I'm somewhat puzzled by why John MacArthur and his entourage appear to be snubbing Michael Brown. Brown has repeatedly and publicly requested a face-to-face meeting. Why is he rebuffed? Given the fact that MacArthur and his entourage are ardent "Zionists," I don't know why they'd snub such a prominent Messianic Jewish leader. But maybe appearances are deceiving. Perhaps there's more to it than meets the eye.
I do have theory. MacArthurites seem to subdivide charismatics (and continuationists) into two groups: bad bad charismatics and good bad charismatics.
On the one hand, you have the bad bad charismatics. These are the charlatans. The TBN types.
On the other hand, you have the good bad charismatics. These are the respectable charismatics.
However, the good charismatics are bad in a different way. You see, the good charismatics are the "gutless enablers" (to quote Dan Phillips) of the bad charismatics. The reputable charismatics cover for the disreputable charismatics. The mere existence of reputable charismatics confers virtue by association on the disreputable charismatics. So, in their own way, even the good charismatics are just as bad (or worse) than the bad charismatics.
This furnishes a striking parallel with the way militant Darwinians like Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and PZ Myers treat Michael Ruse and Stephen Jay Gould. Even though Ruse and Gould are just as committed to Darwinian dogma as Coyne, Myers, and Dawkins, they are still treated as traitors to the cause because they refuse to demonize the critics of Darwinism. It's not enough to be for the cause. You must be against whoever is against the cause. It's personal. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
Just to check that this is clear in my head: there are bad bad charismatics and good bad charismatics, but the latter are actually worse bad charismatics; does this thereby mean in a comparative sense they are actually good bad charismatics and bad bad charismatics, rather than the reverse? Or would it be that the latter are worse good bad charismatics? Or perhaps bad good ones?
ReplyDeleteNo wait, I've got it. The because the bad bad charismatics are enabled by the good worse bad ones, that makes the good bad worse ones the really bad bad ones because they are more able to deceive people than the bad bad charismatics, which makes the bad bad charismatics really not that bad after all.
I think from this we can reasonably conclude that good=bad, bad=not that bad and 1=-1.