Loud Cries from the Bigger Tent, an Allegory (allegorical is …

Comment on New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues by wesley kime.

Loud Cries from the Bigger Tent, an Allegory (allegorical is big nowadays): “You accuse me of accepting theistic evolution? You lie! (By the way, what IS that?)”

“You accuse me of denying the Bible? How do you know what I believe, just from what I’ve proclaimed! Don’t tell me what I believe. I can’t believe you said I deny the Bible — I’m a believer possessed of fuller, more transcendent faith than you.”

“You accuse me of scoffing off the 6-day creation of Genesis 1? That’s abuse, that’s persecution; you’ve hurt me. Better a millstone be tied around your neck. I believe in the 6 days as much as you do! Only they’re allegorical, those days. And I see a broader meaning to Genesis 1 than what we’ve been taught (or what EGW says).”

Moral: the Third Angel’s Loud Cry in the Broader Tent is “Broader Meaning,” not deeper understanding.

wesley kime Also Commented

New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Dear Ken, I noted your venturing, “…human centric, isn’t it?” Indeed it is. “For God so loved the world that he gave His own son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but…”(you know the rest), John 3:16. God Himself could not be more human centric, nor He who died for humanity. And believing thus is God centric, Bible centric. And SDA centric. To me, and I say this unashamedly, it would seem eccentric not to thus centered. Yes, we’re enjoying our Sabbath.


New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Look, if indeed there is not one shredy-shred-shred of evidence for Creation, only for Evo, as is being touted, paradoxically, by both extremes, the sober Bible believer and the whimsical whatever, faith takes over, of course. But if indeed there is evidence for Creation, didn’t God provide it? Does not such evidence devolve upon God’s Creation itself – its rocks, flagella, creatine, DNA? If so, why forfeit it? Might we not have to answer for ignoring what God has given us, like talents? Or is evidence itself of random origin, like all Evo?


New NAD president: ‘I love you’ doesn’t mean we won’t deal with issues
Can’t “beat the devil on his own ground”? Recognizing, valuing, and presenting evidence is the devil’s ground? Why give the devil any ground, much less the high ground? While his generals went on and on bemoaning that the high, middle, and low ground was Bobby Lee’s, General Grant saw it more clearly, and let loose with, “Oh, I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault.” Gen. Pitman can be heartily tired of hearing that Evo owns the evidence. The evidence is as much Creation’s as Evo’s.


Recent Comments by wesley kime

Beyond the Creation Story – Why the Controversy Matters
@Ken: Ken, re. yours of May 31, 15 12:42 pm: … those standing up for FB28 have every right to do so…until they [presumably the FBs, not the communicants, although either could be changed in a twinkling of any eye] are democratically changed.”

FB28? What’s that? You probably know better than I. Genesis 1 I can quote; FB28 I can’t. And won’t bother to check. I couldn’t even tell you where to find those FBs. I read what you say more assiduously than the FBs. (What’s FB? FaceBook?)

In the first place I think you’ve got Adventism wrong, or at least Adventism as I know it. Well, maybe you haven’t, the postmodernist kind anyway. I’m pre-catechistic, ergo prehistoric, alas. I’m that old.

FB28 or whatever it is, if it WERE changed, democratically or otherwise, dramatically or creepingly, by evolution or edict, even if expunged and expurgated in the interest of big-tent accord, which seemed on the verge of happening pre-T. Wilson, and may yet, I wouldn’t even know it until I saw it here. You’d know before I would.

With or without and despite FB28 or whatever, or EduTruth, I’d still honor Genesis 1. I’d honor it, A, by faith, because the Bible, i.e. God, says so. A validated faith validated by B, The evidence, good scientific falsifiable evidence. And C, the consummate cosmic multi-vectored syllogism. Everything fits.

Seriously, though, discussion has to start somewhere and be referenced by something, for convenience if not citizenship. But I’d prefer to start, if granted “every right,” with Genesis 1, at the beginning.


Dr. Ariel Roth’s Creation Lectures for Teachers
@Ken: “something Dr. Kime said struck a very strange chord in me: that a Chair in ID at Harvard would be a quantum leap (forward – my edit) while such a Chair would be a step backward at LSU. I’ m very sorry Wes, but for me to honestly investigate reality, such double standard is not acceptable. …[therefore] I think I’m coming to the end of my Adventist journey.”

I can, of course, dear friend, understand why, and respect that, you would see the two directions of leaping, forward and backward, by Harvard and LSU, as a double standard.

But might it also be seen as simple Einsteinian Relativity? It all depends on from whence you’re starting or observing. Two venues, Harvard vs. LSU, two vectors, not two standards. At any rate, a parting of our ways. The Chair did it. A very unlucky ill-omened Chair, from the start.

Parting — that indeed is sad, especially this parting. I grieve too. In sadness we are agreed. That’s not double speak; only you could I say that to.

For these several years you, and your courteous ways, even your questions, have been most fascinating, even endearing, inspiring to both poetic and, I now regret, rasping response. I’ve so much enjoyed your postings, always looked for them first, and appreciated your uncommon patience and politeness, and our camaraderie in the bomb shelter and on the grandstand. Too bad the Chair, our double bed, didn’t work out.

As benediction, maybe we can all get together again, somewhere. Meanwhile, the Mizpah, which I think I should be the one to deliver, seeing it was, you say, my one-liner that was the last straw, for which I’ll get heck all around, and rightly so: “The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” Genesis 31:49.

What the heck, have some popcorn for the road. And don’t forget your cyber plaque. You will be remembered, appreciated, thought about, prayed for. Do come back soon.

Until then, your jousting friend, W


Strumming the Attached Strings
@Phillip Brantley: Excellent! I shall quote you: “learn something from Sean Pitman.” Indeed, indeed — there’s so much to learn from that man.


Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation
@Bill Sorensen: “I don’t know if anyone has really been able to follow your thinking…”

A tad, a smidgeon, just slightly overstated maybe? Just a tad, just a smidgeon, at the cost of not a few dislikes? Well, I for one do follow it. And with great admiration. Great.


What does it take to be a true Seventh-day Adventist?
@Ervin Taylor: Out of purely poetic symmetry of rhetoric, Ervin, your trademark whimsical “…I guess someone who rejects…” is asking for — I was waiting for it! — a Pitman’s “I guess someone who accepts…” Lovely diptych, ping and pong.