Pyro and me: philosophy of strategery

by Dan Phillips

Candidly, I'm not writing this because I think it can possibly be of any great interest to anyone. It's more of a bookmark, for my own future use and reference — as in "See my explanation here." I may even give it one star myself. (On re-read, I may give it 2 or 3 for the neologisms alone.)

However Phil or Frank saw or sees their role (respectively), I have always viewed my role here as semi-pastoral, in this sense:

1. I have some Biblical essentials to communicate which I think are vitally important.
2. Many of these essentials are communicated too seldom, too unclearly, too timidly, too ineffectively, too zombily, and/or too vaguely.
3. I mean to communicate them as directly, clearly, forcefully, effectively, memorably, mark-leavingly and fruitfully as I can.

Though this will be a "duh" to long-timers, it actually does place me in a different category from many other high-traffic bloggers. You've noticed it: the writers impart some cybergold nuggets — fine men that they are. Then they wander off to do important, big-name-guy things... and allow unmoderated metas to go straight to Hades.

Which I just won't.

My aim has never been to host an open-ended PoMo discussion group, with sofas and tie-dye T's and foo-foo drinks. I view this as more akin to a Bible study, where I am responsible for leading the discussion in a specific direction — and making sure it gets there and stays there. Participation is welcomed, appreciated, and encouraged; but it is also moderated and directed. This isn't a democracy.

Would be-derailers and snipers tend to find that out quickly. Guys who sit at the back of the classroom and make sniggering, snide little derailing snipes for their own smug amusement, not only refusing to learn but doing their best to prevent others from learning, encounter reality in due time.

Remember, too, that I am not postmodern. I don't think that truth is in the eye of the beholder. If I'm making the case that the Bible is sufficient and the Canon is closed, that is what I am earnest that readers take away. I am not timidly raising a flag to see who will salute it; I am not nambipambily floating a trial-balloon with the intent of tremulously taking a poll afterwards. My goal in life is not to be lauded by as "careful" by RBP types. I am teaching, I am aiming to inform and persuade.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as all the brain trust posts, which are of a totally different nature. But seriously, think about it: I've been at this in earnest for well over thirty-nine years. That's longer than many of you have even been alive, let alone saved. Does it mean I'm right? Mercy, don't I wish! But, friend, in earnest: if I haven't come up with something to say with conviction and force in that time... I've been doing it really, really wrong.

So it's with that conviction that I write. And for most of you, that's actually why you come here. If you had wanted to see timid, dainty, precious, raised-pinkie reeds shaken by the wind, there were lots of high-traffic sites you could go to. This is not that.

(If any of this surprises anyone, donde esta frijole? — which is Spanish for "Where you been?")

Pyromaniacs (to my mind) never has been and never will be simply a clearing-house for that great howling wasteland of insanity that gibbers and prances under the loose canopy of "evangelicalism." Pyromaniac wasn't, and Pyromaniacs isn't. I see Pyromaniacs at its best as a beacon and a lighthouse, a haven and a place of instruction and direction. Not a bloggy Bedlam.

Clear enough?

Keeping it that way, with open comment threads, is actually a lot of work. And it places quite an obligation on me, given my self-assigned role. I can't just throw something out and then allow the subsequent conversation to be captivated by what I think are harmful false teachers, who throw out irresponsible and devastating distractions and delusions, beguiling and ultimately damaging the souls of my readers. I feel that responsibility very keenly.

All this has its parallel in the thought of Titus 3:8-11. As he has done many times in the epistle, Paul urges Titus to insist that sound faith must issue in God-honoring actions (v. 8). Those opposed to sound faith will want to come in with endless arguments and debates, hoping to start a discussion that will whirl about in repetitious circles for their own amusement and aggrandizement — but the net outcome of all such exercises is both unprofitable and foolish (v. 9). Therefore, Titus is to take decisive action: confront the divisive ones decisively, and then show them the door, leaving them to the miseries they've chosen for themselves (vv. 10-11).

I feel a responsibility like that for what I'm doing here, for the reasons detailed above. Of course, many who've been shown the door would argue that their perspective was vital and wonderful and needed and all. To that, my politest and (I think) inarguable response would be, "Then that's what your blog is for."

Now, add another pressure to maintaining all this. As you (should) know, this is not my paid job. It isn't what feeds, houses and clothes my family. I love this ministry dearly. I thank God for it. But my priority is God, my family, and my local church pastorate. Any of those things "trump" this ministry.

Frankly, I've found that my pastorate has had more of an impact on blogging than I anticipated. Perhaps that was naive of me, but there we are. I still aim to keep on blogging, and am in fact keeping it up, but it's being more of a challenge than I expected.

So one of the impacts of that reality is in metas. To take two extreme poles, I simply cannot spend hours and hours babysitting a meta that has turned into a ridiculous free-for-all for passing barking-loon drive-bys, OR accepting the role of chief and sole debater in a long ongoing series of barrages that would require one-man research assignments and (again) hours of ongoing participation. Just can't do it.

So that leaves me with several choices, none of them perfectly happy:

1. Stop blogging. (Won't.)
2. Close comments altogether. (Would rather not.)
3. Moderate comments and just don't allow the more de-raily, reading-comp challenged, wheel-reinventing endless-do-loop ones. (Do.)
4. Do my best to allow comments and participate, but close the meta if I am unable to meet what I believe is my responsibility as "discussion-leader," given the accountability I feel for my readers. (Also do.)

So there you go. And if you feel really cheesed off about all this, I'm sorry, but I'd just take this occasion gently to remind you, not for the first time, what your monthly fees are for this service.

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A Made Man

by Frank Turk

Well, happy new year.  Nice to see you.  I feel like it's been a whole year since I have just flat-out blogged, and I have a great list of things to blog about.  There's the question of Mark Driscoll's blog post saying he has historical proof that the gifts didn't cease, which will be a delight to unpack.  Then there's the Elephant Room, which we'll have to wait a couple of weeks for, and the counter-furor over Mark Driscoll's sex book, and if we get bored we could take a look at Rick Warren's Twitter feed for laughs.

I'm going to leap off with some lite fare -- a blog article everyone and his tweeps tweeted approvingly about last week which, in my view, wasn't the man's best work.

Now, look here: I like Russell Moore.  I enjoy his blog.  I think he's a credit to SBTS and the Southern Baptists as a breed.  I'll bet he's a wickedly-challenging professor and a clever and charming fellow in person.  I have absolutely nothing against him.

This blog post got passed around last week like the titular Rose in Matt Chandler's tale of bad evangelism, so maybe my problem is that I got to it after everyone else did and it was falling apart.  It's a text, though, and not a fragile piece of flora, so that's not very likely.  You can read it for yourself, and (since this is the internet) read the whole thing.  It won't actually hurt you.

My friend Mark/Hereiblog objected to the piece because Dr. Moore unfortunately equated Jonathan Edwards, Charles Wesley, Billy Graham, Charles Spurgeon and Mother Theresa as Christian leaders of equal stature. Meh - he's not really making that theological point in that paragraph, so I'm willing to cut him some slack on that.  He's really saying that God can do anything with anyone by grace through faith -- he literally says, "the Spirit of God can turn all that around. And seems to delight to do so."  That's good enough for me.

My problem is the actual larger point of the essay, which stems from a report Dr. Moore makes of something Carl Henry once said to him and a group of fellow seminarians.

Several of us were lamenting the miserable shape of the church, about so much doctrinal vacuity, vapid preaching, non-existent discipleship. We asked Dr. Henry if he saw any hope in the coming generation of evangelicals. 

And I will never forget his reply. 

“Why, you speak as though Christianity were genetic,” he said. “Of course, there is hope for the next generation of evangelicals. But the leaders of the next generation might not be coming from the current evangelical establishment. They are probably still pagans.” 

“Who knew that Saul of Tarsus was to be the great apostle to the Gentiles?” he asked us. “Who knew that God would raise up a C.S. Lewis, a Charles Colson? They were unbelievers who, once saved by the grace of God, were mighty warriors for the faith.”

And to make sure we don't miss the point he is trying to make here, Dr. Moore concludes thus:

Jesus will be King, and his church will flourish. And he’ll do it in the way he chooses, by exalting the humble and humbling the exalted, and by transforming cowards and thieves and murderers into the cornerstones of his New City. 

So relax. 

And, be kind to that atheist in front of you on the highway, the one who just shot you an obscene gesture. He might be the one who evangelizes your grandchildren.

Now, let's take this stuff as it comes and not in such a way to merely take a pot-shot at a reputable man and good Christian brother.  In some sense, the point he makes is one I have made often in the past: God saves people, and he doesn't just save good people.  He saves lousy people (and in my case, I can say plainly, "like me").

That is actually the Gospel hope: to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.  That's what we do, and what we hope for, and what we think has happened to us.

But, as I read it, Dr. Moore and the beloved Dr. Henry have leveraged that hope one too far.  In the best case, they have not shown us all the work, as my High School Calc teacher used to say.  Because the hope of the Gospel is not that all leaders will be, as Dr. Moore intimates in his essay, just like Paul.  In fact, I think the church is in a lot of trouble right now because we have too many people who, from their own hermeneutical crow's nests, think they are just like Paul -- except for the chains, if I can put it that way.  Some of them think they have been called by the voice of God to lead the church, and unless that's patently true it's patently the pattern for a great fall from orthodoxy.  Some think they are great defenders of the faith, forgetting how loving and pastoral Paul was before he brought out the lash for the foolish Galatians or the sassy girls possessed by a prophetic spirit.  Some others still think they are like Paul because they have written fantastic books, or planted many churches, or maybe because they have a messy eye disease.

... for example ...

My point, before we dwell on that last bit too long, is that not every leader in the church is a Paul.  They don't become leaders by divine caveat and by instantaneous transformation.  In fact, if we read the actual Paul, we find something out pretty quickly: he didn't think that there were almost any like him at all.  The ones who would come after him would be more like Titus, and Timothy, and the men they would teach and raise up as leaders in the church.

And surely: some of those were once, as they say, ones such as these -- once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.  But the way they got from point "A" to point "B" was not merely by Gospel anti-taxidermy where the dead thing has its atrophied and lifeless guts taken out and replaced with living stuff which, it seems, is also the stuff of leaders.  There's a middle step, a long step which requires the actual church, and the Gospel itself, and stuff like love, joy, peace, patience and so on, not the least of which is self-control.  And, as Paul also says, whatever it means to be one who is "not a recent convert."

So yes: Christ saves sinners, and some of those are surely going to be leaders at some point.  But when we are concerned that the church is, herself, sick, and that her leadership is a warren of ignoble furry ticks and not men with pure hearts and good consciences and a sincere faith, to simply declare that the Gospel makes criminals into spiritual paragons misses the point.  It may in fact undermine that point.

And in this new year, where what kind, how many, and for what purpose we have leaders is going to be a highlight (or low-light, as you may wish to call it) of what happens in the English-speaking church, we should consider it, and reconsider it: there's more to Christian Leadership than merely claiming that Jesus has made you a made man.

Think on it, and we'll tackle something really interesting next week.

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