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Monday, December 19, 2005

Circular excuses

***QUOTE***

1) I am a moderator. I moderate a conversation between adults. These adults are not my students or my children or my "flock."
2) I am not a policeman. I am an equal. I do pay the bills, and I am responsible, but no one asked to be part of this in order to have me telling them what to say or think. I am certainly not "responsible" to Mr. Hays version of Reformed orthodoxy, any more than anyone else on the net is.
3) This blog is not "policed." Fellows are free to post as they wish, in accordance with the guidelines/rules. Is this concept just too difficult to understand?
4) The confessional requirements of this blog are minimal, and are stated in the rules. Apparently, a few people who read the BHT think we all subscribe to the Second London Confession or something.
5) I am not a shepherd of people at the BHT. I do not have pastoral relationship with them at all. If Mr. Hays imagines himself a pastor or a professor to his readers, that's nice. I don't. If someone on here thinks I am their pastor, they are mistaken, if not somewhat deluded.
6) The charge of "corrupting the young" comes pretty close to a legal slander.

All in all, ask yourself what the person who writes this is thinking of their own blog and their own role in the blogosphere. Now...why are they thinking these same things about MY blog? Am I compelled to have these same- I'm sorry- delusions?

Really, it's sad. These are people who live in an atmosphere where there are constant boundaries of what you can say and think, and if you cross these (translation: go outside their version of reformed baptist fundamentalism) you are a threat who must be policed.

The guy writing this is a seminary student who knows this about me: I'm not like him, so here's the hemlock. He knows less about the BHT than he does about html.

Posted by Michael Spencer at 10:37 PM

***END-QUOTE***

All that Spencer does here is to appeal to his own policy to justify his own policy, which begs the question.

“I’m a bank-robber. I rob banks for a living. That’s my policy. I have a stated policy of bank-robbing. I’ve posted my policy in the public domain. To my knowledge, I have never violated my policy of robbing banks. How dare you say mean things about my lifestyle!”

5 comments:

  1. Mr. Hays,

    I'm going to call you out as a liar later today. I'm just telling you straight. You are a liar and a hypocrite.

    You are completely aware that the language at the BHT is tame. None of the famous "7 words" or anything similar have ever been allowed.

    You are aware that the site search at the BHT reveals exactly what language has been used.

    You are aware that c.t. uses the "f-word" and other terrible language that I have never used.

    You are aware that Doug Wilson uses a term I have never allowed on the BHT. (see the link in the previous post.)You are aware that Wilson and Frank Turk in Wilson's comments use the same crude terms ("a" word) that you condemn me for.

    You are aware that you are lying, and you know better.

    You're a common liar, Mr. Hays. I have no problem being truthful about the language at the BHT. It's considerably better than Paul's vocabulary in Galatians. You have to lie every time you post on this.

    Your insinuation that I am a corruptor of the young is about 5 feet away from slander.

    Bill Mackinnon at the BHT tagged this fracas perfectly: "The one common theme amongst our detractors is a pathological hatred of the unlike. That's why a truly heterogeneous group blog mystifies them. If there isn't a theoblogical hierarchy with someone at the top (iMonk) then it is beyond their ability to understand. The fact that we are allowed to disagree with Michael and each other without some sort of "correction" is outside of their experience, and they don't know what to do with it other than attack. That we have a tavern motif infuriates them. That we give Catholics and Lutherans equal time with Baptists is outrageous. That we consider them Christians is unforgivable."

    Now go ahead and delete this because it's true.

    You are a liar, Mr. Hays.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr. Spencer,

    I think you are truly deformed and if you do not repent you will never be truly reformed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So its true? You think of Spencer as a "pastor" of his "flock" of "junior bloggers?"

    Being a former BHTer I have to say that is not how anyone there sees themselves. Nor does anyone look to Michael for pastoral guidance. It's his place, true, but it is a place where you can state your convictions/feelings/comments about whatever.

    At any rate, Tony Compolo's thought experiment is always relevant when we search our hearts for sinfulness as it related to swearing.

    "30,000 children died in Africa last night. But you don't give a Sh*! about that because you are more concerned at the fact I just said "sh*!" than the fact that 30,000 children died."

    ReplyDelete
  4. >My problem with c.t. and the Tavernistas is the way they flaunt obscenity.

    This is a lie, Mr.Hays. And you should retract it as a matter of honor.

    No one on the BHT has ever used the language that ct uses on his blog. If you've read ct posts you know of what I speak.

    If you want to say you find the comparitively tame pg-13 language of the BHT offensive, fine. Say you find the same words offensive from Wilson and Turk. Say you find crude language in the Bible offensive. I'm perfectly fine with your view of language.

    I'm not hear to argue with your sensibilities. I'm hear to defend five years of one policy and a consisten approach.

    You are not going to continue intimating that I use the language of CT and have me passively accept it.

    Straighten that out, like an honorable man, and you can say what you wish about the language I use or allow.

    Or continue lying.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "...30,000 children died in Africa last night..."

    1.68 people die per second
    101 people die per minute
    6048 people die per hour
    145 thousand people die per day
    53 million people die per year
    3.7 billion people die per average lifetime (70 years)

    How many of them are cast into the lake of fire?

    ReplyDelete