Judas Maccabeus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 9:15 pm
I am most certainly not reformed . I do not know how to make it more clear.
My post on reformed theology was not intended to imply that you as a person "are Reformed" in some total sense, and if you read carefully, you will see that I never applied that label to you or to S&T.Judas Maccabeus wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 4:33 pm Just because you use material from reformed authors does not make you reformed.
I stand by my main thesis that you and S&T promote Reformed concepts that conflict with traditional Anabaptist doctrine. Departing from points of traditional Anabaptist doctrine is not necessarily a bad thing—I don't agree with them on everything either. What bothers me about the S&T approach is that it doesn't feel straightforward. In my view S&T is using the cause of cultural and theological preservation as cover to promote doctrinal formulations novel to Anabaptism.
Put another way, it looks like taking advantage of the theological disorder among contemporary Anabaptists to engineer a Protestant fundamentalist takeover inside a Trojan Horse labeled Old Paths and Ancient Landmarks.
You will doubtless consider this an unfair characterization of what you're doing, and I welcome you to continue making that case. I probably won't debate it with you, as I'm not personally invested in what Sword & Trumpet or their constituency are up to theologically. I'm revisiting it here only to clarify what I wrote earlier.
In summary, I have never believed or intentionally implied that you accept every point of Reformed Doctrine wholesale. I do believe your work is pushing Mennonites who heed you away from traditional Anabaptist and toward Reformed habits of thought. I concede that in the heat of composition I may have overstated that case, and where I did so I apologize.
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Finally, my last long post directed at you was entirely unrelated to any doctrinal differences, but strictly to your mode and tactics of engagement. I hate those tactics just as much when they're being deployed in defense of things I agree with—more in fact, because then they discredit ideas I care about, instead of those I wish to see discredited anyway.
I wrote as sharply as I did because I saw the situation as egregious and prolonged, and gentler rebukes by several people seemed to have had no effect. I hope I overstated that case too, but I spent a lot of time thinking carefully about what I ought to say before I said it. So while I'm paying respectful attention to people's feedback, I'm not ready to retract it yet.
That said, I invite all present who believe I am wildly deluded and unjust to pray for my enlightenment.
And now I'll attempt to extract myself from active involvement for a bit so as not to neglect the people I have to do with in person. That group includes some of my closest friends, a committed and theologically astute Reformed Baptist family with whom, despite my alleged unfamiliarity with Reformed concepts, we just spent another late Friday night wrestling through some of the finer points of our respective theological frameworks.