I can already hear you responding with choruses of “NO!” and “Of COURSE Not!” Yes, you’re thinking of Jesus overturning the tables and upsetting the status quo, speaking truth to power, and “telling it like it is.” And you’re right, of course, he did all that. But then there were some other times that might be downright confusing from a PC-standpoint. Remember when he was asked if it was okay to pay taxes, and he pointed out a coin with Caesar’s image on it, and said “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s”? What about when he extracts a coin from the mouth of the fish in order to pay the temple tax? Those aren’t instances of speaking truth to power, they’re examples of acquiescence. Jesus can be a thorny dude to understand.

Political Correctness, or “PC”, has become a thorny issue as well, and Christians of almost every stripe (though particularly along the conservative right) react to it strongly. I know, first you can’t pray in school, and now you can’t even say “Merry Christmas” anymore. Next thing you know you’ll have to scrape the bumper stickers off your car! Yeah, I know, you’re passionate about this because it’s a first amendment thing, it’s an affront to your Christian beliefs. You’re proud of your incorrectness.

But is that the right approach?

We can begin by asking whether political correctness is truly contrary to free speech, and I would suggest it’s not so much a first amendment issue as you think. Hearing someone say “Happy Holidays” is not a challenge to your belief in Christ–and Christmas. Really, it’s just not. Does saying “Happy Hanukkah” undermine your Christian beliefs any more than saying “Merry Christmas” undermines Kwanzaa? No. Each believes what they believe regardless of what others believe, no matter how each one celebrates. A Muslim neighbour once brought us some home-baked treats in the Egyptian tradition as part of a celebration of their holiday–and they were delicious. My faith was not undermined, and I could even wish them a happy celebration as well without detriment to my own beliefs. That’s just being neighbourly. But it’s really not an infringement on your free speech until they start handing out fines and jail time for saying you believe in Christmas.

Lovers of the First Amendment are fond of saying that they may not agree with what someone says, but they’ll fight to the death for their right to say it. Really? You’ll lay down your life for my right to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

So is political correctness contrary to the freedom of religion? You have to enter a quick “no” on this one. The PC question is about terminology, not about beliefs. You can believe what you want, it’s how it’s expressed that becomes the issue–so the practice of religion is in no way threatened.

Of course we know why this is coming up now–it has to do with the election of Donald Trump and his assertion that political correctness is a problem, and one he “doesn’t have time for.” This is another way of saying he’s happy for people to use whatever language they want in referring to others.

The problem is that people are banned from hate speech in the name of “political correctness.” Is avoiding the “N-word” politically correct? Of course, because it’s a racially charged hateful word. To not use it is just basic decency. Here’s where political correctness has a bright and humane side, and where I think Jesus was politically correct. Not calling someone by a name they find offensive, or by a name with negative connotations, or by a name they simply don’t like is fundamentally just being kind. And if such a simple thing is within your grasp to do to either bless or curse someone with your everyday speech, shouldn’t you do it? Most especially as a Christian?

I don’t think Jesus called the woman taken in adultery a whore. He just addressed her mercifully as any other human being. Because a simple address like that can either bless or curse. Consider if I were to call you a jackass and refuse to use your name or title when speaking to or about you. What if I went all over town and all around the internet calling you Jackass and refusing to change my language in reference to you simply because I said I wasn’t going to give up my first amendment right to call you a jackass, or to acquiesce to political correctness on this issue? Well, yes, the example seems a little absurd, but it’s really not all that different. With my speech, I have the power to bless or to curse, with no extra effort expended either way. Is any of this sounding at all biblical yet? ’cause if not, you may need a refresher.

So yes, Jesus was politically correct. And you know what? PC costs you nothing. Despite Trump’s statement, it takes no extra time to refer to someone by the pronoun they’re most comfortable with, or to use an inclusive greeting. It doesn’t change or diminish your own beliefs one whit. On the other hand, to refuse to do so is to say the other person is less important. It’s saying yes, it would cost me nothing, but I’m making a point of refusing to use your preferred language and will go out of my way to call you a jackass instead of simply by your name, because I’m more important and my right to pick my language is more important than your right to be referred to with respect. (In the Old West, that’d get you shot at high noon, if no right on the spot.) This is why Jesus didn’t talk that way, why he used the language of acceptance and inclusiveness. Or in other words, political correctness. Because that’s what was in his heart, and because he treated others better.

Now, if you want to cling to your anti-PC rhetoric, you just go right ahead. But know that it’s the language of exclusion, of hate, of belittling others. And don’t you dare try and put a Christian spin or motivation on it, because it’s just not like Christ. You want to go down that road, you go alone–Jesus just don’t walk there.

At the moment, it’s someone’s Facebook post from a few days ago that takes an article from what seems to be a fringe group offering alternative information for investors as a counter to financial journalism, and applies it to an anti-Clinton (USA) anti-Liberal (Canada) bias garbed in the Christian militaristic triumphalism of the new prophetic apostolic intercessory club.

guardian angel dating that “George Soros Singlehandedly Created the European Refugee Crisis” and that his list of suspicious crimes include not only coming out of retirement to comment on Brexit, making astute investments, and embarking on “humanitarian” efforts (sarcasm quotes in the original) by funding groups such as The American Institute for Social Justice, whose aim is to “transform poor communities through lobbying for increased government spending on social programs”; The New America Foundation, whose aim is to “influence public opinion on such topics as environmentalism and global governance”; and The Migration Policy Institute, whose aim is to “bring about an illegal immigrant resettlement policy and increase social welfare benefits for illegals.” Yup — Soros, an Esperanto-speaking believer in open society, is giving money to people who spend it on poor people and immigrants, if that’s not being too redundant. But if that’s not enough, dating rosenthal figurines to promote Canada’s model of private refugee sponsorship. Said link-foisting poster opines,

I’m telling you this man is a dark force in the world. I pray justice beings [sic] him to repentance, or removes him. He has a deep control with the Clintons, and is now meddling in Canadian politics with the Liberals. #prayforjustice #deliverusfromevil

Umm.

Where do I start? The fact that George Soros is not the international puppetmaster of Western democratic governments? Or the fact that concern for poverty and immigrants (again at the risk of redundancy) is pretty far from being considered heinous? Or do I zero in on the poster’s subsequent postings about wanting to change the world for the better, and to be on the right side of issues, which is then defined as the side of love and humanity, so I can point out the inherent hypocrisy?

I might point out that George Soros is only one of many billionaires who later in life choose to embark on philanthropic pursuits, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and even a much younger Mark Zuckerburg. Because once you amass all of that wealth, it eventually hits you that you’re in a position to change things, and you realize it’s incumbent upon you to do your level best to bring positive change out of what you’ve earned. This is somewhat natural, though it’s rare (if not unprecedented) in history for us to see it so publicly and from as many concurrent sources as we do today. Maybe we could even let him speak for himself on Why [he’s] Investing $500 Million in Migrants (“I will invest in startups, established companies, social-impact initiatives and businesses founded by migrants and refugees”), but that would probably be misconstrued straight back into a conspiracy theory founded on mistrust of migrants.

I might point out that partnering with the UN to export a Canadian model is hardly “meddling” in the Canadian government, but that hardly seems the most grievous misrepresentation at hand.

I could, of course, attack the fringe article that claims that

During the 1980s and 1990s, Soros used his extraordinary wealth to bankroll and fund revolutions in dozens of European nations, including Czechoslovakia, Croatia, and Yugoslavia. He achieved this by funneling money to political opposition parties, publishing houses, and independent media in these nations.

I could point out that these are the same tactics utilized by the American Government, often with much worse far-reaching effects. It is claimed that Soros then invested in these economies and profited, but one could (or should) argue that investment is what was needed at the time in order to bring stability. There seems to be some issue being taken with the fact that some of these high-risk investments may have yielded a fairly decent return. Pretty jaded. The article continues with additional unsubstantiated claims as it paints a conspiracy, but the deeper you read, the more you start to think it all comes down to the author’s dislike of the Clintons and of Soros’ donations to the Democratic Party.

I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of George Soros’ activities, but I can see enough to know that the representation here is pretty one-sided and employs several leaps of logic with attributions of motivation and knowledge-gaps plugged with assumption. But more to the point, if one is trying to show that Soros is evil, this doesn’t do it, and especially doesn’t do it in a Christian context where concern for foreigners is supposed to be a defining value.

So maybe I just skip to the end, to a little paragraph from Leviticus (NET)?

^19:30 “‘You must keep my Sabbaths and fear my sanctuary. I am the Lord. ³¹ Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. ³² You must stand up in the presence of the aged, honor the presence of an elder, and fear your God. I am the Lord. ³³ When a foreigner resides with you in your land, you must not oppress him. ³⁴ The foreigner who resides with you must be to you like a native citizen among you; so you must love him as yourself, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. ³⁵ You must not do injustice in the regulation of measures, whether of length, weight, or volume. ³⁶ You must have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt. ³⁷ You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations. I am the Lord.’”

This is where the matter should end. Two crucial verses about how to treat foreigners based on the permanent memory that Israel was (read: we were) also at one time foreigners. This is unequivocal: if the person lives there, treat him like he belongs there, and show equal concern for him as you do for yourself. These are words that I have a hard time reconciling with what I see in the attitude so prevalent in the brand of (literal and figurative) microphone-wielding christianity of today.

Context is Everything?

Perhaps it’s a matter of context. And in a US presidential election year where immigration policy has become for one candidate the defining issue of the ages, it’s hard not to consider that as part of the context. Yes, Republicans, we’re looking at you. Whether or not the party has the sense to lie down and die after it loses the coming election, there’s a strong suspicion about that we’re witnessing the end of it. If not, then maybe we’re seeing the end of a two-party system (something your first presidents warned against anyway).

The Republican Party is no longer the voice of traditional conservatives; it’s become the voice of those afraid of immigration. A poll this past June found that “one of the most indicative variables in determining Republican identification this year was agreement with the statement that the ‘number of immigrants who come to the United States each year’ should ‘decrease.'” This, of course, is a statement that has little to do with traditional conservative values and much more to do with the Tea Party, which Jeff Daniels’ character in The Newsroom memorably called “the American Taliban.” (Thank you, Aaron Sorkin.) By some analysis, the base of the party is becoming older, whiter, and less educated, perhaps culminating in Trump’s taking control of it with fearmongering against Mexicans and Muslims as he forcibly widens social chasms in an already deeply-divided America. Traditional conservatives have found themselves without a party, and are looking increasingly seasick as they try to hold onto some kind of alignment with the GOP with which they established their fiscally-conservative bona-fides.

Trump is creating a dual-edged new segregation in a “US-versus-M&M” kind of internal war which he refuses to acknowledge as a civil war and not an international one. If you wanted to sow seeds of discord and secession, you could do no better than to follow his strategy. In the meantime, he’s got the Christian right gathered into his party with anti-immigration rhetoric, and unlike the fiscal conservatives who are starting to see the gap between themselves and their party, the Christian right is parroting an anti-Christian party line on dealing with foreigners without stopping to think how far they’ve strayed from the moral code set down by their founder.

It’s becoming single-issue politics again. (Need I really point out what a bad thing this is? At least this time it’s not abortion.) Trump continually waves the immigration flag like a magician distracting his audience from the hand where the real trick is being played. So dedicated is he in this effort that when talking about healthcare platform, it seems to be summed up with “We’re going to have the greatest ideas–it’s going to be great.” Apparently he doesn’t even have the ideas yet, but you don’t notice that if you don’t take your eyes off of the immigration flag waving in his other hand.

Give your head a shake, people. You’re establishing a new segregation — even if you can’t accept your own scriptural mandate here, do you really want to be on the wrong side of history with this? Again? You should be far more afraid of what Trump has up his other sleeve than you are about someone who looks, thinks, or talks differently than you do. And that’s what this election is down to — what do you fear more?

Sadly, Trump’s popularity illustrates that too many people are voting irresponsibly out of fearmongering — or that perhaps too few people can be trusted with the vote. Fearmongering is not “on” here in Canada — it put the final nails in Harper’s campaign last year to ushered in our current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. We understand you like him pretty well in America as well, which makes it hard for us to understand why it’s working so well for Donald Drumpf. We realize it isn’t all of you, but it’s enough of you to be seriously alarming, especially given it seems to be the same group of you who carry guns and are easily incited to violence at a rally. This whole thing looks bad on all of you — except maybe Bernie, whose Twitter exchange with Drumpf is entertaining.

Trump: Bernie is lying if he says he doesn’t send his supporters to my rallies. Be careful or I’ll send my supporters to your rallies.

Bernie: Send them! They deserve to hear an honest politician.

Uhhm, seriously, Donald?

During the campaign, Donald Trump has lied, has said he was making campaign promises just to get a reaction and didn’t plan to keep them, has encouraged violence at his rallies, advocated war crimes, incited racial tension, taken a full day to decide to half-heartedly denounce the KKK, and explained that once he is president, the military will do all of his bidding, even the illegal orders, because he’s the president. And if you’re a protestor debating violence on Trump’s behalf, don’t worry — he’ll cover your legal fees.

Uhhm, seriously, America?

How can you not have arrested him for hate speech yet? How can the Republican Party not have completely disavowed everything he’s said and the vast majority of what he stands for? This is not sane and reasonable. Is there no mechanism within the party to remove him? In Canada, every campaign seems to include an instance or two of a candidate saying something (past or present) that ends his campaign — if he doesn’t resign, his candidacy is revoked by the party. It’s not that he isn’t entitled to express his views (we know you love your first amendment), it’s that some views are deemed unacceptable for a political leader. These are recognized as such, and the consequences are easily predictable. This is true of elections at pretty much any level in Canada — not so for yours, apparently.

And how can his opponents consider supporting Trump if he gets the nomination? The only acceptable answer is, “No, I will not support Trump if he gets the nomination: in that scenario, I would withdraw my membership in the Republican Party.” No other response is okay here… this response essentially says, “Well, if the rest of the party wants me to support hate, fear, war crime, and violence, well, I guess that’s okay with me.” WTF, America?

And then there’s the “Christian Right”, which is making me sick. Now we’ve got Rick Joyner saying from his “prophetic perspective” that Trump is just like Jesus. (What, they both think they’re God?) He speaks admiringly of Trump, saying that his trajectory right now is not only to win the nomination, but also the presidency. He then goes on to criticize “naive” Obama as though he doesn’t realize that the “Thanks, Obama” meme is over now. He then goes on to talk like a political pundit intent on sowing fear of terrorist computer hacker attacks on the American economic system and power grid. Because fear sells, people.

My daughter asked me the other day, if Trump actually won the presidency (which none of us thinks possible, and yet…), how bad could it actually get? So I started thinking through the scenarios. The military won’t obey some of his orders, so would it end with a military coup? Not likely. The most likely scenario, I hope, boils down to how long it takes before Trump’s actions become impeachable, and his running-mate ultimately becomes president. This could only be an improvement, but bear in mind that it would still be Trump’s sidekick, someone who supports him and his platform — at least publicly. Still has to be better, right?

We’ll be travelling in the USA this summer, while we still can. By this time next year, I suppose it’s plausible that either the border will be closed or I’ll be too afraid to cross it. Perhaps I’m resorting to being glib again. Perhaps not.

I did get to thinking whether this could trigger the end of a two-party system in the USA, or at least the end of the Republican Party. Surely if Trump continues, one of those outcomes must be inevitable. One would hope — it would at least indicate that democracy still has a leg to stand on.

I can’t believe it’s taken this long for people to get around to asking whether Donald Trump has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, although Rick Joyner has said that Trump was the most humble of the candidates. There’s the Christian Right again for you, spewing the love because Jesus was a Republican and Trump is the most extreme Republican we can find. Seriously, people. The man is not simply (and utterly) distasteful, he is dangerous. You might well ask, “Could America Elect a Mentally Ill President?” The answer, of course, is yes. And of all mental illnesses, narcissism may be the most easily electable, but I would have thought the culprit would need to hide it better than Trump does. Diagnosable Type-II disorder or not, the man is unacceptable as a world leader, and we beg of you to recognize this and remove him from the race before you lose any further credibility on the world stage. We’re all watching with horror.

Ms. Wilson then lists 56 individuals, most with contact information, and some 166 URLs where they would like posts removed or comments deleted, with proof of Julie’s requests provided to Ms. Wilson’s office by 5:00PM (CDT assumed) on 19 may 2015. This list includes several of my recent posts of course, and for the formal record, I have declined to remove or redact them. But let’s consider the egregious nature of this letter.

Firstly, the general consensus (after asking around) is that had Julie been represented (that’s legalspeak for “able to afford a lawyer”), this order wouldn’t have gotten past a judge, even one who is reportedly a former colleague of Ms. Wilson’s. (Of course whoever mentions that is obliged to add that this shouldn’t affect the judge’s impartiality, and I know that it won’t because I’ve seen several episodes of The Good Wife. Spoiler: the “good wife” is also just a legal wife, not a sacramental one.)

Secondly, um, hello? First Amendment, anyone?

Thirdly, the court has no jurisdiction over anyone who is not a party to the proceedings, and least of all does a district family court have jurisdiction over the entire internet.

Fourthly, I object to the manner in which the letter attempts to extend the requirements of the court’s order and render this extended compliance as fait accompli a mere week after being signed by the judge — before it can be overturned on appeal for reasons just cited.

Attention Bloggers & Other Listed Parties: I’m not a lawyer and am not here rendering legal advice, but my understanding is that this court has no jurisdiction over you or your posting, and the court order does not in any event establish a timeline for the removal of comments. I therefore encourage your noncompliance with these requests.

I’m of the “what I’ve written, I’ve written” school, and I don’t remove posts likely — not least because I don’t want to contribute to link rot if I can avoid it, nor because it must be acknowledged that things said online are bells that cannot be unrung. To remove a post and thinking it’s gone away completely is just to fool yourself. True, it may be harder to find, but it won’t be gone… and in ToJo’s case, it won’t be any less true. The attempts to silence are a renewed attempt to — let’s say it together, now — control the narrative. (I knew you all knew that, because you’ve been paying attention.)

Speaking of what’s true, I believe the fact of the matter here is that Tony wishes to silence. To silence a victim is to continue the abuse when in most cases, all the victim wants is to be heard. Once someone finds their voice, attempts to silence them can tend to have the opposite effect, and that’s what we’re seeing here. To those who would quash it, the truth is insidious. It just has a nasty habit of leaking out everywhere. Truth is also an outstanding defence against defamation suits, which we’ve yet to see here — likely because the process of legal discovery is generally just a really expensive way to expose things like that. And in this matter, I think the truth has already been exposed for those willing to see it.

I will admit to one bit of minor pleasure in this letter. I know that Tony’s lawyer certainly won’t have been the one scouring the internet for us baddies talking trash about ToJo. Which means that apparently Tony has nothing better to do than to go out and do it himself. As a narcissist, he’s got to enjoy reading about himself (is there really no such thing as bad press?) but I suspect he hasn’t enjoyed these mentions quite as much as he usually would, and to have to list them all so meticulously and follow all the comment threads for more mentions. So greetings, Tony — I hope you’re enjoying my post, even if you’re legally barred from commenting on it by your own action. I must pause and thank you for those 166 URLs that compose my new reading list. I was unaware of many of those posts, and find that I really must go and look them all up when I get the time.

In any event, this letter is just the latest volley in Tony’s lawfare campaign. It won’t likely be the last, simply because it is a campaign, and not a simple act. But for those who haven’t yet seen it (perhaps they’ve been unwilling), this is a good example of how it works. A month or so ago, back when Julie had a lawyer, a judge dismissed a similar request by Tony to have Julie go around scrubbing the internet for essentially the reasons given above. Now that she doesn’t have one, Tony’s legal pitbull ran to a different judge and got a quick ruling that she in fact should go and try to spit-shine the internet to rid it of all this unpleasantness. Once the ruling was signed, the lawyer added some chaff to see if the overinterpreted version could gain compliance along with the overreaching order, and get it all done before anyone noticed. To that, I say no. You can count me out.

First, “NPD” is an initialism for “Narcissistic Personality Disorder“, which is a clinical term referring to an Axis-II personality disorder on the DSM. Tony Jones suffers from this disorder, and has acknowledged it publicly as of January this year. I’ve tried to be precise as consistently as possible in referring to it in Tony’s case as NPD rather than just saying he’s a narcissist, or at least clarifying in context that I’m talking about formal NPD rather than mere narcissism, lest anyone think we’re simply talking about someone who tends to be self-centered or has a high opinion of himself, or who simply enjoys the limelight more than the next person. Someone with NPD is all of these things, but these barely scratch the surface. Note this isn’t just some 5¢ diagnosis, either, but a clinical one following properly-administered tests, conversations, and observations by a licensed professional. We’re not flippantly discussing a verdict of a Carly Simon song.

NPD is not an easy diagnosis to get, either. We’re not talking one-liner-inviting ailments like OCD, nor are we talking about about AD/HD or some malady-of-the-week to be treated with Ritalin or some other miracle drug… (no offence intended to actual AD/HD or OCD sufferers) there is in fact no drug treatment available for NPD, and it’s not a simple tick-box on a diagnostic form. NPD requires a specific set of behaviors and beliefs to be present, each to an identifiable degree strong enough that NPD would become the diagnosis rather than another Axis-II personality disorder, and apart from Axis-I mood disorders, or some combination thereof.

NPD is not simply a weakness or mild handicap, like a thorn in the side. Apart from being a mental disorder, it is, in my view, a pretty clear disqualifier from ministry. This isn’t intended to be mean, vindictive, or discriminatory, it’s just practical in the same way that you don’t really want an interior designer who’s colour-blind. It’s just a career that this particular malady makes one unsuitable for.

Second, yes, I called Tony a bastard. (Maybe I should have capitalized the “B”.) I use the term to describe his behaviour because I believe he has behaved and is behaving reprehensibly toward his ex-wife, Julie. Bastard is probably one of the kinder words I could have chosen, and this is simply a matter of opinion. And no, I’m not afraid he’s going to sue me. Everything I’ve said here and elsewhere about this situation is what I believe to be true based on the evidence I have seen and testimony I have heard. These are my conclusions, and if I toss in an ad-hominem or two about Tony’s behavior, those bits are my opinion. My conclusions are based on more detailed information and more private information than what has been made available to the public, so I consider them to be pretty solid. And all that I’ve said about the semi-public person Tony Jones is covered under the protection of free speech, which makes it hard to support a lawsuit of any type. There have been a lot of threats of legal action over online comments, but those would be frivolous and are primarily just another tool in the arsenal of intimidation tactics. Calling him a bastard is a personal comment on his behaviour, which is always a choice. Despite the NPD diagnosis and the inherent difficulties that it brings for the individual to exercise restraint or to consider their actions’ implications upon others, this does not excuse culpability. Behaviour is always a choice.

Tony’s not too fond of people talking about all this, and wants to silence this kind of discourse through backroom pressure or threats of legal action. On the subject of free speech, I understand that one of Tony’s legal actions against Julie failed recently when his lawyer withdrew it at the recommendation of the judge, who seemed to think that there wasn’t much point litigating to force Julie to get other people to remove things they had said on their blogs because, well, free speech. Besides which, Julie is not responsible for what I write. I know she often reads, but it’s quite a stretch to think she directs any of these posts or that she could remove them. For the record, if she or anyone else asks me to remove them, I’m very likely not to. What I have written, I have written.

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.

— Augustine of Hippo

Tony has repeatedly spun his own version of events publicly that don’t jive with the private version, which is more typically the one that rings true. He has lied publicly and stuck to the lie, enlisting others to repeat it for him to try and give it more credibility. He craves the limelight and seems to have an intense need to be seen as successful and as an intelligent leader of Emergent or whatever they call themselves this week. Even if this doesn’t seem obvious about Tony, these are the normal attributes of anyone with NPD, so by extension, they should be naturally expected of Tony — and his behaviour has been consistent with these expectations.

Because the NPD person has an innate need for these things, there is an inordinate craving for them that drives the individual to try and attain them at any cost – not entirely unlike a drug addict stealing to get their next fix, being willing to sink lower and lower in a spiral as long as they keep getting their fix. Because the NPD person does not consider how their actions impact others, they can pursue their goal at all costs, without ever weighing that cost to others. Someone said recently that using children as pawns in a battle with a spouse is child abuse, and I think this essentially true. It’s never right, and always devalues the child, making them into currency to be traded in the dispute, or mere tools with which to inflict pain and distress in the other.

Tony has done this with one of his children and seems to be setting up to do the same with the others, attempting to flip custody away from Julie. As it stands, he evidently has a fairly high-priced lawyer who specializes in flipping custody, and together with a refusal to use the recommended parental consulting agency to resolve matters, has instead made a quick and successful effort at depleting Julie’s resources to leave her in debt to a local law firm and unable to retain legal assistance to fight further. This is where Rachel Held Evans is completely naive in her assertion that such disputes should be left to legal channels and similar authorities. In this affair, Held-Evans is also acting hypocritically by continuing to support Tony Jones throughout the exposure of the events surrounding his divorce. Not hypocritical in the vague “and-you-call-yourself-a-christian” kind of way that most often seems to judge one person by the subjective standards of another, but hypocritical in the sense that after having made a name for herself in advocating for the abused, particularly women, and in calling out Mark Driscoll’s bullying behaviour, now when the bully is someone she’s close to and has been in league with while he abused is his ex-spouse, she’s not just silent, but has stood up for the offending party. Someone indicated to me that they have confidence that she has good reason for supporting Tony, or at least not not supporting Tony… but if that were true, her reason should be good enough to disclose publicly in view of the fact that she’s been called out now for her support of Jones. Evidently, it is not.

Recently things blew up in a post on Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Patheos blog when she posted a glowing endorsement of ToJo’s newest book. The comment thread was near the 900-comment mark when Nadia’s husband stepped in to say he was closing the comments. He preemptively apologized “in case” he deleted them all by accident, then proceeded to disconnect the Disqus comments from the blog post rather than just shutting them down, so it looked like wholesale comment deletion. The comments remain(ed) intact on the Disqus site, but the conversation mostly halted at that point. He then posted another apology for deleting the comments, but when it was revealed that the comment thread was still intact, he eventually posted a link to them.

Woods demonstrates the “Rose Mary Stretch”, a gesticulation that purportedly led to the erasure of five-plus minutes of the Watergate tapes.

Herein lies one of the major reasons I prefer to render commentary on this whole situation on my own blog rather than in comment threads, because this way I’m sure that they won’t magically disappear. It’s noteworthy here that Tony’s supporters seem to have much more difficulties keeping dissenting comments online than do Julie’s supporters. I imagine that has something to do with controlling the narrative. Just sayin’.

I have not read the entire comment thread, which was at many points vitriolic and attacked Julie in some very pointed attempts to discredit or otherwise disparage her character. Nevertheless, we learned some things we learned from this thread and a follow-on one at NakedPastor.

Is it Warm in Here?

When the heat is on, we learned that Nadia is not above having her husband step in on her behalf, apparently in similar fashion to Rachel Held Evans. These two women are leading the upcoming conference for women telling their own stories. Again, just sayin’. Nadia does not read any of the comments on her blog or Facebook or other social media – apparently at the request of her husband and her bishop. No word on what Patheos thinks of this, but I think it’s disingenuous to solicit discussion and then refuse to engage in it. If you want to have a comment section on your blog but intend to steer clear of it, you simply must disclose that fact… it’s both common courtesy and common sense. To not engage with your social media profile is even more duplicitous, since engagement is the very nature of social media. Maybe Nadia needs an antisocialmedia profile somewhere. She’s a busy person and is not obliged to engage, but if she plans not to, she should disclose it. As one commenter put it, what if an abused person tries to engage her this way seeking help? I might suggest she take the social media training that Jones and Pagitt were offering, but who knows, maybe that’s where she got these misguided ideas.

Double Standards

It was fine to vilify the victim in the early half of the comment thread, but when the mob turned to questioning Nadia’s actions in the later part, suddenly action had to be taken. One incident is not a pattern of course, but it certainly makes you wonder. It seems as though such vilification is fine, as long as it’s pointed in a certain direction.

The Mutual Endorsement Society

There is something called an “endorsement contract.” It’s unconfirmed whether the Emergent Industrial Complex is using these, but if so, it would explain how ToJo is getting the endorsements and support of people who have previously seemed reputable, like NBW & RHE as well as others like Brian McLaren, Sarah Cunningham, and Peter Rollins. HarperOne has denied they use such contracts, so it could simply be a mutual exchange of endorsements to help boost sales for both authors from the pool of the other’s followers. That would actually be more egregious though, as it means there’s a voluntarily-continued relationship for the exchange of endorsements and status. The motivation for those, in the context of this particular mutual admiration society, could only be ego-strokes and financial gain. In this vein, it was pointed out that Rachel Held Evans’ FTC Disclosure statement says you should “always assume that Rachel … Gets something beneficial for herself for anything she does on her blog or website”. So there you have it, according to Rachel’s legalese, there must be a quid pro quo.

Is This Astroturf I See Before Me?

The Disqus comment system makes it pretty easy to set up anonymous profiles and make them private so nobody knows you’re not who you say you are or where else you’ve commented to support Tony and try to paint Julie as a crazy person. A number of not-real people — or maybe just one person with multiple profiles — showed up to make nasty words about Julie as a smokescreen to deflect attention and try to control the narrative. This tactic is also called “astroturfing“, where you use fake accounts to try and make it look like there is grassroots support for some person or idea. Beware the astroturf… watch for multiple personalities posting essentially the same thing. Diversity may show the same kind of support for an idea, but the logic will vary, and will have primarily real people mixed in with a few anonymous ones.

Some Logic Really Isn’t.

Some people’s logic is FUBAR. They seem to think that if the victim has done something wrong, then it’s okay for the abuser to act as they did. It’s a little like asking the rape victim in an accusatory tone what they were wearing. Really this is just a smokescreen to deflect attention and try to control the narrative, but fundamentally this thinking needs to be exposed as anathema that it is. This is not a case of “courting the risk” or of people getting “what they deserve.” Knowingly supporting an NPD and continuing in relationship with them may come close to this as regards their eventual treatment by the NPD, but even then, I would say that it’s more likely a case of underestimating what an NPD is capable of. For this reason, I might wish to remain sympathetic toward Jones’ current supporters, but I and others have tried to put forward enough warnings already, to the point where many of those supporters have crossed the line into abhorrent behaviour of their own (McLaren and Pagitt come to mind here) where the reluctance to acknowledge documented behaviour can only be done for interests of their own which would boil down to primarily financial ones. These certain people also seem to think that if you can call into question the motives of the people (like me) who believe Julie and have been calling out Tony’s actions, then whatever Tony did is probably okay, because all you have to do to show that is speculate on and criticize our motives. And somehow it’s a good idea to list names and ask people to dig into all of our personal lives from a fake Disqus account. And again, this is just a smokescreen to deflect attention and try to control the narrative. I hope the absurdity of this thinking is readily apparent without further explanation.

Behold The Smoking Gun

Despite literally thousands of comments and posts in this larger discussion, the significance of the major point on the implications of ToJo having been diagnosed with NPD is still being missed. If anyone wants to see the smoking gun that should convince them that Tony is unfit for ministry, has lied pathologically, and does not deserve the endorsement of anyone who still cares about integrity, this is it. The only reason not to recognize this for the smoking gun that it is would be that you have chosen not to do so, and chosen deliberately. And that kind of says something pretty significant about the integrity of those involved here. Attempting to cover for and enable someone with NPD to continue to exhibit those classic behaviours should be unconscionable, and it definitely makes the supporter culpable. These behaviours are damaging and antithetical to christian pastoral care, so encouraging, endorsing, and enable them are also antithetical. And as noted elsewhere in this post, if these behaviours were absent, the diagnosis of NPD would not likely have been made in the first place.

He Said WHAT?

One anonymous pastor commented, telling the story of an encounter with ToJo at a conference. In their first meeting, after just one hour, Tony told this pastor that he wanted his wife murdered and that [redacted information concerning his children]. People may say things like this as idle chatter, but when it comes from a diagnosed NPD who is a gun-owning avid hunter, it should give you a moment’s pause apart from simply wondering what kind of person represents himself as a christian theologian, author, and speaker, then says those sorts of things to you within an hour of having met you for the first time. This one gets more interesting, as more details were posted on The Wartburg Watch this past week. The pastor in question has now come forward to provide a formal witness statement concerning her conversation with Tony Jones. It is well worth noting that the conversation took place a year ago, which was several months before the matter of the Jones/McMahon divorce and revelations about Jones’ actions came back into the spotlight in September 2014 through the Naked Pastor Thugology discussion. This is highly significant, because it means that Jones’ comments were not provoked by these public disclosures, but by what would have been status quo before they came to light. That is, while he was still falsely portraying Julie as crazy and mentally unstable, he made an unbidden expression of a desire that she be murdered, in fact escalating what had been the perceived characterization of his relationship with Julie. In other words, during a period of what might have been called “relative calm”, he made statements that were clearly over-the-top about extent of his disdain for his ex-wife, with comments that are clearly antithetical to any form of christian behaviour, let alone that of a leader or so-called theologian. I would outright question the theology of anyone who cannot find issue to be taken here. The comments about his children were similarly egregious but of a different nature, and although I have seen the unedited document, I am choosing to keep the same redactions. Although those comments would help prove a point about Tony’s actions and motivations, their disclosure could be detrimental to the children. That said, it is very possible that the substance of those comments are already known to them, since the typical NPD is likely to revisit similar themes in their program of verbal attacks in various contexts.

Oh, Those Loveable Narcissists

Now we have a new discussion dusting up, wherein Peter Rollins actually defends narcissism without naming Tony Jones. I had to check twice, but it’s true: narcissism is all good with Pete. It’s quite clear he’s talking about ToJo, but uses the term “narcissism” instead of “NPD”. Perhaps he should read my clarification above, though since he ought to know better, once can only surmise he’s using specific verbiage to try and downplay the diagnosis. In the comment section he claims to be educationally qualified to write about these matters, but that what he has written does not require such qualifications. This is well-observed, since a qualified psychological professional saying what he did would be quite irresponsible, and not merely incorrect. In the comments, Rollins distances himself from the Christian community and says his comments are not made in that context. (In the same comment he pretends not to have knowledge of Jones’ dual-marriage theology.) Since Rollins is normally presented as a Christian author and speaker, I imagine that people who buy his books or read his blog regularly might be curious to know when he’s speaking from a Christian theological perspective and when he’s just being psychobabbleogical, since it’s suddenly become unclear.

Rollins tries to make the argument that narcissism is just a natural defence mechanism and we shouldn’t shame people for it. Unfortunately, the Bible tends to suggest that narcissism and its related behaviours are bad and are qualities or behaviours that a Christian leader ought not to have. So the Bible disparages narcissism, which I suppose is fine if you’re trying to distance yourself from it and only talk about the (a)morality of narcissism in a psychoanalytic sense. Narcissism and its granddaddy NPD are complicated pathologies with a variety of  associated behaviours, though the precise cause of NPD is not known. There is some validity to what Rollins says about the motivators of narcissism being psychological, as it can often stem (ironically perhaps) from a low self-image. The problem is that we’re not discussing this apart from the Christian context, as Tony represents himself as a Christian theologian, scholar, author, and leader. While NPD itself may be amoral in a vacuum, it should be noted that the majority of behaviors used to identify it are not… in the Bible, they are referred to variously as sin or bad character, and are used as examples of who should not be made a leader or elder. The opposite behaviors are generally appealed for as exemplifying good christian conduct, so the behaviour required of a leader is in no way consistent with that of a diagnosed NPD-sufferer.

In point of fact, my last post actually dealt with shaming, when Christianity Today tried to shame the shamers. This is what Rollins is doing as well, attempting to call shame on people who he says is shaming others. CT’s hands aren’t clean either, since before their shame-chat, they posted an article on Patrick Sookhdeok’s conviction (but one example). Maybe they’ve been listening to Rachel and follow the line that we should only follow the courts, despite any other well-known admonition to settle disputes among ourselves. This sort of story is just reporting, and reporting has no need to limit itself to reliance on the verdicts of the justice system. Personally, I maintain that to the extent that the truth is being told, if someone tells a story about what you’ve done and you feel shamed by it, there’s a good chance you’ve acted shamefully. Of course, the best defence against this is for you to behave better, but there are some people who by all evidence at hand genuinely need to be told that they are behaving shamefully. Diotrephes’ attitudes were fueled by narcissism (3 John 9-11), and evidently he needed to have this pointed out to him as well, and let it be a matter of public record. Clearly the Apostle John thought the matter serious enough to warrant this kind of attention. Publicly calling out the shameful acts of those calling themselves or acting in the role of christian leaders has some very strong precedent in the New Testament. Perhaps this is why Rollins suddenly felt the need to distance his comments from the christian context, but I couldn’t say for sure. What I can say is that when you put his comments into that context, they are clearly wrong, and enough so that I’m appalled by them.

The television show M*A*S*H was a sometimes biting commentary on the Vietnam war, but was set in Korea about 2 decades earlier. They never mentioned Vietnam and could defend against accusations of attacking US government policy with that. But nobody was fooled, and it was impossible not to make the connection. I can’t say for certain that CT’s Twitter chat was sparked by the growing swell of online chatter about the Tony Jones situation, but it’s impossible not to connect the dots if you know they’re there.

In introducing the chat, part of what CT said was,

Beyond this package examining how fame and shame relate to the gospel, we at CT feel called to address Christian involvement in online shaming. Christians, too, can get wrapped up in an accusatory, reactionary, defensive mentality designed to “call out” and “expose” the people we interact with online.…

And yet, social media remains a powerful tool for tough conversations, for considering others’ opinions and recognizing our own blind spots. How can we be open to critical discourse without resorting to shame-based campaigns against one another? How can we launch conversations designed at building up and honoring the Body of Christ, rather than bringing people down?

My main concern is that some of the sentiment around “propriety” can be a plea for ignorance. Christians should never be seeking a position of plausible deniability or willful ignorance, attempting to ignore the facts or decline to hear them for fear that you will not like them or that they will somehow implicate you or make you culpable for having received some bit of knowledge. So I’ve been critical of I’ve been critical of Doug Pagitt and Emergent leaders like Brian McLaren and others for ignoring evidence about Tony Jones’ Narcissistic Personality Disorder and his shoddy theologizing of his behavior in their attempts to control the narrative or shut down the story completely. And I’ve been critical of Rachel Held Evans for propping up their narrative.

So is my criticism shameful?

I think that’s what CT would have me believe. But Jesus also called people out for their behavior, particularly in cases of injustice against the poor or the weak. While I throw up a little in the back of my mouth at Mark Driscoll’s idea of the Jesus-Manly-Man, it’s still true to say that this get-along-at-all-costs attitude is not the one that Jesus had. He called out his own people, and did it publicly in many cases. And I have to think that even Rachel would have to agree with the motivation behind my criticism here, or else she’s not considering her retweets very carefully.

This is how a conversation about shame can do exactly what it’s talking about not doing, and why someone suggested a #shameCT conversation in response to #CTshame. As I commented on David’s post,

There’s a big difference between shaming and sharing info that is shameful. Some people should be ashamed, but in most cases, shaming is targeted toward people who should not be. Shaming is a tool of the powerful, while shameful info is the possession of the victim. Let them do with it as they will, and if others are ashamed of it, there’s likely good reason. Shaming is silencing the victim, compounding the shame of being a victim. #Reprehensible.

Remember, silence is a tool of narrative control. Using shame to silence is a victimizing tool of the powerful. Unsettling and unseating leaders with shameful stories of abuses and retelling them is the only tool available to the victims of their abuses. The shame brought upon the church for this is not the fault of the victim: the shame falls upon the church itself for continuing to choose ignorance and follow abusive leaders. If it’s shameful for people to talk about what you’re doing, the solution isn’t to make them stop talking, it’s to stop doing shameful acts.

This getting-along thing that pretends that the church will look better if we cover each other is in no way Christlike. By my observation, the church is all too willing to cover the sins of its leaders while railing against those of its non-members. It seems to me we’d do better to flip that around: expose corrupt leaders and get along with sinners. Isn’t that the way Jesus did it?

I talked about all this before, back in January 2010 when those posts were still current, and those are the posts that caused a series of heated email exchanges involving Tony, Andrew, Bill Kinnon, me, and others. Julie (Jones) McMahon posted comments on some of these posts saying essentially that Tony’s personal situation was driving his theology of marriage. (There were other more specific allegations of his affair as well.) One of Tony’s emails to me sticks in my mind as attacking and vitriolic, a kind of reactionary off-the-handle assault to get me to remove some things from my blog, which, at the time, I did. In the last two weeks, I’ve said far more, and been much more specific about all of that here on my blog. I haven’t heard from Tony, though — I presume he knows that this has become too big to beat down again with a few fierce emails.

At the time we were all pretty busy deciding whether or not there were any End of Life Directives for the emerging church, so Tony seemed at the time to be off on a tangent. Tony called on clergy to stop acting as agents of the state in performing legal marriages, and summarized a progression of five points of his argument:

• There is no “historic” institution of marriage; it has been a fluid concept for thousands of years, changing with time and across cultures
• Our society has determined that monogamy is good, so we incentivize it in various ways
• It’s a plain reality that gay and lesbian couples are among us, and they’re not going away
• So let’s afford them similar incentives toward monogamy by allowing them to enter the binding contract that we call “legal marriage”
• This will not implicate what any congregation or denomination considers a “sacramental marriage”

His preamble to this list states that he wants to make a separation between legal and sacramental marriage because of “the growing discomfort that many of us have that legal marriage is available only to some responsible adults who are in monogamous relationships.” He doesn’t say who “many of us” are, but presumably he’s referring generally to supporters of same-sex marriage. I’m not sure why he inserts the concept of monogamy here — the preamble and the isolated bullet points make it sound like he’s getting at problems with the concept and ways around it, but he actually argues from that position later that same-sex marriage should be offered as an incentive for monogamy. He later wrote and released an eBook on the subject, There Are Two Marriages: A Manifesto on Marriage. I haven’t read it, for three reasons: (1) I got the thrust of his argument from his blog; (2) I have issues with the underlying motivations; and (3) I don’t want to contribute even the 79¢ to Jones’ coffers.

To address his reasons that clergy should accept his proposal,

• You don’t begin a theology of marriage with the observation that various cultures have had different ideas about what it is over time. When you’re doing christian theology, what matters is the biblical text and the history of its interpretation in the church. We have a faulty beginning here.
• Monogamy isn’t just good, it’s biblically mandated. See previous point.
• Let’s call this one axiomatic.
• While a congregation or clergy member may not intend to imply anything by refusing to perform the legal aspect of marriage, it seems unthinkable that nobody would infer something from it — the obvious being support for same-sex marriage.

So none of that holds any water as far as I’m concerned. His actual proposal is that there are two distinct marriages, one that’s sacramental in the eyes of God and the Church, and one that’s legal in the eyes of the state. I don’t buy this either — it’s almost the marital equivalent of saying you haven’t received the Holy Spirit at your conversion because you didn’t speak in tongues. But that’s another argument.

If you live with someone as a couple for a period of time (which may vary between jurisdictions, but 2 years is my understanding), the state will eventually say, “Look, you two are as good as married — we’re going to treat you as equivalent-to-married for all intents an purposes.” This is what’s known as common-law, and it is a form of marriage. And in many cultures (to use Jones’ rubric), it is the recognized form. That is, the community sees you as married, so you’re married. Maybe there was a ceremony, but likely no papers. In my mind, that’s still both kinds of marriage in that culture — it’s both sacramental (the ceremony) and legal (the community rule). The two can’t really be separated.

There’s been a suggestion that Tony’s theology of marriage arises out of the circumstances of his affair with and remarriage to Courtney Perry, and this is where the problem comes in. Jones and Perry were sacramentally married in July 2011 by Doug Pagitt, after their divorces from previous spouses were final. They were legally married in November 2013, and Tony officiated a same-sex union at the same time. From this we may infer that he’s back to acting as an agent of the state in officiating legal marriages.

As noted by the Washington Post, “what Jones proposes is, at the minimum, impractical.” Lisa Miller’s article there calls his position “muddled and retrograde”, and writes,

Finally, there’s the question of motivation. Jones has griped publicly about the lasting trauma of his own 2009 divorce. “I got married in the state of Minnesota by the stroke of a pen,” he said. “To extricate myself took 14 months and thousands of dollars, and here the pastor has no authority.”

First off, I think it’s only logical to assume there was more to it than the stroke of a pen, as though he was a passive bystander to the union. If that’s really all there was to it, Jones has a fundamental misunderstanding of marriage that goes back many years. More likely, he’s minimizing it in this quote for his own purposes. Extricating himself was his own decision, which he said he was driven to because his then wife was “bat-shit crazy.” Evidently he absorbed none of what he should have learned from Stanley Hauerwas About Marriage. (And for the record, Julie McMahon is not in the least bit crazy. Tony Jones, on the other hand, is a clinically diagnosed narcissist. I’d say therefore he’s the crazy one, but evidently I have more respect for mental illness than he does, so will try to avoid the pejorative term at least in this instance.)

In any event, there are some serious issues with his marriage theology.

1. It’s Uncompelling. The reasons he gives that clergy should adopt his stance are not that convincing, as I’ve outlined above.

2. It’s a Manifesto, not a Theology. The ebook defense is appropriately titled a manifesto on marriage, not a theology of marriage. In other words, it’s a call to action or a “battle cry” and not a biblically-based concept of what christian marriage is intended to be. Perhaps those of us who respond to it as such are giving it too much weight, and too much attention.

3. It’s Thin. The entire ebook is only 3,300 words. I’ve written longer blog posts that are better-supported than this, and on this point, I am not at all exaggerating. (This post is almost 2,500 words. My series on this blog defining what missional is ran some 70,000 words including some rather long posts, and is referenced in Craig van Gelder’s The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation) I’m not saying quantity equals quality, but I’m certain that more than 3,300 words have been written about what’s wrong with Jones’ manifesto. The point here is that it’s not well thought-out and not well-defended. You can write good theology with proper support for an argument on a blog, but with this topic, Jones has not, and publishing it as an ebook doesn’t make it any more credible.

4. The Motivation is Suspect. The “Two Marriages” tag on Jones’ blog yields a handful of posts describing his manifesto, and they’re largely about his own situation. (Shouldn’t be a surprise for a narcissist!) The whole concept seems to be triggered by something in his own divorce-and-remarriage experience rather than founded in biblical theology. In this sense, it’s reactionary, and one has to ask why this manifesto is needed.

5. It’s Inherently Situational. Not only does it seem to be triggered and fueled by his own situation, it seems that it only lasted until November 2013 when he officiated the legal union of a same-sex couple; his blog doesn’t mention it again after that. If marriage should be dualized as he describes, it’s rather odd that this call would be dropped so quickly. If it only has to do with same-sex marriage in Minnesota where he lives, why issue a call to clergy in the nation? And having done so, wouldn’t the manifesto stand until same-sex marriage was legal in every state? Apparently not.

So basically, if this dual form of marriage only applies in certain circumstances and not across the board, if it arises culturally and not biblically, and if it’s so thinly supported even in its most comprehensive format, it’s not a very weighty notion at all. Really, there’s not much there to commend it. Jones has an interesting idea or two along the way, but on the whole, it falls flat.

So why bother?

It sparks a question for me, which is what to do with the theological work of someone who has fallen morally. There are really three possibilities: (1) ignore the moral failing and evaluate the theology on its own scholarly merit; (2) discount any of theology in the area of the moral failing but accept the rest; or (3) throw it all away.

Different groups have taken any of these approaches at some point. At first blush, it seems one might want to land in the middle ground, not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but at the same time, not accepting everything. A strong case could also be built for option #1, to simply evaluate the theology on its own merit and consider it carefully. But there’s actually reason to suggest that #3 or a modified form of it might not be an irresponsible tossing out of the baby with the proverbial bathwater. The fact of the matter is that if a person’s theology in the area of a moral failing can be seen to have been adjusted to allow for the failing (see option #2), then there’s a demonstrated willingness to read one’s own wishes into the text and prop up a flawed conclusion. Sadly, this casts a bad light on everything else they’ve written and makes it suspect.

On the other hand, a theologian who fails morally and then comes clean to admit their failing without any attempt at adjusting their theology to accept the failing has demonstrated an integrity at least in how they approach their theology. There may be similar instances where when a circumstance befalls someone, they search out scripture and arrive at a conclusion that is not a unique position but which makes sense of their circumstance and what actions are permissible from there. Here I would speak primarily of divorce and remarriage. At one time, this was a binary position for christian leaders — if divorce, then no ministry, or no remarriage, or both. Over time there came to be exceptions which permitted remarriage and/or ministry. I have known theologians and clergy who have found themselves in the circumstance of divorce, and in many cases through no discernable fault of their own. What they have done is to search the scripture on these matters and try to understand God’s heart in it. In every case, to a person and regardless of their previous position, they came away with a set of circumstances where divorce and remarriage were permissible and where there would be no impact upon eligibility for positions of ministry. What none of them came away with was an entirely new theology or manifesto on marriage. Every one of them gained a very considered and defensible position which was documented for their own study or compiled as a referenceable research paper written to scholarly standards.

Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.
— Blaise Pascal, Pensees, Sec. IV

This comes down to a simple fact: to do theology of any kind, one must approach it humbly and be willing to entertain the idea that not only their belief, but their action may yet require adjustment in order to come into alignment with the truth. I’d suggest that when a theologian or similar christian leader, pastor, or spokesperson demonstrates a willingness to bend their theology in suspiciously convenient ways, then all of their theology bears extra scrutiny.

When a theologian or similar christian leader, pastor, or spokesperson demonstrates a willingness to bend their theology in suspiciously convenient ways, then all of their theology bears extra scrutiny.

To be fair, none of what I’ve said here is a “smoking gun” of theological adjustment for Tony Jones’ idea of marriage to accommodate an affair, but I think there’s enough of a case to be made that he has in fact modified his stance on marriage to accommodate his actions. His writings and remarriage took place after his divorce, but the concept of a difference between a legal spouse and a sacramental one was present in his language (and in Doug Pagitt’s) during his divorce from Julie McMahon, according to Julie. Julie refers to a “spiritual wife” rather than a “sacramental wife”, which Jones makes a big deal about in his published response to her, but this is truly just a red herring as he tries to control the narrative — so there’s no need to get caught in a semantic game when the intent is clearly the same here. In my mind, this calls into question all of what Jones has written and said theologically, since he’s demonstrated a willingness to bend the theology to make the interpretation of his circumstances acceptable. Add this to Jones’ Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and you’ve got the makings of a theological shipwreck. I for one would not have wanted him as a Theologian in Residence around my place of worship.

Just how naive is Rachel Held Evans?

And the biggest thing I’m thinking is a question: just how naive is Rachel Held Evans? She apparently has a reputation as a supporter of victims’ rights and advocate for abuse victims, and says things like “As Christians, our first impulse should be to protect and defend the powerless, not the powerful.” But in the situation with Tony Jones and his ex-wife Julie McMahon, the walk and the talk are not on the same path. Others have pointed out the discrepancy and registered their disappointment already, because in response to a direct question about her work with Tony, she responded with this statement:

I take abuse allegations very seriously, and if I had good reason to believe Tony was an abuser I wouldn’t work with him on a conference. But my experience with and diligent investigation of this situation has given me reason to doubt that this is the case. …[To comment further] in this forum, would be unwise – legally and ethically – so I’m not going to comment on it again, and I’m going to have to moderate comments… Part of advocating for abuse victims is to encourage them to work through the proper legal channels. I have done this consistently.

Several days later, she added a footnote, saying “By way of clarification, I don’t want to overstate my knowledge of this situation or involvement in it. I have spoken with neither Tony nor Julie about the details of their divorce, only reviewed some relevant documents and emails, not all of which are public.” No official word on why that admission did not prompt her to withdraw her unqualified support for Tony. Actually, she has qualified her support elsewhere by saying she doesn’t agree with him theologically at every turn. Her support for his actions bears no such caution.

So yes, “diligent investigation” is apparently not so diligent, which makes the rest of her stance all the more grievous. But the final bit about sending abuse victims to work through legal channels is what I find most puzzling, and it’s something I’ve questioned since I first read that comment back in January. How do you advocate for abuse victims by just telling them to file a police report or get a good lawyer, and then become known as such a great advocate for those victims? The advocate in that case is the justice system, and that’s where my earlier question comes in: how can she be so naive? If there isn’t a ton of hard evidence for criminal charges, justice becomes the domain of the wealthier party. And in the Julie v. Tony issue, it’s a civil dispute, where it costs money to be heard. Too much money — many (most?) people wouldn’t have gotten as far as she has.

So to suggest that everyone just shut up and tell Julie to go fight it out in court is simply naive. That’s all I’m saying. Okay, maybe that’s not all. I have a problem with people who say they’ve investigated and really haven’t. They’re telling people that they looked into it enough to get to the bottom of it, and that people should take their word for it. Unless they’ve specifically put adequate qualifiers on that, which so far nobody has — not Rachel, and not any of the cast of characters who endorsed Tony by writing and posting letters of support. The letters were pulled down, but we know who you are and what you did. For the record, I know of no deeper outside investigation than the one partially documented at Diagnosing Emergent. Brad is a champion internet sleuth and collator of documents, and not all of what’s been seen by him, by R.L. Stollar, by David Hayward, myself, Wartburg Watch, and others has come out yet. I don’t know if all of that documentation will come out, but it keeps surfacing, and I looked through more evidence just this morning. There are a few who claim to have researched the case and are posting in comment threads, but their words tell me they have only had a cursory look.

And that’s what’s so disturbing— to speak out in defence someone who has confessed having a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) after having done little to no investigation, or doing so on the basis of casual observation is misguided and wrong. (Pro Tip: any time someone’s story differs from that of someone with NPD, the NPD is pretty much lying. Just sayin’.) And to do so as a leader and in writing is irresponsible. It’s malpractice. It’s professional misconduct, and it’s reprehensible.

And I’m of this opinion even more today because I’ve just read what is perhaps one of the most important articles in this “dialogue” so far. It’s written by Dr. Christy Sim, whose doctorate and area research focuses on healing after domestic violence, so she knows what she’s talking about. Her dissertation was titled: “Body, Theology, and Intimate Partner Violence: Healing Fragmentation through Spiritual Play.” She’s written a brilliant piece that although it references this discussion specifically, doesn’t take sides or say who’s right/wrong between Tony and Julie. The brilliant part is how she really “gets it” in the way she goes at the issue of the ToJo support letters and how a person is received when they step forward with stories of abuse. She writes,

There are some points I want to highlight as a foundation for why public (and written) support of someone accused of abuse is a serious problem.

First, for all those who could be victims of abuse, as Julie McMahon claims to be, the following messages are coming through from those with power and influence, and they’re being heard loud and clear:

• We can team up and together malign your character by showing how “crazy” you are.
• Your voice does not matter because our friend’s reputation is more important than your perceived experience.
• We have never seen our friend behave inappropriately; and because we (and he) are in power, our story trumps your story.

Wow. She unpacks each of those, explaining what’s being said/perceived and what the problem is with each message. I can’t say what she says any better, so please, read her article in Christian Feminism Today, titled Domestic Violence Allegations in the Faith-Based Community: How Shall We Respond?.

The article goes on to offer positive steps, with reasoning why they’re important. Things like making your default position one of believing the person who steps forward to tell their abuse story, without demanding proof. I said that some of us have looked into the matter for ourselves, and this is true. Not everything we’ve seen has been presented in public, and some of it takes a good bit of internet sleuthing to dig up, but there has been enough information made public already for most people to reach a conclusion, if they need to, about whose story has the greater percentage of truth in it. And the main point here is that those who are propping up the person with power, prestige, and pedestal are way offside in what they’ve done to malign the voice and character of a single mother who can’t afford the cost of legally enforcing existing child custody rulings against a confessed narcissist. I truly don’t know what it will take for them to rescind their support and apologize for giving it so blindly, but their support in the way they’ve done it is damaging to abuse victims, to the emerging church movement and the church as a whole.

Should they allow Tony’s name to be slandered? Well, the truth is never slander so if they can’t produce better evidence for this alternate narrative they’ve bought into, they need to shut up, withdraw their support, and urge Tony to abide by the court’s decision. And if they have even the slightest understanding of what NPD truly is, they’ll suggest he step down from any ministry position and anything even ministry-adjacent. And they shouldn’t just walk, but run to withdraw support and get out of the NPD vortex. Currently, they’ve been duped. I believe that there’s forgiveness and acceptance available from their followers and the wider community if they will but come clean now, and admit they were wrong. They don’t even have to support Julie’s version, just admit they were wrong to support Tony, and stop. But the longer this goes on, and the more evidence that comes out, the more nails they put into the coffins of their own ministries.

And how sad is that?

But.

I have never displayed the “Friend of Emergent” badge on my blog. Oh, I considered myself Emergent-friendly, but it always stuck in my craw that displaying the badge came with a price tag — literally. If you contributed to EV, became a member, whatever, then you were invited to display the badge. You couldn’t “just” be a friend. You had to buy it. I never liked that whole concept, and as time went on, I became a Friend of Missional instead. That was free, thanks to my friend the Blind Beggar. I didn’t have to join anything, pay anything, or buy anything — I just had to be friendly.

That’s all minor stuff though. What became larger to me was the way in which it felt like Emergent Village was attempting to colonize a free conversation that was already happening at the grassroots level. EV had the big names — McLaren, Pagitt, Jones, and others — but the conversation was going on with or without them in the pews and coffee shops of the nation(s), among evangelicals, post-evangelicals, and mainline denominations, with leaders and with laity, in living rooms and around kitchen tables. EV didn’t start the emerging church, they just happened along and tried to help give voice to it, to organize it.

In and of itself, this is not a bad thing. Helping to fuel a conversation that people are truly engaged in, that they are seeking without knowing it, and helping them to find like-minded people asking similar questions, and having the freedom to come up with different answers. This is all profoundly good. But EV’s involvement didn’t feel like that. By 2006-ish, it felt like emerging colonialism, like EV was attempting to brand the grassroots. The trouble was, the grassroots was still reacting to having been branded and denominationalized and told what to think in the first place. And they were doing just fine, thank you very much.

The death of the emerging church was proclaimed at the end of 2009, sort of, when Andrew Jones posted about its death. Well, not really — what Andrew said was, “In my opinion, 2009 marks the year when the emerging church suddenly and decisively ceased to be a radical and controversial movement in global Christianity.” (emphasis added). See, he didn’t say it ceased to be a movement at all, he was just talking about what kind of movement it was… basically, it was becoming more mainstream. Almost everybody missed that though, even after he explained himself, and still credited him with killing the emerging church.

There was a schism already happening at that time where the emerging “conversation” was fracturing into separate streams or branches, which I commented upon at length back in 2008 and again in 2009. This is how less than two weeks after Andrew allegedly drove a wooden stake through its heart, I was still making predictions about the future of the emerging church. Actually, I was being a little gutsy and making predictions for the decade — so far I’ve been right, and the second half of the decade is on track for what I said 5 years ago would happen, so that post is still worth a read for current context. That was the beginning of 2010, when I decided I might be Neo-Emergent, and others were saying their goodbyes to Emergent™, although it retained a few distant friends. Today, the emerging church is still out there in the grassroots but in various forms rather than a cohesive whole.

For its part, Emergent™ doesn’t even own their domain name now, having been replaced by some kind of organic gardening site (somebody on Twitter quipped the other day that the site was actually useful now), so even if it didn’t have the sense to lay down at the time, it might be time to call that one. Around June of 2009, they were still trying desperately to save it, as a post by Tony Jones illustrates. However in January of 2010, according to the satirical but not entirely inaccurate obituary at the time,

The cause was cardiac arrest, according to spokesperson Steve Knight. According to police, foul play and suicide have not been ruled out at this time. According to person of interest, Andrew Jones, she was ready to die and beyond any life-saving treatment.

EV was perhaps a casualty of the fracture that’s been described, or was perhaps a casualty of its own strategy. Attempting to colonize anticolonists is not a particularly effective tactic for gaining traction to become the greater umbrella of an Emergent denomination. It’s not going to work — and it didn’t. It was likely never a conscious strategy or stated goal, but if it had been, what they were doing is exactly what you would do to try and achieve such a goal. Just sayin’.

So the emerging church never really died, it just went underground and emerged as different things. It is, in fact, still going on, and still emerging — though it’s hardly ever called that anymore. Emergent Village died, and re-emerged as different things as well… Outlaw Preachers, the Christianity21 conference(s), and other initiatives through JoPa Productions, JoPa being Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt.

Recently I’ve been learning some things I didn’t know about how Emergent was founded, how it came to be, and who was involved in its formation. Those things took place before I was really paying attention to it, while I was engaged in the wider emerging church conversation.

It turns out that Emergent was born out of the Young Leaders Network (note, not the similarly-named Young Leadership Network), an initiative of Leadership Network around 1996-99. Emergent™ emerged from that milieu, took shape, and ramped up from around 2001-2004 or 2005 (See chronology by Brad Sargent). For reference, Andrew Jones has considered possible start dates, and places the emerging church movement’s beginning in 1989. The Wikipedia entry for emerging church quotes Marcus Borg in 2003 as referring to it over the previous 20-30 years as having become “a major grassroots movement among both laity and clergy in ‘mainline’ or ‘old mainline’ Protestant denominations.” The article also cites uses of the terms dating back to 1970, so it’s been around for a while, and longer than I had realized. Grassroots movements are always hard to pinpoint a starting point for.

To the outsider, it appears like a number of people led by Jones and Pagitt along with McLaren did a sort of colonizing of some group within a YL initiative and branded it Emergent. Emergent then set about attempting to colonize and brand the wider emerging church conversation, becoming the sole voice of the emerging church. Thank God that didn’t work, but I’m still saddened by the fact that the EV association by terminology with the wider emerging church scared many people away from it. Thank you D.A. Carson, who like many people erroneously equated the emerging church with Emergent.

So that’s all well and good. The emerging church movement began at least a decade before Emergent and has outlasted it as well, though the term “emerging church” has fallen into disuse because (a) the movement fractured into divergent streams, and (b) there was confusion over the equating emerging with Emergent™. And now how does history remember the whole matter? Well, it’s been said that the victor writes the history. That may have been true in the old age of publishing, but in the age of online publishing where everyone owns a printing press, I think it’s less so. That’s why I dispute strongly that bit of revisionist history which is Doug Pagitt’s bio on his new book:

Doug Pagitt is widely known as primary cofounder (with Tony Jones) of the emerging church, a movement that responded to stasis in the traditional church. He is pastor of Solomon’s Porch, a congregation in Minneapolis that focuses on addressing human needs in the neighboring community and facilitating a more personal encounter with God. He is also host of Doug Pagitt Radio and the author of several books, including A Christianity Worth Believing, Body Prayer, and Evangelism in the Inventive Age. Pagitt and his wife, Shelley, live in Minneapolis.

I call “foul”. Neither Pagitt nor Jones founded the emerging church. They were some of the founders of Emergent Village, which is not the same thing. Not at all — and the longer that the two ran, the less synonymous they became, until one died and the other had to change its name. And now the ones that ran the dead one are claiming to have founded the ones that didn’t die at all? Shameful. Just shameful. Reminds me of that story in the Bible where two mothers each had babies, and one of the children died in the night so they disputed which was which. Solomon saw through that as well. Of course, it seems that on his Porch nowadays, things like truth, wisdom, and justice no longer hold sway.

One would have thought someone over at Convergent Books (Crown / Random House) would have vetted the bio a little more carefully, but you’d hardly expect to have to fact-check a bio, would you? Alas. On the other hand, if you’re in the revisionist history business and you wanted your Emergent™ brand to appear to have been the be-all, end-all of the emerging church movement, you’d want to say that you had started the whole thing in founding Emergent™, and you’d be fully promoting the confusion in terminology. Because that’s how you do revisionist history to say that you hadn’t colonized and almost killed anything. Rather, you be saying that you started it and then changed its name to “Progressive”, or “Convergent” or some such thing that was the new heir apparent rather than merely one of a number of branches that “your thing” evolved into. Then it wouldn’t just sound like so much self-aggrandizement, it would sound like you’d won the Theology Games. Did anyone else know they were even playing?