When the market goes one way and management strategy heads in the opposite direction, what happens?
Oklahoma pastor and Southern Baptist blogger Wade Burleson wasn't writing about that when he penned:
The problem in conservative pulpits of America is not a denial of the Word of God, the problem in conservative pulipits of America is the preacher acts as if his words are the Word of God.
Burleson's concern was pastoral authoritarianism, attributed by the New York Times to the conservative evangelical Seattle pastor of Mars Hill Church. That's Mark Driscoll, who apparently responded forcefully to member dissent, saying “They are sinning through questioning."
Burleson responds:
The Bible tells us that true leadership is found through men who are courageous enough to be questioned. Jesus said that real leaders are servants, not masters. The incredible notion that a member of a church should be shunned, persecuted or disciplined for simply asking questions of the pastor has more in common than the cultic practices of Jim Jones than the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Good ministerial counsel, and not market analysis.
If Americans are the market, however, it's fair to ask how management even a little like Driscoll's can reach a growing share of a market whose members write their own theology. Expansive and by Southern Baptist measures "liberal" theology. As they go and from diverse source materials. A market in which dissent is an accepted, and growing, way of life.
And pastors twist that market's tail with the kind of authoritarianism Burleson has long felt conscience-bound to answer.
Is it any wonder that the fundamentalist-dominated Southern Baptist Convention can't meet its growth goals?
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