Popped on X after a month away (glorious!) long enough to catch wind of a dustup involving Alistair Begg, followed by reaction and then reaction to the reaction.

It captures what I think defines modern evangelicalism and why I'm glad to be out of that subculture: ANXIETY. A Christian leader gave a churchgoer pastoral advice on a complex ethical issue, and because of mass media - books, radio, conferences - other self-identified leaders with no embodied connection to this leader over there feel a compulsion to respond.

This John Stackhouse story is driving me batty.

- Theologian who wrote "Finally Feminist" is longstanding champion of women in the church

- Regent College investigates Stackhouse in 2014 but signs an NDA, so problem moves elsewhere. (Thanks, Regent?) New employer finds Stackhouse engaged in "gender-based comments, sexist remarks, comments about a person’s looks, dress and appearance," also 100 pages of emails with a student that even he admitted was "inappropriate" and "unhealthy" christianitytoday.com/news/2023/nove…

It's not the most important detail in the story of Matt Chandler's return to public ministry, but it's an especially annoying one:

Here is a thread about why pastoral discipline is not akin to an athlete getting knee surgery. nytimes.com/2022/12/04/us/… (“Your knee is good,” Mr. Patterson [a TVC pastor] told Chandler, to another round of sustained applause. “Run.”)

Knee surgery is a therapeutic solution to an amoral issue. Athletes don't get knee surgery because they cheated in the game. Their body is hurt and needs to heal.

In response to Matt Chandler's IG post that he is eager to return to the Village Church soon, many commenters replied that they were eager to have him back, and that they have never attended the church, but listen to his sermons from afar. (thread) I'm struck by the distance here:
"I’ve admired, respected, and followed you from afar for awhile"
"Can’t wait to have you back. I listen to you every Monday morning"
"Although I have never stepped foot into a service at the Village...I have listened to multiple sermons by you"

Now that we're talking about Dave Ramsey 🙃, I want to share something from the chapter in "Celebrities for Jesus" on abuses of power:

We tend to forget that anger and malice are disqualifying behaviors for Christian leaders. The New Testament says Christians are to put away hostility, enmity, "fits of anger," dissension, wrath, and malice. Church leaders are not to be quarrelsome but gentle.

Evangelicals have a pretty good ethical framework for sex and money. Anger, not so much.

the male urge to get just enough seminary training to accrue the smugness needed to tell women they will die lonely and sad if they don't start having babies we've seen the tweets and appropriately dunked on them. I'm simply noting there's a type: a young christian man who sees fertility as something about which he is perfectly qualified to advise literal strangers on the internet

I haven't tweeted recently about the ongoing sexual abuses crisis and allegations of spiritual abuse at @The_ACNA's Upper Midwest Diocese, but I have read with appreciation and also, now, horror at some of the dynamics described on the Bishop's Council acnatoo.org/acna-witnesses… The source, Helen Keuning, a former BC member who resigned last month, is IMO highly credible: nuanced, charitable of reading others' motives, without an "axe to grind" over theological differences. She has done a very good and brave thing in writing this.

Starting the Hillsong documentary, thoughts, prayers, healing vibes, and shots appreciated at this time I kind of forget that Hillsong started with deep Pentecostal roots, so it always had the flavor of spectacle: you come to have something dramatic happen to you or see something dramatic. Signs and wonders overlaps with church as entertainment mentality.