Richard Abanes: Behold the fruit of the PD paradigm

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers! (1 Cor. 6:1-8)

Richard Abanes, onetime member of Saddleback Church and defender of the Purpose Driven paradigm, is no stranger to controversy, and I have clashed swords with him before. Abanes' recent action, however, sets a new record low even for him. Objecting to Pastor Ken's assessment as a pastor about his somewhat less-than-polite and not-very-humble dismissal of Pastor Ken's objection to the Purpose-Driven paradigm, Abanes resorted to threatening legal action against the IP server of Apprising Ministries, alleging defamation and libel.

If you have not read that article, please do read Pastor Ken's article: A Pastor's Assessment of Richard Abanes. I can positively see nothing even resembling defamation or libel, and since this article was written and uploaded THREE YEARS AGO in 2005, I find it astonishing that out of the blue, Abanes alleges defamation when he did not do so 3 years before when the article was first published, which shows that Abanes' motives are not exactly pure regarding this entire matter. Abanes then further attacks Pastor Ken by stating that there are more lies, more sensation and more sin from him (And conveniently closes the comment section after receiving flak from virtually all quarters).

The hypocrisy and duplicity in Abanes' action and allegation is simply mind-blowing. To disagree with the PD paradigm and to hold him accountable for his actions is defamation, but he himself can attack and defame anyone he so chooses? In this very same post, he attacks Chris Rosebrough in a reply comment to him, which proves the point so well indeed.

Chris Rosebrough,

Don’t get involved in this — you of all people.

You have done enough damage to the Body of Christ with your own slander, lies, libel, and deceit. And that is enough to be accountable for. I would suggest that you not start going around trying to defend equally ungodly behavior in others. I have no wish to fight with you because, to be honest, I feel sorry for you.

You went to the dark side when you had the opportunity to go towards truth. You blew it. So go back to where you are revered by your fans; exalted by those who adore the false information you spoon feed them — e.g., Rick Warren teaches salvation by works. Puh-leeze, Chris. You’re living in a fantasy world.

Again, you had your chance. You chose lies. Too bad. You had great potential.

As for your direct question, see my above answers to others.

~ Richard Abanes

[Comment #15]

I guess this comment speaks for itself indeed. It is definitely much much more inflammatory than what Pastor Ken has ever written about Abanes, and worse still it is totally baseless. A new low standard indeed for hypocrisy!

Much worse than alleging defamation of course is threatening legal action against the IP server, thus causing the IP server to threaten removal of the site because they most definitely do not want to be the subject of a lawsuit. Abanes then tries his spin to deny that 1 Cor. 6:1-8 is applicable to him since he did not actually sue anyone among other inane reasons. Absolutely hilarious and ridiculous!!! He further alleges that Pastor Ken violated the copyright rule by revealing his email, but since the email was sent by the IP server, why isn't he outraged that they were the ones who forwarded his email first? Perhaps Abanes can start by suing the IP server for infringing his copyright first!

As it can be seen, Abanes' actions here is simply outrageous. In point of fact, this action in clear violation of Scripture, plus his attempted spin to get himself off the hook, totally discredits his character and ministry at least for me, and by his actions we can see the rotten fruit of the PD paradigm. Someone so egoistical, self-righteous, hypocritical and resorting to all means to silence opposition to his "Truth", even if that includes violating Scripture!

See also:

Pride, Arrogance and Humility by Mike Ratliff

Attack on Apprising Ministries by Ingrid Schlueter

Saddleback "Apologist" Threatens Web Host Company with Legal Action - IPOWER to Shut Down Purpose Driven Critic by Lighthouse Trails Research blog

Update: Apprising Ministries has been taken down by its IP server, unfortunately, for now. Now, let's see if God will punish Abanes by allowing someone to do the same to his website/ blogs.

*Update*: For some comic relief, see Abanes trying to spin the indefensible on his own blog here and here. Really, I will recommend Abanes to join the Legal profession. Surely they need people there to argue their cases to change black to white and vice versa. Yup, under his "logic", informing an IP server that he has consulted his legal attorney and ask them to remove certain posts he deemd defamatory is NOT threatening a lawsuit. Next thing you know, pointing a gun at a person is NOT threatening the person's life because the magazine is in actual fact empty. Welcome to the fairy-tale world of Abanes....