Featured Fundamentalists create liberals?

Is that love or merely duty?

 

Your post #20 did not answer my question at all Luke.

 

So your answer is yes, you would?

 

I'm sitting here on my 62nd birthday, basking in the love of my family: my incredible wife who puts up with so much, my brilliant and godly son (does anyone here not know yet that he just got his PhD in NT Greek Linguistics?), and thanking God for my life.

I truly thank God for my grandparents and parents, and have not the slightest feeling of ill will because I was not allowed to go to the movies and my grandfather even wrote a book about it. Funny thing: John R. Rice's six daughters all grew up right and serving God and honoring their parents, never mind that they couldn't cut their hair in the Rice family! And of my parents' five kids, four of us grew up without rebelling, even though tobacco and alcohol and going to movies were forbidden in my house! (Gasp!)

Then I think of this thread and actually laugh that someone could take 81 words (the # of words he gave to IFB personal separation) of a 1,388 word essay by my brother and actually think they know why Andrew rebelled!! Why a young person becomes a prodigal is extremely complicated. If anyone wants to think deeply about it instead of following this shallow thread, I am actually going to recommend a book by Ruth Bell Graham, Billy's wife: Prodigals and Those Who Love Them. You see, two of Billy Graham's five kids rebelled (only one of five rebelled in my Fundamentalist family), in spite of the fact that the Graham family did not follow the Fundamentalist shibboleths of the Rice family.

By the way, for the record, I admire and love my brother. After he grew up and worked at 46 different jobs (I think that was the number), he ended up a Microsoft millionaire (literally!), and took good care of my parents, buying them a house and meeting their medical needs. He is an Episcopalian and probably will never return to the Baptist fold, but that's okay with me if he loves Jesus. At least it's far better than the Maoist agitator he once was. (Hmm. Was he a Maoist because Mom threw away those Tarzan books?) He is a man of integrity and compassion.

The basic premise of this thread is thus incredibly shallow.

PS: here is Ruth Graham's book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801071550/?tag=baptis04-20

 

I didn't represent love and duty as being polar opposites. You made it into a dichotomy --not me.

Your duty is not motivated by love. So it is hollow.

You have certainly NOT done that. From the content of your posts you hate their guts. Don't try to say now that you have affirmed with your words that you love them.

 

My apologies; I didn't go through the rest of the thread before I responded to a particular post.

The answer you seek from me is this: as Rippon mentioned, we can perform good works out of a sense of duty, rather than out of love. Just as we can grudgingly give an offering, rather than out of a grateful and cheerful heart. Telling us of the works you would without mentioning your motivation for doing them is akin to describing works without faith. So thank you for your further clarification stating that you do love them.

 

You know better than that. You are too good a thinker in soteriology to accept such thinking.

No one rejects "because they are repulsed by the ones who claim to bear it."

They reject truth because folks love the security of darkness and shun light.

Besides if anyone was repulsive it was Paul who expresses that the Galatians accepted him despite his ugliness. (Gal 4:14)

Like I said, if you have proof, documentation, of doctrinal error or moral failure of a preacher who is unrepentant and entrenched in ungodliness, then it needs to be published that other are warned.

However, each assembly has the right to embrace a preacher of its choosing. If they want to equate bearded women as sinful, that is their business.

Believers OUTSIDE the assembly are to judge on doctrine and moral behaviour grounds only.

You have no warrant to be critical and especially condemning.

If you disagree, then show me by Scriptures what right you have to judge a preacher of another assembly outside of moral and doctrinal grounds.

I suggest you go back to the thread in which John explained exactly why the separation took place.

Perhaps the thread will give you a bit better understanding of the heart of Dr. Rice, his ministry, and why so many of all races and types of Baptists were touched.

Certainly. If there is doctrinal error and/or moral failure that is covered over and unrepentant, then separate.

Would you actually engage in a preaching endeavor knowing that those on the platform did not hold firm to fundamental doctrines, or had ongoing moral failures?

Would you endorse a meeting in which you knew that folks of other faiths (Buddhists, Shinto...) sat on the platform as honored guests?

What if the honored guests were those that denied the virgin birth, did not hold to blood atonement, believed the sacrament was the actual body and blood, ... would you endorse such a meeting or preacher?

Perhaps you should investigate a bit more before you call John R. Rice "narrow minded."

After all he graduated from Baylor, was an enormous help to W. A Criswell, worked and prayed more than any person I have ever met, and was held in high regard by many SBC pastors. The list could go on.

I have not seen you post one point on this thread that showed John R. Rice in doctrinal or moral failure.

Rather, some rant that you didn't like some of his views as far as what constitutes a believer living worldly compared to one shunning the worldly.

It is all a matter of the type of preaching that you don't like.

A matter of taste - not doctrine and not morals.

I don't know that you ever heard the man or heard him often, but he was not the kind of preacher you are characterizing him to be.

If you want to listen to him, there are Utube videos - look at him in the pulpit and then post real proof from factual documentation.

 

Happy belated birthday.

When my son was in Japan, I used to ask him what tomorrow was going to be like.

Being that you are a couple hours (give or take 10) ahead of us, I trust your yesterday was truly blessed, and our tomorrow that you are enjoying today will be even better.

 

Thank you for the sentiments. :wavey: Actually, it's still my birthday here in Japan, Dec. 3, since we are about 12 hours ahead of you. In a couple of hours the wife and I will head off to our favorite restaurant for my birthday dinner.

 

Kentucky fried chicken, right?

 

Happy birthday John.

Do you have KFC's in your area? There are KFC's and McDonald's here. I wish there was at least a Subway sandwich shop.

 

Well, we do have one of those near us, which I love. But our favorite restaurant is a buffet called "Five Star," since it has Korean, Chinese, Japanese, western and noodle cuisine. I always start with a salmon sushi to awaken the taste buds. The main Korean dish is thin sliced beef which you dip into a special sauce and then cook on a grill set right in your table. And the dessert bar is wonderful: delicate cakes, a crepe made right there for you, a chocolate fountain, gourmet puddings, soft ice cream.

 

Thanks, Rippon! :wavey:

We have KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonald's of course, are are just a little bit ahead of you since we got a Subway at the mall 30 minutes away several years ago, then one not far from our church just this year. Be patient, my friend, God will reward Korea also with Subway! Or wait a minute, you're in another Asian country now, right?

 

I've been in China now for more than three months. Believe me,this area in the West Virginia of China is a far cry from Seoul when it comes to Western food. But I'm not starving. Thanksgiving in Shanghai was wonderful!

 

The "West Virginia of China." Now that paints a picture!

We actually had Thanksgiving turkey here, because there is a Costco down in Sapporo. But I love Chinese food--wouldn't mind it for Thanksgiving. I'll have some tonight.

 

Only very loosely. My brother did not say what you infer he did. He never said that he left Fundamentalism directly because of Fundamentalist standards, but that he began to question them. He also said that in leaving his belief in God, "By the time I was 17, I could no longer believe in my grandfather’s God, and I had become my grandfather’s self-righteous critic." By your logic then, anyone who leaves Fundamentalism is a "self-righteous critic."

Nope, didn't do that. Since I grew up with my brother I can interpret what he says in a much deeper way than you can. I know him. I understand him. You aspire to understand him. You don't. Read his book. Then get back to me with the beginnings of understanding a very brilliant, very complex prodigal returned.

I'm not going to comment on your posts past this post and I'm not going to discuss this any further with you. Your attitude of personal superiority assures that such a discussion would be fruitless and a waste of my time. ("Morons"? Really mature.)

I'll say just one more thing. My brother's statement of his own fundamentals at the end of his book is simple and very true: love God and love your neighbor. I believe you have the first part. Rippon and others have tried to help you with the second part. I hope you get it someday.