Should PPT Screen Heretical Detractors?
“The Reformation is the biggest socialist hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. It is an anti-Christ worship of Platonist metaphysics….If the stats drop because people can no longer learn and cannot see my arguments work in real life, I do give a damn about that.”
Is James Jordan saying that Jesus and Paul are in contradiction? Why would the owner of this website allow the posting of such heresy? This might not be the place for me.
I just went through this conversation with an associate of PPT this week as a result of me cutting off Randy Seiver and others. It was not a short conversation. Curiously, some of the complaints about who I allow to post comments here come from those I have cut off. While claiming to hold to the whole canon and making it void with their Reformed traditions, they don’t like James Jordon because he rejects the Pauline epistles. Their argument is the following: “You show agreement by posting their comments.” No, my position on these issues have been clearly stated in no uncertain terms. And I warn anyone who rejects portions of Scripture to heed the warning of Christ found in Revelation. I would also add that distorting what is there is no different from adding to or taking away from it.
The person who discussed this with me despises the very people he doesn’t want me to screen. He also understands me very well, so any conversation about me fearing ideas that threaten the truth were not addressed. I am not afraid of ideas and my inability to refute bad ones with the facts. We have a morale duty to be informed. Lack of knowledge =’s death. Hence, bring the ideas, if I don’t know the answers, I have a duty to find them.
His argument was that PPT is pioneering uncharted waters; ie., I am the first one (in the blogosphere culture of contemporary history) to call out the very doctrinal foundation of Protestantism and the Reformation. I am not afraid to make hamburgers with every sacred cow of the Reformation. In fact, it’s my delicacy. The Reformation is the biggest socialist hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. It is an anti-Christ worship of Platonist metaphysics. Hence, many not only want to watch the fight, they want to learn how to engage in the debate as well. Knowing my indifference to numbers very well, he asked me in an assuming way why I thought my viewer numbers drop when I screen people. In other words, without seeing my stats, he knew the numbers drop and he also knew what my response would be: “Don’t give a damn.”
He then explained why the numbers drop, and I think his contention has merit: I have cut off the learning process. Also, I don’t have a moderator. If the stats drop because people can no longer learn and cannot see my arguments work in real life, I do give a damn about that. And this blog does need a moderator. The moderator and I are not always going to agree 100%, but I need one. That would be a huge step for this ministry.
For now, the comments come in, I shouldn’t have to fight this fight alone.
paul
The Ramblings of a Dictionary Nerd
Our son, Philip, called me a Word Nerd the other day. I love words and increasing my collection and understanding of them is enjoyable. There is an orange paperback Handy College Dictionary fourth edition lying next to my laptop, and I use the Merriam-Webster online dictionary daily to find the best word and the most complete meaning of a word to use when I write. I write assessments, goals, objectives, case notes, and reports for my job. On occasion, I write an article for my husband’s blog, and I am attempting to write a novella. (I forbid anyone to read it for it is my creative way to download, and to keep an old mind working as sharply as possible.) When I had extra time last week, I tracked down the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious; an interesting little research sidebar. So, you think I have gone off the deep end? Perhaps, but I will go out with a rich vocabulary.
Confusing and/or impressing people with fancy or impressive words is not the intent of wanting a strong vocabulary. The point to developing and using a strong vocabulary is to be able to choose words with greater precision. It makes communication simpler, not the opposite as some think. Studying words also helps me in my study of the Word.
Take for example the word grip. Out of curiosity, I used the online dictionary to give me wonderful meanings of that commonly used word. I played tennis back in the day and was always being instructed on how to improve my grip. Everyone who played the game with me always assured me that if I strengthened my grip, my ability to control the ball would improve. There are idioms which use the word grip such as: get a grip, come to grips, and lose your grip, in the grip of something. I have lost count of the times I have been told to “Get a grip.”
A firm, tenacious hold to gain or maintain control or mastery was one rendition I preferred. Immediately, I cross-referenced the word tenacious and by doing so the meaning of the word grip was expanded. Tenacious: not easily pulled apart, persistent, determined, unfaltering, unrelenting. Grip means to take hold with a determined, unfaltering hold in order to gain or maintain control/mastery of a situation, person, or thing. With more investigation, I learned that grip and tenacious had both positive and negative connotations. Grip also has the softer meanings to embrace, clasp, cling, or cradle, and tenacious can mean bull-headed, unregenerate, and stiff-necked. So, an expanded rendition of grip can be a firm, tenacious hold, or a bull-headed clinging to a person, situation, or thing in order to gain or maintain control or mastery.
Why do we grip people, situations, or things so tightly? Is it an attempt to gain or maintain control? Is it fear that something less or inferior will replace what is being held onto so tightly, or even worse, lost forever? Is it a reluctance to say good-bye to the past and a resistance to embrace the future? Is it for security or an emotional safety net? If my questions were on a checklist, I would be checking yes to all of the above.
Gripping the past, hanging on tenaciously to it, does it change the present? Can it affect the future? Yes. It keeps daily growth and spiritual transformation from happening, affects present and future relationships with family, friends, and even casual acquaintances, and hinders new and deeper experiences from being enjoyed. It can be a raw form of rejection.
Even holding onto the good things of the past too tightly can affect personal growth and positive change. How many times have we heard the phrase, “We’ve always done it this way.” because someone at the church or in the family doesn’t want to experience change?
We are told in God’s Word to hold and to also let go. The Apostle Paul tells us to hold onto right thinking and strong doctrine, to hold on to what is good with the promised result of deeper sanctification. I did a quick, not exhaustive, word search of cling, and hold. It was interesting to me that in some of the references I read for the word hold, it was in regard to supporting something. Now, doesn’t that give a perspective on how we can grip someone or something? Rather than hanging on in order to gain or maintain control, we can tenaciously support that person, or organization. Support…do I feel another itch to look up a commonly used word and see what new perspective I can get?
Just like the circuitous storyline in the children’s book If You Give a Mouse A Cookie : When I now hear the word grip, my mind will flash back to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary; and when I go to the online dictionary I will get curious and will look up words. Hmmmmm… And if I look up words I will want to read their definitions. I will even look up the word definition and discover that it’s a statement of the meaning of a word, exemplification, elucidation, clarification, rendering, vignette…….
Ok, Susan, “Get a grip.”
The Thief on the Cross
New Calvinism says you must live by faith alone in sanctification to keep your justification. Those are ill motives. The motive is not love, it’s to keep your just standing. It’s staying nailed to the cross in order to keep our salvation. In contrast, the thief on the cross readily recognized that he was going to be with Jesus in paradise that day, but if Christ had released him from that cross, he would have loved Christ with everything in him by obeying everything Christ commanded. “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
Abortion: Oh! I get it.
I like to think a lot. I think about all kinds of stuff. Recently, I was thinking about abortion. Per the usual, I try to think past the what and figure out the why. And per the usual, I factor in the idea that most people are pretty smart. Just calling people stupid is easy and requires little thinking.
I know abortion is a moral issue. In the Old Testament, God warned Israel not to be like other nations who allowed child sacrifice. For some spiritual benefit (which of course is always deemed to have a pragmatic result) people sacrificed their children to the gods. Likewise, people in our day sacrifice the child in their womb for some kind of benefit.
But not always. Not only is simply calling people stupid the easy way out, often, the moral angle is an easy way out as well. What about the victims of rape? Should they be made to bear the child of their rapist? I don’t know. That question would take a lot of contemplation. Perhaps that should be a choice. Perhaps the morning after pill would be an acceptable alternative there. As I get older, I am more and more comfortable with saying, “I don’t know.” But a caution here as well: that’s an easy way out also. As a pastor, it’s my duty to know as much as God is willing to teach me. “I don’t know” doesn’t help people.
So, from a political standpoint, abortion seems to be ridiculous. But let’s pause here a moment. Pastor’s need to understand this thing we call “philosophy.” Actually, parishioners need to understand it even more. Philosophy is metaphysics (what is), epistemology (how we know what is), ethics (how we apply what is), and politics (how we communicate what is). Pastors who say, “I stay out of politics” are not stupid, they are just confused because some people do politics for a living. They are engaging in politics every time they tell their wives they are going golfing on Monday. People who say, “Two discussions I stay away from in a gathering are religion and politics” are really stating that they are not participating in half of life.
From a political standpoint, I am confused that liberal democrats support abortion while conservative democrats don’t. Um, do the math, isn’t that self-elimination? Are they stupid? No, they are not. “Then what’s going on?” I thought. Then the lightbulb went on.
Tyranny is never about numbers. Tyranny has always been about the enlightened few ruling over the unenlightened masses. And by the way, this is where religion and politics are inseparable. Look across the vast ocean of religions: they all fall into two categories; tyrannical caste, or competent freedom. Once the masses are convinced of the “right to choose,” we are one step away from who chooses. Ever heard of China? Tyranny always starts with a government offering to the masses. Ronald Reagan once said that the ten most terrifying words in the world are, “We are the government and we are here to help.”
Abortion is about tyranny. It is an offer by the government to take the easy way out at the end of the easy process that got you there. The lie is that it will always be your choice. No, no, the easy way always leads to bondage. The easy way is always the breadcrumbs to the snare.
paul
53 comments