The Elephant Room

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Jeff Burns

Puritan Board Freshman
Anyone here familiar with James MacDonald's Elephant Room conference? Last year's conference was billed as follows:

"The Elephant Room will feature blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who share a common love for the gospel but take differing approaches to ministry. No keynotes. No canned messages. The purpose of the Elephant Room is to model loving confrontation and gracious disagreement that honors relationship and allows diversity of opinion but stands without compromise on the revealed word of God. As Proverbs 27:17 instructs us that iron sharpens iron, so we want to sharpen each other for effective ministry. You’ll be stretched and challenged in your convictions while gaining practical insights from a variety of pastoral perspectives."

Last year's speaker lineup was Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Steven Furtick, David Platt, Matt Chandler, Greg Laurie, and Perry Noble.

I was saddened that the folks who put this on think the only difference between Furtick/Noble and Driscoll/MacDonald/Chandler is methodilogical. Furtick and Noble are leading many people astray in the Carolinas, and it's truly sad to see it happen.

That said, the Elephant Room Round 2 has just been announced. Only 3 speakers scheduled so far: Driscoll, MacDonald, and Mark Dever. Now I'm really concerned... Dever has a considerably good track record as well as a nicely tuned "discern-o-meter." But this seems like he's just trying to step on a syncretistic land mine. I don't know if there will be any out and out heretics there this year, but I just don't understand why Dever thinks it's a good idea to associate himself and his ministry with this type of event.

Thoughts?
 
They announced the 4th speaker today...

jakes-300x298.jpg


T.D. Jakes

Speaker #4 – T.D. Jakes | The Elephant Room
 
Speaking at a conference doesn't mean a man endorses the conference leaders' or standing on any/all issues. It's not how conferences work. It'd be inappropriate to say Dever speaks at ER-Conference, the host believes/does X, therefore, Dever endorses/doesn't care about X. If anything, my guess is that McDonald appreciates things Dever has to say, Dever sees an opportunity to help and influence, and receives the invite as such: an opportunity to help, influence, and hopefully sharpen brothers in the faith.

As for TD Jakes... I don't know.
 
The problem is that according to the description given, these people share a common love for the Gospel. But is their Gospel in common? By appearing there, according to the conference description, you give the inevitable impression that there is no difference between you and Furtick or Jakes when it comes to the substance of the Gospel. But how far out does a person have to be before you start denying that you preach the same Gospel?
 
Hopefully Dever (or anyone for that matter) calls Jakes to task on his denial of the Trinity and his propagation of the prosperity gospel.
 
If anything, my guess is that McDonald appreciates things Dever has to say, Dever sees an opportunity to help and influence, and receives the invite as such: an opportunity to help, influence, and hopefully sharpen brothers in the faith.

I hope that is the case as well. But I've been around evangelicalism enough to know that while you can hope for the best, don't expect your hopes to pan out. Unless Dever is willing to openly call folks like TD Jakes to repentance for teaching out right heresy and leading many people astray with his prospertiy gospel, and is also willing to do the same for whoever the next sub-orthodox speaker is, I really don't see the wisdom in even joining yourself to this type of event. Look at this video for a good dose of what it looked like when Dever was trying to speak to other brothers on a simple issue. He tries to appeal to scripture, they drown him out and throw out meaningless arguments until he just has to shrug as if to say "Well, I tried..." I doubt if this conference will afford a more meaningful platform for discussion (and rebuke).

---------- Post added at 01:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:35 PM ----------

The problem is that according to the description given, these people share a common love for the Gospel. But is their Gospel in common? By appearing there, according to the conference description, you give the inevitable impression that there is no difference between you and Furtick or Jakes when it comes to the substance of the Gospel. But how far out does a person have to be before you start denying that you preach the same Gospel?

Exactly. That's what I was trying to get at in the first post...
 
Hopefully Dever (or anyone for that matter) calls Jakes to task on his denial of the Trinity and his propagation of the prosperity gospel.

I'm sure it will be brought up. I would imagine that Matt Chandler of Mark Driscoll would too.
 
This is going to cause a stink. I hope Dever withdraws his participation from this conference. It would give the impression that differences concerning something as essential as the Trinity are but a secondary and incidental issue among participants with equally valid view-points. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
 
I'm curious to see what Dever is going to say/do or of Jakes is going to be confronted. While those putting on "The Elephant Room" are showing us 1 by 1 who is going to be on there, there was no suprise to Dever that Jakes was going to be on... there really had to have been a full list shared between all the individuals involved prior to the agreement to be on the show.

I hope the non-trinitarianism gets hit hard.
 
From James McDonald's post

I affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as I find it in Scripture. I believe it is clearly presented but not detailed or nuanced. I believe God is very happy with His Word as given to us and does not wish to update or clarify anything that He has purposefully left opaque. Somethings are stark and immensely clear, such as the deity of Jesus Christ; others are taught but shrouded in mystery, such as the Trinity. I do not trace my beliefs to credal statements that seek clarity on things the Bible clouds with mystery. I do not require T.D. Jakes or anyone else to define the details of Trinitarianism the way that I might. His website states clearly that he believes God has existed eternally in three manifestations. I am looking forward to hearing him explain what he means by that. I am also excited to hear him state his views on money, which may be closer to Scripture than the monasticism currently touring reformed world.

There are some major, major problems in this quotation and they are not because of T.D. Jakes.
 
There's also this one from MacDonald-

At the Elephant Room Conference we welcome the broadest spectrum of people within the body of Christ to listen and learn and challenge and sharpen, in order to model the kind of unity Jesus prayed for—unity that is built around all that the Scripture teaches.
Sounds very McLaren'esque... very much a "Generous Orthodoxy".
 
From James McDonald's post

I affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as I find it in Scripture. I believe it is clearly presented but not detailed or nuanced. I believe God is very happy with His Word as given to us and does not wish to update or clarify anything that He has purposefully left opaque. Somethings are stark and immensely clear, such as the deity of Jesus Christ; others are taught but shrouded in mystery, such as the Trinity. I do not trace my beliefs to credal statements that seek clarity on things the Bible clouds with mystery. I do not require T.D. Jakes or anyone else to define the details of Trinitarianism the way that I might. His website states clearly that he believes God has existed eternally in three manifestations. I am looking forward to hearing him explain what he means by that. I am also excited to hear him state his views on money, which may be closer to Scripture than the monasticism currently touring reformed world.

There are some major, major problems in this quotation and they are not because of T.D. Jakes.

I'd never heard of MacDonald before this Elephant room stuff. I quickly learned I do not care for him.
 
This is the second disturbing thing that I've seen from MacDonald this week. The first was this Indefensible Defense of Perry Noble. Now this.

I used to hear him some a few years ago and he seemed like a Greg Laurie with a bit more depth. Having become more soldily Reformed over the years myself-- on one hand I rejoice that Reformed thought is having a wider impact on the mass of American Evangelicalim, and on the other hand I see an urgent need for us, as Reformed, to come out from some of this mess and be distinctly seperate.
 
I'm not sure how these guys don't see a problem.

Some of it is that we've been trained to belittle the separatist logic used by fundamentalists - even when it is logical.

Some of it is that we are biblicists with little appreciation for dogmatic concerns.

And some of it is that attempts to gain influence or curry favor really are a slippery slope: if one compromise seemed to have a good payoff, your incentive to resist the next one is that much reduced.
 
I'm with Andres

"I quickly learned I do not care for him."

I learned that when I watched the interview he and Driscoll did with Dever where he was just obnoxiously rude to Dever. But it was this week that capped it all off - the nonsense about Noble and most of all his disdain for the historic confessions, creeds and statements of the Church of Jesus Christ.

"I do not trace my beliefs to credal statements that seek clarity on things the Bible clouds with mystery. I do not require T.D. Jakes or anyone else to define the details of Trinitarianism the way that I might.''

It's all there; an explicit historic snobbery, and an explicit postmodern relativism. So there we have the so-called modern reformed movement - ''make up your own orthodoxy, express how you want - don't matter too much, after all we're all brothers.''

Dr. Trueman's piece linked above is SO good - a must read.
 
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I think it is positive that they have adjusted the information so that it no longer says they are only inviting brethren or people who are agreed on the gospel.

FORMAT
The Elephant Room features blunt conversations between seven influential pastors who take differing approaches to ministry. No keynotes. No canned messages. These are “the conversations you never thought you’d hear.” All conversations are moderated by James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel and Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church

PURPOSE
The purpose of the Elephant Room is to model loving confrontation and gracious disagreement that honors relationship and allows diversity of opinion but stands without compromise on the revealed word of God. As Proverbs 27.17 instructs us that iron sharpens iron, so we want to sharpen each other for effective ministry. You’ll be stretched and challenged in your convictions while gaining practical insights from a variety of pastoral perspectives.

Such change, of course, can be merely cosmetic: in other words, not a result of actually changing views due to listening to the critics, but merely eliminating a weakness that made it harder to spin or backpedal. But what the true nature of the change is will become fully apparent in due time.
 
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Well the bloggers over at Reformation 21 are really laying it on thick, and I for one have found it to be rather hilarious. Enjoy these posts, if you like.

Carl Trueman announces he and some of his buddies will be getting together to discuss quantum theory for anyone who would care to join in and listen.

Rodney Trotter announces an up comming name change for his ministry, as well as a new conference he's going to put on in the near future, and goes ahead and preemptively silences any of his detractors.
 
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