And, I do not believe I made your claiming to be Word of Faith a 'strawman'...
You are the one who made that claim (of being a WoFer) in your profile...
Indeed it is in my profile, however your arguments demonstrated your intense lack of knowledge regarding the specifics of Word of Faith doctrine. It was those mistaken pre-conceived notions that I was attempting to address.
And, every response you gave appeared to confirm that.
Unfortunately, you seem unwilling or unable to address any of those responses directly. Instead you have gone about ignoring it and writing off the whole of it without providing reason other than ad-hominem attacks on my denomination.
There was something about it that struck me as not quite right...
Whether that was in the spirit or in the sentence structure I an not yet 100 percent positive...
It was enough for me to want to try to find the reason for it...
I see you spend a lot of time on this board trying to refute a lot of charismatic doctrines. Perhaps it is because I am a charismatic believer that is embodied by the things I write. Yet still, it is an ad-hominem response to dismiss what I say based on your pre-concieved notions rather than directly addressing or responding to the statements made. You are addressing me rather than the content of what I have to say, and this argument has no credibility.
And, though I believe I know what set me off... There is another matter that must be settled first.
What is more disturbing than any misunderstanding, enmity or dissension, is that you intentionally deceived me in an attempt to cause me to stumble and sin...
Brother, you were already "sinning" - I just forced you to examine it. What I did - as I have said - was to mirror your own behavior. What this did was force you to respond to your own behavior... and what did you do? You lashed out. You didn't like it. You felt offended by it. What I did was force you to face yourself and examine your own behavior. It was a bit of a deception, yes... but it was extremely effective as we all have seen. But which is preferred? That I respond in kind to your ad-hominem and the conversation goes no where... or that I allow you to respond to yourself demonstrating your own misconceptions.
What it really comes down to here is that you knew what you were doing was wrong (the ad-hominem and straw man attacks)... and you did it anyway. This is evidenced by your response to my mirroring your own behavior. You can try all you want to point to me as having decived you... but it does not absolve you from your prior or present behavior. You remain responsible for you and the things you say and do.
All that did was confirm my first impressions that you were in fact a rabid WoFer out to attack me like many I have gladly left behind. That did not in any way help communication.
I see you can't get away from it... it's like a broken record that keeps playing the same line over and over... I encourage you to find any statements in my posts prior to your ad-hominem WoF statements which in any way attack you or your MP3 message. In fact, I agreed that your swiss cheese analogy was a good one.
You seemed willing to discuss my impressions until the point at which I said that Faith comes by hearing (in the continuous present sense) and hearing by the word of God... and that people's faith would be higher after presenting the Word. I noted that you presented your message then put the brakes on corporate prayer at the end of the meeting. Unfortunately at that point you became defensive and started giving me reasons why you "don't like" to pray at that point. It's at that point you checked my profile and decided to start in about my being a Word of Faith 'er.
I would say that if you didn't want the message critiqued... or if you were not open minded to hear suggestions... then surely you should not have posted your MP3 on this board asking what people thought about it. Clearly you got adjitated and defensive by my suggestion that you should have prayed at that point in the service.
So then, it was the sin of pride that predicated this entire sharade (on both our parts). Had you simply receieve the suggestion with humility, introspection - or even been willing to rationally discuss it - and not gotten defensive and fealt the need to discredit the suggestion, we could have continued a resonable discussion about it. On the other hand, I could have let the ad-hominem WoF comments roll off my back... but I didn't.
So I apologize for my own pride in the matter, and ask your forgiveness for my rude behavior.
Now I feel better.
