“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