“These discerning ministries take what someone like Francis Chan SAID and combine it with pictures of him SAYING it, and then apply the BIBLE to it. That is why a good many of them are considered more credible than mainstream church news sites which routinely run articles about releasing angels or sneaky squid spirits. Then you compare the one with proof and the bible to the National Enquirer, right.”
(Anthony Wade – 8:28 Ministries) Another day, another attack upon discernment ministries. We must understand that the seeker friendly industrial complex, fueled by the purpose driven cult of personality churches must protect their brand at all costs. One of their tricks is to compromise respected Gospel preachers such as Francis Chan to steal their credibility. Chan may enter into it thinking he will affect them but in the end leaven spreads like cancer….
Soon Chan is not just saying he loves Mike Bickle but he is writing threatening articles to any who would dare question false teachers. Since the backlash to Chan’s fall has hit we have seen a wave of articles such as the one above designed to marginalize those that would insist on pure doctrine and biblical foundations. Let us reason together once more beloved as we sift through more attacks on sound doctrine in favor of protecting wolves at all costs.
“There seems to be an overwhelming fascination in evangelicalism with what is wrong. What do I mean by that? It seems that we are more than happy not just to report, but to share, like and comment whenever we see any Christian leader fail in any type of way. The Christian media is often happy to promote these attention-grabbing pieces. Like feeding fresh bloody fish to a group of swarming sharks, the frenzy ensues as web links are made and a new viral news article is born at the great expense of the character of a Christian leader as well as the testimony of Christ. Perhaps you think I am being too critical, but we should think about what we are doing. There is a lost world looking on as we quickly share articles that accuse brothers and sisters of things that are not, in many cases, provable facts. And, more importantly, we never pray or fast for these individuals, we simply feed on their demise for our daily entertainment.” — Greg Gordon
This premise is not only factually inaccurate but wildly ridiculous. Christian media refuses to deal with the issues of discernment and it is left to independent people to write the truth about what is false in the pulpit so that people are not led away from Christ. The key point in his opening is not that people weigh in on failure but that we keep seeing failure in the pulpit. This is like when Ted Haggard was caught in a 20 year relationship with a male prostitute while doing crystal meth and a local pastor opened his sermon that week with “don’t judge.” Seriously? That is a mockery of Scripture. There are no swimming sharks and feeding frenzies. There is just the wolf that has been exposed as such and we ought to be about the business of tending to the sheep and not defending the wolves. We do not fast for wolves. We do not pray for wolves. We mark them and take the shepherd’s rod to them to protect the sheep. This is not for entertainment Mr. Gordon. I do not think you are being too critical. You are not being critical enough and your criticism is misguided.
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