Really I should stay out of the blogosphere and should stop reading so much. I readily admit I'm a geek of epic proportions. I also strongly believe in what a former boss of mine called, "the marketplace of ideas." I don't have the market cornered when it comes to knowledge and wisdom, so I like to hear what others are saying and consider them. This is especially applicable when it comes to theology. I love to hear good discussions on theology, and I like to take points people make and look at them in light of scripture. Not all theological views are truly informed by scripture. Some come from people's ideas, some come from a single text without taking into account the whole counsel of the word of God, some are heavily influenced by the culture in which we live.
We live in a thoroughly post-modern society. Absolutes are eschewed as being narrow-minded (unless you're talking about the absolute of not being absolute which people seem to be okay with - you see the irony there right?). Scripture, however, does actually contain some absolutes. There are imperatives (commands) there. As I recently heard a pastor say, "You never get an imperative (command) before you get the indicative (explanation)." Basically, you can sum that up by saying, "Look at it all in context, look at it all holistically through the counsel of the Word of God." Even then, we are fallible because our sin nature permeates who we are. I can read something and I filter it through my experience, perception, and worldview. Thankfully, Jesus is way bigger than my fallibility and He can actually cut in and make sense of things I would not. I say that to note that I am not always going to get it right, Jesus loves me and will always step in at some point. Occasionally, for reasons I don't always understand, He lets me stay in that out-of-balance and not so right place for a season. Invariably, it always reminds me of how much I do not have this and how much I need Christ in control.
Okay, you have the introduction, now here is my point. Over the past few days I've been reading far too many blogs written by pastors. Many are responding to a little theological discussion call The Elephant Room 2. Some are downright nasty, completely devoid of love, and frankly are painful to read because of the venom being spewed. Some are a bit of a mushy, gushy love fest filled to the brim with syrup, sticky sweet and make you feel like you need a shower afterward. Overly mushy-sticky-sweet is also equally painful to read, in my opinion. Some, thankfully, are very balanced and raise some interesting points.
One of those points is that Mark Driscoll did not challenge TD Jakes on his preaching of the prosperity gospel. While it's handy to know that Jakes does, in fact hold to the God-in-three-persons Trinitarian view, it's not handy that he wasn't challenged on the prosperity thing. Unfortunately, due to illness, I couldn't be at the local simulcast of the event, but I did catch a YouTube video of the session, and read the published notes. I also followed the whole adventure on Twitter. What I saw and read was that while the whole Trinitarian thing was nailed down, other salient questions were completely unasked, specifically as it related to Jakes' preaching of a prosperity gospel and word of faith. I, personally, think that prosperity gospel is aberrant theology. There is a lot of information on suffering in the Bible, and God never says, "If you speak it with enough faith you eliminate suffering." He also never says, "If you speak it with enough faith it will happen." What cannot be eliminated in teaching is that God absolutely allowed suffering in His people and that He never promised prosperity on this earth. As for speaking it with enough faith - I do not have because I do not ask, and I do not have because I ask amiss. Meaning - I can ask with all manner of faith and if it's outside of God's will I'm asking amiss. The whole thing about God giving us the desires of our heart has more to do with Him changing us to be more like Him, thus changing our desires to match those of His heart. That doesn't mean He doesn't give us what we consider good things, He just gives us those good things that fit into His plan in our lives. We can't forget this meta-narrative is about Him - He's the main character, not us.
I've seen prosperity theology really harm people, from encouraging them to give up life savings to causing them to feel defeated when they try and try and still don't see the answer they "had faith" for. This isn't an exhaustive exposition on prosperity teaching - I'm not going from any scholarly look here. I'm purely taking this from what I have seen and yes, I too come to this with my own presuppositions and worldview. I have personally seen people damaged by this teaching and I strongly believe that a right view of God is critical.
Obviously, I wish that this topic had been raised during that portion of The Elephant Room 2. I also can see that there is a time and a place for such a challenge and understand that maybe this was not it. One thing I know about challenging someone is that you need to have a relationship with them - if someone doesn't know they are loved and supported then challenges are very often discarded, even when they contain truth. If this was a stepping stone to build relationship with Jakes such that at some point, in love, other things can be discussed with him then who am I to judge?
However, I really believe leaders also need to be so, so careful when they share a platform with others. Anyone in leadership is held to a high standard because we are leading. People are watching and you are taking them where you're going. God is, thankfully, so much bigger than our shortcomings, but we do still have responsibility to those we lead to be checking our heart and methods. What do our actions and words communicate?
Why do I even care about this? I care because it's really easy to get off balance. I don't think the Pharisees intended to become legalistic, judgemental jerks. I think those zillions of rules came from a heart of genuinely trying to love and serve God. Because our hearts are wicked, it's so easy to take a good thing (wanting to love and serve God) and bring bondage (let's have hundreds of rules so we make sure we're loving and serving God). King David asked God to search his heart and show him the iniquity in it. I think I need to do that for myself, and always be open for correction. I would hope that the current crop of very highly visible pastors (and those we don't see causing conversation in the Twitterverse) do the same and are just super careful. For the rest of us, I would pray that we are gracious, since theirs is also a very public stage on which to struggle.
There is no easy answer here. What I saw and read made me uneasy, both the overly critical blogs and the sappy sweet ones, and leaving an issue unaddressed during the theological pow-wow that I think is pretty important. As a believer, what do I do about that? So far, the only answer I've come up with is to pray for everyone, myself included, let God be God, and see what happens next.
** After I posted this originally, The Gospel Coalition posted the following blog. It's very helpful, in my opionion. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/02/03/carson-and-keller-on-jakes-and-the-elephant-room/ **
