The “Crossless” Gospel at the Crossroads

Friend, you only hurt yourself by accusing Lou of dishonesty by saying he is "deliberately trying to misrepresent." For the sake of your own character, may I suggest it is best to assume someone's honesty until proven differently. Lou is an honest man and a good theologian. Surely it is better to disprove his position vis a vis MacArthur than to accuse Lou of dishonesty and of mercenary motives!

 

Well, I don't think it's possible for you to be right on both counts. Either Lou is dishonest, or he's not a good theologian. We've quoted enough MacArthur to show that Lou's conclusions are unfounded. We've disproved his position a number of times. So, either he's too blind/ignorant/stubborn to admit the fault (and therefore a bad theologian), or he's intentionally misrepresenting MacArthur.

In addition, good theologians 1) talk about things other than what's wrong with other theologians and 2) converse about more topics than what plugs their book.

 

Nothing has been proven except the blindness and deliberate hardening of hearts to Macarthurs "other" gospel. As has been shown REPEATEDLY, nothing was taken out of context regarding Macarthur's own quotes from his own work. Trying to reason away what he is saying to continue holding him up on a pedestal is sickening.

 

==MacArthur's position is really no different than that of the vast number of protestants throughout church history. If you read Spurgeon, Pink, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or any number of others you should notice that. This is why I made the point that the position of Hodges and Wilkin is not only wrong but also aberrant. The non-Lordship view of men like Lou, Ryrie, Lightfoot, and others is more in line with the protestant position. However their position, as commendable as it might be, still has some very big weak spots. Many of the men I mentioned above would have noticed those weak spots. I think the problem with MacArthur is that he sometimes takes his defense too far. He over states his case and is therefore misunderstood by those who disagree with him. John MacArthur is firmly monergistic and any attempt to say he is not is simply wrong.

At the end of the day, I think well meaning people misunderstand MacArthur's position. I know, because I once totally misunderstood MacArthur's position.

 

He has been given enough information, direct quotes from JM. He has not dealt with those. I asked if he has in fact talked with John.... he said he has not. Why do you suppose that is? John is really not that hard to get in touch with. We had him attend one of our meetings.
If Lou is not deliberately trying to misrepresent, what would you call it? If you would rather say he is ignorant of what JM represents..... go ahead. I don't think it is that, nor do you....... because of your remark about him being such a great theologian.
Do you think his treatment of JM is becoming of a Godly person? Brothers need to be called out when they act this way. If I have acted inappropriately, then by all means I ask forgivness from you and Lou. I don't have a problem appologizing or asking forgivness........ I need it a lot. Thank you for pointing out my error brother..... sincerely. Lou, forgive me again. Try to contact John and see if you guys can get this straight, ok?

 

So, you are saying that John is to be accursed?

 

Is salvation by grace through faith...or grace through faith and an upfront commitment of discipleship at all cost?

 

I've not noticed any personal attacks on John MacA. by Lou. Can you point out any?

Dr. John is a public person with many views in print. It is perfectly allowable and legitimate to disagree with him publicly and on the Internet. Shall we regulate the Internet, or at least the BB so that no one is allowed to publicly disagree with John MacArthur?

Let me get a disagreement in with the man before the ban comes down: I disagree with his pastor/teacher teaching on the grounds that his use of the Greek Granville-Sharpe rule is mistaken since the G-S should only be used for the singular. Oh, boy, I did it now. I'm in trouble. :tonofbricks:

 

FTR, John of Japan did not refer to Lou Martuneac as a "great theologian". He referred to Lou Martuneac as a "good" theologian.

There is a difference in degrees, here.

Ed

 

Huh? Who brought up the issue of personal attacks? Lou did, not me.

It's not a matter of personal attacks, and it's not a matter of disagreeing, it's a matter of misrepresenting what MacArthur is teaching.

 

If we all agreed with everyone on everything it would be a boring world and Baptist Board, wouldn't it? And of course I don't agree with you on everything--didn't agree with John R. Rice on everything, and that got me in trouble with him once! :smilewinkgrin: But I saw some nasty attacks here and felt led to jump in.

God bless.

GTod

 

Note your personal attacks on Lou:

"Spending all your time whining about John MacArthur...." My parents taught me that whining was a sin and a character flaw. Why not just attack Lou's position or his alleged misrepresentations instead of his character?

"One suspects the only reason you're obsessed about it is because you have a book to sell." This is vicious. Without any proof, because it is connected to motive, which only God knows and no human can prove one way or another, you plant the idea on the BB that Lou is a money grubber.

 

Glad you made this point, Ed. This brings up the idea of rigorousness in scholarship and debate. (Are you paying attention, reformedbeliever?) If you do a scholarly paper (for example, in a reputable grad school or for a theological journal), you are required to source every thing. You are not allowed innuendo, hearsay, attacks on character (such as, "this guy just wanted to sell his book"), quotes from Internet sources (unless they are from online books or journals), etc.

I said Lou was a good theologian, and I meant so in the above rigorous sense. I did not say he was a great theologian. (I've not read enough of his stuff to say that.) So reformed believer (are you paying attention, rb?) subtly changed my view to make his own point by restating it without quoting it. That is wrong.

From what I've read, Lou sources his quotes, he doesn't attack character, he does his job. One may disagree with his conclusions about the crossless Gospel or Lordship salvation, but if one is being rigorously scholarly one will answer him in kind--not with innuendos and personal attacks, as Lou's opponents on this thread are doing.

 

Me: Huh? Who brought up the issue of personal attacks? Lou did, not me.

Huh? As evidence of people claiming Lou has personally attacked MacArthur, you present what you claim are personal attacks against Lou?

One thing at a time, please. If anyone has said Lou is guilty of making personal attacks against John MacArthur, prove it. You can't. That's not at all what we've been saying. You bought into Lou's dodge. We've been saying Lou has been misrepresenting what John MacArthur believes and teaches - and that's exactly what Lou has done. His response was, "I haven't attacked MacArthur personally", which is true, but has nothing to do with the point.

 

Nice try at deflecting attention from yourself. I'm disappointed in you. I had some respect for you on the BB. But according to this "what you claim" statement, you've not attacked Lou at all. So in your view, it is not a personal attack to say a person is "whining" and then assuming they are only out to promote their own book (thus attacking the motives of their heart, something only God knows). Very sad.

I didn't say anyone said Lou is guilty of making personal attacks against John Mac. You assumed that from my question, not from any statement or accusation I made. I made no accusation, I simply asked a question, which set you off.

I came on this thread at this point to defend Lou from personal attacks. I have done that. You work out with him what you feel are misrepresentations of MacArthur's position. I'm not real interested in that.

 

I apologize. I thought you were simply backing up Lou's deflective statement, which was...

We didn't say he was making personal attacks against MacArthur. We were saying he was misrepresenting MacArthur. Rather than deal with his misrepresentations, Lou defended himself against a charge nobody ever made.

 

Why would this be necessary? JM is a public person with much print. Why should someone who simply disagrees with his theology (without having a personal animus) have to contact JM personally about it? Lou does not even go to JM's church!

I didn't come on at this point in the thread to get involved in this debate. I don't have time for that today. I came on to defend Lou from what I felt were nasty attacks.

Now as I said elsewhere, you subtly change what I said from "good theologian" to "such a great theologian." This is not right. So in the same paragraph where you accuse Lou of misrepresenting someone you misrepresent me. See how easy it is for this to happen? I don't think you meant to misrepresent me nor did so out of a bitter spirit. So why assume Lou is deliberatly and dishonestly misrepresenting JM? That assumes you know Lou's heart and you don't.

Can you prove he deliberately misrepresented JM? If not, then why not assume Lou to be simply mistaken rather than dishonest? We do believe in "innocent until proven guilty," do we not? I certainly would not hint that Lou is an ungodly person simply for disagreeing with the theology of someone I admired. (And I've seen plenty of that kind of attacks, being in a family famous among fundamentalists.)