NT Wright

You can work out a lot about a person by who endorses their work. The Reformation Theology blog says about Wright's lastest book on the topic of justification:

...the strangest endorsements come from some who don't even understand the basics of the gospel like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren who both think Christianity is about what we do for Jesus rather than what He has done for us.

Could do with a comma, but at least they didn't include the dreaded ellipsis...

Anyway.

NT Wright is a false teacher, so although the endorsements are strange they are hardly surprising. Group NT Wright with Rowan Williams, Karl Barth and Brian Houston as people to be wary of, even though so much of what they say is attractive, interesting and convincing to those who are convinced by that sort of thing.

Mark Driscoll on harsh language

John Piper's Desiring God blog has an advert for a conference featuring Mark Driscoll talking for about 5 minutes on the use of harsh language. Definitely have a look at it, it's pretty good. The main thing he says is that we should speak the way God does. And God uses strong language, though he does so infrequently. Then in the later part of the clip he adds that the main target of such sneering ridicule, satire, scoffing and, let's face it, abuse, is religious false teachers.

Couple of thoughts. One is that some of those who acknowledge this last point

arguing, for example, that Jesus reserves his harshest language about hell for religious hypocrites, and even using this as a reason to urge that we tone down language about hell in other contexts

will nonetheless become extremely squeamish when people actually put this principle into practice. So when such mockery is targetted at actual false teachers such as NT Wright or the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the reaction is poor.

Now it may be that they disagree that these people are false teachers, so the mockery stings with greater effect than if they agreed with my view, which is that these individuals are not faithful teachers of the gospel.

The other thought is that for those who are so tentative that they would not dismiss Rowan Williams or NT Wright as false teachers out of hand, is there any false teacher that they would subject to mockery in the way that God does, or of whom they would say (as Paul does of the teaching of Hymenaeus and Philetus in 2 Tim 2) "their talk will spread like gangrene."

That said, I acknowledge the danger Mark Driscoll raises of overdoing it and recognize the tendency in myself. Putting a curb on your tongue is not easy. I figure those who have this tendency should pray for God's wisdom to judge the situation rightly, apologize when they make the inevitable mistakes, and keep going.