The 10 Best Albums I Listened to in 2019

10.         Beauty and the Beat, by The Go-Go’s (1981)

I knew a few of their songs, but I’d never listened to the entire album. Very good new wave sound. Choice tracks: “Our Lips are Sealed” and “We Got the Beat”.

9.            Leaders of the Free World, by Elbow (2005)

A very good album by a British pop rock group. The sound is a mix of Coldplay, Seal, Zero 7. Choice tracks: "Station Approach", “Forget Myself”, “The Stops,” “Leaders Of The Free World,”

8.            Merrie Land, by The Good the Bad and the Queen (2018)

Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorillaz) is one of the best pop songwriters of his generation. His side project of The Good the Bad and the Queen has been quite good. I enjoyed their 2007 eponymous album and was glad they finally released this sophomore effort. It’s actually superior in many ways to that previous album. Choice tracks: “Merrie Land”, “Gun to the Head,” and "The Imperial".

7.            Monolith of Phobos, by The Claypool Lennon Delirium (2017)

Les Claypool has always been a brilliant and inventive songwriter and musician. He’s also always been a heavy metal prog rocker with psychedelic influences. Who would have thought that teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Sean Lennon could produce such great music? But their collaboration works! Monolith of Phobos is a great album of prog-rock psychedelic songs which pulls the strengths of both Claypool and Lennon while minimizing their weaknesses. Choice tracks: "The Monolith of Phobos" and “Ohmerica” The latter is one of the best songs I listened to this year.

6.            South of Reality, by The Claypool-Lennon Delirium (2019)

Another album by this great collaboration, even better than the first. Choice tracks: “Little Fishes”, “"Blood and Rockets”, and "Amethyst Realm".

5.            George Harrison, by George Harrison (1979)

I just listened to this eponymous gem for the first time a few weeks ago on vinyl. Really good. Probably in his top four albums after All Things Must Pass, Brainwashed, and Cloud 9. Choice tracks: “Not Guilty,” “Blow Away,” and “Faster”.

4.            Dog Man Star – Suede (1994)

My favorite album last year was Suede’s Coming Up (1996) which quickly entered my top 50 favs. This year I began listening to some of their albums. Dog Man Star is a wonderful album. Great Britpop injected with David Bowie glamrock and 80s new wave. Choice tracks: “Introducing the Band", “We Are the Pigs”, and “The Power”.

3.            Fear Inoculum – Tool (2019)

Tool albums are always a special event. Given that it’s been 13 years since their last album, this one was extra special. Even more so, this is probably one of their best and definitely my favorite. It’s a good 79 minutes of heavy metal prog rock. More subdued than their previous albums but better for it. Choice tracks: “Pneuma”, “Invincible”, and “7empest”.

2.            Head Music – Suede (1999)

Another Suede album found its ways in my top albums this year. This is just a great group, seemingly overlooked in the United States, but wildly inventive, with catchy songs and glamour rock swagger. Choice tracks: “Electricity”, “Savoire Faire”, “Down,” “Asbestos”, “Head Music”, “Indian Strings”, and “Crack in the Union Jack”.

1.            Hyperspace, by Beck (2019)

Definitely my favorite album of the year. I’m a huge Beck and the fact that he has never disappointed me with an album in a quarter century is a big factor. Hyperspace is no different. This is an amazing album, is fifth best. It’s a thematic album about a figure dealing with an end of a relationship by seeking to escape the exterior of the world into “outer space” so he can find inner peace in the moment of by reaching “interior space”. The album is subdued, minimalist, low-key funk, but with bright synthesizer tones and an abundant use of high keys and falsettos to reach heavenward. It has an 80s pop vibe and influence with Beck channeling Prince, Brian Wilson, later Clash, Phil Collins, and Paul McCartney. Truly a masterful work. Choice tracks: “Uneventful Days”, “Stratosphere,” and “Everlasting Nothing”.

The Books I Read in 2019

Here is the list of books I read in 2019 (about 175). My top ten are listed at the bottom, including my favorite of the year.



Elizabeth Alves (Becoming a Prayer Warrior)

R. Glenn Ball and Darrell Puls (Let Us Prey: The Plague of Narcissist Pastors and What We Can Do About It)

Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)

Stan and Jan Berenstain (The Big Honey Hunt)

Hendrik Berkhof (Christ and the Powers)

Ernest Best (I Peter [The New Century Bible Commentary])

Michael F. Bird (What Christians Ought to Believe; Jesus is the Christ; Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts: A Case for Gender Equality in Ministry; Introducing Paul)

Michael F. Bird and Scott Harrower (Trinity Without Hierarchy)

Ben C. Blackwell, ed. (Reading Mark in Context)

Christopher Lee Bolt (The World in His Hands)

Daniel Bosch (Transforming Mission)

Robert Browning (The Ring and the Book)

Mikhail Bulgakov (The Days of the Turbins; Zoya’s Apartment; Flight; The Crimson Island; A Cabal of Hypocrites)

Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange)

G.B. Caird (Principalities and Powers; The Language and Imagery of the Bible)

Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking-glass; The Hunting of the Snark)

Eric H. Cline (1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed)

Travis Collins (What Does It Mean to Be Welcoming?)

Peter C. Craigie (The Twelve Prophets, Volume I)

Matthew B. Crawford (Shop Class as Soulcraft)

Rod Dreher (The Benedict Option)

Umberto Eco (The Island of the Day Before)

John Elderedge (Wild at Heart)

E. Earle Ellis (The Making of the New Testament Documents)

Rachel Held Evans (Faith Unraveled)

Joseph A. Fitzmyer (The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, X-XXIV)

J. Massyngberde Ford (Revelation [ABC])

Theodor Seuss Geisel (Oh, the Thinks You Can Think; Wacky Wednesday)

Ernest Gellner (Nations and Nationalism)

Kevin Giles (The Rise and Fall of Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity)

Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen)

Jonah Goldberg (Suicide of the West)

William Golding (Pincher Martin)

The Gospel of Bartholomew

Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows)

J.R. Graves (The Trilemma; Old Landmarkism, What Is It?)

Joel Gregory (Too Great a Temptation)

Donald Hagner (Hebrews [NIBC])

Mark Hall (Your Own Jesus)

Daniel Hannan (The New Road to Serfdom)

Michael S. Heiser (The Unseen Realm)

Hergé (The Broken Ear; The Black Island; King Ottokar's Sceptre; The Crab with the Golden Claws; The Shooting Star; The Secret of the Unicorn; Red Rackham’s Treasure; The Seven Crystal Balls; Prisoners of the Sun; Land of Black Gold; Destination Moon; The Calculus Affair; The Red Sea Sharks; Tintin in Tibet; The Castafiore Emerald; Flight 714 to Sydney; Tintin and the Picaros)

Rob James (The Takeover in the Southern Baptist Convention)

Alejandro Jodorwsky and Jean Giraud (The Incal)

Dorothy M. Johnson (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance)

Terry Jones and Michael Palin (Dr. Fegg’s Encyclopedia of All World Knowledge)

James Joyce (Finnegans Wake)

Jubilees (book)

Stephen and Alex Kendrick (The Battle Plan for Prayer)

Soren Kierkegaard (Training in Christianity)

Robert Kraske (Harry Houdini: Master of Magic)

Halldór Laxness (The Fish Can Sing)

Elaine Lee (Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny, Volumes I-IV),

Letter of Aristeas (book)

Maurice Lever (Beaumarchais)

C. S. Lewis (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Silver Chair; The Magician’s Realm; The Horse and His Boy; The Last Battle)

Jeremy Lloyd (The Are You Being Served Stories)

John Locke (The Reasonableness of Christianity)

Hugh Lofting (The Story of Doctor Dolittle)

Brennan Manning (The Wisdom of Tenderness; Abba’s Child; The Ragamuffin Gospel)

Betty McDonald (The Egg and I)

Alister E. McGrath (Mere Discipleship)

Scot McKnight (Living the Jesus Creed; The King Jesus Gospel; Reading Romans Backwards)

Brian McLaren (A Generous Orthodoxy)

David Merveille (Hello, Mr. Hulot)

A.A. Milne (The House at Pooh Corner)

Jürgen Moltmann (Theology of Hope)

Dale Moody (The Letters of John; Apostasy; Christ and the Church; Romans [BBC])

Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Daytripper)

Leon Morris (1, 2 Thessalonians)

Clinton D. Morrison (The Powers that Be)

David Murrow (Why Men Hate Going to Church)

H. Richard Niebuhr (Christ and Culture)

John O’Sullivan (The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister)

Michael Palin (Traveling to Work: Diaries 1988-1998)

Boris Pasternak (My Sister, Life; Doctor Zhivago; Blind Beauty)

David Petersen (Mouse Guard: Fall 1152)

Jordan Peterson (Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief)

Pseudo-Dionysius (The Mystical Theology)

Matt Rawle (What Makes a Hero?)

Don Rosa (The Don Rosa Collection, Vol. 10)

Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo: Book One; Usagi Yojimbo: Glimpses of Death; Usagi Yojimbo: Yokai; Usagi Yojimbo: Senso)

E. P. Sanders (Paul)

Simon Schama (Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution)

William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

Ralph L. Smith (Amos [Broadman Bible Commentary])

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (August 1914)

Andy Stanley and Reggie Joiner (Parental Guidance Required)

Ed Stetzer and Eric Geiger (Transformational Groups)

Dave Stevens (The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures)

John Stott (The Cross of Christ)

Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; The Hard Problem; The Boundary; Anna Karenina)

Thomas H. Strohl (Ryan the Kind Rhinoceros)

J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit [The Annotated Edition (by Douglas A. Anderson)]; The Fellowship of the Ring)

W.A. Visser 't Hooft (The Kingship of Christ)

Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun (For the Life of the World)

Mark Waid and Chris Samnee (The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom)

Derek Walcott (The Bounty; The Prodigal)

O.C.S. Wallace (What Baptists Believe)

W.R. White (Baptist Distinctives)

Keith S. Whitfield, ed. (Trinitarian Theology)

Walter Wink (Transforming Bible Study; When the Powers Fall)

Adam Winn (Reading Mark’s Christology Under Caesar)

Ben Witherington III (The Paul Quest; Women in the Earliest Churches)

N. T. Wright (The Climax of the Covenant; The Letter to the Romans [The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary]; 1 & 2 Peter and Jude; Galatians; Galatians and Thessalonians; Justification; Romans; The Case for the Psalms; Paul in Fresh Perspective; Evil and the Justice of God; Spiritual and Religious; The Original Jesus)

N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird (The New Testament You Never Knew)

Malcolm Yarnell (Who is the Holy Spirit?)

John Howard Yoder (The Politics of Jesus)

Marguerite Yourcenar (Memoirs of Hadrian)

TOP TEN

1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric H. Cline

Christ and the Powers, by Hendrik Berkhof

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, by Simon Schama

The Climax of the Covenant, by N. T. Wright

Daytripper, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak

The Hard Problem, by Tom Stoppard

The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, by John O’Sullivan

Principalities and Powers, by G.B. Caird

The Rise and Fall of Complementarian Doctrine of the Trinity, by Kevin Giles

FAVORITE BOOK OF 2019

Christ and the Powers, by Hendrik Berkhof

Here is the list of books I read in 2019 (about 175). My top ten are included at the bottom, including my favorite of the year.

Did Paul Participate in the Composition of Luke-Acts?

From an earlier Twitter thread.

Did Paul participate in the composition of Luke-Acts? In this post I speculate on the possibility that Paul was part of the process that produced Luke-Acts for the Pauline mission churches. Again, this is based on speculation and likelihood but supported by scholarship.

Presumptions for post-70 CE composition of Luke-Acts have diminished. Lucan additions to Jesus’ prophecy of the Roman war (21:20, 23-26) are not post-event elaborations, but either OT allusions or an echo of an idea known to Paul (Luke 21:24 & Rom 11:25).[1] If Luke could be pre-70 CE, and presuming the author is the known companion of Paul (Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, the Muratorian Canon, The Papyrus Bodmer XIV), is it possible the Luke-Acts project had some Pauline involvement?

Luke speaks of compiling an account of things accomplished among us (Luke 1:1) just as those who were eye-witnesses handed down information (1:2). The “we” passages of Acts begin at Troas during the 2nd Missionary Journey (Acts 16:10) and continue to Rome (28:14). The “we” and “us” are considered to be connected[2] and would include the author, presumably Luke. Since the “we” seems to include Paul in Acts, then it might include him in the “us” of Luke 1:1. Regardless, the “us” suggests collaboration on Luke-Acts.

It’s likely many of the NT documents were collaborative works (e.g., John’s Gospel [21:20-24] and 1 Peter [5:12]). Papias seems to think this was the case with the Gospel of Mark being Peter’s recollection. Certainly, Peter knew Mark (Acts 12:12; 1 Pet 5:13). Indeed, such was the closeness that Peter, when he escaped from prison, fled to the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, where the servant recognized his voice (Acts 12:12-14).

Paul himself is known to have used collaborators on his letters:

Paul, Silvanus, Timothy (1 Thes 1:1, 2; 2 Thes 1:1; 3:17)

Paul and Timothy (2 Cor 1:1; Phil 1:1; Phlm 1)

Paul, Timothy, Tychicus (Col 1:1; 4:7, 18)

Paul and Sosthenes (1 Cor 1:1; 16:21)

Paul, Tertius, Phoebe (Rom 16:1, 22)

Paul and Tychicus (Eph 6:21)

Paul and Luke (2 Tim 4:11)

That Paul is possibly included in “us” is strengthened by two additional points. One there is the general consensus among scholars that Luke-Acts is a narrative unity.[3]

Two, in my seminary thesis, I demonstrated how Luke used Jonah to first portray Jesus as a Jonah type and then Peter & Paul.[4] This built on studies showing the Luke anticipates Acts in its composition plan. So Paul was partly on Luke’s mind when he began constructing his Gospel.

Note: There are two places where Luke differs from Mark and Matthew, but which agree with Paul. The Last Supper addition of “Do this in remembrance of me.” (Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor. 11:23-26) and an addition to the Olivet Discourse (Luke 21:24 and Rom 11:25). See also Ellis:[5]

Along with collaboration, Luke states he used sources to compose his Gospel (Luke 1:1-4). It’s understood that one of these sources is the Gospel of Mark, based on Peter. Additionally, Paul and Peter seem to have shared Mark and probably Silvanus (1 Pet 5:12-13).

Presuming the author of Mark is the traditional attribution (Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Tertullian, the Muratorian Fragment, the Anti-Marcionite Prologues), can we connect Mark to Luke? Yes.

Mark’s first venture with Paul ends before the 2nd Mission, 40 CE (Acts 15:39), just before the “we” passages begin. He's again with Paul (and Luke) during Ephesian imprisonment, 55/56 CE (Col 4:10; Phlm 24). From these verses (maybe 2 Tim 4:11), it’s evident Luke knew Mark. Indeed, Luke is familiar enough with Mark to know the name of the servant (Rhoda) who worked for Mary, mother of Mark (Acts 12:12-13).

Furthermore, Luke seems to have considered Mark a minister in the proclamation in the Word of God (Luke 1:2; Acts 13:15; see also Acts 26:16). See Ellis: [6]

If Paul participated at all in Luke-Acts composition, it was later in life. After 62 CE, probably after his trip to Spain (Rom 15:24-28; Acts 1:8; Rom 10:18), probably either at the end of the 2nd Aegean mission or at the beginning of Paul’s final visit to Rome.

Side note:  Some believe Paul understood his Gentile mission somewhat geographically. He gathered this from his Old Testament readings (Isa 40-55; Deut 30; also Pss 19, 22, 68). Per my thesis, Jonah flees towards Spain (1:3), and Luke knows Paul wants to go there.[7]

We know about the 2nd Aegean mission from the Pastorals, which if legitimate, were written late in Paul’s life. If so, Luke would be with Paul until the very end (2 Tim 4:11). In this same verse (v. 11), Paul sends for Mark, including some books and parchments (v. 13).

Summing up: Pre-70 CE composition, Luke collaborates, knows Mark, considers him and authority on Word proclamation and even traditions, uses Mark’s Gospel. Paul collaborates, uses Mark (and Luke), shares workers with Peter (one us Mark who creates his Gospel from Peter). Luke had Paul in mind when composing the Gospel and might be considered in the “us”. If Paul collaborated on Luke-Acts then is was late in life, around the time he is with Luke and asking for Mark and specific documents.

Therefore, it’s possible that with the composition of Mark, Q, and “L”, the Pauline ministry sphere sought to create their own account (Luke-Acts) for their own churches,[8] and Paul requested Mark’s help in doing so.

This has all been fun speculation and more of a reason to research and dig into Scripture, but I think it still establishes the possibility that Paul was a collaborator on at least the initial stages of Luke-Acts.

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[1] https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/when-was-acts-written 2/20

[2] Fitzmyer, Luke, 293f.

[3] See H. J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (London: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc, 1958 [1927]), 213-238, 220; Conzelmann, Theology, 15ff.; F. W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress Pres, 1988), 1; W. W. Gasque, A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Tubingen: 1975), 309; Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971), 96-103; J.C. Hawkins, Horae Synopticae (Oxford: 1968 [1909]), 174-193; C. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tubingen and Winona Lake, IN: 1990), 30-33; L.T. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, SP, 3 (MN: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 17; R.C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 2:1-2.

[4] Echoes of Jonah in Luke Acts (SWBTS 2007)

[5] 

[6] 

[7] Echoes of Jonah in Luke-Acts, fn. 256.

[8] Ellis, The Making of the NT Documents, 405.

Lagado: From a Work in Progress

A brief excerpt from my (work-in-progress) book on power abuse in the Church.

Lagado

In chapter four of the third part of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver arrives in the metropolis of Lagado in the land of Balnibarbi. He discovers a city with houses in ruin and disrepair and people dressed in rags, filled with misery and want. The citizens themselves lead wildly busy lives but nevertheless produce nothing for their effort. Though the land has good soil it remains uncultivated. Eventually Gulliver learns that forty years prior, certain persons known as Projectors visited the learned island of Laputa and returned to Lagado with only smattering of knowledge but full of volatile spirits. The Projectors began to dislike the management of the city and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, language, and mechanics under their control and direction. They established new rules for building, agriculture, trade, and manufacturing. The Projectors promised that with them in control, implementing their ideas, “one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals. The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair.” Furthermore, the Projectors ridicule and despise those who have managed to succeed by other methods, accusing them of setting bad examples for the kingdom. They call them ignorant and enemies, claiming they prefer their own ease and sloth rather than the good the country. And when the new rules and policies fail, the Projectors lay all the blame on the successful, yet the same projects continue to fail with equal disappointment.

Swift’s story is a satire on pseudo-intellectuals of the 18^th century Enlightenment. His aim was to ridicule the intelligentsia of his day and the so-called learned institutions who provided ill-suited scientific advice for governmental policies to better organize society. Far from being an attack on knowledge and science, Swift critiqued the fashionably high view of man’s nature and the assumption of the inevitable progression of humanity’s accomplishments. He understood the corruptibility of mankind, especially when, armed with self-glorification and absurd pretensions, it seeks to apply modern philosophy on political practice to hubristically tame creation and properly administer society. In this way, Gulliver’s Travels has been read in part as a repudiation of Robinson Crusoe’s optimism and Daniel Defoe’s perceived endorsement of Thomas Hobbes' radical political philosophy in Leviathan. In this way, Gulliver next travels to the land of Glubbdubdrib and stays at a place haunted by the spirits of great past leaders who are conjured up by a friendly necromancer. For the next few weeks, Gulliver interviews many of history’s most venerated and powerful leaders – great shapers of the modern world! But, instead of heroes of great virtue and the restorers of liberty to the oppressed, Gulliver meets men of considerable ignorance, vice, and corruption, and unscrupulous, cutthroat villains committing mass injustices. While the winning writers of history had hidden the truth to prop up the power and privilege of cruel kings, judges, and ministers, the reality was one of “whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons.” Indeed, the real virtuous workers of history were left either unrecorded or written down as the vilest rogues or traitors, dying in poverty, disgrace, or state execution. And such lies and bullying have been seen from ancient times down to the modern age. 

Therefore, given man’s innate corruption, Swift ridicules giving such ignorant and immoral men the political power to implement scientific policies of societal change. The logical conclusions of such implementations, he thought, would be societal atrocities. The hubris to enact such atrocities guaranteed an unwillingness to turn away from further disaster. As Allan Bloom notes, “Power is concentrated in the hands of the rulers; hence they are not forced even by fear to develop a truly political intelligence. They require no virtue; everything runs itself, so there is no danger that their incompetence, indifference, or vice will harm them.”^[1]How prescient was Swift!

Today we have been witnesses to the economic and social disasters of socialist nations like the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Cambodia, led by ideological leaders of dialectical materialism seeking the earthly utopia of a worker’s paradise. Armed with four- and five-year plans, they promised a great leap forward of economic and social progress by implementing industrialization, nationalization, collectivism, centralized economic planning, and ideological purges. The results were economic collapse, mass poverty and starvation, oppression, and deaths in the tens of millions. Nevertheless, no matter how high the bodies piled, the socialist leaders dug in and doubled down, refusing to abandon their plans or relinquish their control. As Solzhenitsyn recounts in The Gulag Archipelago, when Soviet policies inevitably failed, those who had initially raised concerns were accused of sabotage and labeled capitalists and counter-revolutionaries.

Even in more capitalistic societies, there are activists, academics, policy wonks, politicians, and bureaucratic central planners who come into power with grand visions of great societies and begin to implement progressive deals of social change though mobilization and new rules for wages, finance, welfare, insurance, and healthcare. When their policies result in the unintended consequences of unemployment, bankruptcy, shortages, inflation, unaffordability, these modern-day Projectors blame the scapegoats of racism and the rich.

               Within the Church, there are leaders who assume control over seminaries and entire denominations, promising increased enrollments and evangelical harvests only to reap decline and financial disaster. Yet, instead of humbling themselves before the Lord and seeking alternative methods, they dig in and double down on their ideological policies, blaming and railing against liberals, moderates, and those they claim haven’t fully embraced their way of being the people of God.^[2]

In local churches there are pastors and power-wielders who ignorantly seek to implement their will upon the congregation and the business of the church. Perhaps they are pursuing their own personal ministry agenda irrespective of the effects their actions have on the other ministries of the church. Perhaps they are traditionalists attempting to recapture the feeling of a spiritual moment of their past by organizing and structuring their church surroundings to reclaim that lost sensation. Perhaps they have attended a megachurch for a conference and, impressed by experience, seek to emulate that experience on their return. We need a café! We need people greeting in the parking lot! We need golf carts escorting the elderly! We need new decorations every week for the Children’s Ministry. Perhaps they are individuals building their own kingdoms of prestige and privilege and wanting to take back their church to advance grand projects of growth and leading-edge ministry excellence. But what happens when the consequences of their actions and the implementation of their policies result in disaster, destruction, ruin, and disrepair in the church and its ministries and people? Do they humble themselves before the Lord in repentance or do they dig in and double down more on prosecuting their schemes? Do they admit their mistakes, or do they seek a scapegoat to blame?

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[1] Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs: An Outline of Gulliver's Travels (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 48. See also Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1987), 293-298.

[2] Pastors such as Rick Warren, Steve Furtick, and Ed Young Jr. are frequently pilloried as worldly and labeled false teachers by fundamentalists and so-called discernment ministries because of their contemporary methodology and tremendous Kingdom success. If one points to their thousands of conversions as evidence of God’s blessings, fundamentalists will deem such success as illegitimate and suggest that we have finally arrived at the great falling away of 2 Timothy 4:3. I note that Billy Graham received the same accusations from fundamentalists for his Kingdom success.