I have just recently learned of what some have called a major meltdown of what was once a fine Christian book store business. From Phil Johnson: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/bookmark.htm#new
The Discerning Reader The story of this company's sudden meltdown is one of the saddest and most bizarre sagas of the Christian Web. The Discerning Reader is a Medford, OR-based bookselling business that over the years sponsored several excellent and well-designed Web sites—including Antithesis, Christian counterculture, and a colorful critique of postmodernism. At least ninety percent of their book recommendations were excellent and insightful. We highly recommended them for more than two years. Then complaints began to multiply about customer service problems at The Discerning Reader. Customer-service difficulties per se are inevitable and an understandable part of doing business by mail. What was disturbing here was the coarse and pugnacious way owner Rob Schläpfer lashed out at his customers with profanity-laced abuse. We know this is a fact, because (even though we never complained about customer service,) as we have sought to understand and make sense of the changes taking place on the various Discerning Reader-sponsored Web sites, we have more than once been on the receiving end of some choice but unprintable expletives from Mr. Schläpfer. As the controversy grew regarding Mr. Schlapfer and his abuse of customers, he began to attack the theological stance he himself had at first claimed to represent. He hypocritically wagged his finger at Reformed Christians, suggesting that their theology made them abusive and unloving. He has now given a wholesale endorsement and his highest rating to a book calling for evangelicals to embrace postmodernism. Since we once recommended this site and its sister sites with the highest accolades, we think it only fair to issue an equally strong warning: Discernment seems to be in very short supply these days at The Discerning Reader. Caveat emptor. Really Bad Theology Added 1 December 2004 Bible Truths The theology purveyed at this site is even cheesier than the animated .gifs you'll find adorning its home page. These folks deny every biblical truth that points to the sinner's utter inability to save himself. And likewise, at every opportunity, they exalt the sinner's works as instruments of justification. Teaching baptismal regeneration, denying original sin, and aggressively attacking "the view that man's salvation is wholly of God,"—this is sheer Pelagianism. At one point, they unabashedly ask: "Could it be, though, man has focused so entirely on Jesus and his accomplishments in making possible man's salvation that he has diminished or removed man's part in obtaining his salvation?" Wow.
Last edited by 4Ever_Learning; Wed Dec 15, 20046:37 PM.
Complete Melt Down at DR Phil Johnson of the Spurgeon Archive and Grace To You has verified the complete melt-down at Discerning Reader. Here are his comments. Like he, I must echo the same concern: since I had recommended DR and had included a link on my personal page, the outrageous behavior currently exhibited by the staff of DR, and in particular, Mr. Schläpfer, including the use of the most filthy forms of profanity in writing to Christian elders and leaders, utterly precludes them from consideration as a source of materials. I would not want anyone to be exposed to that kind of abuse at the hands of a "ministry" I once recommended. Be warned! As the Lord said, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil [man] out of the evil [treasure] brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart" (Luke 6:45). What is true of the mouth is true of the keyboard as well.
16:00:00 - James R. White - Category: Misc - Link to this article -
Just wanted to pass this on so that those here would be careful and not spend money at this now anti-Reformation establishment.
Deut 19:15 One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
