Rob McAlpine on Heresy Hunters

Today’s post ties in directly to yesterday’s.

Heresy Hunters While all Christians are called to follow the example of the Berean believers who ’searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so’ (Acts 17:11), and to exercise common biblical sense and discernment, there are ministries — usually self appointed — that exist solely to denounce other believers whom they disagree with.  These groups tend to be unaccountable and react quite abusively to anyone who questions their methods or conclusions. The danger of these groups is that their research is often slanted, and their  ‘findings’ are usually written in volatile, abusive language.  In their zeal to prove their accusations against anyone who disagrees with them, erroneous reporting, and, at times, obvious falsehoods are rampant.  They tend to depend on, and overuse, the ‘guilt by association’ tactic, by which almost every ministry on the planet could be held in suspicion — ’six degrees of Googled separation’, as one person called it. Generally it is best to visit links on these sites that describe ministries that you already familiar with and see if they are correctly represented; if not, then it’s likely (even probable) that their ‘research’ into other people and ministries could be equally spurious.  Often, they end up quoting each others’ errors, but after much repetition, people can’t remember who said what and the error is simply accepted as ‘fact’. Just because some of these sites may agree with your own opinion on certain movements doesn’t make them a credible source.  Primary sources are still the best. ~ Rob McAlpine, Post Charismatic (David C Cook UK, 2008) p. 57

Yesterday’s post and today’s stem from a lot of anger and frustration after listening online to Pirate Radio where self-styled heresy hunter Chris Rosebrough was trashing my brother Pete Wilson from Crosspoint Church in Nashville; not to mention the first comment received following the piece the day before about Shane Hipps joining Rob Bell.      It breaks my heart to think that people have devoted their entire ministry energy* to be judge and jury over those ministries that God has raised up to serve a generation not their own.  (If you missed it, re-read what I wrote yesterday.)

So Rob McAlpine’s comments (above) could not have landed on my desk at a better time.    Coincidence?  Visit The McAlpine’s blog at Robbymac.org

*Not that we don’t need watchmen and gatekeepers.   I am thankful to CRI for background information every now and then which is needed and appreciated; I view CRI as ‘uniquely situated’ to handle these kinds of issues where they are needed, and share their perspective on many of the fringe-Charismatic and Word-of-Faith groups, especially in light of their exhaustive research.