Au Revoir

I have long said to younger men that one mark of a leader is that he knows how to kill. A leader knows when programs need to be terminated, when a ministry is no longer effective and needs to be put to sleep, and when a person needs to be reassigned to another post. In short, he knows that most things are not meant to last forever and the maintenance of those things will ultimately bleed him, his organization, his church, or his followers of energy that would be more wisely invested in other areas.

It is therefore with a tinge of sadness that I have decided to put to sleep Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit.

If my readers will bear with me, I will close with a rambling memoir and pontification on blogs, leadership, fundamentalism, pastoring, and personal history.

In terms of blog life, Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit is ancient. I began my blog in 2002 at behest of young and single adults who assured me that there was an audience somewhere out there in the vast cyber world that would readily listen to what I had to say. The blogosphere is like an infinitely long hallway with bulletin board on its walls and anyone — anyone! — can pin up a notice anywhere on that board. Sure, millions will pass by without ever seeing the tiny piece of writing lost among the billions of sheets and pamphlets and signs. But it may catch the eye of some and they’ll stop. And stop again. And again. One could encourage one’s self with the wild notion that he could actually influence a few people if, in the Providence of God, they happened to spot one’s tiny memo as they rushed through the infinite hallway of information.

And that was encouraging to me in 2002. At the time I did not think I had many friends (having gone through a difficult conflict), nor did I really believe that there was a community for people of my stripe who viewed the world, particularly the fundamentalist world, through the lenses that I had acquired through my own life history. I truly believed I was a misfit, and I was determined to be content.

But I wanted to write. I wanted to speak out against a kind of fundamentalism that I was coming to deplore. I wanted to highlight the spiritual abuse of a system of thinking that was sapping the life out of the hundreds of fundamentalist churches that I had personally seen through my missionary travels. Before I was the age of 30 I had spoken in the chapel of nine different fundamentalist Bible colleges and seminaries, keynoted several conferences, spoken at many others and, in human terms, on a better-than-average track within the circle. I had been exposed to countless “inside” discussions and when, suddenly, I found myself banished from the fellowship and felt firsthand the effect of a sectarian manipulation of Scripture to justify so-called “biblical separation,” I suddenly had an angle on the conversation that was very different than that of the established “insiders,” and I had a platform in the conversation that was more powerful than anyone realized in 2002, the blog. Countless others who had similar experiences to mine had no way to speak out. They had to flee to other parts of the vineyard to find refuge. I could just hang out in a no-mans land and stand on my soap-box.

Thus, my blog began. I like Blaise Pascal’s Pensées, but the name choice was more shallow: I speak French and Pensées sounds so much more catchy than “Thoughts” and, like Pascal, I could just write various thoughts about anything in sundry form, pithy statements or essays. And my Pensées would primarily be used to voice thoughts about fundamentalism.

My initial criticisms were rounded and generalized, but my titles were deliberately provocative: “Dumbth” in Fundamentalism. “Musings on Music” followed. In the Fundamentalism of the day merely musing on music was provocative!

I merely posted my little memo on the bulletin board and the effect of blogging (which most fundamentalist leaders still do not grasp) happened with shocking rapidity. Unlike what leaders are still saying about bloggers and blogging, blogging does not so much change ideas at first as it conglomerates ideas first then forces change. Change is merely the result of birds of a feather flocking together. The flocking could have never happened without blogging.

The Advantages Outweighed the Liability

I made friends and enemies faster than it takes a PCC grad to sniff out heresy in the NIV. In other words: mindlessly fast. Since I already had enemies, making friends was a pleasant surprise, but I was really in no mood to have blogosphere friends, my only true friends being in the tiny church of 30 to 40 people that loved me despite my boorish passion and believed in my leadership despite the many things I still had to learn. I really didn’t want friends outside of Morning Star Baptist Church. So, in spite of the fact that my blogging would certainly garner more critics, the advantages far outweighed the liabilities. This laissez-faire, devil-may-care, cavalier attitude about what the world outside of Rockford, Illinois thought about me preserved a kick-butt authenticity which, ironically, collected even more friends over time.

Thus, when chided just this summer by one leader in the Fundamentalist Baptist Fellowship that my blogging did not make me “likable” to a number of the leaders, I responded sincerely, “I don’t want to be liked by them.” It surprises me that anyone would think that I am so dense that I had yet to realize that my blogging was not making me “likable” with certain people within the establishment of what I call denominational group-think. Furthermore, seven years ago I had come to the conclusion that with some men, particularly in the FBFI circles, to hope to be liked is to deny one’s identity by meekly nodding to their pontifications on every subject precious to the fundamentalist sub-culture as in, for example, 2 Thessalonians 3 teaches secondary separation as we practice it. Period. To question that is to question fundamentalism.

Now, I happen to buy into the concept of secondary separation and I think that 2 Thessalonians 3 is illustrative of that application, but I am decidedly opposed to an institutionalized definition of that application becoming the litmus test of authentic purity. I’m opposed to an Americanized sub-cultural manifestation of said principle in practice becoming the touchstone of biblical fundamentalism. In short, I vocalized much agreement with much of fundamentalism, but I was weary of leaders assuming I agreed with them just because I kept my mouth shut. To be likable to many in fundamentalism was to agree.

Thus, on Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit I decided to boldly disagree with the party line as well as brave disagreement in the comment section. In the past six years I have rarely taken down a comment from my opponents even though many times I was getting publicly thrashed, out-smarted, and proven to be wrong. While I make no claim to any extra dosage of humility, I think it is pitiful that certain leaders within fundamentalism harp about those “arrogant” bloggers while they insulate themselves from any kind of in-your-face push-back whatsoever. One wonders if it is not also arrogant to actually be afraid of being vulnerable to criticism.

So, making friends was never an objective. Getting friends was a huge mercy from God that I didn’t even think I wanted. I remember muttering to Jennie one day that it was frustrating to have so many friends adding, “It’s much harder to slap one’s friend in the face.”

But God is gracious to sinners like me. It is a sure sign of grace that He begins to work in us a desire to actually want the gifts He has already given us. When one wants to repent it is clear he has already been given the gift of repentance. Gradually I have come to realize that now the liability of my blog outweighs its advantages. I will blog again in the future, but it will be from a different venue, in a different setting, and rooted in a new motive.

The Blogosphere was a Battleground

I’m tired of being angry. I do believe that my soul would often burn with righteous anger, but no man is capable of sustained righteous anger without his own sinful passions eventually twisting it into a blind self-righteousness that starts to drain him of joy and peace. The blogosphere was not a sphere of joy and peace for me. It was a battleground. And I found myself having increasing difficulty managing my indignation and losing all sense of proportion.

My Church is my joy and crown

The truth of the matter is that my church has been a place that has been lavished with God’s grace and peace. Joy has been the signature of my local ministry. Success has accompanied it. From a handful of people to a solid group in the 200 mark, an ever-growing group of strong men who are called into ministry, radio outreach, and very unique opportunities of evangelism and service the blessings on this ministry continue to pour in. In seven years. In a economically depressed city where the conflict of seven years ago left me friendless among all but two independent-minded fundamental pastors and where I was told to leave (but warmly entreated by 30-40 long-suffering Christians to stay), God mercifully encompassed me with ministerial success.

He has prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies; and no enemy knows more how unworthy I am than I do. They only harp about the wrong things, but they’re right about the unworthiness.

Pajama Fundamentalist

My blogospheric relationship with fundamentalism was far more dynamic than I had imagined possible. In the early days of blogdom few people had any idea what kind of effect blogging would have. Even bloggers simply could not imagine the influence they could accrue if they were able to articulate themselves. Dan Rather was famously brought down by the so-called pajama media. I didn’t realize it, but I was part of a growing band of pajama fundamentalists.

In 2004 I published “Unanimity vs. Unity or Why Young Fundamentalists Defect” and six months later Fundamentalist Groupthink and the Inevitable Paradigm Shift, Part One. The birds of a feather effect had gelled enough that I thought I could clearly see an inevitability of change. In other words, blogging within fundamentalism, particularly with the founding of Sharperiron and the upstarts of countless blogs in 05 and 06 was revealing a consensus of thought that was unlike the groupthink of institutionalized fundamentalism.

Upon finding a consensus that was grounded more in doctrine than in institutional loyalties or cultural preference it no longer became the plight of the discontent fundamentalist to have as his single option flight. He didn’t have to jump ship. He could change the movement from within. Bloom where he was planted. Insofar as he believed the cherished doctrines of the faith, he could confidently assert his claim to be a fundamentalist without fear of being banished from the colony with a scarlet letter because the institutionalize coterie had frowned upon him for his maverick ways.

The Emerging Middle

But another movement was afoot. Conservative Evangelicals were also having their own upheaval and, as in the fundamentalist environment, their birds began to flock according to feather, finding each other via the blogosphere. One night, in typical pajama-blogger fashion, I sat indian style on the floor in my son’s bedroom and expressed in one draft what I had been contemplating on for five years: the emerging middle.. I said what I still believe two years later: “The emerging middle is, in my opinion, the most authentic representation of historic fundamentalism which, by the way, is historic evangelicalism.”

Again, I continue to surprised by the effect of the blog. It’s almost like an explosive engineer that involuntarily jumps in surprise every time he detonates an explosive. Six years is a long time in the blogosphere, but it is not long in human life especially when it is a matter of culture, belief, and ideas. Thus, I was embarrassed to be asked on several occasions if the “Emerging Middle” article could be quoted and found the phrase repeated many times in the continuing discussion on fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism by people far more significant and qualified than I.

This blog has been linked by major blogs throughout the years including Al Mohler’s, Tim Chailles, Pyromaniacs, SharperIron and several times by LaShawn Barber when her blog was in a heyday of around 4000 visitors a day. Obviously, that kind of attention spiked my audience, but I never was successful at figuring out traffic on my own blog. I didn’t care. And when I finally started to pay attention it was already past the peak of my blogging. I remember seeing a high of 600 unique visitors in one day, but the average was far less than that. I also stubbornly resisted blog-wisdom and refused to candidate myself to other blogs by asking them to link to me or put me on their blogroll. I never had a blogroll and never asked to be on one. On one occasion I recall complaining to Pyromaniacs for taking me off their roll, but they kindly put me back on the list.

Stuff that happened in 2009

A couple of events in 2009 in relations to the fundamentalist community has had influence on my change of course.

In January I responded to a chapel sermon by Matt Olson with an article entitled, Bible College Scholars and One More Reason Why They Are Losing Influence in a Fading Movement. Without naming Matt Olson — and this detail is important — I said that something he said was “cute, but stupid.” I admitted later in the comment section that I felt it was harsh for me to say it that way, and I regretted the harshness of the statement, but I still felt like the sermon was problematic, particularly that statement.

I little expected anyone from Northland, particularly Matt, to even read, much less, comment. I got hammered for pointing Matt out when my real intention was to highlight a problem that I felt was endemic in fundamentalism. Since I am still considered an “insider” by some, many were appalled at my brazenness although they find that kind of plain speech completely acceptable when talking about “them” (Neos, for example). I really did not (and do not) see myself as an insider in the movement and so I was truly surprised by the attention. (Later, I would adopt the opposite tack and specifically name a man and message, the Dan Sweatt message, in order to avoid the accusation that I was attempting to get in a cowardly dig on my opponent.)

Happily, Matt Olson got on my blog to defend himself, appealing to me as a friend. In response, I challenged him that we weren’t really friends since we didn’t know each other at all and I had no real ties to the institution anymore, but I told him if he wanted to change that he could pay us a visit. I was sincere. My own leadership team asked me straight out if I had stooped to becoming political. They liked the apolitical me. I explained that, yes, I was indeed being political; but I was being political in a sense that I believe would not compromise my integrity. I would not be disingenuous, but I would practice what someone has called the “politics of grace.”

In other words, I decided to be friendly. Granted, I might be awkward at it, but friendliness is also a practical method that many people have used quite honorably. I would give it a try. And if Matt Olson wanted to put his reputation on the line and accept our invitation that would be fine. If he declined, fine.

Matt Olson did, in fact, accept our invitation. He drove down and spent all afternoon with me and then with my staff. He spent the next Lord’s Day with us, preached, and sat on a panel with none other than two lightening rods, Bixby and Janz, and discussed many topics with utmost candor. In the end, a friendship was begun. But something else happened.

Expunging Cynicism

Several years prior to this when Frank Schaeffer’s “Crazy for God” appeared, I ordered the copy even before it was in the bookstores. I have long been fascinated by the transition of belief from generation to generation, particularly within the realm of 20th century fundamentalists. It is fascinating to me that most fundamentalist leaders, including high-ups in the FBFI, have adult children who, if they are following God, have repudiated fundamentalism as a system. That said, I wanted to read Franky’s story.

It was a brutal read. I couldn’t finish.

It’s not the sex and the anger and the misrepresentations that bothered me. I’ve read worse. It was the cynicism. Cynicism is cancerous and evil. Cynicism is the delusional conviction that mature thinking is to assume that everybody is motivated by self-interest. Cynicism shrinks the mind by impairing the soul’s capacity of magnanimity toward any who embrace a different perspective, particularly when that perspective tends to threaten or condemn the cynic’s preferred way.

The younger Schaeffer was so cynical throughout his book that he ascribed ulterior motives to everything his parents, particularly his mother, did. Sometimes the motives he ascribed to his mother didn’t even get the dignity of being evil; they were just utterly idiotic. At one point I wrote in the margin of the book that the cynicism was “over the top” and “ridiculously unbelievable.” But it bothered me because I felt like I was seeing Bob Bixby through a microscope. I’ve never been that sexually active, never that angry, never that cynical, never that manipulative, never that untrusting, never that unloving; but reading the book made me feel like I was reading myself in magnification. I too was the child of Christian servants. I too grew up in ministry. I too had seen the inside and ugly humanity of leadership in national ministries. I too had been stabbed in the back. I too witnessed distressing hypocrisy. And, I too was as inclined to scorn those that who had embraced a way of thinking that I had chafed under.

And it disturbed me. The seeds of those ugly weeds so wildly flung about Schaeffer’s book are in my flesh.

While we are supposed to be wise as serpents, we are not entitled to be cynical. While we should follow Jesus’ example of not giving himself to the people because he knew what was in the hearts of men (John 2), we are not empowered to actually know beyond a shadow of doubt what is in men’s hearts. We don’t have to give ourselves to men because we know men generally, but to ascribe motives to everything a person does that demean the man and stereotype him as a buffoon or worse is not Christian manliness. It’s not mature. It’s not respectful of other members of Christ’s Body. I abhorred it when I read it; and I started to abhor it in me.

The Last Hurrah

Then came the Dan Sweatt message.

I lost more friends in the process, but again gained more than I lost. But the losses hurt more this time.

Despite what some influential critics say, I really do think that I did my best to attack his message without attacking him personally. I also believe that somebody somewhere had to speak up. So I did. But I found that I am too vulnerable to my passions which, when aroused, cloud my independent judgement and make me listen to friends who would egg me on to say more, do more, but suddenly vanish into thin air when the fireworks start, not standing up to retort when I got criticized for saying too much, “Hey, dudes, he hasn’t said too much! In fact, I’ve been asking him to say more!”

Once again, I was the dull explosives engineer reacting in shock when the big bang happened. It is not boasting to say this — it’s just the facts —, but my blog broke the story and then it was picked up by others until finally the story had been mentioned by Pyromaniacs and John Piper. Kevin Bauder with far more eloquence and more erudition took a stand and paid a price. The price he paid, though personally exacting, was far less than the long term cost of ignoring the pajama fundamentalists would have been. Letters from senior pastors and older men began pouring in and I started realizing that the tide had finally shifted in favor of a “refreshed fundamentalism” that would no longer by intimidated by bully-pulpit tactics that ignored facts.

“Refreshed Fundamentalism”

Years ago, it was the young people that read my blog. I didn’t give my heart to them because they, for the most part, only liked me inasmuch as I gave them a voice while they moved past me to the liberties of a compromised evangelicalism. Throughout the six years of Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit I have managed to incense the so-called “young fundamentalists” nearly as often as the old guard. However, the new friends that I have made are stalwarts in both fundamentalism and evangelicalism who are quietly grateful that there is a generation of preachers who, though often pejoratively referred to as “young,” are men in their forties who have pastored ten or more years and have had success in leadership and who are no longer going to let fundamentalism be defined by a few power brokers in its major institutions and/or associations. Men in their sixties wrote me to thank me; others from conservative evangelicals wrote me to say that they were heartened to find a fundamentalism that they could embrace. I was discovering a “refreshed fundamentalism.”

It’s not a movement; it’s just a network. But it’s a growing network of fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals that love the old paths. Some of them would say to me, “Bixby, if you fight with a skunk, you’ll smell like one. Turn your focus on edifying.”

The FBFI

Because the bad message was at a regional FBFI meeting and because the FBFI was dodging any responsibility for the message in a way that they would have never granted to their evangelical brothers, I ventured to the FBFI meeting, rejoicing indeed that the quality of preaching was very high on the first full day. I said as much to Pastor Vaughn, President of the FBFI, and told him that I would say so on my blog. Hartog, Bauder, and Minnick delivered. But the atmosphere of the entire conference was marked by a panicked sense of preservationism.

No matter how one spins it, to have for your children’s program the theme, “I want to be a fundamentalist when I grow up” is pretty silly. But there is clearly a mood of desperation.

Looking around, I could see why. I felt like the 39-year-old me was among the very youngest in the crowd of 400 suits. I tried to talk to several of the men and one well-known leader was particularly difficult to talk to. He was defensive and accusatory at the same time, making up facts as he went along.

Later, I told John Vaughn that several of the men that I had spoken with that day illustrated one of the core problems I discern within the fundamentalist movement: a lack of integrity that refuses to own up to the full effect of their words. (I must say here that I had a straight-shooting friendly face-to-face with Pastor Vaughn and continue to think highly of him.) At the conference there were wild innuendos of conspiracy and compromise (particularly anyone that believed in any form of “kingdom now”) in the sessions and there was no chance of rebuttal. One man confided in me that he thought the one session in particular was stupid but if I ever repeated him he’d —and I quote him— “swear I’d never said it.”

Bloggers are more familiar with practice of owning up to their words. They post something and within minutes they get a rebuttal. These men, however, when confronted about the broad-brushing claims against Calvinists, for example, would say when confronted face to face, “Oh, you’re being sensitive. I was talking about HYPER-calvinists.” Since this was actually attempted on me, I responded, “Well, you didn’t say HYPER-calvinists. And you know as well as I do that no one was thinking of HYPERs.” They want, however, to make sweeping statements from the pulpit and then be claim to know nuanced differences when face to face with a person who objects to being so broadly categorized by their stereotype. It’s an ethic that many men will not longer endure.

Ironically, as much as they talk about reaching out to the next generation I was almost the only one who had a college-age intern along. The poor fellow stood out because he did not wear a tie and felt so obvious that he adjusted his wardrobe the next day. So much for attracting younger men.

One board member asked him to share his perspective as a college student of fundamentalism in general. Before he could summon up his answer, another pastor wryly quipped, “And please do it without expletives.” That made me laugh out loud.

We had a conversation with several board members of the FBFI and one pastor of a very important church within the movement. The college student was surprised to hear things that I have heard for many years now; the kind of talk that had fueled my cynicism. This pastor said — and I quote — “The only reason I come to the FBFI meeting is to cover my butt.” Translated: if I don’t come regularly I’ll be labeled by some of these powerful people as a non-fundamentalist, but I don’t enjoy coming here. Since he’s a cool guy with a good ministry it turns out to not be very good advertisement for the FBFI.

I have heard this kind of sentiment for years, and it only confirmed in my mind that FBFI is no place for pastors who want to lead the next generation of fundamentalists, particularly if they have embraced the reality of the emerging middle. It would be much like attempting to command the ship from the hull and most younger men have a knack for the obvious: it is not a place to lead.

The Panel Discussion on Conservative Evangelicalism

The FBFI had touted a panel discussion that would tackle the question of conservative evangelicalism, but one could be justified in thinking that it had been a false advertisement unless one is content with the fact that about ten minutes of the hour long conversation actually got on to the topic of conservative evangelicalism. It started with a very long discussion on worldliness.

Of course, as I sat there I realized that many people probably thought that the panel was on topic because the very question of worldliness in a panel on conservative evangelicals seemed to shout the assumed position: “they are worldly; we aren’t.” It seemed to have all the sectarian insulation of the comedienne Kryie Abrahams’ rendition of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view of life as depicted in her not-recommended book, “I’m Perfect. You’re Doomed.” (Another book I was inspired to read by my interest in second-generation believers, false or true.)

Early in the panel Kevin Bauder tried to direct the conversation by talking about two types of fundamentalists in the early days of the fundamentalist movement who were classified in two groups as “purge outs” and “come outs.” Bauder said that though some were “purge outs” (staying in the denominations) and others were “come outs” (separating from the denominations), they mutually shared the title of fundamentalists and, important to the discussion of the day, fellowshipped with one another. If that isn’t a picture of what I call the emerging middle, I don’t know what is, but anybody could see that was a perfect opener for a discussion on the conservative evangelicals.

Unfortunately, the moderator failed to see the obvious segue into the advertised subject and no other panelist cared to gnaw on the bone that Bauder had tossed. Of course, I’m sure that many of the men were not interested in engaging Bauder in any discussion whatsoever, he being a rather hot potato after his participation in the Dan Sweatt affair. So, early on in the panel, the conversation died only to be picked up when time was running out at the very end.

But Bauder’s allusion to the “purge outs” and the “come outs” has a very natural parallel to the developing fellowship among men in the emerging middle, whether fundamentalist or conservative evangelicals. Mark Minnick tried to share how closely related “we” (they all assumed to speak for all of fundamentalism) are to “them.” Minnick pressed the the tips of his fingers together, making an image of a mountain with his hands, and said that “we” are right near the top of the crest on the one side and “they” are on the top on the other side. The impenetrable barrier, said Minnick, was the issue of separation, thus making “us” more inclined to fellowship with those far down the slope on our side rather than with the brothers on the other side of the crest.

There was never really enough time to engage that metaphor (and I’m sure that Minnick would readily admit some of the obvious weaknesses of the analogy) or the assumption that the people at the top of the crest on the other side didn’t practice separation, or why and how the practice of separation that defined the crest was biblically ascertained. I have always maintained that most Christians are separatists and most conservative Christians practice some form of secondary separation. But Minnick was clearly calling for separation practiced “our” way.

Mark Minnick is usually very gracious so he made the point that “they” are good men and that we ought to dialogue with “them.” He failed to say that any kind of conversation we have with “them” ought to be with a tone of admonishment and was thus promptly reprimanded. He meekly accepted, but it was obvious his heart wasn’t into the other man’s assertion that our only discourse with the compromisers in conservative evangelicalism should be to rebuke or instruct. Any “new image” fundamentalist sitting in the room would have taken heart by Minnick’s charitable depiction of the conservative evangelicals and his equally weak line of reasoning that there is a fixed “crest” that divides the Body of Christ called secondary separation. Or, more accurately, our institutionalized application of said doctrine.

Apparently Mark Minnick preached a message in his home church the following Sunday night that was widely disseminated in which he seemed to attempt to bolster his affiliation with the FBFI and chide the bloggers who had spoken disrespectfully about Dan Sweatt. One might guess it was a damage control of some kind. A great number of my friends, including people who were in the room that night, felt that he was speaking directly about me when he talked about blogging. It is understandable why they may have thought thusly because there were actually only four or five bloggers who blogged extensively on the subject.

I’ve not bothered to attempt to decide since I was told that he also stated that no one could publicly respond to a preacher unless he had addressed that person privately first. Whether this is accurate or not, I do not know, but it reassures me because I cannot believe that Mark Minnick (one of my favorite Bible teachers) would not practice what he preached, nor do I believe that he would dodge the responsibility of speaking to me personally on the basis of not naming me by simply speaking about bloggers generally knowing all the while that people would be thinking of the four or five that actually blogged on the matter. Since I have not received a personal word from him, I have made little of it. But I have not dismissed it.

If, in fact, he was rebuking me indirectly, I accept it. Accepting rebuke doesn’t mean we necessarily agree with it or that it is accurate; it simply means we honor it. We see ourselves as susceptible to all kinds of error and therefore can apply the rebuke to areas unspecified in the rebuke. And since I believe true preachers of the Word of God in fundamentalism are just as much a part of the Body as true preachers of the Word of God in evangelicalism, I will not permit myself to listen to anything with sectarian ears, thereby dismissing what one part of the Body says because it is in the part of the Body I am most grieved with. In other words, whether Pastor Minnick meant his response to be a veiled rebuke to me or not, whether his opinion is right or not, is completely irrelevant. I have accepted it as a rebuke from God to me. “The spirit of prophets are subject to prophets.”

What fires me up

The blog activity that ensued after I sparked the discussion on Dan Sweatt’s diatribe as well as the subsequent visit to the Annual FBFI meeting in June of this year combined to impress on my mind that I am battle-weary. I need to move on or adopt another tack. I’m not weary of battle or controversy so much as I am of the assumption by too many people that the only thing that fires me up is something within the realm of fundamentalism, particularly what’s wrong with it.

But it is Jesus that fires me up. And though I have often been over-zealous, sometimes sinfully abrasive, and often inarticulate I have also been driven by a love for the Body of Christ that I perceive to be as One Body that cannot be artificially carved into culturally dictated categories and segregated by an impassible crest called “our application of secondary separation.” I want to be known as passionately for Christ; not passionately against some variation of fundamentalism.

I am not a part of the FBFI style of fundamentalism. I never will be. There are men there that I admire profoundly and secretly long to emulate. But those are the individuals. The collection is not something that I can helpfully be a part of. We would only continue to frustrate each other. My comments on fundamentalism mostly agitate a group I can never really become a part of anyway. It’s pointless now.

Though often weak, love has motivated me to rock the fundamentalist boat. Love for truth has emboldened me to be provocative. I know that there was indeed a holy motive, though often lost in my blustering. But there were un-Christlike flies in the ointment, I confess. Love did often make me choose to be provocative, but provocation caused me not to love.

Addiction

Provocation can be addictive. Provocation gives the immature mind a sense of power. That’s why my two year old deliberately provokes his older sister. It gives him a rush of power. In the same way I acknowledge that the blog can be dangerously provocative, wonderfully and necessarily so, but provocation can also be dangerously intoxicating. And since Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit was opened with that goal nearly seven years ago I now know that the time has come to retire the blog. It’s accomplished its purpose and in some cases it has done more than intended, both positively and negatively.

Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit has given me hundreds of new friends, and now some of the very friends who have been made to me by this tool have been such good friends to me that they have actually suggested that I begin to invest my writing and passion differently. I’m not exactly sure what that entails, but I know this: good leaders know how to kill.

So, my friends, with a deeper sense of emotion than I expected, it’s time to turn the lights out at Pensées: Musings of a Contented Misfit. This may not be the very last post, but comments and blog will be left open for an undisclosed amount of time before we officially archive the whole kit and kaboodle.

I am honored by your readership and I hope you’ll find me again in the not-too-distant future on another blog, but until then I bid the blogosphere adieu. Or, as Blaise Pascal would have said, being French,

“Au revoir.”

Church Growth Pastor Concerned about ME!

I was moved today by the fact that a pastor of a large church in NYC is very concerned for me. It gripped my soul. Here’s the letter he sent me. The fact that a busy pastor would take so much time out of his demanding schedule to write me a personal letter with a gentle rebuke for my nonchalance about church growth is deeply affecting.

Here’s his letter:

Bob,

I’m writing because I’m concerned about you.

For the last three months you’ve been hearing about my Senior Pastors Tele-Coaching Network that begins NEXT WEEK on Thursday, Aug 20. This network is all about helping you and your church go to the next level of growth and impact.

I’ve done everything I can to tell you about this network . . . I sent you a 30-minute Q & A video . . .I sent you the unedited testimonies from those who just completed the network . . . plus several other email and mailed invitations for you to apply.

. . . but I still don’t see your name on the application list!

Frankly, I find that puzzling.

Look, if you are interested in seeing your church grow and your leadership ability increase, I urge you to apply right now.

. . . stop whatever you are doing and go to this Web site, download and complete the application:

I don’t want to betray his confidence so I didn’t put the website down because he wrote the letter to me. Personally. Just me. I felt alone until now.

Everybody’s Got A Gift

I can just imagine the bumper sticker: I’m the Proud Parent of a Gifted Child: He can pick up whiffs of Python musk.

I am sometimes tempted to be envious of gifted people, but for whatever reason I detect no sinful envy in my heart for this gift. It made me chuckle. Chalk it up to my bizarre sense of humor, but here’s the full story of one of Florida’s gifted citizens.

The pertinent quote:

Hill’s skill at spotting the wily predators dazzles colleagues. During breeding season, he can pick up whiffs of python musk — distinctive, but only if you’re another python or know what you’re smelling.

“The guy has a gift,” said Hill’s boss Dan Thayer, who directs invasives control for the district.

What’s your gift?

I suppose mine is that I’m easily humored.

Graffiti on the Temple

Apparently, if my surmising is correct, Doug Wilson is getting hammered for being “fundamentalist” (gasp!) for something he or his wife said about Christians and tattoos. Seems that they don’t think Christians should wear tattoos and they are weary of the hyper-ventilating cries of “Fundamentalists!” that come accompanied with the most asinine argumentation from the pro-tattoo assembly. The argumentation is so boringly predictable it strains one’s patience to bother attempting to reason with the evangelical pigment junkies. Wilson, however, is showing how much smarter he is than body art aficionados by giving a brilliant commonsensical answer that ought to be read and applied to many other things. Read it.

To me it’s quite simple. Tattoos infringe upon private property. The Bible says my body is, well, not mine. It’s a temple and it belongs to God. I once asked a freshly tattooed friend of mine (we’ll call him Tom) who had spiritualized his body marking by claiming to do for the glory of God if I could take a can of paint and brush “Tom’s Car” with my best art on his cool car. He objected. I tried to explain that I would be doing it for “his glory” and that I would be clearly attempting to “please him” by making sure everyone who saw my art on his car realized that it actually belonged to him. It would stand out, I said. Everybody would know that the car was his. He should be grateful for my offer. It would be so individual.

Tom didn’t think so. Seems he didn’t think I had a right to do with his car what I wanted to even when my goal was to honor him. Too bad Tom didn’t apply the same simple logic to his body. His body is not his. It’s God’s.

I cannot find a chapter and verse that forbid tattoos. And I don’t think that the tattooed members of my church should feel compelled to cover theirs. What’s done is done. But I also think that it is good common sense to tell Christians to think twice about getting a tattoo on the grounds of property rights: God’s property and His rights. So I don’t really need a chapter and verse. It’s simple respect of another’s property that make me pause. It’s graffiti on the temple as far as I can tell.

I once teased my wife that I was thinking about getting “I [heart] Jennie” imprinted on my butt cheek. She tersely responded that not only does the Bible suggest that my butt cheek is not mine, but according to 1 Corinthians 7 it also belongs to her. And she doesn’t like black scrawling on pale white. So there.

We live in difficult times when common sense is derided as legalism.

Off to Camp

A couple of years ago I was hanging around my friend Peter Hubbard who is the teaching pastor at North Hills Community Church in Greenville, SC and I was impressed that despite the fact that his church had grown to a couple thousand he still drove a bus for a bunch of soccer campers and worked in the evangelism of children. He told me that he did not want to get caught up in the business of church and lose touch with the very thing that kept him energized for ministry: ministry. So he served God by working with children as much as he could. His passion for real contact ministry with children was inspirational.

I think it’s a good idea. It’s too easy to get wrapped up in the theoretical, the “deep,” and the elite part of ministry that one loses the joy of serving in the place where one gets dirty, smelly from sweat, and deaf from the sound of camp chants sung incessantly for six hours by a gazillion giddy 8 to 12 year old girls. So, I made a promise to myself to drive campers to camp every year. I love it!

Jennie and I are packing into a couple of vans with no air conditioning and a bunch of juniors and young teens to go to one of the best camps in the land, Northland Camp. Can’t wait!

It’s not hard work. My part is driving. Northland does the rest. I hope to catch up on blogging, report on the FBFI week and experiences, and read, read, read! Oh, I’ll also enjoy my wife and two-year old son too!

Don’t Forget, Americans!

One of my favorite theologians (who had his regrettable errors) had a keen eye for culture and trends long before it became trendy to talk about culture. Robert L. Dabney had this to say about religious liberty. It was prophetic in the 1800s; it’s disturbingly even more likely to be reality today.

The history of human rights is, that their intelligent assertors usually learn the true grounds of them ‘in the furnace of affliction’; that the posterity who inherit these rights hold them for a while, in pride and ignorant prescription; that after a while, when the true logic of the rights has been forgotten, and when some plausible temptation presses them to do so, the next generation discards the precious rights bodily, and goes back to the practice of the old tyranny… You may deem it a strange prophecy, but I predict that the time will come in this once free America when the battle for religious liberty will have to be fought over again, and will probably be lost, because the people are already ignorant of its true basis and conditions.

A Puritan on Prayer

One great point of our mortification lies in this: to have our wills melted into God’s. And it is a great token of spiritual growth when we are not only content but joyful to see our wills crossed that His may be done. When our wills are sacrifices of holy prayer, we many times receive choicer things than we ask expressly. It was a good saying, “God many times grants not what we would in our present prayers, that He may bestow what we would rather have, when we have the prayer more graciously answered than we petitioned.”

We know not what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit helps us out with groans that secretly hint a correction of our wills and spirits in prayer. In great anxieties and pinching troubles, nature dictates strong groans for relief. But sustaining grace and participation of divine holiness, mortification from earthy comforts, excitation of the soul to long for heaven, being gradually wearied from the wormwood breasts of their sublunary, transient and unsatisfying pleasures, and the timing of our heart for the seasons wherein God will time His deliverances — these are sweeter mercies than the immediate return of a prayer for an outward good.

What truly holy person would lose that light of God’s countenance, which he enjoyed by glimpses in a cloudy day, for a little corn and wine?

~ Samuel Lee (Puritan Pastor in the 1600’s).

Good Stuff on Music and Worship

Scott Aniol contributes one helpful article, I think, on the various perspectives of worship music in Taxonomies of Music/Worship Philosophies and a great new tool that pastors and music leaders everywhere will probably appreciate. Check out churchmusicfiles.com.

If one wants to get into an argument or a spirited debate, choose to talk about music. Wherever a person stands on the subject, he or she will find the information in Scott’s article helpful for giving an overview analysis of the current situation in the evangelical/fundamentalist scene.

Thanks, Scott, for the good work.

Going to the FBFI

Well, I’m going.

I’m going back to the village, so to speak, in that I am going to the FBFI National Conference in Schaumberg, Il. I have received numerous messages that that I missed a good opportunity to stand up early last night in an emotionally tricky challenge to the people there about their “effective witness.” Apparently, after confessing that he himself had only led only one person to the Lord in the last two years the speaker then challenged anyone who had led someone to the Lord in the last week to stand up, then the last two weeks, the last month, the last year, etc. and then bam!::: invitation for all those who feel convicted about their ineffective witnessing. Many people came forward. Go figure.

Now, forgive me for boasting, but even by the speaker’s definition of “effective witnessing” (i.e getting a decision), I could have stood in the early rounds. Call me a first or second round pick for the FBFI Effective Witness Team! In fact, I could have stood a couple times! Less than two weeks ago I spoke severely to a tough law officer on the phone, told him he needed to get on his knees, repent, call on Jesus to save, and that I spoke in love but had to go. Hung up. Found out later he immediately got on his knees and called on Jesus. I suppose that’s effective.

But I would not have stood.

I thought “effective witnessing” sometimes started riots. Effective witnessing sometimes gets people angry. Effective witnessing sometimes hardens hearts. Effective witness sometimes leads to conversion. Salvation is of the Lord.

The speaker confessed that he hadn’t led someone to the Lord in several years. By his own standards this is a sign of weakness, yet the FBFI wonders why young men want to go somewhere else. Perhaps, ironically, it’s because there is actually gospel power in other places. A gospel power of sorts that precludes the use of emotional tactics to fill the altar call. By his own standards, the young preachers ought to look to me and my kind of ministry if they want ministries with “effective witnessing.”

But I’m a Calvinist.

Southeast Valley Baptist Church Celebrates 10 Years

It’s fun to go other places to minister. Especially if one’s wife can go with him. That’s exactly what Jennie and I did this weekend. We dropped our kids off in Minneapolis, MN with my brother and family and took a flight to Phoenix, AZ where we, first of all, spend about 36 hours alone celebrating our upcoming 18th anniversary and then drove to Gilbert, AZ to join Joel and Toni Tetreau on Saturday evening. The following day Jennie and I celebrated with Southeast Valley Baptist Church their tenth anniversary. I was honored to be asked to preach the morning worship service. There was an enthused spirit and genuine thanksgiving to their Head. They also had the Heritage Quartet sing in the morning and perform a concert in the afternoon. The gray-haired tenor was in college with Jennie and me. It was a bit disturbing to know that I had gone to college with someone who now has gray hair. Oh, well…..

It’s fun to celebrate mile markers with other congregations. It reminds me that we are just a small hangnail in the glorious Body of Christ. But it’s great to be attached.

Mohler on Homeschooling

This is a pretty good endorsement from the president of a very distinguished seminary.

As president of a seminary and college, I can attest to the fact that questions about the educational aptitude of homeschooled students are now settled. These students can hold their own as compared to students from all other educational backgrounds. One other fact speaks loudly to me concerning their education. Most of the homeschooled students I meet at the college and graduate levels indicate an eager determination to homeschool their own children when that time comes.

Bible Conference @ MSBC

Every year we hear some great teachers on great subjects. We’ve heard Dr. Layton Talbert on Job, Dr. Ken Casillas on Jeremiah, Dr. Dave Burggraff on Christian Ethics. Good stuff. Mostly, we have teachers who specialize in the OT. This year is no different. Dr. Jeremy Farmer is now a missionary on his way to Cambodia, but he is an expert in the Old Testament. The theme for our conference that starts this Sunday morning is “From Creation to the Cross.” I’m looking forward to a blessing.

Since 2004, Jeremy has served on the Bible faculty of Northland International University, teaching courses in biblical languages and Old Testament. He and his family are currently on their way to minister in northeastern Cambodia by planting churches among the unreached Lao and by training national pastors. He holds a Ph.D. in Old Testament Interpretation from Bob Jones Seminary. Jeremy is married to Bonnie Ruth (Marshall), and they have four girls. He is a member of Norway Baptist Church (Norway, MI), where he leads worship, teaches Sunday School, and leads in the children’s ministry.