Cindy K

Boy, how did I miss this discussion until now?

John,

Paula mentioned a blog further up the thread where pre-mil dispensationalists were called “nut-jobs.”  Reading this thread after it has been ongoing for awhile is pretty interesting, because I don’t have to get too engaged in it.  And it’s interesting to see the dynamics, reminding me a little of Irish Set Dancing/folk dancing that I used to do before I got asthma and my thyroid went on vacation…  But back to Paula’s comment.

Round about 2001 or 2002, Gary DeMar debated Tommy Ice regarding the pre-mil/post-mil eschatology debate.  What I found to be the most interesting about their discussion was not so much the subject matter.  (In many ways, I’m still just taking it all in.  I think I’m amillienial now, and just waiting to see how it all works out, as I don’t like the Dominionist tendencies of the post-mils and I don’t like the selling of hell insurance that the pre-mils fall into…)  What I did find most notable about the discussion was how cool and easy Gary Demar behaved and how worked up Tommy Ice became about nearly everything.  I listened to it, and it seemed that if I’d known nothing about the topic, I’d have been persuaded by Gary DeMar, just because he didn’t rattle.  I spoke to Gary DeMar about it, and he cracked the biggest smile and chuckled.  Out of all the many things he’s written on many topics, he says that he hears the same feedback about that debate.  I can never get past the human factor in it to really listen to the content.

I don’t mean to be abrasive or to be too critical, but some of what I heard in Tommy Ice some years ago comes back to my mind when I read some of your comments.  You seem, well, rattled.  For some crazy reason, I have the term ex cathedra on the brain, so it pops out here as I consider the approach with which you write here.  Everyone here has chimed in on most of the doctrine (I’m pretty stuck on the comment that the proto evangelian supports the idea of man as woman’s spiritual head myself!).  But I think that if you approached the discussion with more of an attitude of common respect, considering that you’re addressing fellow believers who hold to a very different perspective from your own that you would get much further.  You have an authoritative approach, and it just seems to me that you’re putting people on the defensive before you even make the first point.

It is one thing to say “On this blog, most of those who post here hold to position A, and we invite discussion on B and C, but we do not share those views.  So feel free to discuss them.” It’s an entirely different thing to say “On this blog, most of us hold to position A, but we thing anyone who is Non-A is a nut job.” And there are equivalents of the “nut job” comment, such as the approach that others are abhorrently wrong and that you have a corner on the truth.  And who knows?  Maybe you do!  But many will not bother to consider your arguments because of your approach.  And more obvious are the accusations that are also authoritative stating that those participating here are offering aberrant views for power motives.  How is it that you know the hearts of those here?  (Now that might be something to discuss!  I’d kinda like to know how to develop that ability to see motive, see trouble coming and avoid it.  But I don’t believe that you really can know motives like this, certainly not from only a limited discussion on a blog.)

Cheryl said above, earlier in the thread, that you are pressing buttons that you didn’t necessarily need to press.  The accusations about motives demonstrate an excellent example of what I believe she’s talking about.  A soft answer turns away wrath.

There are several ideas here that I do not hold in common with many who post here, mostly because I am not all that egalitarian.  But I feel very welcome here (and am listed with another (pretty soft) complementarian here as a blog in the sidebar.  Why?  Because I think that like me, the people who participate here and the blog host all are more interested in truth than they are in pushing an agenda.  Our differences are just perspectives — my view of the landscape from where I stand and what I’ve been taught.  But I believe that we are all looking and walking in the same direction — toward that of a deeper understanding of the truth of the Word of God.

I just wanted you to know that I’ve had a very hard time cutting through your attitude and what seems like offense to me to get at the meat of what you’re arguing.  And I think it would have far more of an impact and leave a far better impression on me if you refrained from the accusations as well as the approach that sounds so authoritative (as if no one else here could talk their way out of a paper bag).  It doesn’t help your argument at all.  And let me state that I know about this well because I’ve learned by doing the very same thing.  It’s almost like I had to get out of my own way.  You seem to me like you are very much in your own way, and you don’t seem to be resting in the truth (whatever we end up discerning that truth to be — good, perfect or acceptable).

I don’t want to be rude or anything, and you might not even realize any of this, but I can tell you with much confidence that, regardless of whether we agree on these doctrines, these are not any kind of people (Paula, Lin, Cheryl, Don, and anyone I missed like Charis or Arlene, etc.) who have ill motives or who have “personal fallen agendas” as you state with such full assurance.  The people here are not your enemies — we are brethren that disagree.