A couple of months back I posted some stuff related to an online feud taking place between a couple of prominent pastors in the emrgent church movement. It ignited quite a furore and even led to a seminary professor questioning the benefit of blogging. Well here's the latest installment in the saga. Mark Driscoll the "offender" has offered his heartfelt "I'm sorry", but it has been painful reading some of the comments to his apology. While some have been genuinely supportive, there is still a large measure of unforgiveness that comes through which is such a poor testimony to the gospel!It's like our Dean/President Paul Zahl said:
"I observe that Christians don't even tolerate sinners, another 'other' for all their talk of forgiveness. It is a wondrous fact – an arresting fact – that when Christians fall into sin, the talk one hears literally every Sunday, in principle, of God's forgiveness and welcome to the sinner becomes a dead letter. It is as if we declare "God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" only to NOT mirror that, any time sin actually strikes close to us in a real live human being. It is an amazing reality that a sinner has about as much chance from Christians as Zontar did from the soldiers in It Conquered the World. (Zontar was burned to death, by the actor Lee Van Cleef.)" (from John Zahl's blog)
4 comments:
Is Mark related to Bill Driscoll? :-)
Yes...somewhere back there between today and Adam.
thanks for alerting me to this thing. . I find McLaren akin to Spong w/out the theology (well, maybe that's a little harsh) either way, I think driscoll's post was right on target. .
it seems that truth is the next thing to be sacrificed on the altar of Nice that constitutes the emergent church.
Great observation, Jady.
I am a little more charitable. I believe in accomodation for the sake of the gospel. As one who is part of the product of 19th & 20th c. missionary efforts to my country, how can I not be a "believer"? However, it is a very tough line to walk and it is hard to know when you've crossed over.
All the same, I fear that your equating McLaren to the infamous Jack is closer than most dare to admit.
Do you remember the last bit in Orwell's Animal Farm? It was something about how the animals werelooking in the farmhouse window at the end. And when they stared at the pigs, they found a striking resemblance to the men they dined with. A "Four legs good, two legs better" transformation.
In trying to reach postmoderns, the emergent movement has in many ways sunk to Orwellian depths, in my humble opinion. But since I haven't really walked a mile in their shoes, what do I know?
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