Snippet: Canceling Josh McDowell

snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Here’s a snippet from Justin Giboney on the Church Politics Podcast (Sept. 29), regarding how to respond to Josh McDowell’s apology about what he said about opportunities for blacks in America and the black family:

“We should be heartbroken. We should be prayerful. And we should ultimately want to see him restored through a change of heart. And, honestly, I don’t think this negates the rest of his work. …The man apologized, and we should give him the opportunity to show that the apology was sincere.”

If you want to read an account of what was said and McDowell’s response you can listen to the episode or go here: Josh McDowell Steps Back from Ministry After Race Remarks: “I made comments about race, the Black family, and minorities that were wrong and hurt many people” (Christianity Today).

Chris Butler goes on to frame the issue of correction using examples from 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells the church to kick an unrepentant offender out of the fellowship, but in 2 Corinthians he talks about restoring a repentant one (possibly the same guy). It was a great way to frame the issue.

Giboney and Butler’s response doesn’t surprise me because it’s consistent with their words and actions, but it can’t be easy to take this approach.

And, frankly, I think they could have been harder on McDowell and so many of us who think in similar ways and say similar things in daily conversations.

But they did find a way to correct his perspective without piling up on him.

And they also exposed those would pile up on someone just to enhance their own platform, to prove their own narrative, or to attempt to cancel a man who has done so much for the church throughout the years.

I love these guys!

Snippet: Deconstructing Atheism?

snip·pet | ˈsnipit | noun a small piece or brief extract.

Another snippet from the interview with Tom Holland, a celebrated historian (and atheist):

While it is of course perfectly true that atheists have morals, it doesn’t alter the fact that those morals are basically Christian. And that if you lack the theological, supernatural explanation for why these values should be held, where do you get them? And I think the intellectual history of the past few decades has basically been a kind of gathering attempt to try and explain Christian values and Christian teachings in ways that do not depend on Christianity being true. And I think it’s proven to be a struggle.”

The good thing, in my mind, about those attempts is that it’s another evidence of God’s common grace and the image of God in humanity. It makes for a better world.

But it’s probably not sustainable. In other words, with time, our secular ideologies will do what secular ideologies eventually do and lead to even greater and more unrestrained injustice by the powerful.

What can we do as Christians?

Tom Holland indirectly offers the answer in one of his most celebrated books—Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. In the Roman world, a world of great and pervasive injustice, he demonstrates that Christianity shone by living out the gospel (and willingly dying for it).

I don’t believe taking and wielding power is the answer. But neither is the approach of many Christians who react to that response by “deconstructing” a biblical faith, an approach that often undermines the very values they use to criticize their faith tradition.

The interview can be heard on episode 45 of the “Undeceptions with John Dickson” podcast.

Photo by Marian Kroell on Unsplash