Did you hear Senator Edwards on “The View” charging Vice President Cheney with untruths and inaccuracies, but not bothering to back up the allegation? It’s so very frustrating to see folks make allegations and then not even try to back up what they are saying. The Kerry/Edwards folks do this all the time, and it drives me nuts.
On a smaller scale, today one of our local Federal Visionists posted a complete non-response to my quotation (yes, those are quotes; they are in print; they are even in context) of Steve Schlissel’s highly emotional, but much less than helpful retort to Richard Phillips in The Auburn Avenue Theology: Pros and Cons (cited below). One will note (if one has read the book) that Rev. Phillips likewise took umbrage at the tone and flavor of the response, and rightly so. But our local FVist completely missed the point. First, he said my statements were “inaccurate.” How so? Prove the allegation. Were they mis-cited? Out of context? What? Evidently, like one of his mentors, ipse dixit seems to be sufficient. He says I took Schlissel in the worst possible way. Really? Phillips seemed to understand him just like I did. In fact, when you go to the lengths Schlissel did to get your point across, I do have to wonder what other possibilities we are to entertain as to his meaning? If you can get your blood pressure that high on paper, and still not get your point across, you’ve got a real problem. Of course, our FVist doesn’t tell us what Schlissel does mean, and how he obtained this special knowledge, but that’s par for the course as well. Of course, we are told that since this fellow knows Schlissel, his “catholicity” can’t be questioned. That’s nice, but it doesn’t address the quotations provided, does it? More non-answers. Finally, we are told that this kind of rhetoric has already crossed the Mississippi. Yes, that is true. But, of course, I made reference to a temporal context which seems to have missed our local FVist: November 5th. Obviously, I was stating my hope that Doug Wilson will not engage in the same kind of rhetoric-without-dealing-with-the-issues that this section of the book represents in the debate in November. I am unaware of anyone who would be interested in inviting our local FVist to a national platform to debate, hence, his seemingly inadvertent admission to using the same kind of rhetoric, even here in the Valley of the Sun, does not have much relevance to my expressed desire that the debate transcend the kind of “in your face” style Schlissel expressed in those words. Of course, sometimes you speak the most honestly when you speak in that fashion. I will be more than mildly interested in Doug Wilson’s thoughts on Schlissel’s words.
