The Truth War

I am on the mailing list of John MacArthur's ministry, Grace To You (not sure if I call it a ministry or organization - but you get the idea) and recently received a letter that was sounding a warning bell against the Emerging Church Movement and talking about a new book, The Truth War, that MacArthur has written. Reading through the letter it seemed vague and scary in content and tone. Unfortunately I threw it away after I read it (no, not in disdain - I was just done reading it :) and it did not occur to me that I might want to post on this.

I honestly read enough criticism of the ECM that it did not occur to me that this particular letter is reaching many people who might never have heard of any of this. (for good or bad, even John Piper admitted that he had never heard of Tony Jones and was only vaguely aware of Emergent Village). In other words - there are MANY fans of MacArthur (I count myself as one of them...as I have greatly benefited from some his writings) that have NO IDEA about the discussions going on and this letter will be their first exposure.

Dan Kimball was recently sent a copy of this same letter and posts here. In essence his plea is against stereotyping (and thus the title of his post) and some questions around some of the assertions made in this letter from Grace To You. I don't want to quote Dan quoting MacArthur (no offense Dan!) b/c I honestly don't remember the exact wording of the letter and would much rather have the primary source in front of me to engage with. However, you should give it a read as it certainly sounds accurate.

Kevin Beasley blogs about the same letter over at just a thought. His response is similar, though a little more direct in some areas.

Andrew Jones is predictable (in a good sense) in his generous and hopeful attitude towards the content of the book and the discussion that is sure to follow. Always a refreshing and gracious perspective.

Both MacArthur and Phil Johnson (Pyromaniacs) have some content up Introducing the ECM (in 8 parts) at the SFPulpit site (down right now). The Pulpit is the magazine put out by the Shepherds' Fellowship, which is an organization (that appears) centered around Grace Community Church.

MereMission has a nice outline of links to the different articles, with some responses (including a couple not listed here) from da' interweb.

more thoughts on this later...