In those churches, as soon as the Communist infiltrator made his accusation, people from all OVER the church would press him : "What witnesses do you have?" "Who are YOU? We've never seen you before?" etc. etc.
For what it's worth...
Cheers!
PS -- to Quix and metmom: So when's the wedding ? ;-)
Well, the teachings of the various faith healers and high profile figures are out there for all to see. Many of them have written books stating some of their bizarro teachings.
As far as how they live, that’s generally public knowledge as well.
The main point is, however, is that we’ve gotten into this mentality that people can only say good things about others and nothing bad. If it’s good, then it has credibility on its own merits, but if it’s bad, it’s just slander and an axe to grind, etc. Not everything that sounds negative, ie exposes error, is untrue. You can look at a situation objectively and state the facts about it, like the teaching that tongues is the evidence of the filling of the Holy Spirit has no Scriptural support or that tongues is a special prayer language that makes one more effective in prayer than when one prays in their own native language.
There is NO Scriptural support for either of these common teachings of today and pointing that out is not entertaining a charge against an elder of immorality. So it doesn’t fall into the same category at all.
However, if what the person is teaching is unscriptural, then even the bad sounding stuff actually has credibility, even though it’s accused of being negative.
It’s like we can’t even acknowledge fraud or charlatans without being accused of something. Scripture warns us about false teachers and tells us how to detect them. We ARE to judge based on their teachings and their fruit and are never commanded to judge by signs and wonders..
The long and short of it is, that the gifts are not the criteria for determining whether teaching or the person is of God, it’s fruit and fidelity to Scripture that is the criteria.
The emphasis is on the wrong thing and that presents a tremendous danger to the spiritually immature or those lacking discernment.