CRN.Info and Analysis

Over at Apprising Ministries, Ken Silva responds to a letter from a reader. Here are a few excerpts that are quite telling of his attitude when it comes to his status

The following is based on an unsolicited email I received here at Apprising Ministries. Please understand that I do not think any pastor-teacher is above reproach [insert typical Emerging Church whining here], etc. [emphasis mine]
What I wish to bring out is how easy, and I’ll argue arrogant as well, it is for people to simply disregard the teaching of someone like myself who has been studying the fields of apologetics, Comparative Religion and evangelizing non-Christian cults for 21 years….

You said: “I was very surprised to see your negative views on Christian meditation in the article CHRISTIAN MEDITATION WITH MANTRA: DOM JOHN MAIN.” So let me put it another way: I am very surprised to see you so quick in attempting to instruct someone like me whom Jesus has called as one of His pastor-teachers. [emphasis mine]

My dad always told me that you could tell alot about someone based on how they respond to correction or constructive criticism. This correspondence to Apprising was in no way instructional or a harsh rebuke. It sounded like an honest reader that was trying to understand where Silva was coming from. Most of the email was actually the reader asking him questions. But, Ken strikes back with his lofty credentials and how a man of his status should not be quickly instructed. How did Silva know that this reader had not spend some time looking at the Apprising articles and made an educated and simply inquisitive inquiry. On top of that, he sends such mixed statements: no pastor is above reproach, but people should not instruct someone who is a pastor-teacher in this manner.

Anyhow, this all too telling of the attitude of both Apprising and CRN:
We are educated, anointed and experienced, therefore we get to criticize whoever we want, whenever we want. And, you better not say anything about it.

Posts like this make me profoundly sad. In fact, it makes me wonder if this author really can know the peace and grace of Christ (I’m not suggestion this person is outside of Christ, only that they’ve not realized the work that Jesus accomplished between us and God). 

This post is not meant to be a criticism of the opinions expressed about Driscoll (we’ve rehashed that conversation dozens of times, though it does seem odd the author would criticize Driscoll without actually reading the book itself).  Rather, I want to address the assumptions made by the author about the relationship between us and God, and I want to do so because it seems lately that I’ve been seeing these assumptions made by Christians in many different streams of theological thought. 

Consider the following statements, which are representative of the piece:

Scripture says we are to fear HIM:

He destroys the HOLINESS and FEAR for Christ Jesus. There is nothing worth taking from Driscoll’s pig stye to sift through and find truth. Go to Scripture and find the pristine reverence for Christ, held up above all people and all of Creation, set apart as Master, Righteous One, and without spot or blemish, never acting like the pigs, dogs, and vipers of His day.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing in this piece that speak of the intimacy we have with Jesus.  Nothing in it speaks of the great love that God has for us. 

Consider, for example, the consistent and overwhelming use of the metaphor of God as father.  It is so overwhelming that when Jesus is asked by his disciples how to pray he begins with "Our father in heaven".  Or consider that Christ is consistently pictured as the bridegroom of the church, which is the exact comparison Jesus uses for himself when his disciples’ actions are being compared to that of the Pharisees.  We also have the description of Jesus as older brother, and we are called adopted sons into the family of God. 

The descriptions of God I get from many Christians, and this article in particular is far from the familiarity and intimacy of a brother, father, or husband, instead God is pictured as this unapproachable, unreasonable, petty tyrant who is looking to punish anyone who forgot to dot an I or cross a T.

Its almost like verses such as:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Luke 13.34

Have been forgotten.

Ultimately, theology such as the one represented in this article is a Christless theology because Christ is our mediator.  His work is the work that created the easy familiarity of brother, husband and father with God.  The only way that God is an ineffable, unapproachable deity is if Christ’s work didn’t work. 

And if you think this Christless theology is confined to an obscure blog dedicated to re-publishing, and re-hashing the same old critiques against Driscoll, I invite you to read this group of comments.  Here’s some highlights:

Ultimately we (all people) live under the threat of eternal death if we worship improperly, do we not?

The Bible does not say God is “love, love, love.” It does say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.”

Great reminder that we are not approaching "the man upstairs" but the King of glory!

Continue Reading »

(Note: I’m not a fan of either of these presidential candidates — nor any of them, for that matter. So I’m not interested in a political discussion. The political realm just happens to be where this example lies.)

In Monday night’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got testy with each other. There was one exchange though, that gave me a serious case of déjà vu:

Obama: I was helping unemployed workers on the streets of Chicago when you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.

Clinton: I was fighting against misguided Republican policies when you were practicing law and representing your contributor … in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.

See the difference? Obama claimed to be working with actual people. Conversely, for Clinton, the important thing was to be anti-Republican, (apparently, the highest calling that any human being can aspire to).

Then I got a flashback.

A bit over a year ago, I wrote an email to one of the group-written incarnations of Slice asking why my comments kept getting un-approved, despite the fact that they were civil and not particularly strident. I contrasted my comments to stuff like:

RICK WARREN IS NOT A CHRISTIAN!

– and –

Houston will be a desert before I accept a liar, a slanderer, a self-promoting name-dropper, and a blasphemer of the Holy Spirit as a brother in Christ. (regarding Warren)

I marveled that such anti-Biblical skubala was permitted on a site on which comments were carefully screened.

Put down your coffee before you read the next sentence. I don’t want to be responsible for the spit-take all over your computer screen.

The response that I received was that comments at Slice were not carefully screened. Rather, the only comments that were disallowed were apologists for the emerging church and Rick Warren, and comments that were truly malicious.

Since my actual point was totally ignored (the anti-Biblical nature of some comments), I re-iterated it again. The response that I got this time stated that even guessing who is saved is unbiblical.

I responded that I was glad that this was her stance, pointed out that this was not the stance of all the writers at Slice, and then asked the following:

Does this mean that you place a higher priority on being anti-emergent and anti-Warren than on being pro-Biblical?

“Surprisingly”, I didn’t receive a response to that note.

Sure, being pro-Biblical will inherently mean that we’ll be “anti” some stuff. But the latter follows the former. Talk about getting the cart before the dead horse that you’ve been beating.

Ken couldn’t let his recent defeat on the internet at wikipedia.com go down without some article on CRN.  I mean, I know he is God’s appointed ruler over all that is orthodox, so he wouldn’t want the world to see that he is immortal and flawed (”pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” comes to mind).  He didn’t bother to bring up the fact that opinion blogs, such as apprising, are not allowed to be cited on wiki pages, or that most of his “proof” is himself citing himself.   Gotta love his closing remarks though

thus the lead Watchdog Watcher Chris Lyons may finally rest easy…

Well, at least for now anyway…

He might as well have said “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!”

There has surfaced around this country a phenomenon that involves leaving a “noose” around people or their belongings, usually black people, in an outright expression of racism. We as Christians must strongly and abjectly reject any form, outright or subtle, of racism. It is against the teachings of Christ and the designs of our Creator to be racist in any way.

We all deal with prejudice, but let us as followers of Jesus Christ never be complacent or silent about that ugly sin. I know all of us at CRNinfo will agree, racism is unchristian and we must reach out to the human community at large regardless of race. And there is no race in Christ, we are all the sons of God by faith. We must be the voice of God in the midst of this darkness, pray that God will connect you with people who look different than you and by that connection He can use you to heal any wounds and reveal Christ and His colorless love.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus gives us advice on allowing our words to be our own, that our “yes” should be “yes”, and our “no” should be “no” - with no other need of qualification. This teaching is an underlying biblical precept behind journalistic integrity. One needs to be willing to give an answer that is a) truthful; and b) one’s own.

There has been some discussion on the use of anonymity in posting and replying to blog articles, from which I have held off fully delving into. I’ve taken some time to check out journalistic sources, written and living, and having done so, I think that it is incredibly important that we in the Christian blogging community consider our theory and practice.

Blogging and Reporting

Per a number of journalistic courses, one of the lynchpins of journalistic integrity is that of attribution (or authorship for opinion pieces). If controversial statements cannot be attributed to a source, or opinion to a writer, trust with the reader does not exist. This is why there are such strict rules within journalism about attributing sources that wish to remain anonymous - if there is a legitimate reason to maintain anonymity, the quote and source have to be validated by a more senior editor.

In the case of editorial opinion, attribution is also the keystone of integrity. Without it, no writer is accountable for his or her written opinions. Without it, the writer is free to be as irresponsible as they wish to be without fear of consequence. For a journalist, it is an ultimate act of cowardice to withold signature to your opinion and the ultimate act of arrogance to sign your name to something you didn’t write.

The one primary exception for opinion pieces and group reporting is given for editorial board opinions and journalist pool articles, in which no individual authorship is given, and is assumed to be attributed to the senior editor/reporter of the board/pool. If they refuse this responsibility, then authorship is to be attributed to all individuals contributing to the story. Sometimes, this is done anyway, to give credit where credit is due.

What does this mean for us? Initially, we had an account called “Sliced” used for linking articles, and we used our names to identify original articles. For similar reasons to those above, we did away with this posting account. For ODM bloggers, there are some with this level of integrity and accountability, while there are others that completely lack this basic level of integrity and accountability. When individuals from the latter are taken to task for the anonymously written content on their site, they just throw up their hands and pass the buck of responsibility, taking the coward’s way out, saying “sorry, it wasn’t me”. Even the most senior editor. Getting someone to stand up for their own words is like trying to nail jell-o to a wall (which, interestingly, is one of their chief criticisms of the e/e movement…)

However, since accountability isn’t an ODM strong suit, this shouldn’t be surprising.

Commenting

In blogging, one of the basest - often the only - source of accountability is the use of comments. By allowing (or disallowing) comments, bloggers signal their willingness (or unwillingness) to be held accountable for what they write. Worse yet, the willingness to freely allow supportive comments while severely restricting dissenting ones is a clear signal of bankruptcy of accountability (and a lack of confidence in their own writing).

In light of this, we at CRN.info have a “DO NOT DELETE COMMENTS” policy* to which we adhere. We both allow and value well-reasoned dissent, particular when offered in a fashion congruent with Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching.

What about anonymity in commenting? Originally, we required people to register on this site before accepting their comments. However, this prevented people with no personal email accounts from participating, so we relaxed our policy to “moderation of the first comment, and auto-approval thereafter”. To this point, this seems to have worked. However, if it appears that people are using this function to hide behind anonymity, this will revert back to required registration with a functioning email address.

In Summary

We believe that integrity and accountability on the part of Christian bloggers, ourselves included, is a bedrock principle that should be expected of us. We believe that our “yes” should be “yes”, and our “no” should be “no” - and that the reader should know WHO’S saying “yes” or “no”. Without attribution of content and an open and free playing field on which to challenge what we have written, this accountability and integrity is utterly absent.

That is why we manage this site the way we do.

___________________________

*The exceptions to this policy are for use of overt blasphemy and/or profanity. There have been two instances where comments that should not have been deleted (or should have been approved from moderation) were not, both of which were subsequently apologized for and corrected, to the best of our ability

Is the United States a Christian Nation? Are we the new Israel? If one looks at Crosstalk.com, this would be one conclusion you might come to. The entire look and feel is about the American flag and the red, white, and blue. In addition, some of the comments about the Hamtramck, Michigan news story also suggested an paranoid patriotism. The critics think they are not only protecting the Church in America, they are protecting the “manifest destiny” of this country.

It seems that our country actually has some very syncretistic roots. It was a mix of humanism, deism, and Christianity. For example, Thomas Jefferson not only owned slaves, he was also a devout deist. One of his most infamous works was the Jefferson Bible, his version in which he removed the miracles and resurrection because he didn’t believe Jesus was God. Some Unitarian/Universalist churches even use the Jefferson Bible as their pew bible.

Yes, there were Christians who helped found our country. But to claim that we are a special country that God loves more than others is really reaching. And to devout energy to keeping the infidels out seems like a waste of time and unscriptural. God is bringing the harvest to us. Shouldn’t we pray that we are prepared to share His Truth with whomever our new neighbors are?

From here:

Mentone, AL - Since its founding almost a half a century ago St. Luke’s Methodist Church in Mentone has been a church that by its own confession has “struggled to be happy.” The members of the congregation of just over 100 people seem to consistently struggle with one another, arguing and holding grudges.

Over the years disputes have broken out over everything from building projects to who will run Vacation Bible School, to someone’s casserole not being eaten at a church picnic.

“We have two ladies in this church that haven’t spoken to one another in over twenty years” said deacon Charles Ainsworth. “I don’t remember all of the details, but it had something to do with one of the ladies criticizing the flower arrangement that one of the other ladies had made. It’s not that we don’t love one another, we just don’t seem to like one another. “We’ve all grown up together, and we just seem to get on each others nerves a lot.”

The various pastors of the church over the years have tried to preach peace among the congregation, but to no avail. But the church’s current pastor, Rev. Prentiss Carnes recently “discovered” a verse that may be the solution to all of the strife within the church.

“I was reading in Ephesians and came across 4:26a where it says ‘Be angry and yet do not sin,’” said Carnes. “I started thinking and realized that there’s a Biblical mandate here to be angry, that perhaps all these years we’ve been getting it all wrong. May God has called us to be an angry church. That seems to be where our gifts lie, in being angry.”

And “angry” is just what they are fostering now at St. Luke’s. The church has recently made Ephesians 4:26a its theme verse and has set out to make itself known as “the angriest church in America.”

“It’s a relief to know that we’re okay” said Lillian Ainsworth, wife of Charles. “We stayed so blooming mad at one another all of the time I wasn’t sure what our problem was, but I see now that we just have a different calling by God. The Lord calls some of us to be angry and that is our calling I suppose.”

“I believe we can be angry at one another and not sin because we still love each other deep down” said Carnes. “But we need to foster this anger that we have and learn how to do it better. God commands it, and therefore we must do it.”

One of our previous posts dealt with the overall nastiness of Phil Johnson, and two of the commenters in that topic have put forth the argument that Elijah was mean and personally insulting to the prophets of Baal, and that Paul wrote that he hoped the Judaizers would mutilate themselves, and Johnie Mac’s attack dogs came no where close to rising to that level.

Of course, both of those examples are prophets dealing with enemies of God, rather than brothers and sisters in Christ. Making the argument that Elijah and Paul were, to say the least, harsh in these two examples and so its ok to be harsh is as silly as claiming a church has been spiritually gifted with anger.

Tim already wrote an article on the subject, so I will keep this brief.  The Willow Creek Arts Conference video clips that Slice is up in arms over are short commentary about a 90 minute talk that the speakers gave at the event.  To make statements about the small amount of content in the clips is akin to walking in on the last 5 minutes of a 90 minute conversation and feeling you have a handle on the while thing.  From someone who was actually at the event, Donald Miller’s content was hardly controversial and, in my opinion, timely and very biblical.

In closing and responding to many of the comments at Slice, many people have questioned the whole reason for having an arts conference.  Let’s not forget that once upon a time, the church was known for its art.  In fact, the church was the artist center for the culture.  Everything from the Sistine Chapel to the David statue, the artists communicated biblical truth thru their work.  And, it was from this art culture we received many of the hymns that more believers hold as holy and sacred.

Erwin McManus’ latest book Soul Cravings has been receiving a lot of heat at CRN in some recent posts.  The writer at 9 Marks Review took offense with this quote from the book.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within us….It seems what he is implying is that we have a better chance of finding God in the universe within us than in the one that surrounds us. And it is on this path that I invited you to walk with me. I invite you to engage in an exploration of the human spirit, to journey deep inside yourself and search out the mystery of the universe that exists with you…

He had this to say

The problem is, it’s patently untrue that all human beings are all really seeking God, as you put it. Mr. McManus, please, find me one verse in the entire Bible—just one!—that says human beings in the flesh are seeking God.

The problem with this is Mr. McManus never said “that all human beings are all really seeking God” within the quote.  In fact, in the podcast that the author refers to earlier in this letter, Erwin talks about how many people are seeking after other elements to satisfy their soul cravings.  The basic premise of the book is not that all humans are seeking God.  The premise of the book is that God has placed within human beings certain cravings that can only be satisfied by Him.

This reveals a huge problem in much of the finger pointing and hostile rumors that run all over the internet.  If we have a preconceived notion about what an emergent or purpose-driven or fundy believes, then we can add to and twist a person’s writing to fit that notion.  It’s something we all need to be careful with, especially when you have placed yourself in a position of influence.  After reading an article by Alex S. Leung citing this letter, one commenter wrote

I love it when you bring up these types of topics for me to think over and learn how to pick out heresy when I see it… Excellent. Keep this kind of stuff up.

I wonder how many people are now walking around thinking Erwin McManus is a heretic due to one man’s bad exegesis of his work.