Right about now I can't think of many guys more to be admired in the blogosphere than Reggie Kidd.

Kidd is a professor at RTS Orlando, and recently one of his blog posts made big waves in the (reformed) blogosphere when he called out some of his brothers for what he saw as unnecessary and self-destructive infighting. He did not mince words.

He cited Herodotus chronicling the cooperation of Athens and Sparta to defeat a common foe, who wrte in part: "the evil of internal strife is worse than united war in the same proportion as war itself is worse than peace."

He then asked: why don't we get it?

. . . evangelicals headbutt each other … and do everything we can to our nearest neighbors to let them know we’re more against them than against what should be our common enemies.

Sisters raise voices of orthodoxy in pulpits long abandoned by theologically conservative men — and we have the temerity to tell them they have no business battling battles we’ve walked away from.

(Ouch).

A minority of voices ask whether we in the Presbyterian Church of America (my denomination) ought to look more closely at whether our preaching adequately reflects the corporate nature of the apostle Paul’s vision — they suggest even that our view of the unity of the covenant implies that perhaps it’s worth considering whether our children belong with us at the Table (as Hebrew children did at Passover).

The answer: a study paper (passed — I note with chagrin — overwhelmingly) not on the biblical merits of the positions considered, but on whether they pass confessional standards (as interpreted by a tendentiously and carelessly written paper). When the point of the positions was never whether the standards were wrong, but whether more needed to be said than the standards say.

Suggest that we might do a better job representing Paul’s view that the Body and Bride are elect as a whole, and get accused of denying that Paul teaches individual election.

Suggest that more could be said about the way Jew and Gentile oneness in the gospel demonstrates the righteousness of God than the Westminster Standards say, and get accused of denying justification by faith.

Battle as relentlessly and courageously as the Church of England’s N.T. Wright does to champion the view that Paul’s theology is animated by a comprehensive and integrated story of promise and fulfillment — scoring points against both the postmodern deconstruction of the biblical meta-narrative and the dispensational fracturing of the singular story of “the Israel of God” into dichotomous stories of “Israel” versus the “church” — and what do you get from your potential allies in the conservative reformed world? How about getting dismissed as importing an alien biblical theology into the established categories of systematic theology, as being vague about the atonement, and as compromising biblical authority? While we build careers at our potential friends’ expense, the hostile armies and navies amass. Nice work.

Write courageously, as does Duke University’s Richard Hays, into a most liberal Methodist environment about Paul’s seeing in homosexuality the red light on the cultural dashboard, champion Paul’s theological method as building upon Old Testament themes and texts and Jesus’ ministry as being the embodiment of Israel’s story, and get accused of Nestorianism because you believe that complementary to Paul’s teaching that we are to believe “into Jesus” we are also supposed to have a faith that was like that of the incarnate Jesus? Puhleeze!

Is it possible that Sparta and Athens understood better what was at stake in their time than we do in ours? Can we stop devouring our own? Can we make common cause against common enemies instead of against one another?

We’re better than this. We’re wiser than this. And the gospel deserves better than this, because more is at stake than when the beneficiaries of the sacrifice of King Leonidas and “his brave three hundred” took stock of the price that had been paid for them.

The reformed blogosphere erupted. Much of the response was favorable. Some thought he had spoken too harshly against his brothers. And much linkage was had by all.

But the part you probably didn't hear was what came next. Despite the cheers for every jot and tittle that came from many, Kidd had the courage to examine his own words, and his heart, and find himself wanting. So he publicly apologized, right there in his next post. He deleted the words he came to see as intemperate and sinful (the part quoted above remains), and offered specific apology. I give you his summary:

I’m so sorry. My heart is broken for the lack of peace in the Reformed world, and I’ve contributed to its fracturing.

I beg the Lord’s mercy and everybody else’s forbearance with my sin.

All that in the face of dozens cheering him on. It's an odd spectacle-- the winning runner in the World Series game who pauses as he crosses home plate to tell the umpire he thinks he skipped third base. To repent in the face of loud opposition takes courage. But repenting in the face of strong support takes it to another level altogether.