My Frustrations with Chris Rosebrough

Over the years I have had significant points of contention with Pr. Chris Rosebrough and his Fighting for the Faith discernment ministry. For the sake of brevity I've broken them down into several bullet points, so as to highlight the main areas of error and personal concern I have with Rosebrough and FFTF more specifically. 

1. Old boy network-type associations

Rosebrough's discernment ministry is so laser focused on the charismatic movement and the New Apostolic Reformation that if often skips over significant errors in other Evangelical teachers, specifically those on the Reformed side. Rosebrough's associations with Reformed baptists of the MacArthurite ilk has often left me with a bad taste in the mouth, as Rosebrough unites with them to go after the hyper charismatics while side stepping the heterdoxical teachings that teachers like MacArthur, Justin Peters, etc purport including Lordship Salvation and the denial of the means of grace in the Sacraments. Our confessions do not treat these issues as secondary as evangelicals often do, and Rosebrough as a pastor took an ordination vow to uphold them not to sugarcoat over them to suit his Protestant audience. On a more personal note I suffered a great deal of spiritual abuse from the morbid introspection that teachers like MacArthur and Paul Washer induce, and for Rosebrough and Steven Kozar to throw his support behind them has often felt like an act of betrayal. 

2. A personal lack of discernment 

Over the years Rosebrough has lacked discernment in his relationships and associations which has brought him into conflict with other Lutherans. I'm thinking specifically of his friendship with the Reformed apologist JD Hall, who has taken to Twitter to personally insult other Lutherans and those who disagree with him. It's only been more recently when Hall was outed by his own congregation for egregious personal sins that Rosebrough has spoken out. Where was he when the wife of a prominent Lutheran pastor was being attacked? 

A similar issue arose with his support of Tullian Tchividjian. I confess to having a blind spot myself when it came to Tchividjian's Radical Lutheran leanings. But as a confessional pastor, Rosebrough should have known better to throw his weight behind him, despite his Gerhard Forde influences and his relationship with the 1517 ministry and its history of soft antinomianism.  So when news of Tchividjian's adultery came to light, Rosebrough looked equally foolish. I see this as a repeated pattern in Rosebrough's choice of associations. 

3. The targets of FFTF

As I mentioned Rosebrough's focus is on the charismatic movement and more specifically the NAR and Word of Faith false teachers. On the whole he highlights the more prominent teachers but at times, he goes after false prophets in this movement who have little influence and have significant mental ailments in a way that is unhealthy and unfruitful. Videos on Heidi Baker for example are often reduced to comedy skits, such as is the case with his prophecy bingo programs where clearly demon possessed teachers are made the subject of laughter and abuse. While I see the need to expose their false preaching, I wish it could be done in a more mature way without the need for memes and skits.