Stanley summarized his high estimation of the Doctor by stating in his book How I Found Livingstone: “My friendly reader, … God grant that if ever you take to traveling in Africa, you will get as noble and true a man for your companion as David Livingstone! For four months and four days I lived with him, in the same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never found a fault in him. I am a man of quick temper, and often without sufficient cause, I dare say, have broken ties of friendship. But with Livingstone I never had cause for resentment, but each day’s life with him added to my admiration for him.”

If a non-Christian who was somewhat skeptical toward Christians and Christianity were to have a close-up view of us going through months of adversity, what would he or she then have to say about our Christian beliefs, behavior and character?
That’s precisely what we see in Henry Stanley’s extremely positive pen portrait of David Livingstone after the two men spent four challenging months together in inner Africa. For those of us who are Christians, there is a lot for us to consider and relate to our own Christian life and witness as we contemplate Stanley’s favorable portrayal of Livingstone.
Stanley was the American newspaper journalist who delivered Livingstone from destitution and provided him with hope-reviving support near the end of the renowned missionary-explorer’s career of service in Africa. For a period of four months Stanley was Livingstone’s daily companion, living in close quarters with him, often under trying circumstances. Those difficulties included threatening encounters with suspicious tribesmen, spells of severe illness, a grueling overland journey on foot during the rainy season, and being attacked by a swarm of wild bees.
Following their time together, Stanley recorded a number of observations about Livingstone’s character, temperament and conduct. What makes the newspaperman’s testimony of Livingstone even more compelling is that Stanley himself was probably not a born-again believer at the time. By Stanley’s own admission, he had a fiery temper and was easily offended. He had an obvious wariness toward any type of Christian legalism or hypocrisy. All these factors inclined him to be reserved toward rather than receptive of a missionary doctor and his Christianity. Yet the consistency, genuineness and winsomeness of Livingstone’s Christian lifestyle could not be denied and made a strong positive impression on Stanley.
Stanley summarized his high estimation of the Doctor by stating in his book How I Found Livingstone: “My friendly reader, … God grant that if ever you take to traveling in Africa, you will get as noble and true a man for your companion as David Livingstone! For four months and four days I lived with him, in the same house, or in the same boat, or in the same tent, and I never found a fault in him. I am a man of quick temper, and often without sufficient cause, I dare say, have broken ties of friendship. But with Livingstone I never had cause for resentment, but each day’s life with him added to my admiration for him.”
Of Livingstone’s commendable characteristics, even in the face of marked adversity and sacrifice, Stanley revealed: “In Livingstone I have seen many amiable traits. His gentleness never forsakes him. His hopefulness never deserts him.”
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In an effort to bring more people into the church, many churches have replaced sound biblical teaching with user-friendly messages. Large segments of the church today, though thankfully not all, are failing to faithfully teach the word of God and discipling their people. As a result, there has been a massive decline in congregational understanding of vital doctrine and even a misunderstanding of the very gospel itself.

When the 2022 State of Theology Report came out last year, the results were far less than encouraging. For example:
– 43% of US Evangelicals agreed with Statement No. 4: “God learns and adapts to different circumstances.” In other words, for nearly half of US Evangelicals, God it not omniscient or all-knowing.
– 53%, over half of US Evangelicals, agree with Statement No. 16: “The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths but is not literally true.”
– 42% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 27: “Gender identity is a matter of choice.”
– 46% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 28: “The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual behavior doesn’t apply today.”
– 56% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement No. 3: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” (the heretical view called perennialism)
– 43% of US Evangelicals agree with Statement  No. 7: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”
I suppose we at MCOI should have been surprised by these distressing figures, but we were not. Saddened but not surprised. The reason is fairly simple – in an effort to bring more people into the church, many churches have replaced sound biblical teaching with user-friendly messages. Large segments of the church today, though thankfully not all, are failing to faithfully teach the word of God and discipling their people. As a result, there has been a massive decline in congregational understanding of vital doctrine and even a misunderstanding of the very gospel itself.
Even for churches that are stalwartly teaching the Word of God, it is difficult for pastors and elders to protect their flock. The reason may be the easy access to books (even those sold by so-called “Christian” bookstores and sources) and high-sounding ideas that present an altered view of what Christianity should be and what the true gospel is. These alternative teachings may not deny the faith outright and even may use the name of Christ and sound “Christian” – while presenting “another Jesus” and “another gospel” altogether. “New” ideas can be very gratifying to the old nature still lurking in us. We have been culturally flattered with the idea that we can “trust our gut,” but in reality, our human gut can only be truly trusted to act up at the most inopportune times. Your gut does not know what is true – it’s just a gut – but the real truth is readily available to us in scripture. We need to believe the true thing, not the new thing.
Proverbs 14:12 reads:
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.  
People also fall prey to popular culture, which is decidedly opposed to Christian beliefs and ideals. Most people develop their worldview through osmosis, often not paying close attention to what is being “taught” through popular music, movies, television, and best-selling books. People then often bring these unfiltered and unchallenged thoughts and ideas into the gathering of believers – perhaps without the knowledge of the Pastor and elders – and infect others. It’s like the spread of a virus, and it must be effectively treated before it reaches critical mass and sinks the Bismarck. Since youth are especially susceptible to cultural messages and peer pressure and are being heavily propagandized against the faith in public schools, we are losing the young. We must not lose the next generation to seductive lies. The “new thing” often sounds right and may even be partially true but leads to false conclusions and beliefs.
George Orwell, the author of 1984 and Animal Farm, made an interesting observation on the nature of deception.
All propaganda is a lie, even when it’s telling the truth.
Unless there is a deliberate ongoing Church emphasis on combating the messages of the culture and giving sound refutation to its unbiblical ideas, the downward slide of the church will continue. This trend will persist and perhaps accelerate exponentially if we do not take steps to counter the erroneous ideas the young are being heavily indoctrinated with.
None of this is new. As we read the Hebrew Scriptures, we find a constant thread of God condemning false prophets, correcting false teaching, and calling out bad behavior in His people, Israel. Nearly all of the New Testament letters were written to correct bad behavior and warn the church about false prophets, false teachers, and false teaching.
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Written by James R. Wood |
Monday, May 16, 2022
What does this have to do with the winsome, third way framework? Well, as I argued in my piece, it seems to me that this framework tends to think about politics through the lens of evangelism, and thus in an apologetic mode. This gets expressed in the overwrought concern with how Christians are perceived by virtue of their political actions and the impact on the “public witness” of the church. This leads Christians, often and in various ways, to let the broader culture set the terms for our engagement out of fear about negative perception.

Last week First Things published my essay “How I Evolved on Tim Keller.” An old friend (who clearly is not on Twitter) texted me today asking if there had been much response. How could I possibly explain the dustup via text? Even more importantly, how can I possibly respond to all of the critiques?
I can’t, and I won’t even try.
What I would like to offer are some points of clarification in response to some of the most common concerns I have seen raised, and to elaborate on some of my key arguments.
To start, there are two things I wish I could’ve included if I had more space. Both of these are related to the growing constituency of former disciples of Kellerism. First is that, in some ways, this piece was intended as a defense of Keller against his harshest critics. In recent months I have found myself in various conversations in which former fans express deep disappointment and anger toward Keller. Some argue that he is revealing that he has always been some kind of liberal in third way clothing, or that he is some closet Marxist, or just a general enemy of the church. I think these are all extreme and unwarranted opinions. But I believe they emerge in response to some real issues. I wanted to give expression to the basic concerns of many of these people, and to get out in front of the discourse to establish what I hoped would be more constructive terms for the debate. Secondly, I desire for our evangelical leadership to recognize this growing constituency and not simply dismiss their concerns. These people are looking for leaders to help them navigate our new cultural waters. Often they are turning to less-than-ideal sources. I want godly leaders to respond to this need—whether that be some from the current set of leaders or an entirely new crop that rises to fill the void.
To reiterate, I have an enormous amount of respect for Tim Keller, who helped me understand the depths of the gospel, resolved some key apologetic issues in my thinking, and inspired a life of mission (I was a campus evangelist from 2004-2013, then a pastor to this day who has helped plant churches in secular, liberal cities). Like him, I desperately want our neighbors to receive forgiveness and new life in Christ and to join the fellowship of the church. I want us to build on his example of intellectually serious, culturally aware ministry.
But I would like to shift a bit away from direct discussion of Keller himself, if I may. I do have some critiques of his own thought and public statements, which I articulated in the piece. But I am largely concerned about the way his framework is broadly appropriated by his disciples, many of whom populate leadership positions in churches and other Christian ministries.
Some critics have highlighted the paragraph in which I spoke about my experience of the 2016 election. At that time I couldn’t understand how a Christian could vote for someone like Donald Trump. This, I assumed, would do irreparable damage to the witness of the church. I noticed that my heart became increasingly hardened toward my fellow Christians, and I felt convicted. I started to wonder if there was something amiss in my thinking, if there might be something wrong with my framework.
Critics have focused on this paragraph, saying: “Isn’t that your problem, not Keller’s?” Yes and no. I intentionally wrote that paragraph in a confessional manner to signal the fact that I believe I was applying Keller’s thinking in a certain way, and thus was primarily responsible for my actions. Yet, I don’t believe my experience in this regard was unique. I have heard from many others similar stories; and, even more, I have witnessed over the past six years how Kellerite Christians treat other Christians in similar ways. I do not believe that Keller’s teachings are necessarily responsible, but I do think they generally dispose his disciples in a certain direction.
The Kellerites propound to abhor division among Christians, and yet I have found them far more divisive than they admit. This is captured in the common trope: “Punch right, coddle left.” Those who are devoted to the third-wayism of Keller generally appear to assume the worst from one side of the political spectrum and give the benefit of the doubt to—or at least provide an apologetic for—the other. (Case in point: David French’s recent piece on my essay.) Kellerites make up a significant portion of the “never Trump” movement among Christians, and this movement is unforgiving of those who have chosen, for whatever reason, to vote in that way (full disclosure: I did not in either election). They are also quick to join in the chorus of denunciations of “Christian nationalism,” which is often a bogeyman label for any robust pursuit of conservative Christian influence in politics. Make what you wish of Aaron Renn’s Three Worlds schema, but I think it is a bit obvious that, for example, in recent years conservative Christian political engagement that would have been seen as somewhat innocuous in previous years is quickly and regularly denounced as authoritarian “Christian nationalism.” I think this is itself partial validation of the Renn thesis, however much we want to debate the specifics of the timeline. And Kellerites are often quick to join in the denunciations.
Though I have been accused of saying otherwise, I very much share with Keller the desire to resist political tribalism and uncritical partisanship. Christians should absolutely avoid becoming beholden to any particular party. But one of my concerns about the third way, “winsome” model for politics is how it often seems to incline its adherents to be beholden to the perspective of the contemporary status quo—what the kids call “the Narrative.” This was all too evident during the pandemic as countless pastors and Christian leaders, especially those of the Kellerite persuasion, uncritically imbibed and disseminated the messaging from legacy media and public health officials. There is a place for trusting institutions, but this seemed to go too far, especially when reasonable voices of critique were roundly dismissed and castigated as conspiracy theorists, many of whom have been subsequently vindicated. But even worse than this, many of these Christian leaders mediated the messaging that any dissent from the covid regime was a failure to love one’s neighbor, thus binding the consciences of Christians and stoking division in the church.
What does this have to do with the winsome, third way framework? Well, as I argued in my piece, it seems to me that this framework tends to think about politics through the lens of evangelism, and thus in an apologetic mode. This gets expressed in the overwrought concern with how Christians are perceived by virtue of their political actions and the impact on the “public witness” of the church. This leads Christians, often and in various ways, to let the broader culture set the terms for our engagement out of fear about negative perception.
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