There are a bunch of people over at Slice asking for a transcript of the Christmas service at Saddleback.

There are a bunch of people over at Slice speculating about what was said and wasn’t said.

There are apparently a bunch of people over at Slice who either didn’t take the time to listen to the message, listened to the message but had a Slice of something in their ears, or have never heard of Tivo.

Some of my favorite quotes from the Amen Chorus include the following:

Faithful writes: “Someone said Mr. Warren DID present the Gospel. I’d like to know what parts, if any.”

Faithful by the way is someone who wants a transcript. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Someone named Bob stepped into it when he wrote:

“Rick preached about salvation and the need for the forgiveness of sins. He quoted multiple scripture verses that explained why we all need God’s forgiveness and why God had to send his son Jesus to be “Immanuel” God with us.”

Bob went on to call Rick Warren a brother in Christ. Oh Boy, you have to know what is coming next. Sure enough, Faithful picked up the gauntlet with the classic Slice “you must be a liar if you are disagreeing with us” style:

“The thing is, I don’t know you (Bob), but I do know some of the people you are accusing of lying. Until you overcome their reputation, I will decline to accept your anecdotal evidence. It’s only good logic…And for the record, 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.”

Faithful clearly doesn’t like Rick and doesn’t much care for Houston either.

Last but not least, somebody named Tim Wirth (who is a drummer by the way, sounds like a pretty good one. Hope he’s not practicing that art form in church!) said among other things:

“Anyway couldn’t believe how poor this guy really is. The bigger problem is those who hear this kind of preaching every week and still stay around. That’s the biggest part of the problem. No Bereans at Saddleback.”

Well, here is the outline of the service that we Non-Bereans heard, Tim. For the sake of space, I’m just going to list the verses that were printed in the outline and make one or two personal comments in italics.

The Purpose of Christmas

1. The first purpose of Christmas is celebration! Luke 2:8-10 (NIV) “Good News of great joy that will be for all the people” sounds like something to celebrate about but maybe I’m missing something here.

Why do we celebrate?

• God loves us! John 3:16 (NIV)
• God is with us! Hebrews 13:5 (TEV) Believe it or not, Rick used this point to explain the name “Immanuel”.
• God is for us! John 3:17 (NLT) Is this verse in the Slice Bible?

2. The second purpose of Christmas is Salvation! Luke 2:11 (NIV)

What is Salvation?

• Saved from my sin Matthew 1:21 (NIV) Rick defined “sin” as pride that leads us into all sorts of trouble. Is pride something that the Amen Chorus is in denial about?
• Saved for a purpose 2 Timothy 1:9 (TEV) Just for grins, I looked this verse up in the KJV. I hate to tell you folks but the KJV uses the word “purpose”. Here it is: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”
• Saved by God’s grace Eph 2:8,9 (NIV)

3. The third purpose of Christmas is reconciliation. Luke 2:13-14 (KJV)

What kind of peace does Jesus give?

• Peace with God (spiritual) Romans 5:1 (TEV)
• Peace of God (emotional) Philippians 4:5-7 (NLT)
• Peace with each other (relational) Matthew 5:9 (KJV)

And, at the very end in the context of five things Jesus did during his earthly ministry:
Provide hope
Equip servant leaders
Assist the poor
Care for the sick
Educate the next generation
Visit www.thepeaceplan.com

One more comment and then I will close. Please notice that this was your classic 3 point expository sermon on Luke 2:8-14. Quite frankly, I’m a little worried about Rick . . .

Here’s a list of what I’ve gotten updated this morning (and last night):

• A number of articles from Emerging Thought in Montana
• Julie Neidlinger’s index of posts from Lone Prairie Art Works
• An article from the mindful mission (they seem to have a number of appropriate articles, which I’ll try to index soon…)
• The Jollyblogger’s post on Rick Warren with a note to the “haters”.
• An anti-watchblog post from You Can Know God, with typical (and familiar) Slicers in the comments section.

I’m off for the rest of the day, I suspect, and Purdue is playing tonight (though my hopes aren’t too high, since their record is probably better than it should have been…)

Source: Lone Prairie Art Works

Comments: Julie decided to conduct a little experiment, taking on the pseudonym George (tho not the insufferably sanctimonious George Cancilla) on the Slice comment forums.  What she found was interesting, and revealing of the silliness of banning people via their IP address at SoL.
Memorable Quotes:

Yes. I lack integrity (scroll down to the discussion on “proxy servers”) because being banned/blacklisted means you don’t even have permission to visit or attempt response. Being banned means assuming the technology is what does the banning and not an internet conscience.

I think my main reason for being such a shade on this is to prove a point: banning a person permanently based on a comment or two you didn’t like in the past means you only hurt your readers and valuable discussion. This is a good lesson for me as well.

—

Moderating comments based on banning IP numbers seems to make the most sense for a highly trafficked blog, but it also means a) you’ll need the technology to deal with dynamic or changed IP numbers, b) that you are essentially marking people with a number (a very unbiblical concept, oh my!) and c) that to weed out true weeds you kill a ton of wheat.

—

If you don’t want to deal with comments, say you’re turning them off and then actually turn them off. And then quit turning them on again, particularly on the posts where you know you want lots of yes-men agreeing with you. That’s a sign that you “lack integrity” and need to prove your point by assertion.

—

Working on some things around the house the past day, but had some time to pull in some more updates:

• Lots of good stuff from Brendt at Musings from Two-Sheds Gomer.
• A couple additions from My Bloggy Blog, including the gem “A Beam in Her Eye and Proud of It“
• “A Slice of Ephesus” (more from Broken Messenger, later, I suspect)
• Julie, from Lone Prairie Artworks, on Being Blacklisted
• Ken Silva’s bio in the FAQ

Also, thanks to JohnD, for his excellent original post yesterday afternoon!

Communicating the Gospel message can take many forms and even use paraphrases effectively to communicate God’s truth as long as a verse or a passage is not taken out of context or manipulated to convey a message that was not originally intended by Scripture. At least, that is what Bob DeWaay thinks over at Slice of Laodicea where he is quoted as an authority on the exegetical standards or lack thereof in the Purpose Driven Life. I agree with him when he writes:

“Paraphrases can be valid . . . The Purpose Driven Life makes heavy use of paraphrases, particularly “The Message.” This is not necessarily problematic IF the original meaning is preserved.”

Unfortunately, Mr. DeWaay seems to have ignored his own exegetical standard, i.e., in his rush to criticize Rick Warren for failing to adhere to the “original meaning”, Mr. DeWaay fails to respect the original meaning and context of how Rick Warren clearly intended the verses he quoted in PDL to be understood.

Case in point: Bob DeWaay has put together a comparison of the Scripture verses and their various translations used by Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life (PDL) along side of the New American Standard Bible. Most if not all would agree that the NASB is a literal translation that is faithful to the original text. DeWaay points out that in order to interpret the Bible correctly, we have to make sure we are being faithful to its meaning, its implications, and its application.

He claims that PDL contains “many errors at all levels of interpretation” and illustrates his belief by pointing to page 19 of the Purpose Driven Life where Warren uses The Message version of Matthew 16:25: “Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.” The NASB version reads: “For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.” Comparing those two versions side by side, DeWaay concludes:

“Warren wanted to warn against ’self-help’ so he found a translation with the term in it. He is right to tell people that self-help is useless. But rather than pointing them to the Cross and true discipleship, he uses a verse that teaches self sacrifice . . . Many world religions teach self sacrifice, but only Biblical Christianity has the Cross.”

Apparently, DeWaay did not continue reading chapter one of PDL because in the next 2 pages, Warren goes on to say that the only way an individual can discover purpose is through revelation as opposed to speculation. Moreover, Warren quotes Ephesians 1:11 also from the Message paraphrase which reads: “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.” The NASB reads in part:”In Him (Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose . . .”

Since the word “purpose” is such a central theme in PDL, I guess DeWaay has to wonder why Warren didn’t use the NASB translation instead?

But, I digress. Here is my point: In a few short sentences in chapter one, PDL has taken the reader from “It’s not about you” to finding out that the only way to discover our purpose in life is by establishing a relationship with Christ. If Warren had used the Message translation of Matthew 16:25 to argue for an ascetic lifestyle, then he would have been abusing the meaning that Jesus intended when He made this statement. But clearly, that’s not what Warren did.

So, in the context of the chapter, let alone the whole book, PDL is pointing the reader to redemption and the Cross. And in doing so, many are discovering a saving relationship with Jesus for the first time. I have to wonder how many people are finding a saving knowledge of Christ by reading Redefining Christianity?

“What would you say if your daughter decided to use the National Enquirer as a source on her term paper?”

When I asked that question, it was the seed that planted the idea for this site. For the third time in about a week, I found myself in a position where I debunked any legitimacy of Slice of Laodicea as a worthwhile news source.

I was having lunch with some friends from work when the subject of Veggie Tales came up. One of the guys said he’d heard something bad about the kid’s cartoon from his sister. I replied, ‘you’ve got to be kidding?’ When he got back to my desk, he sent me a link from Slice. I laughed out loud and fired up my IM (unfortunately, I didn’t save the session, but here’s the jist, as I remember it.)

Me: Joe (not his real name), what would you say if your daughter decided to use the National Enquirer as a source for her term paper?
Joe: Rofl.
Me: It’s basically what your sister sent you to. These guys are kids brothers to Fred Phelps, just not as polite.
Me: You went to PK a few months ago?
Joe: Yes – it was great.
Me: You’d be on these guys’ hit list too, then.
Joe: Why?!?
Me: They allow Catholics, and don’tcha know they’re the “Apostate Church of Rome”, part of the “Ecumenical Church of Deceit”…
Joe: What?
Me: Follow this link: xxx
Joe (a little bit later): They don’t like Rob Bell, either?
Me: Rofl. He’s satan’s right hand guy in their book.
Joe: That’s stupid.
Me: No, that’s Slice.

Later that week, I think, Ken Silva wrote this article, in which he wrote a pompuous letter to a poor guy at Lifeway Christian Books:

Dear Jim,

As an ordained SBC minister and pastor of Connecticut River Baptist Church (SBC), as well as president of its internet outreach Apprising Ministries, I wondered if you would be willing to take a moment and answer a couple of questions about books currently available at Lifeway Christian Stores. 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.

I am currently researching Spiritual Formation within our SBC and in doing so have noted some books that sent up red flags for me personally. From Faith Defenders website, which is Dr. Robert Morey’s ministry, I was led to an article on the website of Lighthouse Trails Research here: http://www.fromthelighthouse.com/blog/index.php?p=243&more=1&c=1

After intense personal study of the Emergent Church and its core doctrine of Contemplative Spirituality (aka Spiritual Formation) for this past year, and as a former Roman Catholic who works closely with my friend and former RCC priest Richard Bennett of http://www.bereanbeacon.org/, I know that the kind of meditation taught e.g. by Thomas Keating originated with the Desert hermits in the east circa 400AD. It then flowered through the monastic traditions of Rome and would become “Contemplative Prayer.”

In that letter on Lighthouse’s website Acangel Osasio did not address Richard Foster and so I would like to know the official position concerning Lifeway offering his “Celebration of Discipline” in its catalog. And I ask if you might also be willing to address Lifeway offering materials by Brian McLaren, who denies the inerrancy of Scripture and the substitutionary atonement, and Rob Bell who also denies the inerrancy of the Bible, teaches an atonement quite close to universalism and an eschatology with much in line with hyper-preterism.

Before I proceed further in my writings on this important issue coming into my own convention I wanted to extend you the courtesy of asking you if the opinions stated in your letter to Ocasio still reflect the current views of Lifeway Christian Stores. Please know I do not wish to argue with you about it. It’s just that being trained under Dr. Walter Martin (SBC) I want to make sure I have my facts straight before I write any more on this issue later today.

Dr. Martin often said that as Christians there will be those times when we will just have to “agree to disagree agreeably.” This may have to be one of those times. Jim, I sincerely do appreciate your time in answering a concerned pastor within our Southern Baptist Convention. If your positions haven’t changed you could actually quickly respond by simply personalizing Ocasio’s letter to this inquiry.

Thank you in advance for your attention to what I consider an important matter within the SBC.

Sincerely in Christ,

Ken Silva Pastor
Connecticut River Baptist Church
President
Apprising Ministries
http://apprising.org/
Ezekiel 3:7-14

As I’ve done with other folks Ken has harrassed, I wrote to this poor fellow:

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

And thus, the idea for having a single place where articles about Slice and its ‘personalities’ from across the blogosphere could be housed and more easily indexed, to give friends and family a better idea of what these folks are really about. Anyone who would like to contribute, may, though I do not want to overlap with Emergent What?, which allows anyone to comment on Slice stories w/o having to worry about their posts being rejected unless they fit into the Slice story arc.

If you have a blog article (or know of one) that is a response to Slice’s idiocy, add it to the ‘comments’ of the Submissions page and we’ll get it indexed. If you’ve been banned by Slice and would like to write an original article for this site, email us at slicedlaodicea@earthlink.net, and we’ll get you set up to write. If you or a ministry you support has been maligned by these divisive gossip-mongers in the Christian blogosphere and you would like to have a platform to refute their bile, email us and we’ll get you set up.

So, as you get together with friends and family over the holiday and you find that odd cousin from Minnesota who says that he read some really awful things about Nooma video you watched last week in Bible study and references Slice, just send him here, and we’ll set him straight…

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. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. (Matthew 23:23)

We serve a God of justice, mercy and faithfulness.  He is a God of love, grace and mercy.  THIS is why I’ve set up this site – to help provide justice for those oppressed by modern-day Pharisees, who sadly have to expend energy defending themselves from backstabbing brothers within the faith.  This “fruitbasket”, which only contains a sampler of the bitter fruit of Slice, should be enough to demonstrate the lack of spiritual fruit from these ‘watchblogs’, and to lessen the energy required to marginalize their poisonous pens.
Have a great Christmas!

Chris

Source: Musings from Two-Sheds Gomer

Comments: In his ever-so-subtle way, Brendt lays out a position that Slice would agree with, and then replaces a few nouns, revealing a rather large plank in the eyes of the in-speck-tors.
Memorable Quotes:

There are those in this world (call them Group A) who are less-than-intelligent enough to think that all people in the Church are alike. People who think that Benny Hinn and Fred Phelps speak for all of the Church. There are certainly those who are active in the Church who have ideas and/or actions that are flat-out wrong. But Group A denies that there is any possibility that there may be some (many?) in the Church that do not subscribe to the same ideas or do the same things.

OK, now I’m going to repeat that paragraph with only a few minor additions/changes. These will be italicized.

There are those in this world (call them Group B) who are less-than-intelligent enough to think that all people in the Emergent Church are alike. People who think that Brian McLaren and Tony Campolo speak for all of the Emergent Church. There are certainly those who are active in the Emergent Church who have ideas and/or actions that are flat-out wrong. But Group B denies that there is any possibility that there may be some (many?) in the Emergent Church that do not subscribe to the same ideas or do the same things.

So what’s the difference between those two groups? (other than the fact that Group A doesn’t have the audacity to label what they do as a ministry)

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Slice of Laodicea, a blight in the Christian Blogosphere, has reached a point where, like The Onion, ignorant folks sometimes mistake it for having actual stories or news of substance. It is a home to writers who refer to leaders in churches they don’t like as ‘Spiritual Pedophiles’, ‘Anti-Christs’, or (sometimes) ‘the False Prophet of Revelation’, referring to these churches as ‘whorehouses’ or worse. And this is when they’re being nice.

Having had the blessed opportunity, many times, to correct mistaken ideas purveyed by Slice, it seems that as a follower of the God who wrote of Slice’s predecessors -

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. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. (Matthew 23:23)

it is now time to make such correction easier for others, as well.

It is my intent to gather articles from the blogosphere here which give background to Slice and its writers, refute its often false and malicious claims, to offer space for original post-length commentary by those who have been blocked from doing so on Slice, and to give space for those directly maligned by these modern-day Pharisees to defend themselves and to refute the pernicious lies spread about them.

In no way is this meant to compete or overlap with Emergent What?, which aggregates the Slice feed and allows individuals to comment on the Slice stories without fear of being censored out for disagreeing. If you’re looking to provide a comment on a specific story on Slice, E-What? is your place to go. If you want to write a full rebuttal, contact us at slicedlaodicea@earthlink.net. Also, if you would like to become a writer here, contact us at the same address.

The Apostle John wrote about one of the first Slicer’s called out by name

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)

It is my intent to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and his disciples – loving what is good and opposing the Pharisees of the day who shut the door to the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces.

Source: The Todd Blog

Comments:

Todd documents his conversations with Ken Silva, revealing that a) Ken is as rude and condescending in private as he is in public; b) Ken’s an idiot when it comes to understanding the internet, IP addresses and proxies; and c) Ken doesn’t have the temperment to qualify for a position of a pastor/elder.

Basically, Todd tries to document an attempt at reasonable exchange with Mr. Silva – something many of us have tried (and failed at) doing, through no fault of Todd’s.

Memorable Quotes:

[Ken, in full sanctimonious mode] Your offense is between you and God because specifically based on your actions yesterday and today I have more than good reason to mark you according to Romans 16:17.

Scott Ragan’s comment:

Though his hypocrisy is evident to many, the depth and breadth of it is still astounding. Watching “Reverend” Ken and his whole operation (i.e. – his “missives,” his practice of linking to his own articles to support/prove statements that he is making in his other articles, his habit of quoting the words of the Lord and applying them to himself, his “dare not rebuke the Lord’s anointed” attitude, his affected way of writing to try and pull of a tone of learned 18th/19th century authority, etc) is like watching one of those huge accidents that they used to show on ChiPS…slow motion disasters that keep getting worse and worse by the second.

Over on Verum Serum we have an ongoing exchange with an atheist who comes by to take pot-shots, ridicule posts that we have put up, mock our faith, etc. I can handle all of this guy’s comments without a problem, but a couple times he has tried to lump “Reverend” Ken and me together and I have almost come unglued! At this point in my Christian walk, few things are more offensive to me than to be put in the same category with the good “Reverend” and his pal Ingrid.

—

Source: While Rome Burns
Comments: Dan is banned, then unbanned (and probably banned again), and lives to tell the tale
Memorable Quotes:

Ken is an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist Convention, even while he decries the “emergent vipers” and “purpose driven madness of Rick Warren” that are “rapidly apostasizing” that denomination. Why he continues to hold his credentials in the SBC is a mystery to me. He tells me it’s because a denomination’s leadership doesn’t make it apostate. If you figure that one out, let me know.

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