I was having a conversation with one of my students this afternoon when I mentioned to him that sometimes even pastor's struggle with a desire for recognition within ministry. I mentioned for example how I have often wondered what it would be like to have the influence that Rob Bell has in society, upon hearing Rob Bell's name the student responded, "Oh, I can't stand that guy. I really don't like his theology." It wasn't the first time that I had heard a response like that at the mention of Rob Bell's name, but it made me think of a couple of things.
First, I find it interesting that people choose to dislike someone based on whether or not they agree with an individual's theology. Since when are our relationships with each other based on whether or not we agree with each other's theology. Seems like theology should be one of the lesser criteria on our list being that most of theology is purely speculation anyway. There are certain things that we will never have definitive answers to when it comes to God, yet we base our opinions of others on whether or not we agree on those speculations? Weird...
My train of thought then proceeded to how I am guilty of the same behavior due to my opinions of Mark Driscoll. I disagree with his conservative stance on many issues and his Calvinist theology, thus I have made comments about not liking him. Following that train I remembered how there has been a fairly public feud, fed from the Driscoll side, between Driscoll and Rob Bell. Ultimately this thought train led me to the question of... Why are our pastor's becoming more like celebrities to the point where they even have public feud's with each other? They can disagree with each other but shouldn't those disagreements be kept personal rather than public outbursts of opinion? The Driscoll/Bell situation seemingly resembled Oprah/Letterman. Shouldn't our pastor's be presenting an entirely different image than those in popular culture?
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6 comments for this post
true man.. Come As You Are.. haha
except this is Ryan(now it makes since)
This is what religion does to people.
Ah Blake, is it religion or our fallen nature?
Both, religion for men trying to perceive it in a different way than intended for some things; our fallen nature for wanting to be right I guess. If we were perfect but still learning, we would still have our own different opinions on some things. We would still be able to debate over them, but asking for attention would be something else.
interesting question: "Why are our pastor's becoming more like celebrities to the point where they even have public feud's with each other?"
I'm not sure "public feuds" between pastors are anything new. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Wesley had sharp disagreements with one another and pulled no punches when dealing with those disagreements in their works. Barth and Bultmann went straight for the jugular each time. Today we can read hard words exchanged between Wright and Piper. What's exchanged between Bell and Driscol is childs play compared to these very public feuds.
I think it may seem akin to celebrities talking trash about one another in the tabloids is because we treat both Bell and Driscol like they are celebrities while those other guys like Luther and Wesley we call "theologians" and allow them certain license to rip one another to shreds in a very public manner.
those are just some thoughts...