On December 28, 2015 the President of the SBC, Ronnie Floyd, spoke at a conference put on by IHOP. Now for those who aren’t in the know IHOP is not just a place you buy pancakes. There is also a para-church ministry out of Kansas City called International House of Prayer. While their statement of faith seems to put them within the bounds of orthodoxy there are enough question marks upon the ministry to cause some to consider them a cult.
In Floyd’s message on Monday evening he did mention that there are differences between he and the leaders of IHOP. He acknowledged that his being there is not an endorsement of them or their theology. But some of the language he used could open up the door to partnership with IHOP. While pointing to these differences between SBC theology and those of IHOP, Floyd said, “my being here is a clear indication that these are times when people must come together and pray”.
Personally, I don’t believe it is wise for Dr. Floyd to speak at IHOP. Such theology has a way of leeching on in SBC churches and I’ve witnessed irresponsible charismatics wreak havoc on local churches. But I’m not one to de facto dismiss someone because he has spoken at such a conference. Matt Chandler has done this in the past and used it as an opportunity to proclaim the biblical gospel—and I think has been a means of rescuing some out of error.
I was interested, then, to see what the internets had to say about Floyd’s speaking at IHOP. I knew what a certain segment of discernment bloggers would be saying; namely, that this is just further evidence of a Downgrade in the SBC and larger evangelicalism. I was hoping also to find a reasonable defense of why Floyd spoke at IHOP. Or something. Anything. But what I found was silence.
And I’d like to speak to that silence today.
First, something for the discernment bloggers. Early on in my blogging days I had much affinity with this type of ministry. Much of what Aaron Armstrong says here, could be said of me. I won’t pretend to understand what is going on in your heart but I know what was happening in mine in those early days. I remember my train of thought and how it’s a system which feeds itself.
It all starts with your discovery of a massive problem within the church. Something has happened and it has gotten your cackles up and nobody else seems to be speaking to this—or at least not enough. You are confident that this thing isn’t biblical and that it grieves the heart of God.
Now, you love people and want to see them walk in the truth. In order to raise awareness of the issue you use words which—let’s be honest—might be a bit bigger than the situation calls for. You use the word heresy when the word error might be a little better fashioned. You speak in absolutes on matters which are a bit more gray, but that’s to be forgiven because people must wake up to this grievous error. In our culture of outrage and ever-changing stories on social media, you won’t get their attention by saying, “Hey this one guy might be slightly in error on this pretty important issue”. You know that if people are going to be grabbed you have to say, “Big Name Celebrity Preacher Denies the Christ Who Purchased Him”.
You post your article. Some people listen (usually those who have their own discernment blog). But many people ignore. You don’t get a letter or a call from big name celebrity or even his secretary. Those who could be saying something aren’t. You know they’ve heard you. (Just as here). You’ve only got one thing left to assume—they aren’t responding because they aren’t seeing what you do. Or worse yet they are part of this conspiracy—or part of the downgrade, if you will. They aren’t going to listen because it is becoming apparent that they play for the enemies team.
So, you talk louder. And this time you talk to the audience you’ve gained since your last article. You start feeding the outrage machine. You use the same language you did in the beginning because you don’t want to be seen as having a soft stance on heresy. You build yourself quite a following of heresy trackers but through it all you never quite seem to get the attention of the ones who really need to be hearing this message.
And do you want to know why? Do you want to know why they aren’t listening to you?
It’s probably not because of some vast conspiracy. It’s because of what C.S. Lewis said.
“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
You’ve wasted your big words and you’ve made yourself easy to dismiss. And that is a huge shame, because..
Secondly, discernment blogs ARE needed. It is really easy to get swallowed up by the evangelical machine and to become an echo chamber. There really are not so good things happening behind closed doors. There really are cases of spiritual abuse happening in churches. There really are false teachers out there and wolves in sheep’s clothing. While, I believe 99% of this needs to take place in a local congregation we live in a world where such a thing isn’t feasible. When our people can get the deluded and plausible arguments of television preachers on a nightly basis, it is nice to know that there are also articles being spread which will point out some of these false teachers.
But because of the mismanagement and sinful way so many discernment blogs are carried out, when something actually does happen we hear absolutely nothing from echo chamber. And they can get away with it because the only people talking about the issue are the ones who call good and godly people heretics on a daily basis. They’ve made themselves so easily dismissible that a response is not necessary or even expected.
So here is a call for reasonable discernment blogging. Call things what they actually are. If you reach 5 people instead of 5,000 at least you’ll have done it honestly and you won’t make yourself easily dismissible. Truth will win the day. It doesn’t need you and I to doctor it up with aggressive and bigger than necessary words.
—
Photo source: here (Sorry couldn’t resist the urge to make a pancake joke)
