Challies and Discernment Bloggers: his rant continues as does his hypocrisy

It appears that Tim Challies is once again slamming, even slandering discernment bloggers.(Go here for Daniel Chew's recent article on Challies' continued attack on discernment blogs) The watchman, the discerner of discernment bloggers, the critic of critics, the bloggers of bloggers, Challies is this time up in arms about criticism he has gotten. No names of persons or blogs are given; no facts with evidence; only a general swipe at them as bullies, fear mongers, and liars because he says so.

Challies' Hypocrisy:

"The Christian’s attitude toward others, especially in difficult times, is to be one of optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than doubt. We, of all people, should be slow to put aside hope and belief. This means that I owe it to C.J.Mahaney, to SGM and to those who have levelled allegations to believe the best about them, to hope all things for them."

~Challies on the sexual abuse charges against Sovereign Grace Ministries/church headed by CJ Mahaney (the case is going to court; go here for more info)

Yet the standard is different for discernment bloggers who take his public opinions, actions, etc. and test them against Scripture:

"The second lesson is one I am surprised I did not see before: Discernment bloggers often operate by fear...The discernment blogs are too often marked by neither truth nor love. " ~Challies

Indeed, Challies plays the victim when he's at fault for his own actions and double standards. He has repeatedly  given credence to enemies of the Cross (Rick Warren, Mark Driscoll Ann Voskamp, Donald Witney), shows little anger toward the nastiness going on at SGM, and then complains when his error is revealed by the light of truth.

The hypocrisy of Challies is that while he continues to slam discernment bloggers by slander (he claims they operate on fear and lies--accusations he doesn't back up in any specific way--just accusations of nameless people), he himself wrote a book on discernment. He allows himself to be the discernment blogger of discernment bloggers. He is unwilling to assign motives and indeed gives wide grace to the SGM sexual abuse charges ( or  false teacher Rick Warren for example), but is generous with his assigning motives and allegations against discernment bloggers that he doesn't like. He is unwilling to give the same grace and thus withhold his opinion and slander that he demands of everyone re: himself. That's the epitome of hypocrisy.

If Challies is upset with bloggers exposing his error, then he should either stop his error or stop reading about himself.  Perhaps he's in the wrong field of choice. Liberals want to consort with the enemy of Christ and then complain with those in Christ expose their disloyalty toward HIM and His flock. You can't play with fire and then complain when the fire department shows up with hoses turned on and dowsing the entire house. Its your fault for playing with the matches and starting a fire.

Challies' standard for everyone else but himself is hypocritical. Did he personally try to approach those he claims have slandered him? Does he see into their hearts to see if they have love or not? He knows their motives?  Did he verify the facts? Oh, he had them from their website? Cannot the same be said for those bloggers he's railing against? So how is his violation of his own standrd ok? If a person consorts with false teachers, they have invited rightful criticism. 2John 9-11 makes this very clear.

By trying to denigrate a much needed spiritual gift like discernment, into something so nasty he uses it like a cuss word (perhaps now he and others like him will just use the phrase "the D word"), labeling it as gossip, intimidation, lies, slander, bullying, merely shows that he can't stand under the weight of discernment. Are there people who really  do say nasty things? Sure. But so what? Challies  yet again makes sweeping generalizations and lumps all discernment bloggers into his trash can as worthless and gossiping bullies. A true mature believer won't keep reading about himself and then write a whole article about how he's a "victim" of his own public words. One thing I've learned is that when "famous online Christian experts" get publicly exposed for their error, their pride comes out in major ways. The non-committed, take-no-sides men suddenly take a side vehemently and come out slandering others themselves.