Ingrid takes aim at potty mouths everywhere, of course, with her track record it might be helpful if she applied the soap and water to her own mouth first.

What’s that you say? You’ve never seen or heard Ingrid say one of those naughty words we all know are on the “thou shalt not say” list that Jesus put together right after the sermon on the mount? Well, that’s very true, unfortunately, she, along with the writers at C?N have used the God given use of language in a much more destructive way, and in a way that is profoundly more anti-scriptural than any word George Carlin ever used.

Since most of the readership of this blog have been in the faith for quite some time most of you are probably familiar with the practice of fencing with the Law. This was where additional requirements were added to the law in order to be extra, extra, extra sure that no one accidently broke the Law. We see Jesus getting really… irritated over this practice in Matthew 15:

1Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2″Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?
Matthew 15:1-3

A bit further down Jesus gets even more pointed.

Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8″ ‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.’”
Matthew 15:6b-9

Let’s be clear: the words on the naughty list are tradition. They are “rules taught by men” and “traditions of the elders”just as much as the Pharisees’ rules about hand washing were. But, notice what Jesus gets upset about, its not about the mere existence of rules taught by men, or the tradition of the elders, he doesn’t have much to say about those all by themselves. What gets Jesus worked up is when those rules taught by men end up causing people to break the command of God. And that’s exactly what Ingrid, the folks over at C?N and, honestly, much of the church has done in the way they police language.
Check out Ingrid’s check list of mouthly sins here:

I frequently have to delete comments from Christian readers who use words like “su***”, and cr**. Christians are joining the great stampede toward Gomorrah, and they justify it every step of the way.

That’s right, her check list of mouthly sins involve matching words to a list of naughty words. But is that what the scriptures command? I don’t think so. Check out just a few of these verses:

1Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.
Titus 3:2

Only let your conversation be as it becomes the gospel of Christ…
Philippians 1:27

Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.
James 4:11

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
1 Peter 2:1

Let me ask you, friends, which of those verses have anything whatsoever with the actual words that are used? The answer is less than 1. But the real shame and tragedy of it all is that Ingrid, Ken, the other writers at C?N and, sadly, a whole lot of the church in general take these verses to mean if you don’t use naughty words then you’re good to go. Which is why we’ve got entire blogs that don’t use naughty language, but slander, deceive, and abuse their supposed brothers and sisters in Christ with nearly every post they put up . We’ve seen Ken making up silly names like “the hollow men of the emergent church” and The Ecumenical Church of Deceit”. Or we get nasty accusations that emergent pastors ”don’t care for kids” or if there isn’t a handy, catchy news story to riff on emergents with, why not just make something up?

So go ahead Ingrid, whine and complain that Christians are breaking the traditions of the elders, meanwhile you, Ken, C?N and the rest of the watchpoodles out there are breaking the commandments of God with every keystroke.

I found this to be pretty funny.  The “editor” over at C?N has once again tried to pin down Erwin McManus to the emergent movement.  And, once again he/she/it has failed.

The whole article is over Mosaic’s annual Origins Conference, held in the Los Angeles Area every year.  His opening line is as follows:

“Emerging Pastor David trotter blogs about the recent origins conference sponsored by Erwin McManus’ Mosaic Alliance.”  (emphasis mine)

Simply looking at the date would show the “editor” that the event in question was held in June of 2005.  Should three years ago be considered “recent”?  If they can’t even get the dates right, how is he/she/it going to get the content right?  Or maybe they are just running out of recent material.

The part that I found hilarious was this quote from the blogger about a session at the conference with Alex McManus that C?N took offence over

Alex asked us “how did you get here?” His main point was a reminder that no one (including ourselves) brought us to this point – God did. God has called us to do what we’re doing

Sound like a good ol’ reformed thought, right?  God had ordained and called to do what we are doing.  Ironically, the “editor” accuses Alex McManus of this

(editor’s note:  fatalism)

I pretty much laughed for the good part of three minutes.  Here is a man at a conference in 2005 who is not a reformed theologian.  He makes a statement about God calling us to do what we are doing, and he is suddenly teaching fatalism.

Of course when we point out that the majority of reformed theology is based on a fatalistic theology, we are accused of defecating on the blood of the reformers.  But, I guess when you gotta keep the tabloids coming, you will dig pretty deep for a story.

Over at Slice many panties were gotten into many bunches over the recent interview by Christianity Today of Sinead O’Connor. Lets go to the commentary.

Christianity Today is apparently convinced that Sinead O’Connor is someone that Christians need to listen to. Why else would they interview someone who is clearly a confused and make-it-up-as-you-go New Spirituality adherent/rock star?

Now why might Christians be interested in hearing an interview by Sinead O’Connor? Have Christians decided that bald chicks are just really fascinating? Maybe Bono has left Christians in general wanting more Irish musicians? Or, could it possibly be because she recently released a double CD entitled “Theology” which includes many songs that are straight scripture set to music, as well as traditional spirituals such as “the Rivers of Babylon”. Gee, I can’t imagine why Christians would be interested in that. But, naturally, Christianity’s blandest firebrand has an apoplectic fit over it.

Are Christians today that desperate for something new to listen to?

Well Inggy, not every Christian is trying to pour amber over our grandfather’s church and pretend like that pleases Christ. So yes, when an artist of considerable God-given talent produces a work rooted in the word of God, we are desperate to listen to it.

Note that CT never bothers to point out for readers her heresy that Jesus is just an energy force, that Buddhists can tap into Him as well and that God doesn’t judge people so you can live any way you want to.

Uh… well, I guess in the sense that the writer doesn’t commentate on O’Connor’s views, yeah CT never bothers to point those things out. Probably because it’s a straight interview in which O’Connor herself says these things. There’s no commentary or analysis on anything by CT, its all O’Connor who says all of those things herself. What does the Big I want here? For CT to simply repeat what O’Connor had just said? Have I mentioned that in many languages the word “Ingrid” can be directly translated as “absurd”?

Come to think of it, Sinead sounds a lot like the New Pastors of today. Her theology is the same as what we’re getting from emerging church gurus nationwide. Now we know why CT billboards her. She is the face of the new evangelical. With her social gospel, her twisted definition of Jesus, her foul mouth and her embrace of the New Age cosmic christ, she could start a church and have a guaranteed membership in days.

Ah, a classic of the watchbloggies everywhere, the outright slander. How is O’Connor associated with the emergent/emerging church again? Her background is Roman Catholic, CT is by no means an emergent/emerging publications… so where’s the connection? What’s even funnier is no where in the entire interview does O’Connor make reference to the “social gospel” or even doing good works at all. Did Ingrid even bother to read the interview, or was her outrage alone good enough for this post? Oh right, stupid question, this is just another outrageous post, filled with outrage for the sake of outrage.