Blog on the Lillypad
Saturday, October 09, 2004
 | A Standard Christian by Grace Jovian
I'm assembling the outline for the sequel to Secret Radio, a new book tentatively titled A Standard Christian. I'm not sure if this story will follow the blog format used for SR. Don't expect it before April of 2005. I wrote SR on a public forum (a blog) on the fly, based on copious notes that I formed into a month-by-month outline of Grace's senior year. In terms of pace, it was difficult to maintain for the first run. The outrage of the IFBx preachers who decided that calling it porn might shut me up really did slow down my production pace. I plan to have the sequel in place before anything is released to readers. |
 | Redeeming the Time?
Another abuse of IFBx pastors that goes under-reported (and yet is the most evident abuse of all) is their abuse of the time entrusted to them. Remember, the pastor has that rare trust of being paid explicitly to study the Word of God. In the early church, when the infrastructure or Christianity was just forming, the elders rejected the duties of "waiting tables" because it kept them from prayer and the study of Scripture. And the congregation agreed with the separation of duties. Deacons were appointed to run the physical plant of Christianity. |
After studying the Scripture to formalize the structure of church office, John Calvin and other theologians agreed that the office of elder also has two parts: the ruling elder and the teaching elder. All elders must be godly men of prayer and comprehensive knowledge of the Word of God. But the elders appointed to teach have their activity among books, controversies, and the speaking and writing of instruction on the Word of God. The ruling elders sit in session with each other to examine matters in the church and render decisions based on the Scripture.
Over time, it has been recognized with the formalization of Christianity that most ruling elders can accomplish their roles without being full-time paid staff of a church. This varies from church to church, and some churches will keep elders on a part time (or even full time) basis, especially if they are dedicated to certain crucial ministries. But usually, nobody makes a career out of being a ruling elder. It is a solemn duty and truly a ministry in that it is most often done unrecompensed with a salary.
The teaching elder, however, because he brings the instruction to the congregation two or three or even as often as five times a week is paid and even given a house in many churches. All this is given to him so that he can focus on study, writing, and speaking to instruct Christians.
In many IFB churches, however, the roles of teaching elder and ruling elder are both rolled into one, and only a single person is called to fulfill it. As I have written before, most IFB churches use sole eldership, an unbiblical model of church government that makes the elder a pope of his own little community. While I recognize that the two unique roles of eldership are derived from Scripture (rather than specifically enjoined by it), it's still obvious that eldership in the New testament is always a plurality of elders. Godly men came together to rule the church. No single man had sole power in any congregation, with the possible exception of Diotrephes, referenced in 3John 1:9, a man in total command of a congregation, who forced his people not to allow the preaching of John and the elders accompanying John.
Needless to say, sole eldership has been the hiding place and fountain head of abuses in IFBx churches, leading to everything from cult-like doctrines to the idolatrous teachings on total loyalty, to the rampant misogyny so typical of these men, to the acceptance (even endorsement) of gross ignorance in the pulpit, and of course to financial crimes ands sexual sins.
And one thing that struck me this week that others have commented on in the past, is the abuse of the paid time of these sole elders.
Go look at the Hyles-Anderson Forum of the FFF for a prime example. This week, as a paid employee of an honest company that allows internet use, I had a series of tasks to accomplish to earn my pay. I had to write a user manual for a piece of "trouble ticket" software that a lot of employees are not using correctly, and I had to create an online, self-paced video of our business and data flow.
Part of the FFF is hopping mad at me (again!) because after Christian Farris started frothing at the mouth about how another preacher is running a cult, I commented that it is ironic for him to say this, as his church advocated the openly sinful, defiant, and downright stupid "100 percent loyalty to Jack Hyles" slogan, and his father, the senior pastor, actually wore the damnable hundred percenter button with pride. And, of course, in open and direct disobedience to Scripture, they brought Dave Hyles into the church membership and onto paid church staff, in a role with authority. And then when Dave committed adultery (or was caught), they shipped him off to another church without bringing him before the congregation.
This reminder about pots and kettles has brought forth a torrent of response, replies, rebukes, railing, and denials from the Farris boys. The fight moved from the Fighting forum down to the Hyles-Anderson Forum. Their old pals in deception and ignorance from Hyles-land are glad to lend a hand to clear the good Farris name.
But what really amazed me this week is the sheer volume of time these fundamentalist preachers are devoting to the ballyhoo. I was putting in 30 minutes before work, my hour-long lunch break, and an hour after work (so two and a half hours each day) on the forum in replying and pointing out where they are still disobeying Scripture.
But I could hardly make a dent. Two and a half hours a day just to demonstrate the error of the nitwit preachers on the HAC forum is too much, as the forum is read mostly by a few men who multiply their screen names into numerous trolls. My time, I realize, is better spent on this blog where 70 - 100 hits a day are recorded on weekdays.
With extravagant claims about my sins (as though I am about to lead a congregation astray into peril of gross sin like they did) the IFBx preachers continue to harp on not being required by the Bible to acknowledge their sin or declare repentance of it. Certainly, my four pointed questions to the Farris boys remain unanswered:
1) Was it a sin for your father to be a hundred percenter?
2) Was it a sin to give Dave Hyles church authority, no matter how your senior church staff renamed it?
3) Did your senior church staff put your own church people at risk by giving Dave Hyles the authority to counsel women? Was that culpably negligent of you?
4) Was it a sin to send Dave Hyles to Tom Neal's church without following the due process of church discipline (bringing him before the congregation)?
Instead of answering, they have poured hours of time each day (with generous help from such lords of doctrine as Guy Beaumont and Marty Breamer) into evading, counter-accusing me, and talking in circles about the issue.
I cannot keep up with all the posts, and the mind boggles at the fact that they are doing this on consecutive days of the work week.
Strategically, their abuse of time does not gain them any advantage, for though I (and any other person putting in an honest work week for honest pay) do not have the time to generate so many posts per day, I don't need to. I can keep asking the same basic question again and again until it is answered. I have a reason beyond my precious name or my status to keep asking if they have repented. I am asking on behalf of the victims of the gross disobedience and ignorance of IFBx preachers.
On the one hand, the image of these disobedient men abusing their offices yet again by spending hours on the internet each day, when they ought to be fulfilling the office of elder, bothers me.
On the other hand, knowing where an IFBx preacher is at all times can be a good thing. If you know he's in his office wrathfully calling a woman names to prove what a godly and repentant leader he is, then at least you know he's not somewhere else getting more false doctrines crammed into his head by another glittering flim-flam man or creating another hearbreaking situation for the innocent and the vulnerable.
 | For James Strickland
Stand by James. Probably by the time Chicago TARDIS comes I will have something ready. Watch this space. |
 | Sheep's milk cheese! Oh Ewe Taste so Gouda!
I suffer tremendous intolerance to any dairy product---from cows that is! After ten years of doing without dairy, imagine my amazement, (and pleasure) at discovering that I can tolerate sheep's milk cheeses. I had tried goat cheese before and also found it both bad tasting and upsetting to my stomach. But sheep's milk cheese! Oooh la! la! I can eat that! |
I started with Manchego on my first foray. To me, this tasted like a mild parmesan. I also learned that once upon a time ALL romano cheeses were sheep's milk cheeses. So I bought some of that, too, on the second journey a week later. But in modern times, the cows have invaded! The shopper has to always check labels on Romano cheeses. Still, it is quite possible, even in smaller grocery stores, to find romano cheeses in shaker cans that are 100% sheep cheese. (The label will say so).
Any cheese called a Pecorino will be a sheep's milk cheese (because that's what the word pecorino means). And two large producers of sheep's milk cheese are Spain, home of the wonderful Manchego, and Greece, which will sometimes produce a sheep's milk feta. This week, my third week to include cheese in my shopping cart, I expanded from my hesitant beginnings and purchased a few ounces of ricotta salata (sheep's milk variety, from Southern Italy). This was not at all bad, but not as distinctive in taste as other types I have tried. I pared it into thin and cream-colored slices and prepared it grilled, on squares of bread. Overall, it lacked flavor, if anything, but it wasn't bad. I had two different manchegos on the plate, so they offset it nicely.
I made a plate up of grilled squares of bread and cheese, cubes of a couple different manchegos, purple grapes, apple slices, and slivers of smoked salmon. It went great with half a glass of room-temperature Italian table wine, red.
For the nervous and hesitant, Italy provides Pecorino Marzolino, a sheep's milk cheese that is close to mozzarella.
France is a relative latecomer to large production of sheep's milk cheeses (though France, as well as Greece and Spain, will produce cheeses made from combinations of sheep, goat, and cow). You can get Perail de Brebis, which is a soft cheese with a strong taste, all from sheep's milk. There are other Brebis cheeses (sheep's milk) from France, aged longer, in which the gamey taste from the sheep is tamed over time and presents a more mild flavor.
Dutch sheep cheese is rare; even among the Dutch! But I have found one cheese dealer who advertises a dutch sheep's gouda. They advertise that the cheese proves to be "a very succulent cheese, and a must for the real cheese lover."
As I was writing this I wanted to have more manchego, but after cheese cubes for breakfast and cheese cubes again for lunch, I fear I may be overdoing it!
Friday, October 08, 2004
Thursday, October 07, 2004
 | E-mail from Up North
Just got the following this morning, regarding the self-styled pastors on the Fighting Fundamentalist Forums: I'm continually astounded that the men attacking you call themselves pastors. You've really struck a nerve. One need no further argument than reading their posts to determine the depths to which IFBx has descended. In their eye, if you're a "soulwinner," then you've got a license to kill, i.e. insult, insinuate and berate.... I'd always thought I could read a room, but these guys bend my mind like rotten rubber. |
It's so esrly that I haven't even checked the forums yet, but I suppose the post below on genuine repentance (assuming IFBx pastors can even understand it) will not be well received. And my next post here on the claims of Christ will be even less so, I expect. I hope to write it later today.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
 | AW Pink on Repentance (edited for brevity)
What it is not 1. Trembling beneath the preaching of God’s Word is not repentance...Felix “trembled” (Acts 24:25) under the preaching of Paul! [but never converted to Christ] |
2. Being “almost persuaded” is not repentance. Agrippa (Acts 26:28) is a case in point. A person may give full assent to the messages of God’s servants, admire the Gospel, yea, “receive the Word with joy,” and after all be only a stony-ground hearer (Matt. 13:20, 21). Not only so, he may be conscious of his evil-doing and acknowledge the same. Pharaoh owned “I have sinned against the Lord your God” (Ex. 10:16).
3. Humbling ourselves beneath the mighty hand of God is not repentance. People may be deeply moved, weep, go home and determine to reform their lives, and yet return to their sins. A solemn example of this is found in Ahab.... We are told that he “rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted . . . and went softly” (1 Kings 21:27-29). Yet in the very next chapter we find him again rebelling against God.
4. Confessing sins is not repentance. Thousands have gone forward to the “altar”...but without any deep realization of the unspeakable awfulness of their sins, or a spark of holy hatred of them. The sequel has shown this, for they now ignore God’s commandments as much as they did before.
5. You may even do works meet for repentance, and yet remain impenitent....Judas confessed his sins to the priests, and returned their money (Matt. 27:3-5), and then he went out...and hanged himself!
.....
Repentance, then, presupposes, first, a recognition and acknowledgment of God’s claims upon us as our Creator, Governor, Provider and Protector.
Because God is who and what He is, namely, the sum and source of all moral and spiritual excellency, and because of our relation to Him as creatures completely dependent upon Him, He is infinitely entitled to be loved with all our hearts, worshipped with fullest adoration, and served with joyous, perfect and unremitting obedience. Until there is at least some measure of a clear and definite (we do not say full) recognition of this, the mind is yet under the blinding power of Satan (2 Cor. 4:4) and the heart is yet alienated from God (Eph. 4:18).
....
The first evidence that this supernatural enlightenment has been given, is the inward apprehension of God’s excellency and supremacy, accompanied by a horrified consciousness of how dreadfully I have failed, all through my life, to give Him His rightful place in my heart and life.
In the second place true repentance presupposes a hearty approval of God’s law and a full consent to its righteous requirements. “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12); it cannot be otherwise, for God is its Author, and nothing unholy, unjust, or evil could ever proceed from Him....
....
What it is
Thus, genuine and saving repentance is a taking sides with God against myself. It is not that our repentance extirpates our sins, for there is nothing meritorious about it.... No, repentance is designed to make the heart loathe sin, and that through a deep sense of its infinite enormity and dreadful pollution: it is to make us dread sin through a heart-realization of its awful guilt. Only thus is the stubborn will broken and the heart made contrite and prepared to turn unto the Lord Jesus and seek salvation through Him by grace alone.
 | A Reader from DC writes
One of my regular readers writes this, "You put it very well, about the victims being made of cardboard to them [IFBx preachers]. These people do not see it in terms of individuals being hurt, often seriously injured, for life. They see it as a political [ie, gaining or losing personal power] issue somehow." |
The latest development on the Fundamentalist Forums was Chrstian Farris being frustrated because so many people still associate him/them with being a part of IFBx. I told him why on the forum and I will say essentially the same again here. If they want to be divorced from their IFBx past, they will have to do the following:
1. Publically repent of Hyles-worship (and other abuses of pastoral authority)
2. Refrain from behaving like IFBx preachers, which means no more temper tantrums online, no more railing, no more gross ignorance of Scripture.
3. Let others draw their own conclusions at their own pace as the church builds back credibility as god-fearing and genuinely Scriptural.
4. Behave according to the Scriptural dictates for an elder.
I should have added, 5. Use a biblical model of church leadership, which means use a plurality of elders.
That's always the sign of true repentance: Give up your power and hand it over to Christ. Can a rich man sell all his goods to feed the poor to follow Christ? Can an IFBx preacher give up his power to follow Christ? If Christ is with him, yes. But the flesh will always resist the true sign of change.
 | A Reader Writes
A reader from Alaska writes, "Ok, I've been reading the [Fighting Fundamentalist] forum and shaking my head. Everytime I think things aren't as bad as they seeem PMB [Pastor Marty Braemer]and Baptist or some other moron start up again. Their ignorance is astounding." I can only reply that their ignorance, stunning as it is, is not half so stunning as their unbiblical and corrupt ethics. But formerly, IFBx preachers were mostly confined to their pulpits. If you told ordinary people that Jack Hyles really said his congregation should do something simply because their preacher told them to, a certain percentage of people you told would not believe he really said it, or would not believe that was what he meant. These guys who broadcast what they are on an internet forum make for a fine, irrefutable display of just what I object to in these churches, and it is worthy of being documented. |
The latest flap is over Crosspointe Baptist Church (formerly Pinellas Park Baptist Church) who kept Dave Hyles employed on church staff for several years even after his amazing expulsion as pastor from Miller Road Baptist Church, where over a dozen women came forward about having committed adultery with him. Dave was also named by Paul Ciolino as the prime suspect in the suspicious death of Brent Stevens. That case was left open.
I've asked the two assistant/associate pastors (who are the sons of the senior pastor), if they have repented yet for the wrong that they did in bringing Dave onto church staff. In response I have been asked how I know they have not repented, I have been accused of being a liar, have been called ugly (a railing post that was revoked and apologized for, after two other male readers objected), I have been told that maybe someday they will tell me the real story of what happened.
But I cannot get that one simple "yes" that I am looking for. I suppose the answer to the question, "Have you repented?" gets either a yes or anything else. But as I go through page after page of namecalling, counter questions, accusations, I realize that the Farris boys are, in effect, giving me a very simple answer. Just not the one I had hoped for.
Chris Farris has asked when "this madness" (my blogging of the problem) will stop. When the abuse of the office of pastor stops, Chris. And when repentance and faith are acknowledged by those who claim to believe in the Bible as the means of grace and restoration.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
| More IFB-KJVO Church Abuse
Another highly authoritarian church, its pastor not held accountable to ruling elders in the biblical model, has been brought to tragedy by charges of sexual molestion of little boys. You can click here for the story so far. |
Pastor C Stephen Harmon of Maineville Baptist Church has been charged with
one count of gross sexual imposition and is currently bering held without bond as the investigation continues. Note that this story comes from the Cincinnati Enquirer, which is a reputable newspaper and has no affiliation with the tabloid known as the National Enquireer
While the grief and shock at Maineville Baptist Church certainly seems sincere, and the church is fully cooperating with police and has expressed grief and pain over this sad revelation, this is still the time for this congregation to re-evaluate the basis for much of what they have been taught and to thoroughly examine the Scriptures for themselves.
 | Even More IFB-KJVO Church Abuse
On another very sobering note, a person has come forward with allegations of abuse suffered while attending schoool under the ministry of Longview Baptist Temple. She has posted a series of statements aimed more at people who have been members of the church there (in Texas, under the pastorate of Bob Gray). Here is the first post Here is the second post. Here is the third post. |
According to Ms. Rosewell, the guilty person has been fired from the church staff but is still attending (and if he is truly guilty, then excommunication is in order, or at least he must be brought before the congregation, if he is repentant.)
Another screen name has appeared in reference to the above account, and you can read this post by clicking here.
Sunday, October 03, 2004
 | Getting Personal with English Usage
OK grammarians, today is Pet Peeve Day, a day arbitrarily set on this blog whenever I see another error of usage that drives me crazy. Let's talk about Personally. Here are examples of correct usage:
|
Here are examples of incorrect usage:
- Personally, I object to the war in Iraq.
- Personally, I favor capital punishment.
This use of "personally" is incorrect for two reasons:
First, the word itself is not modifying any single work in the sentence. Instead, it's set in front of the main clause as a qualifier of the entire statement, and such a qualifier is weak and not allowed in correct writing. Ambiguous modifiers are always distracting and confusing. We tend to use words that end in -ly for these errors. The other major culprit is "hopefully". (Hopefully, we will win the canoe race. It's impossible to assign the word "hopefully" to any single word that it modifies.)
Second, the use of the word is illogical because of the meaning of the word, and there are two reasons that it is illogical. The moment a person states a belief out loud to one other person, it ceases to be personal. It is now public. The fact that statements like the one above are most often about highly charged emotional/political/religious topics indicates that they are certainly not personal at all, nor does the speaker intend for them to be merely personal. It is logically acceptable to say "I have personal reservations about the war," because the statement allows that there are private thoughts going on, but they are not shared, so they remain personal. It is also acceptable because the person allows that the reservations may not be moral, legal, spiritual, or strategic. They may simply be reflections of personal inclination: a distate for loud noises, squeamishness at the thought of bombings, anxiety about killing, no matter what the reason or justification.
The second logical fallacay has to do with using the word "personally" in a way opposite to its very definition. When a conclusion is merely personal, the speaker is allowing that the basis and authority for the conclusion is nothing other than taste or preference. It also indicates that the ultimate authority for the conclusion is something within the person. So if the reasoning for any claim is based on morality, Biblical teaching, logic, the rules of strategy, then any conclusions a speaker draws are not merely personal.
When a Christian says, "Personally, I favor capital punishment because there is a Biblical justification for it", the Christian has just contradicted himself. If a belief is derived from the Bible, the conclusion is then based on an authority. It is not based on something that has sprung up from within the speaker, so it is not drawn merely from personal inclination. It is illogical to say, "Personally, I think over-committing US forces in the Middle East has left us exposed on all other fronts," because there is a strategic reasoning that the sentence expounds, so there is nothing personal in the way the conclusion was reached.
Any time we write or speak about controversial topics, we do best when we rely upon moral reasoning, logic, facts, or even mutually held beliefs that we share with the people in the discussion. Therefore, the word "personally," as it is so often used, does not belong in such discussions. Our conclusions should rely upon authorities far more significant than that which springs up from within us. And we should never hold up ourselves as our own ultimate moral authority and source of truth.
