Source: Emergent What?

Comments: In one of the exchanges which provided the spark to create this site, Chris emailed Mr. Jim Shull of Lifeway Books to give him a perspective on Ken Silva, who had been harrassing Mr. Shull to pull books from Lifeway’s virtual shelves.
Memorable Quotes:

Dear Mr. Shull,

I read a post yesterday about your correspondence with Mr. Ken Silva, and I wanted to thank you for your decision to disregard his advice regarding censorship of items within your stores. Should he continue to pester you, here are some things you should know about him that will assist you in evaluating further complaints.

1) He wrote to you “As an ordained SBC minister and pastor of Connecticut River Baptist Church (SBC), as well as president of its internet outreach Apprising Ministries…” Ken is very fond of titles – belittling those who disagree with him because he is a pastor (though he has no problem playing plank-speck with other pastors). To be clear, the Connecticut River Baptist Church is a home church which is smaller than the average home Bible Study, and “president of its internet outreach” would be better termed “I’m the only member of my Bible Study with a blog”.

2) Ken also wrote to you “By way of further introduction I also serve as pastoral advisor and contributor to the website Slice of Laodicea as well as being a featured columnist for Christian Worldview Network so I do represent a bit of readership.” To be clear, “Slice of Laodicea” is a ‘watchblog’ site which has little good to say about anything in Christianity today and that perversely revels in the misfortunes, whether accidental (like with Kyle Lake’s electrocution in 2005) or brought on by personal sin (a la Ted Haggard), of other Christians. They are the bottom feeders of the ‘Christian’ blogosphere. Size of readership aside, I doubt these folks would be buying much from your company regardless of whether you censored things to their tastes or not.

3) Ken tells you that “After intense personal study of the Emergent Church and its core doctrine of Contemplative Spirituality (aka Spiritual Formation) for this past year…” trying to establish credibility in the subject. However, as you can see documented here here and other links I could provide you, Ken is unable to actually defend any of his positions when challenged, resorting to patronizing behavoir and smart-alec responses. Recently, when pressed, he wrote that God told him he needed to expose Rob Bell and the emergent church as wolves in sheeps clothing (read his comments in this article, if you wish to see). I don’t know what your background is, but at least in mine, if someone claims to be doing ‘God’s work’, but chooses sinful methods to do so, that tends to discredit whatever calling they claim…

4) Finally, he signs his letter to you with a scriptural reference of Ezekiel 3:7-14. Ken often puts himself into ‘prophetic’ roles for his readership, often giving the appearance of having Pauline authority to do so. However, he has revealed himself to be the Paul of Acts 7:58, and not one post-Acts 9. Like a tin-pot dictator of a third world country decrying the ‘Great Satan’ of America, Ken has positioned himself against the church of today – which, while not perfect by any means, is still the Bride of Christ.

Thank you again for your negative response to Mr. Silva – were you to listen to him and his ilk, I suspect you wouldn’t be carrying much in your store beyond the 1611 KVJ translated Bible.

Grace & Peace,

Chris Lyons

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