Rebuttal to Kelly Kang’s Post

Sep 17, 2009 11:10 AM
Rebuttal to Kelly Kang’s Post
by makestraight

As I was reading through Matthew 9, I was hit by how busily Jesus lived his life while he was here on earth. Everywhere he went, there were people flocking to him. Just in this chapter alone, he heals “a paralytic lying on a mat,” “a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,” “two blind men,” “a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk,” and raises the ruler’s daughter from the dead. The passage says “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” He saw that the people were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without shepherd” and told his disciples that the “harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”

In the midst of all of this are John’s disciples and the Pharisees. John’s disciples ask Jesus a question about fasting. The Pharisees attribute evil source for Jesus’ power. Being the religious people that they were, they really should have been there along with the disciples trying to help Jesus by becoming harvest workers. Instead, they were steeped in arrogance and mistrust. Instead of rejoicing in what was going on, we see them picking fights with Jesus and criticizing his every move. While the crowd was amazed at what was going on, the Pharisees assume the role of spiritual authority and make such outlandish assertion as, “It is by prince of demons that he drives out demons.” The Pharisees could not have possibly known the truth of what they asserted and yet they make such a bold assertion. Such pride, such arrogance! Because of their own agenda to protect their position and maintain the status quo, they have to denigrate what Jesus was doing and come up with a ridiculous scenario to explain away what Jesus was doing.

One lesson for modern-day Christians is that we need to be careful not to engage in “friendly fire” among us. There is so much diversity within Christendom, and quarreling about them only prevents the work of the kingdom. We also need to be wary of heeding the voice of those who seem to major on critiquing other Christians, and ministries—especially if we are not in a position to evaluate the character and actual lifestyle of these critics. Jesus came as a human being. He came to earth, lived among his people, showed his compassion by actually healing and touching lives, taught among the people, etc. A Christian witness has to be embodied. It’s so easy to sound smart by being critical and sarcastic. I am reminded of Matthew 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”

It’s my prayer that every Christian would hear personally the call to join the harvest as kingdom workers and get busy living for God rather than question, criticize, denigrate and slander. Indeed, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few and we as Christians have a lot of work to do.

First of all, I would say I’m done with this “break”. I can’t sit back and relax while things continue to get twisted by Kelly Kang. I decided to post the full text of her blog, as I wanted to capture it as it was before she might edit it later.


Here are the twisted, false things about her post – essentially my rebuttal. This is off the cuff, and I will add to it and clean it up later.

1. Jesus was indeed busy. But there’s a difference being busy, and being busybodies. After all, Martha was also busy, but Jesus chided her for that. The point of Christian life is not to be busy. It’s to love God and others, and to lead people to Christ to be saved. We ought to be diligent, but not to be point of being a busybody out of touch with the Spirit of God. I was quite a busybody when I was at Gracepoint. God did work in me and through me in some cases. But most of the time, I felt disconnected from God as a busybody. But Ed, Kelly and other leaders would always place the blame soley back at me.

2. In this story about the Pharisees and Jesus, Pharisees were envious of all the attention Jesus was drawing away from them and to Jesus. I have absolutely no envy for Kelly or Pastor Ed. None. It’s not the motivation for my blogging. I’ve already clarified my reasons.

3. Jesus is Jesus. The rest of us are not, Kelly included. This means that Jesus never had to pray a prayer of repentance, or even ask for forgiveness. The rest of us are sinners, and we need to both repent regularly, and also ask for forgiveness to those that we have sinned against. We also need to forgive others also. Kelly’s problem is that she places herself in the role of Jesus. She thinks she is sinless and has done nothing wrong, although the truthful stories of her prove otherwise. She accuses the accuser, rather than listening to the truth about her sins.

4. I make no bold, outlandish assertions against Kelly Kang, Pastor Ed, and the top leaders at Gracepoint Berkeley. Let me also point out that the Pharisees’ accusation against Jesus was simply false. But in the case with Kelly Kang and Ed, it’s different. Most of what we’ve stated are based on facts, common sense, and the Bible. Let me also restate that I do believe God works in Gracepoint for salvations, but I believe He works “in spite” of people, not because of their righteousness. God can work through anyone, even a donkey or a wicked ruler.

5. Who is the one wanting to protect their position? Is it Kelly and Ed or is it any of us that openly “criticize” them and Gracepoint based upon Truth? Rather, it seems through this very post that Kelly seems to want to dismiss any questions or criticisms against them as wicked, dubbing it “friendly fire”. It seems to me that she wants to protect her position. If we were to follow her logic, then we should have left alone Jimmy Swaggart the TV evangelist who committed sexual sin, but was leading people to Christ. Should we also leave alone regular pastors who’ve committed adultery since they preach the Word of God and lead them to salvation?

6. It’s hypocritical that Kelly speaks out against “friendly fire”. Didn’t she and Pastor Ed do the same via the letter they wrote against Becky Kim, their former leader? Hypocrisy indeed. Furthermore, didn’t they both applaud the work of Martin Luther in writing his accusations of truth against the corrupted Catholic church, which gave birth to the Prostestants, and therefore, the Baptists?

7. If Kelly believes criticism against Christians who do work in leading others to salvation is wrong, then why does she discipline, criticize, and rebuke her own members? Isn’t that “friendly fire”?

8. A Christian witness has to be embodied indeed. As many have referred to in various comments in this blog and others, Kelly Kang does not embody the fruit of the Spirit in her controlling, possessive, and sometimes narcissistic character. I believe she is alluding to the anonymity of myself and the other bloggers, and asserting that because we are anonymous, none of our assertions or criticisms are valid. As OlderNWiser has already put into words, we wouldn’t need to if she and Ed were open to criticism in the first place, and were safe people to dialogue with in criticism. Rather, she judges, blames, and even shares negative stories about those that have dissensions or leave. I’ve heard them from her myself. I remain anonymous to protect myself from such wickedness and attacks. Furthermore, Kelly’s basic assertion is false. We read plenty of news articles and history books and encyclopedia entries written by people who we do not know, and yet we safely attribute them as true. How? We simply compare them with reality and bounce the truths with other sources to validate them. You can do the same with my blog and others. Do the same, fair test for Truth.

9. I am not interested in sounding smart. I am interested in exposing the Truth.

10. I don’t “major” in criticizing ministries. I have a fairly busy life. I serve God at my church and I read the Word of God. I minister to others also. I found it sufficiently worthwhile and necessary to run this blog because of the damage the Kangs and their top leaders are doing to people.

11. I would like to ask Kelly to reflect upon the same verse in Matthew 7:3. Before she corrects anyone, she should look at the log in her own eye. She is even blind to how similar to Becky she is. She has rebuked countless people for their “pride” and “wickedness”, but she doesn’t see the logs of pride and wickedness in herself. I try to practice what I was taught by Pastor Ed himself. Repent continually, and specifically. I try to name my sins specifically and even state them to others and seek their forgiveness when I wrong them. It’s part of the Christian life – it’s not just about being busy. Also, it is Kelly Kang and Pastor Ed that do the “harassing” via spiritual abuse, rendering people “helpless” and unable to think for themselves – some even falling into depression. Then isn’t it the right thing for me to do to preach the good news of the Gospel of Grace, and try to help heal those who have been hurt?

12. I do “question” and “criticize” because of Pastor Ed and Kelly Kang’s sins of spiritual abuse, but I do not “denigrate” and “slander”. You can not group them into one bucket. They are different. There is malicious, selfish intent and an implication of lies behind the latter two words. I am not slandering her. I am pointing out truths. I’m not a prophet, but Nathan pointed out truths to David after his sin. That was not slander, but a call to repentance.

13. Lastly, her efforts merely further validate that Gracepoint Berkeley is abusive and unhealthy.

From Characteristics of Unhealthy, Abusive, and Cultic Church Environments:

“Negative aspects of system silenced. People who identify problems are viewed as a threat. They are marginalized, stigmatized and cast out of the system.”

From Battered Sheep:

“Non-abusive leaders do not discourage members from reading information critical about the group. Abusive leaders often control negative information about the group by either discrediting it or by dissuading members not to read it.”