Judge the competent: tolerate error: fail.

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Our society is crazy. We judge harshly those inside the church — most recently Mark Driscoll for his publisher’s promotion of him as a ‘Best Seller’, or Hillsong for influencing politicians or Ratzinger for being Ratzinger. If you make a small mistake you will be hounded.

And we all err. That is the nature of this life. At the same time we are encouraged to tolerate those who live continually in error and sin. We are told to judge harshly those who are competent, fruitful, successful — and laud the failures.

On the Driscoll situation, I’m completely bored. I have taken part in enough book bombs to know that the best seller lists are manipulated by people all ordering on Amazon on the same day. I am more worried about Hillsong, where teacing is being seen as them is going liberal. Heck, the source I am using here (Google news) linked to a gay paper, and happy they are.

Hillsong church senior pastor Brian Houson’s message was broadcast to his churches on 18 August and had been recorded only a few weeks earlier at Hillsong London.

‘The one elephant in the room for churches around the world at the moment is the gay situation,’ Houston says in the message.

‘What would Jesus do? You need to pray for church pastors and leaders around the world because whichever way you turn the [gay issue] is there. You can turn one way and you can tell there would be a great scandal amongst the Christian Church.

‘You can turn another way and you would just cut off so many people. There’s lots of hatred out there but in the middle of it all you know there are three things: the world of the times we live in; the weight we live with; and the word we live by.’

Houston said that Christians had to live with the fact that societies were choosing to embrace things that were outside church teaching when it came to same-sex relationships.

‘The world has changed quickly,’ Houston said.

‘The world has changed and so I’m not saying that the church ever should be ruled by the way of the world but the reality is we are in a world which is changing fast. Here in Great Britain the laws have passed. … We’ve got the world we live in to consider.

Houston said that Christians also had to consider the consequences of how they treated gays and lesbians.

‘We’ve got the weight we live with,’ Houston said.

‘You say what’s that? Well it’s the weight when a young person growing up in a church feels like they are confused in their sexuality. They feel like “maybe I’m gay” and they go to a youth leader and they are rejected.

‘At that moment a great hatred comes in. At that moment some of them have gone so far with the rejection and gone to parents who didn’t understand and ended up committing suicide – That’s the weight we live with.’

Houston also recognized that there were now a variety of views on the morality of homosexuality within the Christian church.

‘There’s the world we live in. There’s the weight we live with and there’s the word we live by,’ Houston said.

I understand where Houston is coming from, but he needs a bit of Driscoll. The truth is that most of us have sinned sexually: if we have not fornicated or adulterated we sure as anything have lusted after that cute cheerleader. We are fallen.

But within the church we have to confront our sin and the sin of those around us. There are only two conditions for leadership: holy celibacy — where you put your sexuality on an altar and live without desire for people but for God. Those who have this calling should be greatly honoured. The second is as a husband of a family where your wife and children are well ruled, within the faith, and your ability to rule has thus been tested.

But we need to also say that our behaviour on these issues is wrong. We need to say this, we need to teach this. Our compassion for sinners should remain, but letting someone remain in mortal sin is not being merciful.

I continue to think that within the church the bigger issue is not gay members of the congregation but the toleration of divorce for any reason — and I am saying that as someone who has one of those tickets.

Besides, the issues of theft, extortion, and injustice remain. We do not merely sin with our genitals.

1 Corinthians 5:9-6:11

9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons – 10not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? 13God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you.”

1When any of you has a grievance against another, do you dare to take it to court before the unrighteous, instead of taking it before the saints? 2Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? 3Do you not know that we are to judge angels – to say nothing of ordinary matters? 4If you have ordinary cases, then, do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the church? 5I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer and another, 6but a believer goes to court against a believer – and before unbelievers at that?

7In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8But you yourselves wrong and defraud – and believers at that.

9Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, 10thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Mark 4:1-20

1Again he began to teach beside the sea. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the sea and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3“Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. 6And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. 7Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” 9And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

10When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. 11And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand; so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.'”

13And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables? 14The sower sows the word. 15These are the ones on the path where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them. 16And these are the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, they immediately receive it with joy. 17But they have no root, and endure only for a while; then, when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18And others are those sown among the thorns: these are the ones who hear the word, 19but the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things come in and choke the word, and it yields nothing. 20And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.”

The aim of the radical movements of the left, (wimmenz, gheyz, blackz, whyte powerz…) is to snatch the gospel away and replace it with a metaphor of oppression (blame straights, mens and whitey) and continual defeat, keeping the person who is of colour, with same sex attraction or a chick nicely in a liberal vote plantation and a member of the protest mob that, like a greek chorus, bleats mindlessly what the leaders say. I call that slavery, and that should be opposed.

For in Christ we need to control our desires. [And yes, that includes sex, and includes sex for straight men. If you do not control your desire and let your wish for a good bonk with that cute GF of yours take over you are then enslaved to her whim and cannot hold frame. You need to lead, and you need to call manipulation — despite our society being built on such manipulation]

And the consequences of a lack of leadership show within society.


Then a week later came departure and again the standard Aspen airport experience
. Bear in mind this is the wealthiest city in America, its economy based on tourism with an airport about the size of Rotorua’s, which is quite adequate assuming New Zealand efficiency.

On arrival several hundred people were cramming the building and spilling on to the street. Some had been there four hours. Why? They didn’t have anyone to unload arriving flights, let alone load departing ones. As their loudspeaker system, like everything else, wasn’t working, periodically a massively obese young woman would shove her way through the throngs, shrieking announcements about the delays.

After four hours we boarded and waited for an hour while they tried to find the flight crew. Eventually they did but another hour elapsed while we waited for the ambling oaf they’d mustered up to load the passengers’ bags. I asked the despairingly apologetic air hostess how often she sat on the ground because they couldn’t find the crew. Several times each week she assured me.

In Los Angeles we had our eighth passport check and finally reached the refuge of Air New Zealand’s lounge. But it was staffed by American girls who took my issued boarding passes because they said, they’d “like to reissue them for their records”. And so they did, with us all in the same seat. It’s typical.

I spoke to an Auckland businessman who frequently travels throughout America selling a specialist computer service. Avoid United, he told me, this being America’s largest airline. But, he added, what we suffer each year he experiences everywhere there on a different plane. He visits numerous factories and without exception, he said, they’re light years behind in their technology.

I could outline similar stories about the hotel’s mismanagement and, indeed, with almost every aspect of a casual visitor’s experience of monumental cock-ups. As is ritual, once back home I stormed into our Colorado girl’s office and gave her a bollocking. “Why do you think I live here?” she bleated defensively.

I first went to the Soviet Union in the 1960s and thereafter was drawn back regularly through fascination at its horrors. But it was never as inept as modern America. My first US visit was more than 40 years ago. Then it was the height of efficiency. But over the past decade it has all gone wrong. I can only speculate why. As elsewhere, President Obama has been going on about the wealth gap. America is a great country but a tough place to be if on the bottom, with mediocre wages leading to widespread incompetence, which I suspect is the source of their problems.

If we do have a sense of discernment and judgment, we will call the small errors while missing the big ones. Driscoll made a small error, which, to his credit, he is correcting. Houston is making a moderate sized error, by thinking that the 800 lb gorilla in the church is the gay issue: it is not, they are a 10 lb lemur for only one to two percent of the congregation are gay. The 800 lb gorilla is frivolous divorce or frivorce: Divorce should be legal, rare and a source of mourning, for it damages not merely the souls of the poor couple going through the secular purgatory known as the family court, but their children and their friends.

For if we lack discernment, the church stops being of the Kingdom of God and becomes merely another part of the secular republic — and the rot becomes obvious to everyone.

11 thoughts on “Judge the competent: tolerate error: fail.

  1. I like Driscoll ’cause he’ll call a spade a spade – including for those of us who were raised in the church. Slapping me in the face and telling me that fear is a sin was a great service, and I’ll thank him for it some day.

    1. Physically slapping you in the face is not his role. Confronting your sin is: for that the word suffices.
      Driscoll generally does more good than ill.

      1. Well he’s never met me, so I was speaking metaphorically. 🙂 Hey, I grew up Baptist, I like a good Bible thumping sermon.

      2. The Bible should be thumped a little more often. There is a method here:

        “Brothers and Sisters, we don’t need to like this word. It sounds to our ears like hate speech. How dare Paul damn the immoral? How dare he say that they will not inherit the kingdom? Why does he say we should shun those in the church who practise immorality?

        This is not what our society says. It is not what we have said: We have said that God loves us and that we are sons and daughters of the king and we should take pride in our status and we should damn those who confrontl us. We have been accomodating. We have tried to be friendly to those who remain in sin: we have lightened out teaching and called our services seeker friendly

        But this passage states, plainly, that we have been wrong”.

        Your pastor may have something to say about all this, of course: I’m lay — he has the burden.

      3. My pastor has the tricky job of dealing with a lot of broken people and introducing them to Christ. I don’t live in a high-rent district, and my church heals the broken as it can. /grins impishly You can always watch him, I’ve got it linked on HHH.

        It is – seriously – a weird church. Biblical – hard core Biblical – on one side, and stylistically mellow on the other. You start working with people where they are.

        Some days I miss the rules of my youth, but then I see that the church of my youth is dead and my current church is alive for Christ and so busy doing His work it’s not even funny. So I guess I can’t start swatting hats off of heads in service. 😉

        If I could drag everyone to my church, just once or twice to feel the Spirit move… dang. I so would.

  2. “becomes merely another part of the secular republic — and the rot becomes obvious to everyone”

    The rot is already obvious to everyone. Why do you think so many millennials are leaving? It isn’t because millennials want to sin without consequence (the most common accusation). Its because (as many studies have already revealed) of the hypocrisy. Lack of honest leadership. Sermons that blatantly go against the scripture, and cause confusion (I think I’ve had more Christians who’ve encouraged me to sin, than non-Christians…)

    …The sad thing is, it often feels like, well, there’s not much one can do about the issue. I mean, not many Christians like when you call out their hypocrisy, or when tell them they are professing false doctrine. Whenever I tried to confront people who profess false doctrine (for example, saying early marriage is sinful) nicely, I would be given the whole “he without sin throw the first stone” speech and condemned as a mean judgmental byoch.

    Concerning gays in the church – it often feels like they’re used as a scapegoat, when other, more pressing issues are brought up. Prominent cheated on his wife with his wife? Hey, look over there, there’s a gay Christian! Its not different from the Politicians who bring up the gay marriage debate, to distract voters from political corruption.

    1. The problem is that if you say that to the women in power now you are damning them because they waiated and played the carousel and then married a provider — because that worked in the 1980s and early 1990s. But my generation of men were the providers who got married, got frivorced… and our sons are just not going to commit in case they get done like their Dad or Uncle did.

      Nothing wrong with early marriage. You, a certain one of your nemeses (V or Alte), Elspeth… all married young. And I do not need to repeat what Pat (David Collard) and I think of you marrying as a virgin… which should be common, but is not.

      To your generation — living functionally and happily is the best revenge. Let my generation go to their graves either repentant and penitent or miserable and alone.

  3. Concerning Driscoll’s bestseller controversy: don’t publishers do that with all of their books? I mean, its not like Driscoll ordered his publisher to make his book #1.

    I think its hilarious, that people think Mark Driscoll has that some-sort of evil power over the publishing industry. “I command you to make my books bestsellers, muwhahaha!”

    If we’re gonna accuse anyone of having that sort-of corrupt power, I think the most obvious choice is Playboy Playmate (and former Hugh Hefner girlfriend) Kendra Wilkinson. There’s not way she legitimately wrote two books that reached the New York Times bestseller list.

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