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Public
Statement regarding the Cheryl Schatz initiated
Matthew 18 meeting with Matt Slick (CARM).
History:
A
meeting was held on August 22, 2008 in Idaho as my
husband and I and our Pastor traveled to meet with
Matt Slick to try to reconcile over the issues of
Matt's public misrepresentation of my teaching
along with the continued attacks on my person.
Since the first time I appeared on Matt Slick's
"Faith and Reason" radio show, I have been accused
of personally attacking Matt Slick and this has
been the excuse used to justify an all-out attack
against my integrity as an apologist and a
Christian. I fail to see how anyone could see how
my gentle approach to Matt could have been the
justification for the launch of an attack against
me. I have posted the audio of that radio show
"debate" at
this link
for any one interested in hearing the foundation of
the case against me. As a result of that first
radio appearance, I have apparently become enemy
number one, and I have been accused of being a
dangerous person who will destroy the church and
one who is a heretic. Everything I have written has
been twisted into an "attack" against Matt Slick.
All of Matt Slick's subsequent attacks against me
are listed by him as a "defense" against my
"attacks". I welcome any honest-hearted person to
listen to the foundation of the case against me
(audio
link available on this page)
and determine if the treatment I have received is
fair or honest or even reasonable.
I am
also posting a link to the audio file of the
misrepresentation of my teaching. Here is the
link
to the misrepresentation.
This false view had been denied by me twice during
our radio interview. After quite a number of
emails asking Matt Slick to retract his false
testimony, only after my pastor wrote him and told
him that he had slandered me, did he finally say
something public. Listen to him deny that he had
slandered me (showing that he believed his false
statement about my teaching was still valid) :
January
23 2008 first comment.
When I emailed Matt that his comment overrode any
"correction" since his denial that it was slander
made it appear that my own denial was not true,
listen to his amazing reaction to my request to
merely make it clear that I do not teach the error
that he said I teach January
23 2008 second comment in
anger.
Over
the next almost 9 months I continued to ask Matt
Slick to retract his misrepresentation and his
second statement where he claimed that he did not
misrepresent me. My issue is that I do not teach or
believe that Paul was allowing a woman to teach
heresy to her husband in any way, shape or form and
any claim that this is what I teach or believe is a
false witness and slander. Following the Matthew 18
process after dealing privately with this issue and
having endured all the name-calling for almost 9
months, I went the next step to take along two or
three witnesses since there had been no resolution.
Matt finally agreed to a meeting scheduled for
August 22, 2008.
Resolution
at the meeting:
Almost
a year after that first radio appearance, Matt
Slick finally agreed to meet with me to discuss the
issues between us. We did come to a position where
all could agree including the two pastors who were
in attendance as well as Ryan Turner, Matt's new
apologist at CARM. While Matt Slick refused to
apologize for his name calling and his public
misrepresentation of my teaching, by the end of the
meeting he did agree that he would stop the public
criticism and also he agreed to read a statement
that my pastor helped me write that Matt and I both
agreed to in the meeting that would sufficiently
correct the accusation about my teaching without
Matt Slick saying he was sorry for misrepresenting
me. I would have liked him to apologize but I was
willing to accept the correction without a public
apology.
We
have agreed that both Matt and Cheryl will stop any
criticism of each other in public. The public
discussion of the offenses is to stop as both of us
considers what the other has communicated publicly
as an attack. I (Cheryl) have agreed to do no
further posting about Matt Slick on my blog
(www.strivetoenter.com/wim).
Matt has agreed to stop speaking about me on his
radio program and to stop writing about me on CARM,
except that he agreed to put a public retraction on
his radio show saying that there was a public
misrepresentation of my teaching by Matt. Matt
agrees to correct what has been wrongly stated as
my view by agreeing to say he was "wrong" in what
he said about my teaching. I agreed that giving a
public retraction that was written out and given to
Matt to publish on his "Faith and Reason" show (the
podcast is the "Faith and Reason" radio show
available on the internet) as well as Matt's
stopping from his public attacks, even though he
refused to apologize, was fair and reasonable and I
would accept this.
Matt
Slick does not follow through on his
promises:
**Since
our meeting on August 22nd, Matt Slick has changed
his mind about publicly stating that he was "wrong"
about my teaching. Without consulting with me or
getting an agreement from me to change the public
statement that we had both agreed to in our
meeting, Matt decided that he could not publicly
say he was "wrong". I do not know what he did or
didn't say on that August 22, 2008 radio show
because the statement he claims to have made is
unavailable. Matt Slick made an agreement with me
and this agreement was witnessed by all of us at
the meeting, but Matt Slick felt free to break his
agreement with me without consulting with me or
asking for my willingness to change our agreement.
On the August 22, 2008 podcast Faith and Reason
show gives this brief note about the edited out
piece:
(edit
per Diane dj of two minutes beginning of
program)
Copyright
Matt Slick and CARM.org all rights reserved, do not
copy or redistribute without permission of owner
)
Matt
Slick refuses to allow me to have a copy of the
audio of the original radio program so I cannot
verify what he actually said on his radio show.
Matt Slick appears to believe that it is okay to
arbitrarily break our agreement without my
permission, and he also seems to believe that it is
ethical to withhold a public statement from me so
that I have no way to verify what he did or didn't
say. The readers of this statement will have to
decide for themselves whether this is an ethical
thing to do after an agreement had been
made.
Matt
Slick has also forbidden the radio station from
giving me a copy of the audio from the radio show
so his claims to have been in compliance with his
promise made in front of his pastor and my pastor,
his CARM associate Ryan Turner, myself and my
husband are useless to me since they are
unverifiable. It is Matt Slick's own decision to
remain unwilling to cooperate in any way at all.
Also since the "retraction" of the false statement
he made about me is not available on his podcast
(which is the "Faith and Reason" radio show
available on the internet) and since the
"correction" was removed before it made it to the
podcast to correct the false statement that was
also available on his "Faith and Reason" podcast in
essence continuing the bearing of a false witness
regarding what I teach, it appears that the promise
that Matt Slick made to me on August 22, 2008 was
meant to make me think that he was willing to bring
an end to our disagreement without actually doing
one single thing to keep his word.
While
our mutual agreement has been broken on Matt's end
by his going back on his word to me to give out the
particular public statement that we both agreed
upon at our meeting, and since what he claimed was
his rewritten retraction of his false witness about
my teaching has been removed from the public record
on the August 22, 2008 program, the very day that
we met him in Idaho, I still intend to keep my part
of the agreement by bringing this all to an end by
no longer commenting publicly about Matt Slick's
ways of attacking Christians who do not agree with
him on secondary issues of faith. My integrity is
not connected to whether Matt Slick is honorable
enough to keep his word. Whether Matt stops
attacking me in public or not, will have to be
judged by those who read his discussion board and
who read his carm.org website as well as the blog
that has been set up to post criticism of me. I no
longer go on these sites as I will have nothing to
do with Mr. Slick so I will let the reader judge
whether Matt has been faithful or not to his
promises.
Mr.
Slick has done much of his attacks in the past
through his vice president Diane Sellner who has
been given free reign to call me all kinds of names
and to slander my character. Since CARM is
completely under Matt Slick's control, as he is the
President of CARM, any attacks continued through
Diane Sellner lay at the feet of Matt Slick, her
boss. Matt Slick also informed us in the meeting
that Diane Sellner has again launched an attack on
me personally having purchased three web site names
as cherylschatz dot whatever (with different
endings). The purchase of my name was to mock and
defame my name. If Matt Slick allows the attacks to
continue through my own name on web sites that he
has complete knowledge of through people who are
employed with CARM and who are under his authority
and his direction, then God will now have to be the
judge between us and the public will also be in the
position to judge. I am appalled that all of this
started by my appearance on Matt Slick's "Faith and
Reason" radio show even with my strong attempts to
show Matt Slick Christian honor and
respect.
**
(Added
October 2008) The
public has advised me that Matt Slick has not
stopped attacking me but has placed pages on his
web site dated the day after our meeting,
continuing his false accusations and half truths.
Apparently he never intended to keep his word to
stop his public attacks against me either but
instead he has expanded the attacks from his
discussion board to his web site and onto Diane
Sellner's blogs. Although our long trip at our own
expense to meet with Matt Slick to seek
reconciliation has not brought resolution as we
thought but only brought further attacks against my
person, I have to let God work on Matt Slick's
heart because he refuses all forms of
reconciliation demanding instead that I apologize
to him for following the scriptural approach
regarding dealing with issues of offense. I
followed every step that scripture gives for
dealing with an offensive brother. Matt Slick on
the other hand never once tried to contact me
privately to reconcile with me but has kept up his
attacks against me as if I am not worthy of being
called a Christian sister and a fellow apologist.
For Matt Slick to ask me to apologize for following
through with what the bible sets forth for disputes
between Christians is unthinkable.**
This
puts a period on any contact with Matt Slick. I
will no longer discuss him although I will discuss
his theology on women in ministry especially if I
become aware that he has tried to answer my
refutation of his articles. Sometimes there cannot
be a resolution other than complete separation and
this is where it stands.
I
have also posted a public statement regarding my
Matthew 18 meeting at http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2008/09/06/public-statement-regarding-matt-slick.
Keith and Lorri MacGregor have posted their own
comments regarding this issue along with this
statement at http://mmoutreachinc.com/cheryl_slick.htm
This brings to a complete end any words that I have
regarding this matter as I have been pushed to
produce a public statement about why I have been
silent on this end about this very public
disagreement.
I
think this piece will put a huge period
.
on this matter as I have long ago moved on. If
anyone has any questions regarding this public
statement, please email me privately for
clarification. My pastor is also willing to
correspond with anyone who has questions concerning
this issue or concerning my integrity as a
Christian and an apologist. Email me (mmoutreach
(AT) gmail (DOT) com) for his contact
information.
Keith
and Lorri MacGregor are my ministry partners and
have been privy to the attacks against me from the
very beginning. Having heard Matt Slick for
themselves speak in angry tones toward his sister
in Christ calling me a heretic and twisting my
words, their wisdom to me is to follow scripture to
ignore a divisive person. My pastor has also given
me this same admonition and he too has been privy
to the attacks against me both on the radio, in
emails sent to him by Matt Slick and in our meeting
in Idaho.
While
I am sad that I was not able to be a peace maker in
this dispute, I did appreciate that by taking the
time and effort to make the twelve hour journey to
Idaho, I had the opportunity to meet Ryan, the new
apologist on CARM. I really appreciated his
attitude and his demeanor. I pray that God will
help him to make a positive impact in a godly way
in the calling that he has.
Cheryl
Schatz
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