Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

21 May, 2007   comments: (0) Resource Spotlight   How a Kid Proved That Lacking Logic is 'Noble' A popular megachurch pastor recently had this to say: "Some people don't even want their church to get any bigger. After all, if it gets too big you won't be able to know everyone. You really have two choices - you can have a church where everyone knows everyone or you can have a church where everyone knows Jesus. Which is it going to be?". The fact that a 13 year old was able to diagnose a logical fallacy in that - is saying a lot about either, the kid, or the pastor. Here's the explanation. One evening last week I read that remark by pastor Perry Noble to my family, and my daughter immediately said "Oh! He's using the 'Either-Or' fallacy". She was referring to his erroneous phrase "you really have two choices". The particular fallacy that she was referring to is an error in logic defined like this: When someone asserts that we must choose between two things, when in fact we have more than two alternatives, he is using the 'Either-Or' fallacy. And she's right! It is a completely bogus claim for Perry Noble to say that we can either have 1) a [small] church where everyone knows each other, or, 2) a [big] church where everyone "knows Jesus". In fact, it is entirely possible for there to be large churches just like Perry's which could be filled with mostly false-believers who have made superficial "decisions for Christ". But you might be wondering how a 13 year old kid was able to diagnose and define this megachurch pastor's error. Well, almost a year ago I took her to a logic seminar for kids, presented by the guys at ChristianLogic.com. Using examples from commercial advertising, they show you how to spot and detect logical fallacies including those listed on this page. Ever since that seminar, my daughter has enjoyed reading these books from them. She was able to take me right to the page where the 'Either-Or' fallacy was described in the white book (her favorite) entitled The Fallacy Detective. I think these books are a great way to get young teens started learning basic logic skills, much like Christian children in prior centuries were taught logic. Such skills are for the most part missing in today's public school curriculums, and they are vital if your kids are going to be able to wrestle with the ever increasing errors of postmodernity. One day my daughter would like to read Isaac Watts' classic book on Logic, but that's a little over her head right now. On a humorous note, ever since last week she has been asking me if she could read more of Perry Noble's writings, because "it's actually fun to spot fallacies" she says. Sadly, she's right in thinking that this pastor's teachings are a good practice grounds; here are a few more fallacies from that same page containing his aforementioned remarks: "the church needs to provide creative environments". "you can't get your church too big". "Christianity is the most exciting thing to happen to the planet and the church has made it boring." "[the transfiguration] was a very unique and creative way to show Jesus to these three men. That is how church should be." Going back to Perry's idea of "only two choices"; I'll give you one example that destroys that 'Either-Or' fallacy. It's an example of how some evangelistically-minded churches might actually stay relatively small (that's not supposed to happen according to Perry): Recently I mentioned one church in northern Illinois that I think is doing a great job. When that church reached a couple of hundred people in size, they planted my church. It was a project that cost their church a lot of time and resources. Now that my church is standing on it's own two feet, they are shifting gears to begin work on another church plant located elsewhere. Check back with me in a few years, and maybe my church will be planting another in our general area. Each of these churches might remain at well below 400 people, but they provide an environment for biblically defined elders to do a good job of leading a congregation that they are very familiar with and that is a manageable size. Contrasting that, Perry Noble's church is so large that he has hired a staffer named "Pastor Jake" whose job it is to follow Perry around the building and answer people's questions when they approach, so that Perry doesn't get swamped. He once wrote about Pastor Jake on his blog because he thought it was funny that people in his church were mistakenly asking "why does Perry have a bodyguard?". As far as I'm concerned, that kind of pastor-inaccessibility disproves another one of his fallacies, which said: "you can't get your church too big". Perry Noble is a popular pastor that would do well to abandon his manmade philosophies, since even a logically-minded teenager can see right through them. As with all of us, he should strive to get his ideas about church and evangelism from the Bible rather than "what seems right to him", or what's popular, or what pragmatically "works". Update: After reading this blog posting, my daughter has informed me that my use of the word 'Noble' in the title is a logical 'Equivocation' :-) Ht: Pastor Jody and Josh for the link to Perry's remarks. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.683   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism