Joshua Harris’ former church responds to news of him leaving wife, Christianity

Wordst thing that he has now dony is to deny Jesus as Lord, and the Cross of Christ!

 

Yes, and if he thinks his book caused damage, he ain't seen nothin' yet.

 

I listened to his referenced TEDx Talk. It's not the worst I've heard, but by far, the best I've heard was a spoof. I don't care for TEDx Talks. I've never heard a good one.

Problems abound with his presentation, in which he talks about his anti-dating book, not about Christ. He speaks in generalities of the need to change when wrong. Good enough, but how do you know? He gave no baseline for deciding, except anecdotal evidence, which cut both ways. The very best he could say, but didn't quite get there, would be that he should not have been so adamant about his controversial ideas as a 21-year-old.

He calls what he's learning now "wisdom." He's wrong. He would have been much better off to have had wise Christian mentors back then, and all along, so that he didn't ride the pendulum of extremism away from Christ now.

"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way." (Prov. 19:2, NIV)

 

But has he actually done that? I don't this it is so clear. He said: "By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian." There's a good chance that the measurements that he had are all wrong and have very little to do with Jesus.

I want to be cautious here, since I went through a similar break with the church in which I grew up. The faith they built up in me had little to do with Jesus and had a lot to do with religiousity, anti-Catholic bigotry, and soft racism. It all fell apart for me one night in a conversation with a relative who grew up in the same church and had become an atheist a few years before. He challenged my beliefs and they crumbled immediately, because they were not based in scripture or even common sense.

Over the next 18 months of studying and seeking, I encountered Jesus in a life-transforming way that had little to do with the faith of my childhood. Moreover, my church went through a massive awakening where many church leaders and prominent members came to faith for the first time.

So this could be a very painful path that leads him to life and redemption. I have no way of knowing that, but I do know that the church needs to be very careful about how they react to this. When my relative expressed doubts and concerns, he was mocked, shamed, and shunned by people in the congregation who thought they were doing God a favor. When my own faith fell apart, I didn't mention it to anyone because I knew that they would attack and try to destroy me. If there was a God, I didn't want to be prejudiced against Him simply because of the way His alleged followers acted.

I would advise praying for this man and his family and asking God to bring into his life mature Christians who can show him a better way.

 

I wish that he would clsarify what it really meant by his terms, did he mean that he denies Jesus is God, was resurrected, or just what?

 

When someone's life falls apart, they often don't have the right words to express everything that is going on. Moreover, I don't think we should place on him the responsibility of having everything worked out when he is no longer in a place of leadership.

When I went through that dark valley, everything was up for reconsideration. I believed that I really did have a transforming religious experience when I was 13, but the obvious effects only lasted a couple of years because of the influence of other church members and a complete lack of discipleship.

I did a lot of reading in books by atheists, occultists, Eastern Religion, various "restorationist" cults like Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, and New Thought doctrine, like Christian Science and Unity. I did not see any answers there, and some of those groups were clearly irrational (atheism, Mormonism, New Thought, etc.). While reading some of those books, they made references to the Bible, and when I looked up the references, I realized I didn't have a firm grasp of biblical teaching (and neither did they), so I resolved to read the Bible cover-to-cover so I could fairly say that I covered Judaism and Christianity. So I did.

After I finished reading it about two months later, I had a pretty good grasp of the contents, but realized that not everything was in chronological order, especially the Old Testament. And I had a lot of questions, so I started rereading the Bible, spending time wherever it seemed right to me. After a few weeks, I was starting to understand things and became proud and cocky that I was answering questions that my Sunday School teachers could not. Then I realized that I was not as smart as the insights I was receiving. My own mind did not have the experience or ability to "intuitively" put things together in my mind the way it was coming together in my understanding. Suddenly I realized I was being taught by Someone. That's when I began praying again, asking the God who I discerned had been near me the entire time to lead me into knowledge and obedience.

That was about an 18-month process. If you had asked me to coherently explain what was going on during the first 18 months, you would likely conclude I had rejected Jesus. Actually, I had only rejected a childhood faith that was largely faulty.

 

This issue is near and dear to my heart, since I experienced what looked like a "falling away" to outsiders. I am currently in dialogue with a college student and a high school student who are both trying to figure out what is true and false. Both of those young men are in spiritual crisis and I have given them my encouragement to ask the hard questions since the kingdom and authority of God is the fundamental reality of existence. But beyond the intellectual questions they need to explore, they also need to know that others have gone through the valley and come out of it a better person who knows God. Reason can take a person a long way toward God, but it is different from a different kind of knowledge -- a knowledge of persons -- where one communes and interacts with God in an intimate way.

 

"By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian."

When someone says that I take them at their word that they are not a Christian. I am not going to try and think it through for them, especially given I do not know him. If he comes back later and recants then great. Until then his words are clear and I have no business second guessing him.

 

So you know and affirm his "measurements?" I don't know them and doubt I would wholly agree with them. He came out of a restrictive home school environment that may not have challenged him to deal with the hard issues in life. I have know a half-dozen teens and young adults that went way off the rails after homeschooling. I have no issues with homeschooling in general, but if the parent does not exercise great wisdom, it might be worse than if the child was in a public school.

I'm not second guessing him, I am simply pointing out to those who are ready to write him off, as was done earlier in this thread, not intending malice, but with grief.

I've had several teens and one adult tell me that they have rejected Christianity and were now "atheists," yet I've stayed connected with them and have seen them come back into public profession of their faith. As I mentioned earlier, when someone's life falls apart, they often don't have the words to express their situation.

Simply put, my call is not to write him off. Only God knows what is truly going on.

 

I take him at his word.

It's not your place to worry about it.

Yes, yes let's bash homeschooling, of which you apparently know nothing of.

No correlation just your speculation.

More inappropriate speculation.

I'm sorry I do not see your post as an attempt at grace but at incompetent judgment.

If that happens then Praise the Lord. Until then there is no legitimate reason to not take him at his word.

Taking him at his word is not writing him off.

 

True, but unless he in the future repents and comes back to Jesus, then he would be as those in the Bible who departed in the end, as proving were not one of His!

 

As do I. However, you seem to only pay attention to the last part of his statement, “…I am not a Christian." But that’s not all he said. Any competent reader of English knows to interpret the last part of the sentence with the massive qualifier that he has placed on it, "By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian."

I have been a member of churches that define Christians by certain doctrines, social positions, and attitudes, such as:

• Six 24-hour days of creation.
• Belief the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
• Premillennial dispensationalism.
• Enthusiastic and unquestioning support for anything the political government of Israel does.
• Contempt and condemnation for those who experience same sex attraction.
• Yielding to the unquestioned authority of the local pastor in all matters of interpretation and practice, with no allowance of any variation on interpretation within the congregation.
• The prohibition of women serving in leadership anywhere other than with young children.
• Prohibition of women preaching within the meetings of the church.
• Contempt and condemnation for “liberals” – persons who believe differently than the local congregation.
• Lock-step acceptance and support of the Republican Party platform, whatever it happens to be.

By those measurements, I am not a Christian. But by biblical measurements -- such as fidelity to the teachings of Jesus, effective prayers, growing in grace, victory over sin, fruit of the Spirit, reverence for scripture, manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit, love of neighbor, passion for the church, concern for the Kingdom of God, and a commitment to telling the truth when it is unpopular -- I am.

(1) It’s not your place to make that proclamation. I am not under your ecclesiastical authority and you certainly do not have biblical authority to shut down my evangelistic and discipleship concerns and activities.
(2) This is a worldwide forum, archived by all of the major search engines. If Mr. Harris decides to see what people are saying about him, he might find my comments to be of some use.
(3) A significant portion of my ministry has been characterized by going after the one who has wandered off instead of minding the 99 who remain (see Luke 15:3-7). I have had “ex-Christians” and atheists from all over the United States contact me through social media to hear more about what the real measure of the Christian faith is – being a disciple of Jesus.
(4) I spend a fair amount of time around inactive or ex-Christians at work and in social situations. Invariably, the conversation always works its way around to spiritual things over time. I ask people why they are not active in church. Among millennials, I hear over and over that they cannot abide the anti-gay, anti-science, anti-ecology, anti-question, pro-condemnation attitude of the church(s) they used to attend. If they are willing, I unpack those concerns with them to help them separate what the Bible really says vs. what they may have heard in church.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I did not bash homeschooling.

You are just being contrary. Also, I’m not speculating. I have been around homeschoolers, and products of homeschooling for several decades. Sometimes it’s great, other times it is used to isolate children from certain temptations, never giving children an opportunity to practice righteousness in low stakes situations.

Uh huh. Whatever.

Agreed. So why don’t you take him at his word, not just an out-of-context phrase? Physician, heal thyself!

 

Yes, if he has actually "left Jesus" and not just the Christian subculture. And there's a decent chance he has never actually been a true Christian but has just done what was expected in his family and church. I know lots of people who came to faith later in life who grew up in church and identified as Christian.

My plea is that whatever situation he is in, that mature Christians befriend and support him in the midst of his loss.

 

I lean toward I Cor 5:5.

 

sigh, I payed attention to the whole thing, however I assumed some things. I assumed he is an intelligent person and knows how to communicate what is going on with him. You appear to assume there is a large possibility that is not true.

 

That’s for brazen immorality, not a faltering faith.