Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!†Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.

These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. – Jude 1:4-13

There are many para-church organizations comprised of men who:

• Do not see eye-to-eye on every theological detail, but agree on the Gospel.

• Operate outside the bounds of ecclesiastical authority.

• Pursue bloggity/authory/Tweety/Facebooky/conferencey fame.

• Hold themselves somewhat above the fray of the unwashed masses by entertaining a few pet commenters with whom they regularly interact on their blogs.

There is more than one group of fellas who fit this description.

There is only one Christian celebrity.

Yesterday, in regards to my serious concerns over James MacDonald and the Elephant Room, a fellow blogger tweeted the following to me:

“What would you like to see? MacDonald declared a heretic? Anathema? Break all bonds of fellowship? There’s no reason for that.”

I’d like to respond to that statement with the following from Carl Trueman.

“But we are not dealing here with men who are simply making a credible Christian profession as church members; we are dealing with pastors who lead churches and hold terrible and awesome responsibility for protecting their flocks and making sure the truth is taught. We are also dealing with men who, through the use of conferences and internet, aspire to influence your congregation and mine – not that that is necessarily wrong (e.g., what Christian does not read books written by others?); but it does give us all `a dog in the fight’, to use the American phrase. If they give Jakes a clean bill of health, then that has much wider implications than simply for the participants in the ER.”