Some of you may recall Mark Driscoll’s talk at last year’s Desiring God national conference. I reviewed it briefly here and linked to it. In the talk, Mark made the point that wolves are false teachers who prey upon the flock of God. Wolves do not need to be loved and understood. They must be dealt with quickly and harshly before they hurt the sheep.
Later in the year, Adrian Warnock provided an excellent example of wolf shooting by calling out a false teacher who denies penal substitutionary atonement.
More recently, James MacDonald has done some wolf shooting in a more light hearted vein. He compared emerging church leader Brian McLaren to Palm Pilots. it was funny and it stung because it was true.
Now James MacDonald is taking on the topic of wolf shooting more directly.
I do not view Brian as an ‘erring weaker brother,’ worthy of sympathy or olive branches, but rather as a dangerous false teacher who repackages mainline liberal theology. (Have the past 50 years not been adequate to see how liberal theology empties churches and damns souls?)
More dangerous still is that McLaren packages his false teaching and denials of Scripture as solutions to some of the excesses currently plaguing evangelicalism—the danger being his winning over of young people who have legitimate complaints about the current church, but who lack the discernment to see that his solutions are often unbiblical even when his critiques are fair.
Bottom line: my article was making the point that all denials of orthodox Christianity end up in a theological dumpster, not bearing fruit or winning souls to Christ. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35).
What was amazing about some of the comments I received was that they were not put off by the critique, but by the naming of the specific person who promulgates these deceptions. Several comments stated in the strongest of terms that it is unbiblical and unwise, even unloving, to name the names of false teachers and opponents of the biblical gospel. Is that true? Is it wrong to publicly call out those who attack the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ? Even when their denials are much more public? Let’s see what Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John have to say about how to deal with false teachers. Do they confront it? Do they, in many instances, actually name the people involved?
go check out the quotes that follow. An excellent reminder that the need to shoot the wolves and protect the sheep is scriptural.
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