Go to Tony’s blog about handling the controversy that is always surrounding the evangelical/emergent conversation. There is a lot of name calling out there. I try not to. I honestly do. JI Packer is much more of a model that I try to live up to in these things. He makes it very clear that the point is understanding the Bible text and not so much interpreting the motives of the person with whom you are in debate.
But I do have a caveat. Sometimes debate should not be so dispassionate. The New Testament has plenty of example of this. And church history, too. I sure liked the way Luther debated. He was intellectually sophisticated and at the same time he though the debater was worthy of ridicule and should be ridiculed. Like I said, Packer is my model, but it is clear that for all his irenicism the Anglican church has not been moved. Some people simply are not really interested in what the Bible says though they must tip the hat to it in order to have some cloak of respectability. And when the Bible is being played with, then debate takes a different form. It has taken debaters of another kind to move the dialogue ahead in the Anglican communion, if it really has moved ahead. At least, and finally, some Anglican churches have taken action to realign themselves. 5o or so years of debate was finally enough!!!!
Appropriate satire can be effective. But there should never be lying and equivocating. Call ‘em out on this one, Tony.
