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I
can recall hearing, as a first year seminarian, one of my professors
criticize Pastor Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life. Upon
hearing this critical assessment, I was deeply angered. I thought that
his actions were severely inappropriate and that it was not proper to
disparage another fellow Christian who was simply attempting to promote
the Christian faith. From my reasoning, the presence of a Christian
voice was better than the absence of a Christian voice and it was
certainly better than a voice speaking contrary to Christian truths.
Even though my professor took the time to show me the countless errors
in Warren’s book, I still concluded that a faulty Christian voice was
better than no Christian voice at all. Besides, I felt that is was rude,
insincere, and un-ecumenical to criticize those within the Christian
sphere; we are all on the same team after all trying to do our best for
God.The problem with my rationalization was that I believed that a Christian voice with small and subtle doctrinal errors was more advantageous and less of a concern than a voice that was obviously unchristian or a message that lacked a Christian message altogether. To me, subtle and small errors were less of a concern than obvious and blatant errors. I said to myself, “Why sweat the small stuff; why fuss over small errors that might upset the unity of a Christian community? Why quibble over every pixel of God’s excellent picture?”
It was not until several years later that my faulty view was finally exposed and reversed. I can remember it so vividly. I had graduated from seminary and had taken several church youth to a conference. At the conference, the speaker gave a lesson while he baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies. In his presentation he had several youth add flour, vanilla, chocolate, and eggs into a mixing bowl. Right before they were going to mix the ingredients together, the speaker subtly announced that he was going to add a teaspoon of drain cleaning Liquid Drano to the ingredients in the bowl. He said it quietly, did it quickly, and kept talking. Surprisingly, several of the youth sitting in the pews really did not even catch it. At the end of his session, ...Read the Rest at Steadfast Lutherans
