The dull art of naysaying
The Internet permits everyone of have his or her say. We call this "progress" and extol the virtues of this great leveler. Fair enough, everyone has his say, but that doesn't mean everything said is worth listening to.
Take naysaying, for example—the dull art of objecting to something so obsessively that you forget what you approve of. We church folk seem especially prone to this behaviour.
I actually don't think naysaying is inherently bad; in fact, on occasion, I engage in it. But this engagement is governed by certain principles. Absent these, it becomes a unique brand of herd mentality lacking the ability to stop and perform a reality check.
Unburdened by principle, strident advocates of naysaying quickly adopt a line of logic that goes like this: "Someone I trust says this is bad so I don't need to waste my time looking into it. I can say it's bad with confidence. I can even quote the bad parts of it in order to deter others from looking at it!"
The birth of the "anti-book"
And here's how it usually works: First, a trusted scout reads the source material. If, as expected, the source material contains some error, they return as heralds to report their findings. Next, the shepherds (pastors, bloggers, church leaders) are informed of the findings via a blog or a much-forwarded e-mail.
These shepherds naturally take up the task of redistributing the information to their own flocks. In the process they appear to be doing the hard work of discernment, while in fact they may have done none. Whether their "flock" sits before them in pews from week to week or is only accessible via electronic media makes little difference. They are often less a flock to be cared for than a distribution network to be exploited. The distributed findings are accepted as damning proof against someone the recipients of said findings themselves have probably never heard or read.
Finally, if the scout is wildly successful, his efforts will culminate in the publishing of a book. No longer do these words exist solely as pixels on a screen. The incarnation of these findings in tangible form has an undeniable legitimizing effect. The publication itself is usually a scrapbook of sorts that claims to be authoritative on all matters relating to the persons or ideas that are under attack. The problem is the book, and indeed the entire process leading up to it, contains only the most inflammatory sections from other sources and arranges them in such a way that all context is lost.
No matter. This publication becomes a sword and standard in the hands of the assembled army, consolidating a unity of purpose that further fuels their efforts. In addition it is also passed around as a sort of gospel tract to outsiders, ensuring the recipient that reading the book will be of great assistance in correcting their misguided theology.
The climax of this crusade is a chorus of condemnation comprised mostly of people who haven't read the source material but want to appear as if they have.
Avoiding traps and hazards
When you encounter a book like I've described above, if you begin to read it and find that you haven't heard of or read anything by half (or more) of the authors you're reading about, STOP READING, PUT DOWN THE BOOK, and most certainly do not distribute the book to others with an encouragement to read it.
I once witnessed someone make a strong objection to a proposed mission statement based on the fact that it contained the word "reconciliation." The objector reasoned thus: "reconciliation" is a word used frequently by Rick Warren, whom he considered a heretic; therefore the proposal was to be rejected.
This clearly illustrates the danger of being blindly against someone's ideology and naively hyper-protective of your own. It is also evidence that the person is spending more time reading anti-books than the Good Book whose honour they claim to be defending.
Often people are drawn into the practice of unprincipled naysaying because they lack the theological language to express themselves in any other way. In addition, their targets are often people who possess both theological confidence and rhetorical strength and this can be an intimidating façade to challenge.
We do need to confront each other, but we need to do so humbly and with much grace. Simply telling each other what we think is right and wrong is fruitless if we're not standing on the word of God. The last thing we need is warring armies of sycophants, lining up behind the man or woman they believe to be most right. No one, regardless of his or her status among those you trust, is infallible. Absolute trust in anyone leads very quickly to cultish devotion.
John Piper didn't die for your sins. Neither did Brian McLaren.
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