Saturday, August 23, 2008

Repenting of disdainful and intemperate attitudes

I think I'll copy here at the top the note I added at the bottom of the post Extreme KJVOs lose the debate for the rest of us, where I lament my acceptance of a pejorative term:


Sat, Aug 23. I would like to confess that I was uneasy with the phrase "fever-swamp" although I indulged it in the above discussion. I shouldn't support insulting terms. I fell into it because I agree with Wilson's basic position, and because, well, it's descriptively apt. Some of the extreme KJVOs tend to be pantingly preoccupied with the devil's doings to the point of losing a humble reasonable and Christian perspective and making war on mere flesh and blood. However, I've never really liked the style of Credenda/Agenda either. There's a flippancy and jocularity to it that puts me off. (And a sort of artsy snobbism too). I'm glad to find them on the side of the KJV (really, the Textus Receptus), however, and hope they will continue to fight this particular fight.
And while I'm confessing and repenting, I'd like to say something about how I understand the KJVO impulse to denounce and revile an opposition that has so much apparent demonic influence as the modern Bible versions defense does, but truly that's an impulse of the flesh and accomplishes nothing. In fact I may personally have been cured forever from that particular fault by seeing how it misleads otherwise good defenders of the KJV like Gail Riplinger into indefensible accusations of other good defenders such as David Cloud, and the inexcusable way Texe Marrs dealt with James White as shown on White's series about Marrs at You Tube. Does this make me "disdainful" of God's people, and enjoying the company of the Critical Text people, as a poster here has suggested?

Well, in sharing Douglas Wilson's term "fever-swamp" as far as I did, to that extent I shared in his disdain for the extreme KJVO people. But I've repented of that. As for favoring the company of the opposition, I can hardly abide listening to James White, if you want to know the truth, it's a struggle to hear or read him. It's just that when someone on the KJV-only side attacks him the way Marrs did, I'm no happier with our side, and worse, it gets harder to see how the important issues can be rescued from such irrational and unChristian behavior.

Humility is always the right path, even when you are dealing with the devil, in fact it's the most powerful position to take against the devil. Confess your sins and he has nothing he can bring against you. We are not always right, and I don't see anything in scripture that tells us we're to revile the devil, let alone any human being. In fact "revilers" are on the list of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God, along with fornicators and drunkards and extortioners and so on. (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

Webster's 1828 has: REVI'LE, v.t. re and vile.
To reproach; to treat with opprobrious and contemptuous language.
She revileth him to his face.
Thou shalt not revile the gods. Ex. 22.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you. Matt. 5.
REVI'LE, n. Reproach; contumely; contemptuous
language. Not in use.

Mt 27:39 And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
Mr 15:32 Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.
Joh 9:28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples.
1Co 4:12 And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
1Pe 2:23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

Yes, this controversy is an arena where we're bound to experience plenty of spiritual warfare, but fair criticism is not spiritual warfare unless you resist it. It's really too bad when the people who are on the right side are attacking others on the same side, using the devil's own weapons.

3 comments:

The Puritan said...

I don't know how much you know about some of the people you mention, but Doug Wilson, for instance, you should know is not truly a KJV person. To put it in simple terms Wilson is a leader of the Federal Vision movement which is a Romanising movement within Reformed churches and denominations. He does nothing without political motivation to further his various enterprises. (Before he developed Federal Vision he was one of the original Theonomists.) Wilson decided to portray himself as KJV to garner respect among more conservative Christians (just as he took bizarre positions on such things as southern slavery for the same motive -- that one backfired on him though).

Wilson is a classic false teacher, a wolf in sheep's clothing. The little leaven of poison he inserts into biblical doctrine can be missed if you are just encountering his 'for show' writings. He's a deeply dishonest man. All the typical sins of Roman Catholic clerics can be found in concentrated form in Doug Wilson.

Faith said...

He's a Textus Receptus person, not a KJV-only supporter.

I've heard many things against Douglas Wilson, including that he supposedly supports the white supremacists in Idaho where he has his church. But your view of him is new to me. Nothing I've heard about him has been certainly confirmed to me. I used to get his Credenda/Agenda but haven't followed him in years.

I never saw anything pro-Rome in his writings but it it isn't relevant to my purposes here. At least as far as this subject goes, I care about the effectiveness of the case against the new versions and his arguments in that issue of C/A are very useful.

Faith said...

Just for the record, I took a brief tour of some sites that discuss Federal Vision and recognize some elements of Douglas Wilson's teachings I've heard in the past. It seems probably to have grown out of some good criticism of current Christian thinking, but perhaps to have gone too far in formulating such a clear-cut organized answer to it. They are accused of at least coming close to "sacramentalism" in their formulation, I see, which I guess is my poster's reason for calling it Romanizing.

I doubt I'll get interested in it enough to understand what it's really all about, and it doesn't appeal to me, but I really don't like it when someone like my poster calls another Christian "a dishonest man." You need far far more evidence for such an accusation than the fact that he holds a theological position you dislike, or that may even be borderline heresy. And even then you are setting yourself up as a mindreader. He may be wrong but there is no ground for calling him dishonest.