“The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts.” -St. John Chrysostom attributed.1
Please forgive this haphazard attempt to get our readers up to speed on a serious issue. The two of us are deeply concerned that coercion tactics are being employed by those within certain groups to silence opposition on the issue of child sex abuse. We ask that you pray for Janet Mefferd and Boz Tchividjian as they deal with these despicable ploys.
Here is the sequence of events.
Joe Carter's original post
Last week Joe Carter, at The Gospel Coalition, wrote an article, Stop Slandering Christ's Bride. He claims the following steps are slander. (I'll get to the misuse of that word in a moment.) Why? Because we cannot know what each and every church is talking about?? This huge post is about a bit of hyperbole? "Everyone is talking about the weather" come to mind.
Step 1: Take an issue of concern for Christians (e.g., abortion, sex trafficking, global persecution, the gospel).
Step 2: Claim that no one in our churches is talking about the issue.
Step 3: Assume the dual role of educator and Old Testament prophet by explaining why the issue matters and why the church must stand up and speak out about it.
TWW defines (with proof) the word "slander" in Slander or an Inconvenient Truth.
Slander is the oral communication of false statements that are harmful to a person's reputation. If the statements are proven to be true, it is a complete defense to a charge of slander. Oral opinions that don't contain statements of fact don't constitute slander. Slander is an act of communication that causes someone to be shamed, ridiculed, held in contempt, lowered in the estimation of the community, or to lose employment status or earnings or otherwise suffer a damaged reputation. Slander is a subcategory of defamation.
Libel is written falsehoods meant to harm a person. Slander is an oral statement. So, saying that your favorite Italian restaurant served you bread that was "harder than a rock" is not slander. To say that no one in the church is speaking about child sex abuse is an exaggeration but an understandable one. It sure seemed silent in many "gospel" quarters during the SGM child abuse lawsuit.
Why did I bring up the subject of child sex abuse? Well, perhaps Carter is naive but, for many people, his post might be seen as a way to silence those who would speak out against abuse.
Janet Mefferd appears to agree and responds to Carter's post .
You can read "When speaking the truth in love is not slander" here
Again, it is unclear whom Carter is particularly addressing in his admonition to “Stop Slandering Christ’s Bride.” I am not saying his intended target is Boz Tchividjian or anyone else who has decried the silence on evangelical sexual abuse, since his article is virtually detail-free. But regardless of the issue, Carter’s article is an unwarranted scolding that could discourage discerning, faithful Christians from speaking biblical truth on any widespread issue of neglect — sexual abuse or otherwise — simply because they lack Carter’s stated requirement of “omniscience” and the title of “a prophet or a son of a prophet.”
Peter Lumpkins picks up on Mefferd's post in Janet Mefferd on Joe Carter's 'stop slandering Christ's bride' corrective–'an unwarranted scolding discouraging Christians from speaking on issues of neglect'
This is where it gets ugly and this is when I start getting mad. Carter makes the boneheaded decision to comment at Lumpkin's blog post. Here is an illuminating selection of Carter's "gospel" admonishments. Please read the entire context of his comments on Lumpkin's blog.
- Mefferd's grasp of history is not much better than her understanding of logical fallacies.
- Mefferd has merely shown that she doesn't understand much about logic.
- She's merely using my article as a whipping boy so that she can defend the reckless and counterproductive assertions made by Boz Tchividjian.
And, of course, he uses the "picking on the poor Calvinists" argument.
Some people might assume that you are doing the same thing, using my article as a way to bash the ERLC and Dr. Moore. But charity forbids me of believing that is true.
Honestly, Mr. Shaver, I think you simply looked at my associations (TGC, ERLC) and decided to oppose me based on my "team colors." You certainly don't seem to be engaging anything I actually wrote. It's a shame this sort of tribal mentality is still going on in the SBC, but I guess some things will never change till the Lord returns.
The Carter Tweet
He sent out a ridiculous tweet that is easily misunderstood to mean that Mefferd is justifying "bearing false witness."
So @JanetMefferd thinks bearing false witness is okay because people understand hyperbole? Not a very biblical position.
He comments at Lumpkins post:
No, I did not claim on Twitter that Mefferd was "bearing false witness" for daring to respond. The way you toss off such falsehoods, Lydia, is shameful and unbecoming of a Christian.
Sorry, Joe, that's what it sounded like to me so I guess I am shameful and unbecoming as well.
Carter goes after Boz Tchividjian as well, calling him reckless.
He continues his "gospel" admonishment with this comment:
In her article she defends Boz Tchividjian's reckless claim that evangelicals are actually worse than Catholics when it comes to staying silent about sexual abuse in our churches. What evidence does she present to defend such a claim? None. Does she explain how such a claim could even be substantiated? No, she doesn't. Instead, she merely claims that evangelicals are covering up sexual abuse in a way that equals the thousands of cases that were reported in the Roman Catholic Church.
Update 6:44 PM: -Permit me an observation. I know that certain groups like to demonize the Catholic church. But think about it. The Catholic church has about 1 billion adherents and had thousands of clergy sex abuse cases. My guess is that percentage wise, evangelicals approach or surpass the percentage of those abused in the Roman Catholic church. Pure speculation on my part but I think Tchividjian is right. Nope: priestly celibacy does not equate to more sex abuse. Married evangelicals are doing just fine in this department.
PS: Can these guys talk without lecturing? Oh, that's right, they are used to being "in authority."
What I think this thing is really about? TGC and the SGM sex abuse lawsuit.
Stop the presses! It does seem that Joe is very concerned about the perception of the evangelical response to child sex abuse. Oh yeah, that's right. He is a blogger for The Gospel Coalition which maintained "gospel golden silence" about the SGM sex abuse lawsuit for 178 days. Look on the sidebar of our blog. We were keeping track of this situation.
Janet Mefferd responds to Carter's comments and drops the proverbial bombshell.
In Why speaking the truth in love isn’t ‘slandering Christ’s Bride’ (Part 2) she says the following. Pay close attention to the highlighted section!!
Though Carter denies that the “issue” he had in mind was “the silence over rampant sexual abuse in evangelical churches,” there’s a message he’s sending that comes through loud and clear: “Shut up, Christian.” Don’t you non-omniscient, non-prophets dare tell the rest of the church what it should talk about. Don’t accuse anyone else of not speaking or deliberately being silent when he should speak up. Don’t exhort; it’s not your place. (I do also wonder how many readers stopped to consider whether or not Carter even has the standing or biblical authority to lecture us in this way! He has no authority over any of us.)
But why is this significant? As I previously mentioned, The Gospel Coalition kept silent for many months about the Sovereign Grace Ministries sexual abuse lawsuit, in which 11 plaintiffs claim to have suffered heartbreaking sexual abuse and also allege conspiracy and cover-up. TGC has an association and stated friendship with lawsuit defendant C.J. Mahaney, and that means — even if Carter didn’t intend it — when he says, “don’t slander Christ’s bride,” a whole lot of people, rightly or wrongly, are reading that statement through the Sovereign Grace Ministries lawsuit lens. And they’re remembering The Gospel Coalition’s silence.
I won’t share the details, but there also has been an effort within this general camp of individuals to try to intimidate me into not talking about this case on my radio show. It will not work. I will wait for the outcome, just like everyone else, and I will not rush to judgment where the individual defendants are concerned. But I will cover this case as new developments arise. And I must state that, based on all I’ve taken in on this case so far, I am not at all convinced that those 11 plaintiffs are liars with nefarious motives.
Wherever there are true victims of sexual abuse anywhere in the church, I will stand with the victims. Whenever there is sexual abuse in the church, anywhere, we all must grieve and get angry. What evil. What a blight on the gospel. What a blight on the name of Jesus Christ!
We must love the little lambs and protect them. Jesus said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 18:5-7) In John 21, Jesus told Peter that if he loved Him, he would “Take care of my sheep.”
And the last thing we need — in the current context, at this time of rampant sexual abuse in evangelicalism and the relative silence about it in our churches — is someone at The Gospel Coalition trying to tell us not to rebuke the church for its apathy on any issue.
TWW is deeply concerned about the possibility of an attempt to silence a needed voice for the abused. It is also apparent that Carter, (who represents the views of many in The Gospel Coalition), takes a dim view of Boz Tchividjian, a tireless advocate for those children sexually abused by the church. And whether or not Carter likes it, there are many churches who have mishandled child sex abuse. Might I say that his buddies at TGC have not been proactive on this issue. Is that slander free?
We will be watching this situation very carefully and will report any, and all, attempts to shut up those who care about the abused.
We leave you with the 25 famous lines of Michael Corleone from The Godfather. Warning: there are a couple of colorful words. But which is worse? Bad words or intimidation?
Meffered just had Boz Tchividjian on her program the other day:
Hour 2- Boz Tchividjian talks with Janet about sexual abuse in the evangelical church
(audio, Janet Mefferd Show-10/7/2013)
I haven’t listened to that program yet or read through all the links on this page. I’m just going by the quotes I’m seeing. Evangelicals, fundamentalists, Baptists, Calvinists, are not above criticism.
The Bible tells Christians to judge one another, within biblical parameters (such as 1 Corinthians 5:1-13). Christians are supposed to call out wrong doing by other self professing believers, not brush sin under the rug.
It’s more important to protect and speak up on behalf of anyone wounded person than try to maintain an evangelical or Calvinist reputation.
Carter’s original post was intentionally ambiguous, but it didn’t take long for him to reveal the real reason for that post. I’m sure that Carter would have much preferred to hide behind ambiguity.
I wonder if Boz’s brother Tullian will ever speak on this issue: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/
I also notice that Carter makes the same excuses for TGC and SGM that Lumpkins and some of his regular commenters (Mary, Lydia, cb scott, Tim Rogers, etc.) make for the SBC’s own do-nothing response to clergy child sex abuse in that denomination.
Let me see if I have this straight after reading Carter’s article, tweets, responses and Mefferds articles……..you have linked to above:
He REALLY is the recent hire as communications person for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the SBC? All theses things are an example of his public communications skills!
http://erlc.com/staff-directory/
Scary stuff the SBC is doing. I find this utterly amazing. How unprofessional he is.
Carter’s article is rather childish.
You don’t use a figure of speech – as in ‘no one in our churches is talking about the issue’ – because you can’t POSSIBLY have gone to each and every church to speak to each and every person….to know that NO ONE in our churches is talking about the issue.
Who thinks like that?
Notice the article they had in the past – Don’t say the CHURCH hurt ME! They also used this same LAME approach. You can’t say that everyone in the church HURT you.
No offense to them, but they remind me a politician! Take what is said – twist it a little – and make it sound like you need it to in order to rally the base!
Of course – they are the ‘victim’. Isn’t that nice?
They need to stop the petty stuff, and grown UP! Yesh! My teenager could come up with better material!
Hannah Thomas wrote:
A kiss of death to the church!
I don’t agree with everything Janet Mefferd says, but I truly admire her for being one of the few voices that speaks out against injustice and calls Jesus’ Church to righteousness and integrity.
Go, Janet, go! Keep being tough!
Mefferd to be admonished/blamed/patronized/dismissed because of her gender in 3…2…1…
Carter is behaving no differently than former ERLC head Richard Land in dismissing clergy child sex abuse as solely a Catholic problem:
http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-talk-from-mr-so-called-ethics.html
http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2009/10/hollywood-and-baptistland.html
During all this time, the ERLC has placed its energy into what they consider to be more worthy causes:
http://erlc.com/article/the-so-called-land-letter/
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/sbcs-evangelistic-claims-for-iraq-war-fell-apart-cms-20585
You can bet that if these guys found out what church Mrs. Mefferd is a member of, they would try to contact her pastor and request that he place her under “church discipline.”
@ That Bad Dog:
That’s what I was thinking! Carter works for Moore and isn’t Moore the man who would prefer the term patriarch over complementarian? I’m wondering what Carter’s view is? His article seemed be more about belittling Mefferd and her communication skills and style rather than about responding to the REAL issue of Child Sexual Abuse in the church. It was a lame attempt to “change the subject.”
I was also wondering how long it would take before the YRR started taking on Boz.
Carter, in his position, calling him “reckless” is a shot fired from the PUBLIC communications person for the ERLC….is for a reason.
Guess it is kind of hard to have street cred in DC when one’s SBC leaders have been hobnobbing with Mahaney for so many years. So, shoot the messenger?
Nicholas wrote:
And I would have so much fun writing about it.
Someone just emailed me a link to Joe Carter’s book. Are you guys ready for this one:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Argue-Like-Jesus-Communicator/dp/1433502712/?tag=thegospcoal-20
Oh the irony
@ Anon 1:
How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator. Carter is certainly not demonstrating his superior communicating skills in this instance. Perhaps someone should link to his comments on Lumpkins blog as a demonstration to the Amazon audience on “how to do it like Jesus.”
Anon 1 wrote:
(snort and giggles) You have to be kidding me!
@ dee:
A very good idea. It is one thing to write a book but quite another to demonstrate the premise of the book in public as a public communicator for the ERLC and editor at TGC website.
Does this mean that some new information is coming out about C.J. Mahaney and the Sovereign Grace Ministries child sexual abuse and cover-up lawsuit?
@ Janey:
janey, what I am picking up on around the YRR blogosphere is they are working overtime to distance themselves from Mahaney. You would think he never existed when just a few months ago, they were defending him. He moved to Louisville and lives not far from me. I picture him sitting home wringing his hands because Al is not returning his phone calls.
Check out T$G home page the speaker page. See Mahaney anywhere? He was one of the originators. And the fab 4 used to always be on the masthead. Now gone.
They even rewrote the history page and now mention NO names:
http://t4g.org/about/
Talk about deception. They just erase their embarrassments and pretend they never happened.
Janey wrote:
The Nate Morales trial is coming up in November but I do not know of anything else.
There was a time you could screw up and people would forget. Now everything you do on the Internet is carved in stone forever. No one is going to be able to bury their support for C.J. Mahaney deep enough.
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/e3623beb-3591-4ba2-a332-30f2e94bb79c/48ade443a4715458c112553f82acf8c9
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s302/sh/21b4c189-1e73-4221-b1e1-81dc03fba931/6d902bf137d162169bc379b3483e19bc
That’s slander? I thought that was free speech.
Sounds like all the guys from down South in my dad’s office who INSIST LOUDLY that ONLY Catholics have problems with pedophiles. Only they don’t talk about evidence and logical fallacies, they just assert and counter-assert. And a counter-assertion and a counterargument are two very different things.
Hester wrote:
If people like that would only actually follow sites like SNAP and Bishop Accountability, they would see plenty of stories of Protestant/Evangelical abuse as well as Catholic. They can also be directed here: http://www.reformation.com/
Joe Carter “Luther never resorted to such rhetorical excess”
{spits soda through nose} He apparently has never read Luther – Luther defined rhetorical excess.
Here’s how the “Together for the Gospel – About Us” page at t4g.org/about used to look on January 23, 2013: Photo of Mahaney and identification of him as a founder and one of the four long-time friends.
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s302/sh/bf38cdcb-5a2a-432a-ae90-9797bb6b4d67/decbf58f9fb84135a598d1624cc6f57d
@anon1
While TAG and Al may not be returning CJ ‘s calls , he is slated to speak at the 20/20 Collegiate Conference in February 2014.
Janet Mefferd was bang on. If we applied Carter’s logic to the Reformation, Luther should have kept his mouth shut. In Carter’s words “Has anyone ever really come up with a novel and legitimate concern that Christians have across the country have consistently ignored?” Luther’s problems with the Catholic Church had been a concern for some inside the Church for years prior to Luther, so why did Luther have to stick his nose into it.
Carter then says “The second reason to avoid such claims is because they assume omniscience.” Luther was not omniscient, therefore, he should have kept his mouth shut.
For a guy whose faith is rooted in and born out of criticism of the church it takes one heck of a lot of chutzpah, to be polite, to condemn those who raise a criticism of a church.
Janey wrote:
Thank you for that! They can run, but they can’t hide.
Off Topic, but it appears that the Oxygen Network misquoted Carter in order to make it look like TGC endorses “Preachers of L.A.”: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/10/07/dont-waste-your-misquote-what-tgc-really-thinks-about-real-preachers-of-l-a/ #hilarity
That Bad Dog wrote:
I left a post kind of about this on Julie Anne’s blog tonight.
I agree with Mefferd on some issues but not all. I like her.
But, I find it odd that Mefferd considers herself a gender complementarian, she interviews gender comps every so often on her show (she interviewed one the same day as the interview with Boz).
Mefferd agrees with these guys that women should not preach in church, and not in “open air” scenarios.
Yet, Mefferd sometimes preachers/ teaches/ opines on biblical issues from a biblical perspective on her radio program. I’ve not so far heard any of her male gender comp guests correct her for hosting a Christian talk show and giving her views and teachings.
Mind you, I do not have an issue with a Christian woman commentating about stuff (theology, politics, etc) on a radio show (or blog or where ever), but gender complementarians do tend to take issue, yet they never confront Mefferd for what she does.
But then, you do get the ones who can’t agree on exactly when, where and how a woman can /should preach, speak, lead… like Piper or some comp guy said he’s fine with reading books by women, but not seeing them lecture in person.
Mefferd’s lastest gender comp guest, Miano, who is against ladies public preaching in public, did not really cite solid biblical reasons why he is against this, his reasons were based on his peresoal preferences and ideas of gender, sentimental, Victorian era ideals that women are weakling precious little dainty thangs who need big men to protect them.
Miano basically only kept repeating a partial verse from the Bible that talks about women being “quiet and gentle in spirit” to back up his position, and in his view, preaching in public is not a “quiet and gentle” thing for a woman to do.
Miano also kept expressing concern over women “sacrificing their femininty.”
Miano thinks women open air preaching causes them to “sacrifice their femininity” because it causes them to ‘act like a man’ (i.e., be confrontational, etc). Where in the Bible does it say being assertive, out spoken, confrontational and brave are male traits only?
Also, Miano pointed out, women get heckled in public when they stand on a soap box to preach about Jesus by dirt bag males, and he feels that is unbecoming for a Christian woman to have to deal with.
Okay, it’s rotten and rude than males heckle Christian women who are preaching, but Paul got death threats and heckled when preaching Christ to some Greeks (or Romans?), should Paul have just stopped? I mean, where in the Bible does it say that heckling is a reason women specifically should not preach?
There were women in the New Testament who told the Gospel to guys they met.
Anyway, Mefferd preaches, teaches on God and other subjects on her show, yet she supports the idea that Christian women should not lead/ teach / preach, and she interviews guys who believe this stuff too.
@ Daisy:
Janet Mefferd had Tony Miano on the show? She needs to better research potential guests before having them on the show: http://www.crossencounters.us/2013/08/why-i-support-pastor-chuck-oneal-and.html
@ Nicholas:
Mefferd really IS a complementarian. I’ve heard her say that she believes God raises up women to lead (for example, Deborah in the Bible) only in the absence of men. And she is strident about the abortion issue. It makes sense that she interviewed Miano.
I wish she would read New Testament scholar N.T. Wright’s excellent paper on women in the church:
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Women_Service_Church.htm
Nicholas wrote:
Yep, she did. I’ll check your link out.
Here’s a link to her interview with Miano, aired on Oct 7, 2013:
Hour 3- Evangelist Tony Miano talks about his book Should She Preach.
[[MOD: Comment removed per request of commenter.]]
Ugh. The Ole Boy Club. I am truly instantly skeptical of any pastor/author/speaker with a large following specifically because of this type antics. Duck and cover, link arms, and hurl counter accusations. this is just one of many instances — think of the current brouhaha over $$$, elders, authority and questioners at James MacDonald's empire, or the just-begun revelations of Steven Furtick's new 16,000 sq. foot mansion— no questions!!! Whatever happened to humility, transparency, and defending the weakest among us??? ESPECIALLY as professing Christians, our first response MUST be to comfort the hurting, rather than to enter defensive postures and commence blame shifting— that only makes the church look even worse than the world! @ Janey:
Hannah Thomas wrote:
Yep. These men need to grow some … spine, and take responsibility for their own words and the words and actions of organisations that they lead and/or associate with.
@ JeffT:
Apparently Carter’s never seen the Lutheran Insulter.
@ Nicholas:
I wasn’t intending to be critical of you. If my words came across otherwise, I apologize.
@ Janey: Unless they apologize, TWW will continue to remind them of their support.
@ Nicholas: I think there are too many evangelicals who will not entertain the notion that they are just as sinful as everyone else. Oh they’ll say it but they always try to point to those outside of their “nice” group of Christians.
I’ll tell you about the nice group of Christians who wanted to overlook the problems of pedophilia and put some teen boys into the hands of monster and continued to look the other way.
Did Carter actually try to build an argument on the basis of his acknowledgment that he claims to be an authority in the field of what is going on in various churches and then stating that he does not know what is going on so how could anybody else know anything.?
My word.
Mefford, on the other hand, seems to be playing both ends against the middle, I assume in order to build and maintain as large a listening audience as possible. Of course she does not know what is going on by the Carter criteria. She could have said it better, for purposes of accuracy. But I note that she has brought some attention to the matter and that is worth doing.
So Pope Francis seems to be saying to the RCC that it needs to broaden it’s areas of concern and not limit it’s focus to only a few issues. Point for the Catholics. Of course that needs to happen. I hope the evangelicals can face some issues head on, and for goodness sake communicate with the brain and heart more and the mouth less.
But the thing is, the SBC has no actual authority over the local churches. None. They used this argument (the autonomy of the local church) to subvert the move to establish a central list of abusive clergy. The only control that I see is money based. The do have the money to send in a church planter and try to out-compete some local church that they may want out of business. They do have the opportunities for rising star preachers to help their stars to rise. They do have some media access to promote or damage people. But in the end there is no authority over and no responsibility for or to the local church.
The crux of the Calvinista circus, it seems to me, is not so much about doctrine as it is about control. That would be control of the organizational structure and the cash flow of the SBC. To do that one must first control the local churches, of course, and that seems to be progressing apace.
And for those of you who may not know, there are right many Baptist churches who have severed any relationship with the SBC (as in quit sending money) and now associate with other Baptist groups.
Bottom line, for anybody who does not like the direction of the churches in whatever direction, including their seeming silence in some areas of sexual abuse, unconcern for the persecuted church, inter-denominational co-operation, financial fraud, harassment of individual members, whatever–there is nothing equivalent to write-your-congressman (no take it to the bishop) in the Baptist tradition. Individuals and groups must utilize the open marketplace of ideas and the secular authorities (police, IRS, social services,) to get anything done. In other words, drag it out into the light, send some money to free-standing ministries as indicated, and most of all speak up.
Fortunately, that seems to be happening.
Janey wrote:
Notie the pictures of the unnamed guys. They have added Platt, Chandler, Piper, etc to give them gravitas after they played the “BFFs” game with Mahaney. PS-Piper is still a BFF of Mahaney.
Nancy wrote:
They have a bit more power than one might imagine. For example, they keep throwing churches who call female pastors out of the SBC by playing games with the state SBC groups. They are far more concerned about females than they are about pedophiles since no church which has mishandled a pedophile was summarily dismissed from the assembly.
Nancy wrote:
Best darned synopsis of the whole mess. Wish i had thought of it.
I read Carter’s original article, and like Nicholas, thought it was intentionally ambiguous. I did not read all of his comments, but I did see some things he tweeted about Boz and Mefferd, which caused me to conclude that the article was a round about way of addressing the SGM matter.
Carter is wrong about the SGM matter, and if he is going to spend his time at ERLC trying to rehabilitate SGM or Mahaney, he is wasting his time and resources.
I, also, believe that slander is not the right word anyway.
I don’t agree with analyzing Boz’ comparison of the Catholic handling of the abuse and the Evangelical handling of abuse. I believe that Boz did use overstatement to make a point, but I took it as that, and did not think it was out of bounds.
The comparison of the Catholic and Evangelical handling of sexual abuse has so many factors it’s really impossible to compare them to determine who is worse.
And it doesn’t matter. Evangelical churches should practice the right response to child sexual abuse and identify the wrong responses, regardless of what Catholics do.
Hester wrote:
I love that site.
Lisa wrote:
Hence this blog. I am sick to death of the “holier than thou” culture warriors pointing fingers at the sins of the world while they are living lives of greedy deception.
And when I am able, I will tell everyone how certain SBC leaders think that Furtick’s house is just fine. There has been a long standing history in the SBC of leaders living large. Take a look at Patterson. The new Reformed Baptist set learned a great deal by those who forged the golden highway before them.
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Anon 1 wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_censorship_of_images
“URRA STALINO!”
dee wrote:
While pounding the pulpit and screaming about Those Filthy Rich Romanists And Their Gilded Vatican.
dee wrote:
They are not afraid of pedophiles.
dee wrote:
Christian Monist related how at one church of his experience, the Godly would steer the kids of the new members to the on-staff pedophile. Better he rape the new kid than MY kid, Praise God!
After all, some of their best friends and supporters may be pedophiles, who knows? Difficult to see without an investigation. But a woman in the pulpit, that is obvious!
Janey wrote:
Not at all. In fact, I apologize for the way my comment was worded, which sounds defensive.
Yes, Janet had Tony Miano on her show. Tony recently released his book, “Should She Preach,” and guess who wrote the foreward?? My former pastor who sued me, Chuck O’Neal.
@ Julie Anne:
Who wrote the backward?
dee wrote:
And of Doug Wilson and Mark Driscoll.
I am soooooooooo funny.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Actually, you are. 🙂
I’ll just go for outright snark, and say that the authors of the book and forward are both backwards.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
Nick, I had to admit, you had me there. I have a long-time friend who lives in UK and we frequently have fun with each other’s Facebook statuses and our choices of words. She loves to correct me on my English 🙂
She is also my Downton Abbey news source. True friend, indeed.
BTDT: I crack up about this book because first of all, Tony used to teach women to open air preach when he worked at Lliving Waters. Now he wrote this book and is making $$ off of it. It seems he should have repented and offered the book for free.
Secondly, maybe he doesn’t realize it, but he has Chuck on the foreward and then Phil Johnson also wrote a piece for the book. Did Phil know that Chuck was doing the foreward? Chuck O’Neal was the one who said that a pastor from Grace Community encouraged him to sue me. Phil Johnson had to get involved to protect Grace Communities name. Phil issued a statement about Grace Community’s/John MacArthur’s thoughts on lawsuits and said there was some sort of misunderstanding between the GCC pastor and O’Neal. Remember Phil was the one trying to get Chuck O’Neal to drop the lawsuit against me. Crazy stuff.
Nancy wrote:
Nancy, The SBTS trustees are not doing their jobs. If there were, Mohler would be gone by now for not just SGM but quite a few things. But instead, the SBC leadership puts him on a “unity” committee. So they have institutionalized this stuff including it being no big deal to protect and defend those who have refused to call the authorities over child molestation but say the church should deal with it in house.
My guess is the SBTS Trustees are either star struck over Mohler or intimdadated.
@ Julie Anne:
Sometimes I wonder if all the public machismo is a cover-up for the deer-in-the-headlights confusion behind the scenes.
@ Anon 1:
Given the nature of at least one SBTS trustee, I think Mohler’s jobs pretty secure: thewartburgwatch.com/2012/11/07/phillip-gunn-sbts-al-mohler-legal-rightmoral-right/
Nancy wrote:
Pedophiles don’t hurt THEM or THEIR position… :*-(
@ Nicholas:
Nic, If his job was not secure he would not say or do most of what he says and does. The trick is to get rubber stamp yes men as trustees.
A good example of how the Trustee system usually works is outlined in Mary Kinney Branson’s book, Spending God’s Money.
http://www.amazon.com/Spending-Gods-Money-Extravagance-Ministry-Fourth/dp/0977940764
BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
Who knows! I keep collecting the names they call me and it’s funny how they all talk about being strong men, blah, blah, but when I speak out strongly against them, they try to slam me. Tony has called me a “manly woman.” Jealous, much?
Julie Anne wrote:
Ever heard of the phrase “Admirals in Rowboats”?
Or “They must be Compensating for Something”?
Dee – – -our very first conversation when I called you wondering if my world was falling apart because of seeing the $500,000 defamation lawsuit in front of me, you comforted me with those words: admiral in a rowboat. LOL – – it made me laugh then and now.
“According to Zenger, modern Christians have forgotten or suppressed the idea that the day of judgment is to bring justice to the victims of injustice – a day when God will restore the world to what it should be – and to confront the wicked with the reality of their sin and its consequences. This failure to bring out God’s ultimate concern to right the world’s wrongs has led to a preaching failure. Zenger asks whether preachers have obscured the fact that the final judgment will bring an end to injustice and liberate those those who have suffered from injustice. He suggests that preachers have tended to denounce the sins of the weak while keeping quiet about the injustices perpetrated by the powerful.
“We must ask, have we in the church not often been responsible for obscuring this liberating meaning of the message about God’s final judgment, because we have preached the word of judgment loudly and urgently to the weak and defenseless, while frequently our preaching has been too soft and half-hearted when directed to the powerful of this earth?”
The Psalms, Zenger argues, address situations where injustice cannot be righted. The sufferer is appealing to God to intervene. These cries for help are not about minor conflicts that could be resolved by greater generosity on the part of the one praying or by the exercise of love of neighbor. Rather those who pray these psalms are crying out about the injustice they suffer and are protesting about the arrogance of the violent. They are impelled by the contradiction posed by the mystery of evil and the presence of evil people in a world supposedly in God’s care. This is not a trivial or selfish complaint: they are protesting not just because they are being hurt, but because God’s justice, goodness and power are at stake. These are not mere grievances about their own suffering; rather they are protests about the challenge that real wickedness poses for believers in an omnipotent God of love. The passion that drives these laments arises from a belief in God’s justice that is called in question by unrestrained evil. This appeal to God for justice does not of course relieve human courts and judges from doing their best to dispense it, but it does reflect the painful reality that human justice will never be perfect, and that in many cases it is a travesty.”
-The Psalter Reclaimed: Praying and Praising with the Psalms, by Gordon Wenham
@ Julie Anne:
Well JA, Tony, the patriarch, does send his wife out to work to support the family while he video’s himself street preaching. Manly men? Perhaps he IS jealous. “o)
@ Anon 1:
Thanks for pointing out Carter's bio in the staff directory of the ERLC. That explains a lot.
Also, I loved your "observation" about changes on the T$G website!
@ TW:
This is brilliant.
Anon 1 wrote:
From a book review, one of its main points:
“3. Start with examples your audience will understand.”
Oh, the irony! The glaring lack of examples in the “Slander” article had me pulling my hair. Very soon, I invented my own imaginary, speculative, and slanderous example, to fill the void. Let’s imagine that TGC took some “heat” over their SGM/Sex Abuse silence followed by their CJ support. Let’s imagine a critic or two told them something like, “Nobody cares about the kids!” A few months later, out popped this article!
Nicholas wrote:
Not really off topic! It does show that Carter is able to communicate clearly when he wants to, which leads me to conclude that the unclarity in the last week’s piece is on purpose.
Several updates:
Latest (unanswered) question to Carter on his article, from Mark:
“Given your three steps, what do you say to those speaking at conferences who offer generalized criticisms about the church?”
SImilar and more detailed (and excellent, IMO) from Peter in the comments on his site, followed by Round 2:
http://peterlumpkins.typepad.com/peter_lumpkins/2013/10/janet-mefferd-on-joe-carter-round-2-carters-message-to-christians-is-shut-up.html
And part 2 from Janet:
http://www.janetmefferd.com/speaking-truth-love-isnt-slandering-christs-bride-part-2/
Anon 1 wrote:
I always snicker when I see pre-internet people using pre-internet marketing schemes. I don’t think they realize that in today’s cultural currency such an action is like shouting guilt from the tallest rooftop.
JeffT wrote:
LOL! Ain’t that the truth. Although I still prefer Thomas Muntzer for his creatively scatalogical excoriations of Lutherans and Catholics alike.
Anon 1 wrote:
C.J. Mahaney’s name and signature still appear on T4G’s “Affirmations & Denials” page, along with those of Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan and Albert Mohler.
http://t4g.org/about/affirmations-and-denials-2/
Julie Anne wrote:
Ha! I remember you showing off your pretty, painted toenails. Seriously, it’s just another attempt to marginalize you. Just like “somebodies” want to quiet Janet Mefferd. Just like “somebodies” want to keep Amy Smith from posting meeting details on her blog. Just like videos and other info keep appearing and then disappearing from various “Christian” websites. One has to ask what they’re all so afraid of? “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.”
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
And awfully petty admirals, at that.
Dave A A wrote:
What got me pacing the kitchen is how he went for the jugular on Mefford, insulting her understanding of history and logic. Just like Jesus?
Then, he expanded his tirade to include Boz Tchividjian who he called “reckless.” Seems like Joe don’t like evangelicals being dissed for their silence on child sex abuse. Last I checked, Joe wasn’t particularly verbal in that arena. Feeling convicted, perhaps?
Then he makes a fatal error, stating that the Catholic church has had far more sex abuse cases which shows a distinct lack of understanding that we must compare apples to apples.
A friend of Joe’s wrote me and said he really doesn’t think the original post had anything to do with the sex abuse cases. I told him that it really doesn’t matter. Carter’s subsequent communication proves the man that he is. And that is why I got mad.
BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
Being shown up for what they are: sinners like the rest of us. And they really aren’t like the rest of us. They are the “authority.”
From across the pond it is genuinely weirdly amusing reading this post – a communications officer who has a lapse in communication and then can’t seem to communicate to retrieve the situation. But weirdly also communicating the truth but not the truth he intended to communicate! There must be sitcom character to develop out of this.
Peter wrote:
Well said and best laugh of the post!
Peter wrote:
It’s been done! Unless you weren’t a fan of Fawlty Towers…
(For our non-UK siblings, check out the wee excerpt below…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EaoPMANQM
And this one…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAKFakK3i8
@ Nick Bulbeck:The two ladies in the front of the staircase look like Deb and me. 🙂
“I won’t share the details, but there also has been an effort within this general camp of individuals to try to intimidate me into not talking about this case on my radio show. It will not work.”
I don’t doubt her, but I wish she would name them. I think that when someone makes a statement like this, they should “share the details,” or not make the statement. If, say, Carter had written something similar to this, I think most of us would want him to be specific.
Just don’t quote Chrysostom. One can directly follow the beginnings of Christian antisemitism to him. To be honest, the more I learn about Church fathers I am more convinced that the patriarchal authoritarianism developed by straying from the Hebrew roots.
@ Casey:
legal reasons?
I was thinking they probably did not approach her.
oops, that was in response to Jeff