AFA's Family Resource Center Continues to

Promote Emerging Church Authors and Books

Actions speak louder than words

On January 15, 2007, Tim Wildmon, President of the American Family Association, made the following statement concerning the Contemplative Prayer and Emerging Church movements, and AFA's online bookstore:

"'As president of the American Family Association I am stating, for the record, that we do not endorse the contemplative prayer movement or the so-called emerging church movement. AFA has an on-line bookstore that is computer generated and run by an outside company that services other Christian ministries as well. I have personally asked this company to block the words ‘contemplative prayer’ and ‘emerging church’ as subjects to search on our bookstore. In addition, we have also blocked certain authors'" (Tim Wildmon's response to his critics, emp. added).

As of this writing (February 7, 2007), it has been 23 days since Wildmon's statement. Yet, AFA's Family Resource Center continues to promote the following Emerging Church authors and their books:

AFA's American Family Resource Center 

http://www.americanfamilyresourcecenter.net/e/Bhome.asp

Jay Bakker

Ruth Haley Barton

Rob Bell

John Burke

Spencer Burke

Tony Campolo

Steve Chalke

Mark Driscoll

Michael Frost

Eddie Gibbs

Pete Greig

Stanley Grenz

Alan Hirsch

Laurie Beth Jones

Tony Jones

Dan Kimball

Brian McLaren

Erwin McManus

Donald Miller

Mark Oestreicher

Chris Seay

Leonard Sweet

Dave Travis

Robert Webber

Lauren Winner

Mark Yaconelli

Mike Yaconelli

Youth Specialties

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In the same response to his critics, Wildmon also stated that:

"'The only people who come to our website looking for books on contemplative prayer or the emerging church -- because AFA doesn’t promote these movements -- are people who are trying to see if they can find some ‘dirt’ on AFA and then put out misleading reports on their websites'" (Tim Wildmon's response to his critics, emp added).

But were these reports about AFA's bookstore really misleading, as Tim Wildmon states? The answer to that is easy to find; it is within the cyber-shelves of AFA's online bookstore.

There is a big difference in sweeping "dirt" under the carpet than sweeping up "dirt" and tossing it into the garbage. This is not rocket science. Actions speak louder than words. Tim Wildmon and AFA would do well to consider the actions of the Ephesian converts to Christianity in Acts 19:18-19:

Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone; and they counted up the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver (NASB).

For additional information on the Emerging Church Movement, please refer to the following articles at:

http://www.letusreason.org/current77.htm

http://www.erwm.com/TheNewSpiritualFormation.htm

http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/emergingchurch.htm

http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor82.htm

http://www.understandthetimes.org/eca.shtml

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20420

http://www.christianresearchservice.com/EmergingChurch.htm

An Open Rebuttal to Tim Wildmon's Response to His Critics