Yeah... so I missed out on chapel today... the chapel that seems to have everybody talking. So, as is my practice on this sort of thing, I went back to listen to the audio on the web.
Everybody else seems to have the main points covered, except this and I wanted to get the direct quotes that bothered me. For those of you who are double-checking, the fun begins at about 0:28:00. The passage at issue is James 5:13-16 and the part that of the service that I'm quoting (the italicized first part is fairly loosely quoted, but the voice and intent seem to stick true, at least to my mind... the part in block quotes is far more precise as it is the main issue of my criticism.)
"please come forward... there were lots of hands... let's come forward... let's be bold... come on... anybody who raised their hand come forward. Anybody who isn't a Christian, come forward. i wanna dare you to do something if you don't believe in christ, whether you want it or not. I dare you to come forward and receive prayer."
"I want every bold person in here who believes that God wants to do something big on this campus to come forward. Everybody... if you are bold and believe the words in this scripture, I want you to come forward and lay hands on these people. ...Not something you see in a Baptist church. And if you're still seated, I just ask that you would pray with us and agree with us in prayer... hold nothing back.I recognize now and I'm here to say now, I know that God does not always heal anybody" ... "but to deny and never ask for healing and never do this would be to disobey that scripture that we just read. So we're going to pray in faith and believe in the healing of those who are lost, those who are hurting and those who are sick."
All I want to say is that regardless of your stance on the call to come forward, those are some pretty strong words and they seem at least slightly prejudicial against people who don't want to come forward. Oh yeah... and I'm going to have to come out and flat out disagree with the bolded part above and contend that while I respect Vinny... he did a quick yank out of context and some fairly bad exegetics with the text at hand.
Let me be clear here: I have nothing wrong with calling people who are sick forward to pray for them. While it might have been bizarre, I really don't even take issue with attempting to get the unsaved to come forward (granted, "I dare you" was a bit puerile... but God can use any situation.) My problem was with the tone applied to those who didn't come forward and the abusive exegetics on James 5:13-16.
To those who say, "God used that service for me." I am glad for you and I praise God for that. But I would point out that God can use anything and that doesn't exempt us from questioning and examining the practices of those who lead us in worship.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at February 16, 2004 10:20 PM | TrackBack