IF SOMEONE HAS SET THEMSELVES UP as a so-called “Discernment Ministry” and all they can do is tear down other Christians or their work, then they do not know what discernment is and neither do they have a ministry. For they are ministering to nothing but the prejudices and weak minds of those they imagine they are ministering to. Being a “professional” error-spotter like that is often merely criticising someone whose deep teachings they are either too fearful to investigate for real or too immature to understand. This is not to say that even bogus mistries like that never make a good call. Some of the things they critique are genuinely harmful. But their entire thrust of operation and motivation is misplaced and they are just as likely to take down something which is entirely undeserved, as I have witnessed many times.

These bogus “Discernment Ministries” never write about the wonders of Christ, or the genius of God’s plan of the ages, or the meaning of the ascension of Christ, and other beautiful things. Their whole ignorant emphasis is on what you are NOT allowed to think and — according to their very narrow and limited understanding — what you are forbidden to do. They are the religious equivalent of mafia hitmen or goons, who take delight in character assassination through publicly denouncing others. They get far more pleasure out of that than out of painting a verbal picture of Christ. Seeking approval for their aggressive “ministry” is the hallmark of a narcissist. One wonders what unresolved traumas they are harbouring that makes them be so disordered in their souls. Were they ridiculed by their parents or teachers and made to feel small, so they now have to ‘big themselves up’ by publicly denouncing others or by doing a take-down on them? You have to wonder.

Exposing darkness is indeed sometimes necessary, providing one is doing it honestly, wisely, objectively, and it isn’t one’s sole specialty, and most especially that all the evidence is clearly proven. It takes a great deal of experience, maturity and wisdom to carry that out with integrity; and, honestly, it should primarily be done by wise and humble pastor-teachers rather than ‘Johnny-or-Joan-come-latelies’, or specialist hard-hitters (and there are more “Joans” than “Johnnies” in the “Discernment Ministry” racket these days, as so many rebellious wimmin who claim to be Christians are setting themselves up as internet teachers). Many of these “Discernment Ministry” people are unstable personality-disordered control-freaks whose life-force is all about spotting other people’s errors and imperfections rather than delighting in what could be, if they pursued it, their own progressive sanctification.

Here is a major caveat: If you read a takedown of another professing Christian by a so-called “Discernment Ministry”, you are from that moment onward duty-bound to investigate its veracity rather than just accept it blindly, or you are as guilty before God as the one doing the takedown if their claims can be shown by REAL researchers to be untrue or an exaggeration.

I have seen many instances of these bogus discernment ministries taking down another decent ministry solely because of the bogus ministry’s competitive jealousy of the admiration in which that other decent ministry is held, or because that decent ministry exposed a lie which the bogus ministry clings onto at all costs. That’s a common one, as the bogus ministries are acutely ignorant of the deep things of God and of the real truths of Scripture which fall outside their limited prejudiced knowledge. So when they read something outside of that knowledge, instead of investigating if it is true, they simply reach for their guns and shoot from the hip. That is not the way of the genuine disciple of Christ.

A great problem is that so many of those professing to be Christians these days are deeply gullible and easily deceived because of their superficial grasp of truth and lack of in-depth study. Thus, these bogus ministries find easy prey in the Christian population. This is where wilful ignorance will always come back to bite you in the ass.

Really, the limited role of a “Discernment Ministry” should be one little part of what is really the expository work of a pastor-teacher. For, as William Perkins (1558-1602) rightly put it, the role of the pastor-teacher is to rescue souls from Satan and then protect them from the wolves. A part of that protection is secondarily to expose false teachers and teachings while primarily building up the sheep with a deep knowledge of the Word of God. Then it would be balanced and part of ministering to people as a whole. Then any old screwed-up ‘Tom, Dick or Jenny’ would not be busying themselves in this work. (My apologies if one of those names is yours. No offence meant; it is just a saying 😊). But these bogus discernment ministries have been allowed to flourish almost like a judgement on the church because so many pastor-teachers have not only not been doing the work but they have also been promoting false teaching and practices.

So, my friends, beware of “Discernment Ministries”, so-called. The vast majority of them have been set up by smallminded people whose personal issues are fuelling their work rather than out of a love for Christ and His people. I know that full-orbed pastor-teachers and elders are hard to come by these days but that is no excuse for following a pied piper of bitterness suffused with sectarian prejudice, otherwise bogusly known as a “discernment ministry”.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]