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20 Responses

  1. Babylon's Dread says:

    The snake oil salesman was in our city last week. Probably 50 people went to hear him, max. He was bemoaning the “tribunal” that purports to be “judging” him. He was also announcing that he plans to leave. at least to some degree, church based events. He is after all an “evangelist” though I listened for a few hours and heard precious little about Jesus.

    The big announcement is that he opened a business for beard products called the Magnificent Man. He says as an evangelist he has to go to the marketplace. Biker conventions, tattoo events, and, wait for it, professional wrestling venues. I thought it was perfect. “Todd the Anointed” would be perfect for the bearded wonder.

    He says he won’t accept the tribunal’s assessment … no shock there. His last public church event on his schedule was in my town.

    I think he actually can see that his hearing has dwindled. Market driven religion has had at least one salutary outcome.

  2. Michael says:

    Thanks for the update…I hope the market has spoken…

  3. Martin Luther's Disciple says:

    I find the Josh Harris story fascinating – he blows up his life, he blows up his family and be blows up his church and now he has some sort of a consulting business?
    People are fricking nuts!

  4. JM says:

    Briefly went through article at link about Driscoll. Glad people objected to the egomaniacal twirp However, one of the men that objected, Dave Bruskas, serves in a church that has its own “baggage”. That church has had multiple complaints of not addressing and then covering up sexual abuse. It’s a hot mess on a good day. Pots and Kettles calling each other out and I cannot find my scorecard. Time to make popcorn!

  5. Michael says:

    Bruskas is an ass.

  6. JM says:

    Amen, Michael! Succinct and oh so true! 🙂

  7. Babylon's Dread says:

    I know Dave Bruskas rather well. He is most definitely not an ass. He is in fact one of the most serious self-reflecting and genuinely motivated men that I know. I would trust him with the care of those I love. In the years following his time with Driscoll he served at North Church in Abq. He is very forthcoming about the seduction of serving alongside MD at Mars Hill and how the momentum of so much success blurred the carnage of the creeping authoritarianism. More than that he was a very fine brother and very humble and brilliant leader.

    I can see how someone would have a different assessment simply based on outcomes at MH but that assessment will not come from those who know this man.

    As for the history of the church he currently serves, it is not his history there as he has been what? Less than two years? I think so.

    Anyway he is my friend – the @$$ moniker would much more appropriately be mine.

  8. Michael says:

    I was being polite.
    I dislike him far more than that weak epithet due to knowing some of the people he screwed over without repentance.
    He’s forthcoming when it serves him…
    Perhaps you can be a good influence on him…

  9. Babylon's Dread says:

    I have done a great deal more reflection on the issue of restoration, it results in a walking back of some of my more radical views.

    1. If the offending party cannot be trusted to steward the area of their failure then we would be wise to restore the person but not the position.
    2. That is easily tested by the question of whether we would trust the individual with our own children, or our own money, or our own name.
    3. Those who suffered at the hand of the offender are the ones who would give us the best information about restoring a fallen one.
    4. That is easily tested by asking them if they would recommend the person to ministry again. Would their forgiveness countenance another opportunity to offend?
    5. In other words restoration must include the old fashion idea of restitution. The offender must restore as much as possible what they have taken.

    All of that raises the bar to an almost unreachable level.

    Restoration then is comprehensive — it means restore everyone. The offender can hope for restoration to wholeness in life and to the community of faith but not as readily to authority over others.

    Anyway the carnage is piled high

  10. Michael says:

    BD,
    That is really good… I want to publish that as a stand alone piece…

  11. Babylon's Dread says:

    Michael,

    I won’t dispute your assertion other than to say I would think him more than willing to face accusers and stand for what things they hold against him. The power and spell that MD had over people was extensive and without question Dave was within that influence for too long and he knows and regrets it profoundly.

  12. Babylon's Dread says:

    Michael,

    I am unpacking my thoughts about that in the process of doing some restorative work. My thoughts are still forming but I find myself with more affirmation than I expected from colleagues. Give me a bit of time to work some more of this out.

  13. Michael says:

    BD,
    Ok…but hurry up… 🙂

  14. Babylon's Dread says:

    Fundamentalist are At It Again?
    You mean the circular firing squad
    That’s true of virtually every human group.
    It’s true of every religious sect
    every political organization
    every social organization
    every youth sports organization
    every system of humanity finds the bogeyman across the room.

    It was true of apostles “danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

    It was true of Jesus

    Scars are required for advancement…

    God is not a helicopter parent

  15. filbertz says:

    I would figure if a dude excommunicated himself, he’d have the good sense to leave. Evidently, Josh H. can’t get any traction in the world he embraced, so he’s leaching onto those he left. Truly weird & sad.

  16. j2theperson says:

    I agree that the Josh Harris story is sad and weird and interesting. I suppose it’s only a matter of time before whatever his secret sin is comes out. He may say “F you. I’m not telling you that.” But it’s hard to hide things in this day and age, particularly when you’re famous and people hold a lot of animosity against you.

  17. Steve from Canada says:

    Really sad about Josh Harris – he seems so disjointed now. He needs Christ’s grace more than he ever needed it. I mean, how does he handle the realization that he screwed up people’s lives by being a know-it-all in his 20s? Not sure how renouncing Christianity helps with that, which perhaps is why he’s hardened himself now and says “F you” to all of the people who cared and followed him. And then there’s the fact that he wants to renounce his faith yet can’t help but keep talking about it every time he talks about anything…

  18. WenatcheeTheHatchet says:

    Harris seems to need to remain in the public eye and to be selling something so whatever it is his unrepentant sin might be as he understands it’s not those two things … although more and more I think next-generation celebrity Christians should stop trying to be public figures and influencers. Then again … what else does Frank Schaeffer do these days? Harris seems to be a high profile case of the kind of celebrity Christian I think of as a legacy conscription. Parent was famous Christian public figure ergo the next generation has to continue the brand.

    But it’s not just in the right-leaning Christian scene that this kind of thing happens in. I noticed Bart Campolo is still basically a preacher, he’s a humanist chaplain but that is, in a way, still in the business of church stuff.

  19. MM says:

    Josh H has not finished his story. While I know nothing about what he is planning I believe there is a master marketing plan coming from him in the near future. He’s no dummy and don’t be surprised when he announces his next phase of life.

    Someone once wrote, “life’s a stage and …”

  20. WenatcheeTheHatchet says:

    MM, yeah, the master marketing plan is the one part I think we can probably count on.

    Watching ow things play out with celebrities in Christian scenes and comparing that to scandals related to Lance Armstrong or Sherman Alexie (who’s keeping a low profile compared to a year or so ago) it seems that when scandal erupts, and sometimes it seems to be part of a PR cycle, the debate tends to circle around whether or not so-and-so deserves to be a celebrity rather than a repudiation of the ideals and ethics that come with celebrity. John Crist is someone I’ve never heard of before the recent headlines. He might as well be Lous C. K. to me someone I only lately heard of and never need to spend a minute listening to.

    Whereas I thought Harris’ ideas about courtship were basically stupid twenty years ago. He knows how to sell, I’ll give him that, but what to sell and whether he should know so much about selling I admit to having doubts about.

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