Clay Jones for August 31, 2010

^Yup. Apple pies, guns, and “Jesus”.

As a disabled vet, I tried to listen to Beck-“honor” us. What a whore! He is the OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING WE FOUGHT AND DIED FOR!!

As I watched his spiel, I thought,”Oh, this is the RIGHT place to use a Hellfire!”

Well said, dtroutma.

And might I add that Clay Jones’s Beck looks remarkably like Al Sharpton?

You claim to speak for us vets ZIT? What branch did you serve in?

“Love really is all you need. Where is it?”

Love doesn’t get campaign donations nearly as effectively. Such “weak” portions of the Bible are therefore worthy of “glossing over.”

Wow. Gotta say, ANandy, you nailed me on that one. I didn’t read dtroutma’s comment carefully enough. I sincerely apologize.

Only on a second pass did I correctly understand the “Hellfire” reference. What I took to be a benign reference to “hellfire and damnation” (a la a fiery pastor’s sermon) was actually a frustration-borne pseudo-appeal to violence.

I assure you, no such comment would ever enjoy my knowing endorsement. Alas! Those who know me here will attest to the fact that I’m a pacifist. But I will nonetheless defend the accuracy of any characterization of Glenn Beck as a media whore.

Wow, ANandy. Talk about disingenuous! I admitted to making a mistake, praised you for pointing it out, and then apologized for it, but you persist in being a nitpicking jack@$$ about it!

My praise was for the part of dtroutma’s remark having to do with Beck. The extent to which I applauded what I mistook to be a reference to “hellfire and damnation” was solely rhetorical in nature. I don’t believe in hell, or eternal separation from God.

And my criticism of the so-called “Restoring Honor” rally is fundamentally two-fold. First, it was dishonest in its pretenses, purporting to be unpolitical while it actually utilized the vague language of American civil religion to reinforce Beck and Palin’s constant political drumbeat. And second, it was associated with Glenn Beck, and therefore devoid of value.

^ Well, if you’re happy being a nitpicking jack@$$, then you’re welcome to it.

But no one will question my faith commitment without challenge, be they an unapologetic jack@$$ like yourself or no. You can feel free to disagree with my interpretation of the faith tradition, but you can bet your backside that I’m a conscientious follower of Jesus Christ.

And as I told you, I don’t believe in eternal damnation. So I’ll feel quite free to take it as lightly as I please, thank you. And before you get all apoplectic about it, my beliefs about the non-existence of hell are well considered. But I’m not going to get into a pissing contest with you about it here. I just don’t care enough about it to bother. So bait all you want. I ain’t got time for your narrow-minded paleo-orthodoxy.

Exactly the opposite, ANandy. Christian is as Christian does. Orthopraxy trumps orthodoxy all the time. What you do matters infinitely more than what you believe. Check the sheep and the goats.

Yeah, see? This is the conversation I’m not going to get into with you. You’re not worth my while. Let it suffice to say that you are clearly a paleo-orthodox Christian and I am not. I’m a mainline progressive Christian who tends to identify more with the process tradition (a la John Cobb, Jr.). Both are well established strains of Christian theological thought.

You’ll notice that you’re the only one around here trying to kick people out of the Christian club, though. I simply won’t be kicked out by an intellectual lightweight like you, is all.

:) It’s an Obama-cized picture of me. Instead of “HOPE” at the bottom, it reads “THINK,” because my wife snapped the shot of me while I was concentrating on some notes.

^ You’ll get one anyway, nitwit.

I haven’t misapplied scripture at all (much less misspelled the word “misapply,” as you did). Nor am I incapable of defending my position. I’m thoroughly happy to have the conversation (and have done so on numerous occasions) with people actually interested in conducting intelligent debate. You have again and again demonstrated that, while being capable of engaging in such debate, you simply choose not to. I just no longer have the patience for your antics.

And my attack on you was not ad hominem. I didn’t say you are wrong because you are an intellectual lightweight. Rather, I correctly pointed out that you are unauthorized to boot people out of the Christian faith.

And you are an intellectual lightweight.

And I’ll once again point out that, while I celebrate a religious tradition that incorporates vastly different interpretive schools of thought, you are the one here attempting to exclude others from the communion (based solely upon your own non-authoritative interpretation).

Really, ANandy, people like you are the reason why so many intellectuals disdain religion. Those of us who live by Cicero’s admonition (“Seek the truth come whence it may, cost what it will.”) are so frequently overshadowed in the public discourse by small-minded frauds like you who insist that theological education is useless because “God says x, y, or z right here!” You speak of graduate education as though it were shameful. Your brand of anti-intellectualism is the true shame.

The “rule book?” Dude, you completely miss the incredible significance of the Bible when you reduce it to a book of rules. cdward once put it perfectly:

In our faith, Jesus is the Word, and the bible is a faithful witness of the people of God sorting out their relationship with God. Since our church’s inception we have believed that scripture “containeth all things necessary to salvation” but NOT that everything in it IS necessary to salvation. A huge distinction. We believe in order to understand the will of God in our time, we must use the witness of scripture (which was and is bound in time and culture), AND the tradition (which changes slowly), AND reason (the heart and mind). They need to work together, and our understanding of the teachings can and will change.

And I’m not ignoring valid questions, old pal. I’m just ignoring you. And with good reason. I’ve been down this road with you too many times. After I counter your every argument, you either zero in on a thoroughly insignificant point of minor contention or switch topics completely. And then you come back in a day or two and simply delete your own posts, making it look like I’ve just been arguing with myself. It gets old real quick. So I’m not taking the bait.

I know I’ve got the respect of the intelligent Christian folks on this board (cdward, motivemagus, charlie555, charliekane, and numerous others). The list of people here who will attest to your own Christ-like demeanor is pretty shaky, though.

Now I’m an “enemy of God,” ANandy? You truly have no sense of proportion, do you? You just couldn’t get more ridiculous if you tried. But I am quite certain you will try.

And you’re not skipping topics, ANandy. You’re doing the other thing I pointed out that you always do: zeroing in on a thoroughly insignificant point of minor contention. And you’re even doing that incorrectly. My reference to the parable of the sheep and the goats was never made with respect to the laughably-named Restoring Honor rally. Nor was it made to support my claim of being a follower of Christ.

Go back and reread, junior. You’ll find that I made the reference to support my observation that doing the right thing (orthopraxy) matters infinitely more than believing the right thing (orthodoxy). And try as you might, you just can’t contort the parable to support the opposite position.

And I’m not using ad hominem attacks. If I had said something to the effect of: “ANandy’s position is wrong because he is a booger-head,” then that would have been an ad hominem. An ad hominem fallacy requires the linking of a character trait to an argument. I’ve not done that here (except with Glenn Beck, who richly merits it). As far as you’re concerned, I’ve simply said I don’t find arguing with you worthwhile (which apparently hasn’t stopped me from doing so).

And on a side note, why do you persist in quoting my text back to me verbatim? Everybody knows that I leave my posts in place. You are the one who repeatedly goes back and deletes his own comments. Do me a favor and just type your response. Assume that I’ve already read my own comments and anyone who comes around later will still find them in place.

I am an elite, ANandy ! And there’s nothing wrong with that! I have an advanced degree in theology and continue to engage myself with theological discourse at multiple levels. This does not mean that I am necessarily correct about anything at all. Rather, it means that I can be relied upon to give thoughtful and considered comments on certain topics. It pleases me to no end when people argue with me to prove me wrong. But if you simply dismiss my thoughts on religion, then it reflects upon you, ANandy, and not me.

And I’m a big fan of learning “creator God’s” intentions for her creation. It’s pretty much why I do what I do. Only you seem to be in the business of trying to shut down honest attempts at theological exploration because they don’t fit within your arbitrary “literalist” parameters. Not a single Church Father would read the Bible the way you do, ANandy. Augustine, for instance, outlined multiple avenues for determining the meanings of biblical texts.

You and your know-nothing compatriots are like Humpty Dumpty, going around changing the meanings of words to suit your fancy. Words like elite, nuance, feminist, and liberal have historically been recognized by most as good. But reprobates like yourself have come along and sought to recharacterize them for your own warped purposes.

And for the love of Allah, ANandy, I did not “bring up” the parable of the sheep and goats to create an insignificant point of contention. I brought it up to illustrate a point. You pursued it as an insignificant point of contention! I swear, it’s like you’re doing everything you can to be an obfuscating imbecile.

And again, ANandy, I’ve already read my own post. You do nothing to help your argument by opening with my quote. Just start with your response, and if it’s worth anything at all, I’ll be able to easily figure out what portion of my remarks you’re responding to.

I’m getting tired, and I’m not spending much more time on this. Thank you for your response, though, TheMadPuppy. You seem to disagree with virtually everything I’ve written here, but (whether you’re actually NoFearPup or not) you don’t have the same sort of obnoxious track record as ANandy.

That said, I stand by my assessment of the Church Fathers’ (Augustine among them) methods of biblical interpretation. For the record, I don’t claim for a moment that they would share my interpretation. I merely note that the strict “literalist” approach is not so historically rooted as many claim.

I put “literalist” in quotes because people who claim to be literalists are not actually literalists. Even they do not literally believe Jesus to have been a once-rejected stone now become a capstone. So we can all agree that – at the very least – some biblical texts are meant to be read symbolically.

Also, John B. Cobb, Jr. is a United Methodist professor (emeritus) of theology. A number of his books can be read online. You’ll find links to them, along with a good list of his works, on his Wikipedia page. I should reemphasize that while I find process theology to be quite helpful, I am not a full-fledged process theologian.

And finally, Christians do not understand the Bible to be the Word of God, in a strict sense. That designation is rightly given to Jesus himself (per the opening of John’s Gospel).

If you want to talk apples to apples, the Christian analogue for the Muslim Qur’an is not the Bible, but Jesus. Muslims understand their holy book to be the literal word of God in Arabic. (The word Qur’an itself is Arabic for “recite.”) A Christian who holds the Bible in the same esteem is guilty of idolatry. Only Jesus may properly be given such authority.

Further, I am not interested in adding to or subtracting from the Bible. I like the whole thing as is. Rather, I’m interested in properly understanding the Bible for what it is. I’ll refer you back to the quote from cdward I mentioned above.

Look, you nimrod. If I were going around saying, “I’ve got an advanced degree, so you’d better agree with what I say,” then you’d be completely correct. To the contrary, I’m saying you’re a complete moron if you choose to simply shut people out of the conversation because they happen to demonstrate an appreciation for academic rigor.

And I’m not dismissive of Matthew 25! What outlandish dimension is piping these things into your head? I was the one who brought up the parable of the sheep and the goats for a purpose that I have now elaborated two times! And the passage confirms my assertion that what you do matters more than what you believe. It confirms it 100%! It is my hands-down favorite passage of the Bible, and you are accusing me of dismissing it! Do you simply black out in the middle of these discussions or something?

And I said “elite,” not “elitist!” There’s an important distinction.

^ Okay, I’m just going to go ahead and rest my case by saying I’ll stand with those who choose to use their brains over people who prize stupidity any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

And I’ll further stand with those who are out there actively loving and serving their neighbors (regardless of their faith commitments) over those who are straining to figure out whether the Spirit processes from the Father and the Son or just from the Father.

Yes, I’m quite familiar with the origins of the fundamentalist movement within late 19th century Presbyterianism. The movement was named after a series of essays entitled “The Fundamentals,” which sought to describe the core teachings that had to be accepted or else you couldn’t be in the club.

And it seems your faith doesn’t match up with the 4th century Nicene Creed, which outlined the faith for the first great ecumenical council of Christian believers under Constantine. It states, after all, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father [and from the Son]. The question of the Spirit’s procession from the Son remained unresolved and is still unsettled within the global Church. From the 4th century on, it’s been referred to as the filioque controversy.

None of this is a problem to me. Personally, I don’t care about whence proceeds the Spirit. I just care about the Spirit’s movement in the world today. My point in mentioning this is that the “fundamentalist” tradition is nowhere near as old and celebrated as you might believe. It has been divisive and harmful from its inception. Whereas the Church could remain intact for seventeen centuries amidst the still unresolved filioque controversy, the fundamentalists have ever sought to divide the Church over countless little particularities (as you’ve seen ANandy do on this page and on others).

I’m very happy to maintain civil dialog with Christians spanning a vast spectrum of beliefs. But I will not tolerate those who choose to exclude others because they happen not to agree with them.