Pastors as Parrots

Pastors as Parrots, by John Frye

Rick Warren says this…

Andy Stanley offers this…

Tony Jones suggests that…

Rachel Held Evans notes that…

Craig Groeschel does this…

N.T. Wright counters with …

John Ortberg comments that…

Gordon MacDonald counsels this…

Frost and Hirsch offer this…

Halter and Smay commented that…

Margaret Feinberg writes that…

Bill Hybels requires this…

Eugene Peterson remarks that…

Scot McKnight supports this by…

John Wesley created this…

Charles Swindoll dared to…

Lauren Winner argues this…

John Stott offered a new…

Greg Boyd won’t stand for…

Ruth Tucker rallies around…

Fredrick Buechner wrote that…

Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenged this…

Jack Hayford does this…

John Piper writes that…

Walter Brueggemann mentions…

John Wimber did this…

Barbara Brown Taylor suggests…

And on and on. I’ve been as guilty as the next pastor. Excellent parrots.

I lament the loss of personal theological reflection in this place with these people who seek to live this mission in this particular community. Pastors can become, as one of my seminary professors said, mere metal pipes serving as conduits for other people’s work. Ideas go through the pipe but no life is changed.

This is not about a refusal to learn from others. It is about doing our own work. We clone; we don’t own.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.