Under the advisement of the Holy Spirit, and great men like John Wesley and Steve DeNeff, and friends like Pete Aldin, I have begun to wonder if this idea of "Emergent Venom" is not, somehow, counter-productive, or even counter to scripture. I can rationalize (and perhaps even be correct) that men like John MacArthur are inadvertently describing, by their actions, how they want to be treated, at the same time, I do not wish to address anyone in their fashion.

This first struck me while reading Wesley's A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, and again, while reading More Than Forgiveness, by Steve DeNeff (A MUST READ). But lately, Pete Aldin has been doing a series called Famous Last Words, a study of the last verse of each book of the bible. When he touched on Joshua, he made the following comment:

We live in a day of reformation in the church. As an older style of leadership dies away over the next 15-20 years, lets not adopt a position of "Good riddance!", but let's honor them. And not just honor them, but take their bones - their "presence" and legacy - with us into the future. Click for full text.

And that struck me because, as I said to him in response, This is something that I struggle over struggling with. It is very easy for me to see the passing of certain prominent (yet wrong) leaders of the church as the glorious passing of a tainted era. I rejoice that they are in Heaven where they can do no more damage. And that's wrong of me. There are few, if any, in whom I should not be able to find something honorable and good.

I want to seek love and unity and holiness, not a purging of the people that I disagree with from Christianity's steering commision. So be patient with me while I sort this out. It may be that Emergent Venom will become a grounds of defense, or it may cease to exist altogether, or honestly, I may realize that I was okay to begin with (though I doubt it), and keep right on. I appreciate your patience.

Pete Aldin requests...

In my Halloween Newsletter, and in the archived version HERE, I listed four kinds of Monsters In The Pew that you'll want to avoid. I gave you the Frankenstein Christian, the Dracula Christian, the Mr. Hyde Christian, and the Invisible Man Christian. In the comments, Pete Aldin asked for an extended version that included a Wolfman Christian and a Zombie Christian.

The Wolfman is a stumper. The first thing that comes to mind is when I worked at Wal-Mart and had long hair and massive sideburns. A little girl passing by looked at her mommie and exclaimed, "Look Mommie, that man's a werewolf."

Well, I'm not (unfortunately), but I do think they're interesting. What always grabbed me about them was that they went at everything with unstoppable power and reckless stupidity. It reminds me of a few guys I knew that were, above all things, warriors for Christ--ready to exorcize the demons whereever they might be found. They're the guys who cannot refer to their bible as a bible, or the Word, or the Holy Book. Their bible is, and always will be, a sword. They think of Spiritual Warfare almost constantly and, I bet, have comic book images of their battles with the demonic, floating around in their head. They're beastly warriors for Jesus. Grrrr. Chomp.

Phew. Okay. Now, taking a cue from Audio Adrenaline, I've decided to go with the Zombie Christian as a good guy. It would be very easy to draw a connection between Zombies and luke-warm Christianity, being dead in the faith and all, But I'm looking for something of a challenge. A Zombie Christian is one who marches without question into the fray. They're oblivious to harm. Their sole purpose seems to be to make more Zombies which, if you can set aside the whole cannibalism thing, looks a bit like evangelism. Hungry?