CRN.Info and Analysis

Looks like our favorite watchdoggie is back on the wagon. That’s right folks! Ingrid has made the promise

I decided to gradually republish salvageable posts from the past that are of some informational value. …In addition, I will be occasionally adding current news stories minus public comment for the sole purpose of giving out information.

Looks like she missed the old doghouse. However, there were some promising and encouraging words within her explanation post.

The dead orthodoxy and dryness and lifeless textualism in conservative churches is actually propelling the popularity of the false churches. A return to tradition is not the answer. What is needed is a return to a passionate love for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Only in the Vine, in true fellowship with the Lord, will real life exist. I want to be in the Vine, friends. How about you? Time is short, and how we spend it is desperately important.

for one Ingrid, we agree. Hopefully we can live in the vine together.

Source: Verum Serum

Comments: John and Scott are some of the highest class bloggers out there, with incredibly insightful commentary on the “discernment” ministries like AM, CR?N and Slice.  Having noticed the return of Slice, they have taken to dissecting “Pastor” Silva’s involvement, his roots in the CRBC, and his general lack of accountability supplemented with a healthy dose of ‘infallibility’.

Great - and accurate - summation of the current state of CR?N, Slice and AM

Quotes:

I came across this article today featuring Ken’s latest attack on Rick Warren. And to be perfectly fair, I think Ken may have a point in this case. Warren should excercise some discipline, if he’s really in a position to do so. That said, Ken is not Warren’s pastor. He’s barely anyone’s pastor. And, frankly, the idea that Ken is in a position to advise Rick Warren on how to run a church is just laughable.

Why laughable? I’m glad you asked.

First, the suggestion that half of the people who’d been there as the church dwindled from 100 down to 13 were insufficiently committed seems odd to me. If you’re attending a church of 13 after 80% of the members have abandoned ship, I don’t think commitment is really a problem. And yet, Ken describes those who left as weeds. In the scripture, weeds are those destined for burning. It’s not a light thing to label someone a weed.

We got a first hand account of how this weeding took place from one of Ken’s remaining members who said:

With people from our Church bristling under teachings against blatent [sic] disregard for Truth, Ken had to delve deeper into what caused all of this.

So in the case of his own church, people who “bristled” under Ken’s teaching were weeds. The assumption by both Ken and the person quoted above is that anyone who could not abide the pure truth of Ken’s teaching is, quite literally, destined for hell. That’s certainly one way to look at it. Is there another way?

There is nothing wrong with a pastor being supported by his flock, but this gets to the core of the problem. Who is Ken’s flock? As the quote above shows, he sees AM as an online church. He admits himself that this is a strange idea. Indeed it is. For someone so determined to do only what is spelled out in the Bible and to do nothing that is not, where is the Biblical support for an online church?

What Ken is really trying to get off the ground is an internet based para-church minstry. There are many para-church ministries in the world, some of which I appreciate. In Ken’s case, however, the goal is not to support the church but to separate people from it, at least from the large section of it of which Ken does not approve.

Join a real local church and give your money to someone who can actually serve you, hold you accountable and do all the things that real churches do. Hey, join Ken’s church if you’re so inclined! But don’t support a fake church like Apprising Ministries whose only purpose is to bash pastors of real churches. Even if he doesn’t call it an online church, be wary of any ministry that appeals for money but resists explaining itself to critics. So far as I can tell, Ken Silva’s Internet Para-Church of the Remnant is accountable to no one.

Excellent article!

The revamped Slice of Laodicea truly is an improvement over the former manifestation.

The main purpose of this blog is to watch the watch dogs.  We analyze the analyzers.  And when it comes to the regular objects of analysis we’re usually pretty critical – and for good reason.  We are quick to point out their misuses of Scripture, their ignoring of context, their use of partial quotes to skew the intended meaning, as well as their redefining words to suit their own agenda…  given all this it is only fair we applaud the good as well.

It’s not a biblical issue, or a significant change of heart that I can see, but the new Slice of Laodicea allows responses.  And from my experience so far, they are not filtering them to just those that agree.  I think this is good, it is an improvement, and it should be lauded.

So, to Ingrid in particular I would like to say “Thank you.”  Thank you for allowing me and the others, to respond, to clarify, to converse.  I hope this improvement is a lasting phenomenon.

So, as I sat down to lunch today, I opened up my CR?N/Slice 2.0 link, and what did I find?  Slice has been reborn, separate from CR?N!  Why?  Who really knows…

I then realized that perhaps we had been given a bit of prescience in calling the ChristianResearch?Network “CR?N/Slice 2.0″ before it actually happened!  And then I thought to myself - what kind of dog picture do we get to recognize this new cancerous lesion attempting to attack the body of Christ?  It’s kind of like a three-headed (three = AM, CR?N, Slice 2.0) dog that’s all part of the same body (Ken, Ingrid & Company).

So, I did a search on three-headed dogs and came up with this (at the top of the list):

Cerberus

From the wikipedia entry:

In Greek mythology, Cerberus or Kerberos (Greek Κέρβερος, Kerberos, “demon of the pit”) was the hound of Hades, a monstrous three-headed dog (sometimes said to have 50 or 100 heads) with a snake for a tail.

100% appropriate for this ‘new’ entity of AM + CR?N + SoL 2.0 with the same old body of Ken, Ingrid & Co.  100%.

Regardless, we will remain faithful in responding to one more pharisaical outlet, with the same view as Christ had to those of his day:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness.

Hazak hazak venit-hazek!

Well, it seems that Ingrid’s article decrying the tactics of watchbloggers which Joe wrote about here, and Scott covered over at Verum Serum was pulled. Fortunately, some of us have come to expect such attempts to say and un-say things over at Slice/CRN (like, um, pulling down the entire site and deleting it…)

Here, via internet not-so-wayback technology is the text of Ingrid’s article. Look for more commentary to come later…

[Update: Ingrid has threatened us with a lawsuit because she doesn’t want this article seen. As such, and to be safe withing copyright law, I am only quoting key parts of the article below. Should anyone want a full copy of what was here, check out the internet way-back machine.]

Here are selected quotes of interest from the article:

There is a campaign of destruction underway in the church. There are lies being passed off as truth; there is slander and gossip and the carnage that is being caused is causing long-term harm to the cause of the Gospel of Christ. No, I’m not talking about attacks from emergent church followers or outraged Purpose Driven disciples. I’m talking about the seamy underbelly of what goes on in the name of “discernment ministry.” I have been in ministry since 1988 and I can say with confidence that the enemy of Jesus Christ has to do very little. The church is really, really good at destroying itself.

[…]

What is most disturbing in this case is the gossip and false information that has been carried by these “discernment” folks. One researcher who sought to reconcile with me and who apologized for helping to spread false information was warned ahead of time to “be careful” if he talked to me. […] Worse still, these individuals are publishing columns and links to columns, like the one on [Another blog], blasting [a friend] for “promoting” contemplative. These people have been harassing [this man] for months, demanding that he conduct his decency organization like their own “discernment” ministries. They have deliberately sought to find what evil they can on the American Family Association secular online bookstore link that they use for the sale of their own books. The only people finding New Age and contemplative books on [his] site are the ones spending their time looking for them: [Watchbloggers A, B and C]].

This is the closest thing to a nasty personal vendetta, couched in pious language, I have seen recently. [Watchblogger A’s] language isn’t all that pious, actually, as he calls [my friend] a hypocrite and derisively refers to his friendship with [another friend] in his latest column. [Watchblogger A] and [Watchblogger B] are not in a position of authority to demand that [my friend] carry out his organization’s work according to [Watchblogger A’s] and [Watchblogger B’s] own standards. We answer to the Lord for our own ministries, not [Watchblogger A] and [Watchblogger B].
[…]

Is Christianity just a matter of holding right positions, or should it impact how we relate to each other as believers? Are the commands of Scripture telling us to be tender-hearted and forgiving of one another less important than the verses about heresy and false teaching? Is gossip and slander okay if it is conducted by those knee deep in research on contemplative spirituality? If some New Agers have more personal peace and treat people more kindly than born-again Christians, doesn’t it say something about the content of our hearts? We can rant and rave about contemplative spirituality, meditation, breath prayers and yoga until we’re blue in the face, but if we can’t reconcile with fellow believers who believe the same things and would prefer to publicly find fault and attack them because they don’t do everything the way we do, we have nothing to share with the world. We become frauds.

[…]

When soldiers begin to turn and shoot their own, combat fatigue has set in. No general would long keep soldiers like this in the field. Speaking from my own experience, combat fatigue is a huge menace in this job. I have had to cut back because of my own dangerous level of fatigue recently. How long the Lord will keep any of us in the field if these issues are not resolved, is questionable. Like the church at Ephesus in the book of Revelation, we can become very good at discerning error from truth, but when we’ve lost our first love for the Lord Jesus, it starts showing in our relationships. The Lord’s words warn us that he will put our lampstands out completely if we don’t repent. It’s a wake up call for all of us involved in putting out this information.

There you go!

_____

Addendum:

Ingrid’s reason for taking down the post from her site was because it had hurt some relationships and she did not want those wounds reopened.  In this spirit, while keeping with our own policy to not delete articles, I have excerpted the article above while redacting the names from it.  My reason for posting this article was because of the commentary on the attitude and behavior of watchbloggers and the irony of its authorship, with no interest of the names of those specifically involved.  Per Ingrid’s wishes, I do not wish to open old wounds, so the names of the individuals do not appear here…

–Chris L 12/28/07

I don’t have much time, but I my initial reaction to the ‘new’ Slice:

1. Thankfully, there are no comments allowed. That eliminates 50% of the problems right there. I’ll wait for the E-What guys to add the new feed to their site, which allows open commenting.
2. From first blush, it appears to be the same old Slice, just with a less visually appealing format, no archives (yet), and no article attribution (looking for anonymity? - just kidding)
3. Any argument that it had been ‘in the works’ for some time is belied by its domain registration of January 6 - the day after Slice came down.
4. Ken Silva is still on staff (though I wonder if he’s still got a title of some sort to stick on his resume).

As I learned in school, fifty percent is better than zero, so it’s not all bad. That said, though, I think I will keep this site up for now, and start cataloguing articles again soon. If you have articles on the old or new ‘Slice’, let me know. Kinda busy this week, but I’ll get them in…

Meanwhile, here’s a good one from John at Verum Serum, and if you can think of any ideas for a cool new domain name, send them to slicedlaodicea @t earthlink dot net.

UPDATE: Karen has argued that my use of ‘belied’ is too strong (suggesting lying on the part of Ingrid).  I cannot prove that she is lying, and so I would choose ’suspicious’ or something less difinitive, instead.

Source: Monday Morning Insight

Comments: MMI takes note of the reappearance of Slice.  Would not a rose, by any other name…

Memorable Quotes:

I  wonder, if she felt the need for an even more comprehensive site than slice, why did she ‘can’ all the old content?

For some reason… she (and slice) needed a fresh start.  My enquiring mind isn’t the only one wondering, ‘why’.

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