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.

Having a different personality is not a sin

(This is an excerpt from a longer letter that a wrote on a different forum.  I'm putting it here as part of my ongoing wrestling with a fuller biblical understanding of "speaking the truth in love.")

I've been thinking and writing for awhile about how I believe personality differences are not considered as they should be when judging the suitability or sinfulness of what other Christians say. This past week it's hit me even more clearly how many ways that we are tempted to use our own standards of behavior when evaluating the actions of others, going beyond what Scripture says to make proclamations on what should be issues of conscience.