Blog Shut Down by 'Christian' Apologist's Threat (RICK WARREN, RICHARD ABANES, KEN SILVA)

Blog Shut Down by 'Christian' Apologist's Threat Contact: Pastor Dustin Segers, Coalition of Concerned Bloggers, ChristianResearchNetwork.com, 336-848-7197

MEDIA ADVISORY, July 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- Pastor Dustin Segers submits the following and is available for comment:

How safe are our blogs? That question was raised again when on the evening of July 26, 2008, a popular religious blog was shut down by an Internet service provider. A complaint filed by Christian author and apologist, Richard Abanes, claiming that one article on the religious opinion site, Apprising.org, had slandered him, caused the web host, IPower, to send its publisher, Ken Silva, a 48-hour warning to remove the offending piece or be taken down. In that the piece was not believed to be slander at all, but rather religious and theological opinion, he refused to be forced into censoring his site by Richard Abanes. The site went down.

There are serious implications here for all bloggers, regardless of what sort of blog they publish. Anyone who has a complaint about your views can claim that you have engaged in slander and the ISP Terms of Service usually allow for the companies to remove your website if you don't take the material in question down. The First Amendment means nothing in these cases. ISP's cannot and will not explore the claims of slander and simply notify bloggers to remove whatever is causing the problem. This opens the door for anyone to censor what a blogger writes online.

Everyone who values the right to read and publish blogs on the Internet has a vested interested in the issue. There is growing concern in the blog world over this, and a number of servers are popping up that offer "First Amendment" hosting. These are web hosts which require a court order before they will remove someone's website. Their day has clearly come.

Apparently if you're a friend of Rick Warren no one is allowed to disagree with you.

Richard "twinkletoes" Abanes suggests that because he is an 'award-winning, bestselling author/journalist' (having 20 books pubished by major publishing houses) that therefore his public reputation (which apparently cannot be supported by his own writing enough to counteract anything Ken Silva might say - and if you've ever read some of his horribly written blog posts, you wouldn't wonder why - he must have some wonderful editors!)

Therefore he can go ahead and order people to stop offering their opinion on his public stances, because his REPUTATION is of great importance to his livelihood and career.

he demanded that the article "A pastor's assessment of Richard Abanes" be removed and that the ISP order Ken to cease and desist posting any similar articles.

What country does he think he's living in, Red China? Saudi Arabia?

I wonder if this 'reputation' thing can be used by president Bush when the free media publishes defamatory articles against him? How about Rush Limbaugh? Or any number of celebrities who have things published questioning things they have said and done?

WILL RICK WARREN NOT REIN IN HIS FORMER WORSHIP LEADER AN CURRENT APOLOGIST RICHARD ABANES?

He has the wherewithal to do it, but if he doesn't, it tells me that that is all a part of his plan to silence resisters, just like he promotes in his church materials, and for which machiavellian behavior he insists he is not responsible.

Here’s a note from Ken Silva:
http://apprising.org/2008/07/richard-abanes-to-sue-apprising-ministries-over-defamation-libel/

RICHARD ABANES TO SUE APPRISING MINISTRIES OVER DEFAMATION-LIBEL?

By admin on Jul 24, 2008 in Current Issues, General Information, Rick Warren, Southern Baptist Convention

Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?

Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?

I say this to your shame Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? (1 Corinthians 6:1-6, NASB)

Does A Pastor’s Personal Opinion Really Constitute Slander?

I received the below today from IPower Web which currently is the host company of the website for Apprising Ministries. Since it involves this AM article A PASTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF RICHARD ABANES and he says that he is my brother in Christ it seems best to bring this before the Body of Christ.

As far as I know Richard Abanes has never contacted me personally about taking anything down and/or correcting any perceived factual errors. It’s always been my understanding that asking someone to cease and desist should always be the first step prior to taking action such as he has below.

Please also know that I have absolutely no intention of removing that article, and since the host for AM’s website says, “Failure to delete such content within such period will result in termination of your website”, it does bring up an interesting question. Whose website might Richard Abanes be coming to terminate next?

Hello,

We have been advised by a visitor to your web site (at: HTTP://www.apprising.org) that such web site contains content that is alleged to be untrue, offensive, slanderous, harassing or controversial in nature.

Accordingly, please remove such content within 48 hours of this notice. Failure to delete such content within such period will result in termination of your website. The notice we received is below.

As you may know, we are a web hosting company. We are not responsible for the content or links posted by our customers who create and place content on websites that we host. We further do not “monitor” the websites that we host or prescreen the content placed by customers on their sites. However, when we become aware of allegations of improper activity by one of our customers using a hosted site, which would be a violation of our Terms of Service (TOS) governing the web sites, we take such situations seriously, investigate promptly, and take appropriate action.

Should you have further questions, please contact us.

Sincerely,
Customer Support Team

_________________________________________________________________

To: LEGAL DEPT. IPOWERWEB
FR: Richard Abanes
RE: Defamation-Libel - IPOWER hosted website, apprising.org

To whom it may concern,

Ken Silva, owner and operator of apprising.org, which is hosted by IPOWERWEB.NET, has engaged in posting libelous, defamatory statements on his website about me — i.e., Richard Abanes.

By way of introduction, I am an award-winning, bestselling author/journalist with twenty books published by major publishing houses. My public reputation, therefore is of paramount importance to my livelihood and career. Mr. Silva, with no regard for factual information, has posted on his apprising.org website:

- defamatory accusations,
- baseless commentary that impugns my personal/professional integrity, and
- factual errors about my published materials.

I am writing you in response to this libel that has been hosted by IPOWERWEB.NET/IPOWERWEB.COM in the form of statements found at apprising.org and direct your attention to the IPOWERWEB.NET “Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).” as found at http://ipowerweb.net/legal/legal_aup.bml. It reads:

“Prohibited Uses. Users may not: . . . b. Utilize the Services in connection with any illegal activity or activity otherwise prohibited by this AUP. Without limiting the general application of this rule, Users may not: . . . Utilize the Services for or in connection with any activities or content determined by IPOWER, in its sole discretion, to be related to gambling, adult, obscene or pornographic materials or content, harassment, defamation, libel and hate speech or other offensive speech or content, or for any unlawful purpose . . .”

“c. Utilize the Services in connection with any tortious or actionable activity. Without limiting the general application of this rule, Users and Users may not: i. Utilize the Services to publish or disseminate information that (A) constitutes slander, libel or defamation. . . .”

Ken Silva, owner/operator of apprising.org, has violated these above stated restrictions — specifically, in his article titled “A PASTOR’S ASSESSMENT OF RICHARD ABANES,” found at the URL
http://www.apprising.org/archives/2005/09/a_pastors_asses.html.

Before turning this situation over to my attorneys, I respectfully request that IPOWERWEB.NET / IPOWERWEB.COM remove this particular article from it’s servers, and notify Ken Silva to cease and desist the posting similar articles. I have no wish to name IPOWERWEB.NET / IPOWERWEB.COM in a legal suit, and hope to resolve this issue as quickly and easily as possible.

Please feel free to contact me at your earliest convenience. I hope to have this issue resolved as soon as possible.

Cordially,
Richard Abanes

I agree. I first became aware of Rick Warren when all of Houston, it seemed, was swept up in 40 days of madness 5 or 6 years ago. A raving Warren fanatic pushed a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” into my hands - it was golden! 2 pastors at my church were big fans of Warren, so I read the book - and wept.

I wrote up a critique of it, at the request of a friend from another church nearby. http://menofhonorministry.org/Discipleship/ThePurposeDrivenLife.htm

I reviewed this with my pastor, who blew it off, saying it was “sloppy” because Rick had been teaching this stuff for 20 years and just threw the book together. At that time, it had sold 20 million copies. The publishing industry is pretty brutal. Sloppy doesn’t make 20 million pressings.

“The Purpose Driven Church”, he said, is “much more tightly written”. Rather than calling these books “biblically sound” or “theologically unsound”, he called them “sloppy” and “tight”. sigh

Took me a while to find a copy of PDC. It’s worse - in many ways - than PDL.
http://brogdensmuse.menofhonorministry.org/Apologetics/PDC.htm

I had the PDL review on the church men’s ministry site (http://menofhonorministry.org/) for a year, until I told to take it down by the pastors. But I was not asked to remove my critique of “Wild at Heart” http://menofhonorministry.org/Discipleship/WildatHeart.pdf

Warren needs to be protected. Those who protect him are complicit in Warrens “stealth network” attack on the church.

Thanks for the links to your reviews of PDL and Wild at Heart.

I read both books years ago.

PDL was difficult to navigate after the first nine or ten chapters. I never investigated why, just put the book aside. Something in my spirit did not agree. I’m glad you took the time to critique it. Your critique is quite good and well grounded in Scripture. It seems we have so many “success” books in Christian literature, that it is a mere reflection of the secular mania involving self help books.

As you say, God desires obedience more than anything. For only a person turned toward Him and saved by faith in Jesus Christ can do His will.

Years ago, my wife heard about Wild at Heart and got me a copy. She thought I would like it. I have to say, that is the worst book I have ever read in my life, and I read a lot!

I remember little now, but my disgust at the author’s tortured reasoning and stupid, vapid examples were palpable at the time. My wife was very surprised at my reaction. I told her—I never want to be like that “man”-the author.

That book was like being waterboarded—torture. No rhyme, no reason, just stupidity, chapter after chapter.

I have found that the Christian literature business of the last thirty years has been a source of major disappointment. Each author thinks that somehow they alone and their life experiences qualify them to tell everyone else how to live the Christian life. Quite frankly, few of these authors have suffered for Christ in any real way. Some of these authors have written 20,30,40 books! Good thing they were born, huh?

After almost forty years of following Christ, I value more the humble servant who in obedience lives out their daily lives as a testimony to who is their Lord, reflected in their speech and their actions. Those are the ones you can learn something from.

The self help wunderkind, I have no need for.

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