I AM TYPING THIS ENTRY FROM A SANITIZED CLINIC. Free online while u wait. Not a bad thing. Only the PC is screwed. The PC's a MAC. And I am tying my fingers in knots navigating the SAFARI. Even the keyboard has a membrane cover! This is a Jeremiah nightmare. Spilling the dirt from a sanitized clinic ...
Every place around the world it seemed the same
Can't hear the rhythm for the drums
Everybody wants to look the other way
When something wicked this way comes
Time was, we believe what we were told.
Time now, folks still insist on believing what they were told.
Time was, we were young and stupid.
Hearts on fire,
feet on speed
but gullible like anything.
We believe what they told us about god
we believe what they told us about salvation
we believe what they told us about hell
we believe what they told us about heaven
we believe what they told us about beliefs.
Like I said young and stupid.
Then we were fed beliefs.
Then we were told what to believe.
Believe and you will be saved we were told.
So the production line of believism churns out believers...
Time now, we woke up.
Everyone told the truth
All that we heard were lies
A pope claimed that he'd been wrong in the past
This was a big surprise
(this part onwards was corrected on my laptop...)
24/5/2008
I was on caffeine drips. La tey was in epileptic fits.
Both of us paid $15 dollars to find out
what they have done to Jesus.
We were promised tea break and 'materials'.
There was a tea break but there were no sign of 'materials'.
Welcome to wesleyan hospitality.
Money for nothing.
Every place around the world it seemed the same
Can't hear the rhythm for the drums
Everybody wants to look the other way
When something wicked this way comes
Time was, we believe what we were told.
Time now, folks still insist on believing what they were told.
Time was, we were young and stupid.
Hearts on fire,
feet on speed
but gullible like anything.
We believe what they told us about god
we believe what they told us about salvation
we believe what they told us about hell
we believe what they told us about heaven
we believe what they told us about beliefs.
Like I said young and stupid.
Then we were fed beliefs.
Then we were told what to believe.
Believe and you will be saved we were told.
So the production line of believism churns out believers...
Time now, we woke up.
Everyone told the truth
All that we heard were lies
A pope claimed that he'd been wrong in the past
This was a big surprise
(this part onwards was corrected on my laptop...)
24/5/2008
I was on caffeine drips. La tey was in epileptic fits.
Both of us paid $15 dollars to find out
what they have done to Jesus.
We were promised tea break and 'materials'.
There was a tea break but there were no sign of 'materials'.
Welcome to wesleyan hospitality.
Money for nothing.
Ben Witherington survived wesley.
The good doctor ROCKS!
That we are pretty sure.
He rocked the foundation of some folks
and their hand-me-down beliefs into dust.
Them folks tried to erect their Alamo
insistng on a shootout
with the good rocking doctor.
He shot them down
one falsehood at a time.
Time now, some folks still insist on sleepwalking to nirvana.
Or as the other good Doctor Pink would say, remain comfortably numb.
Evangelicalsm is a many splintered thing with more denominational expression than one can count, and like the rest of the church is to a large extent biblically illiterate or semiliterate.
- Ben witherington lll, The Problem with Evangelical Theology (Testing the exegetical foundations of Calvinism, Dispensationalism and Wesleyanism) Baylor Press 2005
I left a note for the good doctor in his blog. Hope he received it.
Hope he continue to stay courageous in exposing the frauds that comes in the name of evangelicalism today. The frauds that hides behind blogs populated by fake doctors with their white coats and their bibles in their pocket. Frauds who will close their 'mind' the moment they are exposed for their crap they pass on as 'exegesis'. Frauds that have done great harm to the cause of truth by their handbooks and their condemnation. Frauds who have never allow themselves to enagage people like Ben Witherington lll because the good doctor is beyond their shallowness. May the good doctor stay courageous always.
10 comments:
From Doctor Ben's blog entry on his SIN experience (comments by yours truly):
"It was amazing to me to discover than even the ardent defenders of the rapture had no idea where the idea came from and how recent a notion ıt ıs when it comes to interpreting the NT."
Edmund: he's as surprised as we are about the SIN dumbness and lack of historical referencing!
"Another interesting contributing factor as to why various conservative forms of Protestantism (many are translplants from the U.S. rather than the U.K. as ıs the case wıth Methodism there) thrive there ıs the socially conservative character of the culture ın general (yes you can get heavily fined for jaywalking if caught and yes it is still the cleanest large city I've ever seen)."
Edmund: He explained that Protestant Ghetto thrived simple because the typical SIN mindset exults in a ghetto!
~ Edmund
"We tell the truth as lodly as possible...the truth, yelena, no matter what."
Spider Jerusalem
"No matter who it hurts?"
Yelena
"I can't let myself worry about that."
Spider Jerusalem
The protestant ghetto can rot till kingdom come. But we stand for the truth, always.
Pablo
We may live in the ghetto but we do not need to think like the ghetto. We may have to live the rest of our days in the ghetto but ours is to live above the ghetto.
The ghetto bother you bub?
Don't be.
I prefer the ghetto anytime to the sanitized pseudo existence of whoring muckruckers in their sanitized blogs. And fuck the white coats.
In the ghetto, hypocrisy does not last long. Loud words are just that, empty air time. This is the sin city of the bastard sons of evangelicalism. Survive the ghetto? Only 1 way. Do like MARV. By truth.
Clean your keyboard and slam down some expose. BLAM!
Pltypus
Read Kafka's "Letters To Milena". Ghetto life, a lizard crawling pointlessly, a spider and the love of a woman.
~ Edmund
Remember to laugh.
Platypus
Hi Edmund,
I read Dr. Ben W3's blog entry and read your comment. Very insightful thoughts.
...many are translplants from the U.S. rather than the U.K. as ıs the case wıth Methodism there...
Dr. Ben W3 is not alone, as I have spoken to 2 long-standing (UK)ministers who have spoken in Singapore and they, too, observed the same things!
That should bring fear to our hearts. A socially conservative church in a socially conservative culture will not save anyone...
Sincerely,
Jenson
Hi Jenson,
A socially conservative church in a socially conservative culture will not save anyone...
I agree with you. But the problems with fundamentalism are far worse than being merely socially conservative. Truth is that their minds are closed up. Now, if the recent bullying tactics employed by the tag-team of Daniel and Vincent towards poor Agaricus is any indication, they show themselves as adherents to a cult-of-correctness (handbook-correctness, that is). People are judged not by the strength of character or actions but by subscription to a set of beliefs (to a "take", a "stand", a "side"). Justification by faith - but not strictly faith in Jesus Christ. More faith in a side of arguments and a laundry list of beliefs. In other words, their *god* is so petty as to demand mortals with limited intelligence to *take sides* on arguments and use that as the basis to pardon/condemn someone.
Is it so important to be textbook-accurate? Why don't we simply admit that we do not know enough? Why not leave some room for mystery, for a sense of wonder?
Forcing this girl Agaricus (who, from all appearances, seem to be someone who wants to discuss further) to quickly make a choice (a, b, c, d, or e) in order to "qualify" herself to further conversation (in short, repent of her "Seventh Day Adventism"!!!) shows the chauvinistic-bully tactics that the SIN fundies are so famous for already.
Thankfully, Witherington did not encounter that duo during his recent visit. He did, however, run afoul of stubborn dispensationalists who refuse to even consider the origins of their beliefs, one guy who insisted that Dan Brown is the Antichrist and many others who were shocked out of their senses by the *subversive* views that he brought to the table.
*Sigh!*
~ Edmund
Hi Edmund,
"... He did, however, run afoul of
stubborn dispensationalists... one guy who insisted that Dan Brown is the Antichrist..."
How a Methodist Conference can attract Dispensationalists is beyond me...
You mean Dan Brown is NOT the Antichrist? You heretic!
(stones thrown in your direction)
Sincerely,
Jenson
Hi Jenson,
Pltypus and La Tey have been known to run around in Wesleyan Methodist circles when they're half-drunk or looking for some amusements. I joined them once or twice. Preachers usually sucked. We stay on mainly because of this Bible-teacher who rocked! Dr Ben Witherinton III is Wesleyan and proud of it. He's an anomaly. Wesleyans have no right to be so clear, so logical, so good. But he's not Calvinistic (if you really need to know).
As for the rest of them, whether Methodist or whatever the flavour of the month is, there's really not much difference. Everyone reads the same books and listens to the same songs/sermons anyway. Dispensationalism is promoted like crazy by the US propaganda machine. These mainstream wafer-brained jokers who don't even know about "the underground" or the availability of "other options" will always only tap into the broadband frequencies of the "mainstream" (in other words, the lowest denominator, the most common exchange coin, or whatever the heck you want to call it). Hence, in eschatology, they are naturally Dispensational Pre-Trib and in identifying The Enemy, it's always the mainstream bad-guy, Dan Brown (who's not even a level #19273628 goon in the overall hierarchy of evil - but they think he's the Biggest Boss of them all - the one they have to take out before Game Over and the Credits Roll).
* Can you tell I'm having fun yet?
~ Edmund
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