There was a website that I stop by from time to time called www.extremetheology.com. As I went through some recent posts, I found one by Chris Rosebrough that I took note of and was encouraged by called “with gentleness and respect”. To understand why it spoke to me, you need to know a little more.
Saddleback church, led by Rick Warren, recently had a Purpose Driven Life conference as they have had before. This time, Chris was invited (from my understanding) all expenses paid because their website have had some concerns with Rick and his ministry. There have been many allegations about Rick (from multiple sources) including that he preaches a watered down gospel, that he preaches a false gospel, and all the way up to he’s a false prophet using the Purpose Driven Church model to invade and destroy the church.
I am not the biggest fan of or the biggest critic of Rev. Warren and the same can be said of my view of extremetheology.com. Rick can fall into the too professional end of things for my personal taste and the web-site can fall into the too conservative end of things. Again, not that professional or conservative are swear words but the “too” part is what I get grieved over by the definitions of the stereotypes.
Anywho I was thrilled to see both sides of this conversation take solid steps into open dialogue and learning more about each others perspectives. (There is another website that received the same offer and refused to “waste their time” by going)
This post is one of the results of that time together and I love the heart of the post! It is the very thin I desire to see more of within the church. Conversation without forgetting either truth or love.
However, the challenge within the church community is revealed within the comments section of this post. I need not commentary on them, if you are interested you can find your own observations.
