I’d like to mention a problem I’ve observed in the endless debates we have online on a whole host of subjects. I am sure I am as guilty as anyone, so don’t think that I am throwing out some kind of blanket condemnation of everyone who is not me.

So here is what I am seeing… Someone makes an argument based on history, but what he says isn’t exactly what happened. It is how he remembered (perhaps) or how he wants to remember it or how someone taught it to him, or whatever, but it isn’t quite right. Nevertheless, he bases a strong argument for a particular view on a weak foundation. Someone with knowledge (or the time to look it up) can easily dismiss what he says. Yet even when corrected, some stubbornly persist in their view of reality… The mind boggles.

What is worse is when we do this with arguments based on the Bible. Someone makes a statement based on a half-remembered verse and fulminates away without so much as looking the verse up so as to speak authoritatively and certainly doesn’t quote the verse. But because he remembers it a certain way, he is making a ‘biblical’ argument.

As I said, I think I am guilty of this as well, I am sure. If our online discussions are important (perhaps they are in some ways), don’t they deserve accuracy? Or should our arguments be just what I feel about something because of the way I seem to remember something (or want to remember something)? Perhaps if we really did take time to be scripturally and historically accurate in what we say, we would say it better and actually persuade someone once in a while. And perhaps we would post less but with more quality.

Now, let’s see if I can find a verse for this…

I just came across a blog that I think will be well worth reading. It is written by none other than Jay Adams, the man who invented nouthetic counselling (or re-discovered it, maybe). He was my sister’s pastor for a number of years. I met him once. I disagree with him on some things … he’s a Presbyterian, I’m a Baptist, so…

But I have to say I have immensely profited from his writing and teaching, even if I disagree with him! He is a thinking man who loves the Bible and the Lord.

Here is a little bit of a recent blog on Elijah:

Elijah was too hard a worker to become depressed, and those who attempt to excuse their depression on the basis that even a mighty man of God like him got depressed, are missing the point. It wasn’t depression, but disappointment that you see haunting this man. Things didn’t go as he had expected—as he had planned—and he didn’t like it. That’s the problem with many of us as well. When God doesn’t do things our way, we quit, give up, or try to go our own way.

That’s good. Bracing, but good.

Anyway, add Dr. Adams to your blog reader. You won’t be disappointed.  (And you will probably disagree with him from time to time.)

PS: This is post # 500! Will he ever shut up?

The Leading Fundamentalist Blog … is still behind the times? We are now close to 48 hours from the first notice of the Dever-Minnick interview and still nothing. Only three hits come up in Google with the terms “Dever Minnick” and all of them are old news. So are they really “number one”?

Just wondering

UPDATE: I guess there is one link. Greg Linscott posted a forum note on it. Zero discussion so far. I realize that it was Memorial Day yesterday, but it is interesting that there has been no commentary. Perhaps the leading fundamentalist blog is not what it once was… or perhaps the blogosphere itself is old news. Have the yfs moved on?