Yesterday, in regards to my serious concerns over James MacDonald and the Elephant Room, a fellow blogger tweeted the following to me:

“What would you like to see? MacDonald declared a heretic? Anathema? Break all bonds of fellowship? There’s no reason for that.”

I’d like to respond to that statement with the following from Carl Trueman.

“But we are not dealing here with men who are simply making a credible Christian profession as church members; we are dealing with pastors who lead churches and hold terrible and awesome responsibility for protecting their flocks and making sure the truth is taught. We are also dealing with men who, through the use of conferences and internet, aspire to influence your congregation and mine – not that that is necessarily wrong (e.g., what Christian does not read books written by others?); but it does give us all `a dog in the fight’, to use the American phrase. If they give Jakes a clean bill of health, then that has much wider implications than simply for the participants in the ER.”

Several years ago I was introduced to the notion of “friendship evangelism”. If you’re a Christian you are most likely familiar with the term.  The idea behind friendship evangelism is that Christians must befriend unbelievers and establish a personal relationship with them prior to addressing their need for a Savior.  I know many people who embrace this view and who believe that the opportunity to evangelize must be earned through a demonstration of love.

At first blush this may seem like a sound approach.  But, in the end, one of the two usually suffers.  Either the friendship is compromised when the Gospel is shared or the Gospel is compromised to preserve the friendship.

So it is with “Christian coalitions”.  As my friend Kim so wisely pointed out, when it comes to coalitions,

“There will always be a difference of opinion re: what is sound and not; what is acceptable and to whom, etc. When there are many denominations represented, who gets to have the final word?”

We’ve seen this played out for public consumption with the resignation of James MacDonald from The Gospel Coalition.  The rather ambiguous non-response from the TGC has only served to muddy the waters regarding MacDonald’s embrace/promotion/endorsement of well-known modalist/word of faith heretic TD Jakes in the now infamous leadership conference/simulcast known as The Elephant Room 2.

As with “friendship evangelism”, when push comes to shove, it is the Gospel which will suffer, in order to maintain the reputation of the coalition. I say this because throughout this controversy The Gospel Coalition, and it’s members, have remained virtually silent.  It is clear that their announcement of MacDonald’s departure was meticulously crafted, so much so that many readers have said, “I thought it meant this,” or “I thought it meant that.”  Suffice it to say, the statement was vague enough to leave much uncertainty hanging in the air.

The following is an excerpt from the transcript of the Elephant Room 2 conference provided by Trevin Wax.  Please read this very carefully, paying close attention to how both James MacDonald and TD Jakes describe we Christians will see in heaven.

Mark Driscoll: Do you believe the Bible is the perfect, infallible Word of God? Do you believe God is Three Persons? Jesus is fully God and fully Man? He died on the cross for our sins? He rose from the dead? He is coming again? Apart from Jesus is no salvation?

TD Jakes: Absolutely.

James MacDonald: You’ve honored us and shown us humility. Jesus stands with the humble. Get to those people who love my Son, believe my Word and express humility. I feel deeply in my heart that God is both Three and One. I believe the Scripture is clear that when we get to heaven, we will see Jesus. Jesus is the only God we will ever see. I believe in God eternally existing in three persons. The more I think of it, the more I think my head is going to explode.

TD Jakes: There is going to be one throne and one God we can see. The more I hear everybody arguing about this… we’re saying the same thing. There will always be people who define themselves by their differences rather than their connections. My soul leaps in celebration as we stumble to explain how God does what He does. That stumbling is worship. To humble ourselves and say, “God, Your thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”

Emphasis mine.

I’ve thought quite a bit recently about The Gospel Coalition, The Elephant Room 2 and the anticipation by many of T.D. Jakes conversion to trinitarianism.  Most every well-known Christian blogger in the Reformed camp has expressed their concerns on the issue of Jakes invitation as a Christian leader to James MacDonald’s leadership conference/simulcast.

One concern I personally have is that the Reformed community was disinterested in Jakes until his inclusion in Elephant Room 2, and even then they were only interested in his denial of the doctrine of the trinity.  No mention was made of his utterly heretical Word of Faith teaching.  This has many hanging on Jakes every word at today’s Elephant Room 2, waiting to see if he will affirm the trinity which he has long denied.

Quite frankly, I don’t care if he flip-flops on the trinity. He is already disqualified for teaching another gospel…the prosperity gospel…which is no gospel at all.

Case in point: This embarrassing article which suggests that the sheep are pining away for a celebrity pastor of their own and then gives them five steps on how to live with the subpar preaching of their own, unknown shepherd.

On the contrary. In my experience it is unknown shepherds who are dissatisfied & desiring the limelight of celebrity pastor status. They cannot be bothered with the often tedious and thankless job of feeding the sheep, tending the sheep and feeding the sheep (John 21:15-19).

“What is missing from most American Christians’ spiritual lives is not more social gospel, more missional living tips, and more doing-nice-stuff-with-Jesus’-name attached.

“What is missing is knowledge of the Word – the Word of the Scriptures, and the Word incarnate.” – Jill (My cousin)