Answering A Non-Anonymous Critic From The Kirk

. . . And doing it with delight. Finally, someone brave enough to use his name!

I'm going to post brief, point-by-point responses to David D., a Kirker who, in offline emails, takes me to task on my recent posts. I'll quote from him directly as appropriate (cutting and pasting, editing only for typos), with thanks, again, for what I can see is a basic decency in him that's lacking in some of my correspondents.

This exchange comes from my critique of what I think is his faulty hermeneutic, or manner of interpreting Scripture, as well as my assertion that the imprecatory ("harm to enemies") prayers of the Psalms are not a model for us today, nor were they intended to be. I believe that the entire Word of God is, first of all, the Word of God -- and within that cohesive, comprehensive Word, there are different genres (history, law, proverbs, epistles, poetry, etc.), and that we draw doctrine from law and the epistles, say, but generally not history or proverbs. It's on this point that David, who has asked me to use his name rather than the pseudonym I offered to use, remarks:

DAVID: On the Psalms, where, exegetically, do you get that they are in Scripture but reflect non-scriptural prayers? Which ones are the word of God and which "don't belong" except as bad examples. Starting w/ (the premise) that all Scripture being God-breathed, and ending with singing psalms and spiritual songs and hymns, there is plenty of Scriptural warrant for seeing all the Psalms as righteous in their place. If not, then perhaps you should let us know which are to be abandonded.

KEELY: I said they were not an example incumbent upon believers to follow, and cries of lament and hyperbole from David are abrogated by the cries of literal love and specific mercy from Jesus on the cross. I stand by that -- that doesn't make the prayers "non-Scriptural," it makes them not an imperative for the believer. Cutting the thumbs off of warring enemies is "Scriptural," in that it's part of the historical record, but I hardly think you'd argue that it would be "Scriptural" to chop off the thumbs of enemy combatants in Iraq. I fail to see how Christ Church's singing of psalms, along with Sabbath feasting and strong patriarchal families, is an effective three-way means in and of itself of taking the Palouse for Christ. Singing the psalms is, of course, Biblical. But it is not even reasonable, much less in accord with the Gospel, to sing the imprecatory psalms as a rallying template for Christian engagement.

DAVID: We are already at a huge divide on the word. Inconvenient truths are interpreted away. (What is your stand on corporal punishment? Based on your writings as I recall, you are against it. If so, which Proverbs are wrong?)

KEELY: I believe that the Book of Proverbs is a book of just that -- proverbs, which are adages, general truths, and observations, not hard-and-fast guidelines. We believe that generally speaking, kids raised in the Way won't depart from it. We don't do "spiritual autopsies" on their parents if they do end up departing from the faith, even unto death. Too often, for example, the Book of Proverbs is used as a smackdown of the poor when we try to simplify the cause of poverty in a given situation, or refuse to co-sign a loan for a needy friend because of admonitions and observations that point out that the signer can end up being stuck with the loan. Do we provide real help, or take the "out" that a wooden application of the Proverbs could allow?

And yes -- I am opposed to corporal punishment. I take "rod" metaphorically and agree with the Proverbs that withholding discipline is a way of "hating" your child. I don't, however, confuse "discipline" with "punishment" -- and I don't picture Jesus, or any shepherd, whose "rod and staff, they comfort me," then using the rod to beat the sheep. We swatted our kids a total, for both of them, of about six times.

I wish you could have heard the prayer my son offered at our extended family July 4 gathering, or hear the kindness in my son's voice when he calls to check on me, or benefit from the glow of an elderly friend's commending me on having raised a polite, responsible, decent young man. One of my sons is on an academic scholarship to the UI who drives to Pullman for church because the teaching is good there; the other is a gifted poet, artist, and writer, a voracious reader adamently opposed to drinking, smoking, drugs, and premarital sex. They're far from perfect, but spanking them wouldn't have made them better. When they do, as is inevitable in the young, screw something up, it won't be because they didn't get spanked. I endeavored, with Jeff, to raise them with pretty much the Fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5 as my "parenting plan," and God's prospering of Jeff's business enabled me to stay home with them. I consider every instance -- all half-dozen of them -- of swatting my kids to have been a failure on my part to do better.

DAVID: (On my use of "the serrated edge" of rhetoric) So Doug uses the serrated edge, calls it scriptural, defends it and gets nothing but crap from you. You, in order to hold your own, are "sharp" and "sarcastic" (or) otherwise people would call you names.

KEELY: Frankly, if I didn't deal sharply and even sarcastically with Dontbia Nass, he'd accuse me of icky feminine sentimentalism. Notice, though, that I do not use sarcasm or harsh words with unbelievers, and it's on this point that I'm critical of Doug and those men who fillet those outside of the church. I stand by that; it's those in the church I might rhetorically sting, but never those outside.

"What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside." Paul, to the Church in Corinth, 1 Cor. 5:12-13.