As I’ve been doing a whole lot of reading and research on various thoughts & ideas in Charismatic circles, I’ve noticed that there’s a rampant problem in evangelicalism, from the absolute top down to the bottom of the barrel: sin is glossed over and error is ignored. Those of us Christians who claim to have the best understanding of the teaching of scripture on sin seem more than willing copy our primitive forefather and hide from the Lord in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8-9). Then, when we’re caught or people bring up our strange activities, we tend to lie about our already long enough list of transgressions (Gen. 3:10) and if that doesn’t work, we tend to try to shift the focus from ourselves to anyone else (Gen 3:11-13).
As this blog is getting far more traffic as of late, I want to put structures in place to ward those tendencies off and make it more difficult for myself to follow the bad example of my ancient grandparents. In a recent interaction between two B-list evangelical leaders regarding the horrid error of an A-list evangelical leader (though the debate was regarding the term “evangelical”, let alone “Christian”, could rightly be applied to him), they both produced documents/citations/information about the leader in question to substantiate their prosecution/defense and I was thinking “if that leader were up front about his errors, they shouldn’t have to spend hours doing research to find out if he has rejected (damnable heresy x) or not. Knowing that these accusations come up constantly, that leader should be up front about such things!”
In my own D-list sphere of influence, I’ve had interactions with people where I’ve pointed out their error and they’ve acknowledged it but fixed said error in the shadows, all the while attempting to hide their failings and portray themselves as victims. People who do such things simply lack integrity, and so I decided to put this page up. I intend to keep this page as a compendium of all my errors: posts where I write something that I discover to be wrong, posts where I write something that someone else discovers to be wrong, posts that involve a foolish knee-jerk reaction to something, etc.
I don’t have a lot of those on here, but I do have too many. Hopefully this will act as a preventative measure, aid my own repentance, and help others find out my current position on issues where I have content somewhere on the internet that may be questionable (i.e. a blog comment from a decade ago). This will eventually include lists of posts (both original posts and subsequent retractions/clarifications) and this post will no doubt grow with time because, well, sometimes I can be a…
So, here’s my archives:
Watch Your Life and Doctrine Closely... 
Mr. Unger,
On this same theme…I ran across this since LOGOS is pitching it as a Pre-Pub.
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199916795.001.0001/acprof-9780199916795
Are you aware of this? Is there value in it, if you are aware? I’m interested since I’m surrounded by people of this persuasion (if that is even a word in this context…).
Thank you,
M. Howard Kehr
Hey Dingo,
It’s nothing new, but academic Pentecostalism (“Pentelectualism”) is so disconnected from what you see on the street that they’re essentially 2 different religions. The book might be interesting, but if only reflects the ideas of a few scholars (who are followed only by the other scholars) that the other few million folks (in their immediate denomination) don’t even know exist.
That’s why you can see Todd Bentley hosting a revival in an AOG church and have the AOG officially condemn it with absolutely no consequences whatsoever; nobody in the AOG churches pays a lick of attention to anything negative the AOG says.
There’s a reason why Benny Hinn (ex-AOG) sells more books that the professor’s of every AOG school combined.
The AOG got rid of Hinn (silently rejecting him as a man of questionable doctrinal reliability), but removing his credentials is not nearly the same as removing his influence.
On the street, Pentecostalism’s “intellectuals” are all the same lunatics that the Pentelectuals write ambiguous books against.
Also, I may not have understood your question. What are the “people of this persuasion?”
Ah, thank you!
I find (am finding) they are as hard to evangelize as catholics, since, you know, we are all ‘christians’…
Thanks again, and please, please please, keep writing. We do not always agree but I like the subject matter and your presentation of it. It makes me think and dig deeper.
M. Howard Kehr
Glad to be of some help to you! If we don’t agree, just remember that when iron sharpens iron, sparks are bound to fly.
I always value your comments!
Oh, ‘persuasion’ refers to their brand of christianity.
M. Howard kehr
Mennoknight Snark : others who preach Jesus are for Him and not against Him. To his own Master, Sondergaard will stand or fall, same as you. What is that to you if Jesus tells him to do this or that? And … ” discipleship is never instantaneous ” … you’ve never read Scripture account of Jesus’ revelation to Paul on the road to Emmaus ? I must say I’m quite unimpressed with your scholarship. You’ve a high standard of conduct for others, a much lower one for yourself.
I’ve moved on from that topic months ago, but apparently his followers haven’t.
Torben doesn’t preach the Jesus of the Bible and “discipleship” is not the same thing as “conversion”.
I’m unimpressed with your scholarship too. In 7 sentences, you made equally as many errors.
U r DEMONIC… CHARISMA MAG..STRANG ARE EXCELLENT AND OF GOD. U PREACH TWISTED FALSE DOCTRINE. UR CONDEMNING SELF INTO HELL
Well, you and your caps lock key sure showed me.