wonderful day for a bananafish

i stumbled upon an article today online concerning the "cussing pastor" Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill in Seattle. It was dumb to say the least. It talked about how people left the service after Mark failed to cuss in one of his sermons. As if to say that the only reason a crowd was congregating was not to hear the gospel but instead to hear some vulgarities. Which is a good observation, I'll give this guy that. But he ends his blog-rant by saying that he hopes his group of readers would continue to pray against the ministry of Driscoll and his church of cussing wannabes. (dumb). Click here for article.

I just don't know that we can arrive as Christians and tell people to pray against a fellow brother and that his ministry would fail. 

Honestly i know very little about Driscoll and his ministry at Mars Hill, but I'm pretty sure that he is teaching the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Whether he cusses or has weird theology if he is teaching the Gospel let nothing hold that back. right? 

Yet in response we have Christians picketing against other Christians. Its no longer all efforts being focused towards battling the flesh and corruption and injustice and poverty and oppression, but its brothers against brothers fighting over doctrines and misquoted sermons. Liberal theology versus conservative theology. So we have a schism in the church. 

I've been talking to my good friend Max lately about a book called Velvet Elvis written by Rob Bell. He keeps telling about some of his friends and their views on this new book. They keep claiming his theology is flawed and that he doesn't believe in the virgin birth and all this stuff. The fact is they have never read Bell's new book at all and have only heard rumors of the content of the text. In fact Bell believes in the virgin birth and admits that in Velvet Elvis. Bell asks:

 

But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being "born of a virgin" also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart? I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible and much more.

All Bell is saying is that if we were to find out that the scriptures actually point to something different than what was taught to us in Baptist Sunday school would our faith come out null and void. The answer is no! By no means! So i think people just like to deem an idea heresy or foolish just because it is somewhat different than what they were taught. When what we should do is read into the idea and think about it. and wrestle with it. Then throw it out.

So all this to say that we should stop jumping on everyone and back talking our brothers, but rather listen to what they are saying and consider it. And if its nonsense toss it out.  Not saying everything Rob Bell says is absolute. It's not. He is not God. He is a man with an idea. Like all of us. A mere whisper.

I guess I've just seen a lot of this lately and heard so much that it gets at me. 

I honestly don't know where i stand on my theology. Old world? New world? Free will? Elected and Damned? I don't know! But i do know that i have sinned against the God of the universe and he came and died that i might live in a peaceful community with Him.