. . . we want to help you give birth to the divine potential that is already within you.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!

So much for twisted and clumsy metaphors for regeneration.

Oh, I don’t think these guys even know what regeneration is about. These are just the carpetbaggers of the 21st C.

I just wanted to juxtapose their rubbish with this week's conversation about culture. This is what the church is reduced to when you get to redefine first things. If you hide behind ill-considered metaphors, anything is possible.

In other words, this is where fundagelicalism will be shortly…if we can all just hold our breaths! So long as Christians can excuse their every disgrace by accusing the competent of being “spiritually blind”, it’s just a matter of time.

And what is most telling is that we are not afraid, that we can't even grasp how close we are, that it is not a matter of much time, that the resemblance is too close to be comfortably borne. The comments on this blog from dgus to Regulative weirdly never fail bear it out.

Dissidens,

You are so off with this "excuse their every disgrace" comment. Nobody is excusing cultural incompetence. It's why I like reading you, because I agree with you about the culture. I think I'm incompetent in a lot of ways myself and I don't want to pass down a bad example to another generation.

However, you shouldn't think that you have so arrived that you are not up for a challenge. That displays a not very beautiful arrogance on your part, very unlike the pretty picture that Keats painted in "To Autumn."

You talk about criticism. Can you be criticized? You shouldn't expect a non-thinking goose step of your ideas, no matter how much you've read. God still stands as the highest authority. I've been reading Thomas Boston for the last several weeks, and he wrote:

"The affections are corrupted. The unrenewed man’s affections are wholly disordered and distempered: they are as the unruly horse, that either will not receive, or violently runs away with, the rider. So man’s heart naturally is a mother of abominations (Mark 7.21,22), ‘For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,’ &c. The natural man’s affections are wretchedly misplaced; he is a spiritual monster. His heart is where his feet should be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart should be set on (Acts 9.5). His face is towards hell, his back towards heaven; and therefore God calls to him to turn. He loves what he should hate, and hates what he should love; joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he should rejoice in; glories in his shame, and is ashamed of his glory; abhors what he should desire, and desires what he should abhor (Prov 2.13-15). They hit the point indeed, as Caiaphas did in another case, who cried out against the apostles, as men that turned the world upside down (Acts 17.6); for that is the work which the gospel has to do in the world, where sin has put all things so out of order, that heaven lies under, and earth atop. If the unrenewed man’s affections be set on lawful objects, then they are either excessive or defective. Lawful enjoyments of the world have sometimes too little, but mostly too much of them; either they get not their due, or, if they do, it is measure pressed down, and running over. Spiritual things have always too little of them. In a word, they are never right; only evil."

I agree with Eliot that we can't restrain ourselves of a solution just because of the magnitude of the problem. However, we also must recognize our helplessness to change without the grace of God. And we risk producing nothing but clever devils.

You rightly criticize Oscar Wilde and those who use him, but Wilde saw Keats as a foundational influence. When Keats looked at God's creation was he thankful to God? Or did he become vain in his imagination and his foolish heart was darkened? This isn't a condemnation of his craftsmanship, of his definition of beauty, but it does question whether he should be categorized with the book of Psalms.

Unk:

I believe we will look back on these days and shiver.

Regulative:

So you tell me: Whose work should be "categorized" with the Psalms?

I don't think anything duplicates the Psalms, which is why a Psalter, but those whose work fits the model: William Cowper, James Montgomery, Isaac Watts, Horatius Bonar, John Ellerton, and Philip Doddridge.

I think you’re going to have to try to focus here, reg.

You and I are the only ones who know for certain that this is an actual conversation. Some skeptical readers are probably thinking this exchange is merely between a puppet on my left hand and a puppet on my right hand. They will think you are playing the foil in an artful plot to discredit religious jocks.

You are not helping your cause here.

I compared Keats and David in only one respect and you responded by doubting Keats’ salvation. I told you it was not salvation that makes one “get it”. Then you introduce completely false and irrelevant ideas about anthropomorphism and pantheism. You suggest that Eliot’s work in some undescribed way produces “clever devils”.

You suggest that because a morally bad man (Wilde) appreciated the genius of a technically good man (Keats) that the technically good man is somehow, what, not to be appreciated for his skill?

You say Keats ought not be “categorized” with David—which makes no sense at all! Categorized?

Clearly any taxonomy will stand or fall based on the categories. Keats and David most certainly belong in the same category if that category is Poets With Only One Head. So I didn’t know what to make of your choice of words.

So I asked you who would belong in a category with David in a shaky hope of finding out your—ummm—thought process. And in reply you ignore my question and observe that no one “duplicates” the Psalms.

Well, yah, Reg. No one does.

I’m beginning to think you don’t want to come to any sort of understanding as to why we have many jocks and no poets.

It remains my position that these things will never change; we might as well send our kids off to Pagitt, Easum and the naked pastor with a box lunch and a nametag. Religious hucksters keep cranking out the drivel and guys like you go to comical lengths to avoid the implications.

You aren't a jock, but you do have the strut down; you're only missing the end zone dance.

I understand the sock puppet illustration---you like going barefoot when you talk to yourself in between delusions of grandeur. Want a tip? Conversations can happen with more than fawning sycophants impersonating bobble-head dolls.

Your review of our situation (I recognize conversation wasn't happening) reminds me of the implications of flunking your listening skills battery on the SAT. Everything went downhill when your favorite person immediately revised the content of his own post.

First, to understand what you meant by "get it," I asked you to tell me evangelicals who do "get it," and you offered up one person presently at room temperature. Um, I did mean living person. Could I pull you away from the mirror for one second?

Second, you referred to our situation in the next post when you compared Keats to David for their similar observation of creation---not skills---reading of creation. You smoked red herring with a "Romans Road culture" reference.

Third, I disagreed. You snapped into an alternate reality, one outside of your book-lined bunker, a world of frightening dissent.

Fourth, while framing your own paper clippings, you took your fat eraser and revised the content of your post. What you actually said was, sigh, that Keats and David had similar skills.

Fifth, I made note of contradictory observations between Ecclesiastes-man and Lamentations-man. David wouldn't have said that autumn was the source of anything like the godless, romantic, albeit skilled, Keats, so I asked if Keats was pantheistic.

Sixth, Your sock puppet mumbled something bogus about diurnal existence. After which you were, therefore, you insulted.

Seventh, I gave exegesis from the Sermon on the Mount that you ignored. I made one shot at Eliot's proposed solution, one I can see that you share.

Eighth, your sock puppet picked up his bobble heads and went home.

Ninth, your sock puppet erected another straw man in a comment after your last post.

Tenth, I objected.

To clear up the clutter of this last comment:
1. Every statement in your review in the fourth paragraph is false.
2. The one statement in the fifth paragraph is false. I wasn't making a point of skill. Wilde caught the romanticism of Keats.
3. I gave a list of authors in the Psalm category. I defined my category with the word "model" in contrast to "duplicate." Keats never did nor could he write Psalm-like.
4. You make a legitimate point about jocks. I've never said you didn't. However, what was it that you watched and did over Thanksgiving? Something about a first stone.

Wow, the last time I heard a "discussion" like this was in a pastor's basement near Maytag's former corporate headquarters.

Keep it coming, the argument is getting sweated out in this interlocution. (not intended as a pun on jocks, but it may be appropriate)

Yes, this is just our little window on the future of the Christian imagination.