CRN.Info and Analysis

I want to address this once and for all.  In this article, Willow Creek & the New Monasticism, the author writes

In October 2007, Bill Hybels announced “We made a mistake” regarding the seeker sensitive approach to “doing” church.

I challenge Ken Silva, the general editor of this article, to show the world where Willow Creek said that they made a mistake in their seeker sensitive approach to doing church.  They never have made that statement, nor anything close to it.  What they did say was they they made a mistake in their assumption that church-based programs are the way to disciple believers.  They found that they were not doing a great job of teaching believers to feed themselves, and take care of themselves spiritually.  Rather than creating more discipleship programs, they are creating personalized growth plans to help people take the reigns in their own walk with Christ.  

I know that the ODMs do not have any type of remorse or need for apology in their own DNA (they are above flaw or wrong-doing).  So, it is understandable why they would twist this confession to fit their agenda.  Sorry guys, while Willow is open about their mistakes, they have not committed the sins that you claim they have.

Also… check out the video.  I tried really hard to see the controversy.  I just couldn’t find it there.      

Ok, I had almost started writing this once, and then held off. Then, yesterday, we had a run-in with KJV-Only theology (Christianity’s equivalent of tinfoil-hat-ism), and it came back to mind. Then, today, we have an article about Mark Driscoll being crucified for saying something nice about a Catholic, which has devolved into a discussion in which a bunch of non-Catholics try to discuss what Catholics actually believe. So, this seems about as good a day as any to post this story…

I believe that there are a good number of folks within the flocks of Christianity that hold some pretty whacked-out beliefs regarding secondary issues (like KJVO). Generally, I treat these folks kind of like kind old Aunt Mildred (identity changed to protect the innocent) who wakes up every once in awhile and hides her dentures because the commies are trying to collect them for their plan to overthrow the world. I love them, but when they start on a rant, I smile and nod my head a bit, and think about when my best shot at a graceful exit will arrive.

So there’s this friend, who I will call “Bob”, who came to a saving relationship with Jesus several years ago. For all intents and purposes, he seems to earnestly want to follow the way of Jesus, and he is always seeking to know God better in the scriptures.

But Bob believes in aliens.

And Area 51.

And so every once in awhile, I will get a question along the lines of “Chris, I know you don’t believe in aliens, but if they exist - which is a possibility, based on the evidence we have - how do they fit into God’s plan of salvation?”

Mormons. Yeah, I know how to talk to them.

Catholics. Yeah, I know that if they start reading the Bible for themselves as part of a intra-faith Bible study (like BSF), that they will start to ask questions that will lead them toward God and away from the traditions of men.

Believers in alien life forms. Where do you start?

I’ve said:

1) From scripture, we know that angels, cherubim and seraphim have manifestations which have been seen by the human eye, and what some people have seen as “aliens” - if not a natural/man-made cause (which I believe to be the case 99.99% of the time) - could very well be angelic spirits (or demonic counterparts, I suppose).

2) If aliens really did exist, I am confident that they would fit into God’s plan in some fashion, as He is the Creator of all things. Whatever that part would be in His plan, though, I say, should wait for discussion until we actually establish contact with these “aliens”, but that we shouldn’t waste our time with such foolishness, otherwise.

These usually end the conversation, but it still comes up now and then. Except now, he will then toss in “what do you think about ghosts…?”

AAAAAAAaaaaargh!

In Our Mission (Part I) [which I didn’t know was “part 1″ until Neil made a suggestion that led to their being a “part 2″], I proposed a re-tooling of our “About Us” page to better reflect what we at CRN.Info see as our mission with this site.

In this article, I will propose wording for the new section suggested by Neil, on how we are different from ODM’s/Watchdoggies.

_________________

How We Seek To Be Different

In Content

The Apostle John wrote about his encounter with a first-century forerunner of “watchdogs” named Diotrephes:

I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first, will have nothing to do with us. So if I come, I will call attention to what he is doing, gossiping maliciously about us. Not satisfied with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.

Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God. (3 John 1:9-11)

Contrary to some misunderstanding, the primary sin of Diotrephes and his modern decendants is not one of tone - which very well may be an additional issue - rather, it is a sin of entitlement and gracelessness in becoming a self-appointed, hypercritical gatewarden to the kingdom of God. In light of this, the first two primary differences between what we seek to be and those who we sometimes criticize are thus:

1) When we see Christians being maliciously gossiped about, we seek to follow John’s example by calling attention to it and correcting the error, in defense of the wronged brother or sister and in hopes that the one doing the gossiping will repent. It is not our intent to scandalize disagreement and debate, but rather to end the gossip and slander and to set the record straight. We seek the truth, rather than seeking to simply use straw men and guilt-by-association and other fallacious tactics to slander and gossip about our bretheren in Christ.

2) When we see Christians being “put out of the church” (literally or figuratively) for reasons apart from unrepentant living in sin or complete departure from the gospel of Jesus, we again seek to defend the wronged brother or sister, particularly if his “sin” is a matter of secondary (or tertiary) importance - often matters of conscience or preference. This does not mean that we necessarily will find outselves in complete agreement with the brother and/or sister on all matters apart from the gospel of Jesus, but that we are to show them love, regardless.

In Policy

In Matthew, we read Jesus’ words:

Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

In this, and throughout scripture, we read about personal and community accountability to our words. In terms of policy at CRN.Info, we seek to differentiate ourselves from those we may criticize, particularly in this realm of accountability. This is manifested in three basic policies:

1) Attribution: All articles written will be attributed to specific writers. All comments will have a traceable electronic signature which we will make public when we believe it may be abused by those seeking anonymity. Anything short of this is cowardice, by definition, and contrary to even the most basic of journalistic standards.
2) Open discussion: We will allow discussion on all articles (though there may be reasons to close the “comments” section on an article after a passage of time or to quell an unproductive conversation that has devolved to name-calling or similar behavior). Anyone is allowed to participate, though if the assumed good faith in this arena is abused, we may put a user on “moderation” which allows us to read the comment before it is posted to the public board so that it is seen by CRN.Info staff and responded to in a timely fashion. We have not yet “banned” anyone, nor do we intend to. Additionally, we do not seek to be “yes men/women” to each other, and we will use this open discussion as a way to hold each other accountable - though in some matters we may choose private email for correction.
3) No deletion: We will NOT delete any comments or articles. While mistakes may happen, particularly with our spam filter, we will not intentionally delete any comments or articles. If the need arises, we may add clear “UPDATE” tags and section to articles or we may edit them to fix formatting/grammar issues. Additionally, we retain the right to redact profanity or blatant blasphemy from comments.

________________

Please take a look at this and make any suggestions, keeping in mind the instructions from Part I:

If you are intent on making snarky comments, insults or unconstructive criticism, I would ask that you continue to do so on the other threads you’ve likely graced to this point. To the rest of you, I would ask that you not respond in kind to these types of responses, but rather to just ignore them as if they do not exist, and let their presence alone testify to the character of their authors, in light of this request.

I did not attend Rob Bell’s tour The Gods Aren’t Angry this last fall when it came through Los Angeles, so I have not voice to review his message. I refer you to Chris Lyons’ review here. However, there have been several articles written on the content of Bell’s tour. This one says a lot about the ODMs agenda with Bell. It starts out with this

With the ever growing following of Bell and others of his like in the Evangelical community it is becoming increasingly more important that we as Bible believing Christians are able to refute and give strong answers to the false teaching coming from their pulpits.

So, we know they are starting with an agenda before they even begin the review

When Rob Bell came to Dallas, TX for a stop on his “The Gods Are Not Angry” tour, we went primarily for the purpose of passing out Gospel tracts after the event let out.

So, they came to pass out tracts to a audience primarily consisting of believers that just heard a biblical message. Interesting use of resources and time. We continue…

Bell’s presentation was very basic in terms of the medium that he uses to communicate. The stage was empty with the exception of a large model of an altar. While Bell does not use a half hour diatribe with three points beginning with the letter “p” to communicate his position (something he criticizes in his presentation), the listener has to be prepared for a two hour diatribe with no point at all.

Ironically, one paragraph later, the author goes on to list five points that Bell made. No point at all? Five points? Which one was it?

The crowd that came out to hear Bell was as entertaining as Bell himself. Apparently the Emergent movement is not beyond that bane of popular American Christianity: idol worship. It was amazing to see so many of the men dressed like Bell, many even sporting the same dark rimmed glasses.

Is everyone dressing like Bell, or is everyone dressing in fashion, including Bell? This is what happens when people live outside the culture. They assume that everyone is idolizing Bell’s clothing and glasses. What they don’t realize is that a majority of Americans dress in that fashion today. Would you say that everyone in a cheap three-piece suit at Johnny Mac’s church is dressing like him and committing “idol worship”? Probably not. So, the logic should not be used with Bell.

And, all this was written before the content of Bell’s talk was discussed. Once again, we see that preconceived notions and biases against style are more important than accurate reporting.