At various times debates on this blog and elsewhere have focussed on the issue of the rudeness or otherwise of evangelical speech. Rudeness has its advocates, it has to be said. I remain unconvinced. Stephen Holmes puts it thus:
...it is vital that we (evangelicals) do not become like Cromwell's followers as they are described in the classic humorous telling of English history 1066 and All That...There, Sellar and Yeatman describe the roundheads as 'right but repulsive'. This has been a constant danger for us evangelicals. We know that we hold to the truth about Jesus, and so we can sometimes become smug or aggressive or unpleasant towards those who do not understand the truth. But the truth about the Saviour Jesus is never unpleasant or repulsive; it is beautiful, winsome and attractive, alluring and arresting. And so must our theology- and particularly our preaching – be beautiful, winsome, and alluring and the rest. We are called to live in cheerful, self-deprecating hopefulness. Zealous for truth, yes, but always remembering that God can look after his own interests and doesn't really need our help...
...truth matters, but truth without love is so far from anything Christian that it has ceased to be truth. Christian theologians can never be 'right but repulsive': if they are repulsive, they are so far from Jesus and his gospel as to be just plain wrong. p. 10-11
I guess you have to allow room for the fact that people find the truth offensive because it convicts them. But it is the truth that is offensive, not the truth-speaker...
6 comments:
good post. thanks.
Thanks mate. The 'God's big enough to look after himself' idea is one that I often bring up in discussions.
Whenever folk get 'angry' I keep having a picture of a 3 year old standing in front of his Dad, shouting at someone about how great a person his dad is, and dont you dare criticise. You gotta love the wee defender, but thier arguments ultimately become lost.
Be warned though, that mental picture can produce the odd chuckle at inapproriate times.
Good post, thanks for the insight
Couple of thoughts:
The tendency is for 'wooers' to water down the message. We should woo like Paul did.
And in the Bible the 'offensive' language is (mostly) used by God's attorneys, the prophets, who are speaking to people who have already heard the truth and should have known better (whether that be Israel or the nations immediately surrounding her). It seems to be reserved for those who were in high-handed (conscious) sin against the truth, and concentrates more on the nature of the sins than on ridiculing the sinners.
Jesus does the same thing in Matthew 23-24. He even swings Isaiah 13 like a knife and infers that Judah is a new 'Babylon' (in my opinion).
I guess, today, such 'housekeeping' would include dealing with liberal theologians?
Spurgeon was a wooer, and yet he refers to eloquent, over-robed, unbelieving reverends as 'Jezebel' and shouting 'Throw her down, I say!'
Such rudeness exposes the rudeness of the sin. It is self-deprecating rudeness, or 'rudeness with tears.'
'right but repulsive' has got a sting in it!
there is a movement in the US that is sensitive to this and has coined the phrase 'humble orthodoxy'.
why is it that so often reformed equals rude?
and yes - if we are going to be rude, lets use rudenss ot expose the rudeness of sin, let the cross offend.
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