JOSEPH NORMAN’S TOP TEN TACTICS TO DEAL WITH FELLOW EVANGELICALS WITH WHOM YOU DISAGREE, ESPECIALLY ON THE TOPIC OF INERRANCY
- Never address the strongest arguments of your opponents. Better yet, don’t even acknowledge that you are aware of those arguments. Knock down the easiest arguments and declare victory.
- Misrepresent the position of the persons with whom you disagree, so that it’s easier to rebut them.
- Attribute to your opponents views that are not theirs but held by their close friends and scholarly collaborators. Better yet, associate your opponents closely with someone who is genuinely questionable and tarnish your opponents with the same brush.
- When someone tries to post an argument on your blogsite that you can’t counter, don’t allow it to be posted or delete it after you realize you can’t counter it.
- When you can’t come up with a rational response to a particular view, engage in a smear campaign against the people holding that view.
- When somebody replies with a humorous response to try to highlight the silliness of your position that way, become outraged and demean them by declaring how badly they have behaved.
- Don’t ever agree to debate your opponent live, or participate in a colloquium or round table discussion, or put your views in print in a context in which multiple people represent multiple points of view. After all, that’s a surefire way for others to see the inadequacy of your actual arguments.
- Always speak from the moral high ground. Only you really care about truth, only your view can advance God’s kingdom; all others are dangerous and damaging, irrespective of the motives or track records of your opponents. Be an alarmist every chance you can.
- Seek to ban your opponent from organizations or institutions they are a part of. Don’t let them speak or publish if you have the ability to prevent them from doing so. Then compel others who disagree with them to also censure them. Blacklist even those acquaintances who agree with you when they refuse to censure your opponents.
- Above all, never, never, never admit you were wrong or made a mistake. Apologizing is for sissies. After all, it really isn’t just the Bible that’s inerrant; you are inerrant also!
Spot on ...
ReplyDeleteAre you referencing something that Craig Blomberg wrote. If so, perhaps you should give a reference.
ReplyDeleteThe reference is that Blomberg wrote it and I was someone he sent it to to share if I did so desire. It's not in any professional work.
ReplyDeleteWho's idea was it to focus on this very narrow word called "inerrancy," which can be misconstrued and cause miscommunication? Why not focus on using the idea of the "sufficiency" of the new testament scriptures?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking more terms like sufficiency or reliability overall would be better.
ReplyDelete"Inerrancy" was a word carefully picked by J. I. Packer and others because it both clearly defined a position and severed a a term which set apart the opponents in the debate. I'd hate to see us abandon the term because it does such a good job of both.
ReplyDelete"Sufficiency" and "reliability" are certainly good words, but they do not clearly define the debate. The issue is that the Bible, when properly interpreted, tells the truth in all that it says. Both sides of the original debates would use terms like "sufficiency' and 'reliability,' but mean vastly different things by those terms.