DashHouse.com

It's really been a while since I've visited discernment sites. They are bad for my health.

Emergent No has been an eye-opener for me. When I occasionally asked for sources, I would find that most of them were other discernment sites, most of them of them high on opinion and low on reference to primary sources. It's a lot like opening a box, only to find another box inside leading to another box after that. Lots of boxes but nothing to show for having opened all the boxes.

The thing is that it's easy to make anything look bad. (For a crazy example, LT linked to a discernment site on D.A. Carson.) I could do the same to Emergent No or any church or movement. This is exactly what the tabloids make a living doing. This is so easy to do that people even did it successfully to Jesus. They made him look so bad that they killed him for it.

The thing is, it's easy to do this with all the right motives. I've never met anyone do this on purpose.

Making people and movements look bad is ridiculously easy. Being fair is a lot tougher.

One of the scariest verses to me is in Acts 10:14 where Peter, the "rock" of the church, said no to God. It's always terrified me that I am capable of saying no to God in my efforts to remain theologically pure. This doesn't reduce the need to show discernment, but it sure influences how I show discernment. May I never say no to what God is doing because I'm too quick to misjudge others or jump to theological conclusions or that actually have nothing to do with God.

Part of discernment is discerning what God is doing. It's just as concerned with praxis as it is with theology. It models all the qualities of 1 Corinthians 13 (patient, kind, not rude, etc.), includes the good as well as the bad, always goes to the greatest lengths to be fair to others in the church. Otherwise it is not a discernment site at all, and is probably not worth reading.