The quiet arrogance of Doug Pagitt, a leading voice in the postliberal cult of the Emergent Church, is on display here in this interview when he appeared on The Nick and Josh Podcast. This was done Augugst 13, 2007 not long after the bridge in Minneapolis over the Mississippi River collapsed.

And in the course of the interview, partially transcribed by Apprising Ministries below, Pagitt is speaking of things which irritate him. One of them he mentions is: “Bridges collapsing; that’s a grievance in and of itself.” The next section of the podcast with “amateur brewer” Josh Brown goes:

Josh: Yeah, the only problem is when, ah, John Piper an’ stuff, just talk about total depravity an’ evil and how God controls things like robots but-

Pagitt: You know I, ah [pause] I read the [Josh: That’s neither here nor there]—he had a little installment on ah, some blog that he keeps; um, call—something about putting his daughter to bed. And um—

Josh: Teaching her about evil.

Pagitt: It was; it was among the most disturbed sorts of things that I think a parent could say to a kid. And then to write about is disturbing in its own-in its own [pause] right.

And ah; I just thought, man there is so much work to do to try to pull religious peop—many religious people—out of the Dark Ages. It’s just truly; it’s almost as if it’s not gonna happen.

Nick: That’s, that’s what I thought when I was reading it; I was like, “This is medieval.” This is eh—

Pagitt: [interrupting] Yeah.

Josh: These are the same people though, you know, like throw you in the lake to see if you are a witch.

Pagitt: (laughs heartily) I’m sorry, I had Monty Python running through my head and Saturday Night Live skits. Yeah, I – I [pause] mean it’s just ahm, awh—

Josh: It’s such a great bedtime story too.

Pagitt: Oh yeah.

Josh: Before you go to bed let me, ah, just teach you about death; that’s what I want you to go to sleep to.

Pagitt: Yeah like there’s one little line in there where she said do you think God made this, or let this happen, or caused it to happen or something; to show people that they’re sinners. [As Piper] “I’m sure honey; I’m sure that’s why it happened.”

I mean [Josh snickers in the background] it’s [pause] and look, I mean I know John is a, is a, is a devout guy and all that, and we all have the right to be [pause] wrong about things. (8:36-10:09)

Well, the article Josh Brown and Doug Pagitt are ridiculing above is called Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed. You can make up your own mind. But as far as I’m concerned one thing is pretty clear to me; Doug Pagitt of the emerging church is no genuine Christian pastor.

UPDATE: In a post called Random Links Josh Brown has responded to this piece:

Our podcast got transcribed from one of Slice of Laodicea and Ingrid’s henchmen. Ken Silva does a nice job of slamming us. Thanks for the link Ken! (Online source)

Notice that even after the above from Brown and Doug Pagitt ridiculing John Piper he still manages to turn it backward saying I was “slamming” them. But I set the record straight as I said in my comment:

Hello Josh,

“Our podcast got transcribed from one of Slice of Laodicea and Ingrid’s henchmen.”

Actually, though Ingrid is a friend of mine, this “henchman” (at least the elite emerging church is above name-calling) has nothing to do with Slice of Laodicea.

“Ken Silva does a nice job of slamming us.”

Well Josh, I hope you’ll think with me for a moment here. For you see, on your podcast I saw my Christian beliefs called “disturbed,” mockingly referred to as “medieval,” and then compared to that of wild-eyed (think Monty Python) witch-hunters.

Ok; now, as odd as it might seem Josh, I actually came away with the idea that it was really you and Doug Pagitt who were the ones doing the slamming.

I know, kinda weird, huh? (Online source)

Language Warning: And further on in the comments section, possibly due to a limited vocabulary, Brown will respond in what is rapidly becoming the typical Emergent “potty-mouth” style.