The Elephant Room: Who may speak?

Usually I don’t post about things like this, but this is something that has caught my attention for a number of reasons – which I will explain in a moment.  But first a little background.

The Elephant Room?

The Elephant Room is a conference brought about in the USA by Pastor James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel.  Two of these conferences have taken place so far.  This is how the Elephant Room (hereafter ER) is described on the official website:

The Elephant Room features blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who take differing approaches to ministry.  No keynotes.  No canned messages.  These are "the conversations you never thought you’d hear."  All conversations are moderated by James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church

The page goes on to explain that both "fidelity and fruitfulness" are important – fidelity to "the biblical Gospel, right doctrine and practice" but also relationships.  Fruitfulness I believe refers to fruitful ministry – results.

Both conferences generated a lot of discussion, but ER2 was in a class of its own.

Most of the discussion has been about a conversation between Mark Driscoll and T.D. Jakes.

About T.D. Jakes

Jakes is a very well known pastor in the USA.  He was on the cover of TIME Magazine in 2001, with the caption Is this man the next Billy Graham?

But Jakes has been generating a lot of controversy long before 2001, as people have expressed concern about his "prosperity gospel" teaching and his modalist views.

This post isn’t actually about that specifically, but you need the background to understand the rest.  Modalism is a view of God that is not the orthodox historic view of the Trinity.  The idea usually is that God is not eternally co-existant as three persons, but that he manifests himself as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This is a very important distinction – but that’s a discussion for another post!

Driscoll and Jakes had their conversation at ER2, and just what Jakes said and what he meant are the eye of the storm.

What did he really say?

Some evangelical leaders basically said,"Great!  Jakes is becoming orthodox!  He has finally accepted the biblical view of the Trinity!  Let’s encourage the man for every small step he takes!"

Others said,"Wait a minute – he did nothing of the sort.  He just said what he has said for years.  And by the way – why didn’t anyone mention the fact that he’s a prosperity gospel preacher?  Shouldn’t that be part of our ‘blunt’ conversation?"

Why I started listening…

So why has this caught my attention so far?  Well, I’ve known a little about T.D. Jakes for many years.  Of course, he’s a very public figure.  So I’m interested in his views.

I’m also interested in James MacDonald.  MacDonald is a Canadian in the USA – interesting to me, since I work with some Americans and have a lot of American friends.  I also have friends that have recommended MacDonald’s ministry to me (and this is not intended as a criticism of MacDonald’s ministry).

So when the two came together, it doubly got my attention.  But then came the conversation I actually want to talk about.

Right after ER2, when there was already quite a bit of controversy, MacDonald filmed a conversation with three pastors who had been at the conference.  These happened to be African American pastors – or [insert politically correct term here] pastors.  I wouldn’t even mention that, but as you’ll see it’s important.

So MacDonald got these pastors together to comment on the conference.  On the purpose of ER2, he said "We don’t know people until we talk to them".

What followed was basically a defence of ER2 – often a defence against the criticisms.

You can watch these post-ER2 interviews online – the first one here, and the second part here.  The first part is what I’ll be mainly talking about.

Post ER2 Defence

A couple of exchanges very much concern me.  Let me first say that this is not a criticism in general of the ministry of any of these men – who were James MacDonald, Bryan Loritts, Charles Jenkins, and Eric Mason.  However, in this particular interview, I wonder if they realize how they’re coming across…

Here’s what Bryan Loritts had to say about the concerns that had been expressed about the interview with Jakes:

Some of the strongest reactions of people were African Americans in the blogosphere.  Um – and I’ll just go ahead and say it – who strike me as wanting so bad to be in the white theological world … to take a little bit of a tangent here … and I’ll get back … the loudest voices in the conservative evangelical world in my estimation right now are your older white Reformed voices.  And so that implicitly sends the message that mature Christianity in the conservative evangelical world is older white.  And you’ve got some African Americans who so idolize that – what some people would call white idolization – that they then feel as if they’ve got to be the voice for black culture to speak against people like T.D.Jakes.  So what happens is – you kind of prop them up.  When the truth of the matter is the term black is very complex.

Now we have some interesting observations here.  But here’s the problem.  I didn’t hear these men addressing the actual issues that had been brought up (issues I’m not getting into in this post – it’s long enough as it is!  But they are important issues.).

Instead, Loritts is talking about the motivations of those who are expressing concerns.

He starts with some statements.  Some of the strongest reactions were from African American bloggers.  Then he says that some of the loudest voices in one area of evangelical Christianity today are older white and reformed.  So that sends a bad message, apparently.

First, I suppose it depends on who you listen to.  Christianity is, and has been for a long time – a very global thing.  Today it’s more global than ever.

But to continue… apparently these African Americans who speak out against Jakes are doing it because they want to fit in with those older white reformed folk.

So what’s the message so far?  Please, don’t express concerns about Jakes if you are:

• older
• white
• reformed
• an African American who agrees with Mr. older-white-reformed

Is this sounding a bit strange to you?

Now another reason this conversation interested me is because I’m dealing with different cultures every day.  I work with Americans, and I live in Mexico.

Admittedly, I’m not an expert in the whole US culture (to put it mildly).  And in other parts of these videos, the men do bring up valid points.  There are cultural issues at stake here.  We can’t quickly judge someone of another culture (ie Jakes).  It takes time to really listen and understand.

But when we start silencing people because of their age – their race – their doctrinal views – and perhaps most dangerous of all, their motivations …. that’s starting down a whole new road.  And it takes us a long way from MacDonald’s stated purpose of ER2 – We don’t know people until we talk to them.

They also talked about the importance of relationship.  Naturally, I haven’t read everything – in fact I’ve read very little – that people have said and written on either side of this issue.  But what I’ve heard from the let’s not be so quick to call Jakes orthodox camp has been very respectful.  It’s been seeking to understand the man.  And in many cases it has been concern for Jakes as much as anything else.

Now on to our second exchange, between MacDonald and Eric Mason.

Mason:  This whole thing is real complex and I’ve been trying to wade through it.  Um …Especially after you and I talked and I kind of just read some of the things – I hate blogs but –
MacDonald:  Yeah
Mason:  But I read ’em…
MacDonald:  Amen
Mason:  …only when they’re necessary
MacDonald:  Right.

So now we can add someone to the list of people not to listen to – and this was kind of insinuated by Loritts – bloggers.

Those evil tinkers bloggers

That’s right – the guy sitting in his mom’s basement, sipping Coke (or maybe something bad – like a Pepsi) and taking pot-shots at people from behind the safety of a keyboard.  You gotta hate those bloggers.

I understand that blogs have their place – since anyone can blog, blog posts go from the sublime to the ridiculous.  I have a certain respect – I think healthy respect – for pastors and others in the thick of ministry, or with a great deal of experience, or those who have taken the time to carefully study an issue.

I would have thought that MacDonald was kind of joking here – but he looked like he was seriously "Amening" Mason’s statement about hating blogs  Really?  Hating blogs is now a virtue?

I just finished reminding the believers here in Ixtapaluca that we are all a part of the royal priesthood.  We are all responsible to study and share God’s Word.  We are all responsible to share Christ’s love, and stand up for the truth.

It concerns me when, instead of addressing the issues, we start talking about who can and can’t be a part of the wider conversation.

You may remember that I recently read a biography of John Bunyan (author of The Pilgrim’s Progress).  You may know that he was a pastor and a preacher, and that he spent most of the prime years of his life in prison.

You may not know that he was a tinker, someone who mended old pots and similar objects.

One of the main reasons (perhaps excuses) that he was thrown into prison was because he was preaching without a license.  In other words, he was just a tinker – and a tinker had no right to speak on spiritual matters.

I’ll bet he would have blogged if he was alive today – he wrote a lot.  They might have said, he was just a blogger – and a blogger had no right to speak on spiritual matters.

I’m all for treating people with respect – listening to what they have to say – not making snap judgements.  But when we start excluding people from speaking because of race, age, denomination, and the way they communicate – are we really practising what we preach?

Incidentally, I follow James MacDonald’s blog – that’s where I found these interviews.

Sure, there are times when people who we don’t know are spouting things off online (or off line) that it’s just better to ignore.  But it might be because of their lack of respectful language (and they don’t seem open to talking), or because we have no relationship with them (and obviously can’t answer every error online) – but surely we shouldn’t ignore them because of race or the type of software they prefer.

I hope these men did not intend to come across the way they did.  But sadly the attitude that certain people should not be allowed to speak at all is common – and won’t be going away any time soon.  I just hope that attitude isn’t becoming common in the Church.