Ken Silva

This edition of Crosstalk looked at the ramped up persecution in the West when it comes to biblical Christianity from within evangelicalism. Rick Warren’s chief apologist online, Richard Abanes, has publicly likened Ingrid and several colleagues to David Koresh and other cult leaders and claims that they are all marked by:

1. A deep seated ‘us vs. them’ mentality
2. Feelings of persecution
3. Paranoia
4. A kind of xenophobic response to any and all attempts to have a more tolerant/civil approach to various issues.

Ingrid Schlueter and Sarah Leslie (a member of the board of directors of Discernment Ministries and a member of the Discernment Research Group) discuss how and why this attitude has entered the church, others that are promoting it, and how a rejection of biblical eschatology within evangelicalism is helping New Age teachings and Christianity to merge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sharing a few interesting bits of news from around the world:

• Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, is now a Christian and calls himself Joseph. (Haaretz)
• British Newspaper Readers Vote To Keep Todd Bentley out of UK. At least it’s not all bad in the UK! (End Times Prophetic)
• Ken Silva was on Crosstalk Radio filling listeners in on what has been happening to him and his site since the threat of a lawsuit from Richard Abanes. (Crosstalk Radio)
• My good brother, Yong Chun, writing on City Harvest Church, has a great sermon-by-sermon MP3 comparison of how the same parable — The Sower — has been badly mangled and interpreted by three pastors of the church. (All of Grace)
• New Christian radio stations worth a listen-to: Pirate Christian Radio and Fighting for the Faith.
• I’ve put up a new poll — have fun!
• And, finally, some humor for the weekend: Introducing the Evolution Mix…

In case you have not been made aware — just recently Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries was instructed to either remove an “offending” article on Richard Abanes within 48 hours or shut down his blog. This was after Richard Abanes, Harvest House author and chief apologist for Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven global campaigns, filed a complaint with the web host IPOWER alleging that content on Apprising Ministries was “untrue, offensive, slanderous, harrasing or controversial in nature”.

Apprising Ministries Down -- Truth Under Fire

What gall!

As of 5pm Central Standard Time, the Apprising Ministries website that featured hundreds of important articles on current Christian issues was deleted.

By God’s grace, the site together with all content has been saved and will soon be up, this time hosted by company run by a good Christian brother.

Many have already written their commentaries on this issue so I see no point adding my two cents since I very much agree with them and would just be a parrot at best. Instead, I’ll leave you these links to follow the story and the developments on this episode:

• Saddleback “Apologist” Threatens Web Host Company with Legal Action - IPOWER to Shut Down Purpose Driven Critic (Lighthouse Trails Research)
• Pride, Arrogance and Humility (Possessing The Treasure)
• Richard Abanes: Behold the fruit of the PD paradigm (Daniel’s Place)
• A Response To Richard Abanes’ Attack Of Ken Silva (Indy Watchman)
• A Lesson to be Learned (Following Judah’s Lion)
• Poof! Apprising Ministries Online is Now Dark (Slice of Laodicea)
• Web Hosting Service Caves To Purpose Driven Pressure (Watcher’s Lamp)

I hope I am exaggerating when I say that this might have opened the door to more such cases against discernment blogs and ministries…

Truth is under fire, and we who love God and His truth not only need to sit up and take notice, but come together in prayer that God’s truth and righteousness prevail against such darkness.

I have great respect for Ray Comfort as a brother-in-Christ though I don’t know him personally. It therefore came as a shock to me when this piece of news came to my attention.

Ken Silva at Apprising Ministries and Ingrid Schlueter at Slice of Laodicea disagree with Ray’s practice of participating in some conferences where he will be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with health and wealth heretics on the same stage. The more surprising thing is that this is not the first time that Ray has done this.

Having observed Ray’s ministry, I can say without much doubt that I know that he will strive to preach the Gospel as it is without hesitation. However, the issue here is not whether he will preach the Gospel, but whether Ray, whose radio show has on many occasions decried the practices of such heretics and their errant doctrines, should be seen to be in league with these heretics by his participation in such conferences.

I’m of two minds on this issue, not because I respect Ray and therefore am hesitant to point out that he’s wrong, but because I think there are questions to be answered:

1. Should Ray be seen to be associated with such WoF heretics though we have faith in his motivation to preach the Gospel at such conferences?
2. Will such an approach, i.e. preaching the true Gospel in a heretical conference, be effective?
3. Or is this a case where we can bring up the fact that though Jesus dined with sinners, he didn’t partake of their sinful ways but spoke His truth to them?

What’s your take on this?