I may not be culturally with it sometimes to get what you are talking about. You use metaphors sometimes that avoid me (Goldilocks dress code). A lot of what you say challenges me. It confronts my thinking and inspires me to the greater glory of God. But then I read other things that I believe you swing and whiff, that seem to me to be wrought with inconsistency.

I see these cultural issues as a whole. We reject the spirit of the age and the culture that represents it. You apply that to music, worship, and entertainment, and I get you. You make other vague, somewhat ambiguous statements that I don't get. I may not be inside enough. Sometimes you come out and say it straight, not leaving us to figure it out. I like your material best then.

I agreed with your fourth paragraph...I think. I think I might even agree with your fifth paragraph if I really knew what you were saying in the last line.

I'm fine with the fourth line from the bottom.

The next three lines, I don't think I understand.

Perhaps I'm just late on this one, but I think you use purposeful ambiguity sometimes so that we will have to strain a little to flex our intellectual muscles. I think you understand that some of your readers (you are in big bold print at Team Pyro) would dismiss you if you gave too much away. I can be wrong on these last two points.

I think you're criticism on this one is overblown and not very substantive.

You say, "A real virtue cannot be taken too far." That' simply false, given a normal understanding of the way we use the phrase "too far." If we view a virtue as a mean between two extremes, as Aristotle does, then biblical separatism would be something like a virtue that stands between the extreme of living "out of the world" and the opposite extreme of living as if we were "of the world." In the sense that we describe as a virtue is an action or disposition, like (a disposition towards) breaking followship with a person or group, that action can be taken "too far," in which case it becomes a vice. So, yes, in a pedantic sense, one in which we ignore what people mean and focus on the language the use, a "virtue" cannot be taken too far. But in the sense that by "virtue" we denote a specific action or disposition, such things can certainly be taken "too far," (e.g. misapplied, etc.).

Even if it's not especially exciting, in simply is the case that there are positive and negative things to learn from the origins and development of Fundamentalism. These fellows were asnwering one question in the space of a few paragraphs, so I don't know what you were expecting. Given that some of the guys, like Noll, have published extensively on the issues that were discussed, I am not inclined to brush guys like that off. Noll is not a country bumpkin and neither are people like Timothy George.

In four or five paragraphs "we" (presumably the people who responding to the question) may not be "covering everything," but if anything exemplifies "epic silliness," it's expecting "us" too "cover everything." Any if you didn't expect that, it was an irrelevant comment in that context.

You may now skewer away. I often enjoy your writing, but I'm not inclined to obsequious, uncritical reading. I assume your not bothered by and respond with civility to disagreement.

Pardon the typos in my last post.

Regulative:

Point taken. Perhaps I speak too much to the ministerial class.

But I very much intend to be oblique when it strikes me as useful. I had a professor do this. Not only a) did I find that it provoked useful reflection, and b) others commented to that effect, but c) the guy knew a thing or two about rhetoric. Understand that our audience is fundamentalist, new evangelical, (no seeker-type has declared himself to me that I can recall), and emergent.

Some ideas are so obvious they can be served immediately to everyone, others have to percolate.

I do very much think that our movements—not just fundamentalism—tend to ride on clichés and buzzwords. My closing intended to suggest that I was not saying anything new at all, that the disappearance of this truth might be significant.

Sorry for being impenetrable.


victor:

I disagree. We can never be too chaste, temperate, charitable, diligent, patient, kind, or humble. I do see that a misguided pursuit of a virtue might lead to problems, but that is to misunderstand or abuse the virtue. I don’t deny that we exercise our vices and blame it on our virtues, but that too is different.

And I think that is precisely the problem under discussion; we cannot be too separate from the world or from wrong belief, what we can do is misperceive the demands of separation. I disagree with the evangelicals that suggest separation somehow snowballed out of control. It seems rather to me some people never had it under control…it became a mere device for them.

And I don’t for a minute deny that fundamentalism and new evangelicalism made mistakes. Good Heavens! Fundamentalism has a lot to answer for. Two of the big things—and it is limned in this discussion—are how it has discredited the whole notion of separatism and devalued the role of conscience. Telling people how to wear their hair, when to wear culottes or pants (if ever), or when to participate in a community Messiah is not legitimate separatism. If this is an innocent defense of the Gospel, I should like to be shown how. A Dean of Students who confiscates tapes which provoked no correction from fathers and pastors is hardly practicing informed or exemplary separatism.

Was it out of control? Yes. Was separatism the culprit? No.

At some point here I think you misunderstand; I don’t regard all the participants in this discussion as bumpkins. I don’t think Wells resembles a bumpkin in the smallest detail. I don’t think Dever or Capitol Hill did anything wrong with this discussion. This is the sort of discussion we need more of.
Some of the people said silly things, but even that was not my first impression on reading these opinions.

One of the silly things was said by James MacDonald: of the many excesses of fundamentalism, he picks two conspicuously bad examples. Mixed bathing and music/movies?! In this country the men and the women were often seated apart from one another, not only in churches but in synagogues. As morals declined and sensibilities became dulled it seems entirely reasonable that at some point religious people should object to “mixed bathing”, which, when you think about it, is the sartorial equivalent of watching women run around in their underwear. MacDonald shows remarkable dullness of thought. There will never be a rapprochement between MacDonald and Doran.

Likewise with the music/movies. Look at the music/movies of our time and ask yourself if a reasonable person might not proscribe some of them. Has Hollywood ever been a friend to grace? Look at how the churchfolk of London treated Shakespeare. Does he not know where the Globe Theater was located? Read what Pascal said of the theater. Were these people rabid fundamentalists, or was there a legitimate concern he chooses to ignore? MacDonald’s is just a caricature of piety; he is oblivious to the historical moment.

Now I grant you this won’t be persuasive to the DTS students whose sexual frustrations get some release with the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, but I don’t take MacDonald’s contribution as at all helpful. It has nothing to do with his bumpkinism, it has nothing to do with whether he agrees with me; it has to do with a total lack of context wherein these choice were made.

So I conclude from this discussion not that they are all bumpkins but that, bumpkin or not, they are not understanding one another at all; they are talking past one another.

When it comes to the fundamentalist negatives we have two fundamentalists whistling by the graveyard by citing “defense of the Gospel”. There is no Gospel whose defense justified what they did. Prohibitions against inter-racial dating constituted a defense of the Gospel? Again, this is people wrapping themselves in their provincial flags and posing as virtuous; it ignores the fundamentalists for who they are and the new evangelicals for what they really are. Remember when Bible colleges refused student aid for separatist reasons? What happened with that?

How do these answers help us? I think we need more of these discussions, but they really do have to be productive. If we keep lobbing caricatures over the fence, it will just turn into another Christianity Today.

(I certainly am not bothered by disagreement. As to whether I can respond civilly, there are two schools of thought on that…. ; ) )

Dissidens,

I appreciate your response.

Here is the issue as i see it. It is a remarkably fine line, much like a spider's web, between sheer word-play and important conceptual nuancing. To give a Fundamentalist a doctrine and practice called "separation," and then watch them start separating illegitimately, and then say the problem is not with "separation" but with its misapplication is, perhaps, a conceptual distinction. If, however, someone in a summary fashion says Fundamentalism has "run amok" with separation, that it has been taken to wild extremes, and the retort is: "There can never be too much of a good thing. A virtue can never be taken too far," then I'll cry "Foul!" I suspect you would not disagree with me here.

I took you to be wrangling with words, dabbling in word play where the meaning was fairly clear. We can meaningfully (and occasionally if not often) say "He's too loving." Of course, what we mean (and this take much longer to express is), "He expresses love in contexts in which a different virtue, like X, should be prominent," or something of that nature. It would wring any meaning distinct meaning out of the word "love" if we always said things like, "Well, though I am spanking you, this is primarily an act of love," or "Well, though we just dropped a hydrogen bomb, it was primarily an act of love" (that's stretching, I know). You see the point, yes?

I think we do not disagree in substance; we disagree over the use of the word "too" when modifying a term of positive value (e.g., virtue, love, etc.). I can live with that, although I maintain it is fine line between being a pedant and valiantly crying "Dinstinguo" in the face of murky concepts.

I did take think you viewed Noll et al as bumpkins - I was using the term to allude to what I perceived as an inappropriately dismissive tone or generalization. That - generalizing unfairly - would probably be my main complaint. You have clarified your position, and so to that extent I retract the complaint.

I agree with you on MacDonald's unhelpful answer and that it's nonsense to claim to be defending the Gospel by taking away my evening drink (hypothetically). I suspect, however, that they talked "past each other" because they were not really talking to each other. I have no really hope for constructive dialogue among Fundamentlists and their conservative friends - Fundamentalist's deficiencies - like their inability to appreciate nuances and distinctions, their lack of interest in "pure" academic subjects, like philosophy and good theology, which requires a level of Bildung, scholarly detachment, and a patient refusal to avoid "evaluating" right and wrong until one truly appreciates the object of study - ensure that they cannot successfully participate in meaningful dialogue with people who disagree with them.

This mangled line: "I did take think you viewed Noll et al as bumpkins" should begin "I did NOT think you viewed etc."

Well, I’ve stopped caring if they can dialogue. A pox on both their houses. If they want to swap romances and flattering anecdotes from their past, that’s an option, I suppose.

Right now all I care about is the bystanders within earshot.