Last week was rather eventful at the blog. I wrote a post openly criticizing David Platt for preaching that God hates sinners, and took some heat for it. Admittedly, I didn't pull any punches, and several people read that as being judgmental. While I don't think I was being judgmental, my criticism was strong. So why did I do it?
Some people commented that I should have gone directly to him with this issue, with Matthew 18 serving as a biblical model for this. There are plenty of reasons why I didn't do that, the most obvious being that this is not about sin, and I am not a part of his local faith community. However, because of his celebrity and the prevalence of social media, he is a part of my local faith community. His teaching, and the teaching of many of the most famous pastors, reaches into almost every evangelical church in the country. In fact, many Christians trust preachers like Platt or Driscoll more than the pastor in their own church!
For these reasons, I thought it was appropriate to offer my thoughts on this particular message, which had come up in a previous conversation within our community. I expressed these thoughts privately before blogging them, but since this is the second famous preacher I've heard say this stuff, I thought it worthwhile to speak out publicly against it.
One of the problems of pastoral celebrity is that these preachers often have influence within a congregation that is infinitely disproportionate to their participation, being that their participation is zero. Of course, any healthy congregation will be open to influences from the broader Church, but when one of those influencers goes awry in some way, it is the responsibility of the local pastor to offer a correction for the sake of that particular congregation. That was what I attempted to do in my posts last week.
4 comments:
Hi. Just discovered your blog, and I look forward to reading your views regularly. I totally agree with you that celebrity pastors should be called our when they publically err due to their wide reach and influence. I'm not sure I agree with you totally, though, on God's hatred. Do you believe in hell in the sense that it's a place of everlasting punishment (whether physical or metaphorical)? Sending someone to such a place would suggest that there's at least some hatred there, right?
Ok. I just read your next post, "A Response to a Response," which explains your view on the coming judgment a little better.
Seth, thanks for commenting. I'm glad you found my blog, and the post that seems to have answered your question. Sadly, I do believe in hell, but what, exactly, it is like I do not know--and hope that I never will! ;)
Jesus said the Pharisees were making disciples that were twice the sons of hell that they were. This isn't a phenomenon I've ever heard explained, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there somewhere beyond my experience thus far. I have my own theory, but I won't go into it here.
Many Pharisees studied God's word, but were far from his heart. My own experience with the disciples of the popular influencers is they often behave even worse than their pharisaical influencers. We have a pastor in the area who loves the books by Driscoll and Piper and preaches from them rather than the word of God. He is an aggressive bully, and he and his Freemasonry-addled wife have a strong marriage the way Ahab and Jezebel had a strong marriage. They bond over savaging other people, and pride themselves in their rebellious imagining that their "God" approves. I spent about a year and half in the congregation (not knowing who Driscoll and Piper were prior to that experience), and it almost cost me my life. Their time here has resulted in carnage strewn across their paths, and I intercede and count the days until God shuts them down. Now is the time when Jesus is head of the church; now is the time when Jesus removes lamps from lampstands; now is the time when God judges between sheep and removes false shepherds.
Paul writes of people wanting their ears tickled. Sometimes ravenous, beastly predators also like to have their ears scratched. Woe to the influencers who do just that.
Don't suffer a moment's guilt for your critique. Logical fallacies such as an ad hominem attack, rather than addressing the issues you raise, are a favorite of that crowd. Jesus got labeled rather than listened to as well.
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