom–
Unedifying and slanderous? Hm.
Well, they are Scriptural and that means edifying both in the POSITIVE and the NEGATIVE – e.g. discerning truth from ALMOST true. and Slander or libel by definition must be untrue. But if a person lacks discernment, it would be hard to properly tell whether what he is saying is slanderous. It is much easier to just *slander* Chris by such accusations as have been leveled against him here by Josh and you, than to actually be a Berean and pore over the Scriptures and see if these things be so.
So, go ahead and find some quotes of his that are untrue and unscriptural please. I find some things that Josh’s pastor does to be unedifying and slanderous, or at least unedifying. In particular recently I recall hearing him mock people who make excuses — I think it was about making excuses not to tithe.
Now, that couldn’t have been very loving nor motivating and I know that such a use of sarcasm from Chris would be frowned upon.
In addition, the sermons I have listened to from Emmaus, Living Hope St Michael, and Good Shepherd Camarillo, which are pretty much the same message as the bad ones Chris reviews, are mostly law. Now, in the AFLC the seminarians are taught NEVEr to leave out the gospel once you have preached the law. And no, you don’t give law gospel to save people and then put them back under the law.
For one thing, law/guilt doesn’t work against the sin nature. It only shows us our sin. The gospel does work both to save and sanctify, for those who believe it or who are being called by God through it. But **if it is not preached, it cannot call or save anyone.**
So… re: slanderous and unedifying: Would you be offended if I say that about pastors you like with whom I disagree, since you did? I surely hope you wouldn’t be offended, and that there isn’t a double standard going on. That would be somewhat unChristian wouldn’t it?
Also, I would encourage you to take it up with Chris if you think he is being slanderous and unedifying, as well. Lovingly correct your brother Chris so that he might better serve the body of Christ. You seem to have some idea how it should be done, so do your Christian duty to sharpen your brother.
Another idea would be to listen to some of his shows where he actually reviews good sermons. Because he does that too. The difference, once you learn to see it, is pretty amazing.
Btw whose ‘mom’?
I see I mentioned Emmaus and Living Hope and Good Shepherd again, though I just noticed that Josh told me to lay off them. I say, still, firmly respectfully, no. They are a problem. I won't lay off them. [although I guess I won't be doing it on Josh's blog] But it isn't just them. They are just three in a sea of seeker sensitive churches going off down unbiblical rabbit trails and neglecting the very real needs of the Lord's flock.I tried to resend my 2nd post but it gave me a duplicate post error, so apparently it got there. I am figuring the first one might get pulled since I violated his request (which I did not read until after sending) to 'lay off' Living Hope and Emmaus etc. So I may have to repost that here too. It cements in my mind the rightness of denying his request, and the falseness of his forced cheerful attitude. If someone like me who is just a little bit abrasive can bring out this kind of pettiness in a seeker sensitive "executive pastor" what is he going to do with real challenges? This kind of thing is not a confidence builder in his Biblical leadership ability.
So Josh somehow agrees with the "Dude where's my Gospel?" article. This makes no sense and is entirely inconsistent with his approach to ministry as well as the churches he has served in. Here is what I tried to respond:
Yes, we do disagree Josh, I don't see how you can't see that your church and you are agreeing only in theory to that article, but not in practice. It is saying exactly what I am saying about the messages in the three churches mentioned above. There are innumerable others, due to the popularity of people like Rick Warren and Bill Hybels and so many zillions of spin-offs.
The three mentioned above concern me here because they are closely associated with you. And because many people in the leadership are thought of quite highly, and no one wants to think people they admire are not quite on track, or going off track. I hate it as much as anyone, and believe it would be far easier for me not to think about it or deal with it.
I'm going to submit a bit I wrote on facebook that you might have seen a few days ago.
"I honestly think that this constant insistence on turning the other cheek and walking away from a theological fight is what is WRONG with the church. The false teaching is not being rooted out in our peers' hearts, and they just keep going on and on until pretty soon they are an elder/deacon/pastor and in charge of making decisions based on that bad theology."
"Then the faithful elders who just assumed their neighbors were on track or brushed something they didn't really LIKE under the rug, wonder why their fellows are going off track. Because we as Christians didn't do our job as iron sharpening iron. It was too hard to face that rejection and ruffled feathers."
"If just facing rejection and ruffled feathers is what REAL persecution is all about, SIGN ME UP!"
"The church in America is mentally lazy and cowardly, refusing to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, as commanded in Jude, (and elsewhere) refusing to divide along Gospel lines. DIVISION IS A FACT OF LIFE and MUST come, but beware if you are dividing based on something other than the truth!"
"Cursed be any love or unity for which the Word of God must be put at stake! -- Martin Luther"
*********
In response, one lady told me a story about an elder at her church who decided The Shack would be a good book to get people to read. She mentioned to another elder that this was not good and the elder and pastor agreed, but will they do anything? No. They will allow the leaven to spread, because the first elder has lots of money and they don't want to ruffle any feathers.
I see this same thing happening in the AFLC when I write to the leadership and ask them if they plan on making any kind of statement even unofficially about seeker sensitive/purpose driven, or any of these things that are dividing church after church because of their unbiblical basis. The leadership refuses to get involved. I know, I know, we're congregational. But that doesn't mean recommendations can't be strongly made, but must be made with sound doctrinal backing, nor does it mean that opinions can't be strongly given, in writing, online, in publications. Continually being minnesota nice and avoiding confict and just letting the sheep and undershepherds wander into every new fad is not the way to preserve truth in any church or denomination. And I thought that is what the AFLC was about?
I also had asked Jason's pastor brothers Dana and Andy what the policy was on naming the names of false teachers, correcting error, etc. Apparently they let the pastors decide for themselves whether or not they want to do it. This too is unscriptural, for we Christians are COMMANDED to do it. If a pastor doesn't want to do it, he is shirking one of his main responsibilites.
Addendum suggested by Jason for clarity: While we are commanded to publicly confront error, we are not explicitly commanded to name names of false teachers although
Ro 16:17
Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them
... could certainly be understood that way. "keep your eye on" or as the KJV translates it: mark them? σκοπέω, skopeō
1) to look at, observe, contemplate
2) to mark
3) to fix one's eyes upon, direct one's attention to, any one
4) to look to, take heed to thyself
Is that naming names? How else do you mark them and warn others about them? (1 Tim 4:6)
Christ and the apostles confronted error very publicly so that everyone would know the identity of the false teachers. Paul in his letters also rebuked people by name and warned others about them. I would argue that in many cases, far more than is being done, this is necessary, because as Josh illustrates, a naive believer can agree in theory to sound doctrine and yet follow a teacher who preaches a contrary message, simply because they love and admire them. Naming the name of the false teacher brings them up short and hopefully forces them to really stop and take notice of what they are promoting. The human mind has a way of blocking out anything it does not want to hear. Naming the name of someone's personal favorite false teacher has a way of pulling back the curtain from the wizard in a way that simply preaching against false doctrine or just preaching good sound doctrine cannot do.
I thought this was good: Why name names?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vlhpnthMAE
especially the illustration about the cyanide laced aspirin bottle.
here's another good one from Andy Neckar, Editor, Christian News and Views (I see he uses the Authorized Version... let's hope he isn't KJVO but in any case, this particular article is well supported by any good version of the Scriptures.)
"Why I Expose Error And Warn Believers"
