Why is this an either/or issue? I see both within the Scriptures, from Moses to David, from prophets to Apostles, from Christ to Paul and on in to the Book of Revelation.
Yes, I think the ads are stupid & inappropriate, especially the first one, which might simply be the issue at hand, but the "us vs. them" is just as prevalent in the "Barrsian" (not sure how else to label it) camp as the "TRish" gang, albeit internally directed and, I believe, more palatable to liberal-democracies & victorian sensibilities opposed to the more brash & barbaric approach of the Luthers of the world. Both have their narratives & they hope it will "crush the competition".
Let me add, I think the site these links go to is misdirected and explains more why I sensed these ads were "inappropriate".
It's strange, there is a sense that I agree that the "ACLU" is the enemy, but another where the issue is much different than they frame it. Maybe that is the difference between Elijah and "AmericanVision". I don't sense the self-righteousness in Elijah's indignation that I do in this gangs.
Elijah never seems to have had the understanding that Elijah was crushing the comptetion. In fact, scripture teaches us that "the battle belongs to the Lord".
Of course any good Christian thinker should desire to equip himself with good, rational argumentations for the faith. He should seek for his arguments to be persuasive. To describe this as "crushing the competition" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of evangelism. I understand what they're saying, it just seems like a very unhelpful and unfortuante way to say it.
I am also writing as a pastor. When I think about the liberals, athiests and humanists in my neighborhood (and that's just about everyone) I do not want to crush them. I do not want to make them cry. I want them to know Christ in such a way as to experience repentance and faith. Which opens the door to healing and restoration. ( yeah, yeah, ordo salutis, I know) And I want healing and restoration for them because I love them. And I love them because God loves them. In the process of bringing people to faith God may require that thier former beliefs be "defeated" or whatever. I know that's what these guys mean by thier ads, but it doesn't sound like it's coming from the mouths of men who long to see the lost saved. It sound like it's coming from teh mouths of men who long to be proven right in their doctrine.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the ads betray a very transparent and problematic disposition of the heart.
I believe the "honor of the godly ones" is to have a "two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance (YIKES! Everyone, including most Christians, hate vengeance) on the nations and punishments on the peoples (note: not some abstract idea or thought), to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written!" This is the HONOR of God's holy ones, i.e. His people.
Yes, the battle belongs to the Lord, but the means the Lord uses is His people, the preaching of the Word, administration of sacraments, & church discipline. I agree (in a sense) that the ads display an errant disposition of the heart, as my second post indicates, but that doesn't negate the fact that Paul concludes: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God (i.e. humanism, atheism, etc., and I don't believe the Scriptures, as you justly point out with this ad, make a dichotomy between the disposition of the heart and beliefs), and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete."
So, I agree with your last couple of lines, again, note my second post and I think you articulate in the last two sentences, but I delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed, either through repentance and faith or God's hardening of their hearts and minds, leading to their final destruction, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
Once again, I don't think in the end we disagree too much, but (thinking I'm "right")I think the Scriptures present a much fuller view than the "two-sides" seem to offer.
Finally, I think it rather wise on your end, knowing I would take the bait. ;)
Yeah, we agree in essence but are coming at the same issue from different emphasis. And as John Frame says, there is no such thing as an improper emphasis in theology. There is a proper context for every truth to be emphasized.
Oops! I'm not suppose to be talking about anything Presbyterian anymore. It's all kittens now.
What I meant to say is I vote for kittens. Kittens don't make anyone cry.
If the battle is the Lord's and we are called to disciple people into the Body of Christ, then it seems like this "battle" mentality is way too works oriented as it appears in these ads.
I don't believe that Elijah's redemptive-historical setting is narrowly equivalent to the midwest where I live. I do think that Jesus' interaction in the region of Galilee are fairly representative of my setting.
While we are in a war, it's technically not our war (as has already been agreed). Here's my problem, all these "rational argument" don't add up to goat manure in the long run. If you convince the "enemy" that intelligent design is the only acceptable view of origins, you have not won anything. At the very best, you have helped to cause theism ("whooped-ty-doo" SP?).
While you agree in essence, I think (maybe wrongly) that KDNY gravitates towards the theological reality and FP (or whoever you are) leans towards the role of discipleship. I guess the WWJD comes in to play here. Where does Jesus sink his ducats in this debate: theological reality or discipleship? While Jesus seems to be constantly aware of theological reality of a person and situation, he appears to spend almost all of his times focusing on discipleship.
I am all about teaching from the breadth of scripture, but if Jesus is The hermeneutic of the Old Covenant, then we ought to add special weight to his life of evangelism. That said, I think that discipleship is where it is at. Not to mention that the war-mongering comes so naturally to most believers and fosters anti-intellectualism (can't explain that one here). It seems that discipleship is what is the most demanding aspect and this may explain our aversity towards it.
Not to mention, where is the epistemological humilty (not false or conjured humility) in a position like, "makes the athiests cry"? That's just a farse. Besides, Ned Flanders youngest son clearly tells us that, "...lies make the baby Jesus cry."
KDNY, you delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed? Jesus refers to me, you, the demons, and the Isrealites as God's enemy ("evil"). Who is the enemy? When are you God's enemy? All this enemy talk just smells way too simplistic to me. It smells like early 21st century repubelican rhetoric, but maybe i'm reading way too much into it.
Unfortunately, in your haste to you respond you didn't read too carefully. Let me first say, I have epistemic certainty that the Scriptures show the people of God rejoicing in God's enemies being destroyed and, in fact, I have epistemic certainty that this is the "honor of his holy ones". So, despite all protests to the contrary, I rejoice in Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father "as He puts all His enemies under his feet." As a southern frind of mine would say, "That's just Bible." Also, I have epistemic certainty that "atheists" are "fools", but I'm sure that doesn't fit a "Jesus is the hermeneutic of the OT" paradigm & we would be quick to rebuke the Psalmist today & we most definitely wouldn't include that in our corporate worship, nor would we speak of God breaking our enemies teeth or smashing their babies on rocks. Fortunately, that was the OT "god" and the NT GOD, Jesus, is so much better and nicer, and we get a new hermeneutic and acadamia will applaud this god that performs "senseless acts of beauty and random acts of kindness". I'm sure I'm just engulfed in "modernism", "old paradigms", and "false epistemology". Ah, the wisdom of the Greeks shines ever so brightly in Christendom.
Second, I utterly reject your false dichotomy between "theological reality" and your "discipleship reality", especially in light of asserting that "discipleship reality" is Jesus' model. Wow! Talk about seeking to "crush the competition" & do away with enemies? Stack the deck, assert a definition with Jesus on your side and ride off into the sun set, esp. with "epistemic certainty" in mind. Yes, the early Church was seduced by Greek philosophy, but, alas, we are finally getting back to "discipleship". Gone are those trifling "theological realities" like the hypostatic union, the Trinity, and the Creeds of Christendom. We can now be "post-theology" and dwell in "discipleship reality" where none of these "iotas of a difference" matter.
Dur, thinking he read me with any sort of careful thought and going for the "I'll out humility you", says, "KDNY, you delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed? Jesus refers to me, you, the demons, and the Isrealites as God's enemy ("evil"). Who is the enemy? When are you God's enemy? All this enemy talk just smells way too simplistic to me. It smells like early 21st century repubelican rhetoric, but maybe i'm reading way too much into it."
Well, Dur, this all sounds like early 21st century acadamia rhetoric to me, but no, Dur, you didn't read way too much into it, but you simply didn't read it (I hope you notice the difference). So, what is it that I, kdny, said? Let's take a look, "I delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed, either through repentance and faith or God's hardening of their hearts and minds, leading to their final destruction, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Read that again. I even put one word in bold so you wouldn't miss it. Can you see the difference? Do you disagree with John's revelation? Do you disagree with those under the alter? Have I misunderstood them in any way? Is my "Christocentric" reading of Revelation 19 wrong? What about Mt. 25? What about 2 Thess? My "Christocentric" hermeneutic leads me to conclude that it is Jesus casting people into hell and that he is NOW executing judgment upon the nations. It's Jesus that strikes Ananias and Sapphira, Simon the Sourcerer, etc. Am I misreading these?
Yes, Dur, I was an enemy of God, by nature an object of wrath, worthy of eternal-conscious torment in the Lake of Fire, full of guile, a lying tongue, quick to shed blood, and my heart was only evil continuously. My sins were ever before, I was dead in my sins and transgressions, united to Adam, and under condemnation. Yet, Dur, while I was still yet a sinner...You see, the "I'm more humble than you" card may make play well at the academy and make you respectable, earning a degree, a gown, and a cap, but I'm not convinced it is of the Bible, but the fruit of liberal democracies. You have simply been engulfed by their narrative. I will give you a lot of credit for playing the cards quite well however. You worked in "works" (oohhhh scarey), "humility", and, "Hey, aren't you an enemy?" All pretty good rhetoric.
Yet, this has nothing to do with Republican rhetoric, it has nothing to do with anachronistic pelagianism (works), and the like. It deals with the fundamental, theo-mathetou reality that has been the course of history since the Fall: there is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. As Bob Dylan says, "You gotta serve somebody." In the end, if everyone is an enemy of God, then they will be destroyed, EITHER through repentence and faith or caste into the Lake of Fire.
Yes, I'm sure this is overly simplistic to those who walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds, and in the new breed of post-modern-post-Christendom "intellectualism", but I will continue to simply stand with my Sunday school answers and the dogmatics of 2000 yrs. of Spirit working in history and stand in my post-theomathetou paradigm.
First, I don't believe in epistemic certainty and I suspect that you don't either (but maybe I'm wrong). So there's one obvious reason for our differences.
Second, I was speaking to tone, not necessarily content (as I attempted to allude to with "smells like" and "seems" rather than "is" and "was".), although I'm not sure that tone and content are two necessarily different things.
Third, I qualified "humility", which you seemed to ignore or didn't read in your haste.
Forth, I purposely avoided a dichotomy by putting discipleship and reality on a continuum. So, by definition, it can 't be a "false dichotomy" (only wrong poles on the spectrum).
Fifth, I don't live in academia. I work as a pastor at a church full-time. That is where the thrust of my comments came from. I spend my leisure time in academia, just like you.
Sixth, I "pulled the Jesus card" relunctantly because I knew that it would cause the exact reaction it did. In that, I was too hasty not to hedge it a bit. I agree with what you have said about the fullness of scripture, but I do think there is a New Covenant context to evangelism that is distinct from the theocratic missionary task of Israel. We might just flatly disagree on that one.
Seventh, I do think the way you frame an issue directly affects how people will participate. Axis of evil language SEEMS fruitless and antithetical given my comments above which you did not address.
Finally, it's not rhetoric for me. I have to face people every day in the church who swallow this rhetoric up and spew it out in the form theological pretense. It's not fun to pastor people (including myself) that think the republican/conservative narrative is actually the framework of the gospel. So I think one main task for someone who leads midwestern white evangelicals is to help them dinstinguish the gospel from their sinful capitalist, republican, and materialist inculturalization. I don't mean these in inflamatory ways, but in the subtle ways that sins smears these views and syncretizes it with the gospel.
If I'm caught up in a liberal narrative, then all the more glory to God through it. It sure makes better sense of the gospel than the conservative one in some places. So that makes it "biblical" (careful) in my eyes. I won't pretend to be free from being caught up in a narrative as if I could sit outside of one and analyze it. That is an epistemic farce (from my pastoral experience, at least) and that is no false humility on my part. I'm just intimately familiar with my own sins in this area.
So you can label it whatever you want, if it properly reflects the gospel, then I'll buy and sell it and you should to. Again, please don't drop the rhetoric bomb, because that is just downright insulting. I love the church and I stifle my vomit with the academy. So don't ad hominem without knowing the hominem.
after rereading my original comments (again), I realize I didn't clarify. The theological reality is the guiding force for discipleship (which I think is what KDNY orginially said in his first post).
What I was speaking to was tone. What did Jesus wear on his sleave, as far as theological reality is concerned? Since Jesus is constantly quoting the relevant OT texts (i.e. love your enemies), I think he might be a good person to focus on as to how this should look today.
I am currently studying how we are to disciple people from unbelief into belief and hence, this tone, rhetoric, language, whathaveyou, doesn't seem to have the role today that it did within the theocracy of Israel. Of course, modern day Israel is free to do as she pleases. She's got the Big One.
Please keep in mind that not everyone who reads this blog is able to decipher all this theological talk. I'm not so concerned about that, but then when you throw in a joke like that at the end, I'm afraid people won't pick up on your sarcasm.
Readers-
Dru, KDNY and the FP have known each other for many years and are able to pick up on the subtle sarasm inevitibly inbedded in each response. So keep that in mind as you read this stuff.
Who am I kidding? You all stopped reading this chain long long ago.
First of all, you're paying way too much for access to this blog. As I reread this chain blog on Xmas Eve, I realize what an incredible waist of time this is. I am convinced that KDNY and I fundamentally agree and are bickering on some of the nuances of our positions (which we might agree on also). In fact, I don't think I disagree with anything KDNY has said and I know that he lives the life of a disciple of Christ. So just ignore my comments thusfar. Some people, like myself, were not built to functionally interact with blogs. KDNY is right in that I jumped too hastily responding to my own personal irritation rather than the actual discussion.
I would like to withdrawal all my comments, sans these.
12 comments:
Funky,
Why is this an either/or issue? I see both within the Scriptures, from Moses to David, from prophets to Apostles, from Christ to Paul and on in to the Book of Revelation.
Yes, I think the ads are stupid & inappropriate, especially the first one, which might simply be the issue at hand, but the "us vs. them" is just as prevalent in the "Barrsian" (not sure how else to label it) camp as the "TRish" gang, albeit internally directed and, I believe, more palatable to liberal-democracies & victorian sensibilities opposed to the more brash & barbaric approach of the Luthers of the world. Both have their narratives & they hope it will "crush the competition".
kdny
Let me add, I think the site these links go to is misdirected and explains more why I sensed these ads were "inappropriate".
It's strange, there is a sense that I agree that the "ACLU" is the enemy, but another where the issue is much different than they frame it. Maybe that is the difference between Elijah and "AmericanVision". I don't sense the self-righteousness in Elijah's indignation that I do in this gangs.
I don't know.
kdny
Elijah never seems to have had the understanding that Elijah was crushing the comptetion. In fact, scripture teaches us that "the battle belongs to the Lord".
Of course any good Christian thinker should desire to equip himself with good, rational argumentations for the faith. He should seek for his arguments to be persuasive. To describe this as "crushing the competition" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of evangelism. I understand what they're saying, it just seems like a very unhelpful and unfortuante way to say it.
I am also writing as a pastor. When I think about the liberals, athiests and humanists in my neighborhood (and that's just about everyone) I do not want to crush them. I do not want to make them cry. I want them to know Christ in such a way as to experience repentance and faith. Which opens the door to healing and restoration. ( yeah, yeah, ordo salutis, I know) And I want healing and restoration for them because I love them. And I love them because God loves them. In the process of bringing people to faith God may require that thier former beliefs be "defeated" or whatever. I know that's what these guys mean by thier ads, but it doesn't sound like it's coming from the mouths of men who long to see the lost saved. It sound like it's coming from teh mouths of men who long to be proven right in their doctrine.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the ads betray a very transparent and problematic disposition of the heart.
Man. I'm taking it from both sides, today.
I believe the "honor of the godly ones" is to have a "two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance (YIKES! Everyone, including most Christians, hate vengeance) on the nations and punishments on the peoples (note: not some abstract idea or thought), to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written!" This is the HONOR of God's holy ones, i.e. His people.
Yes, the battle belongs to the Lord, but the means the Lord uses is His people, the preaching of the Word, administration of sacraments, & church discipline. I agree (in a sense) that the ads display an errant disposition of the heart, as my second post indicates, but that doesn't negate the fact that Paul concludes: "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God (i.e. humanism, atheism, etc., and I don't believe the Scriptures, as you justly point out with this ad, make a dichotomy between the disposition of the heart and beliefs), and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete."
So, I agree with your last couple of lines, again, note my second post and I think you articulate in the last two sentences, but I delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed, either through repentance and faith or God's hardening of their hearts and minds, leading to their final destruction, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
Once again, I don't think in the end we disagree too much, but (thinking I'm "right")I think the Scriptures present a much fuller view than the "two-sides" seem to offer.
Finally, I think it rather wise on your end, knowing I would take the bait. ;)
Yeah, we agree in essence but are coming at the same issue from different emphasis. And as John Frame says, there is no such thing as an improper emphasis in theology. There is a proper context for every truth to be emphasized.
Oops! I'm not suppose to be talking about anything Presbyterian anymore. It's all kittens now.
What I meant to say is I vote for kittens. Kittens don't make anyone cry.
If the battle is the Lord's and we are called to disciple people into the Body of Christ, then it seems like this "battle" mentality is way too works oriented as it appears in these ads.
I don't believe that Elijah's redemptive-historical setting is narrowly equivalent to the midwest where I live. I do think that Jesus' interaction in the region of Galilee are fairly representative of my setting.
While we are in a war, it's technically not our war (as has already been agreed). Here's my problem, all these "rational argument" don't add up to goat manure in the long run. If you convince the "enemy" that intelligent design is the only acceptable view of origins, you have not won anything. At the very best, you have helped to cause theism ("whooped-ty-doo" SP?).
While you agree in essence, I think (maybe wrongly) that KDNY gravitates towards the theological reality and FP (or whoever you are) leans towards the role of discipleship. I guess the WWJD comes in to play here. Where does Jesus sink his ducats in this debate: theological reality or discipleship? While Jesus seems to be constantly aware of theological reality of a person and situation, he appears to spend almost all of his times focusing on discipleship.
I am all about teaching from the breadth of scripture, but if Jesus is The hermeneutic of the Old Covenant, then we ought to add special weight to his life of evangelism. That said, I think that discipleship is where it is at. Not to mention that the war-mongering comes so naturally to most believers and fosters anti-intellectualism (can't explain that one here). It seems that discipleship is what is the most demanding aspect and this may explain our aversity towards it.
Not to mention, where is the epistemological humilty (not false or conjured humility) in a position like, "makes the athiests cry"? That's just a farse. Besides, Ned Flanders youngest son clearly tells us that, "...lies make the baby Jesus cry."
KDNY, you delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed? Jesus refers to me, you, the demons, and the Isrealites as God's enemy ("evil"). Who is the enemy? When are you God's enemy? All this enemy talk just smells way too simplistic to me. It smells like early 21st century repubelican rhetoric, but maybe i'm reading way too much into it.
Dur
Dur, Dur, Dur,
Unfortunately, in your haste to you respond you didn't read too carefully. Let me first say, I have epistemic certainty that the Scriptures show the people of God rejoicing in God's enemies being destroyed and, in fact, I have epistemic certainty that this is the "honor of his holy ones". So, despite all protests to the contrary, I rejoice in Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father "as He puts all His enemies under his feet." As a southern frind of mine would say, "That's just Bible." Also, I have epistemic certainty that "atheists" are "fools", but I'm sure that doesn't fit a "Jesus is the hermeneutic of the OT" paradigm & we would be quick to rebuke the Psalmist today & we most definitely wouldn't include that in our corporate worship, nor would we speak of God breaking our enemies teeth or smashing their babies on rocks. Fortunately, that was the OT "god" and the NT GOD, Jesus, is so much better and nicer, and we get a new hermeneutic and acadamia will applaud this god that performs "senseless acts of beauty and random acts of kindness". I'm sure I'm just engulfed in "modernism", "old paradigms", and "false epistemology". Ah, the wisdom of the Greeks shines ever so brightly in Christendom.
Second, I utterly reject your false dichotomy between "theological reality" and your "discipleship reality", especially in light of asserting that "discipleship reality" is Jesus' model. Wow! Talk about seeking to "crush the competition" & do away with enemies? Stack the deck, assert a definition with Jesus on your side and ride off into the sun set, esp. with "epistemic certainty" in mind. Yes, the early Church was seduced by Greek philosophy, but, alas, we are finally getting back to "discipleship". Gone are those trifling "theological realities" like the hypostatic union, the Trinity, and the Creeds of Christendom. We can now be "post-theology" and dwell in "discipleship reality" where none of these "iotas of a difference" matter.
Dur, thinking he read me with any sort of careful thought and going for the "I'll out humility you", says, "KDNY, you delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed? Jesus refers to me, you, the demons, and the Isrealites as God's enemy ("evil"). Who is the enemy? When are you God's enemy? All this enemy talk just smells way too simplistic to me. It smells like early 21st century repubelican rhetoric, but maybe i'm reading way too much into it."
Well, Dur, this all sounds like early 21st century acadamia rhetoric to me, but no, Dur, you didn't read way too much into it, but you simply didn't read it (I hope you notice the difference). So, what is it that I, kdny, said? Let's take a look, "I delight in seeing God's enemies destroyed, either through repentance and faith or God's hardening of their hearts and minds, leading to their final destruction, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Read that again. I even put one word in bold so you wouldn't miss it. Can you see the difference? Do you disagree with John's revelation? Do you disagree with those under the alter? Have I misunderstood them in any way? Is my "Christocentric" reading of Revelation 19 wrong? What about Mt. 25? What about 2 Thess? My "Christocentric" hermeneutic leads me to conclude that it is Jesus casting people into hell and that he is NOW executing judgment upon the nations. It's Jesus that strikes Ananias and Sapphira, Simon the Sourcerer, etc. Am I misreading these?
Yes, Dur, I was an enemy of God, by nature an object of wrath, worthy of eternal-conscious torment in the Lake of Fire, full of guile, a lying tongue, quick to shed blood, and my heart was only evil continuously. My sins were ever before, I was dead in my sins and transgressions, united to Adam, and under condemnation. Yet, Dur, while I was still yet a sinner...You see, the "I'm more humble than you" card may make play well at the academy and make you respectable, earning a degree, a gown, and a cap, but I'm not convinced it is of the Bible, but the fruit of liberal democracies. You have simply been engulfed by their narrative. I will give you a lot of credit for playing the cards quite well however. You worked in "works" (oohhhh scarey), "humility", and, "Hey, aren't you an enemy?" All pretty good rhetoric.
Yet, this has nothing to do with Republican rhetoric, it has nothing to do with anachronistic pelagianism (works), and the like. It deals with the fundamental, theo-mathetou reality that has been the course of history since the Fall: there is enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. As Bob Dylan says, "You gotta serve somebody." In the end, if everyone is an enemy of God, then they will be destroyed, EITHER through repentence and faith or caste into the Lake of Fire.
Yes, I'm sure this is overly simplistic to those who walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds, and in the new breed of post-modern-post-Christendom "intellectualism", but I will continue to simply stand with my Sunday school answers and the dogmatics of 2000 yrs. of Spirit working in history and stand in my post-theomathetou paradigm.
kdny
Whoever these kdny & Dur characters are, i can tell you one thing:
These are the types of guys that skip chapel service while in seminary and hangout in tthe lunchroom drinking coffee instead. Heathens.
KDNY & Funky Baptist,
First, I don't believe in epistemic certainty and I suspect that you don't either (but maybe I'm wrong). So there's one obvious reason for our differences.
Second, I was speaking to tone, not necessarily content (as I attempted to allude to with "smells like" and "seems" rather than "is" and "was".), although I'm not sure that tone and content are two necessarily different things.
Third, I qualified "humility", which you seemed to ignore or didn't read in your haste.
Forth, I purposely avoided a dichotomy by putting discipleship and reality on a continuum. So, by definition, it can 't be a "false dichotomy" (only wrong poles on the spectrum).
Fifth, I don't live in academia. I work as a pastor at a church full-time. That is where the thrust of my comments came from. I spend my leisure time in academia, just like you.
Sixth, I "pulled the Jesus card" relunctantly because I knew that it would cause the exact reaction it did. In that, I was too hasty not to hedge it a bit. I agree with what you have said about the fullness of scripture, but I do think there is a New Covenant context to evangelism that is distinct from the theocratic missionary task of Israel. We might just flatly disagree on that one.
Seventh, I do think the way you frame an issue directly affects how people will participate. Axis of evil language SEEMS fruitless and antithetical given my comments above which you did not address.
Finally, it's not rhetoric for me. I have to face people every day in the church who swallow this rhetoric up and spew it out in the form theological pretense. It's not fun to pastor people (including myself) that think the republican/conservative narrative is actually the framework of the gospel. So I think one main task for someone who leads midwestern white evangelicals is to help them dinstinguish the gospel from their sinful capitalist, republican, and materialist inculturalization. I don't mean these in inflamatory ways, but in the subtle ways that sins smears these views and syncretizes it with the gospel.
If I'm caught up in a liberal narrative, then all the more glory to God through it. It sure makes better sense of the gospel than the conservative one in some places. So that makes it "biblical" (careful) in my eyes. I won't pretend to be free from being caught up in a narrative as if I could sit outside of one and analyze it. That is an epistemic farce (from my pastoral experience, at least) and that is no false humility on my part. I'm just intimately familiar with my own sins in this area.
So you can label it whatever you want, if it properly reflects the gospel, then I'll buy and sell it and you should to. Again, please don't drop the rhetoric bomb, because that is just downright insulting. I love the church and I stifle my vomit with the academy. So don't ad hominem without knowing the hominem.
Dur
post script:
after rereading my original comments (again), I realize I didn't clarify. The theological reality is the guiding force for discipleship (which I think is what KDNY orginially said in his first post).
What I was speaking to was tone. What did Jesus wear on his sleave, as far as theological reality is concerned? Since Jesus is constantly quoting the relevant OT texts (i.e. love your enemies), I think he might be a good person to focus on as to how this should look today.
I am currently studying how we are to disciple people from unbelief into belief and hence, this tone, rhetoric, language, whathaveyou, doesn't seem to have the role today that it did within the theocracy of Israel. Of course, modern day Israel is free to do as she pleases. She's got the Big One.
Dur
Dru!
Please keep in mind that not everyone who reads this blog is able to decipher all this theological talk. I'm not so concerned about that, but then when you throw in a joke like that at the end, I'm afraid people won't pick up on your sarcasm.
Readers-
Dru, KDNY and the FP have known each other for many years and are able to pick up on the subtle sarasm inevitibly inbedded in each response. So keep that in mind as you read this stuff.
Who am I kidding? You all stopped reading this chain long long ago.
FP
FP suscribers,
First of all, you're paying way too much for access to this blog. As I reread this chain blog on Xmas Eve, I realize what an incredible waist of time this is. I am convinced that KDNY and I fundamentally agree and are bickering on some of the nuances of our positions (which we might agree on also). In fact, I don't think I disagree with anything KDNY has said and I know that he lives the life of a disciple of Christ. So just ignore my comments thusfar. Some people, like myself, were not built to functionally interact with blogs. KDNY is right in that I jumped too hastily responding to my own personal irritation rather than the actual discussion.
I would like to withdrawal all my comments, sans these.
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