As it occurs, I had offered a very broad range of topics in relation to any of which I would have been most interested to hear your thoughts, but the concision of your reply speaks volumes. If I am a fool indeed then you do well to disregard my ravings and I do well to rave elsewhere, if rave I must... although, as you have pointed out, my options are few and far between.
I did think your application of Proverbs 17:24 to call me a fool was solipsistic at best and departed very greatly from the meaning of that verse, which was written by a man whose understanding of cosmology would certainly coincide with my own. I prayed about it all and it seemed that if I am to be called a fool then I must accept it with a cheerful heart: the Lord knows my foolishness and the limits of my understanding, but the matter continued to rankle and so needed addressing.
More latterly, my painstaking reading of Lamentations in response to your express request produced absolutely no comment whatsoever, which is not to imply that any comment was due - a simple thank you would have more than sufficed and was surely required in the interests of common courtesy. Instead, I have wondered for months exactly what I did wrong on that occasion.
As for cosmology, I was resigned to holding different views and mentioning the matter only during tea time and never during the assembly, but you broke that rule of courtesy by coming to church one morning to ascend to the platform with depicitions of Roman gods around your neck and then challenging my mute reaction by advising me to read a Vatican Bible to find a defence of your mainstream views of cosmology, going on to explain that an allegorical interpretation of our Bible was sometimes to be preferred, just as I had been told at the Birmingham Pentecostal some time beforehand. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement.
Perhaps I have spoken out of turn too often, but I have done so in defence of Scripture rather than to promote my own ideas and may the Lord rebuke me if fault be found in me.
I have sometimes been rebuked by members of other congregations for my critical stance in various churches, but those who rebuke me are simply adopting the same behaviour in relation to me, and their words have no power. I avoid criticising the brethren as far as I am able - I think I have no right to do so and I know I am judged by the same benchmarks and often fall short. But once a man ascends to the platform and pretends to silence those who would disagree, I think the Bible gives us rather more lattitude to voice our objections when we hear unscriptural assertions, as you have certainly realised. I think dialogue would be essential in such cases, but surely a critic is far more to be valued than one who will follow blindly.
Critics may be wrong of course, so as a new believer I try to remain open to those who would school me. It has been my experience however that my ideas and proposals have been in the very broad main unwelcome, disregarded, or attacked with little or no scriptural basis or very selective use of scripture, as occurred, for example, when I pointed out that a certain adage you were wont to recite from the platform was fascistic and not at all in line with Biblical teachings. It seemed to me that you devoted the next sermon to justifying yourself by using your Strong's to find "good men" in the Bible while disregarding those central verses that reveal the lie of the assertions attributed to Edmund Burke. You have since desisted from mentioning this particular meme, so perhaps you ultimately accepted my argument, or perhaps you just wait until I am absent. The matter has not been discussed however, and I think it is a pity. I have no personal desire to prevail: I am generally quite happy to remain as thick as two short planks.
Or the time at a Plymouth Brethren chapel when the preacher wrote to me with a slew of verses to justify the institutional refusal to allow me to partake of the bread and the wine one fateful Lord's day, while avoiding the one critical verse that clearly supports the position of self-determination that you and I both hold.
I had avoided writing this message for nearly two years because I was happy to attend the meetings and offer my support in spite of our differences, but it seems the time is now ripe. The current crisis is truly making a division among the people. I think divisions need to be dispelled by the light, but it is my experience in the churches I have attended that they are brushed under the carpet in the majority of cases and so I followed suit.
If these issues can be laid to rest, I will be happy to resume my attendance, if and when this is allowed. But I do stand by my right to voice my objections when I sense any breaking of Scripture from the platform and I will continue to speak of Biblical cosmology freely, although, as in the past, I am happy to avoid doing so during the service: I do recognise the authority of the platform. I would also be willing to deliver a message from time to time, as you once suggested you might allow, perhaps before realising that I believe unshakeably that the World and the Heavens have been misdescribed and we need to return to a Biblical understanding also of these matters.
Or the time at a Plymouth Brethren chapel when the preacher wrote to me with a slew of verses to justify the institutional refusal to allow me to partake of the bread and the wine one fateful Lord's day, while avoiding the one critical verse that clearly supports the position of self-determination that you and I both hold.
I had avoided writing this message for nearly two years because I was happy to attend the meetings and offer my support in spite of our differences, but it seems the time is now ripe. The current crisis is truly making a division among the people. I think divisions need to be dispelled by the light, but it is my experience in the churches I have attended that they are brushed under the carpet in the majority of cases and so I followed suit.
If these issues can be laid to rest, I will be happy to resume my attendance, if and when this is allowed. But I do stand by my right to voice my objections when I sense any breaking of Scripture from the platform and I will continue to speak of Biblical cosmology freely, although, as in the past, I am happy to avoid doing so during the service: I do recognise the authority of the platform. I would also be willing to deliver a message from time to time, as you once suggested you might allow, perhaps before realising that I believe unshakeably that the World and the Heavens have been misdescribed and we need to return to a Biblical understanding also of these matters.
You are the most able preacher at the assemby in my opinion, although I believe that you misconstrue your strengths and weaknesses (as do we all). I would have heard A more often, were it allowed, and I listened to C gladly because he follows the Word closely. I am less fond of the visiting preachers in the main, most of whose preaching is, in my view, works based.
I have always had the dubious privilege of being a divisive figure. A close friend of my wife's, a very clever and indeed charming gentleman from many perspectives although a dedicated follower of Baal, once described me in the local vernacular as the "baston d'merda" which, he explained, was that stick that one finds in the park and gathers up to throw for the dog, before realising that it has been fouled. There is, he noted, no way to grasp such a stick without transferring some of the offence to one's own clothing and skin.
I have always had the dubious privilege of being a divisive figure. A close friend of my wife's, a very clever and indeed charming gentleman from many perspectives although a dedicated follower of Baal, once described me in the local vernacular as the "baston d'merda" which, he explained, was that stick that one finds in the park and gathers up to throw for the dog, before realising that it has been fouled. There is, he noted, no way to grasp such a stick without transferring some of the offence to one's own clothing and skin.
I did not take it as a compliment. But I have noticed over the years that it was perhaps a canny observation. I seem to have acquired an unenviable knack for drawing attention to elephants in rooms, often unwittingly, and it has not advanced my social status whatsoever... after all, who wants to have such a stick in the house?
