Originally Posted by prisonchaplain
I went on a brief journey to the link Loudmouth provided, to the Amazon reviews, where our own livy posts, and I've been to the author's site. Once again, I fully admit to being way out of my area of expertise. However, I see a danger for the FAIR group, because this same type of thing has happened at evangelical sites.
Some here are probably aware of the Christian Research Institute, and would likely label it "anti." Thus I won't post any links. But, to give you a brief history, for nearly three decades Walter Martin ran it, and it's focus was a defense of "historic Christianity," against groups, like your church, that opposed the Trinity and salvation by grace/faith alone. Eventually Hank Hannegraff became the leader, and he decided to broaden the mission, by critically reviewing (i.e. attacking) abberrant Christian teachers/teachings WITHIN the realm of traditional Christianity. In particular, he went after several TV preachers, including Kenneth Copeland.
Some would say that CRI's efforts were normal. However, IMHO, Hannegraff cashed in on the respect CRI had amongst evangelicals, and engaged in very polemic attacks--in some cases getting caught doing very shoddy research.
While I do not have statistics, I'd guess that CRI is not half as influential as it used to be. BTW, I'm aware of the irony that CRI may always have not engaged in the most sophisticated research, given that its leaders were more adept at popular debating and entrepenuership than rigorous theological research.
I'm dropping out of the who's right debate, because it seems to center on whether the author transgressed some LDS doctrines and practices that I'm not qualified to assess. Still, I'd encourage FAIR to tread carefully in these matters, and mostly stick to defending your church against direct critics, rather than perceived questionable supporters.
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