CRN.Info and Analysis

“[They] never preach the whole gospel because it is offensive to people.”

This is a quote from Mike Ratliff’s latest blog on CRN entitled The Promise of the Holy Spirit.  I hear this accusation so much from the discernment watchblogs.  It is used as often as emergent and cult.  But, just like those labels, the accusation is never backed up with any type of examples or proof.  They simply say that the purpose driven and emergent movement is afraid of the gospel and not preaching the whole truth.  What exactly do they feel is being left out.

A quick glance at Saddleback’s website on biblical truths should set this accusation straight.  They address everything from abortion, homosexuality, evolution, salvation… even infant salvation!  And all this from the grand pooh-Bah of the PD Ministry.  I just don’t understand how Mike can say that purpose driven ministries are afraid of preaching the whole gospel.  I can hardly find any other church that has such a thorough public forum on the doctrines they subscribe to.  In fact, on Mike’s own website, there is a very sparse section on doctrine, most of which is dedicated to the theological system known as Calvinism.

The bigger more underlying problem was addressed by Chris L in an earlier post.  There are way to many unsupported accusations made at CRN/Apprising.  Terms and threats are thrown around with little thought or proof behind them.  It usually boils down to “my theological nuances are different then your theological nuances.”  With that, these men and women feel it appropriate to attack others as heretics and cult leaders.  What they fail to understand, in my opinion, is the gravity of these terms.  Calling someone apostate is a serious offense, and should not be thrown around as a light insult.

This article speak for itself.  I could hardly believe what I was reading when I found this today on The Expositor website.  Mike criticizes CRN info and Analysis for “devot[ing] entire internet sites to analyzing people.”  Well Mike, could you please explain the what exactly Apprising Ministries, Christian Research Network and World View Network are doing?   Why, even your own website has tags dedicated to criticizing Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, Rick Warren.  How, pray tell, is that that any different from what others are doing?

Here is an excerpt from his article:

One case in point is what I call the “mock site” guys. I will not call them or their “blogs” by name because I will not give them the satisfaction or the publicity, but these are folks that devote entire internet sites to analyzing people like me, Ken Silva, Steve Camp, Ingrid Schleuter and others.

The first time I actually visited one of these sites, my first thought was ‘do these folks have jobs?’. I guess I should be flattered to mentioned on the same pages as the names listed above, but to be honest with you I am not flattered.  Frankly I am neither impressed or intimidated by their rantings and rhetoric. I have come to expect it quite frankly, even though most of these mock sites have the same four or five contributors who are constantly commenting on whether Ken Silva is too sarcastic, I am just plain ignorant, or Steve Camp is too forward. And they really have it out for Dr. John MacArthur who they flippantly refer to as “Johnnie Mac”.

I don’t know how Mike Corley can attack sites like this for devoting themselves to the “criticism” of other ministries, when most of his radio show is almost solely dedicated to the public attack of other ministries!  This to me is the epitome of hypocrisy.  The ministries of Mike, Ken, Ingrid are dedicated to the tearing down of churches and ministries that they feel are out of line.  What goes on here is exposing the falsehoods behind these men and women, and continuing to build up those churches who are actively drawing people to our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

In response to your question about jobs.  We do have jobs.  We don’t simply plead for money or ask for speaking engagements to further the destruction of the kingdom of God.  Our lives, not simply our careers are dedicated to exposing the truth where it is distorted, building up the saints and drawing others into a relationship with a living God.

Lastly on John MacArthur.  Most of us here do not have a huge problem with John MacArthur.  In fact, most of us respect what he does.  What we react against is the fact that “discernment ministries” such as Corley, Silva and Schleuter often use more of MacArthur’s material  to prove their points than scripture.  This is often because there is no scripture that backs up their point of view.  We use Jonnie Mac or J-Mac because it is comical how much he is quoted among the discernment camp.

I think this quote from Corley’s interview with MacArthur sums up and affirms this

“I came to the conclusion, or at least the thought… that God almost didn’t call anyone else to preach the gospel but John MacArthur”

I guess nailing down the CRN folks is kind of like nailing Jell-O to the wall these days.

For so long, they’ve been trying to define anyone/everyone with a differing theological opinion as ‘emergent’ - with this term implying a lack of orthodoxy.  [Granted, there are a number of churches in the 'Emergent' movement who have moved too far in favor of liberal interpretations (or no interpretations), but much of what I see in the 'emerging' church is not this far out - as Dan Kimball has aptly demonstrated in recently disembowling the arguments of Johnnie Mac's lackey.]

Now, though, it seems that non-adherence to legalistic orthopraxy is on the table, as well.  In the continuum of the ECM, probably the most conservative of voices has been Mark Driscoll of the Mars Hill church in Seattle - a strict complementarian, 5-point Calvinist - whose chief sin has been to set up a church in downtown Seattle and to minister to the culture there, without demanding that the church’s culture bow to traditional (not Biblical) norms.  In fact, Mark has said on recent occasions that he doesn’t consider Mars Hill ‘Emergent’ (though he would consider it ‘emerging’), and a growing number of fundamentalists (like John Piper) have been cautiously welcoming Mark into their fold to discuss how to be relevant without watering down the message.

[In fact, I would recommend Mark's podcast, available on iTunes, though I sometimes think that he holds some of the 5-points a little too closely.  Generally, in terms of orthodoxy, it is right on par what you'd expect to hear from John MacArthur's pulpit minus the legalism and treatments of "who's 'in' and who's 'out'".]

But, of course, who would have imagined that Ken wouldn’t buy Mars Hill’s ‘Emergent-ness’?  And what is the evidence of this “sin”?  The church is holding a Cinco de Mayo celebration which serves beer (seems Ken is answering our question from last week).  And Driscoll, that awful dude in black, is a “chelero, a bebedor de cerveza” (a beer drinker, for those of you who don’t want to run to AltaVista Babelfish).

Also, the advertisement referred to a New Year’s celebration which had a champagne toast and had a “Red Hot” theme (which, from the context of the original message meant to wear red…).  Of course Ken’s dirty mind made this into a sexual reference of some sort (had this actually been the case, if you listen to Driscoll and know how he deals with certain issues, he would not have minced words in forcing a change in clothing/atmosphere).  Leave it to Ken to manufacture slander against a brother, but who’s really surprised anyomore at his outrageous lies?  Really?