As Shepherds of the flock that the Lord has given us, we are responsibile to our flock, not John MacArthur, thus as we gleam the teachings of men, we must remember we are accountable ourselves as how we are lead by the Spirit and what we teach to our own flock.

We all do ministry differently.

Frances Shaeffer: “Where Scripture speaks we are bound — but God has given us titanic freedoms and we’re aftraid to use them.”

Fundy are so afraid that they will be compromising the old landmarks if they allow different music, different bible readings, etc into their church. So they bash anyone who allows this freedom to occur in their ministry.
You know most are good men and gave good churches. Why they want to bash these great men is beyond me.

Both John’s are responsible for their own church flock. We can choose are reject their viewpoints, its our responsibility.

Many Fundy reject both John’s theological teaching, thus they reject their viewpoints.
And they are always throwing out over the top statments about what he believes and does.

For thirty years I have followed MacArthur with a close eye in his teaching, I have studied right alone side of him, and today, he is still one the the best pastor/teachers in the public eye.

Charles

I don’t have all the answers for you. And especially if you view contemporary music in general to be worldly and sinful, I could understand your consternation.

Consider a few things however. Driscoll’s music and set up is very popular today. It is “state of the art” and extremely current. Yet MacArthur’s stuff, from what I can gather from descriptions and the video clip, etc., is not “very popular” or “extremely current”. It is average, run of the mill, contemporary music. I think if you saw the stage and set up for Driscoll and MacArthur, you couldn’t really equate the two. And “night club” probably is innaccurate in describing MacArthur’s stuff. The video was grainy and dark, but I’m not so sure that all lighting is that low and that they really use spotlights and try to create a night club feel.

And again, the “evangelical mentality of separation” is based on a belief that secondary separation is not taught by Scripture. And the degree and use of contemporary instrumentation is not either. These are judgment calls that individual churches make, and separation would be done on a church by church basis. We may disagree with different churches’ approaches but we don’t necessarily separate from them. There may come a point when we need to.

I don’t know if this helps, but it is something, nevertheless. Perhaps other readers could pipe in here.

Thanks for expressing your concerns, Will.

God bless you in your pursuit of truth,

Bob

They grieve the Spirit in this area, quench the Spirit, and as a result, they don’t see it. Bob, I said “Rites of Spring” was a bad argument, moral equivalency. It is a red herring. And then you give me your own, barbershop and marching bands. What does that have to do with anything? Yes, everything should be judged. I sway when I play basketball and I also sway when I get up quickly and white out. I sway after doing a set of squats. There is swaying and then there is swaying. Not being able to see this, I just sway my head at it.

If they spent time considering the other side of the story, they’d learn to respect others.

I appreciated your comments here and on SI.

John,

“Watch out for that tree—er misadventure!”

You said: “You are right about how people will oversimplify a debate that rages and simply say, ‘You are wrong…I am right!’”

I agree. But then we all need to keep this in mind, because it can happen to all of us.

God bless you richly in Christ,

Bob

I am glad that the anecdote in question would not be the sole basis for separation. But I can see how some would take it and run with it.

Barber shop quartets often “sway”, and without seeing it first hand, it would be hard to know how to take a description of “swaying”. Marching bands sway too. I hope most people would agree that finding fault with “swaying” is a bit too nitpicky.

Yes, I may have overstated my case, and certainly we should all beware of overstatements. Hopefully, most will agree with the main point of my post—that overstatements are not helpful and they don’t reflect Biblical discernment.

This recent thread is going to help me try to watch out for overstatement in my own writing and posting, not just to see it in others.

Blessings in Christ,

Bob