Source: Verum Serum

Comments: Scott Ragan posts an excellent article in response to Ken’s declaration of war “Mission Rob Bell” (hearing echoes of Ahab crying ‘thar she blows!’). For the uninitiated, Scott posts some background of the many sad habits of Mr. Silva, who often puffs himself up as some sort of expert much higher than his rank or record would ever justify (reminiscent of Frank Burns in M*A*S*H). He then methodically dissects Ken’s inability to admit fault, even when he is most obviously – to anyone with a two eyes and a brain – wrong.
Memorable Quotes:

Just when I thought “Reverend” Ken over at SLICE/Apprising Ministries had reached the pinnacle of making a foolish/spiritual spectacle of himself, he went “one louder” today and turned his “spiritual pride and ego amp” up to Eleven (if you haven’t seen This is Spinal Tap, don’t try making sense of that last analogy).

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I know that Ken believes that his words are wisdom on par with Scripture, but that isn’t how this thing works. Sorry, Ken, but when it says “My mouth speaks what is true…All the words of my mouth are just…To the discerning all of them are right…they are faultless to those who have knowledge…” it ISN’T talking about you or your ideas. This is WISDOM talking, as in GOD’S Wisdom. Not Ken’s. God’s. Do you see and/or understand the difference?

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A regular criticism that is made about/against Ken is that during exchanges he frequently attempts to assert himself as someone of spiritual authority who has been appointed by God and who’s opinion should be listened to and/or given more weight than others because of the position he believes he holds. He has been caught red handed on several occasions on this blog and others trying to use the words of Christ when He is speaking about himself and then trying to apply the same quote to himself. The “Reverend” Ken holds a HEAVILY authoritarian view of the Christian faith which places he and a few other that he agrees with or that agree with him at the top of the power structure just below the Trinity, John Macarthur, Walter Martin, and A.W. Tozer. In short, failure to agree with and/or comply with “Reverend” Ken and his approved list of authorities relegates dissenters to the outer darkness.

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Another common criticism/observation made about Ken is that, though he says that he welcomes people to be Berean in their faith and test his words and teachings, when it comes down to it and he is presented with substantial arguments and very serious/grave charges against him that impeach his credibility and veracity as a pastor/teacher, he refuses to engage. Instead he simply begins a predictable pattern of name calling and claiming that those who disagree with him are interpreting Scripture incorrectly while he has the correct interpretation.

So much for the whole Berean thing.

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In an almost laughable twist, Ken says that he wouldn’t dream of saying the things to John Macarthur that people say to him on a daily basis…and yet he also says VERY offensive things to and about fellow believers and pastors on a daily basis and thinks nothing of it. Why is it that he can do that without a second thought, but he wouldn’t consider voicing a strong dissent against something that Dr. Macarthur might be teaching -and- why is it that he is so tremendously offended when others turn the tables and do the same thing to him that he does regularly to others?

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I know that it offends you to have someone say it, Ken, but you are wrong. You are a brother in Christ and someday we’ll stand together in Heaven. But now…on earth…in 2006…you’re wrong.

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[Brendt commenting] Since I don’t have the “gift” of looking into others’ souls and determining their true motives (like Ingrid, Ken, Steve, et al), I won’t say this as being fact, but merely my own personal observation and wondering. One has to wonder if what the commenters say is what the Slicers really are thinking, but they dial it back, knowing that the commenters will do the dirty work for them.

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[Brendt commenting] P.S. Scott, there’s obviously something wrong with your blog. You accused Ken (rightly) of putting himself on an equal plane with God by preceeding his thoughts with Scripture referring to an attribute of God. Yet Ken’s clarification (and or disputing) of this point somehow didn’t make it through. Surely, he didn’t choose to ignore (IMHO) the heaviest charge of them all? After all, we know how well equating oneself with God worked out for Lucifer.

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[Scott commenting] I am offended by the good “Reverend” and his compadre Ingrid because I believe that at times they do far more damage TO the kingdom of God than they do good FOR the kingdom. They are rude, abrasive, judgmental, pharisaical, narrow-minded and spiritually arrogant. It isn’t just that they think they are right. In that respect, I am in agreement with them in the belief that Truth is an absolute that can be known. I don’t think that things are relative, thus I don’t think that Truth or the arguments that can be made related to Truth are relative.

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On the other hand, Ken, Ingrid and the gang operate according to their own world perspective which appears to be: we’re right and you’re all ignorant and/or uninformed and/or misled and/or in league with the devil and/or going to Hell (or all of the above). Based on their track record, their rules of engagement appear to include:

1) make outlandish claims first and then try to prove them later and if they can’t be proved, start calling people names and accuse them of stupidity or spiritual blindness or being in partnership with evil in order to deflect the attention off of the weak initial argument;

2) find quotes that appear to support the outlandish claims mentioned in #1 above, even if the quotes are misquotes, quotes out of context, or pseudo/none-existent quotes;

3) ignore common/basic principles of logic and Biblical interpretation and accuse others of heresy and/or incorrect interpretations that don’t match up with what they are claiming to be true in #1 above;

4) quote well-established and respected authorities such as theologians and philosophers to give your argument in #1 above more credibility, but only quote those whose words appear to agree with the weak claims/arguments mentioned in #1 and never provide these quotes in their full context;

5) never allow anyone else to quote other respected authorities unless they are doing so to support the positions from #1 above and if anyone brings up those same authorities in the context of disagreement, accuse those others of a lack of spiritual insight and wisdom to understand what is being discussed and a lack of respect for learned men of God;

6) never allow anyone else to quote other respected authorities whose words and/or positions disagree with the claims in #1 above and when people do, point out the horrible shame and worldly/fleshly tendency of wanting to rely on the intellect of man rather than the wisdom of God (God’s wisdom being rightly divided by comparing it to whether it agrees with the claims in #1 above).

7) be sure to keep things in #1 above relative to personal preference (that preference being placed on the same level as God’s directives in His Word) and make every effort to appeal to people’s desire to look backwards to “the good old days,” forgetting that that perspective is rarely accurate but is always easy to support with “I remember when” and “now days people just don’t do it the right way, the way we used to do it back when…;”

whenever someone disagrees with #1 above, find a conspiracy;

9) filter out most disagreement on websites and blogs including not letting through the majority of proof/evidence/logic that would disprove #1 above, while at the same time be sure to build an appearance of near-universal support for #1 above by primarily allowing only the voices of agreement and support to be seen/heard;

10) be sure to appeal to the basest need in others to be right at all costs (thus making others wrong) and gather a collection of insecure believers together to make the desire to be right collectively louder and thus (apparently) more credible.

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Ingrid uses the news organization that her radio station is affiliated with as the primary source to back up many of her “news flashes” and “hot off the press” breathless revelations about Rick Warren and others. Talk about a conflict of interest. She even uses her own press releases as primary sources for her blog posts! She condemns churches and denominations left and right for practices that offend her “Ingrid sensibilities,” ignoring the fact that her sensibilities aren’t the guiding principles of anything or for anyone except her and her family. She operates under the assumption that her “sense” of something is tantamount to God’s judgment for or against that thing. Music, dance, drama, PowerPoint, videos, worship songs, overheads, sermon notes, etc, etc, etc,…Ingrid has opinions on them all and in her mind her opinions are God’s opinions.

“Reverend” Ken has been guilty of so much proof-texting, Scripture twisting, pharisaical pronouncements and shady-slight-of-hand misdirection and blatant misquotes and half-quotes of people that I don’t know how he faces himself in the mirror (though maybe he has removed all mirrors in his house so he doesn’t have to). As Ingrid does with her ridiculous use of her own organization’s press releases and news stories, Ken does with his “missives…” using them as sources of information when someone challenges him about the weakness of his arguments or the incorrect or twisted partial quotes that he pulls out of thin air when he needs to exaggerate some minor point of concern or trump up some conspiracy that only he and a few precious others can see and/or understand. I couldn’t even begin to count the times that I have seen Ken (both here at VS, or at Slice, or at various other sites) refuse to engage his critics directly when they challenge his weak thinking, poor use of Biblical interpretation principles, etc. Instead, he will tell them that he has already discussed this or that point over on his website and then include a link to some other “missive.” Either he is too dense to see that many/most of his “missives” contain the same kinds of glaring errors, or he knows that they are all flawed but doesn’t care because he isn’t capable of thoroughly and carefully defending his ridiculous and, at times, asinine pronouncements.

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Source: Fishing the Abyss
Comments: Ken Silva has discussed his past church experiences where his strident views and teaching have driven off a number of folks, which he has just chalked up as people being unable to accept Jesus’ teaching.  He has then gone on to say that people like Rick Warren, Rob Bell and other preachers at mega-churches have to have sold out to get large churches, because if you preach the Word it will drive people away.  (Strangely, though, this logic does not apply to Johnnie Mac and other TR favorites of Ken’s…)

In this article, Chris gives a contextual exegesis which demonstrates that warped interpretations like Ken’s are far from the truth of scripture.

Memorable Quotes:

If you drive the weak and wounded out of the kingdom, you are just a resounding gong or clanging cymbal, nothing more.

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Source: Fishing the Abyss
Comments: Chris finally gives up on Ken ever posting something substantive, so he removes Ken’s auto-posting privlidges, which won’t be returned until Ken decides to post a substantive reply beyond the proverbial “I know you are but what am I?” responses typical of Ken.
Memorable Quotes:

However, the past month, here and elsewhere, Ken has shown no ability to get beyond snarky one-liners, short bits of unsupported slanderous accusation, and putting his words in the mouths of dead theologians.  Finally, I have run out of patience, as well, and I banned him from posting here.

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