{"id":233,"date":"2009-02-20T09:21:20","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T09:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html"},"modified":"2009-02-20T09:21:20","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T09:21:20","slug":"comment-of-the-day-33","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html","title":{"rendered":"Comment of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian has a warning for Mark Driscoll<\/a> and other expanding evangelical ministries:<\/p>\n

\n

Thanks for this post. This is depressing news. I don’t mean any
\ndisrespect to these folks personally. I know they can be very kind,
\ngood people in person. So I will offer my critique in the form of their
\nteachings. I think the teachings of people like Mark Driscoll and Hank
\nHanegraaff are dangerous. They argue that there is one Truth in world
\nand they know it. According to them, their own interpretations, ideas,
\nand politics are the only right, Biblical, and godly ones. This makes
\nONE perspective into THE perspective – and that in turn makes ONE
\nperspective into THE Truth. And they often use the language of battle
\nto talk about protecting “the Truth.” <\/p>\n

Let me speak at a member of the Mainline Church. We thought we were
\ngoing to take over the world for Christ. We thought we were going to
\nspread democracy, fight poverty, convert non-believers, etc. throughout
\nthe earth. Our magazine, “The Christian Century,” even reflects this
\noverly optimistic idea that our century was going to be THE Christian
\ncentury. We were the rock stars. But then World War II shook us from
\nour Enlightenment dream. Plus, we finally began to see that it was our
\npersonal ideals and agendas we were spreading throughout the world as
\nmuch as it was Christianity. In fact, we caused much pain in our march
\nto mission. We colonized African villages. We burned people we labeled
\nas witches in America. We contributed to the Antisemitism that lead to
\nthe rationalization of the Holocaust in Germany. The list could go on
\nand on. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

My message is that we’ve been there. We’ve done that. And it caused
\na lot of damage around the world. So, I urge our Christian brothers and
\nsisters not to make that same mistake now. We live in a pluralistic
\nworld. The religious, cultural, and contextual landscape is all
\npluralistic. And no matter how good our ideas seem to us, they may not
\nbe good to impose on the whole world. The best we can do is speak
\nhumbly from our own perspective – and acknowlege our words as one
\npossible perspective among many different perspectives. <\/p>\n

It’s harder to do ministry as a humble group in a pluralistic world.
\nThis must be faced honestly. Look at our congregations. They’re
\nshrinking every year. It’s easier to be impassioned by a miltaristic
\nmessage filled with certainty. But just because something is easy
\ndoesn’t make it right. Somehow we need to find ways to do ministry that
\nacknowledges and honors diversity yet inspires passion and
\ndiscipleship. The Mainline Church and Emergent Church are both making
\ntheir way on this journey. Neither of these movements have it perfect,
\nbut they are trying. So I urge other Christians to join us in our
\nexploration of and engagement in more postmodern ways of being
\nfollowers of Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian has a warning for Mark Driscoll and other expanding evangelical ministries: Thanks for this post. This is depressing news. I don’t mean any disrespect to these folks personally. I know they can be very kind, good people in person. So I will offer my critique in the form of their teachings. I think the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-comment-of-the-day","category-emergent-church"],"yoast_head":"\nComment of the Day - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Comment of the Day - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian has a warning for Mark Driscoll and other expanding evangelical ministries: Thanks for this post. This is depressing news. I don’t mean any disrespect to these folks personally. I know they can be very kind, good people in person. So I will offer my critique in the form of their teachings. I think the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-20T09:21:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","og_description":"Brian has a warning for Mark Driscoll and other expanding evangelical ministries: Thanks for this post. This is depressing news. I don’t mean any disrespect to these folks personally. I know they can be very kind, good people in person. So I will offer my critique in the form of their teachings. I think the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-02-20T09:21:20+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html","name":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-20T09:21:20+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-20T09:21:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-33.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Comment of the Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}