Comments on: Books I Can't Wait to Read

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 16:17:17 +0000

Roger, I think it's fine and beneficial to make attempts to lighten things up. Where I disagree is where to draw the line. The problem I still have with the CBE one is that it's very similar to critiques offered by complementarians, of which you are one. Twisting verses, feminist agenda, etc. Those are charges, not jokes. Perhaps an example would help. Discovering Biblical Hierarchy: Embracing the Joy of Domestic Work While Your Husband Watches the Game by [insert egalitarian author]. This one is silly yet avoids any implicit statement that egalitarians are twisting verses and have a feminist agenda. And I should note that my worry is not so much with you doing this Roger, as I respect you and your willingness to remove the Joseph Smith joke as you reconsidered it, but with what this will likely inspire in others, which is the cheap ridicule into which these things so easily descend. Many comments on the examples you linked to were implicitly (and unfairly) critiquing positions with which they disagree. There were some that were in fact hilarious, yet there is so much entropy in this sort of humor that whatever short-term benefits gained by it will be outweighed by long-term derision in the body of Christ.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:45:55 +0000

I deleted my previous reply to Timbo since I don't think I was very gracious to him.
I don't agree with your overall assessment of the list, and especially the CBE title. No charges have been made here, only jokes about theological debates and stereotypes. That said, there is a line and after careful reconsideration I believe the title I listed involving Joseph Smith may have crossed it, so I have deleted it from the list.
Sometimes those of us involved in these debates take ourselves too seriously. This is one of my attempts to lighten things up a bit. I believe we will be better united in Christ if we can make occasional jovial jabs instead of constantly criticizing and trashing each other. Maybe at best my attempt is only “mildly amusing,” but I believe the Body of Christ is in a miserable state if we can't even tease each other a bit about our differences.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:33:58 +0000

While some of these are mildly amusing, overall I think lists of this sort are counterproductive, as they so often reflect a lack of charity. An example would be that last one. The folks at CBE may very well have skipped lots of verses (as your subtitle alleges), but that's a charge that needs support. How would you like it if they used this for a comeback–“Recovering Biblical Misogyny: A Plethora of Verses Taken Out of Context to Maintain a Legacy of Abuse and Oppression of Women”? Nothing in either reflects any charity toward the other, which is what makes these lists an exercise in unChristlikeness.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:30:06 +0000

Maybe Rosenbladt could offer as an appendix Gregory of Nazianzus' famous tract, “Hypostasis, Schmypostasis: Confessing Only What We Can Understand.”