Part-time Heresy Hunting [Updated]
While we spend most of our posts here discussing the heresy hunting of the full-timers - the ODM’s, periodically I like to lurk around and see what the part-timers are up to… one posting ground site is the Rapture Ready bulletin board. For those who moderate and post at the RRBB their motivation is purely eschatological, in a hyper-Dispensational scenario there must be a Great Falling Away before the rapture. Therefore the writings of the ODM’s are often applauded and reposted as proof. I go to sites like this to see how the ODM’s are quoted on the street.
Recently I read a few reviews of a a new book by Bishop Tom Wright on the afterlife: Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. Since I too believe the Bible teaches an eternity spent, not in heaven, but on a new earth - I think I’ll read it.
Then these two streams came together: a news story about Bishop Wright posted and commented upon at Rapture Ready. The really amazing thing are the reactions. Of course, anyone who does not believe in a pretrib, premill, rapture is suspect at rr-bb. He also carries the suspisious title of “Bishop.” So I expected them to dismiss him. But I was truly amazed at the comments: one calls him a heretic, another hopes he repents and gains an intimate relationship with Jesus… others just delve into ad hominem attacks and mock his appearance.
So, maybe my eyes are foggy as well - but where in this article does Bishop Wright promote heresy? Of what, exactly, does he need to recant and repent?Â
I think my favorite response was:
1. The Dude Looks Crazy…
2. What is he Talking About I Couldnt understand a word he was saying it was like he was talking another language!
Now that’s logic that’s impossible to dispute!
UPDATE: It was correctly pointed out by Chris L., that my original distinction between “Professional” and “amateur” was insulting to those who really are professional about discernment… so I have substituted the terms for “full-time” and “part-time,” respectively.
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March 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Bwahaha!! This comment takes the cake -
That about covers it all…Emergents, Catholics, AIDS.
Man, that’s the thing I love about the internet. Someone on a messageboard can question the scholarship of a man like N.T. Wright, and there are actually people who believe him. This commenter probably thinks Jack Van Impe is an example of excellent scholarship.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
I am not a professional heresy hunter and I am not an amateur either. I am a “recreational” heresy hunter which means I do not read blogs to find it, it just comes to me!
Incidentally I do believe in the pre, pre, pre rapture, but it is not within my salvation particulars. But short hair on men definitely is!!
March 24th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Phil,
I expected them to not like him - after all his eyes are fogged to the truth of dispensationalism - but I could not find any heresy in that article… In the quote you pulled I piqued at
- things that make a want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Anyway - if anyone finds the heresy please point it out.
Neil
March 24th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
the true scholar is Rexella Van Impe, and you know it.
“Jack! What does this all mean!?!?”
i wonder if they’re aware that people watch their show for entertainment, while eating Taco Bell and unwinding from long nights out…
March 24th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Evan,
My wife calls her the blonde bobble-head, actually.
The thing that amazing to me is that people still send him money. He’s set dates at least half a dozen times. How many time does someone like that have to be wrong before people stop listening?
March 24th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Neil,
You wrote:
I would consider the “professionals” to be folks like:
To classify any of the ODM’s as “professionals” would be like calling the gradeschool kids playing sandlot football “professionals”… Perhaps the folks at RR are just amateur amateurs?
March 24th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I consider them something along the lines of soccer hooligans. They know enough to watch the game and some of the rules, but they’re really just there to fight.
March 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Chris L.,
Point taken. Maybe I should have used “full-time” in repsect to the ODM’s and “part-time” for those at rr-bb.
Neil
March 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I personally love the guys who create a whole blog to deal with a book. Nah, you’re blog won’t be obsolete in 3 months.
Then there’s the guys with nobody but Crickets reading their stuff
March 24th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
ooh, and soccer fans are MEAN.
and funny. unlike those crazy rapture people.
what was it…a couple of years back there was a game between one of the English outfits and a German one…and the English fans started a chant along the lines of “If you won the war, stand up!,” at which point, obviously…the entire English side stood up.
i was like “haha. mean, but actually funny!”
March 24th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Here is another good one. He even sounds like Ken when he writes
March 24th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
How do you find these guys? I am so confined. Hey, do you guys know any Arminian who speaks against stuff like me? All of them are Calvinists of some sort and I can’t get in the club. I actually got ackowledged at Pyro though, they may redgret that as some other blogs have (!).
March 24th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Most of these guys found me.
JazzAct, who comments here occasionally, said on one of them that because I am saying we should love gays and lesbians I am saying we should encourage them to sin. That seems illogical to me.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Over the last year I have come to conclusion that you guys, emergent leaning, have the same view of homosexuality as do I or others. Your focus is more love leaning which has been sorely missing in centuries gone by.
There are some though who go further than do you.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
gays.
Calvinism.
gays.
Calvinism.
gays.
ODM.
Calvinism.
gay.
sums it up.
March 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
That Bishop knew what was up about Heaven and Earth…
For a “heretic” that is =)~
Still can’t figure out what’s wrong with the article. If only I was “smart enough to perceive” what the ODMs are saying…
Joe
March 24th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
It is a well known fact that when three Calvinists are placed in one room, it is impossible to go one half hour without mentioning either Calvin, MacArthur, or the word sola.
Soon afterwards the word Piper will surface.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Aren’t there always? Worrying about that is how the Religious Leaders of Jesus’ day came up with 603 extra commandments. Hedges aren’t bad, they just can’t be our focus. But what do I know, I’m agnostic–at least so says Ken.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
I have a class label as a Christlike, loving, heretical follower of the Lord Jesus.
I am serious. One of the greatest conundrums I have is how to reconcile in my own mind how someone can be correct on doctrinal issues and be mean and proud as well. Being like Jesus is a doctrinal issue that is somewhere under how did Cain get his wife. That is probably why lost, empty, desparate sinners don’t flock to the church. Or else it’s because they are not elected.
March 24th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
My favorite explanation for that is that Cain married a sister that, by the way, was never mentioned.
It’s especially awesome when some really southern pastor says it, and adds that incest wasn’t bad then.
I prefer to believe that Cain married a chinchilla.
March 24th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
This is one thread that should remain Arminian vs Calvinism free…
March 24th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
That is still my question. Unless calling the rapture a myth is enough?
Neil
March 24th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Neil - separating Calvinism from the ODMs you find most objectionable is like blogging without the internet, it is a necessary resource. In that theology there is something that results in what you have outlined, so I contend it is valid.
The constant tension is that the stronger one researches, writes about, and exposes error the more difficult it becomes to see error in your own life.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
The theology that drives the part-timers on rr-bb is hyper-dispensationalism… ya know - Apostasy watch, Israel can do no wrong, Arabs are evil, implanted chips are the stuff of the Anti-Christ, Hagee is smart, stuff like that…
March 24th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
two signs of a bankrupt belief system.
March 24th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
I have my own form of hyper-dispesationalism. Every day is a new dispensation. Darby was myopic!
March 24th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Rick,
The last time is was afflicted with hyper dispensationalism I was bed ridden for a week!
iggy
Darby was extra biblical as he took the authority of a little girl over scripture.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
or in my case why Christians don’t go to church.