Molly Worthen hits another home run

[Stephen Fox]

What is Al Mohler and Russ Moore gonna do with this one?

She mentions my sister's hero Rachel Held Evans in the first paragraph.

Ive brought it to the attention of Bama US Rep Bradley Byrnes to ask how will he deal with this in the Bama land of Rick Burgess and Robert Bentley

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/opin ... .html?_r=0

[Sandy]

[Stephen Fox]

But as you know I think she is two for two. Two homeruns the first being Apostles of Reason.

Hope to share with Eric Kuykendall of staff FBC Spartanburg over the weekend and my new friend on Trey Gowdy's DC staff.

Shared my experience with him Thursday about the book So the Heffners Left McComb originally published 1965 by Hodding Carter, but reprinted last year with stellar new intro by U Mississippi Press with a panel on booktv.org

Compared the Heffners to a milder version our family faced in Gaffney in the 70s, though for certain we had some moments of high drama.

[Stephen Fox]

With this piece.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... en/521409/

She spotlights Furman grad who chronicles the Cathy's of Chic Fil A, Darren Grem in this piece. Grem, native of Rock Hill South Carolina has family members there familiar with the dark career of Jim Deloach, who helped oust Randall Lolley from SEBTS, then hooked up with the Ed Young wing of the BGEA and his fellowship of excitement.

[Sandy]

[Stephen Fox]

https://giveandtake.fireside.fm/7 Listen online. Does not kick in till about ten minutes into the 35 minute interview.

She was interviewed couple weeks ago just after her piece in the Atlantic about evangelicals soul liberty and their inclination to Trump. She also talks about irregular church going nativists who use their sense of soul liberty as a mindset to go for trump and talks about the lack of ecclesiastical authority in the Baptist tradition that opens the way for Adrian Rogers, now Jeffress and Falwell Jr to use fundy history and authority of the Word in that tradition as an excuse to misapply for instance James Dunn's rubric of aint nobody gonna tell me. Thus seen it becomes a tool for demagogues and charlatans and we get Trump as a perfection of the underbelly of Bush 43/Rove Strategy with the "evangelical" community.

Listen to her, she does a better job of explaining herself then read the Atlantic piece; then the NY Times piece on fundies and the false narrative.

[Sandy]

This is really an excellent inverview, very engaging. I have to say, Stephen, that she's done some good research, though she doesn't ever land anywhere near your favorite topics, and you have to pull your usual trick of putting in a subject line and a couple of paragraphs to take us from Jesse Helms, John Birch society, the Texas Regulars, Paul Pressler, Wuthnow's Rough Country, to the First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, SC before getting to the point, which has distorted and filtered her thesis by then.

[Stephen Fox]

Sandy, that's where the Forbes article comes in. He closes the deal. I trust you have read what he's said.

Ellen Rosenberg set the template 30 years ago in her book Subculture in Transition. Ive enjoyed some of your replies, but I'm beginning to doubt your reading comphrehension.

I will do what I can to ask Dr. Worthen some explicit questions and report to you hear. If the answers embarass me, I may send her responses to William Thornton first so he can interpret. Ha

[Stephen Fox]

Dianne Winston, Now at Berkley gets it. I remember seeing her in San Antonio SBC 88 and then again in Atlanta in the press room at the start of the CBF. Pretty sure she is a native of NC and know for certain she got her start with the Raleigh News and Observer. She knows what Jesse Helms did to Randall Lolley at SEBTS in 87 and what UNC Chancellor Bill Friday told Cecil Sherman about it.

So she knows what she's talking about in the following link.

FTR I had an exchange with an ADF staffer a few weeks ago about Handmaids Tale. Casey Mattox who Ive known since he was in sixth grade and I was his sub in Momma's alma mater in Bama said Handmaid's tale is a ruse and signifies nothing other than what leftist elites think it does in their own minds. To him it has no real connection in the heartland.

I think it may be out there in the atmosphere more than he knows.

Fascists is a strong word but I think Winston's piece would be good resource for students of FBC Spartanburg Truth for a New Generation conferences to think about.

Here's Winston

http://religiondispatches.org/a-pence-p ... its-money/

[Stephen Fox]

This morning I picked up the 73 authorized bio of Criswell by Billy Keith waitin on the skillet to heat for the eggs. I share the yellow with my kitten.

Was reminded that Billy Graham wrote the Preface glorifying Criswell as master of one of the premiere pulpits in the world, according to Billy. Billy said he prayed for his pastor wherever he was in the world every Sunday. By 73 Billy said he had been a member at FBC Dallas for 25 years which woulda meant he joined in 48 and been 8 year member when Criswell gave the race baiting speech to a joint session of the SC legislature with the blessing of Strom Thurmond who I think introduced Graham to Henry Luce the editor of Time Mag, or maybe that was one of the Buckleys who had Camden SC connections as Kathleen Parker does now.

But I digressed.

You wouldn't call a chigger a chiggerow, now wouldya, Criswell said.

[Jon Estes]

Plain stupid...

Science trumps scripture

Man's presuppositions trump Biblical teaching

Advanced knowledge trumps Biblical faith

The final paragraph is being stated to belittle conservative evangelicals while the very description given defines the authors mindset and comments. The cynicism presented and tribalism desired is clearly the goal of the author.

Typical left wing garbage.

[Sandy]

The first line of Jon's post not only zaps the credibility out of anything else he has to say, but it typifies, and provides evidence for the author's thesis.

Essentially, the author says that "conservative evangelicals," or the self-described who fall under that umbrella, typically offer nothing more than assertions, certainly nothing of any depth, including a well reasoned argument supported by scripture, and shallow responses to real questions, with a dismissive attitude. The general response is exactly as predicted. There are catchwords for emotional appeal, the usual stuff claiming, but offering no substantial proof, that the position is contrary to the Bible to faith, and of course, always playing the victim because you have to create an enemy who is "belittling" your perspective. Labeling this "stupid" and throwing in the all purpose "left wing garbage" label is exactly the kind of characterization the author makes, Jon's response being a particularly textbook example that proves the author's thesis and contentions, and most notably, a white flag surrender of his position.

To even attempt to engage the argument that way is inconsistent with Biblical truth, much less the complete cop-out.

An actual "worldview," derived from the Bible, is nothing like what gets billed as a "Biblical worldview," is something based on presuppositions infused with right wing political perspectives, not based on scripture at all, though most people who spout such a position don't know enough about the scripture to know the difference.

[Jon Estes]

[Stephen Fox]

I couldn't said it any better myself.

I'm not sure what "article" Jon Estes is referring too, I guess Molly's piece on fake news in NY Times.

Has Jon Estes read Molly's Apostles of Reason?

We don't know.

As for the effluence of skunks, Jon please do read the NY Times review of the New book by Joshua Green on Bannon and Trump and the Honey Badger linked in politics section.

[Sandy]

Buying into Trump certainly fits that verse in Colossians 2:8, "having been taken captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition and the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ." As they say down south, "That'll preach."

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

Experience plays a role, too, and experience varies. I know that my sense of what is "clear" in the Bible (and in other scriptures) is based in part on my personal experience of the salvific intervention of God in my life at a time when I considered myself an agnostic who rather hoped the atheists were right. Not everybody has such an experience, and some who do are convinced the saving intervener was someone or something other than God. If it hadn't been for the second bottle of wine, I might believe that myself.

[Jon Estes]

[Sandy]

[Haruo]

So which is it? Is the Sabbath a day of rest in imitation of God's behavior following Creation (which could also be used to buttress Deism) or in memory of how overworked our ancestors were before the union came along?

[Sandy]

[Haruo]