There are some folks out there who would like to claim that this blog is slanderous. I take that claim seriously and would like to examine it here. The definition of slander is “a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report.”
If you disagree with me, you might interpret this blog has spiteful, vicious or mischievous in purpose. If you are inclined to think that way, I really don’t think that there is anyway I can change your mind. So, let’s just skip that one.
The second characteristic of slander is that the statements be false. Every single thing I have personally reported on this blog is backed up by facts. And when referencing the words of Dave Hasz or Ron Luce, I have provided links to their videos/blogs when available. In fact, I don’t think that I have yet received one complaint that I am misrepresenting their teachings or taking them out of context.
I have also critiqued more subjective realities regarding the environment there which are not as easily provable. However, both in the comments section and in the stories they’ve sent in, many other interns have testified to the accuracy of my claims (I Tim. 5:19). So clearly, my statements are not false, although they may not apply equally to each intern (especially with regards to the culture of the HA).
And finally, defamation, which is “false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another.” Does my blog injure the reputation of Ron Luce, Dave Hasz, and the Honor Academy? Yes, it probably does. To me, that only shows the difference between their reputations and the reality of who they are and what they teach.
So, does criticism = slander? Sometimes. But not always. And not in this case. My criticisms are neither malicious nor false but are motivated by my love for others and for the Gospel – and the hope that no one will have to go through what I went through.
As the book Twisted Scriptures states:
“Slander is not the same as speaking truthful facts, even when those facts aren’t favorable toward the leadership of the group. Once leaders have convinced you that anything negative about leadership is slander or gossip, you will suppress such thoughts. Then leaders can get away with abuses and build greater control of the flock. If no one can question leader’s activities without thinking “I am guilty of sin” for voicing a negative opinion, it sure makes it easy to control the flock with few objections.
If you group harps on “not doubting” “not slandering” and “dying to self” you should see a red flag. Look more closely and you may find that their definitions of these terms veer away from the Biblical ideal. You may find that the group’s leadership is trying to condition you to avoid thinking critically and objectively about their teachings and practices. You should step back and take a hard look at your group, for there may be a lot of other problems!”
18 comments:
the last paragraph in your bit from “twisted scriptures” is a reality check. in most cases, most of our intern years consisted of being told not to doubt, not to slander, and OF COURSE to die to ourselves. at the end of two years, i walked away with a massive god-complex and a false understanding of God’s heart for me–i didn’t believe He loved and cared about ME, but that He was only interested in what I could do for Him and for the Kingdom. I wasn’t a person to be loved, I was a means to an end [only to be fully realized when i had truly “died to myself” and was interested in His will only]. while there is some truth there…it’s been totally manipulated and twisted.
You stated in the third paragraph above “In fact, I don’t think that I have yet received one complaint that I am misrepresenting their teachings or taking them out of context.” however I believe that is completely false as I know of countless people that have left comments disputing this, you of course delete them and I am sure will delete this as well. If you want to be taken seriously, show both sides of the spectrum
Nate,
On the contrary, I’ve not deleted any comments that actually address the SPECIFIC ARGUMENTS in my posts. General things like “TM is great, you shouldn’t say anything bad” are not adequate rebuttals and will be deleted. If you have an issue with what I’ve said, please feel free to tell why – from Scripture – you disagree.
Please read the comment policy if you need clarification. I don’t’ apologize for deleting off-topic or un-useful comments.
http://teenmaniahonoracademy.blogspot.com/2009/09/comment-policy.html
“My criticisms are neither malicious nor false but are motivated by my love for others and for the Gospel – and the hope that no one will have to go through what I went through.”
Heart check please. I dont know if you(and many on this site) know what “context” even means. Your integrity is compromised and your malicious heart is shining strong whether you even recognize it or not. You are harming the body of Christ…and claiming to be justified in doing so. Heart check. PLEASE. Delete this comment if you will, but please ask God to search your heart.
I just want to know how blog posts on the Internet damage the “body of Christ”. I’ve heard that argument before, I just don’t understand it.
Then again, coming from people who defend an organization that damages the body of Christ on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level yearly, I can’t say I’m surprised.
That isn’t to automatically label Thomas a TM supporter; I’ve just seen the same argument from them.
Thomas, Judgmental much?
While what is being said here at this site can hardly be claimed to be “harming the body of christ” I know that the abusive tactics at the HA have certainly caused a lot of damage in believers and non-believers alike.
Thank you for pointing out the speck in our eyes while simultaneously ignoring the log in your own.
The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, but some random people with a website can? Humbug!
If a simple website can do serious harm to something, then that something was certainly not the body of Christ.
The fact that Teen Mania people are so worried about the simple existence of this website is perhaps an indication that they know subconsciously that not all is what it’s meant to be with them. Either that, or they don’t really believe in what Jesus said about the church, which amounts to the same thing.
Heart check! ….Yep, it’s right where it belongs, in the jar on my desk.
Kidney check! ….Ewww, Igor, that is not beef jerky. Put that back where you got it.
Brain check! ….Hey wait, who took my braaaaiiiiinnnnssss…..
Thomas,
I’d like to very kindly ask you something. If you are not recovering from abuse or wanting to help others recover, please don’t comment on this blog. It just clutters up the comments of people who are actually having conversations on here. If you want to confront RA with a “heart check”, the appropriate thing to do would be to contact her privately through the link on the blog. If you did a “heart check” on yourself, I wonder if you would find your heart speaking to RA in love or condemnation?
Thank you,
Dawn
The Body of Christ is an allegorical fantasy. There is so much division and differences among believers that there is no real body of Christ. Thomas you’re living in fantasy land if you think this blog is harming the body of Christ – if anything this blog has been helpful to many people seeking solace and for better measure has been available to parents and future TMM participants to let them know the things that aren’t published in the promotional materials. All this blog does is affront and confront the fantasy illusions you have about Christianity and it tampers with your utopian perspective of the compound in Texas. Good day.
RA, I was legitimately saddened that you didn’t briefly explain that this blog isn’t slanderous because nothing is spoken word. (and the video/audio clips were either of TM Staff or a third party, so they don’t count as slander in my book)
I was totally expecting a paragraph that just essentially was one long NOOOOOOOOO 🙂
What about these people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAZg71uU2Yo&feature=youtu.be
Teen Mania has helped my life so much and I have developed my own personal walk because of them. Some of the wisest people I know are a part of Teen Mania. I have learned so much about God and how incredible his love is for us. You said:
Unfortunately, the Honor Academy promotes an obsessive self-focus on your own integrity and honor as a means to “growth” and “maturity” instead of focusing on what God has done for us in Jesus. They heap lots of do’s and dont’s on the interns in assurance that these are the path to greater levels of Christianity. There is an obsessive need to be perfect. Dave Hasz has even said that “perfection is our goal.”
But shouldn’t we strive for perfection. Just because you set a goal to be perfect doesn’t mean they expect people to be perfect. It means they set the bar high. Our goal as Christians is to be imitators of Christ (Ephesians 5:1) and Jesus was perfect so doesn’t that mean to set our goal to be perfect. Now because of sin we can never achieve perfection, but isn’t it better than a goal of a mediocre life. If that’s your goal that woohoo you got that one easily. A goal of perfection is challenging yourself to work to be like Christ.
They also taught me the most profound parts of my faith. They taught me that Jesus not only sacrificed himself for me, but also took on God’s wrath for everyone’s sins when he died on the cross. That is just mind blowing to me and has made my walk with God so much more personal because I know God truly loves me and made the ultimate sacrifice to save me.
The common message I’ve been hearing from alumni on this blog, and in my own life is that TM teaches God sacrificed himself for us out of love. Therefore, we need to accept that grace…. THEN be perfect and blameless. If they would stop at grace, then there wouldn’t be so many interns being abused.
There is no grace THEN works. It’s just grace. Should we use that as an excuse to sin? Paul says no. But should be do the exact opposite and shame ourselves into trying to live up to this impossible standard? No. God takes us as we are. Always. Whether we are fully in sin or just fighting temptation.
TM needs to rethink it’s “Gospel” message to fit more inline with the Bible. Maybe we should strive for perfection, but we shouldn’t kick ourselves in the butt when we fail. And we will fail. Probably every day.
I started to watch the video you left. I don’t have time to watch the whole thing, but I will. But I understand what you are saying. I don’t think that anyone here is saying that Teen Mania doesn’t accomplish good things. We are saying that it does very bad things and that these are derived from a flawed understanding of what the Bible is saying.
I looked up the phrase “Jesus was perfect” on www.blueletterbible.com. It’s not there. I accepted the words “Jesus” and “perfect” instead. I came across 5 passages in the King James, 3 in the NKJV, and 4 in the NLT. There are more translations, but I figured this would be a good starting point. None of these has anything I would consider close to saying that Jesus was perfect.
The recurring theme that comes up in criticisms of Teen Mania’s teachings is the emphasis on Love. Moses and Jesus both tell us that the law rests on two principles, Love God with everything that you are, and Love your neighbor as yourself. (Moses says Love God several times in Deuteronomy and Love your neighbor in Leviticus, and Jesus says it in three out of 4 gospels.) Even Paul tells us repeatedly to Love our neighbors, and that doing so is the fulfillment of the Law.
Striving to be perfect is a selfish focus. You’re looking at yourself, not God, not Jesus. Even if you’re using Jesus as a model, the focus is on you. How are you good? How are you bad? How have you succeed? How have you failed? Jesus is just a measuring stick for your own existence.
This is contrary to the Gospel, which is about God’s Love. To express love is to focus on the object of that love. Some selfish focus is good, because we are taught to love our neighbors AS we love ourselves, which means that we must love ourselves first. I suspect that in Jesus’s day, self loathing was not as common as it is today.
Being like Christ doesn’t require a constant challenge. Christ himself left us with the key to doing it. “Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 13:34). Personally, if I had to sum up Jesus’s personal philosophy, I would say Love God, Love yourself, Love each other. To be clear, I’m not saying that it’s always easy. After all, we are required to love our enemies.
What is the Christian obsession with God’s wrath? If we accept the premise that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and we accept Paul’s definition of Love (1 Corinthians 13), how does a wrathful God fit into that acceptance? I can’t see that it does. Have we instead considered that perhaps the Old Testament “wrath” derives from a concept of loving discipline, or perhaps a protection of a greater good rather than just punishing “evil people”? Have we considered that any act of purging God may have done or encouraged on his behalf broke His heart? Or perhaps was written by a person with a very limited understanding of the world?
I truly mean no offense, but I’ve come think that if God’s wrath or the existence of Hell plays a major role in a person’s beliefs, then what they have is not faith, but fear. To me, faith is a reasoned understanding of what cannot be quantified by science and the assurance of hope. Fear is contrary to hope and to reason. Therefore, to me, fear is contrary to faith.
Liana: Yes, we should become like Jesus. But how is this accomplished– by your works, or by God’s grace?
The question is the one Paul asked in Galatians 3:3– “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Also: “And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11:6)
As Carl pointed out well, Jesus’ character is love, not moral excellence. Ironically, He failed the Pharisees’ standards for morality, and they often criticized Him for breaking their religious rules. I’ll grant you that Jesus was sinless, but that’s clearly not the same thing as following all the rules and trying to be “excellent.”
Instead, we become Christlike by “abiding” in Jesus. It’s a process of growth, not a process of achievement. See John 13-17 (the Upper Room Discourse).
pretty sure I read in the Bible that leaders who claim to be Christian, whose teaching is wrong, and who have been confronted without evidencing conversion should be held up to ridicule. I don’t have the specific reference, but that stood out to me, when discussing slander, and ridicule. We also taught not to place our trust in our leaders, but in God. True, in the end times, people will not suffer good teaching, but I don’t believe they should be guilted and force-fed teaching. Isn’t it the height of insolence to think that God’s work is so incomplete that it requires Ron Luce’s, my own, or anyone else’s help? We’re called to voluntarily submit, to a lover who is infinitely patient, and generous….qualities I don’t find in TMM, hearing your stories, RA
All these points from Sean, Carl, Eric, and Ariel are spot on!
What an encouragement to read these – yes! Jesus came to SAVE not condemn if WHAT? if we would just believe in Him. Not by WORKS will we be saved OR KEEP SAVED. He has also sealed us with the Holy Spirit and in trusting Him we will grow to become more like Christ. This is the mystery of the church- the Holy Spirit working within it. When one realizes that you are free! Free from the law and love is able to take hold in our lives- love for Christ and love for others. When anyone comes in and tries to take away the hope and trust from those who want to come to know Christ more- this is false teaching and we must warn about. This is truly a LOVING thing to do.
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