The world is full of wackos, and the internet world is no exception. Since the inception of this website, I have been harangued via private emails over a multiplicity of issues. I am certain other website owners can testify to the same thing. However, there has been an upsurge in the wacko-meter since the announcement of my new book, so I've decided to try to peremptorily deal with a few items right here and now in this very short and very general article, as I have no intention of spending my days responding to emails.
For example, it has been repeatedly pointed out to me from time to time that a particular person on my Quotation Page has a different viewpoint than I do on some minor matter of doctrine, and therefore it is asserted that I have no right to employ that person's quotations since we differ on that issue. Of course, I leave it to those whose minds are not delusional to adjudicate such a notion.
I suppose I admire John Bunyan more than any single man in history outside of the Bible. I have read Bunyan's works many times over with relish, and yet, there are a few points in which I would disagree with John Bunyan. Naturally, he's probably right, and I'm probably wrong, but either way, none of the differences are even worth mentioning. In all essential matters of the faith, such as Christology, the Trinity, Regeneration, Justification, Redemption, Atonement, Election, Predestination, Effectual Calling, Scripture, Free Will, Repentance, and such like, Bunyan and I are in complete agreement. The same is true with Tyndale, Owen, Goodwin, and most of the others.
In fact, I'll wager that I am more in agreement with these men than the Apostle Paul was in agreement with the poets he quoted for his own ends in their respective places in the New Testament. Accordingly, I have ample license to quote the people I've quoted, and he who denies me this right is either blind or stupid. Or both.
As a short aside, it is possible that one or two of the men I've quoted may have held a teaching or a doctrine which would cause me to remove them from my list, but as far as I know -- I say, as far as I know -- this is not the case with any that I've thus far included, and I am well-read with most of them. Furthermore, it would take more than a simple proof-text to alter my decision. It would, in fact, take a clear, discernible TEACHING or DOCTRINE of heresy to make me change my mind. That is, it would have to be SYSTEMATIC. Otherwise, any moron can take a proof-text and make a mountain out of a molehill from it.
Another issue that has come up is the picture of the flame and cross I've used on one page to advertise my book. Once again, those who make criticism here place themselves in the same realm of ignorance and superstition that Eve and the Pharisees found themselves in.
As Calvin noted, there is a difference between graven images of God and historical and pictorial images which merely convey information, and other Puritans and Reformers held the same general view on this matter. Historical images, such as the flame and the cross montage I've used on one page of my website, simply tell a story. Moreover, historical images are merely an extension of writing itself. For example, cuneiform writing, which is pictorial in nature, is in effect nothing but historical imaging that tells a story. The very words you are reading are the image of my thoughts.
It is only when the darkened, superstitious mind enters the courtroom that the issue becomes skewered. Satan said nothing about TOUCHING the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but Eve's susceptible mind became superstitious when she attributed a characteristic to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that God never attributed to it. The same was true of the Sabbath. The Pharisees' superstitious minds laid so many extra prohibitions on the Sabbath -- none of which God ever commanded or attributed -- that Hercules himself couldn't have lifted the book that contained all the newly proscribed rules. All food is lawful to eat, but when someone pops off and asserts that the lamb chops have been offered to idols, thus making an attribution that God never intended, the matter changes diametrically.
Well, I could elaborate, but if you yourself don't have a darkened, superstitious mind, then you get the point.
There are many other issues I could address concerning various and sundry subjects, but these two are the only ones that concern me at present, so I'll leave it here. If I think of any others that merit attention down the road, I'll address them as I see fit. In the meantime, I would ask the readers of my book to do what Bunyan asked the readers of his book to do --
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For those which were not for its coming forth, |