So did Ingrid call Dr. Horton a bridger or not?

Yesterday, Joel Taylor at 5 Pt Salt published a post about an Ingrid Schlueter blog post that I'd written on already. Because I think it's relevant to what I'll write here, I need to say that I don't think his understanding of what Ingrid said is accurate, and that makes his analysis faulty. Since he posted, I understand he's spoken with Ingrid and Chris Rosebrough, and he's said he is working on an update; I make no assumptions about what that will contain.

My update isn't about Joel's post, but about something he was told as a reaction to it. Chris, after he spoke with Joel, wrote me that Ingrid told him (Joel) she never called Dr. Horton a bridger in her article. Since in my post I indicated she did say that, at least in the comments, Chris challenged me about the contradiction. I spoke with Ingrid last night. This post is my attempt to clarify what I've written, based on that conversation.

First, I need to give some background on my approach to debates and discussions. The purpose of a debate, at least within Christianity, is to reach a better understanding and defense of the truth (Prov 27:17). I'm convinced that to give a substantive critique of a position, i.e. to compare it to the truth, one has to understand that position. One of the best ways to show one has grasped an argument is to restate it to the satisfaction of the person who initially made it. That was my approach in my post. I represented what Ingrid and Chris said as fairly as I could, and provided links to their original posts. I also wrote each of them asking if I'd accurately presented their position.

A significant part of my argument was that Ingrid described Dr. Horton as a bridger, using the term as she defined it (and I provided my understanding of that definition). So, when I was told Ingrid had denied ever calling Dr. Horton a bridger, I needed to find out what was said, and what she meant, if possible:

• Was she insisting she never considered Horton to be a bridger in any way? If this was the case, then my understanding of her position was completely wrong. 
• Was she misquoted? I was getting her statement third-hand; it was possible. 
• Did she say it but intend something different than the way Chris was taking it? After all, he'd gotten it second-hand from someone who to that point had, IMO, not demonstrated a correct understanding of what Ingrid meant by bridger. 

When I spoke to Ingrid, I read her my understanding of what I thought she'd meant about Dr. Horton being a bridger:

In the comment thread for the post, Ingrid clarifies that she isn't claiming Horton has been seduced away from orthodoxy by Warren et al, but that she sees Horton being used by these folks as a bridger, to give Reformed credibility to their false teaching. That's how she defines a bridger: someone who is theologically orthodox but is being used, perhaps unknowingly, to advance heretical concepts to the Body. 

I also read to her the two comments she'd made in her blog post that I'd used as the basis for what I'd written. In response:

1. She affirmed that my definition of bridger was correct, and she had no issue with the way I'd characterized her statements regarding Horton. 
2. She confirmed that she'd said she did not call Mike Horton a bridger. 

Since on their face, these two statements don't agree, I dug a little deeper. The crux of the issue is equivocation over the term bridger. In my writing, I've used and defined the term the way that Ingrid intended when she coined it last November. However, in her statement to Joel, she used it with the meaning that Chris has given it, which Joel also adopted in his post. That meaning is simplistic in its reasoning and gives a much greater negative judgment on the motives and orthodoxy of the person being labelled a bridger. Ingrid's denial was meant to reject the idea she'd made any statements that Dr. Horton was a heretic or has otherwise changed his theology. 

Was this a tactical error? I think so; as I mentioned to Ingrid, it's always a bad idea to let someone else define one's own terms in an argument. I'm not saying that it should have been clear to Joel that she meant the term in the way Chris was using it; I don't have the context of the whole conversation, so I can make no judgments. But when I spoke to her, Ingrid was very clear about what she meant when she said what she did; in my opinion, that reconciles her statements with what I've written.

Note: I am not Ingrid's apologist; she is very able to speak for herself if she wishes to make further statements on this topic. I'm writing this because my statements were pointed to as contradicted by subsequent data, and I needed to address that. A reasonable argument must be based on a clear and accurate understanding of the positions involved, and mine had been called into question. 

While anyone may continue to disagree with my analysis of Chris's critique, I'm comfortable saying that what I've written in the past regarding Ingrid's position was accurate and based on a reasonable reading of publicly available material, and nothing she's said since contradicts that, when taken in context.

I thank Chris and Ingrid for the giving me the chance to clear up a potential source of confusion.

I'll say again that I think it's unfortunate the issue that Ingrid raised was almost immediately lost in arguments and recriminations over how it was stated or responded to. I don't dismiss the need to deal with those things, but the root concerns wrapped up in the term bridger are issues of conscience that I believe are worthy of consideration by the Body, particularly those who are involved in public discernment ministry. I pray we take the time to wrestle over them someday soon.

I will be letting Ingrid see this post as well, just in case I've accidentally misstated our conversation.