An emergent perspective on the gospel that is disconcerting...

Pyromaniacs is a site featuring contributions from a number of people associated with Grace Community Church in LA, pastored by John MacArthur. I do not know these men personally, nor am I saying I agree with everything on the site--I haven't even checked out most of it. But Phil Johnson's post on 24 September, and the links within to other posts present a very disturbing picture of one of the Emergent conversation's recognized "leaders," Doug Pagitt.

Some quick background--a few weeks back, MacArthur and Pagitt were on Headline News to discuss the pros and cons of Christians practicing yoga. MacArthur said the exercises aren't bad, but being joined to Hindu concepts makes them suspect, and he questioned the wisdom of Christians seeking that form of exercise. He further pointed to God's Word as a far better "stress reliever." Pagitt's church offers yoga classes, and he sees no problem with it as a means to the wholeness Jesus would promote. I listened to the program and then to Pagitt's belitting of MacArthur afterward. A listener to the original program emailed Pagitt expressing disappointment with Pagitt's lack of clarity on the Gospel, to which Pagitt replied in an email. That email states, in part,

I must say that I see the gospel totally differently than what you conveyed in your e-mail. I was not converted by a verse but always loved and changed (even ongoing) by a fully-participating God who created me in his image. I would strongly encourage you to have a much more full and biblical understanding of the gospel, and not form a faith based on any interpretation of one verse.I'm not sure you'd be interested in this, but I have just finished a book somewhat on this topic. I think it might give you a more full understanding of the gospel than the one perverted by the likes of John MacArthur. I do not say "perverted" lightly, either. I really think what he communicates is so distant from the message of the Bible that it is dangerously harmful to people. If you heard the interview and his comments about a God who is "above us," I certainly hope you would see this.

I don't know the whole story, and I have a few subjects where I differ with the way John MacArthur expresses his views. However, there has never been any doubt in my mind that his presentation of the gospel is solidly in line with the historic understanding of Scripture. Listening and reading Pagitt's statements leave me cold. Such a characterization of MacArthur is exactly the kind of categorical condemnation that many in the Emergent movement excoriate those holding more traditional, orthodox positions for expressing toward them. The "verse" Pagitt is reacting to is Jeremiah 17:9, which the writer of the email to Pagitt said was instrumental in his conversion.

If these statements by one of Emergent's leading lights represent their thinking, the conversation seems to have lost its way. If I'm missing something, I'd like to know.