[Vision2020] more on the subject of my evangelical arm

[keely emerinemix]

I answered too quickly and forgot a couple of other points, namely this:  I 
can barely lift a five-pound medicine ball with that arm, Ted.  That means 
the size of a good study Bible with concordance, or a bottle of pinot 
grigio.  If youwant someone who can do 100 lbs. at a straight lift, you'll 
have to go find Carl Westberg.

I agree, more or less, with the definition provided for "evangelical," but I 
would not include Reconstructionists, Christian Identity, or King James-only 
fundamentalists.  Generally, fundamentalists disallow any identification 
with "evangelicals" and Identity groups hold to a vicious and ugly theology 
that departs from historic, credal theology on a number of points, not the 
least of which is its inevitable anti-Semitism.  An alternative definition 
(from a sociology professor I studied under in college) is this:  a person 
who, while holding to the traditional creeds of the orthodox (note:  not 
"Orthodox") historical Christian faith who additionally embraces the 
following three tenets:  The primacy of Christ as Savior, the need for a 
personal, regenerative relationship with him, and the importance of personal 
proclamation of the Gospel.  Sorry, but dismantling worldly institutions to 
usher in the dominion of the church, thus paving the way for the Millennium, 
doesn't qualify (Reconstructionism); neither does the absurd belief that the 
Twelve tribes migrated to what is now Great Britain and that none of them, 
amazingly enough, were actually Jewish (Identity).  And today's 
fundamentalists, the KJV-only set, tend to not engage at all with 
unbelievers and are critical of those who do, which would seem to violate 
the third tenet of evangelicalism.  (Remember, it was the fundies who 
blasted that wild-eyed liberal, Billy Graham, in the 1960s for once sharing 
a podium with -- gasp! -- Jews, Muslims, and . . . Methodists.  Fortunately, 
Billy survived their rebuke, while fundies now find themselves arguing about 
who can be nastier in arguing about how damned everyone else is, for the 
glory of God.

And fundies are resolutely patriarchial, which, I think, gets us back to our 
opening salvo -- a rhetorical, not physical, salvo . . .

keely

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