Anymore, it seems to be an annual rite where October 31 rolls around and news stations, due to the slow-news nature of Octobers, begin looking for “human interest” stories.  The typical ones are those in which some Christian group is protesting Halloween, or staging ‘Hell-houses’, or doing something else rather public to call attention to its ‘bone to pick’ with this rather odd ‘Holiday’.

This year, as in several years past, these same groups get an ‘early Halloween gift’ in the form of a book – this year being the last (?) installment of the Harry Potter series.  While I can’t say I have ever seen the need to boycott Halloween (my kids basically circle the small neighborhood dressed as doctors, pirates, princesses or various flora/fauna – we do avoid ghosts, vampires and monsters - and all of the families end up exchanging candy and chatting with their neighbors), I have been on both sides of the Harry Potter debate.

Early on (somewhere around Book 3), I was rather concerned when one of my kids received the books as a gift, when I had heard a great deal of negative press (via email chain-letters and a couple Christian newsletters screaming about the ‘evil’ inherent in Harry Potter).   Since they were a Christmas gift, I was able to temporarily ’lose’ them in the hustle and bustle to give myself time to decide whether or not to allow them to be read.  In fact, both my wife and I were a little peeved that they were given in the first place, with all the furor over them (though, to be fair, the givers were of good intention and considered them to just be popular kids books, and hadn’t heard any of the fuss).

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Back when I was a kid, we had a sandbox in my back yard. From time to time, it would get wildly messy, with sand spilled over the edges, ditches down to the bottom of the box, and piles of the stuff on the seats. At times like these, my mother would give me a little plastic rake, which meant it was time to straighten out the sandbox…

I’m no longer a child, but it seems this metaphor is in order as I observe the workings here at CRN.info. While I believe we are doing many of the things we set out to do, a little bit of raking is in order – as I hinted at this past Thursday morning before heading back to teach a class in claymation at the Legacy camp in Ignacio, CO. After reading the comment section in my article, it seems that my hinting needs to be much stronger.

So – for the raking:

1) Since our struggle is not with ‘flesh and blood’ – I am asking all CRN.info writers to write articles in such a way as to address ideas rather than singular critics. In doing so, for the next 30 days we will not provide critique of any specific individual, by name (particularly writers on SoL/C?N/AM). While we will, as is part of this blog’s purpose, defend individual Christians and/or groups of Christians who are unfairly attacked, we will try to address specific criticisms of them – if they exist – or reveal the logical fallacies in blanket criticisms.
2) We will continue to allow ANY and ALL comments. To my knowledge, aside from auto-filtered spam, we have only deleted three comments since this site was created – two duplicate posts and one comment that should not have been deleted, for which an apology was given. It is our position that the selective acceptance of comments only serves to create a fallacious air of ‘proof by assertion’ and an atmosphere of intellectual dishonesty.

3) Threadjacking is getting tiresome, and it will be dealt with in a number of ways. There is no need, for instance, to drag previous discussions – say, on Calvinism vs. Arminianism – from previous threads onto current threads which have nothing whatsoever to do with the old conversation.

Where this becomes a problem, I will first post a warning within the particular discussion and ask for the participants to either drop the tangent, or move it back to the topic under which it belongs (if such topic exists…) Next, if it continues, I will email specific individuals – even if they are writers here – and ask them to drop it.

If my requests go unheeded, the offending individuals will go on the ‘moderation list’ (which is currently empty) for a short duration of time. The ‘moderation list’ is simply a place like the penalty box in hockey, where comments are held long enough to not appear in the right comment sidebar. I have only had to put someone on this list once, and hope to not have to do so again.
Finally, if the behavior continues, I will ban the individuals from this site, but I hope to NEVER have to do this – and you really will have to push me hard to make this happen.
4) Petty sniping between ANYONE is childish. Between Christians, though, is just plain ugly and sinful. I have not been above this, and I have had to apologize for it many a time. Lately, the number of ‘zingers’ and ‘one-liners’ – which I suppose have been calculated to amuse oneself, rather than engage the subject at hand – are tired and old. Certain individuals – I suspect they know who they are – are really wearing the patience of many readers. Please stop.

If you cannot respond intelligently to the topic at hand, or if you only desire to deflect criticism of your position without offering anything rational in your defense, then don’t comment. If you feel your man/woman-hood has been challenged, there are arenas in which to deal with the hormonal issues involved – this is not one of them.

5) Intellectual honesty (primarily to myself and my writers) – When we criticize the watchblogs of certain behaviors and then engage in them ourselves, we are engaging in a game of plank-speck. We need to avoid these pitfalls, and more:
Eisogesis/Prooftexting: When I and others eisogeted Chris P’s comment from earlier this year (”the only cure for AIDS is death”) to cast him as uncaring and insensitive – despite the fact that his broader comment and a later clarification were unsupporting of this view – I was being as intellectually dishonest as critics of Rob Bell are when they eisogete a paragraph in Velvet Elvis and then contend that Bell does not believe in sola Scriptura.

Straw-man/”What He Means Is”: When I re-worded an argument from amy earlier this year to make it say something she didn’t mean to say, and then proceeded to tear the re-wording apart – I was just as guilty of building a strawman as were the Pyromanics a couple weeks back when they did the same thing to Scot McKnight, and just as guilty as 95% of the articles on AM, which are almost wholly built on beating down straw men.

Personal Extrapolation: When we quote commenters from SoL/AM/C?N and extrapolate their views as if they are that of the writers of said sites, we are doing the same thing that we criticize when someone sympathetic to one or more of our contentions writes something bone-headed and it gets extrapolated as if it was our view.

Systematic Extrapolation/Broad-brushing: When we extrapolate views of our critics to extremes beyond what they intend – or when we broad-brush groups of fundamentalist/reformed brothers in certain ways, we are doing the same thing that we criticize when people broad-brush emerging/emergent Christians in unfair, inaccurate ways.

Other logical fallicies: We need to strive to avoid ad homenim, assertion, and other logically fallacious methods of debate. Some of these are easy to fall into, in which case we need to quickly apologize if we do so. In the same way, when we point them out in defense of unfairly maligned brothers and sisters, we need to do so in a way that allows apology.

6) We will continue to attribute all articles to the author of the article, so that the author of each article is easily identifiable.  To do anything else would be intellectually dishonest, and would only lead to confusion on the part of the readers.  As it is written somewhere, we should let our ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and our ‘no’ be ‘no’, which at its basest view includes who it is saying ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in the first place!

FINALLY

Why am I writing this? Threefold:

1) I want to be held to a standard of decency and etiquette which I expect from, but see little of, in the watchblogosphere. Some of our writers and Dan Kimball (I don’t know who was first, and I’m too lazy to figure it our right now) recently wrote a comparison of the opposite of this standard as to yapping poodles. Going one step further, I will engage a pop-culture reference, comparing such behavior to piranha poodles. I don’t want to be one. If I write these expectations down, I expect that even if my friends don’t hold me to them, my critics certainly will…

2) It is hard to move in a direction without first setting the course. I also expect my writers to try to follow the guidelines above, even if those who criticize them or me will not.
3) I am not pro-emergent or anti-fundamentalist, etc. I am pro-Christian. As such, I have this nagging belief that we – all Christians – should have a way of interacting with each other, especially when we disagree, that is unlike what is seen in the rest of the world.

One of the biggest complaints about Slice and the rest of the watchpoodles out there is that they moderate comments in such a way that legitimate criticisms are never seen, while letting through mostly complimentary comments thus shutting down any real sort of conversation as well as creating the impression that most of their site’s viewers are in rabid agreement. Now Ingrid has decided to push back against such criticisms in this hit piece:

This morning I had to raise an eyebrow at the protestations of one emergent pastor we’ll call “Mike”. He was shocked, just shocked, that I wouldn’t post his rage-filled comments. He was angry at this blog for daring to question the public promotion of filthy movies by another “pastor.”

Ah… I get it now, the only people who oppose Ingrid are people who are “rage filled”.

She continues:

I have wondered many times at the boiling indignation of emergents who can’t understand why Slice will not let them have free reign in the comment section, regardless how personally nasty, profane or heretical they may be when these same men are really, really good with the delete button on their own blogs when Christians try to defend those they like to shred for upholding biblical truth.

Ah, not just “rage filled” but also “personally nasty”, and they even censor their own blogs! Why, I bet Ingrid would be fine with people who point out her various distortions, personal nastiness, and poor Biblical interpretation if they weren’t all blog censoring, potty mouths with a penchant for rage.

Of course we all know that’s not the case. I’ve had comments that disagreed respectfully with Ingrid that somehow never made it out of moderation, several individuals I know both in real life and over the internet have had the same experience. And somehow, we’ve all had most of our comments deleted.

And just in case you’re thinking that I and everyone I know are “rage filled”, “personally nasty” and are busily censoring comments from anyone who thinks like Ingrid check out this comment on the Submissions page from a gentleman named Ian.

Ingrid has recently promoted and is selling through her site and radio show an album of Hymns by Huddersfield Choral Society. I live in Huddersfield (a random little town in England) so I know this group quite well, I know that they are not anything to do with a church or ministry, they are a purely secular society. They take people on based on their musical ability, not religious persuasion or lifestyle. With around 200 members, there will be adulterers, fornicators, yes – probably even homosexuals within their ranks – and Ingrid feels this is a suitable group to be promoting on her blog and radio show?! Ah well, anything that helps the Huddersfield economy!

Anyway, I tried to point out this hypocrisy to her in a (very reasonable) comment, but it was deleted… Here’s what I put:

My goodness, how did my little town of Huddersfield get on this website! They are indeed an excellent choir, I saw them perform live recently in the town square and it was a fantastic performance.

One question though Ingrid, and I mean this in all sincerity: This choral society is a secular society – it is not associated with any church or ministry, its requirements for membership is based on musical skill not religious belief or lifestyle. I personally have no problem with this, they are a talented group and I enjoy listening to their performances, even more so if they are singing songs of worship to my God. However, I’m surprised at you promoting them after your recent post on Sinead ‘O Connar’s psalms set to music?

Now was that nasty or rage filled? Was that heretical in the least? Absolutely not. So why was that censored? The easy answer is that it made Ingrid look bad. It exposed her penchant for judging by appearances and style rather than actual content.

Give it up Ingrid. While there may be a few less than gentlemanly comments that Ingrid deletes, to generally characterize all of the disagreeing commenters as “rage filled” and “personally nasty” is dishonest. Of course admitting the truth would mean that she’d have to admit that the positions she takes, and the way she takes them are indefensible.

Edit: BTW, for those interested in seeing what Ingrid views as “rage filled” and “profane” I believe the minister’s blog she’s talking about can be found here. His responses and blog don’t strike me as all that outrageous at all.

Ingrid promoted the Huddersfield Choral Society recently on her site. Thanks to Ian, who actually lives in Huddersfield, he points out that this is not a Christian group. Here is his comment to Ingrid, which was not posted:

My goodness, how did my little town of Huddersfield get on this website! They are indeed an excellent choir, I saw them perform live recently in the town square and it was a fantastic performance.
One question though Ingrid, and I mean this in all sincerity: This choral society is a secular society – it is not associated with any church or ministry, its requirements for membership is based on musical skill not religious belief or lifestyle. I personally have no problem with this, they are a talented group and I enjoy listening to their performances, even more so if they are singing songs of worship to my God. However, I’m surprised at you promoting them after your recent post on Sinead ‘O Connar’s psalms set to music?”

Would Ingrid promote a cd done by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Even if they did the old hymns?

Personally, I love the old hymns and would love to see them brought back into worship.

The apostle Paul wrote, inspired by God,

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

As many of you know, I am working this week on the Ute reservation in southwest Colorado with The Legacy, teaching art and music to Native American jr. and sr. high school students.  So, aside from this brief post, this is why you aren’t hearing anything from me this week.

Something you probably don’t know is that last night, my wife and I had a truly wonderful dinner with a Christian brother and sister here in the Four Corners area, Chris Pajak and his wife. 

Several weeks ago, Greg Boyd guest-preached at Mars Hill (Grand Rapids), and commented that ‘if something is made of flesh and blood, it is not our enemy’, hearkening back to the words of Paul.

I would like to report to you that Paul’s words, as reiterated by Dr. Boyd, are as true today as they were when they were written.  And in being so, I have experienced a deep lesson, I wish I could share with you.

As many of you know, I am a rather strong proponent for understanding the context of scripture when reading and interpreting it, for the very reason that without that context, we are only left to supply our own – which is likely very different from the culture and context in which it was written.

In the same way, I believe that when we tend to agree or disagree with someone, we supply a sympathetic or antagonistic context to their words when we read them – ESPECIALLY if we have never met them.  Having met Chris P, listening to him and experiencing his ‘context’, I realize that the context I have supplied has more often than not been wrong.

I am sorry for that Chris.

Please, please, please – let us keep Paul’s words in mind.  Our struggle is not with flesh and blood – but with principalities and powers – words and dominions of this world.  While we may disagree with a much of what is written on CRN, and probably more/most of what is on SoL/AM, our disagreement is not with Chris, Ken, Ingrid, Dwayna or others – it is with ideas on how to serve in the Kingdom of God.

If we are serious in our belief in balancing orthopraxy and orthodoxy, an independent brother or sister should be able to read this blog and see WHY it is different than those it criticizes.  A non-believer should read our disagreements and see a respectful disagreement unlike any experienced in the non-Christian blogs of this world.

We are not there yet.  I am not there yet.

But I hope that we would strive to move in that direction.

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.

“The organ in the worship service is a sign of Baal.”

Realencyklopadie Fur Protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Bd, 14, s.433 cited in Instrumental Music and New Testament Worship, James D. Bales, p. 130.

How long till that one shows up on Slice?

There’s a provocative piece over at C?N filed in “abominations by the ever mysterious editor.” You can imagine the church they are referring to is  teaching heresy, perhaps, they are saying that abusing women is just part of the cultural norm? Nope. What they are doing is a series called “Super Hero Parables.” From this title the clairvoyant writer at a little self righteousness leaven says that the pastor of that church has

He traded in preaching from the Bible to preaching from comic book stories

I wonder how he knows that? Has he heard the guy preach? How many times when Jesus was asked about the Kingdom did he reply with stories? I mean even in the picture that our friend at a little self righteousness leaven has so conveniently posted for us the church gives us a definition of a parable.

“Parable”= a story with a spiritual point

Perhaps, even Jesus wouldn’t have been spiritual enough for these people? I read this in Mark,

He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:…

I mean why not just use the O.T.? Isn’t that inspired? Wasn’t that good enough for this friend of sinners who hung out, eating and drinking with sinners. You know, some even said that he was a drunkard and a bastard. After all, they knew who their father was.

Abominations indeed.