The Police wrote a very famous song many years ago entitled ‘Every Breath You Take’ that had these groups of phrases in the lyrics:

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every step you take
Ill be watching you

Every single day
Every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
Ill be watching you

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
Ill be watching you

Every move you make
Every vow you break
Every smile you fake
Every claim you stake
Ill be watching you

I thought about this after reading ‘most everyone’s’ opinion after this article from a well-respected blogger appeared online. Even though the author never mentioned any names, I found it intriguing that everyone who read the post knew exactly who was being discussed. More fascinating was the fact that the ones being discussed blogged their rebuttals of the original article and called for the author of the original post to clarify if he was talking about them or not (I guess they felt guilty and was hoping that the author would say someone else’s name to alleviate and eliminate guilt).

Or is it more fascinating that the ones who love to decry the ’self-appointed’ mega-churches have basically ’self-appointed’ themselves to be God’s Official Watchbloggers?

In a sense, discernment is needed in the name of education and warning. The truth is that the vast majority of what they are warning us is needed (PDL, Lakeland Revival, extreme youth pastors that slime people, movie clips in the sermons that talk about the movie more than the sermon, etc) because it is simply disgusting, heretical, and aberrant. However, the piousness, arrogance, vitriol, anger, mean-spirited, exaggerations, eliteness, remnant, etc. that is generally resonated is absolutely unnecessary.

If you were to take 100 true, concerned, and genuine Bible believing Christians and show them 100 separate articles from the watchblogs (and leave out the exaggerations, ad hominen, straw man, circular reasoning, venom, and ‘guilty by association’ tactics), I believe that somewhere between 85-95 of those Christians would be outraged. If you were to average out the number of articles that outraged those 100 Christians, I believe that the average number of articles that offended a person would be somewhere between 85-95 articles.

However, it doesn’t mean that the 15-5 Christians who did not get offended are by default fake Christians. It also doesn’t mean that the 15-5 articles that did not outrage a person makes them by default a fake Christian because they did not get on the ‘pet theology exposed’ bandwagon. It doesn’t mean that the 15-5 Christians who did not get offended are by default fake Christians because they did not take up the rally cry and go hold an anti-abortion sign every October, vote Republican every November, boycott Pepsi over their ads on pro gay shows, pronounce an individual who happened to be photographed shaking hands with a influential politician or minister unpopular to the watchbloggers as a ‘baby murderer’ and “UN loving antichrist’

The discernment in the name of knowledge of apologetic is definitely needed because somewhere in your local city, there is a struggling pastor who is facing the pressures from some overseeing body to increase the number of attendees every Sunday morning while at the same time increase the revenue stream in the offering plate. He has prayed and his prayers come up empty. He has brought church growth seminars after church growth seminars to see a slight increase to then stagnate. He has had mega-fasts and repent-a-thons. He has prayed to the north, south, east, and west (A popular Larry Lea concept).

No change…..
He’s desperate. He’s panicking. He’s about to break.

Pastor then goes on YouTube and sees the church that built a skateboard park in the back lot. He sees the worship leader lead worship dressed up like Elvis singing U2 songs. He has seen the sermon that used a movie clip of the church interruption scene from ‘The Patriot’…

He learns more about these churches and finds out that they are considered as being ‘fresh revelation’ and ‘cutting edge’ by the Christian media industry that he trusts as being true (because they told him everyone else besides them is a lie). He read about their attendance and money increases and now believes that the gospel gimmicks ‘does work’. Under pressure to conform to his overseers and/or fearing that the other ’struggling’ church down the street will see the same videos and move quicker to eventually steal away his congregation, He attempts the same things with a different twist not to directly rip-off the original church, but to carve out his ‘niche market’ that no other church in his area offers to eventually yield (increased numbers and money start coming in) the same results.

It would be one thing for the watchbloggers to discover some aberrant theologies via a legitimate news source. However, it is what happens after they discover a church with some aberrant theology that they exposed. It is as if the original exposing is never enough to the point where the church with aberrant theology is placed on some constant surveillance of their web page by the ‘watchblog internet research team’ and moments after the church releases a new page on their site, they are very quick to jump to another article about that church in the name of ‘exclusive breaking news’.

They must have a team of researchers constantly surfing the Internet because they do break the news very quickly. On the other side of the coin, they must have a team of researchers or search engine search software like the old Copernicus software constantly surfing the Internet for their names, links, and their blog titles because they respond quick to those who disagree.

How many times has a popular pastor/author been targeted over different things? How many times has a well known Church been the subject of articles? How many times have the watchbloggers responded in rant at the blog of a disagreer but the disagreer can not respond back on the watchblog because comments are disabled?

It’s not the news in and of itself, it’s the snarky, sarcastic, venomous, ’shock jock’, rude, and angry mindset that is wrong and ungodly. It’s not the news in and of itself, it’s the unforgiving ‘double secret probation’ mentality of constantly looking for the wrong to expose instead of the wrongness to expose itself (if you give it time, it eventually will expose itself as the wrong it is). It’s not the news in and of itself, it’s the self-proclaimed official watchdog mentality (and no one else is in their ‘league of elitism and ‘holiness’) and the ‘bullying’ mindset behind it that is wrong while they bash these ’self-proclaimed called by God’ pastors.

I wonder if the venom, anger, rudeness, etc. is doing an equal amount of damage to the body of Christ as the aberrant heresies in and of itself? I wonder if ‘discernment’ has gone from being real discernment to a ’spiritual shock jock’ mentality where instead of offensive humor that attracts a following, crass venom creates controversy, a following, and an ‘agenda army’. Instead of the blood of Jesus, we see the first blood drawn like a vampire to the point of if they are not ‘exposing’, then they have become ’slack’ and need to get ‘back to work and get motivated’ to further expose in the name of a purer church.

We need the discernment presented as facts, period. Not the added snarkiness and anger. Not the guilt-tripping of disagreeing makes me an inferior Christian to the watchblogger and not the guilty by association tactics.