A great example of looking for root problems

Rob Bell's new book Love Wins has been getting a lot of critical commentary, mostly from Calvinist or Reformed folks. This post, from an Arminian, identifies a real issue that can happen when we get more caught up in defending our own theological understandings than in protecting the essentials of the faith, and offers the right solution:

For Calvinists, the issue was not Arminianism but was the Christian faith in general. Yet for some Arminians, the issue was Calvinism versus Arminianism. There are times when we can embrace our Calvinist brethren in defending the Christian faith and historic doctrines. And this is such a time.

Chris gets the last word

I believe this will be the last word barring further developments; I've said everything I wanted to say at this time.  In case anyone is interested, I've listed the posts related to this topic in a more subject-oriented flow:

1. My initial post about Chris's take on Ingrid's statements and why I disagree with his critique. This was updated to clarify something in response to a comment from Chris.
2. A follow-up post to reconcile my claim that Ingrid had called Dr. Horton a bridger, after I was told she said that she had not done so
3. My challenge to Chris after he claimed I'd misrepresented his position in what I wrote. I updated this after he responded, offering to talk to him about this directly and publicly.
4. The initial back-and-forth about my offer
5. Chris's refusal of my offer and my response, leaving the offer open
6. After waiting a week and not hearing anything Chris, I had to assume his refusal stood, so I posted his response to my challenge, which I'd deliberately held back when I made my offer to dialogue
7. Chris's final response is given below.

My critique and all clarifications and responses are available on this blog. I welcome anyone who's been concerned about this situation to review everything in context and judge the merit of my comments accordingly.

Chris's Clarification

I haven't heard anything back from Chris since I wrote him five days ago, so I'm going to assume he's standing by his original rejection of my offer.  As a result, I'm going to post what he'd written to me after I asked for details on what parts of his position I'd misrepresented, plus my response to it, and unless I hear something more, I'll move on; I have other things to write about as time permits.

I've emailed this to Chris as well.

*Update* I clarify my original offer

(Update: I've added my response at the end.  I've also changed the title of this post to be more in line with my response.)

Chris has written back to me. I'll be writing a brief response tonight, but I wanted to post this, in case anyone is following the story.

I've made this a separate post because Chris used some formatting that I couldn't put in a comment, and I didn't want to lose anything in what he wrote.

Deciding the Ground Rules

Chris wrote back to my proposal in this post as follows:

Starting this morning, I'm going to redirect the conversations on FB and Twitter. I will disengage with what few stragglers that are left of Ingrid's supporters on my FB Wall and not engage any new ones that might show up. That will settle things down on my social media.

I will also hold of on publishing the blog post that I have ready.

Aside from that I cannot offer anything more at this point.

That seems reasonable, Chris. I'll do the same.

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.

A Rain Check

I had a post prepared for publication today giving my thoughts on Ingrid's post on CrosstalkBlog mentioning Mike Horton's appearance at Lausanne. But events in the meantime have made posting it moot at best; the issue has grown legs in a different direction, and Ingrid's backed away from almost any online presence. So I'm going to take time to update the other posts I've made on the issue and leave it there for now.

I have another project I want to write on, but we'll see whether other commitments at home take up my free time for the next few months...

*Update2* Hi, Chris.

(Update2: I've posted Chris's email response to what I wrote here, along with my comment on it.)

(Edit: I opened comments on this post, but I won't accept any that don't come from Chris or me.  If something sneaks through somehow, I'll delete it on sight.)

(Update: Chris sent me an email in response.  I've prepared a response, but I've decided to make an offer to him first, before posting it.  The offer is below; I've emailed it to him as well.)

What follows is the text of an email I just sent to Chris Rosebrough, something I wasn't really expected to do. Since it relates to him specifically, I'm not going to allow comments on this post.

I've made minor formatting changes, but the text is identical.

---

Hi, Chris.

I was told you're saying on FaceBook that I misrepresented you in a blog post I wrote. To quote:

"[H]ere is the funny thing. Jason Coyle is the one who is misrepresenting me. I've never said that Ingrid says that Horton has been seduced away from orthodoxy or that she is claiming he's now a heretic. From the beginning I've strongly disagreed with the fact that Ingrid is claiming that Horton is a Bridger that must be warned against." 

*Update2* Inigo Montoya and Fighting For The Faith

(Update2: I was asked to reconcile my representation of Ingrid's comments with her recent statements to people that she never said Dr. Horton was a bridger.  I spoke with Ingrid last night; I'm working on my clarification now and hope to have it up by noon CST 3 Mar 2011. I'll add a link here when I publish.)


(Edit2: Ingrid's taken her site down, so the link I used is dead.  Here is a repost of the original material.  Bear in mind that it does not contain the updates and comments that were part of my analysis.  I have a later cache which contains those, but I'm not planning at this time to put it up.  If someone wants it for reference, let me know.)


(Update: I got some feedback from Chris on this post, so I wanted to add a bit, so that I'm as clear as possible. It's at the end.)

(Edit: I've decided to split this post into two, in order to allow each one to have a clearer focus. The same content from the original post will be available, just organized differently, with some minor tweaking for flow and clarity. This first post is about my more pressing concern: Chris's behavior.  I had prepared the second part, which contained my own thoughts about Ingrid's post, for publication a week after this post came out.  Since then, much has happened, and I've decided against publishing.  My reasons are here.)

A few weeks ago I reluctantly sent Chris Rosebrough a note letting him know that things had gotten to the point where I couldn't give my implicit consent to his behavior by continuing to interact with him. I intended to leave things at that, praying that he'd see what he was doing, repent, and hopefully return to being a resource I could point people to in good conscience.

But yesterday I heard that Chris was going to take Ingrid Schleuter to task in a "Misadventures in Dubious Discernment" segment for a blog post she'd made. A post on his blog made the direction of his critique pretty clear, and his show that evening followed through in the same vein.

I'll summarize the positions, but I'd suggest you read both posts and listen to the first half hour of Chris's podcast once it's posted. Pay special attention to determining the context each speaker establishes and understanding their arguments.