I was away from the blog for a week while serving at the 2007 Mosaic Origins Conference in Pasadena, CA.  It was an amazing experience over all!  We had over 500 pastors and leaders out who are doing some pretty amazing things all over the world.  Literally over ¼ of the conference was from oversees.  It is beautiful what God is doing here in the United States and internationally as he continues to refine his church through much of the emerging movement.

I got to thinking about a few things while there.  These men are out making a huge impact on the world.  One guy I met actually trains native pastors in a closed country in Africa.  That isn’t the amazing part though.  He takes them into remote villages via boat.  When they arrive he kills all the man-eating alligators in their river that have been eating small children and livestock.  The villagers are so overwhelmed and grateful that they allow one of his young pastors to assimilate into their village and live among them.  Oh, and he also pastors an emerging church of 5,000!

I realized that if you are on mission with God, you have little time to sit and complain.  I mean, when you are actually making a difference in the world, you don’t need to constantly attack the “opposition”.  Very few of these men spend their time writing blogs about how useless the traditional church is… they are out living and teaching what they believe.  Their lives are their apologetics.

When I look at “ministers” like Ingrid and Ken Silva and Dwayna, I can’t help but ask the question, “what impact are they having on the world?”  None of them have effective ministries.  None of them seem to be having any impact on the lost.  So what exactly are they doing with all their time?

Well, rather than take the time to do the hard work that so many in the world are doing with God, they write criticisms.  They sit back and attack others while the workers are out gathering the harvest.  It’s almost like those kids on the playground who never could play baseball very week, so they sit in the bleachers and make fun of everyone out playing.  It’s one thing to be making an impact and having a critical eye (which is why I can somewhat respect what MacArthur has done… respect, but don’t agree).  However, when you are making no impact on the world and just sit and complain, your voice isn’t valid.

Let this be a reminder to all of us.  Always live a life that is actively changing the hearts of people, but just criticizing those around you.  I have said it before, and try to live by it.  Don’t simply shout at the darkness, but always light a candle.

Just from a slightly more in-depth perusal of Slice 2.0 as I enjoy my afternoon carbonated beverage, I am positing that perhaps CR?N was not focusing enough on legalistic externals (like dress, worship, sermon topics, etc.), due to its focus on slandering the internals.  Or, Ingrid was growing weary of the lack of proof-by-assertion, which was so much easier with a ‘comments’ section.

Regardless, the articles on the “new” Slice appear to primarily be externals-oriented, and just as legalistic as we’ve come to expect from Ingrid.  Case in point, one of her first potshots is taken at Christianity Today’s article on some of the Christian themes within the Spiderman movies, and a sermon which touched on this subject, as well.

Her “insightful” comments on the subject?

When I was a child, the vast number of biblical characters provided the meat of our messages in Sunday School and church. Who needs heroes of the Bible anymore when you have Spiderman, Batman, Superman, and so forth? When the only sin railed against in church is boredom, this is what you get.

Let’s see…  Jesus lived in an agrarian society, and he told parables that pulled from… (wait for it) … life in an agrarian society.  When he was in Jerusalem, Jesus adapted a line from Greek playwright Euripides’ play “The Trojan Women” (Matt 23:37; Luke 13:34).  When Jesus was in Capernaum, he spoke of millstones where millstones were made.  When Paul was in Crete, he quoted a Cretan prophet.  When he was in Athens, speaking on Mars Hill, Paul used the altar to “an unknown god” to make his point.

Througout scripture, the surroundings and culture of the people are used to make a point to them – to reveal God’s truth as given by His prophets and apostles.  This is not to say that every Christian message should be given thusly, but I somehow doubt that the sum-total of Tapestry church’s preaching is on the subject of superheroes.

Apparently the old peanut gallery/amen chorus at CR?N/Slice 2.0 has been itching for an outlet, because the first comment on this article is so indicitave of the legalism and myopia evident in Slice 1.0’s comment section:

I have a neat idea. Instead of using Hollywood movies written by unregenearate, unsaved persons…why not use illustrations about the Biblical Christ from say…oh…the BIBLE!!!

Heartening, though, is that frequent CRN.Info commenter Russ N’s comment was published:

Or lets consider that a majority of people in the US are not familiar with the figures from the Bible. They see it as dated and irrelevant. Taking snippets of a popular movie and then bringing it back to the Bible can help people see the relevance of the Bible in their lives (where they previously thought it irrelevant).

God’s word will not return void.

We’ll see how long this lasts, though, and how many comments ACTUALLY get through.  As for any change in tone between Slice 1.0 and Slice 2.0, Ingrid leaves no room for doubt that nothing has changed.  She finishes her diatribe with a scolding of the author of the Christianity Today article:

P.S. to Mark Moring at Christianity Today: Grow up.

His sin?  He writes about entertainment issues, and doesn’t kowtow to Ingrid’s, not God’s, sense of propriety.  Fortunately, there is a big difference between the two…

Slice 2.0 takes this video and applies Romans 8:6 – “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”  I suppose dancing for the Lord is carnal?  Thanks Slice, for a great example of how not to apply Scripture properly.

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!