Tuesday, October 22, 2013

John MacArthur's Unfriendly Fire

Yup, it's a firestorm. Yup, it's getting pretty ugly.

Nope, I don't want to get too involved except to say a thing or two and leave a couple links.

First off, those who have been with me, like, forever, know that back in the day when Driscoll was ranting and raving and raping The Song of Songs mostly unchallenged, I appreciated MacArthur's voice in the wilderness, calling Driscoll on his misused and abuse of Scripture.

I still appreciate what he has done.

But now, John MacArthur is ranting and raving and shooting off his mouth and pen with his book and conference called Strange Fire attacking Charismatics.

And apparently Driscoll crashed MacArthur's party.

My biggest impulse is to back up and let the elephants trample each other while I figure out how to serve God to the best of my ability in my small corner of the world far and away from these mad men. And I think that is just what I'll do.

But first I'll link a few things here of those taking on MacArthur's unchristian, unfriendly fire.

Wenatchee the Hatchet has a lot to say about some of this stuff (this is just a link to his blog, not any one post because he has several today).

Wade Burleson does a wonderful job addressing this in his usual level headed manner.

And Wartburg Watch, as always, will keep us updated.

So, for those of you who care to pursue this, I've linked these to get you started.

Oh that God would deliver us from the curse of celebrity pastors.

(Edited November 22, 2013 to add a link from WTH concerning the Open Letter to Mark Driscoll I mentioned in the comments below.)




2 comments:

Wenatchee the Hatchet said...

One of the pitfalls of broadbrushing can be that it becomes impossible to credit people we disagree with sometimes making useful points. I think MacArthur's approach to charismatic/Pentecostal/continuationist pneumatology is basically inadequate and that because of the position he's staked out about Song of Songs he is not in an ideal place to critique Driscoll's variation of the married-love-only interpretation. But, having said that, at least he attempted to publicly correct excesses in Driscoll's approach that could be made within that overall married-love-only perspective. I.e. he tried.

Mara Reid said...

Funny, I was thinking about these guys on my way to work.
Then here is your comment.

No, I wouldn't turn to MacArthur as the expert on SoS. But as you said, he tried to reel in Driscoll a bit where others were either silent or saying, "Yeah, and Amen!"

Whereas with Driscoll, I side more with him on the cessation stuff (or whatever anyone wants to call it). But really. His publicity stunts are just that, and an embarrassment.

I liked the open letter you linked to on your blog.

There are gracious people on both sides of this.

I don't care much for what the ungracious people are doing in the name of God.