Tom’s Big Picture

One of the distinguishing marks of liberals (and I use this term in the sense of being anti-traditional) is intolerance of dissent. A conservative person may be stuffy, legalistic, offensive, etc, but he will argue with you until the cows come home, vigorously disagree, but usually not take positive steps to silence you.

That’s why I find an article from the Wall Street Journal about the dark side of the Purpose Driven movement so interesting. Particularly:

Some pastors learn how to make their churches purpose-driven through training workshops. Speakers at Church Transitions Inc., a Waxhaw, N.C., nonprofit that works closely with Mr. Warren’s church, stress that the transition will be rough. At a seminar outside of Austin, Texas, in April, the Revs. Roddy Clyde and Glen Sartain advised 80 audience members to trust very few people with their plans. “All the forces of hell are going to come at you when you wake up that church,” said Mr. Sartain, who has taught the material at Mr. Warren’s Saddleback Church.

During a session titled “Dealing with Opposition,” Mr. Clyde recommended that the pastor speak to critical members, then help them leave if they don’t stop objecting. Then when those congregants join a new church, Mr. Clyde instructed, pastors should call their new minister and suggest that the congregants be barred from any leadership role.

“There are moments when you’ve got to play hardball,” said the Rev. Dan Southerland, Church Transitions’ president, in an interview. “You cannot transition a church … and placate every whiny Christian along the way.”

Secrecy, intimidation, silencing your critics? These people behave more like authoritarian Soviet bureaucrats than Christians trying to gently move the church in their direction.

It also begs the question- since Purpose-Driven-ness is explicitly marketed to pastors as a secret, sudden campaign to transform their church (thus outflanking the traditionalists), are church members even getting a fair chance to yea-or-nay on the ultimate destination of their church before it’s too late?

Probably not, as the Purpose Driven liberals have copied the ratcheting techniques of their secular brethren. If that’s the case, just as Republicans mindlessly defend the recycled liberal status-quo of twenty years ago, will “traditional” Christians be defending Warren’s techniques twenty years from now against the latest scheme to water down the faith?