Should Christians Be Involved in Discernment Ministries? OR Andrew C. Bain, You Probably Think This Blog Is About You

The Internet has become a place where anyone can express their views. It does not matter if you have a coherent argument or have any qualifications to speak on this topic. As long as you have a web page, a blog, a YouTube page, Twitter or Facebook, you can express whatever views you want. Any guy in his basement can rant on anything. This includes Christians. One of the ways in which we see this is in the area of discernment. These discernment sites believe that God is calling them to name names of those in the Christian public eye, who in their estimation has failed. They feel called by God to point this out. This goes all the way back to the '90's.

Many of the discernment ministries seem to have a worldview similar to that of the fundamentalist of the Bob Jones University. There was once a site that believed that My Little Pony, Star Trek, even the spork (fork that is also a spoon) was part of the Satanic, left wing pro-gay agenda. A hobby-horse for many Christian fundamentalists is Christin rock. Terry Watkins of "Dial-the Truth" used his site to showcase the dangers of Christian rock and other versions of the Bible, not the King James. There are several websites that identify who they believe are apostates. Their apostates usually include Joel Osteen, emergent church, word of faith, Moody, Spurgeon, MacArthur, Piper, Driscoll, Paul Washer, Billy Graham and others. Another frequent target is lordship salvation and Calvinism.

On YouTube, Andrew C. Bain has made his reputation by attacking those who believe in Calvinism and lordship salvation. He tries to expose the leading believers of this philosophy as heretics. Bain has become the poster child of these discernment ministries. He is not the only one who does this. Those who believe in salvation by grace and keeping the law also use YouTube to further their agenda. They frequently attack who they believe is the biggest false prophet of all times: the apostle Paul.

Should Christians be involved in discernment? The Bible does warn of false prophets. Jude commands us to contend for the faith. The discernment ministries I've mentioned are more focused on their own pet peeves than true Biblical discernment. Some of these ministries don't like anyone. They view anyone in the public eye as an apostate. It is true that apostasy exists and it must be challenged. These people do not seem to be fueled by love for the brethren. These people turn people off. We are commanded to speak the truth in love. Everything we do needs to be fueled by love and the truth.