Seeing as my most recent post was hijacked into a “how thick was the carpet in Patterson’s office?” discussion, not very far

Regarding being different: I hope the SBC can get past its canerian understanding of Islam and how to engage Muslims. There are many IMB guys who are doing things differently [myself included] but are not at much liberty to speak out on better ways of doing stuff. We all look at what happened to Greeson and keep it in the community. We have too many people who no nothing of Islam critiquing missionaries and calling them heretics and trying to get them fired. That is not an atmosphere which fosters innovation and dialogue even within our own ranks.

All of that said, I would really like to stick to the topic of Lot here. I welcome new information that relates to Lot, the early church father’s position on Lot, and even different paradigms for looking at culture–but make the case yourself and we will discuss it.

BTW, I have a part two planned to follow up my previous camel post.

http://www.tnr.com/article/books/seeing-and-believing

At my invitation best of my knowledge, James Willingham and Gene Scarborough have enlivened the discussion here.

No hijacking intended, not even close to what many of my friends think Pressler and Patterson were up to in the 80′s; I had a final thought but it escapes me at the moment.
May come back to it later.
Thanks for your response.
Again, would like to see what Rastis thinks are the limits to your invitation to discuss cultural engagement.

I think, perhaps, the problem may rest in your perception of what we believe. In reality, David Rogers and I have to work to find things we disagree on. And Rastis and I, (if you’d read the posts and the comments) are in virtual agreement on most points, with the exception of the fact that he sees Lot in a more positive light than I do.

Stephen, you do not come to blogs to engage in the discussion, but to hijack it toward your ideas and links. That is simply a fact. 90% of your comments reference other people and articles that interest you but have nothing to do with the post.

You have your own blog on which you can write your own ideas. When you come to other people’s blogs, you should at least give them the respect of writing on topics in some way related to what they are writing about.

If you would read my articles at either of these sites, you would find that I regularly and courteously engage people who disagree with me. The problem I have with you is that you do not engage the subject matter in any way.

The real focus of this debate is cultural engagement. How do Christians in American and in nations around the world deal with the cultures in which they live?

My link goes to the heart of that question around the world in one of the key problems of our time.
My reading of your exchange with Rastis so far is he, like David Rogers as SBCimpact, may be open to more ecumenical strategies than you and Joe Blackmon, as an example.
And then there is the template of Parham and Common Word.
I don’t think you have a problem with trolling; it’s a matter of Hospitality and the degrees extended along the Christian spectrum.
I would be interested to see what Rastis and Tom Parker think on this aspect of the discussion, hopefully in reference to the rd link above.

Troll elsewhere.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/mediaculture/2348/islam%2C_meet_maureen_dowd/

I talked with a lady on a plane once. She realized the conversation was about to get religious and so she cut me off at the pass with “I just don’t believe there are any absolutes.” While I believe this woman’s worlview to in general be false, there are caveats, back doors if you will, which allow the gospel in on certain basis. While her worldview did not value absolutes, and thus the Bible, it did value philosophers. Rather than completely throwing out her system, I used part of it as a bridge. I asked her if I could talk about Plato. She was very interested, if not shocked. I drew out on a napkin how Plato believed in absolutes. At the end of the “lesson” she admitted “I guess there are absolutes.” My next question: “can I talk to you about the Bible.”

When our approach is simply to look at the whole culture or just the whole worldview, call it false, and throw it away, we lose many valuable means of reaching people through their own system. Reaching them through caveats in their system (Don Richardson calls them redemptive analogies) makes the gospel indigenous rather than foreign.

Anyway, I dont know if any of that actually touches on the debate, so I guess it is for free.