JD WALTERS SAID:
Let me give a personal example. I was born and raised in a bizarre Christian cult whose founder claimed to be God's Endtime prophet and received new revelations from God and Jesus seemingly on a weekly basis. His theology was aberrant in the extreme, and included the idea that female members of the cult should prostitute themselves in order to attract converts, all with Jesus' sanction, of course. And for as long as I could remember, well into my high school years, I was completely certain that 'Father David' really was God's Endtime prophet. I even convinced myself that I was receiving regular prophecies from Jesus.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/07/pre-wired-for-atheism-or-theism.html#2245478152856059910
JD WALTERS SAID:
You dismiss Nelson Mandela who emerged from a long and brutal imprisonment ready to offer pardon and amnesty to his captors. You dismiss Martin Luther King, Jr. in his eagerness to bring the white oppressors back into community with his people in forgiveness and love.
Just answer me this: was Steven wrong to pray for the Lord not to credit the murder to the Jews' charge? Was Martin Luther King wrong to want reconciliation with his oppressors? Was Gandhi wrong to want to be friends with the British after their occupation ended?
Of course. So is theologian Miroslav Volf, who endured interrogations and beatings by Serbs and watched his country fall apart in raids and rape camps, but who found the courage to forgive and absolve his captors and embrace them as brothers. So is Nelson Mandela. So is Desmond Tutu.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/08/forgiving-and-forgiven.html
JD was raised in a personality cult. But even though he eventually left the cult, he retains the mindset of a cult member. It becomes increasingly and painfully clear that all he's done is to transfer his membership from the personality cult of "Father David" to the personality cult of King, Tutu, Mandela, Volf, and Gandhi (not to mention Anne Rice, Peter Enns, &c.). Trade up for a new guru. Hopefully it's just another phase he's going through.
Miserable wretch. There are no lengths to which you will not go to discredit an opponent, including airing dirty laundry which I shared in a COMMENT, precisely so that it would NOT be paraded in front of everyone in a regular post.
ReplyDeleteI retain a cult mindset? How about you with your bizarre epistemology for interpreting the Bible because you can't fathom that it could even in principle be wrong? Have you changed your mind about ANYTHING in the last 30 years or so?
I've put up with a lot of crap from you for having taken advantage of my personal story to ridicule and discredit me, but this was the last straw. Though every fiber of my being cries out to defend myself against misunderstandings of my position, because you have stooped so low I cannot in good conscience engage you in conversation when you respond to my posts.
Now I know that you are not sincere or respectful at all, you will do and write anything to parade the 'foolishness' of your opponents before your adoring faithful. This post will stand as a monument to your deviousness and your callousness (though of course the choir will not see it that way).
I'm done with you. No one, whether Christian or atheist, whom I have engaged with has ever shown me the contempt that you have, in taking advantage of my back story like this.
You volunteered this information in a public forum. I'm simply quoting you verbatim. That's something you chose to put in the public domain. There's nothing the least bit "devious" or "callous" about quoting a public statement of yours.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, that's a comment you left on this very blog. I'm merely reproducing a comment of yours on the same blog where you left that comment in the first place.
Mr. Walters I would suggest that you offer no personal information, online or in fellowship, it will be used against you if required. May I suggest when sharing a private experience find someone whom is bound by professional confidence and can be sued. This is one reason I will never confess a sin to a Pastor, Preacher, etc, other then a Catholic Priest, Lutheran Minister, etc that can be held accountable in an actionable sense.
ReplyDeleteMr. Hays I disagree with your point of view on this, maybe he was a soul sharing, granted that is pathetic and stupid as a true Christian should ever do such things, but that is just my point of view.
But, of course, this was not shared in confidence. This was a public communication, not a private communication. So there was no breach of confidence. Not even close.
ReplyDeleteThere's no expectation of privacy for comments left on a public blog. The individual has chosen to publicize that information.
Moreover, JD has admitted that the position he is now taking on the presumption of naturalistic explanations (in assessing reported miracles) is a reactionary position in direct response to his personal experience, to his religious upbringing. So this is feeding into his arguments.
Hi JD,
ReplyDeleteI posted about your "bizarre Christian cult" about a month ago here-
http://vanberean.blogspot.com/2010/06/sexy-evangelism.html
Now, can you with your "bizarre epistemology" tell me why 'Father David' was wrong?
And why you believed that you were "receiving regular prophecies from Jesus"?
Just how has your epistemology really changed, JD?
You failed to present or demonstrate this evolution.
And I think that is what Steve is projecting.
You would do well to forgive this alleged injustice.
"..airing dirty laundry which I shared in a COMMENT, precisely so that it would NOT be paraded in front of everyone in a regular post." JD
ReplyDeleteI thought, and always thought this since I have been blogging, that any comment I give is available for thw whole world to look at if they want to.
If I were to send an e-mail to someone, and then I see this e-mail on a blog, then I might be upset.
I never knew comments were suppose to be semi-private. Or whatever you would consider a comment to be.
JD,
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad that you expend such energy and emotion railing against Steve when you should be repenting of your unbiblical presuppositions.
DonSands,
I don't think it's wise to presume that private emails won't be blogged. There doesn't seem to be any established rule of netiquette, and ppl differ on email's publishability.
Personally, I figure I'll publish any private email I desire, bound by wisdom and how much danger I think such publishing will put the relationship in, but unless given specific permission, I never name the source. The email sender can always self-identify in the combox, but I always say "an email correspondent" or sthg like that.
Of course, JD's comment wasn't a private email.
Peace,
Rhology
"..unless given specific permission, I never name the source."
ReplyDeleteThat's basically what I was talking about.
I guess everything depends on the e-mail, and the content.
I have learned over the years the hard way about keeping things confidential, and making things known.
When someone sends me a note and says such and such about brother so-and-so, and this someone says, "Don't tell anyone it was me who told you this", I have learned to say, "Oh yeah, we are going to go to so-and-so right now, and talk this thing out."
Since JD references Miroslav Volf:
ReplyDelete"The presupposition of God's just judgment at the end of history is the presupposition for the renunciation of violence in the middle of it. [The practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance]. ...Soon you will discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God's refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die." --Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Idenity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, p. 302.
Compare this to JD's statement: "But it worries me that you are so zealous for upholding some retributive standard of punishment that you seem unable to fathom the idea that forgiveness and reconciliation could take place without any kind of law being satisfied."
I was afraid that things might turn out this way.
ReplyDeleteLet's all shake hands and say we're sorry. Christ asks us to forgive each other "seventy times seven."
Forgiveness is healthy and necessary.
JD Walter in a prior comment thread: "Of course. So is theologian Miroslav Volf, who endured interrogations and beatings by Serbs and watched his country fall apart in raids and rape camps, but who found the courage to forgive and absolve his captors and embrace them as brothers. So is Nelson Mandela. So is Desmond Tutu.".
ReplyDeleteLet's acknowledge that you have perceived Steve Hays of doing a wrong and hurtful thing to you. Be that as it may, it is nothing compared to what these other fellows have had to endure. And yet those folks forgave.
Can you do the same?
TUAD,
ReplyDeleteI will forgive and forget if Steve will apologize for shamelessly and without discretion using personal information to try to undermine my credibility and take this post down.
And it really is about discretion. Not just, whether the comment was made in public, but, will this contribute in a constructive way to the discussion?
And besides, he is so wrong in his assertion that I still think like a member of a personality cult that I don't know whether to laugh at him or cry. He's not a very good reader of persons.
"TUAD,
ReplyDeleteI will forgive and forget if Steve will apologize for shamelessly and without discretion using personal information to try to undermine my credibility and take this post down."
Ya know, I've done some reading and thinking about Conditional Forgiveness vs. Unconditional Forgiveness and I'm still unsure about what I think(!).
Anyways, I know you're angry and hurt and mad at Steve Hays. And I think you'll probably be even more angry and hurt and mad at Steve if/when there's no apology forthcoming.
My suggestion: Forgive anyways.
Suppose your condition for forgiveness isn't met. Forgive anyways and let it go.
Anyways, fwiw, I think it's healthier to forgive even if the other person never says sorry, never apologizes, never acknowledges wrongdoing, much less repent, and even ardently persists that they're in the right. The internal turmoil and muck just ain't worth it.
Besides, did Volf, Mandela, and Tutu condition their forgiveness upon whether their interlocutors apologized? Did they wait for an apology before extending forgiveness?
(Caveat: I'm not a paragon of virtue in this area either, at least not as much as I'd like to be. I would accept the charge of hypocrisy. But I think I'm getting better at forgiving others.)
Anyways, I offer all this up in good faith.
And if it makes things worse, I'm vehemently opposed to theistic evolution!
;-)
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"And besides, he is so wrong in his assertion that I still think like a member of a personality cult that I don't know whether to laugh at him or cry. He's not a very good reader of persons."
Lets see, JD tried to undermine penal substitution by name-dropping some celebrities who forgave their enemies. Sounds like a classic personality cult mentality to me. If famous people do it, then it must be true.
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"I will forgive and forget if Steve will apologize for shamelessly and without discretion using personal information to try to undermine my credibility and take this post down."
That's an ironically self-incriminating complaint. If anyone was guilty of indiscretion, that would be JD–for making public statements even though he bitterly resents having his public statements quoted in public. Very odd.
And if statements about himself undermine his credibility, then the accusatorial finger points back at the speaker who made those damaging statements in the first place. So don't shift the blame to me for your indiscretion.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteEDWARD T. BABINSKI SAID:
ReplyDelete“Now any non-Christian can cite both of you, and use your attempted dialogue as yet another case of the inability of Christians to agree on what the Bible really says (regardless of all the prayers they may pray to the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth).”
I don’t pray that prayer since the Johannine verse you allude to was a promise to the disciples, and not to Christians in general. I don’t expect the Holy Spirit to whisper the correct interpretation in my ear. I’m not Pentecostal.
You keep burning straw men. You stereotype Christians based on your own provincial experience with the church.
“Though was it ever a dialogue to begin with? Wasn't it simply Steve starting out by railing on his blog against ‘all things non-Steve’ (which are also by a twist of fate, equal to all things ‘non-God,’ at least in Steve's interpretive worldview).”
And you rail against all things non-Babinski, in Babinski’s interpretive worldview.
“J.D. thought to discuss several matters that Steve had brought up, in hopefully a civil discussion between two Christians.”
JD wasn’t especially civil in his characterization of me or my position.
“As the discussion progressed, J.D. seems to have recognized that Steve has nothing in mind but winning…”
Like the contributors to The Christian Delusion?
“Or that Steve has convinced himself that "nothing personal, but I hate all persons--'hate them' in a highly spiritual fashion--who believe differently than I do, just as I believe God hates them too. There is no 'hate the sin but love the sinner,' because sin is never found outside the sinner. Separate sin and sinner, and you have neither a sin to hate nor a sinner to love. Sin always exists in a man. God even had to put our sin upon His Son before He could judge it. And only 'the elect' get the message."”
You’re the one, not me, who’s using emotive language, projecting, &c.
“Steve might even doubt whether J.D. Walters is one of the elect, and might view J.D. as a worshiper of personality cults, rather than the God that Steve believes in.”
That’s just your imaginary imputation. You’re bitter because I dismantled your precious little chapter in The Christian Delusion.
“Perhaps J.D. has not read the little Primer I composed to help people understand Calvinism.”
You’re no expert on Calvinism.
“Calvinism is easy, nice tight little circle of logic. Steve deserves his own little Geneva and Consistory, though he doesn't even need to go that far since he's already disconnected internally from any line of thought that might lead him to doubt that he is one of the ‘elect,’ which is the most mean and narrow personality cults of them all. Steve is one of the ‘elect’ given the ‘illumination by God’ that apparently has been denied J.D.”
ReplyDeleteYou continue to project your own emotional state, which doesn’t follow from anything I actually said.
“Only Steve can interpret God's Word truly. Bully for Steve. The man without questions, doubts, admissions of lack of knowledge in even tiny areas. The man who never sees grey, nor sees any value in displaying couth in conversation, not even for the sake of continuing in fellowship and friendship with other Christians. No ground is truly common ground to a Calvinist presupper. Let all conversations end with ‘Thus sayeth the inspired biblical intepretations of Steve,’ a man far less humble than he'll ever realize. And trapped in one of the most vicious apologetic circles of all.”
There’s nothing humble about your attacks on the credibility of Scripture. You’re cocksure that you know what Scripture means, and you’re cocksure that Scripture is wrong. So spare us the faux intellectual humility.
Likewise, JD is quite convinced that penal substitution is wrong. That the literal interpretation of Genesis is wrong. And so on and so forthy.
“I at least applaud Holding of being open in some ways Steve is not.”
Sorry to let you down, Ed, but I don’t live for your applause. You’re not that important.
“But hey, Steve, keep reading Presbyterian and Reformed books and telling yourself they're good for the mind.”
I by no means confine myself to Reformed literature. That’s demonstrable from all of the non-Reformed scholars I favorably quote. But that’s for once again demonstrating your ignorance.
“Always the apple of God's eye, never every realizing that OTHER PEOPLE, including other Christians, ALSO HAVE EYES, and stories of their own lives and learning.”
You target conservative Christians. That’s your myopic fixation.
Unlike chronic naval-gazers like Dave Armstrong and your pal John Loftus, I don’t spend inordinate amounts of time talking about myself or defending myself. If you want to vent and emote, go somewhere else. If you have a substantive comment to offer, fine. Otherwise, you’re choleric, off-topic rants will be deleted. Get a counselor.