CRN.Info and Analysis

It seemed good in the LORD to show the grievous errors of logic, and sound Biblical interpretation to our faithful readers here at CRN. (See we can all add Bible sounding intro’s to our posts). Today has been perhaps one of the clearest examples of fundamental hypocrisy. I even thought about putting up a quote about how people will attack me if I say they are wrong and call it, “Pharisaical Fundamentalist Hypocrisy.” But I didn’t. In fact I won’t. I do intend to start linking to my own blog a little more, but that is irrelevant to what I want to discuss here today.

Simply put, I want to say, “Mr. Cardwell, it doesn’t work that way.” You accuse Rob Bell of being

“such a master at the old used car sales tactic of ‘bait and switch’.”

You said, you felt you “had” to point out his errors. Well, Mr. Cardwell, I’ve worked in sales, in fact I still do and there is another very common tactic employed by salesman, it’s called the “I didn’t really mean that” tactic. In fact it happened today at my work. I work at a car auction. We had a guy shake his head to a bid. Suddenly, his bid is the highest and he realizes he can’t make that payment. You know what he said? He said, “Well, I was just shaking my head I wasn’t really bidding.” So at the auction they pull out the tape (they literally tape everything) and sure enough this “shaking” is how he bid on everything all day. What does that have to do with your post? Well, let’s look at some quotes.

First you said,

“Second, Mr. Bell presents that closing the prayer shawl, the Kanaf in front of you [which he demonstrates in the video, covering his face and head], is what was called the “prayer closet” by the rabbis. I cannot find a reference for this except for a few Messianic rabbis that suggest it, and even more often, retailers using this “prayer closet” as a selling point for their Tallyot (plural Talliyt). Check out any picture you like of Jews praying at the Western Wall and you’ll never see one praying in the manner that Rob Bell suggests.” (Emphasis mine)

So, Chris L does a great job of taking on the task you gave him and shows you the very thing you say doesn’t happen. Then you come back with this quote,

“I don’t refute that Jews today place talliyt over the head and cover the face. My comment was made because I had never seen or heard of that exact posture that Rob Bell demonstrated in the video. The EXACT posture. Now, I will concede that Rob may have been mistaken the way he demonstrated it, and that possibly what he meant to demonstrate was just covering the head and face.” (Emphasis yours)

Mr. Cardwell, It doesn’t work that way. Just like the poor guy at our auction today (who lucked out and was able to drop the car in arbitration because of some unannounced frame damage) you don’t get to say, “I didn’t actually mean that.”

You were very kind and responded to my email almost immediately and I appreciate that. However, this post cannot be allowed to stand. It cannot be allowed to stand if for no other reason then I don’t want Chris P to think I only respond when Mr. Silva attacks Rob Bell. I almost erased the word attack. But I have to leave it because you did attack. Then you used less than sound logic to make your case. You used hyperbole (almost always a sign that someone’s case is at best weak), you attacked the man’s character (see previous bait and switch quote). As you can see from this missive you violated the very Biblical rules of communication. To some extent I understand that, I’ve had to delete quite a few sentences from this short missive myself so as not violate any of those rules. I also have had to go back and change a title to my first missive in response to what was Slice of Laodicea. What’s worse, you’re exegesis is less than consistent.
Let’s look at your first argument against Rob’s interpretation of the prayer closet.
You said,

“I would suggest that the rabbis and Pharisees of Jesus’ day didn’t use a their prayer shawls in this way, because to cover the face was to hide who one was and Jesus indicted the hypocrites for bringing attention to themselves and their identities:”

Really? I agree with you. The problem is, your argument doesn’t help your case at all. In fact it helps Rob’s argument. Jesus was saying you should not be like the Pharisees but you should cover up and go into your closet thus obscuring your identity. It would be bad enough if you stopped there, but you go on. You go on to say,

“Furthermore, Paul, a rabbi himself, said that it was a shame for a man to cover his head when he prayed and doing what Rob Bell says that they did, would cover their heads:”

You even quoted the verse for us. But you stopped a little short from quoting that passage in its entirety, didn’t you? Doesn’t verse 13 of the same passage tell us that a woman should not pray with her head uncovered? I’m curious; do all the women in your church cover their head when they pray? And if you’re going to go into how it’s talking about a covering of authority then you are still guilty of an inconsistent hermeneutic. In case anyone is wondering you can look at the passage yourself by clicking here.

I won’t even bother quoting the first part of the passage that really goes into the whole head thing. It would just be too easy for me to get sidetracked.
I will close with another of your quotes. You said;
“Remember, Jesus is indictment upon the religious leaders of the day was that they followed the Law to such an degree that they stuck their finger in their mouth to [sic] themselves to vomit out a gnat so they wouldn’t eat blood. They tithed of the smallest of herbs, of mint and dill and cummin.”
I would say that Jesus actually had a few more indictments for the Pharisees then that, but this quote works. If I could paraphrase you, you seem to be saying that Jesus’ indictment of the Pharisees was that they kept the law but missed the point of it. I couldn’t agree more. In fact that is my biggest problem with Christian Research Network.

The problem this type of thing is very dangerous because I am sure many many people read what you (the you here referrring to all of the writers at Slice/CRN) write and it has the sound of being correct and spiritual but its not. It’s toxic. It goes against Scripture. It hurts the body of Christ. There is some good stuff posted over there (read Chris R’s post on James Cameron) but that only makes it worse for as you call them, “undiscerning Bible student.”

Coming in the future, we’ll look at the Sunday Night service; Is it Biblical or a past attempt by the church to be culturally relevant?

The attempted feeding frenzy on Rob Bell at CRN/Slice continues, facts be damned, by a new Ken wannabe, Jon Cardwell.
In his article, “Dust or Blowing Smoke“, Cardwell tries (quite unsuccessfully) to paint Bell’s knowledge of ancient Judiasm as completely inaccurate. He takes issue with Bell’s use of the Tallit as a ‘prayer closet’. Cardwell says:

Check out any picture you like of Jews praying at the Western Wall and you’ll never see one praying in the manner that Rob Bell suggests.

Here is a photo I took last spring in Israel - at the western wall:

Maybe I should have interrupted this Rabbi to ask him if he was Jewish, since Mr. Cardwell tells us that Jews don’t pray in this way at the Western Wall. But wait! How do we know this was really at the Western Wall? How about because I turned to my left a few seconds after taking this picture, and I took this one:

Sure enough, that’s the Western Wall…

This is why Jesus says in Matthew 6:6

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (KJV)

As for Jesus’ comments to the Pharisees, Cardwell makes the mistake of assuming that the Pharisees are a homogenous group, and not a diverse one, of which Jesus is particularly calling out ‘Shoulder (or Shechemite) Pharisees’ who paraded their words for all to see.

Cardwell also takes issue with Bell’s interpretation of the woman with the issue of blood. The problem is, though, that he misses the first century practice which said women with an issue of blood could not come into the Temple grounds because they were unclean. The incident with the woman and Jesus occurred in the streets, where she would have been permitted.

Besides, which, as a teaching, this has been my understanding for more than a decade before Rob Bell was even a name I knew or recognized. It has been taught in Messianic Jewish circles for many years, and a number of congregations mention it in their web-based literature. Like this, for example. Ray VanderLaan has a video on this subject from the mid-90’s, and has a web page on the subject, as well. Yes, this is an interpretation based on a study of first-century Judiasm, but it is one that is valid and not anything to be sneered at as if it were a heretical teaching.

Apparently, Cardwell isn’t done with his sloppy attempts at slandering Bell, planning on taking on Rob’s discussion on first century rabbinc systems next. As I noted on my blog yesterday, in this particular sermon, Bell does not differentiate between first century rabbis (sometimes called hasidim (’pious ones’) or sages) and modern-day Rabbis (who are ministers of synagogues), but that really has no direct impact on the basic system these men followed.

At least Cardwell filed his article under “False Teaching”, because Jon is certainly full of it today…

Issue: Rob Bell’s view of scripture and Ken Silva’s misuse of the Name of God.

CRN’s Take: The one-man vendetta against Rob Bell continues. Ken has published an article “Rob Bell in a Nutshell”, which makes a number of claims about Rob Bell, including one Amy asked about:

Bell’s neo-orthodox view of the Bible would be along the lines that the text of Scripture itself is not necessarily inspired but rather as the Holy Spirit inspires a particular passage to a particular person it then comes to life as it becomes the Word of God. We would then breathe it in, so to speak, living it out in subjective and existential experience.

My Take: Rather than just reprint Ken’s article, I will critique sectons of it, piece by piece, strawman by strawman, fallacy by fallacy.

The Lord apparently has His reasons as to why He chose to position Apprising Ministries as the “go to” ministry for critique of Emergent Church Pastor Rob Bell. [blah, blah, blah]

In Exodus 20:7, it states

You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

A number of Christian (and Jewish) scholars have commented that the intent of this commandment is not about misusing the name of the Lord in anger (which would be included), but to misuse the name of the Lord by attaching it to something as an endorsement of something that is of man, or to justify sin. Or, to put it more bluntly, we are not to presume upon God.

So, before we even get to whatever it is Ken has to say, he’s already disregarded scripture in a way that suggests that the end justifies the means. Besides which, Bell has, on numerous occasions rejected the label of “Emergent” or “Emerging”, as Ken has also noted on a number of occasions; yet “pastor” Silva has still decided to characterize Bell in a way contrary to what even Ken has even recognized as reality.

Time to do so has been hard to come by due to a lack of financial support but here now is the first installment in what I pray will be a series toward that direction. As God leads watch for this to continue to develop [...blah, blah, blah].

Exodus 20:7 (and related verses and curses) applies yet again… Perhaps a possibility could be considered that the lack of financial support and the aim of this “ministry” are somehow connected. While it is also possible this is not the case, I do not believe that God sends messages/prophecy via sinful or highly-errant means.

At best Bell is now neo-orthodox although at one time he was actually quite sound as an expositor of Scripture. As one who used to hear Bell back in his Calvary Church days told me recently, think MacArthur. However, after Bell and his wife read A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren, as you will now see like most Emergents Bell has rejected sola Scriptura. This is an irrefutable fact.

I’m sorry, Ken, but just because you website says it and isogetes it doesn’t make it ‘irrefutable fact’. (Realize, as well, that the definition of sola Scriptura, and how people interpret the usage of this extra-Biblical doctrine has a good deal of variance in how it is applied.)

Irrefutable: adj. “Impossible to refute or disprove; incontrovertible”

Let us see how ‘irrefutable’ Ken’s “facts” are…

[Quoting Belief.net] The Bible itself, he writes, is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted. He dismisses claims that “Scripture alone” will answer all questions. Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader’s bias and current realities, he says. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises.

“It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says,” Bell writes. [Emphasis his]

Oddly (or prehaps not all that much so) Ken does not finish Bell’s quote in the article, instead giving this the appearance of a complete thought on the part of Bell. Here is the remainder of the quote:

“We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.”

In one of the sermons from which Velvet Elvis was developed in 2004, Bell used the example of Paul’s comments about women covering their heads and not wearing braided hair. He said that we first had to see what this meant in the time it was written (basically - “women - don’t dress the way prostitutes do - you’re not a prostitute!”). Next, we had to look and see how we would apply this now, in Grand Rapids 2004. He mentioned the name of a brand or a store I didn’t know, but his jist was that women shouldn’t dress in ways that say they are sexually available to other people.

So, Ken’s use of contextomy in this case fails to prove anything, other than Ken’s predisposed inclination to malign and misuse Bell’s words to say things they just don’t say.

Next, Ken writes:

Then in VE, after laying out a neo-orthodox understanding of some of the Biblical writers, Bell specifically says:

This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that “Scripture alone” is our guide. It sounds nice but it is not true… When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true [emphasis Ken's]

Aside from Ken’s predeliction for esoteric terminology (neo-this and hollow-that), this is just another example of contextomy. In this section of Velvet Elvis, Bell is discussing the First Century practice of “binding and loosing“, that is the practice of church or synagogue leaders forbidding (”binding”) or permitting (”loosing”) specific practices or interpretations based upon the community’s understanding/interpretation of scripture.

In Ken’s quote, he excises the actual purpose of this discussion to give Bell’s words an appearance and meaning he did not intend (which would be, well, the definition of a “straw man” - which most anyone who has read a miss-ive from Ken has become readily acquainted with). Here is the full quote from Velvet Elvis, along with continuation from the chapter.

This is part of the problem with continualling insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that “Scripture alone” is our guide. It sounds nice but it is not true.⁶⁴ In reaction to abuses by the church, a group of believers during the time called the Reformation claimed that we only need the authority of the Bible. But the problem is that we got the Bible from the church voting on what the Bible even is. So, when I affirm the Bible as God’s word, in the same breath I have to affirm that when those people voted, God was somehow present, guiding them to do what they did. When people say that all we need is the Bible, it is simply not true.

In affirming the Bible as inspired, I have to affirm the Spirit who I believe was inspiring those people to choose those books.⁶⁵ Where they binding and loosing the Bible itself?

At some point we have to have faith. Faith that God is capable of guiding people. Faith that God has not left us alone. Faith that the same Spirit who guided Paul and Peter and those people in a room in the 300s is still with us today. Guiding us, showing us, and enlightening us.

Binding and loosing can only be done if communities are willing to wrestle. The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in a struggle with the text - the good parts, the hard-to-understand parts, the parts we wish weren’t there.

The rabbis even say a specific blessing when they don’t understand a portion of the text. When it eludes them, when it makes no sense, they say a word of thanks to God because of the blessing that will be theirs someday. “Thank you, God, that at some point in the future, the lights are going to come on for me.”

The rabbis have a metaphor for wrestling with the text: The story of Jacob wrestling the angel in Genesis 32. He struggles and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip in injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping. Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping. And some people have no limp, because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God.

I think God does know what He’s doing with the Bible. But a better question is, do we know what we’re doing with the Bible? And I say yes, we are binding and loosing and wrestling and limping. Because God has spoken. [emphasis mine]

So, Bell is not questioning whether or not scripture is inspired - he is illustrating that when we affirm the authority of the Bible, we are also affirming that we believe that God was leading the people who created the canon. Bell has commented in a couple of sermons I’ve listened to that he believes that the Bible is inspired but that doesn’t mean that some people’s interpretations of portions of the Bible are equally inspired. In a different part of Velvet Elvis, Bell refers to this bad habit of assuming that your interpretation of some passage is as inspired as the text you are intepreting as “warped and toxic” (another phrase Ken has taken a liking to, in a perverse - or perhaps a ‘warped and toxic’ - sort of way).

The only sola Scriptura being deined by Bell here is the strictest interpretation of this extra-Biblical doctrine which suggests that the Bible is completely independent of the context in which it was written and the manner in which it was canonized. Most peoples’ views of sola Scriptura are not quite so narrow, though.
In footnote #64 from the above section of VE, Bell states:

64. I understand the need to ground all that we do and say in the Bible, which is my life’s work. It is the belief that creeps in sometimes that this book dropped out of the sky that is dangerous. The Bible has come out of actual communities of people, journeying in real time and space. Guided by a real Spirit.

So, once again, by examining the actual context, rather than Ken’s isogetical ’slice’, we see something different, something that shows Ken’s premise to be incredibly, shall we say decidedly

refutable: adj. Admitting of being refuted or disproved; capable of being proved false or erroneous.

Next, Ken decides to venture in the realm of Guilt by Association (GBA).

In the Christianity Today article The Emergent Mystique we find out that Bell is another McLaren disciple. [blah, blah, blah]

What we learn from this section is that Bell was influenced by MacLaren’s book “A New Kind of Christian”. What seems to be asserted is that Bell is a disciple of MacLaren who, thus, agrees with everything MacLaren say. I am familiar with at least two rather large topics on which Bell has expressed opinions which disagree with MacLaren - the practice of homosexual sex and universalism - both topics which have given me the most trouble with Brian, as well.

So we start here because without this anchor of sola Scriptura Rob Bell’s neo-orthodoxy (being quite lenient) has now led him into a “repainted” [i.e. redefined] liberalism. And you need to understand that his embracing of mystery is Emergent-speak for the practice of contemplative mysticism.

Woah! Hold the phone. Here we have a classic example of Ken’s most common creation of a straw man. Let’s deconstruct this to see how it is comepletely false, misleading and slanderous.

So we start here because without this anchor of sola Scriptura [not proven, irrefutably or otherwise] Rob Bell’s neo-orthodoxy [never proven, and refuted by a number of comments from Bell about the Bible being inerrent, but people's intepretations not being so] (being quite lenient) [not proven] has now led him into a “repainted” [i.e. redefined] [Once again, defining a term for Bell in a potentially inaccurate manner] And you need to understand that his embracing of mystery is Emergent-speak for the practice of contemplative mysticism. [Wow! TOTAL 100% speculation/fabrication by "pastor" Silva. Let's see, 1) Bell claims nothing to do with Emergent; 2) Bell doesn't teach contemplative mysticism (which itself is very loosely defined); and 3) A number of times where Bell has talked about 'mystery' in this manner, it has been in the Hebrew sense of the word that allows wonder with and unknowableness to many aspects of God and how He works.]

So, now Ken has taken a shaky premise about Bell and sola Scriptura and extrapolated it to mean something miles apart from anyting EVER stated by Bell.

Slander in its purest form. Way to go Ken!

Bell’s neo-orthodox view of the Bible would be along the lines that the text of Scripture itself is not necessarily inspired but rather as the Holy Spirit inspires a particular passage to a particular person it then comes to life as it becomes the Word of God. We would then breathe it in, so to speak, living it out in subjective and existential experience.

This entire paragraph is a fabrication of Bell’s theology, thoroughly unsupported by anything written or spoken by him. Rob Bell isn’t neo-orthodox. Reading the wiki entry on Neo-orthodoxy, I cannot find a single point that would be supported by Bell’s teaching. In fact, his sermons and parts of VE (and Sex God) directly contradict a several of the points. As noted above, Bell believes that Scripture is inspired and that we have to trust that the men who wrote it were inspired by the Spirit when they did so. What is not necessarily inspired is how men choose to use/interpret scripture, particularly for selfish ends.

What Bell frequently says in his sermons (as noted above) is that before we can interpret scripture and apply it, we have to first understand what it meant when it was written. As he says on a number of occasions, “the Bible didn’t fall out of the sky - it wasn’t created by fiat [out of nothing]. It was written within the context of a culture and a people who lived and breathed in a specific time and place.” Once we understand its cultural context, we can apply it to the time and place and culture in which we live. What Ken wrote above is utter baloney. To be blunt - Ken is lying and slandering. Period.

But he continues:

This heretical view sees the Bible as “a human product” and in fact denies the plenary inspiration of the text of Holy Scripture which it claims for itself (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16). Now you know the underlying reason why Emergent men like Rob Bell make studying the texts of Holy Scripture far more difficult than it needs to be.

So now, Ken is defining a heretical view he has foisted upon an upstanding Christian man, based on a false attribution of disagreement with an extra-Biblical doctrine. Ken proves nothing, because he is now writing complete fiction.

Next, Ken gives a quote from a long, incoherent rant against Velvet Elvis by a pastor in Wyoming, Michigan (a church near Mars Hill, where Bell teaches, and most likely impacted by the large number of folks who attend Mars Hill), who throws around a lot of pseudo-intellectual jargon. However, when you read the actual article Ken pulls his quote from, you quickly realize that the criticism are first and foremost, in response to Bell’s writing about people’s interpretations being fallible and not Holy writ. Secondly, you can’t help but notice in the linked article, that there is a lack of logic and coherence even worse than Ken’s usual screed.

We have already seen that Bell clearly tells us he flatly rejects the Biblical Reformed position of sola Scriptura. So now we add Bell’s disregard for the plenary inspiration of the Bible to his fascination with the Hebrews Roots movement and the strong influence of Ray Vander Laan.

Well, Ken, no we haven’t seen Bell flatly reject sola Scriptura. We haven’t seen anything from Bell to suggest that he disregards the plenary inspiration of scripture. In fact, we’ve seen the exact opposite. Finally, Ken randomly pulls in Ray Vander Laan and the research of the Hebrew Roots of scripture. I’m not exactly sure what his point is in doing so. RVL has intense respect, reverence and faith in scripture, and has done a great deal in bringing conservative first-century scholarship to laypeople within the church.

As we then combine this with Bell’s embracing alleged postmodernism and the contemplative spirituality at the core of the Emergent Church you will now be able to see that Rob Bell has been seduced into its new kind of social gospel, which just as in liberation theology, reduces Christ Jesus to a social reformer–little more than a cause to live for as one fights poverty, aids, social injustice, etc.

Let’s see, here we have a small platoon of straw men. Bell hasn’t ‘embraced alleged postmodernism’, and Ken hasn’t even set out to prove so. Bell hasn’t said anything about contemplative spiriturality, and the only connection between the two is in Ken’s imagination, as noted above. Bell’s not Emergent. While a number of Bell’s recent sermons have been about social ills and the church’s response, it is not the only focus at Mars Hill - it is a balance of scriptural grounding and social action. Liberation theology gets pulled in here randomly, along with the making Jesus in to little more than a social reformer. None of these have been proven in any manner that couldn’t be disproven by an eighth grader, fresh from the ‘logic’ unit in AP English.

As for Ken’s pulling in the ’social gospel’, I am reminded of a recent quote I read that is quickly becoming one of my favorite. It is similar to a comment by Bell last summer:

An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse. - E. Stanley Jones

Grace and Peace,

Chris L

Look at that! We’re a shadow blog!

Issue: Should the modern church be ‘relevant’ to the culture in which it exists?

CRN/Slice Take: A number of articles in the past have run the gamut from ‘poo-poo-ing’ the idea of relevance (the church doesn’t need to be relevant - it should be timeless) to pulling out the big guns (’apostasy’, ‘heretical’, etc.) to kill such an awful notion.  However, yesterday’s post ( “Why is cultural relevance a big deal?” ) with a link to Ed Stetzer’s post on Mark Driscoll’s Blog on the subject of relevance has left me a bit confused as to whether they might have changed their stance, or if the author (the anonymous “Editor”) was just unclear as to whether the link to Stetzer was an endorsement or a condemnation.  The quote they chose to highlight from Stetzer’s article was pretty mundane and (at least to me) didn’t lend any clarity to their article.

My Take: I couldn’t have said it any better than Stetzer, and I’m 100% behind his position.  Just some quotes:

The scriptures are relevant to this and every culture. They do not need updating, correcting, or revisioning. On the contrary, what needs revisioning is our understanding and obedience to God’s word as we live out His mission in context. When we live a humble orthodoxy and humble missiology, we will be salt and light in contemporary culture—a biblically-faithful, culturally-relevant, counter culture.

[...]

On the one hand, the church can be so focused on cultural relevance that it loses its distinctive message. Don’t think it won’t happen—it has happened to countless churches and denominations. On the other hand, it can decide that culture does not matter. That leads to a church whose message is indiscernible and obscure to those who are “outside.” Let me propose an alternative: our churches need to be biblically faithful, culturally relevant, counter culture communities.

[...]

Those who preach against culture are often unaware that they live in one. But the dynamic culture around them is often not the culture of their church. What they yearn for is typically not a scriptural culture, but rather a nostalgic religious culture of days past. The irony of this is that every church is culturally relevant. It is simply a matter of whether the culture of the church is in any way similar to the culture of its community or only meaningful to itself.

[...]

Before anything else, the church and its ministry must be biblically faithful. A lot of great conferences on creativity and ministry are helpful. But, we need to remember that our purpose is to apply that creativity in biblically and culturally relevant ways. The reason we engage culture is not to be cool, trendy, contemporary, or cutting edge—words that have become idols to us—but so that those who live in culture can hear the message of Jesus. That message is more than just “come to Christ,” it involves how we live and structure our lives, and it matters deeply.

[...]

Why, if we have the timeless truth of the gospel, do we need to concern ourselves with culturally relevant ministry? Because if we don’t, the message of the gospel gets confused with the cultures of old. The unchurched think that Christianity is a retrograde culture rather than a living faith. Our job is to remove the “extra” stumbling blocks of culture without removing the essential stumbling block of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:23). Unfortunately, the stumbling block of the cross has too often been replaced by the stumbling block of the church. Most people aren’t being recruited by other religions; they are being confused by the practice of ours.

Well said, Ed!

Issue: Well, uhm, the ‘Emergent Church’.

CRN’s Take: If we perceive you are off the rails theologically, you are Emergent - whether you agree to that label or not (a la Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, Donald Miller and others).  If you are Emergent, you are sadly mistaken, an apostate bound for eternal damnation.  If you’re an Emergent Church leader, you’re doubly damned because you’re leading people astray.

My Take:

1) I am not emergent/emerging, despite disagreeing with Slice/CRN on a number of issues and despite my insistence on rejecting systematic theologies.

2) Using such a broad brush to paint a diverse movement like emergent/emerging is little more than bigotry on the order of racism, anti-semitism and misanthropy, and Slice/CRN’s words and actions would be constituted a ‘hate crime’ were their target a politically-correct “protected” entity.  (NOTE: I hate polictical correctness as a system, but I have observed it to be a overreactive backlash against, in some cases, legitimate insensitivity or injustice based on treating other people as objects who are less than human.)

3) CRN’s definitions of who/what is/are Emergent are so broad that any legitimate complaints lose their meaning because their target is so nebulous.  Primarily, this is promulgated by “Reverend” Ken, who first defines someone as “Emergent”, puts words in their mouths via isogesis and straw man theology, and then uses his false argument to broad-brush anything/everything “Emergent”.  I could pull together a slew of articles demonstrating this (and I have in the past), but one need look no further than yesterday’s ill-begotten diatribe against Donald Miller to see CRN’s pharisaical bigotry in action.

4) I see the EC movement - which is not tied to any one denomination, but has risen from multiple denominations, in many cases carrying on some of the theological baggage - both good and bad - from their parent denomination - as a response to a perceived loss of balance in the Fundamental/Traditional model and the Purpose Driven/Megachurch model.  I have written about this a few times, with the primary summation here, with the diagram to the right.  For me, the ideal place for the church to sit is smack-dab in the center, which - for a huge number of purists from each movement - would be uncomfortable and possibly confrontational.

5) Scot McKnight has done a much better job of defining and categorizing trends in the ECM (Emergent and Emerging) than I could ever do, and far more accurate than Slice/CRN has ever come close to approaching.  His WTS speech on the subject and his recent article, as well, are well-tempered and have a number of legitimate criticisms of trends in the movement.

6) I have issues with theological laziness/sloppiness in parts of the ECM, particularly when they attempt to define clearly sinful behavior as acceptable behavior for believers in Christ.

7) I have some serious issues with the political leanings of the ECM, in general, but I also see that the Fundamentalist/Traditional embrace of the Republican Party (whose candidates I have never voted against in 20 years of voting, to be honest) has led to a lack of accountability on the part of the GOP for seriously advancing legislation in line with concern to ‘hot button issues’, and has allowed the GOP to escape some accountability for their voting record on other issues which impact social justice.

I believe that it is the role of the church to care for the poor, the destitute, the oppressed and the imprisoned - not the government.  I also believe, though, that the church - by and large - has abdicated this responsibility.  I also believe that the church should care about proper care and stewardship of the environment and our natural resources, but I see too many churches take fatalistic views of these responsibilities, once again abdicating this responsibility to the government.  The resultant leftward political leaning of the ECM, I believe, is a misguided attempt to support these responsibilities via bodies that should not be given this responsibility.  However, the proper response to this is not to deride the ECM for its political sensibilities, but to reassert our responsibility and accountability to ALL kingdom work, despite its perceived ‘home’ in politics.

UPDATE (I missed this in cut/paste)

8.  There are a number of jerks in the ECM, just as there are a number of jerks in other church movements.  The number is probably equal, on a percentage basis.  So, in the same way that I don’t use Ken Silva to paint the entire SBC (or even the SBC in New Hampshire), I would expect that just because Joe Blow who is part of the ECM is a self-righteous nit-picker who looks down on Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, that doesn’t mean that the ECM is populated with all folks like Joe.  Posting a letter from a ECM member/sympathizer and then patronizingly sneering at the entire movement is bigotry in the same way that holding up Rodney King to paint all African Americans or Jeffrey Dahmer to paint all “poor white trash” Scots-Irish Americans would be bigotry.

Mr. Silva, You’ve been quoted on this ministry/webpage/blog as saying,

“There were times I’m writing these articles and I literally turned to the Lord, as if He was standing there, and I said ‘Lord, I didn’t know that. I could not have written that sentence.’ I say that time and time again. I take no credit for this. I’m one of the few who’ll tell you that.”

Now, there are some who if they heard this quote from someone else, say…Rob Bell, or Rick Warren, or Josh Dobson…or well…I imagine you get the idea–they would simply start calling names and making remarks about your eternal resting place, I would like to give you the opportunity to address this quote in the open. Please if you did say this, please explain it. If you did not, please address that and we’ll check our research. However you choose to address it, please do so in public here on the format (or on your own CRN or Apprising Ministries webpage, if you would prefer).
I will wait for further information from you before I attempt to discuss my feelings on such a quote.

Thanks!

I’ve been the first one up every day this week. That has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the advantages is that I can watch the morning news unfettered. So I flip between Mike and Mike, CNN, ESPN and the local fair. I come into a piece late where there’s soft music playing. Jeremy Schaap’s voice over is somber, eulogizing this paragon of American virtue. Heralding this fallen hero as legend, differentiating between lore, legend and fact. Four pages donated to the story can be found on an ABC online article. Speaking of donations, thousands of dollars were spent on keeping this horse alive. Now before my equestrian minded readers get upset with me, I understand that animals can touch your life in a way one rarely expects it to do so. I have a dog, and a couple cats. I love all of them. So I’ll spare you the “It’s a horse for crying out loud!” rant. Although I’d have to admit I’ve thought that once or twice.
But I have to be honest it did make me stop and wonder about American values. It’s 12 degrees outside my house right now. It was 8 degrees when I woke up this morning. The truth is I had no idea how many people were homeless so I did some simple research.

• According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, 1.35 million U.S. children are homeless on any given night. (2000)
• Families are now the fastest growing segment of the homeless population, accounting for almost 39% of the nation’s homeless. (2000)
• The average age of a homeless person in the U.S. is 9 years old.
• 41% of homeless children are under the age of five.
• Nearly 20% of homeless children lack a regular source of medical care.
• Homeless children are hungry more than twice as often as other children.
• Almost 1/3 of low-income families do not have enough money to prepare three meals a day.
• 14% of homeless children are diagnosed with learning disabilities - double the rate of other children.
• 21% of homeless children repeat a grade because of frequent absence from school. Within a single school year, 41% of homeless students attend two different schools, 28% attend three or more.

Go back and read that again. The average age of a homeless person is 9 years old! 9 years old! Do you find that as unbelievable as I do? See, I’ve got nothing against putting money into a horse to keep it alive, but I wonder what it would take to get the same kind of fervor up about the men, women and children who are living without a home. I wonder why we ignore them, but we’ll rally behind a fallen horse and go so far as to call it a hero. I wonder what it would take for us to spend thousands of dollars on helping them.
I’d like to say the church is different but most often it isn’t. In fact, recently my wife was having a conversation with someone who was upset with Rick Warren because he wants to attempt to help the poor and homeless in the world. So not only are these people not doing anything they’re attacking people who are. It boggles the mind, going well beyond reasonable understanding. In my next post, I’ll address some common excuses I hear from people and we’ll look at what Jesus had to say on the subject.