“I have no idea where I’m going, but please follow me anyway.”
Riiiight.
It is one thing to confess your weakness and doubt, and follow it up with advice on how you deal with said weakness and doubt. (For example, a sermon on Psalms 42-43, or a treatment like the opening passages in Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God, where he analyzes doubts as always based on an implicit counter-belief which itself needs to be held up for scrutiny.)
It is another more ridiculous thing to proclaim that you’re clueless and still ask people to follow you. I’m tempted to say there’s more this-worldly “integrity” in someone who admits, “I now believe X to be true instead of Christianity, and here’s why you should believe X, too.” At least that person has something to say.
Unfortunately the spirit of the age thinks that perpetual tentativeness is cool. In the spirit of the age, questions are no longer aimed at answers, but at forestalling answers.
In typical CT fashion the pastor’s quoted totally missed the point. Anyone who read the posts by Joshua Harris and Marty Sampson knew they were not reading something posted by a Christian leader struggling with the day to day realities of ministering the gospel. They were reading a pronouncement that these men were never believers. That is what shocked so many!
In light of that it is scary what these ministry leaders wrote, acting as if Joshua and Marty are just asking questions… yeah, that’s it. I got a sense of the blind leading the blind when I read the responses. It is sad. Truly.
Second, there is a place for a leader to hurt and perhaps doubt. That is not the issue. What Marty and Joshua wrote was not symptomatic of hurt or doubt, it was wholesale apostasy.
So, leaders, if you have doubts and concerns, please share them, even in a vulnerable way if you can and feel safe, but if you have doubts on the level of Joshua and Marty, do your flock and us all a favor and leave the ministry until you can get the issue resolved.
Discussion
New"I have no idea where I'm going, but please follow me anyway."
“I have no idea where I’m going, but please follow me anyway.”
Riiiight.
It is one thing to confess your weakness and doubt, and follow it up with advice on how you deal with said weakness and doubt. (For example, a sermon on Psalms 42-43, or a treatment like the opening passages in Timothy Keller’s The Reason for God, where he analyzes doubts as always based on an implicit counter-belief which itself needs to be held up for scrutiny.)
It is another more ridiculous thing to proclaim that you’re clueless and still ask people to follow you. I’m tempted to say there’s more this-worldly “integrity” in someone who admits, “I now believe X to be true instead of Christianity, and here’s why you should believe X, too.” At least that person has something to say.
Unfortunately the spirit of the age thinks that perpetual tentativeness is cool. In the spirit of the age, questions are no longer aimed at answers, but at forestalling answers.
Michael Osborne
Philadelphia, PA
NewEver Learning
“Ever learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.”
G. N. Barkman
NewCT Article
In typical CT fashion the pastor’s quoted totally missed the point. Anyone who read the posts by Joshua Harris and Marty Sampson knew they were not reading something posted by a Christian leader struggling with the day to day realities of ministering the gospel. They were reading a pronouncement that these men were never believers. That is what shocked so many!
In light of that it is scary what these ministry leaders wrote, acting as if Joshua and Marty are just asking questions… yeah, that’s it. I got a sense of the blind leading the blind when I read the responses. It is sad. Truly.
Second, there is a place for a leader to hurt and perhaps doubt. That is not the issue. What Marty and Joshua wrote was not symptomatic of hurt or doubt, it was wholesale apostasy.
So, leaders, if you have doubts and concerns, please share them, even in a vulnerable way if you can and feel safe, but if you have doubts on the level of Joshua and Marty, do your flock and us all a favor and leave the ministry until you can get the issue resolved.