We do live in interesting times indeed. Recently Dr. Andrew Jackson of SmartChristian.com has decided to focus his ire upon me. Apparently it begins with Dr. Jackson writing Tim Challies concerning a post I placed on Slice a couple of weeks ago. Challies writes:

Andy noticed that Ken Silva, one of the writers at the “Slice of Laodicea” blog, quoted Robert Murray M’Cheyne and his suggestion that the beast of Revelation is the church of Rome. On his blog Andy declares that “this is absolutely ridiculous” and in his email says: “Please take a look at this post at Slice and either post on it or provide a comment. I understand apologetics and standing for right teaching, but I have concerns about this blog labeling and condemning others in the body of Christ that we might not agree fully with.”

So you can see the real problem Jackson has is with Ingrid Schlueter’s blog Slice of Laodicea itself and it would seem that he may have felt that the M’Cheyne post, which I was simply using as a contrast to modern evangelicalism, offered him the chance to perhaps have Challies “expose” this blog to some ridicule. Unfortunately for Jackson the Lord would choose to have Challies do a nice defense of the exact position I was bringing out. In his fine article The Beast Of Revelation Challies shows that the evangelical community’s view of the apostate Church of Rome is in no way consistent with the great preachers of the past in whose footsteps they say they follow. For the interested reader I comment on this further in Part One of my series What Has Changed Regarding Roman Catholicism?

And here I thought this was the end of it. Well, it turns out I was wrong. As on June 19, 2006 I happened across Jackson’s post Guess who I am?

A Rev. Ken Silva is a regular blogger at The Slice of Laodicea – we are the holy remnant – blog. After reading a number of his posts, I asked myself – who is this guy? There is no bio on him.

Well, Rev. Silva is the head of Apprising Ministries.

Is there a bio on him at his website? No.

What is his education?
Who ordained him?
What church does he attend?

Time to come clean Rev. Silva.

Does anyone know who Rev. Silva really is?

A Slice Of Information

As one can see Jackson is again about casting aspersions about Slice of Laodicea and is using the issue of my “bio” as his vehicle as if any of us are trying to hide anything and must therefore “come clean.” It would seem that Dr. Jackson wasn’t really all that interested in finding out about me as for instance there is a bio on Christian Worldview Network where I am also a columnist and one need only scroll down to my name. I explained that in addition the information he was seeking is also readily available through my writings here at this Apprising Ministries site as well. Anyway, I provided the information to Dr. Jackson but it seems he is at it again with his latest post regarding my alleged “strong judgements on other Christian leaders like Rick Warren and others.”

Apparently Jackson sees himself as needing to come to the defense of these “Christian leaders like Rick Warren and others” because he writes concerning me “I felt the world should know who he is” in Who is Ken Silva of Slice of Laodicea?

Ken Silva is a regular blogger at Slice of Laodicea blog which seems to enjoy the function of “heresy hunter.” Any Christian blog is defined by the primary bloggers, and so I have always believed that bios should be provided unless there are unique situations that this would not be appropriate. Well, since Ken Silva makes such strong judgements on other Christian leaders like Rick Warren and others, I felt the world should know who he is. Ken emailed me the following in response to my request for his bio:

I am pastor of a very small fellowship called Connecticut River Baptist Church (SBC) that currently meets in the home of one of its members. My ordination is also with the SBC and my formal training is the same as that of A.W. Tozer as I am self taught through the Lord’s guidance. I also claim Dr. Walter Martin among those who have taught me though I never knew him personally.

Apprising Ministries is actually an arm of the church that I pastor and was only intended as a local outreach. It is our feeling that God had different plans for us when He opened the door to some good friends.

The truth is that I am pastor of a small local church and the website was literally bought, maintained and paid for by someone I did not know at the time. We never had any intention of doing the kind of work AM does now through God leading us to people such as Ingrid Schlueter. (the owner of Laodicea blog)

I will let you decide how credible his judgements (sic) are on other prominent church leaaders (sic). For me, his judgements are similar to the annoying sound of a squeaky wheel.

This Is Andrew Jackson

Well, I have to admit it is intriguing that Dr. Jackson would exhibit such umbrage toward Slice of Laodicea and particularly it seems concerning my so-called “judgments.” So, just who is Dr. Andrew Jackson, the self-appointed defender of “Christian leaders like Rick Warren and others”? Clicking the About button on his Site we read:

I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and I now live in the Phoenix Valley of Arizona. I am married to Barbara and we have three great children. I am ordained in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, earned a Master of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, and a specialized Doctorate degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary located near Boston.

In all seriousness we can see without a doubt Dr. Jackson is a very educated man, but his degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, a spiritual cesspool which gave birth to the Church Growth Movement, now gives us a clue as to why he would not care much for the information that we are presenting over at Slice of Laodicea that is exposing the Emergent sinner sensitive Pupose Driven Gnostic new evangelical religion to the Body of Christ. As the old saying goes, the truth hurts. It also seems to me that we are getting a little bit of a glimpse into Jackson’s own character within his recent post about an upcoming GodBlogCon 2006 where he trumpets:

Help get the word out by displaying a banner on your blog. Go to the GodBlogCon site and get the code. I was told yesterday that the website will be fully completed soon. I will be on a plenary panel and lead a few break out sessions.

Here is a description of one of my sessions…Dr. Andrew Jackson will share his personal journey in developing and applying his own unique intuitive and thoughtful blogging-style that has led SmartChristian.com to emerge as one of the most popular and visited blogs in the Christian blogosphere today.

What’s that you say there Dr. Jackson? It seems that I’m having a little trouble hearing you over the sound of you tooting your own horn. And yet it appears that Jackson is not about to drop his hostility toward contributors at Slice of Laodicea anytime soon as at the end of Who is Ken Silva of Slice of Laodicea? Jackson asks concerning the owner of the excellent website Old Truth.com: “Now, who is Jim Bublitz?”