Thanks for the comment, Tracy. Another “exactly” post!

I have to say that we are none of us immune from hero-worship or creature-worship as you so much better put it. May we all guard our hearts.

But I do think that it is most evident when you scratch one of their gods. When you do that, the howls of protest show what they worship.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

tjp: I started out with the GARB back in ’73 (when I was saved). From there I moved into the Hyles sphere, where I spent well over a decade fellowshipping with that crowd.

After witnessing acts of idolatry that would shame the ancient Greeks, I repented of that whole mess and moved on.

To be honest, I thought I’d never see such creature worship again (you use the softer sounding, “hero-worship’). But I was wrong. Several years ago, I stumbled on SI, and there, to my horror, I witnessed the young fundies bowing and scraping before the gods of Sun City, Minneapolis, Capitol Hill, and Louisville.

It was obvious then and it’s obvious now that the young fundies are as fawning and idolatrous as anyone whose ever come out of Hammond. The only difference is they’ve changed gods.

And, not surprisingly, the same degrees of creature worship that often characterize the Hylesites are also found among the young fundies, with some practicing dulia and others hyperdulia. In either case, however, they all rob God of latria.

Personally, I think your softer “hero-worship” is the first step to out-and-out creature worship, and from there we slip into total idolatry. What I’ve seen since my Hyles days is that creature worship is a broad worship. It includes not only men but institutions, philosophies, systems, and doctrinal niceties.

When young fundies start teeing-off on the devotees of Hammond, I just shake my head and remind myself how many thousands of times I’ve heard: MacArthur says, Piper says, Duncan says, Sproul says, Dever says, Mahaney says, Mohler says. At best, this is the old Hylesism under new gods.

tjp

Hi Kent, exactly.

My “tone” here was to avoid the accusation of being a bomb thrower. Believe me, I had some choice lines percolating in my fetid brain. I may yet unleash them!!

As for Andy, I totally agree with your assessment. He has been making some unfortunate choices and clearly is on the leading edge of the new fundamentalism (old new evangelicalism?). I have some personal connections with his family that makes this a bit of a grief to me, but I don’t know him personally. My thinking here is that this is an example of the hero-worship that goes on in the new fundamentalism. Young guys attach themselves to their guru and are unable to see the compromises and flaws that attachment carries with it. I have called them “Piperites” before, but it isn’t just Piper they genuflect towards.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I’m not offended at all, but what you have written here is quite tame compared to what would have been written about this in the old days, so if anybody thinks you haven’t been nice, he would be wrong. You also got it pretty right. Calvary surely discussed this in their planning meetings before bringing in Welch—would it be tolerated by the FBF and BJU and the other orbiting schools and seminaries? Calvary has long been at the cutting edge of the subject of counseling within fundamentalism—I’m not saying they’ve been scriptural—but they’ve been out front on it, so they likely look at this as their owning the subject in fundamentalism. Being that Welch is in Pennsylvania, they’ve probably been friendly with him.

The big ta-do that you had recently over the guilt-by-association subject over Driscoll at another blog, then coming back on you with your quotations of other men, I predict will be how you are marginalized in this, Don. I got what you were saying.

I’ve got one other deal here. Just asking. What do you think of the Andy Naselli over at SI? Is he a fundamentalist in your opinion? He is one walking advertisement for D.A. Carson, who is an out-and-out new-evangelical. He’s something like Carson’s personal assistant and works there at Trinity and seems like he’s sold out to new-evangelicalism. Carson just spoke at Driscoll’s and is a regular at Piper’s. What’s the point of pushing that at SI? And then Detroit brings in Naselli to do a lecture at the Seminary. Does selling out to Carson and Detroit and that direction mean anything to Detroit? How is it one could be in such good favor at Trinity and with Carson and all the other new-evangelicals and then also be in favor with Detroit and SI, with absolutely no differentiation that I see. It’s all confusing to me.