CRN.Info and Analysis

The foundation of everything is God’s love. For what reason would God have for creating anything, and especially mankind after His own likeness? It had to be love. A supernatural love that cannot truly be understood outside the illumination of the Spirit, all else falls short. If our love must make our love for family look like hate, what must the love of God look like when presented beside even our love for God? Love defined within the limited confines of just “telling someone the truth” is incredibly understated and without sacrifice.

So if God’s love is the basis for the entire redemptive plan, and if Paul underscored that without love we have nothing, why is there so little written about God’s love? Have we arrived at the place that showing God’s love in a tangible way is considered effeminate? Moses was strong, Jesus was weak? The law is strong but grace is weak? Let us admit that we struggle to love one another and that much of our love is lavished upon those we like, not those with whom we have differences. Let us admit that our love can be so many words but without the committed substance that would define Him.

Let us admit all that together, but let us never redefine what love is and thereby ease the journey and embrace a model made after our own hearts and not His. How short do we fall in showing God’s love? Look at the cross bound Redeemer, that is how far short we fall. A long way yet to travel, is it not?

Don’t ask me, I get lost too…

Ken writes here:

However at the same time, we are also within Christian ethics to stress that in our view the time has arrived where we also need men to arise with the spiritual fortitude to proclaim what God is saying to our gelatinous generation.

This is, of course, a strawman. A huge one. I challenge Ken to either withdraw this statement or show us where anyone on CRN.info or another major blog, ministry, radio program or other outlet has stated that it is outside of Christian ethics for the watchdoggies to express the content of what they’ve stated. In other words, who has said it is wrong for them to express the general positions they’ve put out there. Show us who has said its wrong for what they’ve said, and not how they’ve said it.

Flat out, the implication that there’s a movement to label the content of the posts by watchdoggies as outside the bounds of Christianity does not exist and Ken’s implication of such is the result of either an inability to understand what is being communicated or a deliberate distortion of watchdoggie critics.

I came across a list of ten fixtures of evangelical churches that the author finds “harmful”. Here’s the list:

#1 Making Converts
#2 The Sinner’s Prayer
#3 “Do you know Jesus as…”
#4 Tribulationism
#5 Testimonies
#6 The Altar Call
#7 Witnessing
#8 Protestant Prayers
#9 The Church Growth Movement
#10 Chick Tracts

Now you’re waiting for the link right? You’re waiting for a link that will take you over to one of our bad little watchdoggie friends so we can point out that he (or she) is busily gnawing on the shoes of the church, or tearing up the furniture.

Well I can give you the link, but it won’t take you to a watchdoggie. Instead it will take you to Joe Carter writing at the Evangelical Outpost. And I agree with most of his points. Points that are often iterated by the watchdoggies. The difference is that Joe iterates these points with civility and a sense of brotherhood. On the other hand watchdoggies make these points with malice, and vitriol. Perhaps its time the watchdoggies out there enrolled in obedience school and learned how to adopt a methodology similar to Joe’s.

Oh and one other thing. Check out the final sentence:

But I really do believe that these “fixtures” have become detrimental to the making of disciples. Am I wrong? I’m open to hearing counter-claims.

There’s the final exam for watchdoggie obedience school, the ability to admit the possibility for error and being open to correction and discussion would be grounds for graduation.

I believe that any theology and any teaching that limits the redemptive grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is not only erroneous, it limits God’s love by the intellect of man. It is fraught with Scriptural inconsistencies and severely minimizes the expansive nature of the Father and His seamless love for each and every sinner and His desire for all to come to know Him. Over at Following Judah’s Lion I have posted a fictional pre-creation dialogue which I hope provides some insight into why this is so troubling.