When I was in Seattle a couple weeks ago, I went to hear Mark Driscoll preach at his church on Sunday morning. That evening, I heard Rob Bell at the Moore Theatre, in town for the fifth stop on his “The God’s Aren’t Angry” tour. If you’re not familiar with those guys, one way I could describe them, oversimplifying, is by saying that Mark is a fundamentalist, Rob is not. After reading both of Mark’s books, as well as other essays he’s written, I don’t think I’m on thin ice when I say that Mark knows he is right. On every position. And if you don’t agree completely with him, you’re wrong and dangerous and he’ll be sure to call you names. If he doesn’t like who you read, he’ll speak at conferences about the Emergent Church so he can call you a heretic, as he did Rob Bell at the Convergence conference I was at a couple months ago.

But even though there are areas in which I disagree with both Rob and Mark, I still love hearing both of them speak. They are, at the very least, master communicators. And while, on a philosophical level, I believe that for Christianity to remain vibrant, we must allow for a wide range of theological beliefs, we need people on both the left and right as well as the middle, I can no longer attend a church pastored by Driscoll or someone like him. I’m glad, for the sake of balance, that he is out there. But I wish he could disagree with someone without condemning them.

This issue came up yesterday when I was talking with a friend, Randall, about Marcus Borg. I’ve read one book by Borg that he co-authored with N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, and I blogged about it here. Randall just wrote a post for The Rabbit Room about another of Borg’s books, Jesus, and in his summary he ably articulates my thoughts on this.

“Marcus Borg has written a book that will make many Christ-followers very nervous, and possibly very angry. And, I expect that most families are well acquainted with those emotions, especially around the holidays. However, I know from my own family experience that the only way to truly experience community together is to pray. We plead with Jesus for abundant measures of His grace so that we may live together, teach and learn together and be the love of Christ for one another. We must agree to disagree, and hold righteousness at a value greater than rightness. As a theological primer, I would not recommend this book. But as a testimony to the breadth and depth of the family of God, I could not recommend it more.”

Check out the rest of Randall’s post, along with the comments, here.