C'mon. I know that a lot of jerks read Jesus Manifesto! Share some of your thoughts. ;)
Joel
· 1 year ago
I'm sure that if anyone wanted to see me behaving as a jerk, they could simply place their cursor over my avatar and read some of my past postings. I hope that I haven't been too bad though since I try to restrain myself somewhat.
Joel
· 1 year ago
I usually hold it until I finally explode, and then beat myself up for having done so. I have in the last few years however more and more learned to "Leave it lay where Jesus Flang It" and leave it all all in god's hands. So I seldom post in an argument. I am glad however to see it was you Mark that wrote all this!! A solitary friend of mine talks (though seldom) about varja anger, anger that perhaps Jesus had at seeing the temple prostituted: It is anger that arises from compassion. It is I guess the feeling one gets reading "Jane and Jesus" and knowing that there are people who are taking this sort of thing seriously. It is saddening to see so much hate and self-loathing in the Church; I can accept the hate and more easily forgive it from outside, but have a hard time with the hate that comes from those who claim to follow Christ.
How do you do it? I read your blog to learn from you! By the way, if you were offered a job in another state to continue your work but work teaching it as a church's Christian Formation Director, would you take it? At the moment, this is rhetorical.
mountainguy
· 1 year ago
Well.. yesterday I was reading a blog called somethin like "biblicism.wordpress". The guys there are theologically conservative. I even made a comment, that was answered by one of the admins. No one was angered, so there didn't happened anything. Anyway, after reviewing more entries there (I agreed with a few) I found a link to the blog of a guy called "Brandenburg". At this new blog I foun an entry when this man criticised the "liberal media" and found support for Bush because "War on terror is a dificult issue, and he gave his best". This guy also said that there wasn't any compny interested in oil drilling in Iraq... I didn't make any comment, and thanks God for that...
But well... I'm a little democratic. Last weekend I found at youtube a video of some Chmosky's thoughts about religion. You know, he is atheist, but not a "religion is the root of all evil" guy like Dawkins et al. So, I wrote a comment when I said I am a southamerican christian with some concern on social issues, and I admire Chmosky because he is not a close-minded fashionable new atheist like dawkins and the war-monger Hitchens.... I haven't gone to this page to see if someone answered me.
Well, I think I (although a pacifist) could behave like a war-monger when it is about bloging in the web. I should re-read 1 Corinthians 13 (Isn't it the chapter about love being more important than faith and hope?)
greetings to all of you
Emily Miller
· 1 year ago
And sometimes, even when you are trying not to be a jerk, it can come across as very condescending. Probably because it is.
Jonathan Brink
· 1 year ago
Mark, I just don't consider myself a defender of truth. Truth IS with or without me. Those arguments seem to be a waste of time. Now conversation of two people looking to learn from each other...sign me up.
Daniel
· 1 year ago
Mark, Stop being a jerk, seriously to say that I don't have the right to invoke the Jesus jerk attitude against those I perceive to be heretics is in it self heretical. :)
Really though, I absolutely love it when people like Driscoll or MacArthur say all these nice "Love him like a brother" or "i'm not trying to be mean and angry here" things but then proceed to say extremely hurtful things to and about people that believe different from them. Sorry guys but I'll never be a TULIP toting reformed guy but I'll never be a extreme free-will guy on the other side either. I wonder if we stopped polarizing Christianity and just, like you said Mark, affirm the creeds, where would this world be?
mountainguy
· 1 year ago
Well... it seems some of us believe in the myth of the redemptive verbal violence ;)
Bill McLellan
· 1 year ago
Oh, that one isn't a myth at all...
hewhocutsdown
· 1 year ago
I, for one, would argue that dropping Driscoll's name (Mark, Daniel) as an embodying example sort of fits in the jerk motif. I personally have found far more of value in his blog and his sermons than I have been offended by or disagree with...although there is some of that as well.
And honestly, I'd love to invite him, or others that strongly disagree on some of these issues into these conversations...as long as the 'asshole hats' stay on the rack; mine and theirs.
KBrown
· 1 year ago
Mark, I found this article to be right on. I have struggled for several months not getting into some of the nasty arguments over who's beliefs are best. Sometimes ( really always) I think we feel we have to put others in their place and "make them see the error of their ways" to redeem them. Really I think this ends up being more about winning and beating the other by our wise words and big "Christian jargon", therefore boosting our own confidence while leaving the other bruised and bloodied.
If posting to someone's thoughts gives you that "self approval I nailed it to him" feeling maybe it would be wise to not post at all. Until we can speak out of our overflow of love for others because of the amazing love we have from God, and less out of "making others" understand they got it all wrong, we might should be quiet. People are going to be more willing to follow the quiet, but profound prophetic examples versus the tongue slinging beatings of those who think expressing their opinions is done always with their mouth or keyboard.
Momma always said, "If you can't say something nice... don't say anything at all." I think that may have been a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13. To be honest this is the first time I have posted on the JM site because of this very thing. Now I will get off my fair trade soap box (wink wink) and say that I really struggle with this and it probably pisses me off like it does because everyone else gets to say the very thing that I was thinking when I read some of the posts that people write.
Nonetheless, we could all do with a little bit of filtering and a whole lot of loving unconditionally. I have been in school online for 3 years now and this is a lesson we learn real quick... email doesn't allow for body language and inflection which normally helps in the understanding of the meaning of things, this doesn't allow for that. All we have are :0 : > ; >. Hmm which one means heretic /: < (how's that)? Thanks for the thoughts and I am with you.
Jeremy Dowsett
· 1 year ago
Mark-
I think all these ideas are stupid. And your a big dumbhead. I mean that not as a personal attack, but as a loving Christian exchange of ideas.
markvans
· 1 year ago
Grrr...you're just being like Pilate, the Pharisees, and Judas all wrapped into one!
Slider
· 1 year ago
I rarely if ever get offended, so I don't care if someone is a jerk. Seems like the more jerky someone is the more fun I have. I think that's the biggest problem, people are too sensitive and easily offended, and over what? Someone challenging their viewpoint or way of life? Who really gives a rip what anyone thinks anyway? I try to keep in mind that people have differing world views depending how they were raised or what they were/are exposed to. I might think Obama is a lowlife, lying carpet bagging liberal due to the fact that I was raised in a conservative household (shameless cheap shot) , many people think otherwise--who's right? Maybe people get ugly and hateful because they are passionate about what they believe in, or then again maybe it's just pride rearing it's ugly head. Whatever the case remember that many people are just plain old fashioned idiots, consider the source and make it so you're not so easily offended.
Joel
· 1 year ago
I found and read a very enlightening essay today called "Open letter to my children Concerning GOD AND COUNTRY FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE" by Carl Mease. This essay has much to tell us about how a Christian should behave during times of conflict; whether that conflict be war or personal disagreement. It opens with the following verse...
The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2: 24-26)
It is 45 pages long but the type is large and it reads fairly quickly.
JamesMc
· 1 year ago
I have to disagree a bit with your call for the removal of the word heretic. Scripture is very clear that there will be those within the community who will preach something other than Christian doctrine (orthodoxy) such as a denial that Jesus came in the flesh (the incarnation). I think that constitutes a definition of heresy.
However, I agree with you that the term is used too frequently (and has been thrown at me a time or two in debates with a different tradition over the use of instruments in worship). I think the term heresy should be reserved for leaders within the church universal that, as Scripture presents, teach something that clearly departs from the faith once and for all handed down to the saints.
Furthermore, I think heterodoxy is just another way of saying someone, if not teaching heresy, is coming right up to that line and may or may not cross it.
markvans
· 1 year ago
I'm saying that the word heretic should not be used on blogs in response to other commenters or bloggers. I agree that people can be heretics, but it is almost never used properly. I think it is almost always better to simply spell out the errors carefully rather than tossing in the word "heretic." Especially since many in the Reformed tradition are using it for items not traditionally considered "heretic."
JamesMc
· 1 year ago
I am not sure about that. While some people may be offended by that term, others may take someone pointing out that they are affirming something that is contrary to orthodox Christian teach and study it and reflect on it and correct it so that their thinking is closer to right thinking. That is my own personal goal. There are assumptions and beliefs I inherited from this culture that made me think in ways that were inconsistent with orthodoxy and once those issues surfaced I was able to study the relevant theological sources that helped me correct that thinking. I am reading a book right now in which the author states that without the existence of heresy in the early church there would have been little need to develop theological orthodoxy. Now we have the ability to take that orthodoxy and help people see where they have strayed from it, but that is not possible if we do not use the correct terminology. However, before one can throw that term about one must understand what heresy actually is (and for that matter must know what is theologically orthodox). We would all be well served by learning a fundamental of the reformation: in the essentials unity, in the non-essentials, liberty.
dlw
· 1 year ago
I prefer the approach used in Judaism, to say that we believe someone or a group is theologically wrong.
I probably wd be categorized as a heretic under Mark's creedal def'n of Orthodoxy. I am post-creedal and wonder how one can believe the Constantinization of Christianity was an abomination and yet, in spite of that, we managed to nail down Orthodoxy once and for all via a Creed, or Rule of Faith. I do not believe we are meant to have a single universal rule of faith to define who is Orthodox and who is either Heterodox or a heretical "Destroyer of Souls".
In my understanding of Christianity, Paul in 1 Tim 1:3-5 gives us a rule of faith for determining good vs bad doctrine. If it builds up the church then its good. If it leads to endless theological haggling and divisions then it is bad. Under this understanding, I can say I am no longer an open view theist, like I was when I left Bethel after being mentored by Greg Boyd. I reject the notion that our understanding of the future is important. I have read fatalists who believe all is predestined and existentialists who believe a lot is open. I have found that it is our missiological visions that matters far more than our exact beliefs on predestination and free-will.
So I take the Middle-Brow view that God knows all possible states of the Universe and has the perfect plan for each and everyone of them and that because of this we can know that the future is secure. As for whether we will be among remnant redeemed humanity, or the elect, or among fallen humanity: what matters is that if we truly follow Jesus and commit ourselves to community with fellow believers then we shd be able to focus our attentions on the renewal of our faith and its manifestation in a variety of ministries, rather than the possibility that we could stop following Jesus and thereby "lose" our faith.
This is what I believe as dogma, in large part because there is no real benefit from haggling over it. If someone cannot rest their anxieties about the turmoil of today and the future w. Matthew 6:25-34 and need some ontotheological scheme of how God is in control then this really only becomes a problem in my mind when the O and H words get thrown around.
I believe in overcoming errant theology with self-sacrificial love, which includes dialogical apologetics that considers reflections on Christian historical experience as proper grist for dialogues, in addition to Scriptural meditations. From this Christian Communities will build up working rules of faith, drawing from the Creeds and dialoguing w. each other. If a community becomes enamored w. a wrong doctrine, like that Joseph Smith guy had something new to say then we must avoid the violent response that traditional USAmerican Christianity gave to this group, which ironically compelled them to move west and set up and dominate a new state's politics so as to establish themselves further. They may be wolves trying to leave people astray or they may be lost ones being led astray, sadly we are too much like sheep ourselves to take pot-shots at the wolves . So we must tend our own theological gardens and if that includes raising issues w. the Holy Spirit being a person then so be it. Trinitarian doctrine seems a bit in flux, as it is and so it'd not come as a surprise that we missed the boat on it and its implied isometry w. right ecclesia.
All Comments
How do you do it? I read your blog to learn from you! By the way, if you were offered a job in another state to continue your work but work teaching it as a church's Christian Formation Director, would you take it? At the moment, this is rhetorical.
But well... I'm a little democratic. Last weekend I found at youtube a video of some Chmosky's thoughts about religion. You know, he is atheist, but not a "religion is the root of all evil" guy like Dawkins et al. So, I wrote a comment when I said I am a southamerican christian with some concern on social issues, and I admire Chmosky because he is not a close-minded fashionable new atheist like dawkins and the war-monger Hitchens.... I haven't gone to this page to see if someone answered me.
Well, I think I (although a pacifist) could behave like a war-monger when it is about bloging in the web. I should re-read 1 Corinthians 13 (Isn't it the chapter about love being more important than faith and hope?)
greetings to all of you
Really though, I absolutely love it when people like Driscoll or MacArthur say all these nice "Love him like a brother" or "i'm not trying to be mean and angry here" things but then proceed to say extremely hurtful things to and about people that believe different from them.
Sorry guys but I'll never be a TULIP toting reformed guy but I'll never be a extreme free-will guy on the other side either. I wonder if we stopped polarizing Christianity and just, like you said Mark, affirm the creeds, where would this world be?
And honestly, I'd love to invite him, or others that strongly disagree on some of these issues into these conversations...as long as the 'asshole hats' stay on the rack; mine and theirs.
I found this article to be right on. I have struggled for several months not getting into some of the nasty arguments over who's beliefs are best. Sometimes ( really always) I think we feel we have to put others in their place and "make them see the error of their ways" to redeem them. Really I think this ends up being more about winning and beating the other by our wise words and big "Christian jargon", therefore boosting our own confidence while leaving the other bruised and bloodied.
If posting to someone's thoughts gives you that "self approval I nailed it to him" feeling maybe it would be wise to not post at all. Until we can speak out of our overflow of love for others because of the amazing love we have from God, and less out of "making others" understand they got it all wrong, we might should be quiet. People are going to be more willing to follow the quiet, but profound prophetic examples versus the tongue slinging beatings of those who think expressing their opinions is done always with their mouth or keyboard.
Momma always said, "If you can't say something nice... don't say anything at all." I think that may have been a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13. To be honest this is the first time I have posted on the JM site because of this very thing. Now I will get off my fair trade soap box (wink wink) and say that I really struggle with this and it probably pisses me off like it does because everyone else gets to say the very thing that I was thinking when I read some of the posts that people write.
Nonetheless, we could all do with a little bit of filtering and a whole lot of loving unconditionally. I have been in school online for 3 years now and this is a lesson we learn real quick... email doesn't allow for body language and inflection which normally helps in the understanding of the meaning of things, this doesn't allow for that. All we have are :0 : > ; >. Hmm which one means heretic /: < (how's that)? Thanks for the thoughts and I am with you.
I think all these ideas are stupid. And your a big dumbhead. I mean that not as a personal attack, but as a loving Christian exchange of ideas.
The Lord’s bond-servant must not be
quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach,
patient when wronged, with gentleness
correcting those who are in opposition, if
perhaps God may grant them repentance leading
to the knowledge of the truth and they may come
to their senses and escape from the snare of the
devil, having been held captive by him to do his
will. (2 Timothy 2: 24-26)
The rest of the essay may be read here:
http://www.polyventurepublications.com/FINAL_Le...
It is 45 pages long but the type is large and it reads fairly quickly.
However, I agree with you that the term is used too frequently (and has been thrown at me a time or two in debates with a different tradition over the use of instruments in worship). I think the term heresy should be reserved for leaders within the church universal that, as Scripture presents, teach something that clearly departs from the faith once and for all handed down to the saints.
Furthermore, I think heterodoxy is just another way of saying someone, if not teaching heresy, is coming right up to that line and may or may not cross it.
I probably wd be categorized as a heretic under Mark's creedal def'n of Orthodoxy. I am post-creedal and wonder how one can believe the Constantinization of Christianity was an abomination and yet, in spite of that, we managed to nail down Orthodoxy once and for all via a Creed, or Rule of Faith. I do not believe we are meant to have a single universal rule of faith to define who is Orthodox and who is either Heterodox or a heretical "Destroyer of Souls".
In my understanding of Christianity, Paul in 1 Tim 1:3-5 gives us a rule of faith for determining good vs bad doctrine. If it builds up the church then its good. If it leads to endless theological haggling and divisions then it is bad. Under this understanding, I can say I am no longer an open view theist, like I was when I left Bethel after being mentored by Greg Boyd. I reject the notion that our understanding of the future is important. I have read fatalists who believe all is predestined and existentialists who believe a lot is open. I have found that it is our missiological visions that matters far more than our exact beliefs on predestination and free-will.
So I take the Middle-Brow view that God knows all possible states of the Universe and has the perfect plan for each and everyone of them and that because of this we can know that the future is secure. As for whether we will be among remnant redeemed humanity, or the elect, or among fallen humanity: what matters is that if we truly follow Jesus and commit ourselves to community with fellow believers then we shd be able to focus our attentions on the renewal of our faith and its manifestation in a variety of ministries, rather than the possibility that we could stop following Jesus and thereby "lose" our faith.
This is what I believe as dogma, in large part because there is no real benefit from haggling over it. If someone cannot rest their anxieties about the turmoil of today and the future w. Matthew 6:25-34 and need some ontotheological scheme of how God is in control then this really only becomes a problem in my mind when the O and H words get thrown around.
I believe in overcoming errant theology with self-sacrificial love, which includes dialogical apologetics that considers reflections on Christian historical experience as proper grist for dialogues, in addition to Scriptural meditations. From this Christian Communities will build up working rules of faith, drawing from the Creeds and dialoguing w. each other. If a community becomes enamored w. a wrong doctrine, like that Joseph Smith guy had something new to say then we must avoid the violent response that traditional USAmerican Christianity gave to this group, which ironically compelled them to move west and set up and dominate a new state's politics so as to establish themselves further. They may be wolves trying to leave people astray or they may be lost ones being led astray, sadly we are too much like sheep ourselves to take pot-shots at the wolves .
So we must tend our own theological gardens and if that includes raising issues w. the Holy Spirit being a person then so be it. Trinitarian doctrine seems a bit in flux, as it is and so it'd not come as a surprise that we missed the boat on it and its implied isometry w. right ecclesia.
dlw