With the court system already being undermined by frivolous litigation it’s simply another person abusing his rights and adding to the mess in hopes of making financial gains on the backs of others. I’ll bet money he went to quite a few legal advisor’s prior to starting this suit and probably didn’t like what any of them had to say. Ignorance must be bliss.

Two quick thoughts.

First, I didn’t take Washer’s comment out of context. I quoted the paragraph exactly as I found it at Reformed Voices. I was commenting on the way Reformed Voices was using the comment that *they* had taken out of context. I confess in my post that I had no context for the quote. That was precisely the point.

Second, did you see the title of my post? Here it is again: Critiquing a Short Paragraph uttered by Uber-Evangelical Paul Washer. My point in reminding you of the title of the post is that I was critiquing the paragraph as it stood at Reformed Voices. I was not critiquing Paul Washer. If I was critiquing anyone it was Philip at Reformed Voices who constantly yanks quotes like this out of their context and uses them as prooftexts for some sort of church he wishes to construct around Reformed Theology.

I assure you that even though I disagree with a great deal of Mr Washer’s emotional, altar call revivalism theology, my issue is not with Mr Washer himself. My issue was with Reformed Voices.

Now, if you take those two comments I have just made and re-read the post I wrote then I think you will see that 99% of your vitriolic diatribe against me, a brother in Christ, is moot. You criticize me for ‘attacking’ Washer–EVEN THOUGH I SPECIFICALLY SAID I WAS NOT DOING SUCH A THING–and then you rant on for 4 pages against me? OK. If I have a log in my eye, you have an entire forest in yours.

Thanks for stopping by, but the next time you decide to rant please be certain you know who and what you are ranting against. Please, for the Love of all that is right and good, PLEASE-Learn how to read!

jerry

PS–The problem is that there are too many Christians in this world who think that certain other Christians are unassailable, that they are above and beyond all criticism. Paul Washer is currently one such person. People think because they have ‘downloaded so many of his podcasts’ (that because he has so many podcasts available!!!) that he is suddenly without fault, that his theology is flawless, that he is the next best thing, and that all of us should line up at his theological soup kitchen. That’s why I said that he should minister in his local church instead of all over the place. If he mattered half as much as people think, he would be unknown to most people. As it is, you justify my contention: People have made him an idol. (And, methinks he likes it.)

You are one strange character. I’m not sure where you are coming from at all on this one. PS, I looked at your blog too. Coupled with your blog this quote seems to have just the slightest hint of bigotry in it. I hope I am wrong in thinking that you are mocking people with the tone of your reply. Please feel free to correct the record.

jerry

“I’m sick of hearing this call and tired of not seeing people put into practice what they claim to believe.”

You totally ignored “Paul Washer has ministered to the gypsy population in Romania, a despised, poor, and outcast culture. He has also worked with remote native jungle tribes in the mountains of Peru in the midst of violent civil wars”

The truth is that you know virtually nothing about Washer or his ministry, and rather than admitting you spoke from ignorance you stuck to your original WRONG diatribe because you were too PROUD to admit that you were wrong. In other words, even if you did judge the speck in Washer’s eye correctly, you can’t take it out because you have a LOG in your own.

And you also know perfectly well that we have TONS of liberal Christians who deny the virgin birth, deity, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as God’s standards for holiness and purity that do TONS of mighty works. They are the ones who falsely claim to be applying the true meanings of Jesus Christ and the Old Testament prophets.

“They said all the right things, believed all the right things, practiced all the right religious things, and offered up as much sacrifice as they could. Still they were empty and God judged them harshly. Why? Because they did not practice what they preached; they didn’t know how to love.”

It would have been very good had that statement actually applied to Paul Washer. It would have been even better had once you found out that this was in no way applicable to Paul Washer that you acknowledged it. You did not. You carried on as you had before. You started with a quote that was out of context not only with the sermon but the actual man and his ministry himself, and once you were corrected you rejected the truth because it was inconvenient to your agenda. As I stated earlier, whatever problem that Washer has - and Washer is not perfect - yours are bigger.

“The problem as I see it is that the church is often too self-centered. ”

Do you know how many podcasts I have downloaded of Paul Washer preaching against church - centeredness and advocating God - centeredness? And do you know how many sermons that I have of Paul Washer advocating love and orthopraxy? Gee, maybe you should have gone to Washer’s website and listened to a couple of them before making this post. Or maybe you should have FOLLOWED YOUR OWN ADVICE AND SHOWN A LITTLE CHRISTIAN LOVE AND HUMILITY AND ADMITTED YOU WERE WRONG WHEN PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT WASHER’S MINISTRY TRIED TO CORRECT YOU.

But this is why you did not do such a thing: you have no interest in Washer himself. You were only using Washer as a symbol. You were using Washer to do the time - dishonored rhetorical technique of constructing a straw man. There is something about certain types of Christians or strands of Christianity that you dislike, so you take Paul Washer and use him to represent it. It makes no difference whether Washer is actually an example of what you are speaking of, because truthfully you could care less about the guy. All you care about is the axe that you have to grind and you really do not have much regard for the grinder. That is why you can say such nonsense as

” In my opinion, Mr Washer has been made into an idol for modern thrill seekers who want to merely give assent and a hearty Amen. “I agree. I agree. I agree. Yes. Yes. Yes.” So what? If Mr Washer wants this to happen, he should start in his local congregation, plant himself there, stop traveling around playing judge and jury, and work with his own people, in his own community. To be sure, I am not caricaturing him as cold or cruel–I’m sure he has done wonderful things. He should encourage others to do the same.” and then follow it with “As you will recall my post is a critique of his comments, not his person. I wrote: “PS–This is not an ‘attack’ on Paul Washer so please do not characterize it as such.”

1. You have no evidence that Washer is not doing this in his local church. And if someone from Washer’s local church came on here saying that he did, you would ignore it just as you did the comment about Washer’s missionary work. Why? Because as I stated, you could care less about Washer or his church. All you are about is your axe and the straw man that you are using to grind it with.

2. And as if there aren’t a TON of modern thrill seekers who just love the apostate Christians that are going around saying “enough about all this talk about whether Jesus was God or homosexuality is a sin, or about whether there is a literal heaven or hell! The hungry need to be fed! The prisoners need to be comforted! The sick need medicine! The widows and orphans need to be taken care of!”

And as for “orthodoxy has always been available” … fellow have you watched Christian television? Don’t you realize that there are hundreds of millions of prosperity doctrine/Word of Faith Pentecostals (many of whom do not even believe in Trinity) and over a billion Roman Catholics? I spoke to the owner/operator/leader of an inner city religious school that has held positions in various churches for a lifetime and whose child is a fast rising pastor in a large Methodist denomination, and that person didn’t even know who John Calvin was. This person’s religion was all about experience, and yes the lack of orthodoxy did lead to a lack of orthopraxy for this person and this person’s ministry, especially the religious school that this person was running. Right now, you have this charlatan in Lakeland Florida bewitching millions on global television telling people that they should be more concerned with angels than Jesus Christ, and you are actually going to claim that doctrines and religious books don’t matter (incidentally, a position that Mormons are known to take)?

Oh yes, and while you are telling him to get out of Paul and go back to the words of Jesus Christ … have you forgotten Jesus Christ’s polemics against the Pharisees and Sadducees for their falsehoods? And have you forgotten what Jesus Christ said to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 about THEIR false doctrines? If you are claiming that Jesus Christ only cared about orthopraxy and paid little attention to orthodoxy then your “Jesus” is not the one of the Bible. Again, talk about Washer’s speck versus your log!

Truthfully, I have every confidence that you know and worship the true Jesus Christ of the Bible. But see how I was able to use the same tactic that you used to build your straw man axe grinder out of Washer against YOU? I took a few snippets of what you said and used it to make a far more convincing case that you were worshiping a false Jesus Christ than whatever case that you had against Washer and his supporters.

In closing, you stated that you were doing some teaching at a junior high camp. Well, those junior high school students probably listen to the Christian rap artists that Washer ministered to at a music workshop/retreat recently. What is an uber - evangelical who puts more emphasis on the works of Spurgeon, Edwards, etc. than on people (in other words a self righteous holier than thou Pharisee that you regard him as without coming out and saying it) doing praising and supporting the work of bunch of black rappers from the inner city? Well why don’t you go find his sermon, listen to it, and tell me. Yes, Washer did get plenty of vigorous amens from a bunch of inner city black rap artists in their teens and twenties who like that inner city charismatic religious school operator probably don’t know Spurgeon from sturgeon. If you have ever gotten the same response from a bunch of inner city black males - or from Peruvians and gypsies in the mission field for that matter - then I am even more mystified as to why you did not acknowledge Philip’s attempt to correct your errors.

Now this is not to say that the issues that you raised were not legitimate, or that you were wrong to raise them. Quite the contrary … I talk about the issues that you raised in this post on my site ALL THE TIME! (See http://healtheland.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/how-do-we-get-the-gospel-of-jesus-christ-back-to-the-poor/ for an example). All I ask is that next time you pick someone who actually represents what you are speaking of instead of using caricatures of people to erect straw men.

You sound like one very confused individual who is not at all like Wesley. I’m sorry you are rather angry.

jerry

Hmmm…I’m curious about what you have said. I wonder how other people who share your background feel about this. I’ll wait and see.

Thanks for stopping by.

jerry

You can duck and shuffle and use old aphorisms all you like, but when it comes down to using the bible to hurt people that’s going way too far. Back off.

Now you’re welcome to believe and rely on ‘magic thought’ and things that don’t actually exist to explain your existence, but at the same time, if you’re a real American, you know good and well that you’ve got no business hurting or doing bad things to those who don’t believe as you do. Evidently some, including our own Armed services, haven’t gotten the memo. We all should have been taught to treat all equitably by parents and schools, but some still feel the need to be cruel and take the issue into their own hands as if they were free of wrongdoing. Real Christians don’t do that sorta sad sick stuff. You live your life and give as very much love as you can to ALL…not just this one or that. There’s still plenty of space in hell for you self righteous power-hungry types.
I rather hope the lawsuit(s) against the bible publisher wind up bankrupting the publisher. Time to get humble, folks.

Thanks!

That is about the most ridiculous statement I have ever read. The particular English word ‘homsexual’ may not be present, but a particular Greek word that is translated as such is. I’m curious, would you care to share your pain with us? I would be happy to listen and pray for you. There is not cause for people be mean to anyone. That does not change the fact that acts of homosexuality are sinful, insistence on practicing homosexuality is a sin, and that committing acts of a homosexual nature is sinful. There is simply no debate about this except among those who are practicing homosexuality. Homosexuals are not beyond the grace of God, but those who accept God’s grace must stop practicing the acts of homosexuality.

Thanks for stopping by, but I respectfully disagree.

jerry