Briefly: pondering James MacDonald's latest outburst

by Dan Phillips

If you haven't seen James MacDonald's latest alternatively chest-thumping/threnodic tantrum/lament, I suppose you should look at it. MacDonald has a history of thumping his chest and bellowing, then kindasorta apologizing, so who knows what's next — besides an ongoing example of Axiom #2? We do know that, despite the title, it wasn't a serious letter of resignation... prompting this trenchant observation from our beloved Trogdor:

@tjchantry @bibchr Would've been nice if he actually resigned when he disqualified himself
— Machel (@trogdor42) April 30, 2013

MacDonald only first came on my radar screen during the multiple-reputation-ruining Elephant Room fiascoes. Given that he had been a TGC leader, there must have been a time when he had earned a good name. Hadn't he? Or is it just that he had a really big church?

Either way, watching this sad saga has brought me an I-wonder. Memories of my first solo pastoral ministry largely feature regrets. I dreamt about it for years afterwards; I still do on occasion, nearly 30 years later.

There were blessings, there were trials and misfires and mistakes. It did not at all go or end as I would have wished.

But as I see the passive-aggressive, mercurial, petulant tone MacDonald so often strikes, I wonder: is that where I would have gone, if my ministry had been a "success"? Looking back, I see so much immaturity, pride, so many "issues" in myself.  (And don't think it escapes me to wonder what I would think of me-now, should I still be around thirty years from now.)

I longed to see the ministry become "fruitful" in ways it never did. But could I have sustained the burden of popularity? Would I have just made massive shipwreck?

Do you ever wonder that? I speak to you who work hard, positioned well under the radar of the Starmakers and the conference-organizers and the Glitz Factory, those ignored by The Club's lofty doorkeepers? Do you wonder, "Yeah, but look at Furtick, look at Driscoll... look at MacDonald. This is what happens when fame and prominence happen to the unprepared. How would I look if my immaturities and inadequacies were suddenly projected on a 150-foot screen?"

Spurgeon is well-termed a "freak of grace." He could shoot up in prominence while still a teen, and keep his focus on Christ, the Cross, the Gospel. Few of us, I daresay, could have sustained such fame while so young, without buckling badly.

As you ponder, if you do, here are a few related texts — and I'm sure you can add more:

I Tim. 3:6
Psalm 75:6-7
Dan. 4:30
Dan. 5:20
James 4:7-10
1 Peter 5:6

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"Horrible! Horrible! Horrible!" — the offense of the Gospel

by Dan Phillips

Almost seventy of the folks who read the Kindle edition of my little green book highlighted this passage:

We must deal with the fact: The Gospel is offensive to human pride. If what we preach as “Gospel” is not offensive, we’re doing it wrong. An inoffensive Gospel is a false Gospel, a damning Gospel—because the only Gospel that saves is the Gospel that offends (1 Cor. 1:18, 21, 23; 2:2; Gal. 1:10; 5:11; 6:12, 14).

A terrific illustration of that offense comes from the late John Stott's really fine book on preaching, titled Between Two Worlds. Stott says

The fact is that the authentic gospel of the New Testament remains extremely offensive to human pride, and nobody who preaches it faithfully can expect to escape at least some degree of opposition. Paul found in his day that the message of Christ crucified was both folly to Greek intellectuals and a stumbling block to self-righteous Jews. Nobody can reach God by his own wisdom or by his own morality. Only at the cross can God be known. And this is doubly offensive to men and women of culture. They resent the exclusiveness of the Christian claim, and even more the humiliation implicit in it. Christ from  his cross seems to say to us, "I am here because of you. If it were not for your sin and pride, I would not be here. And if you could have saved yourself, I would not be here either." The Christian pilgrimage begins with bowed head and bent knee; there is no other way into the kingdom of God except by the exaltation of those who have humbled themselves. 

I have often thanked God that he taught me this truth very early in my Christian experience, partly through glimpses into the pride of my own heart and partly through a glimpse into somebody else's. It was when I was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. Only recently I had come to Christ myself, and now — clumsily, I am sure — I was trying to share the good news with a fellow student. I was endeavoring to explain the great doctrine of justification by grace alone, that salvation was Christ's free gift, and that we could neither buy it nor even contribute to its purchase, for Christ had obtained it for us and was now offering it to us gratis. Suddenly  to my intense astonishment, my friend shouted three times at the top of his voice, "Horrible! Horrible! Horrible!" Such is the arrogance of the human heart that it finds the good news not glorious (which it is) but horrible (which it is not).

Amen.

Postscript: I heartily recommend Stott's book, but I do have a bitter gripe. It's one of those ridiculous cases where, in a book rich with quotations, the publisher (Eerdmans!) has inexplicably removed the documentation from the quotation, in the execrable form of chapter endnotes.

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I CAN'T VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY! (5 of 6)

by Frank Turk

3. I can't vote for the RNC because of the way they treated Ron Paul delegates.

-AND-

4. I can't vote for Romney because there's no difference between DNC and RNC.

There are serious objections, and then there are statements like this one.  Let's compare and contrast:

DNC: God and Israel were booed from the floor, and abortion was enshrined as a secular sacrament.

RNC: Not one single delegate for Ron Paul was prohibited from voting for their candidate, but they were also not given the run of the place as they were a small minority of the delegates.

Casting a vote which ensures the DNC will win this election seems to me to be allowing something which seems to be bigger than the internal bylaws of the RNC.

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