More on Watchbloggers

UPDATED:

For the record, when Pastor Silva reviewed this post, he made the correction on-line to the very post I referenced, and made it clear that his concerns have been addressed -- at least insofar as it relates to my opinion of him. I appreciate his forthright approach in this matter.

As I unwind this chain of posts (which are evolving and not canned or pre-recorded), I can’t help thinking about that scene in Star Trek VI where Star Fleet tells Kirk and crew that they are the ones who are going to negotiate the peace treaty with the Klingons. The money quote is when Spock tells Kirk that “Only Nixon could go to China.”

Let me be honest: I have not idea how that analogy works out on a one-to-one basis in this walk-through of differences in theology, ministry, and the basics of logic and civility.

That said, TeamPyro became the #1 blog in Technorati’s ranking of “Lifestyle: Religion: blogs last week, in part on the back of links my rebuttal to “Coram Deo” produced. In particular, Ken Silva posted this in two places – Apprising Ministries, and Christian Research Net:

And kudos, fwiw, to Pastor Silva for keeping the “Moses Lolcat” quote in there because it is the little things which make blogging so rewarding.

What I’m concerned about is the part I highlighted in yellow up there – the part where Pastor Silva says my statement is about “online apologetics and discernment ministries such as this one”. It’s a puzzling statement for at least three reasons:

[1] In my last post on this subject – and indeed, in almost everyone of the threads/posts where this comes up – I have made it clear that there’s a difference between “watchbloggers” and credible apologists and discernment ministries.

[2] In almost every list of “Credible discernment ministries” I have ever provided, I have been explicit to list “Pastor Ken Silva” as one of the good guys – in lists which include James White, Greg Koukl, and so on.

[3] When I have defined the purveyors of the problem, I have been explicit to say that these are people who are both anonymous and also unapologetic for their mistakes. To my knowledge, there’s no way this applies to Ken Silva, is there?

What seems to me to be true is that Ken Silva does not want to say that there are any “discernment ministries” which are, frankly, in grave error as defined by their tactics and their philosophy of ministry. And Pastor Silva is willing to stand arm-in-arm with those people to this extent: that he is also willing to publish something which is patently untrue to oppose the argument. My justification for saying this is the evidence above – in which Pastor Silva wants to put words in my mouth, specifically about his own work, in order to “expose” my error.

Look: as I said in my response to Chris Rosebrough, reputable discernment ministries (and reputable bloggers, for that matter -- you don't have to be an elder in a church to be a decent writer and thinker) should not fall into the trap that the "careful charismatics" fall into all the time. That is: the careful charismatics don't rebuke/disavow the awful charlatans like Todd Bentley until after they have discredited themselves through moral failure, after many have been bilked, for fear of being seen as a "friendly fire" against the charismatic movement and sewing the seeds of skepticism in their own ranks. The careful bloggers, apologists, and theologians should openly discredit anonymous drive-by slanderers who don't have any visible accountability – and the argument that they should somehow avoid “friendly fire” is simply not compelling. It doesn’t speak to the issues which are at the heart of apologetics, like discernment and maturity and humility in the face of the truth.

So here I call on Ken Silva to disavow his statement that I have been including him [and all discernment ministries] in the “watchbloggers” category when in fact I have been circumspect to specifically disavow the idea that he’s a “watchblogger”. It doesn’t do his point of view any good to participate in muddying the water – because in doing so, it’s his own hands that get dirty.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

Coram Deo has decided to be my Jiminy Cricket, for which I am grateful. I think. Thanks for following the link from the comments at TeamPyro.

| I'm not sure how helpful that
| response actually was, Frank; but
| it was rather revealing.

It always is. It ought to point you back to the other responses on this topic I have given you as well, CD, but it doesn’t. What that reveals, of course, is your own shallow vision of discernment.

| For all your usual ability to
| appreciate fine distinctions, and
| understand nuance, you once
| again lump together an entire
| genre of bloggers (the 95-
| percenters) and caricature them
| negatively.

I have actually already made a very necessary distinction: between reputable people (i.e. – pastors and theologians/teachers with public ministries who do not hide behind aliases and anonymity with a clear view of accountability) and people like you who [since we need to be as specific as possible for the sake of nuance] who are not accountable, are not public people, do not have any regard for the biblical standards for discernment, and who want to be the judges of others without impunity or responsibility.

I made that distinction back when you decided to start your campaign on this issue over at Zach Bartels’ blog. Since you missed it then, I’ll put it here for your review, and you can consider that aspect of your concern answered.

There is a vast difference between being a minister of discernment (a la James White, Greg Koukl, Mike Horton, etc.) and being a loose cannon who simply cannot engage anyone in a way which really is meant for correction rather than self-aggrandization. Because you and your cohorts don’t understand that, it should be the first sign that what you do is not actually very discerning.

Take, for example, this statement:

| Are there some really bad
| watchbloggers out there? Of
| course!
|
| Are there some that are truly
| edifying and Christ-honoring? Of
| course!
|
| But there's apparently no
| distinction in your mind.

Now, think about this -- your approach says this specifically: Frank has never made a distinction between good and bad discernment blogs. This is demonstrably false even if I have never given the abridged list of names of examples because I have in fact given the core criteria for telling the apples from the poison. The distinction I have given above is the one I have given you at least once before. But on top of that, I have also given you a short list of examples previously.

So let’s think about how that reflects on your discernment personally:

[1] You have the clear evidence you need to dispose of this statement
[2] Because you have made it before, the very least you should do in honesty is to retract it; the actually-contrite thing to do would be to disavow the statement and apologize.
[3] Instead, you repeat it as if I have never confronted your complaint.

What kind of discernment is that, exactly?

| And it's
| not even as though you caricature
| them as well meaning yet
| miguided Biblically-impoverished
| lone rangers on ill-advised
| Jeremiads. Such would at least
| demonstrate some level of actual
| patience and love on your part
| towards your errant brethren, but
| no.
|
| You characterize them as a self-
| appointed "magisterium" and
| deride them as subjecting those
| who disagree with them to
| treatment akin to that doled out
| during the "Spanish Inquisition".

Before we get to your next indictment, let’s remember that after giving the clear distinction between watchbloggers and actual apologists, I have then given some specific complaints about the methods and modes of those who are the bad examples.

For example, they are uncorrectable (see above). Not only will they not offer corrections when they are wrong, they are revisionists who delete blog posts and comment threads. They cannot ever offer an apology – in spite of the damage they do to others. It is simply unheard of and unfound in fact.

That sort of activity in the NT was dealt with in the harshest terms, and I think that’s a mandate to do the same when one is dealing with that sort of error. For example, Paul tells Titus that people who are “teaching” but misleading people through falsehood (again, see above) are “detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work”.

I have not done more than that by any means. What I have done, however, is use a word which they/you will find most offensive: “magisterium”. The offense is meant full force, and I stand by it – until such a time that those who are guilty of it (see above) repent.

| Can you see the rich irony here,
| Frank?

I can – but I think you have missed it. The rich irony is that you demand something of others you have no intention of ever delivering. You want to hold others captive by their good conscience but hold yourself to another standard – one which is disabused of fact and charity and humility.

Look to your mistake in defining my own position, and do something about that if you are remotely serious. Then apply the principles which guide you to that effort broadly. And then you won’t be a watchblogger anymore.

This next part is actually my favorite part, in two acts. Act 1:

| Is it really the love of Christ
| that compels you to sacrificially
| love those with whom you
| disagree by equating them with a
| corrupted body that has
| arrogated to itself the role of the
| Holy Spirit Himself (the infallible
| magisterium) and their work as
| being equivalent to the Spanish
| Inquisition?!?

Given that you and yours, CD, are doing exactly what they did, and making the same scope of errors they made, and eliminating any opportunity for rebuttal, rebuke, reconciliation, or retraction, I would say, “yes, it is the love of Christ which causes me to tell you how far from the true vine you find yourself.”

The evidence of that love is that I am replying to you (again) in spite of your failure to repent of your mistakes toward me, and spelling out in detail what my concerns are. If I hated you, I’d just ignore you as irredeemable.

| Really Frank?

Really. And the next part is the best part, Act 2:

|'Cuz I can tell that
| I'm not feeling the love, brother
| and although I smell something, it
| doesn't smell like the pleasing
| aroma of the love of Christ. It
| smells more like a pair of sweaty
| gym socks that have been left in
| the locker festering for way too
| long.

Now, think on it: what’s that sound like? If we pulled it out of this discussion and just cited it randomly as a response to criticism (overlooking its error and omissions to get to this conclusion), who could this be?

It could be the retort of a careless charismatic who doesn’t actually have any arguments left.

It could be the retort of a KJVO guy who cannot respond to the criticisms of his position.

It could be the first round of responses from an Emerg* advocate.

That is: our mate the Watchblogger finds himself in the same place all people who are doing the indefensible find themselves – complaining about how “unloving” his adversaries are because they cannot agree with him and fully capitulate.

| As far as your much vaunted high
| view of repentance and
| reconciliation, that's a good thing,
| but methinks log should meet
| mote in genuine repentance ...

... which has been demonstrated repeatedly in 6-7 years of blogging in practice through a commitment to offer plain apologies with no qualifications in plain view, and a practice which does not revise the record in order to hide my own fallibility, ...

| ... because (at least on this subject)
| your level of snark and hyperbole
| belies something other than the
| sacrificial love of Christ you claim.

Ah. So sarcasm < > love; but anonymous and a-biblical exercises in character assassinations, and failing read and address the clarifications of those reproached, and thereafter not retracting or apologizing for one’s own errors == LOVE OF CHRIST!

| Think about it.

I have thought about it. This has been the result of that. May it be a blessing to you.

My Brother's Keeper

Back in the olden days of blogging, I had some stuff to say to and about Derek Webb because frankly he was shooting his mouth off calling the kettle black from inside his pot.

Of course, he ignored me because back then I was just a blogger, and of course I am still just a blogger; sadly, he is still shooting his mouth off. You can see how over at youTube. I'd embed the video, but it would be 3 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. Here are, instead, the lyrics to that song:

You say you always treat people like you like to be
I guess you love being hated for your sexuality
You love when people put words in your mouth
'Bout what you believe, make you sound like a freak

'Cause if you really believe what you say you believe
You wouldn't be so damn reckless with the words you speak
Wouldn't silently conceal when the liars speak
Denyin' all the dyin' of the remedy

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

If I can tell what's in your heart by what comes out of your mouth
Then it sure looks to me like being straight is all it's about
It looks like being hated for all the wrong things
Like chasin' the wind while the pendulum swings

'Cause we can talk and debate until we're blue in the face
About the language and tradition that he's comin' to save
Meanwhile we sit just like we don't give a s---
About 50,000 people who are dyin' today

Tell me, brother, what matters more to you?
Tell me, sister, what matters more to you?

Because of course: cursing at people -- especially traditionally-religious people -- is how to get them to listen to you.

Now obviously: this is a song about the socially-conservative approach to the matter of homosexuality in the world, and especially in the US. And it's supposed to be about how we deny the Gospel by hating people who are homosexuals. We are, of course, very bad people -- because we argue when someone says something we disagree with.

But the underlying problem for Derek Webb's point is that it is factually bunk. Let's keep in mind as I spell this out that I'm the guy who wrote this post regarding our approach to the question of homosexuality.

As I read Webb's lyrics, here's what I think he's saying: we are more worried about winning an argument about some theological point than we are about saving the lives of 50,000 people every day. Fair enough: I have said something like this recently myself.

Well, just from the place of finding a fact to agree on, about 6800 people die in the US every day (about 19 per hour); about 146,000 die globally every day (about 17 per hour). Relative to the AIDS pandemic, the UN says about 5500 people die every day of AIDs globally.

And I say that not to win an argument -- and therefore fall into the "like ministry" trap Webb has laid out for his listener (you know: you have better things to do than think about my complaint, like ministry -- which I will therefore define for you) -- but in fact to point out that Webb has a history of playing it fast and loose with what is actually happening in the world -- especially the Christian world, and the English-speaking Christian sub-culture. It cuts into his credibility as a critic when he can't actually frame up his fusses with something that looks like what is actually happening.

But that said, it's more than a little cheeky to blame Christians for people dying since it is a well-documented fact that we do more for the world than any other sociological group in terms of charitable giving and service (check the links about in my old comments about Webb; the links to stats are there). And it is way more than cheeky to say that the reason gay people die of AIDS is that Christians hate them.

But these two things are completely related: they assume that Christians are the problem. Now, I'll be the first to affirm that we are our own worst enemy, and that amateur apologists do more to hard the cause of Christ than help it. I've said it myself that 80% of Christian apologetics needs to take a permanent holiday. But when someone like Derek Webb wants to hammer the Church for somehow not caring about people who are dying, he's simply wrong -- he's simply blathering slander against his own brothers and sisters.

BTW, I enjoyed the tweet today from someone who said, "I know nothing re: @derekwebb or @phil_johnson_ I DO know God would rather you cuss than be a prick http://twurl.nl/fgnojs". Let me suggest to that person that when you cuss to make a slanderous point for the sake of allegedly convicting someone of sin, you have become the prick you think you hate.

And this does actually relate to the question of bad art and bad songs. It is, however, an excursus. I’ll try to get back to the real thing tomorrow.

Rap and Bad Art (1)

Believe it or not – and I’m stunned here – my Twitter stream has broken out in a regular beat-down over the last 4 days over rap music.

And before we get started here: in your car, I can’t stop you from listening to whatever it is you want to listen to. I wouldn’t bother to try. You want to rock out with your frock out, or get your wizzle all fo-dizzle, or play Lawrence Welk or listen to books on CD – you live as Christ convicts you. I have been known to secretly listen to Thin Lizzy, Ben Folds and even Black Sheep on my iPod, so let’s not pretend that I’m being some kind of prude here, or worse: some kind of legalist/hypocrite.

But here’s the thing: the argument has been foisted out that “it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it” which has frankly poked me in the eye, so I’m going to drop in a few hundred words here on the subject and then let all comers do what they will.

In the first place, that maxim is simply a dodge. It seeks to escape all kinds of things – like whether or not something is inherently sinful. Not to be crass, but there is no good use for porn – not one moral credit to be made to porn in any circumstance. So we have at least one good example of a tool which is a bad tool. Here’s a short list of others before anyone gets the idea that we’re talking the exceptions and not the rules:

• vigilantism
• promiscuity
• robbery
• envy

There are no good uses for these things – and those who will foist up examples like, “well, what if you’re the last man on earth and you have to repopulate the world,” or “what if you’re Robin Hood,” need to ask themselves what has to happen for those things to be true – because those things are, plainly and at best, reasoning from the extremes and the unlikely rather than from the Bible and from the actual world you live in.

So plainly: some things are bad tools. But what about “art”? Seriously: am I going to here rationalize that Art is itself a bad tool?

Look at this blog, for crying out loud: I am all about Art as a tool.

The problem is that all Art is not created equal. For example, I would say plainly that propaganda is a form of art which is inherently bad – because it uses the truth-telling power of art to inspire confidence in falsehood. One should not participate in using art to promulgate lies or half-truths for the sake of manipulating people’s opinions or actions.

And in that, I can’t imagine anyone would deny such a thing – especially someone who’s positioning himself as a Christian or a “biblical thinker”. It’s simply a premise of revelation, or God's act of self-testimony: that somehow what is expressed must in its own right be representative of what is true. I’d list proof texts here, but how many times does the Bible have to forbid and condemn lying before we get the message that all violations of the truth are immoral?

Now, this creates a rabbit trail which we need to give a special treatment to: fiction. Is all fiction a lie? Some people think so – in fact, someone is bound to accuse me of such a stupid thing if I don’t chase this rabbit here and now. Here’s what I think: unless Psalm 1 is a description of a historical event, then the Bible has at least one clear case of drawing a hypothetical, metaphorical image which uses analogy as a tool for reasoning. And in that, the Bible demonstrates to us how fiction can be about something which never happened in history but points us to truth which is in history and among people and from God.

All fiction is not bad. All art is not bad. But there is bad fiction and bad art, as described above.

And in this, we need to think about this carefully: is there, therefore, bad music?

I’ll be back later in the week to discuss that. You see what you can come up with in the comments.

Give it a rest

This week Challies entered the confessional after meeting with the Bishop of Nice, Rick Warren. And, you know, whatever -- it was standard Challies -- which is to say, fair and balanced almost to the fault of not actually offering any judgment at all (sorry, Tim). But you should read it just for the sake of being up on these things.

Here's why I'm blogging it. In that piece, Tim said this:

I wondered, had I always been fair to Warren? As David and I spoke it suddenly dawned on me that Rick Warren is a real person. He isn’t a robot or a really clever computer who spits out books and sermons, but a real guy. And as a real guy, he is aware of some of the controversy that surrounds him—including reviews and articles written by the likes of me. And as I’ve often had to do in the past, I had to pause to consider whether I would say to Warren face-to-face what I’ve said about him in my reviews and articles. This is not to say that I’ve ever accused Warren of heresy or torturing kittens. But I have commented on the nature, the completeness of the gospel he preaches—surely a topic that is close to his heart.

And it seems to me that this is the new mea culpa on the internet these days: "I just suddenly realized [fill in here] is a real person -- I never thought of that before."

Oh heaven, please.

In a day and age when we periodically get lectures about "incarnational living" and all manner of word-made-flesh moralisms, when someone starts up with the tom-foolery that they just now realized they were taking to or about flesh and blood and not to one of the Decepticons or a monster from a Hellboy movie, I have to refrain from starting a controversy about my own language.

Really? They weren't real people to you? Listen: Dr. Doom is not a real person to me, so when he starts monologuing about his pantheism or his spiritism or his egoism or whatever, he's a comic book character who is usually drawn and written in very broad strokes. He's on about the problem of evil? He is the problem of evil, short and sweet. Next!

We don't refute Dr. Doom, do we? We don't evangelize him or take him seriously. He's in a green cape and an iron mask for pete's sake. that's how we treat people who are not real to us: as objects of entertainment. And if you haven't done this, you're not guilty of objectifying anyone, so don't give me your phony unburdening -- it's patronizing.

And that's not just for Challies -- that's for all of you out there who are trying to show me how self-aware you are. "I just realized they are people," is something a 16-yr-old can say credibly. If you have had kids or have been married for long enough to have at least one good fight where you were flat-out wrong, you know people are real. You have the equipment. If you're just now using it, you have a lot more to apologize for than merely giving Saddleback an elbow to the ribcage.

I'm a real person, too: be civil enough to me to avoid this kind of sentimentality and second-rate self-examination.

Two, no Three things

[1] John in the comments of the last note decried the "pissing match" going on at the ol' blog, and while I think he's only about half right I take his comments seriously, therefore this particular post.

[2] Michael has said that I have taken a private e-mail from him and turned it into a blog post. I've been through all the posts for 2009, and I can't find it. If someone can point out to me what he's talking about, I'd be grateful.

[3] Michael has also said that I am "obsessed" with him, and that I only blog for the traffic. I own the second half of that, as should any blogger who can report his traffic, for example, in order to gain sponsers for his blog or to sell a book deal. However, until I reviewed the last 8 months of blogging, I did not realize how much like clockwork my posts about him have been. Most of those this year have been sympathetic, but facts are facts. To my own state of mind, it was convenient to find topics at BHT and IM, and I have been especially limited in time this year. I would call the practice: sloppy; lazy; convenient; myopic; drive-by. There was by no means any ill-will intended as the content of all but the last 5 or 6 would testify (I would argue that all but that last one testify to that; but I am honestly not trying to argue now). However, it has plainly caused Michael to be offended. I stand by the content; I reject the practice. I apologize to him for making him a truck stop for my blogging benefit. It was an ill-considered practice, and I will avoid making a habit of commenting on his blogging in the future.

Open Gripe Night

Hey -- after (can you believe this?) four and a half years of blogging (and I might add: with relative success -- I don't have a 501c3 or a church ginning up readers for me), I have to ask: what exactly causes all the ridiculous fuss?

So this is open gripe night -- open gripe weekend. I can canceled all bans in Haloscan, and I'm giving you the weekend to really set one up and tee it off: what exactly is your problem with me? You can rant and rave all you want, OK? The only caveat -- the only favor I ask for this chance to really let one fly -- is that you link to something which substantiates your opinion about me, and you ought not to comment anonymously. For your own sake, you can post with no name, but you have to fill in the e-mail field with a valid e-mail addy.

Hate me. Loathe me. I'm standing on Prov 12:1 so you can also give me the business for Christ's sake.

never an attack -- just the truth

Read this.

OK: now, let's get a few things straight. The first is that the Baptist Press is a denominational organ for a certain faction of a denomination which is, frankly, suffering because of that faction. No question. For the record I am considering leaving that denomination for pragmatic and not political reasons (the church I'm likely to join in my new city is not SBC).

But the next coupla-few things are just objections to high-handed fundamentalism. The claim in that blog post that the writer has never "never written a blog that attacks another person or organization" is a flat-out lie which is only hidden by the individual's history of deleting post what he later thought better of -- historical revisionism being a sin of the hard-shell fundies. I'd respect him more if he'd stick to his guns. But that said, what qualifies as an "attack"? Does saying something publicly that was rebuffed or ignored privately constitute and "attack"? Doesn't villifying those who have something against you qualify as an "attach" -- or is it, like the old fundamentalist way, just "speaking the truth"?

And lastly, what if there wasn't and us-vs.-them mentality? You know: the SBC sticks in the mud who want to throw out Acts29 because of Mark Driscoll are self-parodying mopes who can't learn to judge men by what they do instead of by the color of their Christian flag. Acts29 is filled with totally reputable guys who are, frankly, not amused by the things I have said I'm not amused by -- but that's their problem. I am sure they will eventually deal with it.

But when the Acts29 guys start worrying that their shared constituency in the SBC are reading the Baptist Press' ginned up "journalism" and start blogging about it because they're afraid they might lose some guys who want to be connected to a dying breed of baptist brawlers, eh. It looks like they don't really know what they want. Refuting the BP is like refuting the Weekly World News -- it's easy, but why bother?

Why not deal with real issues and let the kooks retreat to their bunkers with their tin-foil hats"

In which we end the summer with a bang

It's been a while since I have handed out a merciless beating to someone other than a person who wants to leave his local church, and I have a free morning, so let's see what we can come up with.

Before we employ the rough lumber and the tire chains to this one, let's keep something in mind: there is a fair and important point this note was trying to make -- that there's a wrong application for the right-minded view that God is sovereign. It is wrong, for example, to treat tragedy or misfortune as some sort of spiritual tea-leaves in order to start preaching God's judgment on someone in particular.

"What? You lost you job? You must be in sin, bro -- repent."

"I see -- your son got caught in a brush fire. God's telling you that you've done something wrong."

There is no question that this sort of "preaching" or "prophecying" is born in hell and needs to be seen as the hallmark of the father of all lies.

But saying this is different:

When asked about a seemingly random calamity near Jerusalem where 18 people were killed, Jesus answered in general terms—an answer that would cover calamities in Minneapolis, Taiwan, or Baghdad. God’s message is repent, because none of us will otherwise escape God’s judgment.

Jesus: “Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)

The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

The difference is the Gospel-centeredness of this statement. It doesn't say, "because you did 'A', God punished you with 'B'": it says, "because Jesus said plainly that all sinners are is grave peril, all sinners must be on guard to repent."

That's a nuance completely lost and overlooked in the note we're about to redress. Pack a lunch.

1. Christians all generally believe that God is sovereign. I realize there’s a rather large bar fight about the footnotes, but it’s a reasonable attribute of anyone who calls himself the sort of things God does in scripture.

It's a fair start -- but watch what happens next without batting an eye. Sure: the label "sovereign" is vaguely acceptable. But go ahead and try to apply it to anything with your theological DYMO labeler and see what that gets ya.

The game, however, becomes something like this: “My sovereignty can beat up your sovereignty.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah. Watch this. I say that tornado was a warning from God to the liberals in the ECLA.” “Well….well…..OK…OK….I say that Kyle Lake’s electrocution during a baptism was because God wanted to warn the emerging church.” “Oh yeah….well….”

Which is, of course, where we have to draw the line and say, "dude: nuance is the spice of life here, and for a guy who wants to be talking sense to people about anything, you have no nuance in your spice rack." There is a vast separation between saying (as Dr. Piper has) "calamity in this world points sinners to a Holy God who calls them to repentance" (which is the Gospel) and "those punks got what was coming to them" (which is a self-congratulatory misapplication of the Law).

And missing that ruins what could have been an otherwise-decent point about the problems inherent in the assessment of evil in this world -- both moral and physical.

If you want to play this game, you can generally find people willing to play, but I have one thing to say before you do: If you tell me that I don’t believe in the sovereignty of God because I won’t play your “one up” game, I’m going to punch you in the nose (if you are a man over 18 and not blind) and then you can figure out what that means. (That’s a joke.)

And even as a joke, it demonstrates its own limits of administration. It in fact plays into the faulty view of how a Sovereign God works things out in this world, and seeks to drive people off of the sound view of such a thing because one does not, as the writer here said, check the footnotes very carefully.

2. Evangelical Christians are amazing for wanting it both ways.

Yeah: breaks on before we get too far into this generalization.

"Evangelicals"? How about this: if we can't really use the word "Emergents" to describe that subset of post-evangelicalism effectively, how about if we don't try to use the term "Evangelicals" as if they were a monolithic bunch, especially on the matter of the Sovereignty of God. If we can admit that the first half of point [1] in this essay has some broad truth in it (and I did already), then point [2] goes straight to the dog house.

"Evangelicals want it both ways"? That's hard to work out effectively when we admit that what they allegedly want "both ways" has a pretty broad interpretation across the spectrum, and trying to lump in a John Piper or a Frank Turk with a fundamentalist confused about his dispensations cannot be a very persuasive way in which to say "evangelicals" want it "both ways".

They want to be able to say when a tornado is warning liberal Lutherans, but they don’t want to say the light fixture that fell and killed a baby in some church is a sign of anything.

Well, seriously: Piper does want to say both are a sign of something. The writer here just refuses to own up to the fact that Dr. Piper gives a greater nuance to both matters than the writer needs to to make his very important point.

And that point looks like this:

They will probably sue the electrician. They want to say that God sends signs of repentance in the tornado that just skirted their town, and then want to say God is teaching us to depend on him when the tornado destroys the building the church meets in. They want to say that God is always communicating through his “megaphone of pain,” (not Lewis’s finest moment) but they don’t want God communicating by putting the face of Jesus on toast. They want to call John Piper a prophet and Kim Clement a kook.

You see: anyone who says "God communicates" -- especially "God communicates through pain" -- is a kook. It doesn't matter that Jesus says this in Luke 13, or Paul says this in Romans 1 & 2, or that the Psalmists say it over and over: we have to group the "Jesus in my toast" people with the "Jesus over all things, holding all things together, creator and sustainer" people so that we cannot find comfort in tragedy.

This is the reason I find this sort of essay worthy of a merciless beating and worthy of review. The writer of this piece -- and the many, many writers like him out there -- somehow has sought to mitigate the real comfort evident in a proclamation like the Piper quote, above, by making it the kissing cousin of a completely-disreputable brand of folk religion which would, 19 days out of 20, repudiate the preaching at Bethlehem Baptist and from most Christian pulpits on this topic.

To say that John Piper approaches this subject in the same way Kim Clement does is to simply toss off a meaningless and unsubstaniable statement which is either unaware of the facts, or seeking to hide them from others. There may be a third choice, and I'd be open to hear what it is because the two men do not say hardly the same things about tragedy in general, nor have they said the same thing on this one in particular.

3. It’s an evangelical specialty to jump in and out of the scientific world view as needed. It really irks me. One moment we sound like people who have no idea what storms and earthquakes are all about meteorologically and geologically then the next minute we’re off to the doctor to get more of the benefits of medical science with no reference to God’s decision about whether we should get well or not. I know these understandings of reality aren’t exclusive, but who is your audience when you talk about a storm in language not too far off from animism and then next minute you’re looking down your nose at someone who says that grandma’s blindness is caused by demonic attack, not macular degeneration?

All I'm going to say about that is this: if you can find one whit of animism in the statement I posted from Piper -- which was his point and his position on this event -- then my entire criticism of this essay is baseless and ought to be ignored. However, if you can't find animism there but instead you find the Gospel, and you see the message of repentance preached in terms Jesus used, and we find ourselves with a truly Jesus-shaped approach to the problem of evil events in the world, then this gibberish about "jumping in and out of science" is simply some kind of rant.

Dr. Piper doesn't even dismiss or mitigate immediate causes. He doesn't dispute the observations of meteorology. But he believes that God is Sovereign in more than a merely-intellectual way. He believes it in more than an ontological way. He believes it in more than a meta-politcal way. He believes it in a way which preaches safety and salvation from sin. And that safety and salvation is a place in which to take solace in all times of trouble, not just the ones which are ultimate or final or eschatological.

We’re just fine telling kids that God sends X and causes Y, but if our children are scared of that God and don’t want to cross the bridge or go to sleep during a storm we tell them that everything is OK. How does that work? If you say that storms are the result of the way the atmosphere operates as a system and that bridges hold up if the engineers build and maintain them right are we confusing the kid, contradicting ourselves or just operating in two entirely different universes.

You know: when we teach our kids systematic theology (and it's "when", not "if": kids are smart enough to try to put your systematics together even if you never have), we have to believe it first. And if we believe it, we don't say things like "God sends 'X' and cause 'Y'". We teach them stories like Daniel and Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to you Babylonians) -- where God's sovereignty is manifest, and bad things happen to those who are faithful to him. We teach them about David and Jonathan -- who were both faithful to God, but David's lot was to be king of Israel, and Jonathan's was to die at the side of his faithless and graceless father. We teach them that all who live a godly life will be persecuted, and to count it all joy when we face trials -- because faith in trial yields perseverance, and also that God is glorified by our love for Him when it is not immediately pleasurable to do so.

If we are going to start saying that comets and eclipses and asteroid strikes are messages from God, then I think we owe it to someone to explain how that interacts with the fact that we also understand these things scientifically.

I really enjoy that because anyone who is even intermediately informed about the science of asteroid strikes or the formation of tornadoes would tell you, "hey: it's gonna happen when it happens, and it happens someplaces far more regularly and routinely than others." Meaning: God doesn't enter into it.

You know: science can tell you how to light a light bulb, but it can't tell you why you should light one candle rather than curse the darkness. And it seems to me that the writer here does what he always does when God's sovereignty comes up: he'd rather be in the dark, and have others there with him, than to see if the Gospel light can help us find comfort in the face of tragedy. He'd rather blame electricians or engineers or weathermen for falling lights and falling bridges and falling, um, tornadoes that appear in places where they haven't appeared in generations, and that with no warning or signal than to treat the event like something that happens in a cosmos where God is revealed through creation in a general way and the Gospel interprets it in a specific way.

Which is his prerogative. It just doesn't have to be yours.

4. The Bible says that God sent plagues upon Egypt and that God told Moses- told him- what was happening. Was there a difference in that and Moses next inclination to believe that an unusually strong wind was warning the rebellious Israelites to obey? It seems to me there’s a huge difference here, and it’s a difference that has everything to do with our view of scripture as authoritative and everything to do with why we don’t believe that every pastor who tells his church the reason God caused an infant to die is a prophet.

Aha.

There is also a difference between falsely prophecying over the death of an infant and quoting Jesus about how we should see natural disasters. If we are suddenly going to find some place where we're going to exercise a little Bible and a little inductive reasoning, we should be consistent about that as well. Whether we think we will like the result or not.

But the next bit here is interesting:

I fully believe that general revelation preaches to those who are listening, but when I start cherry-picking what events and occurrences I want to use to make my point, I’m being inconsistent. I never read that general revelation requires commentary from selected preachers.

Physician, if I may be so bold, heal thyself. If one is going to start rattling on about "inconsistencies", one has to first be consistent in his analysis of the things he's trying to lump together and denigrate.

I'd stand right next to this writer -- or any writer -- who wanted to throw blogospherical rocks at Pat Robertson or Paula White or any self-appointed prophet for stupid, excessively-narrow predictions or blanket spiritual judgments. BUT the problem with Dr. Piper or other Sovereignty guys is not as simply-sloppy as this writer has made it.

5. If you haven’t read it, read this mess from Paul Proctor and tell me that it’s not a monstrous and vile abuse of the theology of God’s sovereignty for Proctor’s own purposes. This is an extreme and vicious example, but it obviously raises the question: how does this guy know that?

Who wouldn't repudiate that? Dr. Piper in fact did repudiate that when it came out. That sort of stupid, scriptureless, sanctimonious harangue ought to be put in the skubalon pile where it belongs. But to say that essay is anything akin to saying, "the fallen world is full of warnings from God to repent or die, and Jesus is our only hope -- both for the ELCA and for all of us," is to simply fail to listen or to reason though. That's why saying this at the end of the essay:

This sort of thing has been going on for centuries. We should be taking notes and learning a few things along the way.

is completely comical. What are we going to learn by "reasoning" like this? How to write everyone off? How to become a church of one where we have clumped together everyone who says things which grate on us intellectually or spiritually and pushed them off the pier?

At some point, if we agree "sovereign" is a valid descriptor for God, we have to be able to say that this real thing is because God is sovereign. I'll be waiting to see if those who would toss rocks at Dr. Piper can make a list of three things evident in the news in the last 365 days upon which we could put the label, "a product of God as sovereign".

But I won't hold my breath.

This just in:

Roger Goodell has said multiple times that he wants to see Michael Vick show remorse for his actions. That means Vick may have to follow a strict path of behavior before he’s allowed to return.






For dog fighting. Is dog fighting a sin? How could I know if I was thinking about this? How much of a moral authority is an NFL QB supposed to be, anyway?






You know what: I am already sorry I asked.

Jiggling one's Jenga

See: I know you people have read the bit by Dr. Peter Masters about the massive failings of the “New Calvinists”, particularly his criticism of loud music and Colin Hansen’s apparently-wrong evaluation of Calvinism in the U.S. in the 20th century.

And then some of you have nothing else to do but wait for iMonk to write the next thing which will make me call him a turkey, and you have read his response to Dr. Peter Masters which, in effect, says, “eh. So what? He’s a fundamentalist, and that’s what a fundamentalist would say about this.”

And now, because I baited you, you are hoping for the show because you bought your popcorn and a large coke, and it’s refillable, so this better be long and good.

Well, it’ll be good. Turns out it’s also pretty long – standard 3 pages.

First thing: I agree with both of these guys. I mean: there’s no question that the Calvinism of John Piper and John MacArthur are not really much like each other, let alone like the Calvinism of Owen or Edwards – and that’s actually a good thing in spite of Dr. Master’s claxon of warning. But it’s not hardly as bad as Dr. Masters makes it out to be – which is where I find fault with the Appalachian podcasting genius in his assessment of Dr. Masters.

Here’s what I mean: it’s a good thing that Calvinism in 21st century America doesn’t look like Calvinism in puritan England because these are two different cultures. Calvinism will not look like Puritanism in the center of modern China; it will not look like Puritanism in the middle of the Sudan. It will not look like Puritanism in Labrador amongst the isolated white Canadians there, and it won’t look line Puritanism if it ever breaks out in Mexico. In fact, the Puritans themselves were not hardly as uniform and frankly-rigid as Dr. Masters would have us believe.

For example, John Milton is often counted among their number because of his non-conformist views, but he was in fact also non-trinitarian in spite of his idolization of Cromwell as an epic, religious hero. Speaking of which, Cromwell is another kind of Puritan really not much like Owen or Baxter or Sibbes. So I think that the actual diversity among the 2 centuries of actual English puritans (not to mention their American pilgrims) sort of jiggles Dr. Masters’ Jenga tower a little harder than he’s letting on.

I will give him this: the central concern for holiness is a serious and useful concern. There’s no question at all that many (a-hem – yes, that’s what I mean) younger guys could be more serious and could get more serious about what it means to consider God’s holiness. Therefore our own holiness would be a good bit more consequential in what we say and do as a reflection of the actual work of Christ for us and in us.

I might even give Dr. Masters a half-credit for his distinction between edifying music and other genres like metal and rap – that somehow there really is a place where the art in a culture reflects its depravity, and we can and should avoid aping the culture because we can’t think of ways to simply be right-mindedly foolish, or right-mindedly creative.

But is it really anti-sanctification to praise God loudly with music and song? My thought here is that there’s a difference between edifying conference music and corporate worship at the local church – and I would think that Dr. Masters, in his experience and wisdom could see that difference. Especially, if I may be so bold, when one is posting one's newsletter on the internet. Something can be edifying, and public, and not be formal, ecclesiastical worship – and can therefore also be held to a more informal and populist standard.

That said, iMonk is actually right about Dr. Masters in this respect: he honors and confesses a proto-fundamentalist view of all things, down to making even matters of style and context into urgent doctrinal crises and therefore matters over which to separate. And it’s a shame – because in Dr. Masters’ view, Calvinism has always been alive and well and living in America because there have been Calvinist presses and Calvinist bookstores and Calvinist congregations which have invited him to speak. Sadly, that’s a provincial view of where Calvinism has been for the last 150 years in America – because with the sharp decline in Presbyterianism and true Episcopalian/Anglicanism, and the Baptists not hardly holding up their end of the bargain (becoming by and large a theology-free zone in spite of the SBC resurgence) what America has had, frankly, has been a drift away from the historic reformational truths.

Ignoring that for a rosy view of one’s own movement doesn’t do anyone any good.

So here’s what I’m thinking: if Dr. Masters is right about “us”, and iMonk is right about Dr. Masters, maybe what “we” have to do is receive what they both have said about “us” and step it up. Get serious about your filthy mouth and your infatuation with movies and comic books and the down side of town. Stop thinking you can be the pastor who finally can say from the pulpit, “and the colored girls sing, ‘do-do-do-dotodo-do-do-do’,” like Lou Reed and people will think you are cool.

You’re not cool. And they are not going to think you are cool if they hear you preach the Gospel, because the Gospel is not cool. You don’t have to be a self-righteous thundercloud of disapproval – you could be the mortified chief of sinners. It’s a time-honored tradition. Let’s try that, and then we won’t have to worry about edicts from either the chapel of Spurgeon or the tavern bar stools.

Paul Washer, too?

So it's not enough to continue to ask about Mark Driscoll's language -- I have a beef with Paul Washer, too?

Actually, what I have a beef with is Paul Washer fanatics, really. Washer is a well-known missionary, and well-respected speaker. He's not a heretic as far as anyone would care to think about it. He's just glum.

On my Facebook yesterday, I said this: "Frank Turk is tired of people tweeting and FB'ing Paul Washer quotes. He's trite and strident, which makes him a little careless."

Here's what I mean by that: there's nothing new in Washer, which of course his fans will say is a mark of his real commitment to being a man of God's word and so on. But there's also very little hopeful in what Washer preaches. You know: when you read the book of Galatians, where Paul is essentailly condemning a whole city of Christians for giving up the Gospel for works, Paul mixes his judgment with encouragement because there is hope in Christ. In fact, the reason why we should not trade the Gospel for works is because there is hope in Christ and not in works. The trajectory of Paul is almost always from our desperate state to hope in Christ because he actually believes in hope and not fear.

Washer rarely gets there -- and it bothers me that his fans enjoy his revivalistic fire and brimstone. It's half the story at best, much like a greeting card. You can get a greeting card with just about any verse of the Bible printed on the inside -- and probably in any English translation you want. But its use of that verse is trite, and sort of tossed off in order to make an emotional appeal. That's how Washer comes across to me -- and frankly, I don't think he means to be that way. I don't think he's trying to be like Finney or any revivalist -- but it turns out that he is. He just ahbors the altar call.

---

UPDATES:

I received a letter from alert reader "LC" (initials only to protect the innocent) with two comments that I thought were cogent and relevant, and I wanted to share them with the rest of you.

[1] She thought the graphic looked like I had put a bull's eye on Paul Washer's face -- which, since it did look like that, is offensive. I used the same filter I have used on almost everyone I have given the "alien/mutant eye" effect to since time immemorial here at the blog, but this one came across wrong. I have changed the graphic to be sensitive that LC's perceptive insight, and I thank LC for it.

[2] I think it's important for everyone to read this statement, which I made in the original post:

But (the greeting card) use of that verse is trite, and sort of tossed off in order to make an emotional appeal. That's how Washer comes across to me -- and frankly, I don't think he means to be that way.

I don't think Paul Washer means to be the way I perceive him. But what is really the motivator for my FB entry and this post is that I think many of his fans prefer him that way. That's how they use his preaching, and I think it is not very productive, or as they say on the respectable blogopshere, "helpful".

It is totally possible to preach repentance in such a way that it overlooks the grace which makes the repentance possible. That kind of preaching is revivalistic, and the people who like that kind of thing always use it that way. I think Paul Washer has preached enough that people who like the revivalistic aspects of some of his preaching have embraced that part of his work, and I think we can all do better.

I hope that clarifies what I'm talking about here. There is no other implication of this matter which I care to endorse.

We break into the BOC ...

... to bring you these updates:

• Only in Canada can you get rip-roaring high-speed internet but not a cell phone signal. And not just any Canada: North-40 Canada. Where there is still a lot of snow on the ground.
• It's going to come out eventually, so I might as well let you know: John MacArthur called that Scotland talk Mark Driscoll gave on the Song of Solomon "rape" of the word of God [no links for you -- I can't bring myself to do it]. This is apparently bad behavior on Dr. MacArthur's part.
• On the other hand, if Josh Harris delivered either that Scotland talk or the Ecclesiastes joke on D.L. Hughley, does anyone think C.J. Mahaney would not call him the very next day? And what would Josh do after CJ called him, one wonders?
  
  And what would happen to Josh if he didn't actually do what we all know he would do?
  
  So why is there a different expectation for Mark Driscoll?
• I'm wondering if I'm a watchblogger for believing that sometimes you just have to take your lumps and say you're sorry and actually be sorry and repent of your mistakes which might also be sins. And for wondering what kind of person won't do that. Is that what a watchblogger is -- someone who's willing to ask the question?

Thanks. Back to BOC.

UPDATED: Irish Calvinist gets it right.

A beef about study bibles

During the release last year of the ESV Study Bible, I made some randy comments about my opinion of study bibles – and because I didn’t want to be seen as a hater, I held back my thoughts on study bibles until after the hoopla had settled down.

You know what? Lots of people own study bibles. Lots of people own concordances. Lots of people own commentaries. LOTS. So if you own any of these devices, I say good on you – learn to use them wisely and so be it.

But here’s the truth: most of the people who own these things don’t really know how to use them. And for many people, my experience is that all that extra paper and ink gets in the way of actually reading the Bible itself. If you add half-again the volume of the actual Bible to the Bible, and nobody was reading the Bible itself before you added all that other stuff, why would they read the Bible-plus-stuff afterwards?

My 2-bit opinion is that people substitute a study bible for bible study – and let me be as specific as possible about this. Often people will buy a “study bible” for a new believer, or an older teen, and hand it off to them as if that’s all they need – go and make yourself a disciple now.

But that’s not actually the Great Commission, is it? The Great Commission is, “Go, therefore and make disciples.” That means somehow you personally have to get involved with somebody to help them grow in the faith.

So my beef with Study Bibles in general – not the ESV specifically, but as it resides in the universe of Christian publishing among similar items – is that they usually are an inadequate replacement for actual study and discipleship. And like much of Christian publishing, they are unintentionally-harmful to the local church and to believers because they stand in the way of real fellowship, discipleship, and the building of a local community which God has established and ordained to glorify himself.

I am sure that’s more than you wanted to know. Now back to work with you.

Not good enough for Dan's Blog ...

... but we take risks here.

OK: Be warned that this video lulls you into a pleasing little zone of coffee house mellowness, and then you get Rick Rolled, and then there's a sudden outburst of Chris Crocker set to mellow jazz guitar, and then it ends with the Power Ranger's theme.

If you can not be offended, and you like this sort of thing, and you want to show Dan Phillips that you are the better blog readers by toughing it out through the Crocker outburst, I present this to you:

oh, pickle. OK. Nevermind.

If you are spoiling for a fight or whatever, just go away. This was clever, but it has nothing to do with the Gospel -- and I'm not preaching the Gospel here. I'm blogging in a very casual way. Hold it against me if that's how you are.

Yeah, OK: bring it on

We're moving to Little Rock, and while everyone who reads this blog has a moral responsibility to visit Lance Quinn's church if you're there, we're prolly not going to live in West LR, so it's not very feasable to join there in spite of, well, the family resemblance.

So all you Little Rock people -- here's your chance. Where do you live and what church are you attending? I'm church shopping for me and my family, and we want to land in a church which is getting the job done.

In the meta, list your town, your church, how long you have been there, and how long your pastor has been there.

He missed methods and research

Famous Blogger Adrian Warnock has apparently found the elusive historical proof that the gifts didn't cease after the apostolic age. Now, since Dr. Warnock has disabled comments on his blog, let me comment on his citation and his link here.

20 years ago, I took a class in college called "Methods and Research" (501), and I am certain that Dr. Warnock took a similar class after he completed his undergrad equivalent. In that class, you learn really two things: [1] How to find facts, or substantiate them, and [2] how to cite your sources so that others can track them down and you can legitimize your findings.

I say that to draw attention to Dr. Warnock's citation:

(Quoted in Eusebius pages 209-210)

Now, technically, Dr. Link Troll Warnock linked his source for that quote, so technically Dr. Warnock has not mis-cited his source. But his source has completely botched the citation.

Eusebius, I am sure you know, was a 3rd century Bishop who didn't write any books -- at least, not as we count them as books. So Eusebius didn't publish anything with page numbers. And there is no extant work named "Eusebius" which yields us the quote Dr. Warnock has posted.

The correct citation of this quote, FWIW, is The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, which is actually written by Eusebius, and the on-line edition is found at Google Books, edited by G.A. Williamson, pg 153, and it is Eusebius citing Irenaeus on the continuation of the gifts in a work we know as Against Heresies. And sadly, for Eusebius, Dr. Warnock's source, and Dr. Warnock, this passage does not appear in Irenaeus at all.

I'd be glad for Dr. Warnock or his source to prove for us otherwise.

Carry on.

corresponds to what?

Kobra came back to the meta last night to make his first pass at my response to him, for which I credit him. Here's what he said:

First, the corresponding "this" in the beginning of the quoted passage is Noah's Ark and the events surrounding it. Peter is saying that just as Noah was saved from the flood via his ark, so now it is Baptism that "now saves you." BUT before we focus on that I hope that you will answer a couple of questions.

1.) Is the "appeal to God for a good conscience" necessary for salvation?
2.) Is there a means, apart from Baptism, to make an "appeal to God for a good conscience?"

To which I say (and have already said in the meta):

[1] Yes.

[2] Yes. The thief on the cross apparently made one, unless you would argue he did not get saved by Christ.

Kobra's problem is that he thinks that the appeal in baptism is the sine qua non -- that without which there is nothing, for those of you who didn't have the Jesuits torture you with Latin in H.S. -- and that one can make that appeal for someone else. The text here, however, makes it clear that it saves "you" because "you" make an appeal to God.

I have to admit that this passage speaks of baptism in the highest terms -- higher, in my view, than the correspondence to Noah. And here's what I mean by that, From 1 Peter 3:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Now, the reason the first clause is highlighted is to point out that it is the main clause of this sentence. That is: the point of what Peter is writing here is that Christ died for sins, as the great exchange, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. That's his main point, which is the Gospel.

After he concludes his subordinate flourish, which expounds on what Christ did for us and also for those who were even disobedient to Noah, he then says, "Baptism corresponds to this". And I would be willing to admit that almost all readers of this passage think the "this" refers to "the saving in the ark". But that makes the antecedent of "this" the subordinate issue which Peter was talking about rather than the main issue which Peter was talking about -- which is the death and resurrection of Christ.

Peter is saying here that Christ suffered and died, and was raised from the dead, and now baptism corresponds to Christ's work -- showing we have died and have been raised to new life, not as a washing away of dirt but as a plea for a new conscience.

This is a much higher expression of what we mean in baptism, but ironically it is the correspondence view of the work itself: baptism is not the work of Christ, but it corresponds to the work of Christ, and shows the work of Christ.

I am more than willing to admit that baptism saves as it corresponds to Christ's work. But Kobra has to admit that it speaks of baptism in which the believer interacts with God.

---

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Our friendly adversary Patrick Kyle has pointed out that "this" here is actually a referent to the "water" in the previous passage by virtue of Greek Grammar. He is 100% correct, so insofar as you can detach that from what I said here and still have what I said here make any sense at all, do so. We don't anathemtize posts here, but we do offer corrections whem we make mistakes, so note my mistake and more on.

Smithers, release the robotic Richard Simmons

Because you must see this to believe it, somebody is "simpsonizing" people in the form of a blog.

This is what the internet has come to, and I love it.

No one will want to kiss me after this, eh, Smithers?

'nuff said

Over at the vacationing Justin Taylor's blog, an essay by Tim Keller and David Powlison has been posted, and in the meta over there I posted this response:

So is this a bad report on the bringers of a bad report?

I respect the vision here -- a Biblical vision of turning a brother away from his sin. I reject the idea that every "bad report" is inherently sinful. The book of Galatians is, itself, a public "bad report" from Paul against those in Galatia who were defacing the Gospel -- and Paul didn't go to these guys first and say, "listen, I didn't want to say anything in front of the whole church, and I certainly am not suggesting that you are bad guys, but is your paradigm for the inclusivity of Christ's work excessively biased to Old-Covenant mores and boundary markers?" I think Paul's language is markedly more aggressive and pointed than that.

I'm fairly on-record against the excesses of watch-blogging, and if that's what this brief essay is trying to get at, so be it. But it is one thing to repudiate hyperbolic accusations for matters of secondary (or tertiary) importance, and another entirely to say that all disagreements are inherently private disagreements which need to be settled over a cup of coffee, face to face, without any regard to the public scope of the point in contention.

The proof of this lies simply in answering the question, "How does one refute or repudiate the excesses of watch-bloggers?" The way that engagement would have to unfold -- as a mixture of public exposition and private mediation -- seems to me to look a lot more like the multiform method of engaging error in the NT than the (if I can be forgiven for saying so) simplistic view being advanced here.

Coupla other things occured to me after I posted that, so let me spill those out for you and then dac or anyone else who thinks that this is just a matter of being nicer people can say their peace.

First off, I prefer open and honest discourse. Really. I'd much rather put all the cards on the table -- especially when something has been said or done in public -- than clam up and hope that later someone will, because they are so very concerned and grieved and troubled, ask me what I think. And I think most often, the dialog itself is instructive and therefore useful to other people -- when it is a dialog.

You know: when it's not actually a give-and-take, it's not even worth engaging at all.

But that said, there are also some things you have to do someplace other than the center ring of the 3-ring circus or the main podium at the U.N. And church discipline is one of those things.

So someplace between the right-mind application of church discipline and the rght-minded application of public dispute lies the answer to the question Dr. Keller and Dr. Powlison have asked. And the test case for whatever solution you think you have for this question is, in fact, dealing with watch-bloggers.

On the one hand, we have events like the ones I accidentally found out about yesterday in which Ken Sliva got shut down by his ISP because Richard Abanes was going to "contact his lawyers" over a somewhat-older post Ken had made about Abanes -- and it seems to me that this particular situation demonstrates everything that is wrong with watchblogging. Could Ken have been a little more charitable? I think yes. Could Abanes have been -- and still be -- a little more transparent about what his intention were/are? Yes, I think so. His explanation that the phrase "contact my attorney" (or words to that effect) could mean anything in the context he provided is a little coy. So rather than have an open and public discussion -- even across blogs -- about the matter at hand, what we have instead winds up looking more like the problem in 1 Cor 6 where we let non-believers judge our disputes than like James 5.

The truth is that watchblogging tends to be a mixed bag -- because it is generally a very serious hobby in which very serious people are very concerned about things with eternal value. And to that end, Amen. We should be serious about the eternal question and value of the Gospel. But it is not just seriousness we need to have in this matter: we need to have a little bit of joy and a little bit of humility towards truth, too.

Of course, I am the perfect example of what I'm talking about, and if everyone was just like me the blogosphere would be a lot more informative and funny and edifying. So go back and read my whole blog from the beginning, including the Santa debacle, and learn from my mistakes God-inspired wisdom so that you can engage people without having to beat them to a bloody pulp.


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What are you laughing at?