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| Photo from Sxc.hu by Katherine Evans |
"For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." 2 Timothy 4:3 NIVThere is very important truth in this verse. There is also the temptation to wrap this verse around yourself and declare everything that you teach as "sound doctrine" and anyone who listens to anything else as having "itching ears."
Hello, so-called "discernment blogs" running discernment "ministries." (If I could cram more scare quotes into that sentence I would.) If you want a critical, but fair look at exactly what discernment blogs or watchblogs are, this is a good read. I'm aiming for that here, but I'm afraid at times my inner Hulk comes out, but instead of smashing things I get sarcastic and snide.
In short, these are blogs that have proclaimed themselves "Keeper of All Things Christian." They are the theological TMZ, seeing their job as scouring through sermons, blog posts, interviews, websites, dumpsters behind the homes of prominent Christian leaders to find some area where they can pounce.
They claim that the vast majority of Christians today have these "itching ears" clamoring for some softened, secular version of the Gospel. Maybe they are right. But itching ears like to hear more than just one thing.
Some itching ears want to hear how great they are, but others want to hear how much worse others are. Neither are the Gospel.
If the vast majority of Christians fall into the first category of wanting to hear how wonderful they are, the vast majority of discernment blogs fall into the second category of wanting to hear how much worse everyone else is.
One thing should be clear, sometimes they are right to criticize the person or ministry. There are numerous Christian leaders who live and speak contrary to the Gospel. Sometimes people need to be called out, but not all the time. Not as your primary means of "Christian ministry."
There is a word for those who take joy in continually beating up the church: wife-beater. The church is the bride of Christ. Right now, is her dress a little tattered and looking somewhat worse for wear? Probably, but that hasn't stopped her Groom from loving her. So why is it stopping these bloggers? Maybe, they think they are the ones who are part of the ceremony.
Every Christians needs to be called out sometimes. I know I do. But would I be more apt to listen to a friend that both encourages and corrects me or a random guy on the internet that just spends all day yelling about how awful I am? If it's me, I'm going to take the advice of those who I know love me and want to see me grow. I'm not listening to someone who will complain about me for a day and then move on to the next "heretic" tomorrow.
"We aren't doing it for the celebrity, heretical Christians," they'll say. "We are doing it for those who may be following the celebrity Christian down the wrong path." OK, the same response still applies. Would I be more willing to trust the opinion of one who finds time to both praise what is good and criticize what is bad or the one who only sees bad in everything? Cried "Wolf!" much, discernment blogs?
When I started thinking about and writing this post, these blogs were conversing and linking among themselves on one topic.1 By the time I was finishing it up, a week later, they had moved on to another life or death of the Christian faith topic.
It is a never-ending cycle of outrageous claims and self-righteous writing, all under the guise of "discerning what is truth." Funny, how they never challenge themselves, their own views, or each other. Odd, how they've seemingly never grown. Apparently, they've got it all figured out and everyone else deserves a good verbal beating.
Somehow that sounds so familiar ... where have I read about legalist religious leaders parading around telling others how important they are, demanding everyone follow rules they can't even keep themselves, forcing their specific, narrow interpretation on others, while casting everyone who disagrees as being in league with the devil? Hmmm.
1I became tangentially involved in the first topic du jour. In their rush to attack a church with whom they disagreed, one of the discernment blogs screencapped a Facebook conversation between a staff member of the church in question and a friend of mine. They never asked her permission to post this picture of her Facebook conversation, which included her name and profile picture of her kids. It was posted throughout the circle of discernment blogs before I saw them, told her about it and helped her to find contact information for the blogs. I suggested she could ask them to at least covering up her name and photo. Some responded to her request to take down the photo. Others did only after being threatened with legal action, while still maintaining that they had every right to post the Facebook screen capture. The question had less to do with "right" in a legal sense and "right" in a moral sense. They seemingly were unconcerned about the latter.
Every Christians needs to be called out sometimes. I know I do. But would I be more apt to listen to a friend that both encourages and corrects me or a random guy on the internet that just spends all day yelling about how awful I am? If it's me, I'm going to take the advice of those who I know love me and want to see me grow. I'm not listening to someone who will complain about me for a day and then move on to the next "heretic" tomorrow.
"We aren't doing it for the celebrity, heretical Christians," they'll say. "We are doing it for those who may be following the celebrity Christian down the wrong path." OK, the same response still applies. Would I be more willing to trust the opinion of one who finds time to both praise what is good and criticize what is bad or the one who only sees bad in everything? Cried "Wolf!" much, discernment blogs?
When I started thinking about and writing this post, these blogs were conversing and linking among themselves on one topic.1 By the time I was finishing it up, a week later, they had moved on to another life or death of the Christian faith topic.
It is a never-ending cycle of outrageous claims and self-righteous writing, all under the guise of "discerning what is truth." Funny, how they never challenge themselves, their own views, or each other. Odd, how they've seemingly never grown. Apparently, they've got it all figured out and everyone else deserves a good verbal beating.
Somehow that sounds so familiar ... where have I read about legalist religious leaders parading around telling others how important they are, demanding everyone follow rules they can't even keep themselves, forcing their specific, narrow interpretation on others, while casting everyone who disagrees as being in league with the devil? Hmmm.
1I became tangentially involved in the first topic du jour. In their rush to attack a church with whom they disagreed, one of the discernment blogs screencapped a Facebook conversation between a staff member of the church in question and a friend of mine. They never asked her permission to post this picture of her Facebook conversation, which included her name and profile picture of her kids. It was posted throughout the circle of discernment blogs before I saw them, told her about it and helped her to find contact information for the blogs. I suggested she could ask them to at least covering up her name and photo. Some responded to her request to take down the photo. Others did only after being threatened with legal action, while still maintaining that they had every right to post the Facebook screen capture. The question had less to do with "right" in a legal sense and "right" in a moral sense. They seemingly were unconcerned about the latter.
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