So in that poster . . . is that a man and a woman or a man and another man dressed up as a woman?

Hmmmm. Excellent question.

Let me see if I can find an answer for you.

I'm a little shocked at this. I took a few grad classes at Maranatha years ago and thought the school had a nice feel to it, though it's academics at the time were lacking.

I know every school has its moments, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why they replaced Jaspers with Oscar Wilde.

Apparently the fundy-artsy crowed from the World's Most Screw-up University is finally bearing fruit in the midwest.

Perhaps Maranatha's next edifying theaterism will be Hugh Heffner's Chastity and the Importance of Moral Character.

parepidemos:

Q: A question arose concerning your production: On the poster you have available for "The Importance of Being Earnest", is that a depiction of a man and a woman or two men one of which is dressed as a woman? Thanks for your kind assistance.

A: Hi,

Thanks for emailing us. The picture is of a man and woman; in the story there are two couples--two men and two women--the picture just shows one set. The story tangles these four characters up, making for a hilarious story, but everything gets sorted out in the end and the two men get the girls they want. If the story line was confusing you, we apologize. Feel free to google the storyline and read it. I hope this helps. If you have any more questions, please let me know!

Regarding the post from [visitor] tjp: "Apparently the fundy-artsy crowed from the World's Most Screw-up University is finally bearing fruit in the midwest"

Blaming the BJU for another school's lack of discernment is a cheap shot, bordering on baring false witness.

Brother dissidens has been known to snipe at the university, but without tjp's Would-be Vulgarity.

Mr. Semper,

Bearing false witness? Puh-leze.

The only false witness is that of the fundy-artsy crowd who thinks they can witness Christianity through perverts like Shakespeare or Wilde.

I'm sorry the word "screwed-up" troubled you. I meant it in the sense of "confused" or "misguided." I thought that was a better word than "unusual," which carries such synonymous baggage as "crazy," "exotic," "freaky," "grotesque," "odd," "queer," "rummy," and "weird."

Now, come to think of it. Maybe that's why I rarely hear BJ called "The World's Most Unusual University" any more. Perhaps they learned that "unusual" was unequally yoked with "queer" and "rummy."

tjp:

I think this is not so much a question of “finally bearing fruit”. We have had many abundant harvests and we have just built bigger barns.

I agree with Pascal that the theater is, of all the amusements, most to be feared, but that doesn’t mean that the theater is the greatest evil. I take it that the failure to worship God aright is a far worse thing. And turning worship into amusement is blatant idolatry.

I don’t disagree with you that BJU has played a leading role in the lowering of enduring standards, but bear in mind the theme that unifies these recent posts: it is not just that people do bad things; we know people do bad things. It is not about BJ or even fundamentalism. It is about our entire religious culture from Ockenga to Haggard. It is indifference to words and meaning, it is the rejection of what is good, true and beautiful. It is about what shapes your thoughts and affections.

What we must do is examine the justifications we are offered (as with Piper’s or Breimeier’s or...). Anyone can say he is aware that some person is a profane man, but that explains nothing and it fixes nothing. What reason is offered that ensures that profanity will continue? Who is willing to pursue goodness and beauty in this matter?

It was said some time ago that my attitude toward, my “permanent sneer” at, evangelical culture comes from a frustration with people who don’t yet share my understanding of the problem. That is utter nonsense.

What earns the sneer is the continuing apostasy, the refusal to consider one’s position, the unflagging loyalty to a party line. And it’s not just me: look at how they treat Aniol on their blogs. There is always a justification for what they have done and what they continue to do.

It never changes.

If you push a dog’s nose into his mess, you will have made your point and the dog will show remorse. You can tell these people nothing. They won’t believe Edwards, they won’t believe Tozer, they won’t believe Eliot, they won’t believe Machen, they won’t believe Weaver, they won't believe Kaplan. It is a very small thing that they won’t believe me! They believe only themselves—and then market some more drivel-worship for your children.

They are sinning against the light.

I understand your hostility, but don’t let it misdirect your thinking. The real problem here is not an occasional or accidental indiscretion in choosing to perform the work of an outstanding apologist for debauchery. It just never occurs to them, even when questioned, what might be an appropriate entertainment for the Christian.

The response to parepidemos’s question (in comment #4 above) is from the arts department of a fundamentalist college in good standing among those who embrace the “idea” of separation. If they cannot connect the dots between Oscar Wilde and flaming impiety, who will they object to? Robert Mapplethorpe? And for how long? These are the people who will separate over hair length or fellowship with John MacArthur.

The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

We do not need one more sappy song from Mr. Lynch; we need a good, long, heart-felt, groaning, tear-stained Miserere.

Ya, I hate blue china.

I hope I haven't ruined blue china for your wife if she really had her heart set on it.

I'd rather eat off blue china anyday.

They won’t believe Edwards, they won’t believe Tozer, they won’t believe Eliot, they won’t believe Machen, they won’t believe Weaver, they won't believe Kaplan.

What are the passages in Eliot, Machen, Weaver, and Kaplan (whoever that is) condemning drama?

Diss,

Asking respectfully, would there be a difference in your mind between a school like MBBC presenting a Wilde play and performing a series of pieces by Aaron Copland?

BTW- thought you would find this link interesting...

[link]https://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=436&CalendarID=23805[/link]

Greg,

I'm saddened by your link.

What it suggests, however, is that separatism hasn't revolutionized the moral diet but has left its devotees in the same culturally-deviant position as non separatism.

Again, when we look to the queers and morally capped for entertainment, inspiration, and cultural meaning, something has gone terribly awry.

Again, your link to Liberty saddens me.

Curious George:

Ah, we shifted gears while you weren’t watching. [Second and third paragraphs of comment # 7.] I keyed on the phrase “[u]finally[/u] bearing fruit”. I don’t quibble with tjp that BJU has played a major role in the decline of fundamentalist culture (if that is even a meaningful phrase), I just don’t think it “finally” happened. It has been happening. Further, and more importantly, the decline is not limited to the embrace of the theater. BJU’s detrimental impact is not limited to the theater and it is not recent. In fact, I don’t think we could have gone so quickly from preaching against the theater to making movies without “properly prepared hearts”, if you know what I mean.

Consider the output of the university in terms of its a) publications, b) its preaching, c) its liturgy/religious entertainments, and d) its political shenanigans—exercised as a service institution over the conduct of any church, let alone Baptists churches. This should never have been tolerated and it was.

I can stay out of theaters. I can skip the bathrobe brigades and pathetic movies canonizing hayseed reprobates. But I am compelled to worship and I am expected to exercise fellowship with orthodox Christians, and the stultifying influence of this one institution on American conservative (again, if I can use that word) Christianity is far more significant than its love of shows.


Greg:

That is a good—and fair—question (I take it you are referring primarily to Copland’s similar moral deformity). Bear with me while I untangle some threads here.

First, I don’t like Copland. It is not likely, if I were a music director, I would ever elect to perform Copland. I recognize his place in the line of Western composers and I can appreciate him for what he was, but I do not “like” him. But I realize that’s not your question.

Would I refuse to play him solely because of his perversion? No. I genuinely like the work of Vladimir Horowitz and I genuinely dislike the work of Tchaikovsky. My thinking is more nuanced than a simple knowledge of one’s perversions.

But I think an equation of Wilde and Copland is not quite fair either (and I don’t suggest you’ve made that equation). Wilde was known, was celebrated, and his work was and is defined by the pervert he was. To this day Wilde is venerated not just for being an artist, but for being a very recognizable sort of social vandal and moral apologist. He is celebrated today, really not so much for his literary genius as for his assault on society. Copland is not.

I think this is a real difference; I don’t expect, oh, even me and my closest friends, would necessarily agree, and that wouldn’t bother me. I’m just trying to flesh out a real distinction.

What you have with the Maranatha situation is odd. You have (at this moment in time) a religious community greatly exercised over same-sex marriage and marital fidelity, etc., performing Wilde. To someone who doesn’t know Wilde’s place in our culture it might pass unnoticed, but to others it is very odd. Similarly, we are talking about a particular institution emerging from a particularly humiliating scandal. I think, all things taken into consideration, it looks very weird. Do these Midwestern bumpkins not know what they are doing? Do they see no dissonance here? Do they expect to be taken seriously when they speak, or are they as oblivious as they appear to be?

[Just make a crude comparison here for the sake of illustration: can you imagine the Puritans not picking up on this dislocation? This is what I mean by merely waving the word “separatism” like a banner and actually being separatist where it counts. We live in a very bizarre world of separatists.]

It seems to me a more enlightening comparison would be not Wilde vs. Copland, but Wilde being performed in a “separatist” Bible college vs. Wagner being performed in Israel.

I return again to my overall criticism: we are dealing here with people with tin ears, people without any sensitivity whatsoever. For instance, a whole set of arguments could be arranged for and against performing Wagner in Israel, but no matter how you might examine the question formally and aesthetically, you are still left with the sort of offensiveness that transcends everything.

Second, there is the whole question of rationality, here are people who separate and insist on separation over issues like who can wear pants in a summer camp and members of which race we can date. I think this is profoundly irrational. Disturbingly irrational.

I said earlier that I didn’t like Copland. I don’t mean that in a shallow way, as though I just can’t dig his tunes. I discussed this once over dinner with Sardonis. He likes Fanfare For The Common Man, I do not. His wife asked why, and I said his music was the honest expression of American vulgarity and destructive cultural leveling. As a simple example, fanfares are not for the common man, they are for men worthy of special honor and for occasions of note. That’s why we came up with fanfares, to make that distinction. These were not the “personal theme tunes” of kings. To honor the common is to dishonor the great.

Could we have a Fanfare for the Apes? Well, in our culture we can now! And that’s the point.

Now of course this judgment is not based on a single work, my conclusion is that Copland’s work is properly regarded as “American” because he succeeds in expressing American sentiments. He does it well, that is why I accord him a high place as a composer: he did well what composers ought to do. In this case it is just a sentiment I reject.

Of course I don’t expect anyone to accept this, it’s an opinion, it’s a perception, it’s an aesthetic judgment, it’s my understanding of what artists do and how culture works. As Weaver would say, it keeps things aligned, it works against the usurpation of some parts over other parts, it prescribes fitness and size....

In the same way, I do not object in a crude way to Maranatha’s performance of Wilde per se. I object more strenuously to this anti-cultural streak that is ignorant and contemptuous of the meaning we require to live rightly.

I ended my explanation by saying, “...but that’s just how it seems to me; I could be wrong”. Sardonis’s response seemed like a very quick and heart-felt, “Yeah!”.

Again, this is not the sort of agreement I expect we must all come to, but it is the level of the discussion we should be engaged at.

“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.” Are the works of the man who said that the sort of things that amuse Christians? I do not know that Copland ever put me in that uncomfortable position.

I know this is not a complete answer to your question, but I hope it illustrates how I approach it.

Outside of growing up in the Susquehanna Valley and professing Christ as Savior, I expect you and I have little in common (unless you worked a summer or two at Hersheypark - then we'd be three for three).

I find it odd that while your observations of broader evangelicalism mirrors what I have found to be true; your tortured descriptions of the goings-on in fundamentalism are - in my experience - unrecognizable.

Nonetheless, if you care to flesh out your four-point sermon on the evils of Bob Jones: "a) publications, b) its preaching, c) its liturgy/religious entertainments, and d) its political shenanigans", enlighten me.

(Post 15 is addressed to dissidens)

Thank you. Your response was enlightening in helping me understand your concerns.

semper:

Surely you jest.

I too find it odd that you agree with my critique of broad evangelicalism and then plead naiveté when it comes to a critique of fundamentalism.

It was not a sermon; it was a reply to Curious George. My sermon on the evils of Bob Jones has way more than four points.

I think the last paragraph of your comment # 5 gives away the game.

I discern; you criticize; he snipes

I’m guessing you will understand why I don’t take your question seriously. Some criticism is apt, some is sniping, and then you ask for enlightenment.

Greg:

I will add this in passing, since it might help some to broaden the scope of their considerations.

One of the expedients to this kind of discussion (the relative merits of performing Wilde as opposed to Copland, as an example) is a broad competence which encourages a charitable disposition. There may not be agreement, as with Sardonis, but there is at least a kind of backdrop, an understanding of what guides another’s thinking. For instance, it is very hard to respect the opinion of someone who thinks pantyhose constitute men’s clothing; the same will be true when discussing nonsartorial things.

I have a friend who likes Hemingway, Wagner and Copland. Ugh, there’s a way to ruin a few perfectly good evenings! If we practiced separatism as currently understood, we could never be friends.

We are not likely to get this with a command culture (“command culture” as in a “command economy”). We have built ourselves a command culture. Not just fundamentalists. Neo-evangelicalism has a command culture as well, just not as coherent.

In each case, it is harder to express one’s nuanced aesthetic judgments in a hostile environment. If you swim against the current you can easily be dismissed. With fundies you will be dismissed as being “undiscerning”. With neo-evals you will be dismissed as being “legalistic” or “anti-diversity” or “narrow”.

Meanwhile these parties drift toward opposite poles: one trying to mimic new trends, the other trying to oppose those mimicking new trends. But aside from all the fun this conflict provides, neither produces a real culture. Neither party produces artists and poets, they both produce approved entertainers.

Just food for thought.

dissidens: re: “…pathetic movies canonizing hayseed reprobates…”
Please reconcile the following two definitions:

reprobate n. A morally unprincipled person. One who is predestined to damnation. adj. Morally unprincipled; shameless.

Robert Sheffey n. A circuit riding preacher during the 1800's. He rode through the Appalachian mountains proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sheffey was a man of prayer, tireless worker, soul winner, and had a servant's heart of love.

He also fathered an illegitimate child by one of the women on his circuit.

That is how I reconcile it.

It has been a long, long time since I confirmed this so I cannot stand by it, but if memory serves, it was a married woman he defiled. But about this detail I could be mistaken: here I am only offering my recollections of a 1979 phone conversation with a professor of church history (Weeks) who was then teaching at Maranatha.

Hagiography is tricky business.

I salute you for sitting on this bombshell for twenty-seven years. Such knowledge would have left a lesser man bitter. I see you dodged that bullet.

This was hardly a bombshell for me. This sort of behavior is not entirely uncommon in preachers, and it didn't produce bitterness so much as suspicion of hagiographers.

That this bullet found its mark turned out to be a good thing.

dissidens,

Several years ago, Maranatha produced a play on the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. As I remember, it was called "A Portrait of Mary," but I cannot find anything on the web about it, and I may be off on the title.

Although it was billed as an evangelistic opportunity, many in the student body were well aware that the script came far closer to teaching mariolatry than anything resembling the gospel.

I have no doubt that those who chose both of these plays are well-meaning and godly individuals, so I really do not want to flame them personally. However, I sense that when the fundamentalist establishment talks about exercising discernment in regards to the arts, their thinking digs no more deeply than to condemn a 2-4 beat in the music and to excise the profanity, innuendo, and outright debauchery from its scripts and libretti.

Am I correct in my conclusion that you make a similar point in these words below?

dissidens wrote:
"In the same way, I do not object in a crude way to Maranatha’s performance of Wilde per se. I object more strenuously to this anti-cultural streak that is ignorant and contemptuous of the meaning we require to live rightly."

And thanks for the following comment. It seems like an important point to me:

"Again, this is not the sort of agreement I expect we must all come to, but it is the level of the discussion we should be engaged at."

I understand this to mean that there will be some gray areas of judgment, but our fundamental responsibility is to be engaged in a serious approach to exercising that judgment. True?

This is just too rich. Dissidens has presented some rather unpleasant facts. First, he served up Wilde. Second, he killed the sacred Sheffey cow. These were facts that were floating out there. There was no private eye hired to dredge out secret sin. Some, if not most, within fundamentalism callously looked the other way.

It is telling that some here wish to kill the messenger of some rather unpleasant and inconvenient news that lacks novelty. But, I believe the point was that we have long since passed the sin of the theater to move on to the glorfication of impiety. We do not just dabble nervously with sin; we revel in its indecency. We then snort indignantly at anyone who dares to point out our impudence.

parepidemos:

I cannot speak to the portrait-of-Mary play, but you correctly take my meaning on every other point.

This is not about flaming anyone. If Christians want to be serious, this is what it means to be serious. The fact that one circuit rider should sin is certainly not a bombshell; not with the wealth of material fundamentalism has produced. And continues to produce. For goodness sakes, we are awaiting trials for worse things as we speak.

Nor is it especially noteworthy: I followed up on the story because I heard it first from some colleagues of my wife, mere Christian day-school teachers. (Not that day-school teachers are “mere” things, but I mean this was known by people who were by no means church history scholars who’d labored heroically to dig up embarrassing facts to embarrass a rival institution. They were Maranatha grads with nothing more than a B.R.E.—or the Maranatha equivalent at the time—one of which was a music major.)

Believe me, this is the sort of thing I already knew existed. [link]http://www.livingston.net/wilkyjr/link27.htm[/link]

I think it is also indicative that those who preach repentance cannot themselves repent. As exlibris says, we are not talking about unknown facts. I’m sure this inconveniences the guilty, but we are asking about some bleating sheep here.

The point, as with the Wilde, is that we are dealing with a shallow, artificial and naïve view of our culture. How can this not be important to us?! If you checked the link above, you can see how this stuff is already being used to discredit the “religious right”. The past is very present.

What we have exampled here is a very embarrassing misuse of culture, and it is a perfect accompaniment to the silly songs we hear. Culture is not about pretty stories for film, or tales, as our Maranatha respondent (comment #4) wrote: “ [that] tangles these four characters up, making for a hilarious story, but everything gets sorted out in the end and the two men get the girls they want.”

Well, am I ever delighted about that! I mean when it comes to what matters, hilarious stories about men getting the girls they want as told by a five-star pervert “meets and exceeds all my expectations”.

Folks, if you really have your heart set on an amusing tale of romance, concealed identities and “men getting the girls they want”, there are plenty of them. Start with your operas! Why a Bible college would choose Oscar Wilde is just too bizarre.

And yet it somehow fits.

Re: Sheffey

Unless you come up with some sort of documentary proof, your comment about Robert Sheffey is malicious gossip.

Some one once told me that dissidens was a malicious gossip. I think it was in a phone conversation with someone or other about 1979....

For the record:

It is not true that every claim that lacks documentary proof is malicious gossip. It is not even true that every claim that lacks documentary proof is false. Many, many, many undocumented facts exist. As I was taught to do history (and I do have a Th.M. in church history—the relevant field, Dr. Matzko), three independent sources is reasonable confirmation that an event occurred.

I do not assert the information I offered is an established fact: I have only two independent sources. I have never published this as established fact. I was offering an explanation for a judgment I made. I reconciled my conclusions with the selective description of Robert Sheffey that was offered in the form of a dictionary definition. I merely believe it to be true based on my own inquiries and the academic integrity of those I spoke with.

The historian I spoke with was qualified, and I still have no grounds to doubt his word.

Some one [sic] once told me that dissidens was a malicious gossip. I think it was in a phone conversation with someone or other about 1979....

I did have the phone conversation; I didn’t just think I had the conversation, and I named the person with whom I spoke. I didn’t just attribute it to “someone or other”.

Dr. Matzko, on the other hand, is hardly a competent judge, as his first statement demonstrates.

Educational background: B.S. in Chemistry (Mathematics minor), Bob Jones University; Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, Clemson University

[link] http://www.bju.edu/academics/cas/undergrad/divns/faculty/index.html[/link]

Really, Dr. Matzko!

Out of genuine curiousity, who is the other independent source regarding Sheffey?

Wayne, Sawtell. Denver, CO. Interview, 29 September 1983.

I was researching my thesis on the Colorado Controversy, and after the business portion of our discussion we chatted about contemporary fundamentalism, its heritage and institutions and the prospects for separatism as a movement.

Post #31 was from a Dr. John Matzko, whose own link describes quite different qualifications (in history and law) from the Dr. George Matzko whose qualifications you describe (Math and Chemistry) and to whom you link. I think you're yelling at and about the wrong guy (particularly relevant since you've stated that the person lacks the qualifications to be a competent judge).

Sorry--I meant Post #27 above, not Post #31.

My dictionary says "gossip" is "a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts, of a personal, sensational, or intimate nature," a definition which point-by-point fits your tale.

Perhaps with the qualification that it is doubtful whether this story was ever in "general circulation," your group "Christian day-school teachers" notwithstanding.

I'd be interested in knowing if you used the same evidentiary standards--a chat--when writing your master's thesis. If not, why is it more acceptable here, when used to accuse an entire university of "canonizing hayseed reprobates"?

blackmamba:

You are quite right; it is a different Matzko. That is my error.

I traced back from the URL connected to his comment. Presumably John knows more than George. All the worse that he should open with such a statement.

Everything else I stand by. His first statement is egregiously inaccurate.

Who is Wayne Sawtell?

Yep, I'm the history Matzko.

If you have no documentary proof, then you've slandered a Christian brother.

Heheheh. Looks like you touched a nerve there, dissidens.

Who would have thought anybody would care about hayseed reprobates so much?

It is wonderfully ironic. Your blog would never pass for a masters thesis because your opinions are not adequately documented!

Austin:

I never claimed that the story was in “general circulation”, you got that phrase from your dictionary so you can suggest it is nothing but mere gossip. You say it is “without confirmation”, but it was confirmation I was seeking when I consulted a historian rather than believing the reports. In my comment [#26] I was recounting how I first came across the information and where my inquiries began. Even if a story comes to one as gossip and one pursues it to its source, we cannot conclude that the story is merely gossip, nor can we conclude that it is not true.

In fact my third paragraph makes it clear that I did not at first regard it as reliable testimony. My first suspicion was that it was motivated by anti-BJ sentiment, whether gossip or not.

You seem not to want to speak of the qualified and knowledgeable sources I consulted, only the conversations that sent me to them. Why is this?

As to whether it is gossip, again, I fear your dictionary is not your best source for these things. The subject matter of gossip may also be the subject matter of a rigorous academic paper.

John:

It was not true when you first said it. Repeating it doesn't help.

Is it your professional opinion that this statement is true:

Unless you come up with some sort of documentary proof, your comment about Robert Sheffey is malicious gossip.

Unk:

It's like old home week. I'm getting all misty-eyed here.

There's an old story about a farmer who caught a thief stealing his chickens. The sheriff was called, but the farmer said he didn't want to press charges. "Why not?" said the sheriff. "Because I don't want to be associated with a chicken thief."

Which shows the farmer’s commitment to justice, and, by extension, your commitment to truth?

“Unless you come up with some sort of documentary proof, your comment about Robert Sheffey is malicious gossip.”

I cannot imagine another place on earth from which I would rather have learned this.

Mt. 7:2

By the way, how do you interpret Dt. 19:15?

I'd like some evidence that Remostrans has slandered a Christian brother.

I know what Remonstrans said; I would like for someone to prove that what he said is untrue.

Seems to me by that same logic that says Remonstrans has slandered, that the one who can't prove Remonstrans spoke falsely has also slandered.

dissidens: you write, "You seem not to want to speak of the qualified and knowledgeable sources I consulted, only the conversations that sent me to them. Why is this?"

Actually, I want to know more about your "qualified and knowledgeable sources." I don't deny that their accusation might be possible. However, knowing that they had these conversations with you approximately a century after Sheffey's death, I doubt their knowledge is first-hand. So whatever source(s) they're relying on should also be available to us as well, no? (Their historical distance from the matter also gives the lie to your claim that they qualify as "two or three witnesses.")

Looking in a few academic databases, I see nothing more about Sheffey than a couple of biographies with titles like The Story of the life of Robert Sayers Sheffey, a courier of the long trail, God's gentleman, a man of prayer and unshaken faith and The Saint of the Wilderness, neither of which I suspect includes evidence of fornication. I can find nothing by anyone named Weeks who has written about Sheffey. "Wayne Sawtell" and "Sawtell Wayne" don't appear anywhere at all ("Sawtell Wayne" does appear in one Google result). And I don't know how to begin searching for your third source, Maranatha grads with B.R.E.'s.

The issue isn't whether there's some possibility that it's true but whether it's credible enough to be worth mentioning in a public forum, especially as ammunition against the characters of many people.

Anyone with experience on the Internet can dredge up several PhD's--some even published--who will put their expert opinion behind any balderdash you can imagine, whether it be about UFOs or 9/11 conspiracies. Unk is right that blogs don't have the same standards as master's theses, but one would expect more than this from someone who talks of "bumpkins" and their "indifference to words and meaning," terms you use to describe people and their failure to draw the same connections as yourself.

You say that you "never claimed that the story was in 'general circulation'," yet the very point of mentioning Sheffey's purported sin seems to be to argue that BJU was at best irresponsible in making a movie about the man,

It seems to follow these lines: BJU is culpable for making a film about a man who was known to be guilty of sin--not known generally but known by a couple of men who don't seem to have published on the matter and who had at best second-hand knowledge, knowledge now brought to light thirty years later by an anonymous gadfly with a Th.M. from an unnamed school. Only a hayseed would suggest it's not exactly like Deuteronomy 19:15.

You say, "it was not true when you first said it. Repeating it doesn't help"; yet other than saying you "stand by" your accusation, all you can offer are repetition, insults, and one-liners to rebut the charge of gossip. We are supposed to toss aside the dictionary and believe that "confirmed" now means hearsay.

You require exacting consistency on the part of the faculty and administration at Maranatha. Just as the Israeli Philharmonic could never have performed Tannhäuser's, even the Puritans would have connected the fact that months after the school's president was accused of an apparently sexual indiscretion, the very same school performs a play written by a man who committed sexual sin. And BJU should not have made that film, because if Sawtell Wayne and the Maranatha B.R.E.'s knew, shouldn't everyone? Yet when it comes to evidence good enough to malign a man's reputation and to impugn a university, "confirmed" means "dissidens says it's so."

Ryan DeBarr: "I know what Remonstrans said; I would like for someone to prove that what he said is untrue."

Likewise, we must believe the Loch Ness monster exists until someone proves it doesn't.

Surely hagiography is tricky business, but rules of evidence aren't. I really don't see how the evidence that's been presented to this forum for Sheffy's reprobation is anything more than hearsay (and yes, I’m aware that evidence based on hearsay can be presented to a jury under certain conditions as evidence, but none of the exceptions work here). Basic facts are yet unknown: we don't know who the woman was, who the child was, when it was done, where it was done, or the names of contemporaries who were aware of the adultery. To be proved, an accusation needs to be followed by facts such as names and dates. We don’t need all the details, but we need something. Citing others who have heard of or repeated the accusation is not the same as presenting evidence.

The accusation alone, of course, is sufficient for some. The dutiful minions here have already picked up the "hayseed reprobate" line and are treating it as an established fact.

Of course, the whole Sheffy issue is just another stick to beat good ol' Bobby Jones Bible School (HT Peter Kreeft). If it turns out the evidence against Sheffy is incontrovertible, all the better for Dissidens’ multi-point sermon against the beleaguered institution. If the story is a bunch of hot air, no matter--he still has all the rest of his points...

Why do you think I'm dutiful? I assure you, I do it out of sheer delight. You make me sound reluctant to eat up everything dissidens says. I resent that.

Thank you for the correction. I will hereafter refer to the gleeful minions of Remonstans.

Have you considered listening to Jesse Jackson? He lobs the most beautifully crafted and unsupported accusations, and appears to be in need of easily impressionable followers lately. You could probably handle both jobs...you seem quite capable that way.

I have appreciated some of the information and insights found at this blog. I've not drunk the kool-aid, but everyone who has seems quite happy...

Austin:

I can appreciate both your enthusiasm and your desperation, but you do need to read a little bit more slowly:

1. I have repeatedly said, I do not accuse Sheffey, or anyone, based on the evidences I have seen. I have even declared explicitly that my understanding is that no proof of an event will exist shy of three independent witnesses, and I have said I do not have those three independent testimonies. I have not published this as historical fact; I have offered it as my belief, and I described how I went from hearing, not gossip, as you choose to call it, but hearsay. I said that I pursued the matter as I did because I did not want to suppose anything based on the recollection of students. Again, if a student reports what her professor said, I choose to go to the professor. You persist in accusing me of putting this forward as evidence. “And I don't know how to begin searching for your third source, Maranatha grads with B.R.E.'s.” [Last sentence of third paragraph.]

I have not. Your accusation is a desperate one. Understandable, but transparently desperate.

But there is a big difference between proof and grounds for belief. With the evidences of corruption that the fundamentalist movement has provided me, there certainly is no reason for me to work this particular vein any longer.

I believe many things I could not prove to the satisfaction of the skeptic or the willful; I believe some things I can’t prove to myself. Proof and belief are two different things. There may be a good deal of overlap, and we would prefer that there be as much as possible, but they are still two different things.

2. Your treatment of the facts is quite embarrassing: the man’s name was Wayne Sawtell, I merely reproduced exactly the entry as formatted in my bibliography. Very few people have commas in their name, at least not where you found Sawtell’s.

3. Wagner was performed in Jerusalem, 7 July 2001.

4. I suspect even you recognize how weak your argument is. This is how you begin your seventh paragraph: “It seems to follow these lines...”. In the previous paragraph you say, “...sin seems to be to argue...”. “Seems to”? Can we tidy this up a bit, please?

5. I have not accused anyone at BJ of knowing about Sheffey’s guilt. I am perfectly prepared to believe the scriptwriters we