CRN.Info and Analysis

It’s one thing to write about theological errors that Christian leaders make. It is another thing to act like a 6 year old — well, look for yourself. This is what Ken Silva “the editor” did to this Christian Post article.

Hosted by influential preacher Bishop T.D. Jake$ of The Potter’$ House in Dallas and his wife Serita, the three-day conference is designed to propel women as mother$, wive$, professional$ and companion$ to experience every benefit of God’s ble$$ing under the banner “He’s just that into you.”

The ladie$ conference comes off the success of Jakes’ “For Men Only” Conference and Retreat which marked its annual celebration earlier this year. Jake$ has also drawn hundreds of thousand$ of women to previous women-only conference$ based off his book “Woman, Thou Art Loo$ed” since 1996. (emphasis mine)

really? Is this really the only way these guys can effectively argue? What’s next? “Your mom’s a heretic” (followed by school-girl giggles). I am sure they are going to argue that these guys are heretics because they charge for their conference, and that they are asking people to pay for a false gospel. Of course, they couldn’t really have pure intentions of helping women. No, it’s T.D. Jakes for cryin’ out loud. (please not sarcasm for those who are subtextually impaired)

…what is wrong with this blog post. Evidently, according to Dwayna, these women are “re-imagining” God, even though that word or any variant of it is not even used in the post. I just don’t get it…

I guess a group of people getting together and discussing theology qualifies as an abomination nowadays. Who knew?

I was reading some of Walter Martin’s works when I came across his advice on how to witness to those in cults:

The first do is, do identify with the cultist. Convince him (or her) that you consider him to be a person in his own right — worthwhile, basically honest, and not trying to put something over on you. Cultists are people before they’re cultists. They have families, they have children, they have needs, they have frustrations and fears, and they are brothers and sisters in Adam, though not in Christ.

Well, that’s not very watchdoggie of him. Its almost like he’s taking the Biblical admonitions of gentleness and peace seriously.

Now, there are also a few don’ts I want to mention. First, don’t approach a cultist with a spiritual chip on your shoulder. A spiritual chip is the communication of the feeling that you are looking down on the cultist because you have something he or she doesn’t have. Such an attitude will turn them off as fast as anything you could imagine.

Second, don’t attack directly the founder of any particular cult. When I lecture on Mormonism, I do not attack Joseph Smith as a person. When I lecture on Christian Science, I do not attack Mary Baker Eddy. I criticize the theology they taught. Remember, if you deal in personalities, people become instantaneously defensive.

Third, don’t lose your patience, regardless of how dense a cultist may be. Remember how dense you and I were — until the Lord managed to break through. Because cultists are bound in the chains of slavery to sin, you need to be patient. And being patient means being willing to go over something ten times if necessary, believing that the Lord will bless your efforts.

It seems to me that Dr. Martin was far closer in tone to hippie emergents than he was to the watchdoggies. Hopefully, the fraudulent attempt by watchdoggies to-opt the legacy of Dr. Martin won’t succeed.

I’m listening to Mark Driscoll’s sermon from 10/9/07 entitled The Rebel’s Guide to Joy.  In it he directly takes on Osteen’s health and wealth gospel, even going so far as to show an Osteen video.  Afterwards he completely dismantles Osteen’s theology.

Let me repeat that.  He completely dismantles Osteen’s theology.  It was a contest in the sense that the 1986 Super Bowl was a  contest.

And I loved every single second of it. 

"Now wait a second Tim", you might be thinking, "you’re a neo-Roman hollow man of the emergent movement, doesn’t that mean you don’t like things like football and theological takedowns?"  Well, I don’t like to brag [Ed’s note: yes he does. ] but I just went 3-1 in my fantasy football leagues this week, and my average margin of victory was over 20 points [Ed’s note: ask him about last week]. But re-read for a second what I wrote.

Driscoll dismantled Osteen’s theology.

He didn’t call Osteen any stupid, alliterative names, take comments out of context (or just straight up make stuff up) or criticize him for not having the same style as Driscoll does.  Instead Driscoll attacked the teachings of Osteen, and not only that but actually used scripture to put out a proper theological understanding of the gospel. 

In other words, this was a correction via scripture that avoided personal attacks.  You might refer to it as the Anti-Watchdoggie Argument.