This is a bit of a follow-up to the Apprising Ministries post Trouble In Emerging Church Paradise?, which involves what Tony Jones, the heretical “theologian in residence” at the EC church of his equally heretical quasi-universalist pastor Doug Pagitt, says in Tony Jones: Stop Performing (Legal) Marriages!

You’ll recall e.g. in Tony Jones And Courtney Perry Et Al I told you that Jones and Pagitt, key leaders in the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church that morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC)—which is now a cult of a postliberalism firmly within mainstream evangelicalism—were the masterminds behind the recent EC apostasia-palooza Christianity 21.

This would also seem to have at least some relation to today’s piece Andrew Jones With Goodbyes To Emergent Village where Andrew tells us:

I will not be using the emerging church vocabulary and this blog will be more geared to covering the wider mission, church and social enterprise scene as well as resourcing people – like you – to leave a lasting impact on their world. I wont be carrying the emerging church conversation or daily tracking its ups and downs, even though many good things will continue to happen under that label. Right.

Also over is any official relationship I have left with one of those emerging church groups called Emergent Village. EV is a hard group to leave because its a flat structured organization and there is no one to inform that you are de-friending yourself, or getting de-friended, from this “generative friendship”. Also hard because there are so many wonderful people still involved… (Online source)

As far I can tell by monitoring the blogs of Andrew and Tony the backstory involves what Andrew talks about in his earlier post A Response to Tony Jones as well as the revealing piece Well, 2010 is Unorthodox So Far… yesterday from respected thinker and blogger in the growing emerging missional church movement Brother Maynard. 

In fact, we see the following rather disturbing comment in Andrew’s A Response to Tony Jones; one which appears to shed light upon the whole situation: 

On December 27, 2008, I wept in an Emergent leaders living room having read the emails confirming the adulterous affair. The leader was furious and said, I asked them both about that so many times!”

Hours later, self preservation must have taken over and a webmaster was given orders to clean up a certain website and delete the bio page of a certain board member of a certain movement.

I am now divorced as of November 16, 2009,

My experience of this up close and personal movement is that it has in this corner become an extremely destructive cult-like environment.

My children live with me full time and have been through pure hell.

The spin of why this happened is diabolical and I can only say MY half of the court ordered $4000 psychological evaluation, clinical interview, and results of the MMPI testing do NOT have a serious mental illness diagnosis.

When I contacted the Emergent Discernment Team that discerned through a prayer meeting held in Dallas, Texas determining that they b [sic]
needed to fly an Emergent leader to convince me to check into a hospital immediately, not one of them was concerned with the facts…not one.

Thank God it’s over and heaven help these people. They deserve each other. (Online source) [*Note* The above comment has now been deleted]  

Now consider the above against the backdrop of an earlier comment concerning the post by Andrew Jones post that’s under discussion:

I think rumours about Tony’s personal life will continue to cloud the conversation until he goes public with the reason for his divorce. It’s a sad fact and perhaps unfair. However it is reality that people will always speculate unless they know the truth. (Online source)

This may explain the comment below, which still appears in the combox of Maynard’s post from yesterday:

I’m confused as to why Tony’s personal life would NOT have a bearing on what he’s been saying. Perhaps you could unpack this for me. (This is not an attack as I value you as a gracious brother in Christ.)

I am profoundly pi**ed at how easily people break the marital covenant – but still want their opinions front and centre on the topic of marriage. And when the wife of your youth and, no doubt, your children are in profound pain at your marital breakup, this might be a good time to step away from the spotlight, step off of your soapbox and submit to some wise elder counsel. (Online source)

It also possibly explains why Tony Jones himself would reply to the person sharing the above opinion:

you have absolutely no idea about the details of my personal life. (Online source)

And why he would then say:

To all readers: this post is unabashed gossip. Anything based on rumor and innuendo is, by definition, gossip, and therefore sinful. Indeed, it borders on bearing false witness. I urge you to take whatever action you deem appropriate when you ate [sic] confronted by sinful behavior. I have. (Online source)

Of course anyone familiar with my labors in the Lord knows I’m certainly no fan of this Emerging/ent/ence de-formation of the Christian faith. But regardless of all of that, at a time such as this, we should still be praying for those who are being—and apparently have already been—hurt so deeply.