Yesterday, a very good friend sent me an article about another mega-church pastor who is leaving the ministry. In the town of Grand Rapids, Michigan, this pastor is very well known in the Christian community. Not only has he been the pastor of Mars Hill Church for the last three years, but his dad is Ed Dobson, the former pastor of Calvary Church – – another huge church in the Grand Rapids area.

The pastor I am referring to is Kent Dobson. (the article I was sent is listed at the bottom of the page*). The article on Kent Dobson was meant to be a hit piece, I didn’t like it at all. Even though there was a lot I agreed with, I really disliked the tone of the article. The writer seemed to relish in the downfall of another Christian leader and even joked about the spiritual quandary he now finds himself in.  

It bothered me so much I decided to watch Kent’s farewell sermon on my own, and I have to say my heart broke for him. I like Kent Dobson, he is a very genuine guy, and the sermons he preaches are the true product of what he really believes. He isn’t putting on a show. But Kent is definitely struggling. Throughout his very vulnerable and humble conversation/sermon, he kept admitting to the deep state of confusion and bewilderment he was in. At one point in his message, he said he is about to “step out into the unknown.” He feels called to a greater mystery. He’s restless, and he no longer wants to be a pastor. 

Throughout his message, he kept admitting he was a guy that was always drawn to the edge, not to the center, and he was choosing this new path in life not knowing where it may lead.  Since he really doesn’t know where he is headed, he realized that it was wrong to be a teaching pastor who was taking other people with him. I have to commend him on his honesty. But this admission is terribly sad — he has been pastoring one of the biggest churches in Grand Rapids for the last three years and he is not even sure “if he knows what we mean when we say the word God?”

He really has no answers, mostly questions. And he encouraged Mars Hill to keep being the place for the agnostic, outsider and heretic. A place to be yourself, a place to be accepted in your unknowing. This is a troubling trend in many churches: to actually promote that you don’t know things rather than “contend and stand strong for the faith. (Jude 1:3).” The article I mentioned earlier, takes issue with this position as well and expresses in vivid color where I think most of the Emergents, the Progressives, the Liberals, and the Christian Agnostics all fail in their walk with God.  Listen closely:

“What I am opposed to is the supposition behind his departure—the reason he gives for leaving. For Dobson, he’s been on a journey which started one place and is leading him to another; specifically, to the edges of faith. In actual fact, he’s exactly where he’s always been. His self-professed goal was always to be the cool pastor with the cool shoes. It’s not that he’s journeyed away from the “center” of faith. No, he’s just stayed in the center of the zeitgeist—in the “mainstream” of a culture which is rapidly leaving Christian orthodoxy behind.”

In other words, to doubt, to waffle, to admit that you don’t know and to act like you are better than those ignorant Christians who do believe things, has now become the norm. Ironically the position of being proud of your ignorance has always been the norm, the zeitgeist, the center of sophisticated thought.  Listen to a quote from G. K. Chesterton, a man who lived in the late 1800s in London, 

“We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced.”

When I watched his sermon, it seems that Kent believes that believing anything for sure is the problem of belief. To him, people who know things are dangerous. People who have convictions probably have them because they want to manipulate and dominate others. However, for Kent, people who are ignorant are the truly authentic, and that is all that matters today. Oh yeah, being a cool pastor with “cool shoes” also counts.

Could you imagine if a College Football coach said the reason he is retiring is that he is not sure about the game of football anymore? He is not sure what it really means to be a football player and he needs to be true to himself and look for a better way to play football? We would think he is a little crazy; but when a pastor stands up and says they are not sure who God is anymore, or they don’t really know what it means to be a Christian, we applaud him. Seems rather silly to me.

Why were we given the scriptures in the first place? To confuse us or open our minds to truth? (Psalm 119:106)

I am going to go out on a limb here: I know I am not part of the center, the zeitgeist, and in my minority opinion, I will humbly admit that “I know.” I know Jesus exists. I know God the Father is a loving God with hatred toward sin. I know he is real. I know Jesus died to set me free. This is the one thing that I know (As Jars of Clay used to sing). In fact, the more I pastor the more I see the word of God as the only true answer for man’s ills.

It explains why people are so wicked. It explains why when people die everyone hopes for more beyond the grave, even the atheist. The Bible doesn’t confuse me; like the sun, it sheds light on everything else I see.

I am sad for Kent. I am sad that he was poisoned by the previous pastor (Rob Bell) who taught people it is cool and super-spiritual to always “question and be content without having answers.” Questions are not wrong in and of themselves, but they are not supposed to be the final destination. For me, questions lead to the real cool things, “answers.” For 23 years I had no answers, but then I started learning the scriptures and they opened my mind and world to “true truth” for the first time. A pastor’s job is to tell people the truth. Not to lead them into a dark fuzzy world of mystery.

Malachi 2:7 is very clear, “For the lips of a priest OUGHT TO preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction – because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.”

I am sad for Mars Hill, it is a tragedy to see something that was such an enormous force for good unravel right before your eyes. All because the people at the top were more worried about being cool than right. Image now matters more than content.

The result is a bunch of confused people wearing “cool shoes.”