I posted this as a comment, but I think it’s worthy of a separate post.
An excerpt from a recent post by Kelly in her blog:
I think it’s hard for people who are in fear to take responsibility for their sins. Somehow, it’s hard to feel that you did wrong since after all, you were just afraid.
“I lied because I was afraid that you would yell at me.”
“I cheated on the test because I was afraid of jeopardizing my GPA and my future.”
“I could not be honest about my affairs because I was afraid of hurting you.”
“I could not follow Jesus because I feared the repercussion of following Jesus in terms of what parents would say.”
“I could not wholeheartedly follow Jesus because I feared poverty and suffering.”
How can such a person come to a genuine repentance?
The sense of hypocrisy and blindness I see in reading Kelly teach this is overwhelming and confounding. Read more »
I’m not sure if Gracepoint is still in touch with JP Moreland, but I like him a lot. He likes to use good analogies to get his point across about why Truth matters, and how Christianity is based upon Truth.
This site is based on one of Moreland’s lectures, and provides us Moreland’s illustration of a person named One Mug.
Pastor Ed likes to generally preach on the topic of truth. What I have come to see of him however, is that he likes truth as long as it’s convenient to Gracepoint. When truths arise that reveal the full, actual truth, he and his wife Kelly take to the following tactics in order to dismiss them.
When blogs like this one arise, which tell the “other side” of the story you hear about Gracepoint [and its stories of spiritual abuse and legalism] they take to measures of psychological manipulation and rhetoric. Here are the basic methods that they use.
I think this post could have the potential of being very long, so I’ll just write short summaries for each. I’ll try to expand them later if I get around to it. [Please feel free to add to this in your comments, you GP leavers who experienced similar things]
I wanted to take the time to briefly address some of the things that Pastor Ed Kang stated in the “New Believers” article written by Don Lattin for Cal.
The Rev. Edward Kang ’86, J.D.’89, the senior pastor at Gracepoint Fellowship Church, said complaints about the expectations placed on church members will not stop him from asking tough questions about the way his flock live their lives. “How do you do a ministry that is absolutely safe from any kind of accusation? The way you do that is become this suburban country-club church, give a 20-minute homily, hope everyone lives it out, and then gather again next Sunday,” he said. “That kind of church will never get accused of anything.”
As I’ve stated in a comment elsewhere in this blog, this is a false dichotomy, a term that Pastor Ed himself likes to use. A false dichotomy is when two things are setup against each other and posted as opposites without any other alternative. For ex., “if you can’t be a doctor, then you’ll be homeless,” would be a false dichotomy, since obviously, there are many other professions a person could pursue.
Here, Ed is essentially stating that if you’re not as authoritarian, legalistic and demanding – he would put it as being fervent and serious about the gospel most likely – then you would end up being a lukewarm Sunday Christian.
I subscribe to Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint articles [did so since my Gracepoint days]. Today’s article was particularly interesting, since it talks about marriage. Here’s a passage from it:
If we cannot strengthen and heal marriages in our own congregations, we have nothing to offer our society, which so desperately needs a renewed and vital understanding of the benefits and blessings of healthy marriages.
When I was at Gracepoint, one thing I could not help but notice was the lack of good, biblical, model marriages. Among the directors, at best, I would see what was more similar to “business partnerships” and often I would see couples that just didn’t get along and were very stressed.
I don’t think I’d be wrong to attribute a large part of that that to the busy-ness of ministry required at Gracepoint, and the lack of time spent together, considering they only allow once-a-week-family-night.
The culture there is that Gracepoint ministry should come before marriage, and that “too much” time together would be idolatrous. If you asked the Kangs directly, I’m sure they would deny it, but the culture there is very clearly established that way.
First of all, I suppose I need to qualify myself and say that yes, I am writing again in spite of me stating in my last post about ministry that it would be my last.
Why?
Because some topics have been pressing upon my heart, and I have been refusing to write them because I wanted to keep to my word. But then I thought about this whole effort again, and about doing things for the gospel in general.
My life is not entirely up to me to decide what I will do and what I will not. Following God as my Lord and Savior is about listening to his promptings and obeying, while also doing his general will of preaching the Word of God, and loving God and others.
With that in mind, I did have some other topics which have been pressing upon me, which I will post. How often will I post? I don’t know. Just as time allows and what topics I feel compelled to write about.
I wanted to write today about one major way in which Gracepoint Berkeley’s leaders dismiss the criticisms of its leavers. These are topics already somewhat addressed in this post about the Difficulty of Challenging a Cult or Spiritually Abusive Organization. However, I wanted to be more specific to Gracepoint.
This question of “What is ministry?” has been on my mind lately.
If you are at Gracepoint, it’s defined essentially as doing what you have been ASSIGNED to do by your Gracepoint leaders. By “assigned” I mean something that becomes your main responsibility in Gracepoint, whether you volunteered, or something suggested it to you. It could be children’s ministry, college ministry or young adult [post college] ministry and so forth.
If you are a staff, it’s to become a fully devoted bi-vocational minister, meaning, that during the day, you work your regular day job, and then all the other time, your main focus would surround whatever department you are assigned to.
For example, if you are a college staff member, your ministry would involve tasks such as the following: Read more »
