"How I wish I could capture in words the endearing site [sic] before me as C.J. interviews our friend Ligon Duncan. And I don’t use this title lightly. Ligon is a faithful friend of Sovereign Grace Ministries, and this is evidenced so clearly in the interview this evening."
Ligon Duncan, a Presbyterian pastor from Mississippi, is a loyal friend of C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries, as has become apparent in recent years. Duncan once blogged on the Together for the Gospel (T4G) website that he and his long-time friend Al Mohler were first introduced to C.J. Mahaney by Mark Dever. We're not sure when it occurred. Obviously, that's how they came together (for the gospel, of course).
Several years ago Mahaney introduced Duncan in a three-part series on his View from the Cheap Seats blog. Here are the links: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Last November Ligon Duncan spoke at the SGM Pastors Conference that was held at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando (the same venue for The Gospel Coalition's National Conference to be held in April). Duncan made some significant contributions at that pastors' conference, as indicated on the Sovereign Grace Ministries website. Here is an excerpt from the November 1, 2012 post:
"One of the most poignant moments was when he personally addressed Sovereign Grace pastors regarding polity. After sharing some specific encouragements, he went on to remind us:
“ …polity is a vehicle for the work of the Spirit, not a replacement for the work of the Spirit…These structures are only there so God-called, gospel men can do things with more clarity. They are not a replacement for the hard work and dependence on the Holy Spirit that must go into living life together. I hope it provides for you a wonderful basis for transparency, cultivating unity and being decisive in Gospel ministry. But it is a tool.”
We couldn’t be more grateful for Ligon Duncan and his friendship!"
On July 13, 2011, we featured a post called Hoodwinked by Mohler and Mahaney. Here is the pertinent portion of that post:
One week ago C.J. Mahaney, President of Sovereign Grace Ministries, stepped down from his ‘bully’ pulpit to take a leave of absence amid turmoil in his “family of churches”. There have been quite a few developments in that short time frame, and they have distracted us from keeping the main thing the main thing, which we define as discovering God’s truth.
It is rare that your humble blog queens can be described as ‘gullible’ and ‘easily deceived’, but we are willing to admit our own human frailties to you, our dear readers. To put it bluntly, we have been hoodwinked! (Feel free to substitute any of the synonyms listed at the end of this post.)
Please accept our sincerest apologizes for falling down on the job and playing into the hands of some scheming ‘master’ minds. FYI — the single quotation marks are significant. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
What tipped us off that we have all been played? Did anyone find it odd that Mahaney announced at CLC last Sunday evening that he would be at the SGM Pastors Conference in November? Here’s what inquiring minds want to know – how did he know that he would be there after stepping down for an indefinite period of time?
We also knew we had been duped after the one-two punch delivered by Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan. The scheme was confirmed when Duncan made his pronouncement on the Reformation 21 website. Obviously, the ‘Fab Four’ of ‘T4G’ (Together for the Gospel) are going to stick together no matter what, and The Gospel Coalition has its own agenda. However, we were ‘surprised’ to discover that the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals appears to be in on it, too. After all, Duncan used the blog linked to their website to issue his statement from on “high”.
Let’s begin unraveling this carefully crafted scheme by Mohler, Mahaney and Company. First, Mahaney sends out correspondence to the SGM pastors on July 2, informing them that he plans to step down for a time. Then he posts the same information on the Sovereign Grace Ministries website on July 6 for all to read.
Pope Mohler Issues An Edict
Just two days later (on July 8) the Louisville Courier picks up the story and reports on the controversy with this headline – ‘Serious’ charges vs popular pastor, author Mahaney. Does anyone else find it rather ‘odd’ that a Louisville newspaper was reporting on a ministry based in far away Maryland? Why was the Mahaney debacle newsworthy in Kentucky of all places? And calling Mahaney a ‘popular’ pastor is highly questionable. Popular with whom? We sincerely doubt Christians outside Calvinista circles have ever heard of him. Here is the article for those who may have missed it.
Did you notice that the first word in the headline is in single quotation marks? Why would this journalist find it necessary to put the word ‘serious’ in quotes? Even stranger was the fact that the article contained a hyperlink to an ‘obscure’ blog called The Wartburg Watch. Hmmm….
(Peter) Smith (of the Louisville Courier-Journal) quotes Mohler as follows:
"I always have had only the highest estimation of C.J. Mahaney as a man and a minister," Mohler said in an interview — his first public comments on the situation involving Mahaney, one of his fellow leaders in the Reformed, neo-Calvinist movement. "That continues absolutely unchanged. There is nothing in this current situation which would leave me to have even the slightest pause of confidence in him."
But Mohler has already drawn his own conclusions.
He based that on hundreds of pages leaked to the Internet last week, detailing correspondence between Mahaney, his main accuser and former colleague, Brent Detwiler, and other Sovereign Grace leaders.
"There is nothing disqualifying in terms of anything that is disclosed in this," said Mohler, who regularly speaks on programs along with Mahaney. "It’s just evidence we knew all along, that C.J. is human but a deeply committed Christian and a visionary Christian leader."
Again, why is the Louisville rag the only newspaper in the country (as far as we can tell) reporting on this story?
After revealing details of the conflict within SGM, Smith writes:
"Mohler said he saw no reason for Mahaney to take a leave from other leadership positions…
"I assume he would retain every position in leadership," Mohler said. "I expect he should be very quickly returned to leadership of Sovereign Grace."
Mohler contended that Detwiler has "an obvious vendetta" against Mahaney and attributed the document dump on the Internet to him.”
If Mohler can so callously judge Brent Detwiler, we seriously doubt he has read through the 600 pages of documentation posted on the internet that bring serious charges against Mahaney. Notice that we do not put the word serious in single quotation marks as Smith did.
Smith goes on to explain:
“The Sovereign Grace network is separate from the Southern Baptist Convention, the affiliate of Southern Seminary, but Mohler praised Mahaney’s group as "one of the most vital movements of church planting and evangelism and church development in this generation…"
Mohler said he knew this practice has had online critics for years.
"Basically there are people who are very uncomfortable with the strong kind of spiritual direction that comes through the Sovereign Grace Ministries," Mohler said. "It’s very hard to criticize it on biblical terms, as you’ll see on most of those Web sites. It basically comes down to the criticism, ‘I don’t like that.’"
So ‘Pope Mohler’ doesn’t like criticism… And with this pronouncement, Mohler has just marginalized any blogger who would dare criticize Sovereign Grace Ministries. Funny thing, Mohler sure knows how to dish it out himself.
Cardinal Duncan Mimics the Pope
As soon as Ligon Duncan, who hails from the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA), weighed in with a statement that mimicked Pope Mohler’s, our suspicions were confirmed. It was no coincidence that these two T4G leaders came out swinging for their pal CJ on the very same day.
Here are some of Duncan’s choice words, which you can find here.
“I would then encourage you to ignore the assaults of wounded people on attack websites and blogs, and that you discount the opinings of those who have no real knowledge of these matters or relation to SGM or authority to comment upon them, and that you refrain from assuming that you (or they) are in a position to render judgment on these things.”
We believe the propaganda put out by Mohler and Duncan was a coordinated effort to: (1) define the issue as merely a theological dispute between Mahaney and a former colleague (2) dilute the testimonies of the hundreds if not thousands of SGM victims and (3) chastise and marginalize anyone who would dare criticize Mahaney’s ministry (i.e. bloggers).
Ligon Duncan, president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, is a contributor to the blog on the Reformation 21 website, along with Carl Trueman (who served on that infamous three-member panel which found C.J. Mahaney 'fit' for ministry). Not only that, C.J. Mahaney is a Council Member for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. According to the website, here are the members of the Alliance Council:
Eric Alexander, Alistair Begg, Gerald Bray, Jerry Bridges, Donald Carson, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Sinclair Ferguson, Robert Godfrey, John Hannah, Paul Jones, John MacArthur, C.J. Mahaney, Albert Mohler, Richard Phillips, John Piper, Philip Ryken, R. C. Sproul, Derek Thomas, Carl Trueman, Gene Veith, David Wells
As indicated in the excerpt above, Duncan used his position as president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals to speak out on Mahaney's behalf back in July 2011. Just click on the hyperlink above to read Ligon Duncan's choice words. Oh wait! The blog post is MISSING!!! Here is the message you see when you click on the above hyperlink:
Not Found
The requested document was not found on this server.
If you pull up a listing of Ligon Duncan's posts, the following appears on the Reformation 21 blog in July 2011 (the same month Mahaney stepped down).
A Word about C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries
Article by Ligon Duncan July 2011
If you have been confused or discouraged by things you have read on the internet concerning my friend C.J. Mahaney and his leave of absence from the board and presidency of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), I would encourage you to (continue)
Clicking on 'continue' causes the 'Not Found' message to appear. Surely this is just a glitch on the Reformation 21 website… C.J. Mahaney will need character witnesses to defend him in the class-action lawsuit, and Ligon Duncan is a great one to defend Mr. 'Humility'. We would imagine the defense attorneys will be contacting Duncan if they have not done so already… As an aside, because Mohler's remarks appeared in a newspaper article, his words stand for time and eternity. Perhaps he'll be called as a character witness as well, along with Mark Dever who made the introduction years ago.
Just in case, the defense attorneys would like to read Ligon Duncan's online commentary which has suddenly gone missing, here it is…
“ A Word about C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries
POSTED BY LIGON DUNCAN
If you have been confused or discouraged by things you have read on the internet concerning my friend C.J. Mahaney and his leave of absence from the board and presidency of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), I would encourage you to read this and this and this and this, if you want to understand what is really going on.
I would then encourage you to ignore the assaults of wounded people on attack websites and blogs, and that you discount the opinings of those who have no real knowledge of these matters or relation to SGM or authority to comment upon them, and that you refrain from assuming that you (or they) are in a position to render judgment on these things.
It is clear that far from a scandalous cover up, our brothers at Sovereign Grace are taking these matters with utter seriousness and are endeavoring to walk in Gospel repentance and humility and fidelity. C.J. knows of my complete love and respect for him. And my brethren at Sovereign Grace know of my support and prayers for them. Al Mohler has spoken about this here. And, of course, C.J. has reached out to Mark Dever for counsel and accountability, but I want to emphasize that we fully respect the process that SGM is taking to review the entire situation and that we have no intention whatsoever of joining in the adjudicating of this case in the realm of the internet — a practice as ugly as it is unbiblical.
Our response ought, positively, to be to pray for SGM. Indeed, they have asked us to: “Please pray for the people involved and for our network of local churches. This is a difficult time for us, but we see God using these events to refine us and prune us (June 15). We want to embrace all God has for us in this time and pray it will lead to greater fruitfulness. Psalm 37:3 & 5 carry a precious promise: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness … Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
If you read this, you will get a taste of the fruit of Gospel repentance that is already being borne in SGM. It would have been very easy for the leadership of SGM to ignore and dismiss these charges, because so many of them are so evidently self-serving and spurious accusations. But instead, the leadership of SGM has taken the high road, or rather they have chosen to go the way of self-examination, submission to outside review and correction, self-abasement and repentance. It just makes me love and respect them all the more.
POSTED JULY 12, 2011 @ 11:56 AM by LIGON DUNCAN
TOPICS: C.J. Mahaney; Sovereign Grace Ministries "
We are concerned that Duncan doesn't know this important post has somehow been deleted. Just doing our part to help out a fellow blogger…
As we wrap up, our readers might like to know that Ligon Duncan is a man of many talents. He's a preacher, theologian, writer, conference speaker, blogger, and even a rapper!
We end with a short clip of Ligon and his brother John, who is/was working with Ligonier Ministries (R.C. Sproul). We're surprised 'Ligon' hasn't joined forces with 'Ligonier' since the ministry includes his name.
We believe John Duncan was responsible for the Renewing Your Mind broadcasts. We have done a little research on him, and he was occasionally mentioned on Jen's Gems back in 2006. Prior to and early in our blogging, we remember reading about Boerne Christian Assembly and the conflict between Doug Phillips and the Epsteins. It was quite eye-opening!
Here is Ligon Duncan rapping with brother John.
Lydia's Corner: Deuteronomy 18:1-20:20 Luke 9:28-50 Psalm 73:1-28 Proverbs 12:10
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Strange. When one clicks on the “continue” link on every other post of his (some of which are very helpful), those pages appear promptly enough.
I am not sure why some pastors seem to treat their solidarity with other pastors as more sacred than their solidarity with other Christians. I don’t read that in the Bible or in my tradition’s foundational documents anywhere. It is not as though the Westminster Confession’s chapter on the “Communion of the Saints” teaches that there is a special bond of communion between pastors that transcends that between any Christian and another Christian. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I hope the pending lawsuits naming C. J. Maheney bring everything out into the light, for everyone’s sake, not least of all his.
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SGM / CLC in the headlines again…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/man-accused-of-molesting-boys-in-1980s-from-md-church-church-is-identified-in-sex-abuse-suit/2013/02/04/62e2a882-6edd-11e2-b35a-0ee56f0518d2_story.html
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Back peddling, saving face, damage control, image control, oopsie daisy – whatever you call it, this kind of removing-the-evidence behavior is all messed up, Mr. Duncan. You’ve been exposed by women bloggers. Deal with it.
Signed, JA (another woman blogger)
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Do I see a re-arranging of the deck chairs to protect the brand at all costs? Maybe I'm being unfair, but I'm reading this as "we will stick up for the authority of a fellow pastor to the nth degree, so long as it's in our best interests to do so (gotta keep the plebs showing some respect), but if the guy is really going down we are going to come out of this squeaky clean — we have a business to protect."
In other words, they are positioning themselves to jump either way as the drama unfolds.
As for that 'rap' — words fail me! Is that what passes for Calvinista wit?
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“ignore the assaults of wounded people”? It is time for the boys to get back to reading the Bible to see what God tells us about wounded people.
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Joe Paterno’s widow will be breaking her silence on February 11th.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/story/2013-02-04/sue-paterno-interview-katie-couric-joe-paterno-jerry-sandusky-scandal
Too bad that the Calvinistas (so far) are unwilling to do the same…
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To those of you with Twitter accounts – time to let the world know about this stuff and get your tweets on! The good thing about using Twitter is that the people/organizations you mention (@accountname) can’t delete what you post. And if you don’t have a Twitter account, maybe it’s time to consider getting one.
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While it is not the NY Times or Washington Post the LCJ is in no way shape or form a "local" paper. Reporting on most any topic related to religion, especially Evangelical issues, in the US would fit their "mission" give the population make up in the area and the nearby Southern Baptist Seminary.
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Eagle,
We are grateful for the contributions you make here at TWW. Your challenging comments add so much to the discussion.
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This goes to show you how clueless these guys are about the power of the Internet and social media. They think they can get away with white-washing history. I wonder if they know about the Wayback Machine. ( http://archive.org/web/web.php )
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pcapastor
SGM has become a liability to all of them. That is why they are silent. They simply do not know what to do. They made a mistake in kissing Mahaney’s feet and now they will have to live with their poor judgments. But real men would have spoken up and said they misjudge the depth of the problem. The issue is that we are not dealing with real men. Just wusses who like to say they are real men.
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Deb
This is a big one. It appears to say that two pastors Robin Boisvert and Grant Layman-CJ’s borther in law- as knowing about the situation.
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Deb
I hope she tells the truth. Sandusky’s wife continue to “hear no evil, see no evil.”
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Near the top of your post, in the first of many constructions in which he uses the word Gospel as an adjective, Ligon Duncan refers to “Gospel men.”
Gospel men?
That’s a new one.
Sounds like a set of action figures for young boys to play with. Or, perhaps in the case of SGM, “inaction figures?”
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Through a glass darkly wrote:
Exactly. I’ve been wondering how SGM deals with Bible passages that speak of God’s heart for the oppressed and voiceless. And also what they do with verses that exhort Christians to “be subject to the governing authorities.” Perhaps a former SGM-er can shed some light on this? Apologies if it’s already been discussed–I’ve kept up with the articles but not the comments.
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@ Moniker:
The Wayback Machine in action…
http://web.archive.org/web/20110715001530/http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/07/a-word-about-cj-mahaney-and-so.php
Duncan writes:
“I would then encourage you to ignore the assaults of wounded people on attack websites and blogs, and that you discount the opinings of those who have no real knowledge of these matters or relation to SGM or authority to comment upon them, and that you refrain from assuming that you (or they) are in a position to render judgment on these things.”
Interesting how this man takes the opportunity to render judgement on “wounded people” and assumes the authority to “encourage” people to ignore them. Can you imagine the reception a wounded person would receive from him? If we discount the opinions of those with “no real knowledge of those matters” we are still left with volumes of testimony from those who do have real knowledge. These accounts are up there at the top of the page under the heading “Links To Personal Testimonies of Alleged SGM Child Abuse Cover-Ups”.
Now possibly Duncan had this removed because he has been given the title of Commenter and is now about to opine with authority?
Mr. Duncan,
I would then encourage you to pay attention to the assaulted and wounded people who have found safe places to share their stories of abuse at the hands of the church on websites and blogs, and that you discount the opinings of those men who hold themselves out to be leaders and Moderators and Convenors and Presidents and Senior Pastors who have no real knowledge of these accounts and who have dismissed those accounts as being from bitter, slanderous and unforgiving people; that you recognise your responsibility that comes from your relationship to SGM, to comment upon them, and to act from your assumed position to at least comfort and aid the victims, if not to actually render judgment on these things.
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dee wrote:
I wonder if there’s another element in a nicolaitanism among this group. They spend so much time pumping each other up and telling you, the peon in the pew, that you too must adulate these fellows that when their judgment fails like this, and worse, their judgment failure was exposed by the peons in the pews, there is a real problem in Nicolaitanville.
In short, it threatens their authority.
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These guys are arrogant to the very core. They are God’s right hand men so how dare the “little people” who have no clue of spiritual matters, call them into account.
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doubleplusungood ref doubleplusunevent.
doubleplusungood ref doubleplusunposting.
memhole.
LONG! LIVE! BIG! BROTHER!
(humbly, of course…)
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dee wrote:
I figure they were kissing something about two-three feet above The Humble One’s feet.
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SMG,
My hubby and I took our daughter out to dinner in Chapel Hill a few weeks ago, and you came to mind. I’ll give you one guess where we ate.
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Once again – where to start with these guys?
With the gift of hindsight after reading the amended lawsuit, I found this paragraph in the AP/WaPo article to be chilling:
The pastor told police that “normally the church would appeal to the person to stop his criminal behavior and then, should it not stop, they would alert people that the person is not acting in a Christian manner. The person would need to show contrition,” according to a police report filed in the case.
The pastor said that going to the police was in the “realm of possibilities,” but that he took his cues from the families, the police report says.
Appealing to the person to “stop his CRIMINAL behaviour”, eh? As opposed to GOING TO THE POLICE TO REPORT A CRIME?!
And the term “realm of possibilities” sounds so very, very flippant. As if reporting a CRIME to the authorities was just one of several options at hand. Knowing what we know (courtesy of the blogs) about SGM’s attitudes and teachings about the “civil authorities” this sounds like a big giant blow off.
I mean, really – contacting the authorities only merited being within the “realm of possibilities” as opposed to being the primary SANE, MORAL, CORRECT COURSE OF ACTION???
Who. The H*ll. Did these guys think they were/are?
And who do you think you are, Mr. Duncan, for remaining silent in the face of your now-discounted previous statements?
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Duncan: Reformed Neo-Calvinist Watch Words?: “ignore the assaults of wounded people…”
HowDee,
What?
These PDI/SGM ‘victims’ have every intention whatsoever of joining in the adjudicating of this case in the realm of the courtroom — a practice as ugly as it is unbiblical, you may say?
hmmm…
tell dat to da Judge!
“hell hath no fury…”
(grin)
hahahahaha
Sopy
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@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
HUG! OMG! I am such a visual person. You are killing me!
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Deb:
All I need to know is: were there onions in the chicken salad?
SMG
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Public outcry shifted the Penn State case to focus on the victims. That is what needs to happen in the church and for some reason, people look to their church leaders in how they respond. The church leaders have remained silent. The noise must come from people. I recently posted CJ’s speaking schedule and encouraged my blog readers to blow the horn on this nonsense by contacting people hosting the conferences. JeffB compiled all of the contact information and I sent it to Dee/Deb and it was included in their post here. Funny thing happened. Now SGM has removed CJ’s public speaking schedule from the SGM website. They are watching. They are not talking about it, but they are surely watching the blogs.
Yesterday I tweeted and linked @TGC (The Gospel Coalition) on a tweet. Someone responded directly to me asking what this was all about. I responded back with key links exposing the SGM/lawsuit/survivors. He had no clue. People are being kept in the dark because these key leaders remain silent. Twitter is an excellent public platform to get the word out. My lawsuit went viral in hours partly due to Twitter.
For those who may want to try Twitter, here are some helps:
You are only allotted something like 140 characters per tweet. When you RT (retweet), it will include the person you are communicating with. You might need to use texting lingo to shorten your words: U R going 2 have 2B Cre8tive 🙂
Be sure to include key names you are talking about so that they can see and all of their followers can see the tweet. Ie, when I’m talking about The Gospel Coalition remaining silent about abuse, I include The Gospel Coalition = @TGG in my tweet.
If you have a link you want to include, shorten it first by going here: http://tinyurl.com/ All you do is enter the long link and then click “makeTinyURL”. Copy this new shortened URL into your tweet. This will allow you to have more characters for your Twitter message.
BTW, Google also has an URL shortener. I’m not sure if you have to have a Google acct, but I prefer it over TinyURL because it keeps track of how many people click on your new shortened link. I find that interesting. http://goo.gl/
Follow and feel free to retweet our tweets: @Wartwatch (Dee)
@DefendTheSheep (Julie Anne)
Here are some names of people/groups who have remained silent:
@TGC (The Gospel Coalition)
@albertmohler
@MarkDever
@LigonDuncan
@rayortlund
@SovereignGrace
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SMG,
I ordered chicken but not chicken salad. The dinner was delicious!
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Julie Anne,
Great points about Twitter! I first saw the Washington Post link I included at the top of this thread on Facebook. That is a powerful tool as well.
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Julie Anne wrote:
And, of course, we mustn’t leave out @cjmahaney, Julie Anne!
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Rafiki wrote:
God’s Anointed Elect, of course. Predestined for Heaven since before the foundation of the world.
God’s Anointed Elect, of course. Amazing what you can get away with when you have a Get-Out-Of-Hell-Free card signed by God Himself.
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How did I forget CJ? I don’t on Twitter, you can be sure of that – haha 🙂
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Ok, I wanna know where y’all ate in Chapel Hill. In my day, the date place was the Rathskeller, known colloquially as The Rat, and what kind of idiots would eat at a place called The Rat? It was closed down for a time, presumably because of rodents et al — it is in the basement — but reopened at some point.
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“Does anyone else find it rather ‘odd’ that a Louisville newspaper was reporting on a ministry based in far away Maryland? …why is the Louisville rag… ”
Because of T4G. That is huge here and not from a spiritual view but from an economic view. Besides, Peter King is the “religion” reporter for the Courier Journal. Mohler is also well connected in this town outside the seminary. For a while he was on Metroversity council and obviously big cheese enough for his daughter to get a job working for one of our senators in DC.
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Oh, and pretty soon, Mohler will also be known here for bringing a group that coddles perverts to Louisville to “plant a church”.
That statement to a newspaper reporter about CJ showing his lack of wisdom and discernment and his all encompassing love for authority over others….was not real bright.
His brilliance for political tactics is waning. But then, they really start to believe they are above it all.
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SMG
You are a true Southerner!
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Rafiki
These guys think they are the true humble Christians and the rest of us are just heathens for questioning them.
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Nickname,
The Rathskellar was my favorite restaurant in Chapel Hill. I LOVED their lasagne! And they had a homemade French dressing they put on the salad. It was so good!!!
Sadly, it closed a few years ago and has never re-opened. I know some investors were trying to make a go of it, but building codes, etc. made re-opening it cost prohibitive. We have many happy memories there.
Another older establishment is where we ate. It’s called Breadman’s. Their food was great. I’ve been there twice now. Once with Dee and SMG and more recently with my husband and daughter.
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Statement by John Piper from last year-hooo boy.
One last thought. CJ Mahaney, a good friend and helper and encourager to me, has said, “Our self perception is as reliable as a carnival mirror.” This means that other people need to help you refine your self-perception. So in answer to this question, “What can we do in order to avoid self-promotion or bad influence?” one option would be to ask people, “How are we doing?
The answer is simple. You have got to be kidding.
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dee wrote:
Well, let’s not forget that we’re heathens because we are WOMEN questioning. We’re supposed to remain silent, ya know.
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The thing we should be delighted over is the fact these guys make it very clear who they are. They make it obvious who they really are in their statements about Mahaney. That should cheer us. They are bonafide arrogant wolves.
We know they are Nicolaitans as they have told us with their words in the PUBLIC responses. What should worry us are the 6000 young men with minds full of adoring mush who hang on their every word at T4G and more from SBTS, etc. We wonder where all these arrogant young pastors are coming from? Look to their leaders they emulate. And they go out and actually work in churches!! Now, if that is not scary, I do not know what is. Think of the thousands of these young guys out there with their perceived godly gospel power “ministering” and ‘caring’ for people. Gives me chills!!!
We have parsed Mohler’s statement before but lets analyze Duncan’s…..(by the way, I do wonder if the Presbyterian heirarchy ecclesiastical court is calling him to account over this? I doubt it. They probably like the T4G publicity)
First of all, my guess based upon being around celebrity pastors, is that someone had to tell him his statement was bad PR and needs to go. I doubt he could see it. To him, it was “truth” and he is an authority figure who God speaks through. Never forget this is how they see themselves. AFter all, the determinist God put them there. Every event controlled.
Duncan wrote the Ref 21 response after SGM refuge, SGM survivors had been up for several years. At least 4 years? The stories were there and how SGM handled CRIMINAL behavior. And it was systemic. Not just one SGM church. And over years so we know it was not only a pattern but also the response was taught and ingrained in several ways from teaching fear of government to only the church can handle this.
My point is Duncan chose to be willfully ignorant before he wrote this concerning Mahaney. Does not say much for his wisdom to teach others, does it?
We have the old celebrity dance going on. Mahaney probably reassured them the stories were false and they believed him IF it was discussed at all in any way. Usually these things are ‘touched’ on but briefly with their celeb colleagues. They never checked it or chose not to. (I am speaking purely from a PR/Image angle here because they are Nicolaitans so why bother with the spiritual? Read Jude)
So now what to do? They have promoted CJ, blurbed his books (cannot take print back!!!), shared stages, defended him publicly (Duncan was smart for not talking to reporters…Mohler, not so much) so what can they do? They are stuck. Mahaney is in Louisville NOW and even had the nerve to promote Mohler’s last book all over the place. He won’t go away! We got them out of CAL, though!
Some of Mahaney’s entourage have been given jobs at SBTS to help with tuition to finally educate some like Mahaney’s son in law. I mean it goes on and on. They are in deep together. Yet Mohler is silent. And the big clue this is not playing well is that Duncan removed his defense of Mahaney on Ref 21. That is a HUGE clue they are quietly distancing. Not overtly but quietly. Pretend he is not there but don’t draw attention to him.
Dever is probably the most protected of any of them. He has his own church and is the authority there, holding the keys to the kingdom that told him to open his arms to CJ who broke his own rules!. Mohler is an employee of an SBTS entity and Duncan has ecclesiastical courts to consider, no church autonomy UNLESS he is like Sproul who made everyone think he was in the Presbyterian structure but wasn’t when it came time to turn him over to the ecc courts after his financial scandal. Perhaps Duncan has his own deal? .
So what to do when it comes to the “image/brand/PR” game. They will do anything to change the subject. You might see something like, ‘we don’t abandon brothers in need’ stance because of T4G and to make them look like martyrs.
But Mahaney does not have much to bring the to the big cheese gravitas table, either. He is losing churches like crazy for the SGM brand. That was his leverage with Mohler.
So Mahaney is still around just not being ‘publicly’ promoted by them. He will still speak on stages but he won’t be made a big deal of beforehand. The young minds full of mush will think he is ok because Mohler still has him around. The SBTS trustees are yes men and will defend Mohler who does no wrong ever.
What Mohler has to worry about are more and more churches/associations are designating money away from SBTS. Slow now but could gain momentum because he is doing nothing but churning out young arrogant popes and his lack of discernment over Mahaney (before that Acts 29) is catching up with him.
I sure do plan to spread the word! These guys are not qualified. They have made merchandise of people for their own gain using Jesus as a marketing tool on their way to making their own names great. They are what is sooooo wrong with what passes for Christendom.
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Piper:”One last thought. CJ Mahaney, a good friend and helper and encourager to me, has said, “Our self perception is as reliable as a carnival mirror.” This means that other people need to help you refine your self-perception. So in answer to this question, “What can we do in order to avoid self-promotion or bad influence?” one option would be to ask people, “How are we doing?”
Dee, this is why folks should NOT be learning from these hirlings/wolves. What on earth does Piper do with the Holy Spirit?
My self perception….how I see myself is in relation to Christ great love for me. I can be destitute, disfigured, whatever, and my self perception should come from Christ if I am abiding in Him.
They WANT people to look to others for such things instead of Christ. They do this with marriage roles, church structure, etc. It is a way to teach folks to depend on other humans INSTEAD of being led by the Holy Spirit.
It is soooo sicko. Piper is a false teacher big time but he is so subtle most miss it. And many will say I misread him. We do not misread people who make their living being public communicators. We should analyze their teaching.
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Anon 1,
Great commentary!
Eagle,
The title of the post and first few lines are still there. Just search Ligon Duncan’s blog posts on the Reformation 21 website, and you can see for yourself. If it had been moved somewhere else, I doubt there would be ANY evidence remaining.
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Here you can see exactly what Duncan’s article looked like before it “mysteriously” vanished.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120622070447/http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2011/07/a-word-about-cj-mahaney-and-so.php
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It’s is amazing how these guys slobber over each other and believe each others words as if it was God’s words.
” Don’t pay attention to the men behind the curtin, the god’s have spoken.”
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@ Deb:
I would be cautious about this upcoming interview, because the Paterno family reacted very intensely (in a bad way) to the way he was cited in Sandusky’s trial and in the independent investigation into the PSU athletic dept. and administration (the one PSU paid for, not the grand jury investigation, which is still ongoing).
The Paterno family said that they were hiring their own investigators in order to clear Joe Paterno’s name.
And I think that’s what she’ll be talking about. (No surprises here; Jay Paterno – as spokesman for the Paterno family prior to their attorney and PR person telling them not to talk with the press anymore – was pretty belligerent in denying that his father had done anything wrong.)
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@ Moniker: Site owners can ask that the Internet Archive *not* provide access to older versions of their sites.
If they were thinking clearly, they’ve already done that…
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Eagle
There is something off on the rankings. Rachel Held Evan’s blog is far more widely read than jsut about all of them yet she comes in at 24 or so.
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Anon 1 wrote:
Yes, yes, yes, this is of great concern to me!
Yesterday, I don't know what came over me, but I actually watched a little bit of a video of CJ Mahaney speaking at the 20/20 Collegiate Conference which was held at SEBTS last weekend. Here's a link:
http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/sgm/post/CJ-Mahaney-at-2020-Collegiate-Conference-Video.aspx
It is definitely vomit worthy. He is so out of touch with reality that it isn't even funny. I skipped through most of it, because I don't have much of a stomach for Mahaney, but at around 49:30 in the first video, he starts talking about the "privilege" he had of "hanging out" with a lot of "really, really, really, really smart and gifted people". And of course he names them all: Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Lig Duncan, Kevin DeYoung, John Piper, Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler, David Platt. He reiterates that he got to spend three days with them. Then he starts waving his hands and lowers his voice in an awed whisper: "Three days…privileged to be in the room overhearing them talk…have no idea why I'm there…(audience laughter) These guys are world class…scary gifted (more laughter)" and on and on ad nauseam.
Then the usual self-deprecation ensues: "I'm just watching and here's the only way I comfort myself – I just at times think 'I am the best athlete in this room right now.' (laughter)…That's my go-to move when I'm about to be crushed under the weight of despair as I observe their world-class gifting in every area (more wild flailing of arms and hands and laughter from the audience). I rescue myself from despair and discouragement by reminding myself that I. AM. BY. FAR. the best athlete in the room."
And he continues to emphasize in his own CJish way what inferior athletes they are and what a great athlete he is. It is so, so obvious what CJ is doing – trying to make himself look great in the eyes of his audience by association with the T4G guys. His faux humility in saying that he serves them is by being the athlete clown foil to their amazing intellects and giftings is sickening to me. I guess it makes me so ill because I’ve seen it so many times, and because I totally bought into it in years past. It’s like he is using some kind of magic to sucker those unsuspecting people in.
I told my husband that this is how I felt when I was watching CJ in that video – Imagine that I find out that my husband, who I always thought was very charming and wonderful, is really a horrible unfaithful creep , and I divorce him. I am crushed. Then I observe him interacting with another woman, doing all the same things with her that he did to win my heart. He’s winning her over in exactly the same way, and she has no idea what he is really like. It’s driving me nuts. I want to warn her, “No, he’s not what you think he is!” But she doesn’t listen and she’s so charmed by his ways that she falls into his clutches, just like I did.
That’s how I look at these young people, being taken in by the likes of CJ Mahaney and the rest of them. It is scary. They need to be warned. They might not all listen, but some may. We need to try.
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I’m going to purge my home library of all the books by these “council” people. Is it any wonder why I am so suspicious of “authority”?
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Here’s Kent Shaffer’s Top 200 Church Blogs page, which explains how the rankings are computed. iMonk listed the Top 50.
http://churchrelevance.com/resources/top-church-blogs/
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“he is so out of touch with reality”
LoL, typical of pathologicals. They live in their own warped world.
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@ VelvetVoice:
I did this last summer. I spent 18 years in Hotel MacArthurville, so there was a lot to pitch. It was deliciously cathartic. Enjoy! 🙂
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Numo, totally agree about Paterno interview warning. I fear we are going to see some post humus image rehab. The really sad thing is that it usually works.
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@ Anon 1:
I need to give the gentlest of admonishments to whomever called the C-J a “rag.” 🙂
I am a huge HUGE horse racing fan and I rely on the C-J for my handicapping as well as columnists in the all-critical annual lead up to the Derby! 🙂
And in all seriousness to the topic at hand, I have to give kudos to their religion reporter for keeping on this story. I’ve been surprised at the WaPo’s fairly light coverage, actually.
Finally on the press – I did notice that today’s WaPo local article linked earlier in this thread was AP – this is really positive that many local publications may pick up the AP story nationwide.
The aggregate effect of social media on exposing SGM is awesome, of course, but one can’t forget that newspaper audiences skew to an older demographic – the same older demographic who make up the bulk of evangelicals in this country as well as the bulk of the tithers. So it’s really good that the AP is covering CLC.
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@ Sergius Martin-George:
…or the prize in a box of Gospel Puffs.
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numo,
You are probably right about Joe Paterno’s widow. She’ll defend Joe Pa til the say she dies… Just like some who defend CJ.
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Their tactics remind me of the old communist era of the Soviet Union. Remove any record of the person or your connection to them and all is rosy. These men are scandalous to say the least.
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Jenny and VenvetVoice,
I have been wanting to get rid of my John MacArthur books. I used to respect him, but when he shared the stage with CJ at EVERY SINGLE RESOLVED CONFERENCE, I just can’t bear to keep them.
Here’s my problem. Should I donate them to a Christian Library association that provides books to prisoners or have a book burning?
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Julie Anne,
Thank you for that important link. I have created a hyperlink in the post. 🙂
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@ Deb: Yes, I’m sure she will.
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Deb, ha,ha, I just went through mine (even had one of his Bibles) and trashed them all. I had books of other “Christian authors” I trashed too. It made me think how much I have contributed to their extravagant lifestyles by buying these books. They never did add anything to my life.
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@ Deb:
I vote for burning. I agonized over that same issue, because I really do love books. But, out of concern for the souls of anyone who might get ahold of them if I donated them, I decided on a book burning in my firepit. Every CJ and SGM book went up in flames, along with Owen’s Sin & Temptation, a few CBMW titles, and some Piper thrown in, too. It was wonderfully therapeutic. I think I’ll be holding another book burning soon. Anyone want to join me?
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Another vote for burning instead of donating.
I am thinking of all the books I have in storage, including a lot of the RBDs including Piper, in the U.S. and am itching to toss many of them in the trash. Like Moniker, I don’t want to be responsible for passing them along to anyone.
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@ Deb:
I was tempted to use my purged books as fuel to roast our summer marshmallows, but I donated them to a local charity shop instead.
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Deb: I had a pile of crazy books (Gothard, weird Christian parenting gurus, Vision Forum, etc), and although I’d like to burn them, I decided to keep them for blog fodder.
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I hope all you book burning advocates have seen the movie Luther. 🙂
If not, go and watch it! It’s right up your alley…
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Julie Anne,
I have two of Mahaney’s books – True Humility and the Cross-Centered Life.
I bought the latter at LifeWay before I even knew who C.J. was (in 2006). Why did I buy it? Because Al Mohler recommended it in the Foreward.
Dee and I received a copy of the Humility book when we visited SGC Apex.
I’m keeping them for blog fodder as well. Who knows, maybe I’ll do a more in depth book review for each of them.
A certain pastor in our area continues to feature them on his “Recommended Reading” list. He also recommends Ezzo’s book. 🙁
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Check with your local waste management companies. Some books can go into the recycle bin. That way, in the future some of those discarded books may turn into toilet tissue or paper towels. I believe in recycling.
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Eagle,
I only have one John Piper paperback, and I received it free at my former church. One of the elders REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted Piper to come and pastor the church plant in Raleigh. That was back in 2004, and I didn’t know much about Piper then…
Glad I didn’t ‘waste my life’ reading his books.
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Victorious,
Great comment! I will definitely check.
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Mine have been hidden under furniture, as I have no intention of letting the covers even be seen by unsuspecting others. I will put them in a paper recycle bin as soon as I have the opportunity.
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Eagle, did you copy them for the deleted comments?
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“I need to give the gentlest of admonishments to whomever called the C-J a “rag.”
I am a huge HUGE horse racing fan and I rely on the C-J for my handicapping as well as columnists in the all-critical annual lead up to the Derby!
”
Hee Hee. I would never call it a “rag” evenso. It’s mysterious history is interesting though. Marry a rich widow (Henry Flaglers widow–richest woman in America at the time), she dies mysteriously a year later and Robert Bingham snaps it up making his descendents very wealthy until the 1980’s family feud when it was sold to Gannet.
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…these professional christians…. why oh why do they trade in being a normal human being for this goofy version? One that runs normal human responses through this religious grid of alien-social-structure-on-principle and out comes something arrogant, devoid of empathy, with a skewed sense of right & wrong, and surely odd and unnatural.
They’ve gone right peculiar, isolating themselves to their peer group, breathing oxygen-poor exhales from each other. Cast aways on their own private island.
If they are lucky enough to get off, how possible is it that their brains will recover?
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elastigirl wrote:
On his blog, Christian Monist traces it to an early influx of “Platonic Dualism” or “Gnostic Dualism”, where Spiritual and Physical are completely separate and the Spiritual is vastly superior to the Physical. Among other side effects, this removes any reality check from the Uber-Spiritual.
An Islamic version of this originated with a Mohammed abu-Hamid al-Ghazali roughly contemporary with St Thomas Aquinas. Both were presented with the problem of how to reconcile Divine Revelation with human reason (represented by Aristotle and Greek Logic). The two contemporaries came to opposite conclusions; Aquinas maintained that Reason and Faith were compatible and human wisdom was a subset of divine truth; al-Ghazali concluded that Reason and Faith were not only separate but completely incompatible and that Faith Faith Faith must prevail.
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Anon 1- 2/5 1:10PM:
I thought John Piper IS the Holy Spirit?!? Please!? How dare you!!!
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Not so sure I can get into book burning. When books are burned, human beings are usually not far behind. Whether it’s the old medieval pyres or the smokestacks of Auschwitz, book burning is not a good thing.
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Not all Islamic scholars of the medieval period believed this. The Muslim scholars of Al-Andalus were very open to dialogue with their Jewish and Catholic contemporaries. That is until the Inquisition took over.
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@ Muff Potter:
Can we send all those lovely books to you then, Muff?? 🙂 🙂 Huh? Huh? Can we? Can we? Pretty please with a cherry on top?
(You know I’m joking, right?)
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Absolutely Bridget! They’ll go into a museum of sorts after they’ve been digitized for easy retrieval so that all can peruse them. One of my favorites is a piece on the evils of masturbation, written by a fundamentalist pastor who is obsessed with all things sexual. A close second is the one published by the reverend Billy James Hargis (circa 1962?) on how the Bible strictly forbids mixing of the races.
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I don’t care for book-burning either; but I’ve faced the same dilemma during some of my book purges. So I was thinking of some ways to use the books creatively:
1. Shred the pages and use them for shipping. 2. Shred the pages and compost them. 3. Shred the pages and grow earthworms in them. 4. Shred the pages and use them as cat litter or as cage lining for gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters. 5.Use the pages as layers for lasagna gardening. 5. Shred the paper and use it to make paper logs for a woodburner. 7.Shred the paper and use it to make paper with the kids. 9. Shred and use to make a gift basket (like Easter grass.)8. Shred and use for crafts — google it — you can find craft uses for everything!9. There are also lots of ways to remake actual books. If you don’t do crafts someone does. 10. Make a step for step aerobics or a yoga block. 12. Make a book safe. Cover the unacceptable title with something that would infuriate the author:)13. Make a kneeling pad for gardening. 14. Do origami with the pages. I’m having fun with this but I’ll stop now. Another of my deeply held convictions. Nothing is wasted in God’s economy.
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Hey Bridget,
Ya know I’m just BS’n right? Hee Haw (Muff’s a jackass)
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CJ Mahaney has blocked me from following him on Twitter. lol
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RE the books: I tossed all my SGM books. Most of them I had never read anyway. Never owned the humility book. When they announced that CJ had written a book on humility, honestly, I laughed out loud right there in the meeTing, and that was before any of this awful backstory came to light. I had seen him prance around on stage enough times to know he was one of the least humble people I’d ever seen anywhere. Why not just come out and admit it?
He really ought to have become a stand-up comic — he could’ve applied his schtick where people could laugh without thinking of him as some spiritual guru and being spiritually damaged in the process. His humor is sometimes entertaining, but it always feels out of place. Kind of like the singers who turn a worship song into something sensual, but if you didn’t understand the words, you’d think they were lying atop a grand piano in a sequined dress with a slit up the side.
But I am reminded of an old saying, can’t remember who originated it, “Truth is still truth, even in a thief’s pocket.” But who wants to read a book with their truth meter in high gear? Sure, we should read everything that way to a degree, but when you’re reading something by someone you don’t completely trust, it’s a lot of work to figure out what to keep and what to toss.
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@ Julie Anne:
Lucky you!!
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Eagle, Eagle, Eagle. your comment was right on and went right to the heart of the matter about Dever’s hypocrisy……. but will be deleted because of the female dog reference. Those dogs just do not hunt in those circles.
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Julie Anne, consider it a badge of honor. Those ‘real men’ are just scardey-cats!
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@ Muff Potter: Yes, this is an oversimplificaton. (HUG, my apologies, but all the same…)
There *is* a Neo-Platonist influence on much medieval Islamic philosophy and thought, but Neo-Platonism isn’t the same thing as Plato, and it’s not all bad, either…though most definitely mystical. Neo-Platonism had a great deal of influence on medieval and Renaissance-era Western thought and theology as well.
Again, though, note the “Neo.”
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@ Muff Potter:
Yes I do (and no he ain’t). But shux. I thought you was provid’n a guilt free opp to get rid of them pesky books.
The shredding idea does sound nice. At the moment, though, I can’t bear to go through the bookshelves and see how much damage is there 🙁
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Phoenix,
The shredding idea does sound interesting!
Yesterday afternoon as I was running errands I heard a countdown of hits from 1976. Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover was #1, and I immediately thought of Dr. Jon’s post which concluded with the idea that there must be 50 ways to leave your church.
Now I am contemplating 50 ways to rid myself of offensive books. I especially liked the shredded paper/earthworms suggestion. That seems like an eco-friendly solution 🙂 and I’m NOT a tree hugger!
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Off-topic, but relevant to the upcoming posts on singles and the church. Someone on my Facebook posted this quote:
“Dating with no intent to marry is like going to the grocery store with no money. You either leave unhappy or take something that isn’t yours.”
It’s from Jefferson Bethke, who I’d never heard of, but looked him up and he’s from Mars Hill. He’s also the guy behind last year’s ‘why i hate religion, but love Jesus’ video (as an aside, I wish I could find the excellent critique of that video that I read, but can’t remember where I came across it).
The only comment made on my friend’s post was ‘this guy who wrote this is obviously not single’. I had a quick look to find out more about him, and yep, he’s very young (22) and married. It’s wonderful that he’s found his wife, but the dating’s bad! attitude, especially coming from someone married at such a young age, just makes me roll my eyes.
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Eagle,
You were really on a roll last night.
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Pam,
Kevin DeYoung took Bethke to task over his video.
http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2012/01/13/does-jesus-hate-religion-kinda-sorta-not-really/
We also did a post on it – http://thewartburgwatch.com/2012/01/23/why-i-hate-religion-goes-viral/
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Deb,
I hadn’t read your post on the video – it was a bit before I started reading here, I think.
The critique of Bethke’s video I read was from an Orthodox writer. A Greek Orthodox friend of mine posted it, but I don’t remember any more than that. Other than it was a really good critique.
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@Julie Anne at 1040 pm
Now that makes me feel good because I was blocked, too, and I’m honored to be in your company! 🙂 I think I might work on getting blocked by some more geldings. Some of them might prove they actually own a pair and dialogue with me!
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The major problem having some of these fruitcake books is that unconfortible moment when somebody is in your house (someone that just recently met you and doesn’t know about this past life stuff) and they are looking over the contents of your bookshelf and they really deserve an explanation. That is the rare moment a book gets boxed up with its friends and sent to the basement and perhaps dejunked or perhaps they are still languishing down there. This coming from a person that loves books, anthropomorphises them and thinks the worst fate to befall a book is to have never been read.
Whoever said the women filing the lawsuit have bigger gonads than these calvinistas is spot on. Between CJ’s spouting on ad tedium about his sports and driscoli giving the reader tmi about his fruit (very feminine thing) methinks they’re compensating,
It will be very interesting to see how well they respect the legal system that includes a female judge as well as female lawyers.
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The funny thing is that blocking someone does not prevent them from viewing your tweets or mentioning you. It only removes them from your followers list and prevents them from contacting you directly. That’s why Twitter is awesome. Keep on tweeting, peeps!
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Moniker,
Great point! I don’t have a personal Twitter account, but I do check in from time to time to see what certain individuals are saying on theirs. Then it sometimes gets mentioned here where the discussion is not censored (except for violations of TWW guidelines).
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@ Anon 1:
I still don’t understand why educated men like Mohler, LIgon, etc., are so rah rah about Mahaney, a college dropout. A young man who apparently who so teachable that when an older pastor who mentored him recommended for him to attend seminary, he ignored that. When you look at these other men’s resumes, they are educated, have researched, published. I know there is a payoff for them to hang with the Ceej, but I just don’t get what it is. If they think he is bringing new life into their work, they are wrong. I left CLC because his sermons really didn’t have any substantial content. What gives?????
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Julie Anne
We should come up with some sort of code that one can use in these circumstances. We could publish a list, available upon request, the cde breaker. For example “You are so gospel sensitive.” In code it could mean “baloney.”Totally mess them up.
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Nickname
Great comment!
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Eliazabeth
I believe they thought CJ was successful in church planting and they are desperately trying to increase the numbers of churches. However, they do not understand that SGM is not the powerhouse they imagine. I think they thought all churches were the size of CLC.
They now have a problem. SGM is losing churches and Cj and best buddies are in a heap of trouble. They have signed on with a guy who is going to bite them back. There is a reason for their silence. They do not know what to do. Imagine.They claim to be against child sexual abuse and they are in bed with a man who created a climate that led to this lawsuit.Oh yeah, he’ll plant a church but they have been naive as to what sort of church he was planting.
Welcome to TWW,BTW.
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Pam
Bethke sounded like a rebel. He is not. he is just another ho-hum Calvinista type.
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Debra
When this trial begins, old Dee and Deb will need to pay a visit and become spectators. Seeing CJ questioned by a female lawyer and being told to “answer the question” by a female judge will be priceless.
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“Glory Daze: Setting Da Barbecue Victims Free?”
Elizabeth Seton,
HowDee,
Not so sure as to understanding the root of the popularity of the proverbial dumb-dumb,
dummer&bummer sermonizing C.J. Mahaney, wit hiz calvinesta mob boss barbecue buddies?
“What gives?” U sayz…
hmmm…
In a word: $$$
Still don’t understand?
take da $$$ away,
and ‘poof’ …
no Baloney.
-snicker-
lookz like da calvinesta mob bosses are gonna hafta get anodder proverbial stooge, seeing da barbie is getting a little cold. -snark-
which way did he go,
which way did he go,
which way did he go,
which way did he go,
which way did he go,
(grin)
hahhahaha!
S“㋡”py
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Elizabeth,
Elizabeth,
I agree with what Dee said but to give a bit of history will help to understand why someone like Mohler would align himself with an “Apostle from the People of Destiny”. The big push for the last 15 years or so has been to build the Reformed brand at SBTS and the SBC.
Calvinism does not go over well covertly in the SBC. (30 years ago Ernest Reisinger wrote a book called Quiet Revolution on how to take SBC churches Calvinist, covertly. There is also a wing of the SBC called “Founders” who promote going back to our founding roots of Calvinism. Problem is, most of the leaders were slave owning Calvinists. Read Broaddus’ bio of Boyce for a real eye opener)
The strategy was not only to train up an army of young Calvinists (The YRR) pastors/leaders but to build up a real force of YRR outside the SBC for “partnerships” in ministry and to show a major change…sort of overwhelm. Numbers bring power in evangelicalism. That is why they embraced guys like Driscoll and Mahaney. The problems with Driscoll have been obvious for a long time but so many YRR would defend him by saying, ‘He preaches the Gospel” as if his correct reformed leaning doctrine overruled all his vulgar bizarre teaching. The same with Mahaney. He had the right doctrine for the club and even brought in a form of Charismata for the Grudem wing of Reformed…… and he brought with him a “family of churches”….and was thought to be an international church planter.
Mohler worked hard and was able to place many of his loyal Lt’s in SBC entities like NAMB where money has flowed to plant reformed churches only. Of course NAMB was giving money to start Acts 29 churches, too.
Then some of the “greats” started to become embarrassing like Driscoll. Driscoll has always been a loose cannon but he could not be ignored by the YRR leaders as too many YRR and even non YRR loved him so they had to be careful.
Now, one more thing, the YRR world has been incredibly profitable with conferences, books, etc. It is like they have their own built in PR machine and loyal fan base. T4G is incredibly profitable.
When you view this from that lens of history you can see why they (Mohler, Dever, etc) would go to a lot of trouble to defend Mahaney early on. Part of their doctrine is about strong authority over their followers. They liked what they thought Mahaney had in the way of total control.
The empire is crumbling from many directions. Not only from the Driscoll/Mahaney stuff but also from within the SBC where more people are waking up and saying out loud: We don’t like these brash arrogant young pastors coming out of SBTS and SEBTS. (That is why they started church planting as the churches were catching on because the YRR guys are not honest about their Calvinism…it was more of a jobs program for these grads to be in control of a church)
Mohler was building a brand where he would be pope. That is why he overlooked the fact that Mahaney was quite serious at one time about being an “Apostle” in the “People of Destiny” which reeks of “cult”. Mahaney rebranded, got rid of the prophecy mic and other weird manifestations and became SGM. Mahaney is a marketer. Sort of like PT Barnam using Jesus. Driscoll is a Christianized version of Lenny Bruce the angry stand up comic.
One thing we know is that we have thousands of young men out there “shepherding” people who are mean, arrogant, inexperienced know it all’s. The next 20-40 years are going to be very interesting in viewing the damage done by Mohler and his followers.
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Much as I’m with everyone on hating book burning, I do think there are books that need to be humanely euthanised so they can’t infect other people’s minds…after doing away with Grundem’s Systematic Theology I feel liberated in this regard. I would think shredding & putting in the wormery is a great idea, the worms can’t read, they’ll turn them into good nutritious sh*t to the Glory of God, & they can finally do someone some good. Seems like a winner to me!
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elizabeth seton,
Thanks for your comment. You may not realize it, but I believe your statement sheds some light on the attraction to Mahaney.
You said: “I know there is a payoff for them to hang with the Ceej, but I just don’t get what it is.”
I believe “payoff’ is the operative word.
My theory is that C.J. was the mastermind behind Together for the Gospel. He had spent decades organizing conferences and ‘celebrations’ in his network of churches. I believe he brought that knowledge to Mark Dever, Al Mohler, and Ligon Duncan and helped them organize a bi-annual event to influence a young crowd of pastors and wannabes.
Make no mistake. These conferences are HUGE money-makers. It’s not that much different that how AMWAY operates. The kingpins in that business make most of their money holding these mega-events and influencing those who attend. It really boils down to hero worship which materializes into $$S. It reminds me of the moneychangers in the temple.
Again, this is my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I don’t think so…
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Beakerj,
Yours is the comment of day, week, and year as far as I’m concerned. 🙂
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@ Beakerj:
God bless you for this post. 🙂 Hilarious. Bonus points for the use of “humane euthanasia” and “wormery” in the same paragraph.
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Anon 1, thanks for the eye opener! I wondered how the alliances had come about. Is SBC Reformed Baptist? If so, do you know why not all Reformed Baptist churches align themselves with SBC?
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@ Beakerj:
Yes, the slow, marching on of the infection is what bothers me most!
Worm doo doo would be great for the plants!
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Once I heard cj say he doesn’t like to talk about clc to outside pastors because they get jealous. They want what he has. And that is control over the people. It seems like that’s what Al Mohler wants. Control over their own little kingdoms. I think most older sbc members won’t go along with this. I grew up on the sbc and I remember people saying no ones going to tell me what to do.
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turtle
Could you find a reference to that quote by CJ? I have heard it before. I am compiling a list of bizarre quotes by CJ and his support group (Piper, Mohler, etc). I am planning a post called CJ-Did I Stutter?
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Anon 1 wrote:
Die Calvinjugend…
…und die Sturmabteilung.
Given how their founder Calvin ran Geneva, this is very much in-character. Especially if they’re trying to be more Calvinist than Calvin.
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BeakerJ
Humanely euthanized? I will laugh all day.
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Anon1
I am planning a post on “warning signs” that your church is going to go over to the authoritarian dark side via Calvinista proponents. I am trying to put together a number of emails and my own experience. It will be a doozy.
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@ Moniker:
That is true, Moniker. What’s funny is I had no idea that CJ had blocked me – partly because I so frequently see people quoting him and also because I so frequently tag him 🙂
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Pam wrote:
Ever notice the ones who KNOW the Mind of God (have Him on speed-dial) regarding YOU being single and In Sin (and must accept that you will always be alone) are always married at 18 and Quiverfull by 21?
“I Got Mine… I Got Mine… Sucks to be You…”
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Eagle wrote:
Don’t forget the other end of the alimentary canal…
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@ dee:
Thank you, Dee! God bless you!
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Muff Potter wrote:
And without them as damper rods, al-Ghazali’s theology became dominant. And we’re still seeing the fallout (including 9/11).
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“100 Acre Wood: Anthropomorphic Outerlimits, Redickulus?”
HowDee,
blink-blink
Did somebuddy sayz books?
hmmm…
Howaboutz air conditioning & terrabite storage devices, N’ hot pocketz…
Er? I’m happy.
…now if I juz had a bit mo “graymadder”!
-snicker-
“in da last dayz many will go to and frow, and knowledge shall increase…”
well, whatayouknow?
‘Pop!’
I’ze graymadder, there4, I am?
(give me enough broccoli, n’ I’ll gas the world!)
(snort)
Seriously folks, Wartburg places a emphasis on knowledge AND responsibility. The Apostle Paul indeed informed Timothy about the character of what he called da scriptural last dayz.
…you must also realize that these dayz, the times can full of hidden danger.
(There is more than just a proverbial lion in da street!)
Some people today have become utterly self-centred, greedy for money, full of big words.
No Duh!
They are proud and contemptuous, without regard for da good dat their parents taught dem?
They are utterly lacking in gratitude, purity and normal human affections?
They are individuals of unscrupulous speech and have no control of themselves?
They are passionate and unprincipled, treacherous, self-willed and conceited, loving all the time what gives them pleasure instead of loving God?
They maintain a facade of “religion”, but their conduct will deny its validity?
huh?
You must keep clear of people like this.
For from their number come those vile creatures who worm their way into people’s lives, and find easy prey.
Will these people ever grasp the truth?
hmmm…
Such individuals are as much enemies to da truth as some of doze folk talked about in da bible were to Ole’ Moses. Their minds tend towards distortion, and they are give every appearance of being traitors to da faith.
What faith?
But in the long run they won’t too get far.
huh?
Their folly will become as obvious to everybuddy as did dat of Ole’ Moses’ opponents.
(Oh! Judge Judy!)
Whew!
Ahem! Your knowledge of the truth should be your safeguard.
The scriptures can teach you how ta live. [take a peek]
Let godly purpose and faith not be ‘alien’ to you. Endure with love and patience as you may meet with various persecutions and difficulties, in various places in your life.
“Evil Happens”
(sadface)
…yet, know how da Lord, He can bring you safely through them all.
Persecution is inevitable for those who are determined to really, really, live Christian lives, while wicked and deceitful pastoral men will go from bad to worse, deluding others and deluding themselves, and barbecuing many an unsuspecting soul!
“In da belly of da tiger datz risin’ up to da challenge: …so many victims, so little time?”
(Don’t beeeeee one of them unsuspecting souls!)
Remain steady and stedfast yet, in all those things that you have learned and which you know are true. Seek peace, pursue da truth! Consider from what sort of people your knowledge has come from. Throw out da trash! Plaster da rest on billboards!
Ensure dat your mind has been familiarized with da holy scriptures, which can surely open your mind to the salvation which comes through believing in Jesus.
Yahoooo!
For real, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching da faith and correcting error, for re-setting the direction of a person’s life and training them in good living. The scriptures are also the comprehensive equipment of the person of God and sincerely fit them fully for all branches of His great work.
On guard, Slewfoot! Go nurse your bruised head somewerez else…
Praise U Jesus!
(grin)
hahahahahaha
Sopy
S“㋡”py
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‘ Is SBC Reformed Baptist?”
That depends on who you are talking to. :o)
Al Mohler has said we are Calvinists but don’t know it.
The joke here is that SBTS is the largest Presbyterian seminary in town. See, another Presbyterian seminary is across the street from SBTS.
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“am planning a post on “warning signs” that your church is going to go over to the authoritarian dark side via Calvinista proponents. I am trying to put together a number of emails and my own experience. It will be a doozy.”
I am looking forward to that one. I often beg my pastor to never retire. The pickins in my neck of the woods are getting slimmer by the hour. He said he would go down with the ship trying to keep congregational polity.
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@ Anon 1:
I found this article from Lumpkins 3 years ago, where he *nominates* Mahaney for president of the SBC. http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2010/02/the-next-president-of-the-southern-baptist-convention-by-peter-lumpkins.html#more
One paragraph, “My own guess is, Kevin Ezell met Mahaney through his church member, Al Mohler, who probably was excited to introduce him to Dr. Ezell due to Mahaney’s superfluous support of Southern Baptist work via Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Whatever took place, the magic happened and Mahaney got an invitation to address convention attendees”
THE MAHANEY MAJICK!
He ends his *nomination* in fine print, “* Yes. I am still kidding around. No way will C.J. Mahaney become president…yet…”
Commenters even then were incensed over Peter’s Mockery of the MAJICK.
Personally, I’ve never been Southern nor Baptist, but maybe if I were REALLY generous to SBTS, miracles could happen for me?
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Link: http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2010/02/the-next-president-of-the-southern-baptist-convention-by-peter-lumpkins.html#more
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Dave A A wrote:
Personally, I’ve never been Southern nor Baptist, but maybe if I were REALLY generous to SBTS, miracles could happen for me?
I can hear the bitter, slanderous gossipers already, “But Mr ‘Postle Dave– you’re not a Baptist!”
My answer, “That’s PRESIDENT Mr ‘Postle Dave to you, pewsitter!”
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@ dee: Dee/Deb, When you have time, check your email…
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Trina wrote:
You have no idea. 🙂
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Anon 1 wrote:
Well, if our humble Blog Queens don’t get the SBC’s attention, perhaps the emerging political scene will. The “nones” are now swelling in numbers, and often vote at odds with the agenda of the new SBC ideals.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/09/nones-religion-pew-study/1618607/
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@ GuyBehindtheCurtain: Ha! I know. I know. I just had to, though. I put $5 in the tip jar though. 🙂
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Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
You’re right HUG. Once your humanity is stripped away and you can no longer hear the tiny divine voice within, you will agree to just about anything in order to enforce ideological purity and get rid of the infidel. Things you’d never agree to otherwise, like horrific torture and grisly executions, become accepted and commonplace.
John Adams had this to say in a letter to Jefferson in 1817:
“…Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical strifes in Maryland Pensilvania, New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these people cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.! If they could they would…”
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@ Eagle:
Naw, it’s imaginary. But I figured I’d put in an imaginary $5 because if you aint first, you’re last!
Yes, I’d only join the BOTM club if they have some Hefe’s and really dark brews similar to Guiness. They are my faves. I do a Belgian Lambic when I’m feeling feminine and extra girly. With a tolerance like mine, I could drink Frisky Drisky under the table and then beat him up MMA style. My first move might be squeezing him to the point of choking with my thighs, but that might turn him on. So… I’ll just take a cheap shot and punch him in the mouth. That’s where all his trouble lies anyways. It will do the world some good.
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Eagle wrote:
No. Not at this time.
We’re looking into several ways to help pay for the site. But we don’t want IN YOUR FACE ads. Plus we don’t want people getting an ad for C. J. Mahaney’s latest book next to an article like this. Which is what you can get with context sensitive ad services.
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Anon 1 wrote:
God bless your pastor, and may he endure.
Having just experienced a calvanista takeover of our church, I am sick and. ×××× tired of presbytarian polity (under bondage to man) replacing congregational authority. (the body of Christ) Why or why are people willingly giving up their freedom in Christ in exchange for Calvin?
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Anon 1 wrote:
Bless him!
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Dee– I just sent you some photos. You will see what I mean.
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@ Eagle:
“Now after Sandyhook on Desiring God blog there was a post where it talk about how God orchestrated the Sandy Hook Massacre.”
Really? Pipes actually did stick his neck out and say it?
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Hmmm… Then I would have told Piper to read this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-emily-c-heath/dealing-with-grief-five-t_b_2303910.html
Five things NOT to say to a grieving parent….
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Dee, I don’t have a reference to cj saying that. I can check around and try to find it.
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But Guy
If they put CJ’s book next to this post i could make fun of it and so could my readers!!!
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Eagle wrote:
Non denominational and unaffiliated. It started out about 165 years ago as a, Free Will Baptist. Free will position was maintained but Baptist affiliation was discontinued around 1920.
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“A Pervasive Parade Of Putrid Pastoral Polity?”
“Why Oh’ why are people willingly giving up their ‘freedom in Christ’ in exchange for the makings of Calvinestaism?”
hmmm…
With the likes of Driscoll and Mahaney -proverbial calvinezta monsters under the reformed church’s bed, it is any wonder the nightmares never end. The seminaries are now hocking these guyz like ‘Matrix’ jelly beans, with their molds pressing out more like um, as fast as cowpies. ( say as fast, as Mr. Smith can say, “We’ve missed you!”)
Coming to a neighborhood near you?
Don’t look now, but you probably have stepped into it already.
Euuuuuuu Yuck!
Get me outa here, mister wizard, you say?
-snicker-
…bedder run! I think weza outa phonebooths.
(sadface)
S“㋡”py
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Eagle wrote:
That's a policy decision and to date we haven't gone down that path. It would open up all kinds of issues related to being a business or not. Even if non profit.
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Eagle
Are you saying you want to give us money? Deposit $1000 in my bank account and I will read your emails immediately!
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Ah. Muff, Thank you for that John Adams quote. I remain convinced the founding fathers were thinking of the religious tyrants Including the not so distant Puritans When they wrote our Constitution. John Adams is my favorite curmudgeon.
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@ Anon 1:
DeYoung Derestless and Reformed posted “Calvinist Convictions in our Founding Fathers” today, based on Madison using a near-Calvin quote into the Federalist Papers. Good comments, including one pointing out that Arminius said virtually the same thing. Actually I was checking out whether or not DeYoung has mentioned Mahaney again, after finding him officially still fit for duty. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2013/02/06/a-calvinist-strain-in-our-founding-fathers/?comments#comments
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http://www.brentdetwiler.com/
Today Brent Detweiler sent a letter to a long list of Christian leaders outlining the implosion of SGM and attaching the lawsuit. There is no question that Brent was in the most inner of the inner rings of SGM for many years and like many others, I believe that he hasn’t really acknowledged his own culpability. But what Brent has done with rock-ribbed consistency is to insist that CJ be held to the standards he insisted on for others. Brent’s greatest strength is that he is hanging SGM with its own rope in continuing to publicly demand that they abide by their own teachings. I thought the list of those to whom Brent sent his letter might be helpful to those who plan to Tweet around the walls of Jericho. (sorry, couldn’t resist)
Also, Covenant Church has issued a response to the nationally reported story of the arrest of Nate Morales. http://www.covlife.org/blog/response_to_news_reports
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@ Dave A A:
DeYoung is about a hair’s breadth away from spouting the same twaddle as David Barton.
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Phoenix
I planned to tweet about Brent’s letter to these leaders. I’m afraid they are scared to death to say anything. They have made it their business to promote Mahaney and he has done what he always does-bites them back by his behavior.
CLC is desperately trying to distance themselves from Nate Morales. I’m afraid that they have stepped in it this time. They all best tell the truth because it will be found out. If they do not do what is right, SGM will become the symbol for child abuse in the evangelical movement-NeoCalvinism will be represented by this horrendous story,
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One of my relatives attends a SGM church. She just posted this link written by a woman who attends a SGM church. Thought you might be interested.
http://www.theologyforwomen.org/2013/02/gospel-testimony-amidst-abuse-in-our.html
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Mr. YoYo,
“I would then encourage you to ignore the assaults of wounded people -” did Jesus teach this? Would not these “wounded people” count for the LEAST OF THESE..? What or WHO is the source of your pin-head theology???
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Muff Potter wrote:
They’re both variants on “Our Founding Fathers were Just Like MEEEEEEEE!”
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@ Deb:
that Washington Post story is also coming up “404”
Janet Mefferd had Detwiler on her show the other week. People ought to listen. I hear she is getting flak for giving him credibility.