End of a bad week

by Phil Johnson

t's been a tougher-than-usual week here on the blog. We seem to have irritated a few people who aren't usually numbered among our critics. We really didn't need any more detractors, either.

Note: The following quotes illustrate why we didn't need any more detractors; not why this has been such a tough week. See further remarks on this below.

Faint praise for the PyroManiacs

Here's a sampling of some things various readers here and there have been saying about us—from our first foray into the blogosphere until now:

• "These men have nothing intelligent to say to intelligent people. They are merely reactionary Fundamentalists who found a couple of things they liked in old records and haphazardly pasted them together regardless of internal coherence or external fit to reality. And you can't just TALK to them, have a decent brother-to-brother conversation. Their whole identity is at stake on every minute little position they hold, so any form of nuance is anathema to them."—Tim Enloe
  
• "I was profoundly disappointed in the post that opened the week over at TeamPyro. I can think of few things that have disappointed me more in the past year than that post. It was as if a part of me died. . . .I'm dead serious when I say that what has happened over there is what Spurgeon would have called "downgrade." Reformed blogdom is a little less than it was before."—Chad Bresson
  
• "This man has made a cult of C.H. Spurgeon. Spurgeon, a cigar-smoking, overweight pedant, is the darling of arrogant jackboot Baptist preachers and many other slow bellies. Preachers who love to use one text and jabber on and on showing their gifts of elocution read Spurgeon instead of their Bibles for inspiration . . . Watch this creep attack a classic bible-church fundamentalist."—Steve Van Nattan
  
• "What you have [here] is independent Baptist fundamentalism, right down the line, with only a few changes. . . . Go and check up on names like Jerry Falwell, Jerry Vines, John R. Rice and Jack Hyles. You'll understand a lot more about what you're hearing."—Michael Spencer, "The Internet Monk"

nyway, let's see if we can do the usual weekend BlogSpotting without picking at any of those scabs: BlogSpotting

• Daniel Chew offers a pretty good analysis of the week's controversy. He borrows some counsel made famous by Bob Newhart and applies it to both sides.
  
• J. D. Hatfield ("Even so...") suggests some good things to think about. And I love the frozen tulip graphic.
  
  
• Sam B. did what I need to do: He purged the listing in his RSS reader.
  
• Jason Robertson at "Fide-o" found a really cool set of boots.
  
• It's not every day that Paul Martin agrees with me.
  
• Paul Lamey ponders Spurgeon's preaching style.
  
• Jessica S. thanks me for last week's BlogSpot. But she leaves unanswered the one question everyone who has followed Patrick Chan's drama must be wondering about: Did Patrick ask her out? Stay tuned.
  
• Carla Rolfe is surprised we haven't kicked her out of the "convivial" category. She reminds me that (after this week especially) it might be time to revamp the whole blogroll.
       That further reminds me: I think Frank Turk has the most creative blogroll category names of any blog in the blogosphere, and I have been meaning to point that out for some time. I'm happy to be listed as "Fellow Scum."
  
• Kim Shay gives a fitting illustration of the point I was trying to make yesterday.
  
• Sharad Yadav ("the Blue Raja") apparently missed the vital explanation I gave about why I'm "not a big fan of conversation" in some contexts, and yet I'm one of the world's most patient, affable, willing-to-dialogue Calvinists in others. Sharad seems to think that if I'm not willing to accuse Francis Chan of being a deliberate architect of a damnable false gospel, I ought to extend that same courtesy to, say, Steve Chalke. So let me recap what I said about that:
  

  "In my assessment, the vital litmus test of whether someone is sound in the gospel or not is the question of whether he acknowledges Christ's righteousness as the sole and sufficient ground of justification rather than trying to fudge on the principle of sola fide or making something the sinner himself must do a part of the ground of final justification. . . . By that measure, which I believe is biblical, one's view of imputation and penal substitution would be vital; but one's view of the extent of the atonement would be less so."

  Note: I, on the other hand, read the Raja's post carefully enough to know that his remark about "some demented fat guy" was not a reference to me.
       Unless he had some subliminal message in there. . .
  
  
• Kim from Hiraeth posted a riff on last week's dose o' Spurgeon.
  
• Jon "Junction" Thorsen has a new, and excellent, blogdesign.
  
• Fred Butler tests my Googling skills. I'd like to make one clarification on Fred's post. He describes how the new Billy Graham mausoleum/"library" is going to work: "A person will walk through a giant glass cross entrance and be greeted with a mechanical cow designed by the Disney Company who will sing the Pirate's song. No, just kidding." He means he is kidding about the Pirate song. The part about the Disneyfied mechanical cow is absolutely true. I've been planning to blog about this astonishing "memorial" that has apparently caused a rift in the family of a man who is not even dead yet. But I'm kind of glad Fred beat me to it. It was hard to think of a tasteful way to write about it.
  
• The anonymous author at "SolaGranola" did not like Dan's evaluation of two ex-Presidents' plan to change the Southern Baptist Convention.
  
• Brother Hank of "The Journeymen" has some humble observations about yesterday's topic.
  
• Matthew Henry (no, not the guy who wrote the commentary) is very protective of his PyroManiacs decals.
       Speaking of which...

We've got a few of these babies left—and we're especially overstocked on style 2. Click here and look at the bottom of the linked post for instructions on how to get one—or two. Yes, we'll now send up to two at a time to those who ask. Even if you already got yours and just want one to sell on eBay, write again with another stamped, self-addressed envelope large enough to hold a CD-ROM, and we'll send you your very own decals. These are quality decals, and you couldn't buy them even if you tried. (Though we don't discourage those who throw a little cash in with their self-addressed envelope. In fact, we expedite those orders.)
• Jeremy Weaver contemplates the question of whether it's appropriate to question whether God "desires" something that He has plainly commanded: unconditional repentance from all men everywhere. Well said, Jeremy.

Anyway, that's all I really have time for this weekend. See you at church tomorrow.

Update: For whatever reason, the iMonk is very keen for me to inform my readers that the quote from him (see above) is not anything new. Indeed; it's typical of the kind of thing he was posting about me at his blogs even before I entered the blogosphere. The quotes above were deliberately juxtaposed to illustrate that our most determined critics cannot even agree amongst themselves about what is wrong with us. The iMonk and his drinking buddies constantly deride us for being too TR ("Truly Reformed"). Others evidently think we're a black hole through which everything that is actually Reformed is being drained out of the blogosphere. And according to iMonk, the only way to understand us is to study the evil legacy of Jack Hyles. But those who are more "Truly Fundamentalist" regard us as the mortal enemies of "classic bible-church fundamentalists." Those on a Romish trajectory apparently think we're so far off base that we must be answered with insults rather than arguments. I defy anyone to plot all those criticisms on a graph and find a spot on the map where everything that is being said about us could possibly be true all at once. Of course, that by no means proves we have achieved the perfect equilibrium. But it may well be evidence that some of our critics are pretty seriously imbalanced. That was my point in citing the above four criticisms together. Sorry if that was too cryptic for some.

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