"You're steering toward the other ditch, which is the ditch of community over truth, or unity before orthodoxy."
Some more from the letter…
I am not saying you’re a heretic, or a coddler of heretics. I’m not saying you have ditched the confessional clubhouse. What I am saying is this: I think you have advocated that “method” is only a pragmatic choice and has not much theology to govern it, so it is a matter of pastoral freedom. So for example, we should embrace without a lot of questions the methodologies of Saddleback, Willow Creek, and Mars Hill as all equally-acceptable. Because they “work” and they seem to draw a lot of people, I have seen you point to these as say, “We reformed types could learn a lot from Bill Hybels.”
Well, when Bill Hybels decides that it’s his job to teach the Bible rather than teach people to be “self-feeders” (cf. the book of Titus), I’ll ask someone to open up the floor for him to start teaching reformed people about Christianity rather than business process. There’s no doubt us reformed people and our chilly churches need at least a spoon full of spiritual fructose, but it should be from the fruit of the spirit and not the bleached processed sweetener that comes in a generic, humanistic label you can find both at WAL*MART and at the Mormon church.
Well, when Bill Hybels decides that it’s his job to teach the Bible rather than teach people to be “self-feeders” (cf. the book of Titus), I’ll ask someone to open up the floor for him to start teaching reformed people about Christianity rather than business process. There’s no doubt us reformed people and our chilly churches need at least a spoon full of spiritual fructose, but it should be from the fruit of the spirit and not the bleached processed sweetener that comes in a generic, humanistic label you can find both at WAL*MART and at the Mormon church.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
Discussion