I will admit the following from Boar’s Head Tavern, by one of the head Boars iMonk Michael Spencer, is a very masterful one-sweep across-the-board whitewashing of Apprising Ministries, which is but a part of my labors in the Lord. In his latest ecclesiastical letter “One book….and a denomination is apostate” Spencer pontificates:

No one can squeeze as much out of a single book in a seminary class booklist as free-range pope wannabe Ken Silva.

Apprising Ministries further alerting the Body of Christ to growing apostasy within the Southern Baptist Convention through the proliferation of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism. You’ll see that New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is also promulgating The Cult of Guru Richard Foster as this SBC seminary uses the Quaker Swami’s Celebration of Discipline in one of their own courses on so-called “spiritual formation” as does Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. The question is: Why does the “Protestant” SBC need to turn to a Quaker mystic for spiritual formation which is in direct counterpoint to the Reformation?

I can’t believe that we still have people who link this constant slander. Silva is everything wrong with blogging, and the bloggers who link him are the rest of what’s wrong. (Online source)

Ok, it’s pretty easy to see the Silva goose Hus now been cooked by iMonk. What a powerful penetrating, in-depth and scholarly analysis of a miniscule section of but one of several articles concerning why I see a decided postliberal drift of apostasy within the Slowly Becoming Catholic. Why it’s just as if he’s been reading my Centering Prayer Journal because iMonk even uses the imagination of The Cult of Guru Richard Foster to see into my hardened heart and exposes my—not as secret as I thought—desire as the “free-range pope wannabe.”

Well, after centering down in contemplation of his post I can only use the subjective existentialism of postevangelicalism to surmise this correction is because my dear brother Spencer feels that I try and tell people what they should be thinking. But O how blessed the Church of Jesus Christ is to have bastions of discernment like Michael Spencer. Tonight in our prayer closets, as we empty our minds to begin our “Protestant” mantra meditation, we really must stop and say a prayer of thanks for iMonk’s rapier-like assessments of issues facing contemporary Christianity.

*Placing tongue firmly in cheek* I know, I for one, now raise my icon of quasi-Buddhist Thomas Merton to Spencer and tip my toupee to him for his blinding brilliance. Because Who else but the Lord could possibly have enabled iMonk to be able to glean so much from such a tiny part of single post about one SBC seminary? I mean here I was simply using it as an illustration of the much broader problem of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), absolutely rooted in the monastic traditions of apostate Roman Catholicism, currently infecting this “Protestant” denomination; and yet, in his superior wisdom the always ebullient iMonk still saw more.

But forget for example that there have been past AM articles like Southern Baptist Convention: Whatever Happened to the Reformation? and another one concerning an entire SBC state convention making no effort whatsoever to hide its foray into CSM in From Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (SBC) All the Way to Renovare and Living Spiritual Teacher Richard Foster. And we mustn’t take into account that just recently I have shared what appears to me to be influence of CSM even in the prayer ministry for the upcoming annual SBC convention e.g. in Contemplative Mysticism in the Southern Baptist Convention? and Something Not Right with Southern Baptist Convention Crossover ’08 (Part Two).

No; I now see the light, the time has come to repent. I’ll admit it, I recognize when I have been cut to the quick by the intuitive analysis of such a one as iMonk, obviously championed Protector of the Internet as he is by God. So, as a pastor-teacher, I run to the nearest phone booth that I may quickly don my suit of dust and ashes. Apparently the time has now come where I must cease my feeble attempts at following 2 Timothy 4:2 to — correct and rebuke. O I know, it really is too bad that God chose to use those icky words that pouty postmoderns eschew; but, what are we gonna do?

And so, before my audience of faithful readers (Aw c’mon, there might be a couple); here and now, I repent of any further attempt at becoming the “free-range pope” because it sure looks to me like the Lord has already chosen to give this most prized and prestigious F-R papal position to His iMonk. For in his portentous remarks above, it should be clear to those with eyes that see, F-R Pope Spencer has just issued his Bull that Ken Silva “is everything wrong with blogging.” What is more, may it now also be known that any of you—most loyal blogging subjects of his iMonk kingdom—“who link [Silva] are the rest of what’s wrong” and anathema.

I ask you, who are we mere mortals to argue with such immaculate erudition?