Friday, May 20, 2011

Siding with the enemy

Steve Hays at Triablogue doesn’t seem to like me. I don’t know why, and I wish that wasn’t the case. But that’s just the way things are.

For some odd reason, Jamin labors under the illusion that criticism is a one-way street. He imagines that he should be free to publicly criticize other positions and named opponents, but be immune to return fire.

But if you can’t take blowback, don’t be a Christian apologist. Blowback comes with the territory.

It seems to have begun when I started blogging a lot at AOMin.org. But things were especially tense after a misunderstanding between Paul Manata and a post I wrote on logic (see here). Manata had wrote a rather absurd satire piece in response (here), ridiculing me as “agent 00777 of the Christian Insularity Agency (CIA),” and so forth. Steve Hays linked to it (here) with no issue (and what seems to be excitement, saying “Click here for the juicy details!”).

As I recall, Manata did a satirical post. If Jamin is that hypersensitive about satire, he’s in the wrong profession. Apologetics is not for hemophiliacs. If you bleed on contact, consider a career change. 

In fact, he even commented on it himself, furthering skepticism about my character

Based on what I’ve been told about his conduct from trusted, firsthand sources.

But now Steve stoops to a new low in trying to solidify his “pattern” theory. Today he wrote an entire blog post called “Sleeping with the Enemy” (here) for (what appears) no other reason than to make me look bad through association.

Let’s differentiate culpable from inculpable associations:

i) If I have a kid brother who’s a skinhead, that doesn’t make me a racist. To say I’m a racist merely because my kid brother is skinhead would be fallacious guilt-by-association.

If, on the other hand, I belong to the KKK, then my association is culpable. It’s not just an adventitious association. Rather, my affiliation carries with it the presumption that I share the outlook of the KKK.

ii) Jamin isn’t merely “associated” with Burge, in some purely incidental way, because he happened to reference a book of his.

No, Jamin agrees with Burge. For instance:

…Israel is guilty of committing countless war atrocities that qualify and surpass the covenant obligations in Scripture. Mass murder. Torturing men ages 14-60s. Unjust use of water supply and the abusive treatment of aliens and foreigners. The creation of millions of refugees. And so on and so forth.[14]
[14] See chapter 2-3 of Burge, Whose Land, Whose Promise?


Notice how he defaults to Burge as an unquestioned authority, to validate Jamin’s incendiary allegations.

Links are then given, and that’s it for the post. One is simply left wondering: why was this written, and why now?

Why was it written? Didn’t I already give my reasons? “The fact that Burge is a PC-USA minister, along with the further fact that he’s a contributor to Jim Wallis’s leftwing rag Sojourners, ought to alert one to his presuppositions. From what I’ve read by him and about him, Burge is basically a shill for Hamas. Here are some reviews of his book which give the other side of the argument.

Isn’t that self-explanatory?

I have three questions that might help bring clarity. Steve, could you please answer for your readers and mine, and everyone else who may want to know:
Who is the one “sleeping with the enemy” and who is the “enemy” in the title of your blog post, and why did you see those terms as fitting?

i) Burge is the immediate target, but to the degree that Jamin is rubberstamping Burge, then he’s complicit, too.

ii) Because we’re in a counteroffensive against global jihad and creeping dhimmitude. In a conflict of that nature, it’s crucial to know the difference between your allies and your enemies. Burge is siding with the enemy.

How were you hoping your readers would respond to your particular post, in thought and/or action?

By considering Burge’s affiliations and reading the reviews, to alert them to Burge’s agenda.

Did you read Gary Burge’s book Whose Land, Whose Promise? prior to when you wrote your post essentially criticizing the book, and if not, are you willing to read it and discuss the arguments he raises? (I certainly am.)

i) Jamin is recasting the point of the post. That’s a red herring. As I pointed out, the question at issue are the political (contributor to Sojourners) and theological (PC-USA minister) presuppositions which Burge brings to his book. And you don’t have to read his book to know that, for his book is not the only thing he’s written on the subject. For instance:


ii) And I don’t need to read Burge to know about the nature of the Arab/Israeli conflict.

3 comments:

  1. Trying to have adult give-and-take with Jamin Hubner and finding it unrewarding: welcome to Fred Butler's world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have read Mr. Hubner's posts at AOMIN profitably. Many of them anyways.

    Same as at Triablogue, TeamPyro, Hip and Thigh, BibChr.

    I do wish that Mr. Hubner would recant his support for Mr. Burge's left-wing anti-Israel screeds.

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  3. "If Jamin is that hypersensitive about satire, he’s in the wrong profession. Apologetics is not for hemophiliacs. If you bleed on contact, consider a career change."

    What a great line! :-D

    ReplyDelete