He Wrote What?

Antho­ny Sco­ma just told me about a book/author col­li­sion so improb­a­ble that I had to check it out for myself: Pen­te­costal Gifts and Min­istries in a Post­mod­ern Era by James K. Bridges.

Antho­ny assures me that con­trib­u­tors include Mau­rice Led­nicky and Opal Red­din.

Wow. This will mean noth­ing to 95% of you, but the oth­er 5% are prob­a­bly rolling on the ground in laugh­ter right now. I can think of vir­tu­al­ly no one in our move­ment who speaks with less author­i­ty on doing any­thing in our “post­mod­ern era.”

Don’t mis­un­der­stand me–there are many things about which they could write. This just isn’t one of them. Hav­ing these authors write about post­mod­ern min­istry is as sil­ly as hav­ing George Bush write a his­to­ry of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. There’s a lack of cred­i­bil­i­ty.

I won­der if they knew what vol­ume they were con­tribut­ing to or if the title was a last-minute mar­ket­ing change to sell more books? If the title changed on them at the last minute then I feel sor­ry for them, it just made them look sil­ly.

A mes­sage to James Bridges, Mau­rice Led­nicky, and Opal Red­din (should they read this): please under­stand that I bear you no mal­ice . I just think the idea that you and your peers were the pri­ma­ry con­trib­u­tors to this book is so fun­ny that I actu­al­ly laughed out loud when I heard it. You are many good and noble things: filled with integri­ty, wise, Spir­it-filled, and dis­ci­plined are just a few of the adjec­tives that come to mind. You are not, how­ev­er, post­mod­ern. Nor do you under­stand the post­mod­ern mind­set.

Of the authors Antho­ny named to me, the only one who I would expect to have any­thing illu­mi­nat­ing to say is Joe Castle­ber­ry. I’d believe that he actu­al­ly under­stands some­thing about this gen­er­a­tion and some of the under­ly­ing philo­soph­i­cal issues with which they wres­tle.

If GPH want­ed to pub­lish some­thing worth­while about post­mod­ern Pen­te­costal min­istry some of the AG folk they should talk to are Earl Creps, Curt Har­low, Mark Bat­ter­son, Jeff Devoll, Mark Miller

k 19 the wid­ow­mak­er movie

, or Ryan Delame­ter.

Wow. That would be a pret­ty good book.

I have pulled this up from the com­ments beneath to bring some clar­i­ty to a post that is obvi­ous­ly far more con­fus­ing than I thought it was when I wrote it (7/25/2006): I have great respect not only for Opal Red­din but for the oth­er min­is­ters I men­tioned as well. No one can be an expert in every area of min­istry. Some are skilled the­olo­gians and some are skilled preach­ers and some rare few are both. Some excel at pas­toral care, oth­ers at exeget­ing our cul­ture, oth­ers at trans­lat­ing the Bib­li­cal lan­guages, oth­ers at church archi­tec­ture, and oth­ers still at musi­cal wor­ship. When I say that these min­is­ters are the wrong group to write a book on min­istry in a post­mod­ern con­text I am mere­ly sug­gest­ing that there are oth­ers who would have been much bet­ter choic­es. No insult was intend­ed.

14 thoughts on “He Wrote What?”

  1. WOW.
    I am one of the 5% who knows 2 of them per­son­al­ly (Led­nicky, and Red­din). I would love to read what they con­tributed. Have any post­mod­erns out there read this book? — Peace, Antho­ny

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  2. I per­son­al­ly know Mau­rice Led­nicky, James Bridges, and Opal Red­din. I have shared food, fel­low­ship, and min­istry with all of them indi­vid­u­al­ly. I know them to be peo­ple of the Word of God. The Bible is rel­e­vant to all gen­er­a­tions, whether you call it post­mod­ern or some oth­er name. I think you might have missed the point. The sub­ject was not so much post­mod­ern era as it was Pen­te­costal gifts. What is sad is that most post­mod­erns are not famil­iar enough with Pen­te­costal gifts to be trust­ed to write any­thing. There is much writ­ten about reach­ing post­mod­erns, but it requires a work of the Holy Spir­it to do so. When it comes to being led by the Spir­it, I trust Bridges, Led­nicky, and Red­din as much as any­one.

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  3. Red­din and Led­nicky I think I would trust to speak to this issue more than Bridges. At least the for­mer have been work­ing close­ly with PMers at Cen­tral Bible College–though it should be not­ed that CBC is not exact­ly a hotbed of post­mod­ernism.

    But I think the book like­ly has lit­tle to do with post­mod­ernism. As the pre­vi­ous com­menter indi­cat­ed, it’s more about the time­less “spir­i­tu­al gifts.” I’m con­fi­dent that GPH put the “in a post­mod­ern era” slug on it to lend it some mar­ketabil­i­ty.

    I am sure there are more than a few ChiAl­phans who would be unique­ly qual­i­fied to write on this sub­ject. I won­der if you guys could net­work and draft an out­line and get a book pub­lished that would be high­ly relev­nant. Think about it, get 30 respect­ed XA min­is­ters to com­mit to a ten­ta­tive out­line of 15–20 brief chap­ter titles, work up an out­line, and sub­mit a pro­pos­al to GPH. If they don’t want it, I’m sure IVP would be inter­est­ed.

    Rich.

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  4. Opal Red­din is/was my grand­moth­er. As part of an assign­ment my high school son has I have googled her name along with oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers. My grand­moth­er went home to be with our Lord on Novem­ber 19th, 2005. It may have been fool­ish for me to do this kind of search, but in my grief I have looked fur­ther into her life than I may have want­ed to. What Glen Davis has had to say about my grand­moth­er’s thoughts, etc. may have some point some­where, to me they are mute! I am a post­mod­ern, and I am on staff at a most post­mod­ern church. I have to say to you…that Opal Red­din is a BIG part of that. Can we not all just stop this absolute­ly stu­pid debate, and just know that all that mat­ters is that God sent his one and only to give his life for us? What more mat­ters!!! It breaks my heart to know that when my grand­moth­ers name is googled that this is what we find…all she would real­ly want us to find is Gos’s love, and His SALVATION! By you post­ing this kind of response to some book you may or may NOT have read, you are play­ing a game, you are not help­ing anyone…if you think you are, let me know how.

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  5. I am very sor­ry to hear that your grand­moth­er died. I am sure she is enjoy­ing her reward. As I said, she was “filled with integri­ty, wise, Spir­it-filled, and dis­ci­plined.”

    I am also deeply sor­ry that my words have caused you pain. I meant no dis­re­spect to her, either as a per­son or as a ser­vant of Christ. Instead, I was attempt­ing to high­light the absur­di­ty of the title that GPH slapped on the book. Read­ing my words again, I did­n’t make myself as clear as I could have.

    I have great respect not only for Opal Red­din but for the oth­er min­is­ters I men­tioned as well. No one can be an expert in every area of min­istry. Some are skilled the­olo­gians and some are skilled preach­ers and some rare few are both. Some excel at pas­toral care, oth­ers at exeget­ing our cul­ture, oth­ers at trans­lat­ing the Bib­li­cal lan­guages, oth­ers at church archi­tec­ture, and oth­ers still at musi­cal wor­ship. When I say that these min­is­ters are the wrong group to write a book on min­istry in a post­mod­ern con­text I am mere­ly sug­gest­ing that there are oth­ers who would have been much bet­ter choic­es. No insult was intend­ed.

    May God’s grace sus­tain you as you con­tin­ue to grieve her pass­ing.

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  6. Glenn, i find it very hard to digest your blog on to pio­neer’s such as Mau­rice led­nicky and Opal Red­din. I pas­tor a “post-mod­ern” pen­te­costal Church. (Cross­Point in Lit­tle Rock) We are post mod­ern in dress, muisic, style, preach­ing, teach­ing, thoughts, out­reach, ser­vice times, places of venue, you get the pic­ture. it is I had the awe­some oppro­tu­ni­ty to sit under the lead­er­ship for 4 years. What they put in my life was the Word of God. Not reli­gion, not just A/G doc­trine, but the very rel­e­vant word of God. So, before you are quick to claim that they are not author­i­ties on post mod­ern, please for the love of God, thank Him for peo­ple like them.

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  7. Randy — I’m always sad­dened when I can tell I have frus­trat­ed or upset some­one. I don’t know if you had a chance to read the oth­er com­ments on the post, but I think I addressed your con­cerns in them. May God bless your min­istry in Arkansas.

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  8. Wow Glen,

    I am guess­ing you nev­er expect­ed to hear from one of Opal Red­din’s grand­daugh­ters let alone two! I like my cousin would con­sid­er myself a “post mod­ern”. I attend a non AG church that is post mod­ern and very out­reach ori­ent­ed and our fam­i­ly is in the process of prayer­fuly con­sid­er­ing help­ing to plant anoth­er post mod­ern church. While I can­not attest as to whether James Bridges should or should­n’t have writ­ten a book on the Post Mod­ern Era I can attest to the fact that my grand­moth­er remained strong­ly involved in fur­ther­ing the gospel until her very last days. She had very rad­i­cal ideas for todays chuch cli­mate for she believed in con­tin­u­ing to preach BIBLICAL TRUTH while being rel­e­vant, imag­ine that! This is some­thing that seems to becom­ing lost to this gen­er­a­tion of preach­ers, that the Bible alone can still be rel­e­vant. I think we as Chris­tians have become so con­sumed with being “post mod­ern” that we have for­got­ten that the Word of God not some series, or new book authored by a pop­u­lar min­is­ter can be enough to reach a “new gen­er­a­tion”, and this gen­er­a­tion seems to be hun­gry for the meat of scrip­ture not some watered down milk fed to us in small lit­tle sips. We can be a church with post mod­ern music, and post mod­ern dress and a post mod­ern build­ing and post mod­ern decor and thoughts and still preach the Bible as the only Truth man needs. The Bible can nev­er be com­pro­mised for the sake of uni­ty and one­ness and appeal­ing to a “post mod­ern era”. I believe indi­vid­u­als like my grand­moth­er, Mau­rice Led­nicky (who has been and remains a close per­son­al friend)and James Bridges had/have the knowl­edge and author­i­ty to address the issue of the use of Pen­te­costal Gifts no mat­ter what the “era”. And as a grand­child that grew up lis­ten­ing to Opal Red­din’s teach­ing and preach­ing I feel I cer­tain­ly have the author­i­ty to speak on behalf of her when I say she was, and had she lived, would have remained for many years to come abso­lut­ly rel­e­vant in a post mod­ern era even if you would have nev­er found her in a pair of jeans on a Sun­day morn­ing. I want to make it clear Glen, that I am not so much offend­ed by your words as con­cerned that this “post mod­ern” gen­er­a­tion is so quick to dis­miss the words of our sea­soned Saints that we end up for­get­ing the rich her­itage they helped cre­ate not only for the AG but for Chris­tians of many denom­i­na­tions.

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  9. I wish there was a great emoti­con for com­mu­ni­cat­ing shame. Of all the com­ments I’ve ever made on the inter­net this is by far the one I regret the most.

    You are 100% cor­rect that the younger gen­er­a­tion of min­is­ters (and even not-quite-old folks like myself) is often unfair­ly dis­mis­sive of our elders.

    And I was unfair­ly dis­mis­sive of Red­din, Bridges and Led­necky in this post. Even over­look­ing some poor phras­ing that I wish I had­n’t used, my under­ly­ing atti­tude was not kind.

    I still con­fess to a cer­tain bemuse­ment at the book’s title, but it’s direct­ed at the AG hier­ar­chy at large and not at the authors them­selves.

    Yet again, I reit­er­ate my respect for the three names I men­tioned and for the count­less oth­ers they rep­re­sent. They are/were mag­nif­i­cent exam­ples of faith­ful­ness and fruit­ful­ness in Pen­te­costal min­istry.

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  10. i’m glad to hear that you are sor­ry for your impul­sive com­ments. i too came across this blog by a “google” acci­dent. i went to cbc and had the good for­tune to sit under the teach­ing of opal red­din for sev­er­al class­es. if any­one (known or unknown) wished to attach her name to a writ­ing it is because her opin­ion (in what­ev­er top­ic) would have been insight­ful and dis­cern­ing. i remem­ber on more than one occa­sion dr. red­din seemed so “lost in god” that she could bare­ly teach her class. she would­n’t care if she were pub­lished or not nor would she offer an opin­ion that was igno­rant of the top­ic that was posed to her.

    and by the way- i think george bush could write and enlight­en­ing book on the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty- and that would explain why he is a repub­li­can.

    just as acci­den­tal pass­er-by

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  11. Glenn,

    I too went to CBC and Sis­ter Red­din she was one my teach­ers. She was an inspi­ra­tion to us all. Don’t try to cov­er things up your com­ments where reck­less, cru­el and thought­less regard­less of what your opin­ion and assess­ment was about these fine ser­vants of the Lord. The soon­er you admit it the soon­er you will be healed and the oth­er peo­ple you hurt. This will fur­ther allow you get on with the much need­ed min­istry. I am con­vinced in my spir­it that you are blessed in this min­istry and good at it with regard­less of this unfor­tu­nate mishap, Bless­ings.
    Bill Rosa

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  12. Glenn,

    I too went to CBC and Sis­ter Red­din she was one my teach­ers. She was an inspi­ra­tion to us all. Don’t try to cov­er things up your com­ments where reck­less, cru­el and thought­less regard­less of what your opin­ion and assess­ment was about these fine ser­vants of the Lord. The soon­er you admit it the soon­er you will be healed and the oth­er peo­ple you hurt. This will fur­ther allow you to get on with the much need­ed min­istry you per­form. I am con­vinced in my spir­it that you are blessed in this min­istry and good at it with regard­less of this unfor­tu­nate mishap, Bless­ings.
    Bill Rosa

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  13. Glen,

    I will be one of the few voic­es that actu­al­ly agree with you. I attend­ed CBC and will agree with the pos­i­tive things spoke about the char­ac­ter of Red­din and Led­nicky. With that said, I think your point is valid. It would be like my name being put on a book as an expert on min­istry to senior cit­i­zens. I am 35 years old. It would be as you said “laugh­able.” That is one of the prob­lems with our denom­i­na­tion. You aren’t allowed to point out things like this with­out it being tak­en as a per­son­al attack. I hope the vit­ri­olic respons­es to your post haven’t keep you from speak­ing your mind. I actu­al­ly admire you for post­ing this.

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