Going beyond ridicule

A few days ago I referenced Noble’s tweet about the future of the church in a way that was intended to dismiss it with a deserved bit of ridicule. To refresh your memories, here’s what he said:

WHAT IF this past 2,000 years of the church was merely the foundation to set up what God REALLY wants to do? That thought pumps me up!

The more I think about it, the more I think this warrants a more substantial response.

1. It contravenes Scripture. This was the essence of my first post. Jesus laid the foundation of the church in Matthew 16:18. All the church needed was provided by Jesus and the apostles and can be found in Scripture. There can only be one foundation for the church, and it was created two thousand years ago.
2. It contradicts special revelation. The most galling aspect of Noble’s thought is one of the words he emphasized: REALLY. Think about that idea and let it roll around in your mind. What is Noble saying? God has been hiding his real intentions from us. When we read Paul’s instructions to the church in Corinthians, for example, we can ignore that because it’s not really what God was meaning for the church. Appalling.
3. It condescends to the saints. According to Noble, the last two millennia were merely a foundation for today. Merely–another word to linger on. There’s an awful lot of amazing history dismissed by that arrogant word. Augustine. Aquinas. Luther. Calvin. Spurgeon. Graham. Persecutions. Reformation and revivals. Never mind them. There are merely mere.
4. It contains secret knowledge. This is the dangerous bit. If we believe what Noble says, and if he really believes it himself, what that means is that God has a new blueprint for the church that has been hidden until now. We will learn what it is from special leaders who receive special visions from God that they expect their followers to commit to.
5. It creates space for error. If Noble can establish that the church is about to change is form and function, he can make whatever rules and set whatever standards he likes. Because it need not be based on Scripture, it will necessarily be wrong. It will also be impossible to criticize his beliefs because it will be impossible to tie him down to the standard of Scripture. Noble is notoriously slippery when it comes to defending himself.
   

   People will question our motives and our ministry. But our goal in all of this should not be to try to explain ourselves but to simply keep our eyes on the Lord and strive to become more like Him. If we spend too much time explaining ourselves we won’t have time to actually do what it is God has commanded of us in the first place!

   If you can simply show that how you do church conforms to the established Scriptural standard, there’s no need for your defense to take very long. If the Bible compels listeners to test teachers, I think you might also say that a true Biblical teacher will be happy to show that he can pass those tests. They didn’t bother Paul. If Noble spent as much time defending his beliefs and behaviors as he does complaining about being questioned, we’d all be much better off.

   If, on the other hand, he is doing church a new way and on the basis of special personal revelation, he’d better find every excuse he can to not submit to those tests and to keep doing what his vision compels him do to.

To be clear, I am not making a case here that Noble is doing church in violation of Scripture. I am pointing out that he is clearing space for himself that makes that not only possible, but difficult for his followers to detect and impossible for his critics to correct.

Upon this rock

Noble’s Twitter:

WHAT IF this past 2,000 years of the church was merely the foundation to set up what God REALLY wants to do? That thought pumps me up!

Matthew Perry 16:18:

And I tell you that you are Perry, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

(Yes, Twit, that is an example of adding to the Bible.)

Sorry, Reformer Perry, but that ship sailed two thousand years ago.

Purposefully ashamed of the Gospel

Besides giving away the Sabbath, Rick Warren advocates that preachers abandon the Bible in church. Consider this passage from p. 297 of The Purpose Driven Church. (All of the following quotes, except the third and fifth, are from the same section in Warren’s book and are reproduced in order and without any omissions, and are only broken up with my own interjected comments.)

Select your Scripture readings with the unchurched in mind.

As I said in my Sabbath post, when Sunday is just another day, believers get abandoned.

While all Scripture is equally inspired by God, it is not all equally applicable to unbelievers.

This is a gross distortion of Scripture itself, and a good example of the general characteristics of false teaching. Warren starts the sentence by quoting from Scripture (though inserting the while and the equally), then finishes it by contradicting the very passage he seems to be quoting. The first part comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 and says

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

Why did Warren leave out the bolded section? It’s all profitable. It’s all profitable for reproof and correction. Surely that’s what the unchurched need to hear, isn’t it? How does one repent unless first reproved and corrected?

Warren continues:

Some passages are clearly more appropriate for seeker services than others. For instance, you probably won’t want to read David’s prayer in Psalm 58: “Break the teeth in their mouths, O God….Like a slug melting away as it moves along, like a stillborn child, may they not see the sun….The righteous will be glad….when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.” Save this passage for our own personal quiet time or the local pastor’s breakfast!

Can’t you hear the embarrassment? Shucks, God, why do you have to say stuff like that? It just isn’t cool to go all swords and sandals on us mellow Southern Californians.

The example he picks is actually perfect for preaching the gospel to sinners. We need to understand God’s judgment before we can fully appreciate our own sin and God’s grace. David provides the key to understanding God’s anger in the last verse of the psalm:

Then men will say, “Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth.” (Psalm 58:11)

Again, it’s instructive what parts of the Bible Warren is leaving out of his own book.

Warren again:

Certain texts require more explanation than others. With that in mind, at Saddleback we like to use passages that don’t require any previous understanding.

Isn’t that why God ordained preachers to explain the Scriptures to us? See Piper’s powerful explanation of the preacher’s job.

We also like to use passages that show the benefits of knowing Christ.

Perhaps he could start with Psalm 58. Not getting your teeth broken in by God sounds like a distinct benefit to me. There are certainly benefits to knowing Christ, but there are also costs. We are called to sacrifice all and take up our cross. It’s not the same as joining Club Med.

We have talked a lot on this blog in recent days about Warren and Noble’s new reformation, but one of the points that the original Reformers corrected was the Catholic church’s practice of hiding the Bible from the people in the pews.

What might Luther say about Warren’s papist idea?

Some things ARE impossible for Perry Noble

Especially when it comes to butt paste, even though the word impossible isn’t in his special dictionary.

I have been fascinated with … a tube of this stuff called buttpaste. NO–I am not making this up!I had this thought…maybe if pastors all across America would distribute buttpaste to their disgruntled church members–things would go a lot smoother. So pastors–buy a bunch of buttpaste and have it on hand…

For the person who claims that you must teach reformed doctrine–explain to them as you are giving them their buttpaste that they were predestined to receive it; after all, not all people can receive buttpaste. …

For the negative e-mailers and bloggers–don’t worry about giving them buttpaste–all they ever do is sit on their butt…so application would be impossible!

It’s so comforting to think that he’s giving advice to pastors on how to run a church. This is the new reformation?

Don’t take my word, take Noble’s: Reformation is coming

For the last week, I’ve been trying to convince apologetic NewSpringers that when their pastor announced last weekend that he was starting a new reformation that he actually meant he was starting a new reformation.

Someone asked me if I could read Perry Noble’s mind. I don’t need to; I just read his blog. Let’s interpret Noble’s blog announcement in light of his blog posts.

1. He is driven by the need for reformation.
   

   I Believe God Is About To Bring A Reformation To America…And He’s Going To Do It Through The Local Church!

   I believe this–I am not saying it to get some “Amen’s” from the cheap seats either.
   Take a look at what is happening in our country. I hear people say that they are concerned with NewSpring and churches like ours…they think we are not going to make it and that eventually fizzle out.

   However…it’s NOT the churches like NewSpring that are dying. (And churches in America ARE dying…an average of six per day are shutting their doors!!!) In fact, churches “like NewSpring” have doubled in the past seven years. It looks like God is up to something!

   We are seeing it! …

   That is why I do what I do. I believe in the ministry that NewSpring is doing…I am smoking what I am selling.

2. It is not founded on doctrine.
   

   It does not take “professionals” to do ministry; in fact, every revival/reformation that has ever happened took place FIRST among the peasants and “common folk” and NOT the religious elite!

3. It is new and different from the first Reformation.
   

   We have the possibility of a second reformation in front of us!

4. It will radically change the existing church.
   

   As the church grows the structure has to change. There is no perfect structure for a church…that is why Scripture doesn’t speak to structure. What works with 50 people won’t work with 150.

   Institutions are ALWAYS the last things to change! (Seminaries, denominations, etc.) Institutions are there to protect the change of the previous generation. (DANG!)

There you go. All Noble, hardly any commentary.

If you disagree with any of it, you know who to talk to.

Perceptive points on parsing Pastor Perry

Perry Noble’s reformation apologists seem to be making three different defenses.

1. He’s dumb. Don’t take him seriously.
2. You misunderstood him. He didn’t really mean it.
3. Yes, there is a reformation, and Perry’s our man.

I’m with the folk who pick option #3, but let’s deal with #2 for a minute. Has it all been a big misunderstanding? Let’s quickly review what he said:

We’re not seeing revival…I believe this is the beginning of a new reformation!!! The church has been a sleeping giant for too long!!!

When Noble said reformation, he meant reformation. Here’s how I can tell:

1. It is not simply a revival. Noble was distinguishing between two different ideas. Revivals happen fairly frequently within a church or city, or less frequently on a national level, as with the Great Awakenings. Revivals don’t seem to significantly change the beliefs or practices of the church quite as much as reformations. They also don’t seem to endure as long as reformations do. Noble is trying to tell us that the enthusiasm he’s seeing is not just a flash in the pan. This is a Very Important Thing. (Curiously, his reference to waking a sleeping church actually fits best with a revival interpretation.)
2. It is something new. He is not wanting to get back to the foundation laid by the original Reformers (Luther, Calvin, etc). This is the beginning of a church epoch that has never been seen before. This is the part that, like I’ve said a few times, makes us nervous.
3. He said it was a reformation. I am certain that he knows what that means. He just returned from a convention where he was rubbing shoulders with the bigwigs of the movement, of which he is himself an important leader. The reports from their meetings suggested that they were all convinced that they were leading a Very Important Thing. When one of their leaders says it’s a reformation, I don’t know why we’d doubt him.

Two reformers, two visions of humility

Reformer one:

Since I am a man and not God, I cannot provide my writings with any other defense than that which my Lord Jesus Christ provided for His teaching. When He had been interrogated concerning His teaching before Annas and had received a buffet from a servant, He said: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil.” If the Lord Himself, who knew that He could not err, did not refuse to listen to witness against His teaching, even from a worthless slave, how much more ought I, scum that I am, capable of naught but error, to seek and to wait for any who may wish to bear witness against my teaching.

Reformer two:

Humility is being willing to let those who hate you say whatever they want…and not coming down off the wall to try to defend what you are doing because you are confident the Lord has spoken to you.

Four Pajama Axioms

If you have been following the discussion in the various Reformation posts, you, as I, may have been surprised at the conclusions that NewSpring’s representatives have arrived at. We have had one contributor argue that there’s no important difference between the Protestant and Roman Catholic church, so history’s verdict is that the Reformation was pretty much a waste of time. Another complained that Luther’s 95 Theses and the great documents of the Reformation were old and dated. As I survey the comment thread as I write, the arguments have not yet been refuted by another NewSpring member or leader, so we are left to assume that their NS colleagues don’t see a problem with the arguments or don’t think they’re important enough to clarify or denounce.

In case no-one comes along and does that, let’s set down a few Pajama Axioms.

1. Numbers are meaningless unless they are linked to an underlying truth. NewSpring supporters commonly point to the number of people responding to altarcalls or attending on a Sunday as proof that the church is a Good Thing. Numbers can count some aspect of an item, but they can’t always measure its value. Let’s consider some recent examples.
   • In 2001 Barry Bonds put hit 73 home runs, yet that number masked the likelihood that it was drug enhanced.
   • Through the late 1990s, dot com businesses made millions of dollars on the stock market, until it became apparent that the actual businesses weren’t really businesses.
   • For last decade or more, American housing prices have been increasing, proving that the housing market was strong, until it became obvious that those prices masked a great deal of bad debt.

   Numbers aren’t an entirely useless argument, but when they are used on their own, you may just be hiding a big fat zero.

2. God’s mercy is not a sign of his approval. On a few occasions, NewSpring’s boosters have claimed that if God wanted NewSpring to fail, the church wouldn’t be there. Because it is there, he must want it to succeed. The lack of a lightening bolt from the heavens is taken as proof positive that everything the church is doing must be of God. It is an argument for an ethical system based on fatalism, and goes something like,
   1. God has the power to wipe out evil things.
   2. Some thing exists.
   3. Therefore, the thing must be good.

   It assumes that God only stays his hand for the righteous, and immediately and publicly punishes the wicked. How many times did David wish that were true? If God always acts in history as a noisy morality cop, how do you account for the longevity of the Holocaust, tyrants, abortion, and Billy Mays?

3. The persistence of error does not diminish its threat. One commentator on the Reformation threads supposed that the endurance of the Roman Catholic church after the Reformation meant that it wasn’t obvious which side was correct, but that we’d find out when we meet God after we die.
   

   Almost 500 years of debate has not defeated either side. It seems that if one was so much more right than the other–someone would have won by now.

   Just as God doesn’t wipe out evil as soon as it appears, he also doesn’t immediately eliminate error. Peter’s warning against false teachers in 2 Peter 2:1-3 puts the threat into a future perfect tense: there will be false teachers among you. The  early church was warned about encroaching heresies, and Peter’s warning reaches down to us today. Until Christ’s return, sin and error will be with us. Even–and especially–error in the church. This is the great danger of stripping away the creeds and turning your back on the Reformers; these were moments in the history of the church when sober men guided by the Holy Spirit stood up to persistent error. If we ignore their teaching now, we’ll likely slip into the heresies they once fought against. Are we so much smarter than all the saints who have come before us?

4. The age of truth does not diminish its power. One of the most disappointing arguments in the last 24 hours came from a NewSpring insider who reasoned that we could ignore the creeds and Reformers because they were old and out of date.
   

   I’m thinking those creeds were written by a man, and for a certain time period since Luther were wanting to invoke the church leadership to go deeper, could it be possible that they could be alittle out of date? Obviously, he didn’t intend for them to be the basis of a reformation so does that make some of these reformation documents old and out dated?

   This, folks, is what we feared. This is why we don’t trust you when you talk about reformations. What truths no longer apply today? What sections of the Apostle’s Creed, the 95 Theses, or the Westminster Confession are worn out? God is the source of truth, and he does not change. If these majestic documents describe God accurately, their power and authority endure.

We retort. You decide.

Oh dear, I shouldn’t have questioned Perry Noble’s reformation announcement. Commentators to those posts have told us that Noble is a simple man, so what he says shouldn’t be taken seriously. Then we were told, no, there really is a reformation, but how dare we criticize it. We should all come together and acknowledge that there’s no warrant to criticize anything Noble does or says because he’s doing God’s work.

If you’re going to ask for unity, though, you should stop advertising yourself as a reformer.

The 1517 Reformation split the church asunder and had theological and political effects that shook Europe to the core and continue to shape the world to this day. It was literally a war. (Has anyone heard of Northern Ireland?) When Martin Luther pushed his cause, he mobilized a powerful enemy that sought to take his life. The Reformation was all about defining differences and taking sides.

This is why–I don’t know how to say this any more plainly–Noble is foolish to talk of reformation (though he’s only following in Rick Warren’s footsteps). If the word is to mean anything at all in a church context, it means condemning the fundamental beliefs of the established church.

For the record, I don’t think Noble is using the word carelessly; I think he believes in his bones that this is a reformation on the scale of 1517. That accounts for his all-too-common public vitriol against the church.

We need to know exactly what Noble is condemning; we need to know what he stands for. Where are his 95 Theses? Where are his Institutes?

You can have unity, or you can have reformation. You can’t have both.

Reformers vs. Deformers

In his typically nuanced way, Perry Noble announced to the world this weekend that he has started the second Reformation. Besides its self confidence and boldness, the claim seems just a little ignorant of history. As I asked a few days ago, is this really a reformation or a deformation?

Given the stated goals of Noble and his friends, I’m inclined to believe it’s the latter. Rather than building up the church, Noble has wanted to strip it down and make it into something else.

We wanted to start a church that was stripped of religious traditions and merely preach Jesus Christ.

Dismantling something is easy. I can take my car’s engine apart. I can even be passionate about it and have a great vision about the speedster I’ll finish with, but if I dismantle too much, it will stop working. If I don’t know what I’m doing when I try to repair it, I’ll probably end up with a mess.

If you start to dismantle something, it takes remarkable effort to re-form it so that it’s better than when you started. It’s more likely that you will end up de-forming the original work.

The combination of wanting to dismantle the historical evangelical church, and a general ignorance of church history and doctrine does not give one high hopes for the outcome of Noble’s reformation. Here’s why some of these leaders may turn out to be Deformers rather than Reformers.

1. The Reformers were ready to be corrected. The Deformers don’t want to know what you think. Although Luther is famous for the stand he made at Worms (Here I stand, etc), his defense was tempered with an invitation to his accusers to correct him from Scripture. At the height of his persuasive powers, Luther demonstrated a humble willingness to change his position. Said Luther,
   

   Since I am a man and not God, I cannot provide my writings with any other defense than that which my Lord Jesus Christ provided for His teaching. When He had been interrogated concerning His teaching before Annas and had received a buffet from a servant, He said: “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil.” If the Lord Himself, who knew that He could not err, did not refuse to listen to witness against His teaching, even from a worthless slave, how much more ought I, scum that I am, capable of naught but error, to seek and to wait for any who may wish to bear witness against my teaching.

   Modern leaders routinely brag about how they don’t listen to criticism and go to great lengths to set up institutional filters to protect them from anyone with substantive disagreements. Even people with minor disagreements find themselves unwelcome. Noble has this quote from Rick Warren on his desk:

   Ignore ‘them’ and get on with whatever God has told you to do!

2. The Reformers wanted to strip man-made revelation from the church. The Deformers depend on it. Luther fought against man-made tradition. The modern church is adding man-made “vision” to demand obedience from followers. As Noble has said, the leader’s vision is what people are to believe in.
   

   People DO BELIEVE in the vision God has placed IN you.

3. The Reformers began preaching the whole Bible. The Deformers began preaching the whole TV Guide. The Reformers emphasized a return to verse-by-verse preaching. If all the Bible is inspired by God and profitable, none of it should be ignored. Their return to the whole Bible was in contrast to the Catholic Church’s careful use of only selected portions of Scripture for preaching. Visit any number of modern churches and you’ll find sermon series titled after television series or other pop culture references: America’s Idol, Girls Gone Wild, Mythbusters, Bringing Sexy Back, etc. What do these series suggest about what these churches use as a primary text? Entertainment Tonight or the Bible?
4. The Reformers constructed careful creeds. The Deformers’ only creed is deeds. The Reformation started with Luther’s carefully constructed 95 statements of belief. The need for pure doctrine motivated a flurry of creeds that we still find useful today, including Augsburg, Heidelberg and Westminster. The Roman church responded with its own at Trent. Modern leaders think they know better and want to replace the old-fashioned creeds with a passion for passion. Creeds have historically been created as firewalls against error. Rick Warren thinks they’re unimportant. Noble can’t be bothered and dismissed them as idols.
   

   It reminds me NOT to get caught up in church politics and/or debates over theological issues that have caused controversy for hundreds of years.

   Thinking you can do without them is foolish and dangerous.

5. The Reformers were learned men. The Deformers are self-described ignoramuses. Luther was a college professor, a lawyer  and a theologian. His 95 Theses were originally intended as an invitation to an academic debate. He challenged the leaders of his church to “go deeper,” if you will. Perry Noble regularly inveighs against seminary, often referring to it as cemetery. These leaders don’t want to know, and shame anyone as selfish who wants to know more. Noble, who shepherds 15,000 souls, boasted of his ignorance.
   

   I did just about everything you could do in a church and in all of that God was preparing me to one day lead a church in which I could understand the people that worked with me rather than spout out theology and ideas and methodology in which I knew nothing about.

   That sounds exactly like what a Luther or a Calvin might have said.

How can he be sure it’s not a deformation?

This kind of talk makes us non-NewSpringers very nervous.

We’re not seeing revival…I believe this is the beginning of a new reformation!!! The church has been a sleeping giant for too long!!!

Perhaps Noble would explain exactly what he’s reforming. Without a clear explanation, some of us suspect it may just be a deformation.