Masculine Pastors: The Battle They Face and Will Face Even More

The two most common observations I read and hear about manhood today are some kind of (1) tortured masculinity and then (2) decreasing masculinity.  Men are either participating in a type of warped manhood or are more effeminate.  The two are related.

I like writing and talking about tortured or warped manhood, under which is a category I call, "fake manhood," but for now I want to focus on something else I've covered in recent days (here, here, here, and here), effeminacy, and especially as it applies to pastors.  When I was a child, we watched a television series called, The Waltons, which was a church going family in Virginia.  The "Baptist" pastor was soft speaking, appearing, and acting.  Most movie presentations of Jesus make Him the same type of character.  I'm finding that this is now what is expected of a pastor, if he truly is in a modern estimation to manifest the 'virtues of Christ.'  He must take on that pop understanding of Jesus.

I observe and sense myself a major societal push toward a pastor can't be both a real man and a pastor, because many, if not most today, buy into the concept of "toxic masculinity," where real masculinity is seen as unacceptable.  Since I've been a pastor, I've been clued into this for awhile, but I've been reminded of it again and again.  Many times, people pull out an expectation of softness or gentleness, essentially capitulation as a fulfillment of pastoral qualification, to fit my office.

At 55 years of age, I no longer participate in competitive sports.  When I did, if, as a pastor, I competed hard, like a man, some took offense to that kind of intensity, and would suggest this wasn't fitting of the office. Should the activity or manner of a pastor be conformed to others' perception of what they think he should be?

Manly talk manifests characteristics of manhood:  strength, confidence, and tenacity.  My experience with the men of my generation and older is that as a whole they speak in a different way than younger generations of men, the same for pastors.  In general they lack the before ascribed qualities.

In addition, the old way of talking as a man is now not tolerated, especially by the younger generation.  They don't want the kind of talk that comes from older men.  When the younger generation wants to say whatever it wants to say, it expects capitulation from the older.  The younger may term the older, "thinskinned."  What I often hear from the younger generation is what my generation calls a "smart mouth," which has a definition:  "an ability or tendency to make impertinent retorts; impudence."  My generation didn't tolerate a smart mouth.  Today it is expected.

Today many of a softer generation would see the strength of a former to be an instinct to authoritarianism.  Every generation sees some tendency to authoritarian leadership.  Today talking with a command voice and speaking with authority is confused for authoritarianism.  Authoritarians do both, but being a leader necessitates authority, which also requires both command voice and authoritative manner.

I understand that there are verses that taken apart from the rest of scripture might seem to portray a softer view of a church leader.  Two come to mind.

2 Timothy 2:24 And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, 

Proverbs 15:1 A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

"Be gentle" and "soft answer" are popular requirements for pastors from people who want gentleness and softness.  I'm not rejecting those two verses.  I'm saying they've got to be taken into the context of much more required of the other kind of speech or style for men.

A lot of places in both the Old and New Testaments remind me of what a younger generation doesn't want to hear.  There are so many of them from the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul.  The latter, writing about the false teachers among the Galatians, said in Galatians 5:12, "I would they were even cut off which trouble you."  Concerning those who said that circumcision should be added to grace, Paul would that they would be mutilated, in essence a botched circumcision to paint the picture.

The Apostle Paul informed Titus (2:15) to "speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee."  As much as Titus might receive opposition for teaching what Paul wrote in Titus 2, today it might be worse.  We need men who will rebuke, like Paul did when he withstood Peter to the face, with all authority.  Then, how does a pastor obey the command, "let no man despise thee"?  People go ahead and despise, so what do you do about that?  You either don't allow it, if possible, and then stand up to it.  That's the kind of strength of manhood that we need from leaders in churches that we are getting so seldom today, in part because of a challenge against manhood in this culture.

Kethiv / Qere and King James Only (KJVO) or Perfect Preservation

Sometimes anti-perfect preservationists, opponents of the perfectly preserved Word in the Hebrew and Greek Textus Receptus, argue that the presence of the kethiv / qere in the Hebrew Old Testament proves that Scripture has not been perfectly preserved.  While this is not the easiest issue to address for someone who does not know Hebrew, the Christian who accepts God's promises of preservation (Psalm 12:6-7; Isaiah 59:21; Matthew 28:19-20; Revelation 22:18-19, etc.) should have an answer to people who attempt to cast doubt on God's promises to keep His Words from the presence of the kethiv / qere.

In the Hebrew text, the kethiv / qere are notes indicating that a given word is written (kethiv) one way but is to be read (qere) a different way. Anti-preservationists typically assert that the kethiv / qere are textual variants, similar to the footnotes in a NA27 or UBS5 Greek NT.  The vast majority of the time this is simply assumed, not proven.  However, anti-preservationists must justify this assumption. Why is there always only one qere / kethiv pair if the qere is a textual variant?  Were there never, ever multiple variants?

Anti-preservationists must also prove that the traditional Jewish view of the kethiv / qere is incorrect (see my essay Evidences for the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points for sources):

The Talmud clearly speaks of the Kethiv/Qere distinction and other textual distinctions considered Masoretic, and traces them to Moses at Sinai.

Said R. Isaac, “The correct text of Scripture deriving from the scribes, the embellishments of the letters derived from the scribes, the words that are read in the text not as they are spelled out, the words that are spelled out but not read—all represent law revealed by God to Moses at Sinai.”

“The correct text of Scripture deriving from the scribes”:  These are the words in Hebrew for land, heaven, Egypt [where the tone vowels are lengthened, but nothing in the lettering indicates this change].

Up until quite recently the Kethiv/Qere were “by all writers, allowed to be, at the least, nearly as old as the Times of Ezra;  and by many of the ancient Jewish Writers they are taken to be as old, as the Text, to which they belong” (pg. 286, Whitfield, A Dissertation on the Hebrew Vowel-Points).

Note as well that a variety of explanations can be made by for the kethiv / qere by advocates of perfect preservation other than (alleged) corruption in the Hebrew text by following the standard harmonizing practice of old Jewish interpreters such as Kimchi, to explain the existence of both readings.  For example, Whitfield explains the three instances in Psalm 71:20  of the same kethiv / qere by writing:  “I cannot think it probable, three Mistakes of the same kind could, any how happen in the Compass of one Verse.  Supposing the points as ancient as we are endeavouring to prove them, I believe this Diversity in this, and some other places, betwixt the reading by the Letters and by the points, was originally designed by the Holy Penman, perhaps to shew that the Import of the place might be applied to himself as a single Person, or to the Community whereof he was the Head” (pg. 198, A Dissertation on the Hebrew Vowel-Points).

There are "things hard to be understood" in the kethiv / qere, and no one explanation (including the modern anti-preservation one) easily explains all the data.  I believe a perfect preservationist would do well to take seriously the traditional Jewish view that both readings were present from the time Moses gave the law at Sinai, although I think it is also possible that (under inspiration, as for the book of Ezra itself, etc.) Ezra could have put at least some of them in because, perhaps, of pronunciation changes over time.  After all, Ezra is about 1,000 years after Moses and pronunciation can change in 1,000 years very, very easily.  Why could not (for example) the kethiv / qere ("to him," English) in Job 13:15 have represented a way to convey the idea of "to him" in Hebrew in the time in which Job (as I believe) penned the book of Job (the kethiv) but by the times of Ezra the qere have represented the way to convey this same idea, and so both accurately be represented in the KJV translation?

Jews and Christians have been aware of the kethiv / qere in the Hebrew Old Testament for millennia without adopting the modern notion that their presence indicates a failure on God's part to preserve His Words or the presence of corruption in the text.  There is no need whatsoever to abandon traditional explanations for their presence and reject the plain meaning of texts on verbal, plenary preservation because of their presence.

Please see my essays The Battle Over the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points and Evidences for the Inspiration of the Hebrew Vowel Points for more information.  (Note: material in these essays, especially the second one, can get technical and difficult to follow unless one knows Hebrew.)

TDR

Why Should Men Protect or Defend Women If They Aren't or Can't Be In Charge of Women?

I want to protect and defend women, but I can't when they don't do what I tell them to do (and I'm not talking about something in disobedience to scripture).  If I have to protect my daughters, and I tell one of them not to go somewhere, that means they shouldn't go where I tell them not to go.  You can't have it both ways.  If we live in an egalitarian society, women don't need men's protection -- they can protect themselves.  If they can't protect themselves, then that's not egalitarian.  The truth is, women need men's protection.  Egalitarianism itself has resulted in the abuse of women.  It's only natural that this has occurred and is occurring.

The secular state would have you believe that women are equal with men; they just haven't caught up in their evolution.  It's nothing that has ever been proven.  It's a theory that can be and has been proven wrong, however.  It isn't happening.  If someone invades the United States, our country wouldn't and couldn't win with an egalitarian military, unless the invaders agreed to do the same.  For sure, Russia wouldn't do that.

I can argue the position of this post from scripture.  That's easy.  I'm saying it's true even without scripture.  I know women want protection.  That's easy to see.  They don't want to be told what to do, and we can see that all over, including in churches.

The contradiction about which I'm writing here is obvious to anyone, so why do men abdicate headship?  That's more complicated.  The Bible has the answer to that too, right at the beginning, but the answer is also very natural.  From a certain perspective, it doesn't make any sense that men would give up their authority to women, when they are stronger and more dominant than women.  I'm sure some men ask themselves on a regular basis why they do that.

Not in any order, first, men don't want the conflict required to take charge.  Women use means to make life difficult for a man who takes charge and protects.  Some of you men reading this post know of your experience of kneeling in the mud attempting to fix something in the yard, laying in the tight place under the sink to fix plumbing, and multiple other hard tasks.  You do those all the time.  When you're done, you don't want to go into the house and fight with your wife, because she wants her way.  You just give in because it's hard.  You shouldn't, but you do.

Second, many men prefer being liked by women to being their head and protector.  This is the situation that we in society today with the conflict between truth and kindness.  It's not kind to tell the truth.  A transgender wants the right pronoun, and you can't tell the truth.  It's against the law in some parts of the world now.  Men won't get the treatment they want if they act like a man, so they succumb to the wives.  Today they then justify their soft behavior by explaining that they are not authoritarian and they are choosing to respect their wives. 

Men have fooled themselves into thinking that they receive their authority with the consent of women.  No, they've been given their authority from God.  They look to their wives permission to be a man.  Women put on the pressure -- silent treatment, emotional fits, the cold shoulder -- and men abdicate.

When women get their way as I've described above, they think they are getting something, but what they lose, even by any way of reasoning, is much more.  Men are disrespected and they don't treat their women with respect.  The sons don't see a future as a man.  They have no role, so they are without position and aim.  Women have sons.  What do they say to their sons?  What role are these boys to take?

Women lose the strength of manhood they need.  They know it.  Men step back and stand back, waiting for women to lead.  Men don't take the initiative to lead.  They want sex, which isn't manhood, but it's what they are left with.  Men manipulate women like women do men.  Women want men by nature, but can't have them without sex.  Men lack the conviction of headship and protection.  They expect sex without commitment.  What's the use of being a man?  What's the reward of it?  Why would being a man be worth it with today's women?

I could draw a direct line to the high school mass murder in the Florida high school among all the other mass murders by young men.  These young men are without purpose or direction.  They don't have leadership, because there is little to nothing to tell them.  They don't know what to do.  They pursue a type of fake manhood.  The option is to control them either by imprisoning them or drugging them.

Part of the attraction for men for men and women for women is a lesser degree of men wanting women and women wanting men.  It even explains the drop in sperm volume today in the American male.  There is less masculinity today.  Men are choosing to be women and even reward effeminate men for being women.  I know I would be a more attractive pastor if I was more sensitive and softer.  I know that.

The rise of homosexuality also traces, I believe, to the role reversal or elimination, depending on the perspective.  Women take women in place of men and men take men in place of women.  The interchangeability allows for interchangeability.  Women take women and men take men.  They have their reasons.  None of it is right, but it's an obvious fallout.

I'm not blaming the above on women.  Men could change it.  My own position is that they won't without the gospel, but they do need to change it.  There can't be any compromise. You can't take this position and believe that's it's permissible to have women in the military.  Women can't share the engineering positions with men.  They can't be the CEO in charge of America's company, working themselves up the power triangle.

Men need to take charge again. They shouldn't be celebrating the diversity, the glass window being broken, yearning for the first female president.  None of this is good.  It's not good for men or women.

If women are going to be in charge, then they should jump into the hole in the ground to repair underground sewage.  When the large electrical line goes down because of a tree falling, call out the women.  I don't want them to, but I'm also going to be in charge if I'm expected to do all these grunge jobs.  I want to jump in that hole, but I'm not going to jump in for women who don't want my authority.

You could say that women can't have it both ways.  It's true in one sense, because they might want it both ways, but they'll never have it both ways.  They want authority and protection, but they won't have the latter without recanting the former.

Evan Roberts & the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905: His conversion (?): Part 1 of 22

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study.  On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

 

You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.

The Epistle to the Galatians and Evangelicalism or New Evangelicalism: Slaves or Sons

Paul parks on a very helpful metaphor in his epistle to the Galatians to deal with the problems with the churches there, the slave and the son.  The characteristic distinction between the slave and the son does not above all deal with content or the standard.  Both slave and son have the same requirements of them.  The slave does them because he has a schoolmaster, tutor, or governor over him, making him do it.  The son does them because he wants to do them, out of love.  The slave can't do them.  The son can do them with the differentiation of faith.

The slave and the son are the same person in Galatians.  The Master and the Father are also the same Person.  It's a matter of perspective.  Slavery isn't a goal.  It's a means to an end, and parents can understand.  You want a child who believes in what the parents are telling him, so that he'll do it on his own.  He'll do it out of love because he believes.

The son has a change in nature.  The theology of it is that he is a son because of the work of the Holy Spirit in his life, so that he now has the nature of a son, instead of a slave.  He can keep the requirements now and he wants to keep them now too.  If you don't see him keeping the requirements, you can question his sonship.  He can't or won't fulfill them on his own.

Evangelicalism and new evangelicalism have as a whole spotlighted the content or the standard, which isn't the issue in Galatians.  Those who focus on the standard do so because they either want to add or take away from the standard, which occurs in one of two ways in Galatians.  However, both are fixating on the standard.

The corruption of Galatians, where the standard is the focus, occurs one of two ways.  The two ways could be reduced to just one.  The false teachers added either circumcision, dietary restrictions, or calendar.  Those three were not even requirements any more and this is where the two ways dovetail.  The other way is not keeping requirements, which is turning liberty into license.  Why circumcision, dietary restrictions, and the calendar?  These were things you could do as a slave, they weren't hard to practice.  You could easily conform to those standards.

Once you were circumcised, nothing was required, which would have been the occurrence for every Jewish male.  If you were female, no requirement there.  Dietary restrictions were how you grew up eating, if you were a Jew -- that was only hard for a Gentile, who wasn't accustomed to it.  The days were also just how you lived.  What was impossible was fruit of the Spirit and abstaining from works of the flesh.  Those were impossible as a slave.

When you reduce righteousness to the keeping of a few requirements, then you are all set to opt out of other requirements.  Love doesn't drop requirements.  It does them with a different perspective.  It does even more than if it was just a requirement.  The son, differing from the slave, keeps all of the requirements because he wants to do them, but it is even more.  He's got a great attitude while he does it, because he can, due to his new nature, and because he really wants to please His Father.

Galatians is a reminder of the story of the prodigal son, because slave and son are both part of the story.  As an unbeliever, a son feels like a slave.  When he chooses sonship, he wants the slavery.  Paul said he was a bondslave, which is a slave, who wants to be a slave.  You get to be one, because you want to be one.  And you can perform as a slave, because you are really a son, with the nature of a son.  Ironic for the prodigal before he returned as a son was that he was a slave in the hog lot of this world, forced into a slave relationship to sin.

Galatians isn't make room for the lasciviousness of evangelicalism and new evangelicalism.  It isn't changing the requirements for Christianity, but empowering or allowing the performance, proceeding from faith in Christ and out of love for Him.

Point of 2 John: Truth the Boundary of Acceptance

The Lord Jesus Christ came in due time, the Pax Romana, koine Greek, and Roman roads. Christianity grew, spread by evangelists, who were welcomed into homes of fellowshiping churches. Following upon true preachers came false ones, posing as true to take advantage of the generosity of church families, including ladies like the one addressed in 2 John.  Hospitality was essential for the furtherance of the gospel.

With repeated mention and magnified emphasis on hospitality came warning.  You couldn't accept just anyone into your home.  False teachers would come along too and required necessary screening.  Truth was the boundary of acceptance.  This was the pattern set by Jesus and then followed by John the Apostle himself in his second epistle.

We love one another.  Hospitality was necessary, but it wasn't love if it wasn't compatible with the truth.  Love itself by definition is walking according to the Lord's commandments.  John rejoiced that the children of the lady addressed in 2 John were walking in the truth.  Hospitality is important, but not at the expense of truth.  Truth is the boundary of acceptance.

Men arrived impersonating true evangelists, looking for a place to stay and then preach.  They were not to be accommodated.  At that time, deceivers were getting around and saying that Jesus Christ was not come in the flesh.  This would be a typical false doctrine at that time in the Roman world.  We can read about something similar that damaged the Corinthians into a denial of bodily resurrection (cf. 1 Cor 15).

Hospitality was a first century form of missions support.  Evangelists weren't getting bank checks, but they were taking lodging and food from church people.  Hospitality was good, but it was horrendous if it was subsidizing damning doctrine. Truth prevails over love.  Love without truth isn't love.  Hospitality without truth causes harm.

John moves to a specific example from a general principle.  No error, no lie should be accepted.  Love isn't walking in selected commandments.  Characteristic of a true preacher is that he preaches the truth.  Truth is a larger category than fundamentals or just the gospel.  John loved in the truth, not in some truths or essential truths.  If you want to preserve the truth, you can't let any truth go by the wayside.  You shouldn't allow any lie to be taught and preachers of any lies should not be given opportunities to tell their lies.

Help the Homeless: Buy Them Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco?

Especially in large cities, substantial numbers of homeless people are found.  The Bible makes statements such as: ^"As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith" (Galatians 6:10).  We are, therefore, to do good to the homeless.  We also have texts such as: "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again" (Proverbs 19:17); "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matthew 5:42), and others.  On the basis of these texts, many Christians believe that they should give money to the homeless. But what if, at the very least in the United States, giving money to homeless people who are begging actually does them harm instead of good? What if, while it might make the person giving the money feel good, it actually does not help the homeless person?

Recently at my workplace, where I am part of the Public Safety department, we had a training session on outreach to the homeless.  We deal with homeless people regularly and have had a number of training sessions on how to work with them.  This last session was led by the assistant district attorney for our city, someone who does a lot with the homeless in our area to help them get off the street.  Near the end of the session we had time for questions, and I asked the attorney whether she thought that money given to the homeless was used for an illicit substance such as drugs or alcohol c. 90% of the time.  Her response was eye-opening--my 90% figure was too low.  She said that money given to the homeless is used for drugs, alcohol, or tobacco c. 100% of the time.  

Most homeless people are not as honest as this.

She pointed out that homeless people in the United States do not lack resources for food, shelter, and other basic needs.  In our area, there is a homeless outreach team that helps connect the homeless with appropriate resources.  She asked when it was that we saw a homeless person who was clearly starving (ribs showing, emaciated, etc.).  I have not seen homeless people like this (in the United States--in a third-world country things can be different--but even there evangelizing and planting churches so people can be born again, or, if one wants to deal only with the physical, giving Kiva loans or things of that sort, is better than random amounts of money to people begging). Why no actual starvation among the homeless?  They have numbers of options to get food.  Their food is provided for, even if they do not work for it or lift a finger for it, despite the Biblical statement: "if any would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

When a homeless person asks you for money and says he needs a sandwich or food, you can be nearly 100% sure that he is lying, and that he will use the money for what private charities or the government are not going to provide--drugs, alcohol, and tobacco--that is, the things that got a huge percentage of the homeless on the streets in the first place.

So, when you give a homeless person money, you are almost surely buying him heroin, cocaine, LSD, beer, pot, cigarettes, whisky, etc.  Do you think that you can buy him those things for the glory of God?  Do you think that buying him those things does him good and shows him compassion?  Do you think you should be funding the drug trade, helping to create more corpses from overdoses, murders by cartels, and other horrible wickedness?

It is not a sufficient response to say "I am giving him the money and he is responsible before God for what he does with it."  Yes, he is responsible before God, but why do you get to be a fool here and deceive yourself about what is happening?  If--God forbid--your son was lying to you and was buying drugs with money you gave him, would you keep buying him drugs and believing his lies?  Would that be loving him?  Should you not love the homeless person as yourself, and not fund his drug habit and drunkenness, and both harm him physically and contribute to his eternal damnation as a drunkard and a drug abuser (1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Revelation 21:8, Greek pharmakeia includes drug abuse)?

So what should you do instead of giving him money?

What I do is keep the address and phone number of the city rescue mission that preaches the gospel on my phone.  If you have more than one option, you can pick the most conservative option that is available.  You can then tell the homeless person where this place is and how to get there, telling him he will have both his physical and spiritual needs met there.  You can also preach the gospel to him.  You can give him a ride to church, while being wise as serpents and harmless as doves in doing so.  You could help him find a job--if he wants one.  Find out what resources are available to help the homeless in your area--if there is a particular number they can call to get connected with people that can help with the drug abuse, housing, food, etc., you can give him that number and direct him to these resources.  By giving him the gospel and pointing him to a rescue mission, while refusing to give him money, you are showing him much more love than if you give him money.

Do not give money to the homeless.  You are buying them drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.  You are not loving them, but hating them, when you give them money.  Instead, preach the gospel to them, the gospel that can deliver them from their sin when they repent and trust in Jesus Christ, and point them to as conservative a rescue mission as there is in your area.  That is showing the homeless true love.

If you do not like the facts I mentioned in this post, you can, if you want, say that I wrote it because I have no compassion and just want to keep my spare change.  You can attack me and keep giving the homeless money.  If that is what you do, though, be fully aware that you are buying them drugs and other wicked things, and what you are doing is about making you feel good--it is not about helping them.

-TDR

Cultic KJVO?

Tomorrow Thomas Ross's post will replace this one, but I wanted to still have it here on top for a few hours.

Cultic loses its meaning when it is used as an invective and pejorative.  Cultic should be reserved for the cultic.  Cultic shouldn't be weaponized as a word for staining people, even if they've got some big problems.  Credibility should diminish for a person misusing the term "cult" to the extent I'm describing, the flag thrown and the yardage walked off, even disqualification.

In recent conversation about categorizations of Baptist fundamentalism, special attention is given to KJVO as cultic.  We are assured that KJVO are cultic without explanation.  The people talking live in their own echo chamber, where they hear the one, same position bouncing around with agreement and back-slaps all around, elevating to the strongest possible name-call, "cultic" included.  Someone needs to explain why something is cultic.

There are some problems with KJVO.  Certain KJVO equal any bad position on the preservation of scripture and accompany a kind of mysticism related also to a false view of sanctification.  Those details should be pointed out and dealt with, instead of just calling it "cultic" in an unhelpful way.  I'm inclined to forget what I'm writing, and call it a cultic groupthink analysis.  It is it's own form of koolaid drinking.  Nobody needs to know why, just supply the red meat.

This summer my family will visit the UK and I've been looking at churches there.  The history of the church in the UK is different than the United States.  Movement went from here to there, but almost always the U.S. received something from the UK.  What I see from us in the UK are the things that the 'users-of'cultic' might like, thinking that they have progressed from the U.S. influence.  You see more allure in the technology, better capacity to pander, and the Charismatic movement.

Among the reformed evangelicals, which doesn't mean the same thing in the UK as it does here, those who call themselves reformed Baptists, and the strict Baptist churches, are many King James Only.  Many.  They didn't get that from Seventh Day Adventists, and other Illuminati-like and Trilateral Commission type conspiracy theories, used in an attempt to discredit.  They are red herrings that come without proof.  Are they just cultists?  If you are KJO, you're a cultist, mark it down.

These reformed Baptists and "evangelicals" (again, not the same thing as an American evangelical) are tied closely to historic confessions, usually linking to the London Baptist Confession (London, England, in the, um, UK), that cultic statement from 1689.  They are KJO because of something written in 1689, something doctrinal.  What's that all about?

Our family from Bethel Baptist Church, El Sobrante, California, is Lord-willing going to visit Bethel Baptist Church in Bath, UK for a mid-week service on our trip.  Many churches like them in the UK use the King James Version only.  The Trinitarian Bible Society comes out of London.  They are King James Only.  All of this comes out of the London Baptist Confession.  If all the words of God were preserved, therefore, available in 1689, those would be the ones translated into the English of the King James Version. They believe the London Baptist Confession.

If you are going to do away with the King James for these guys in the UK, you will need to do away with the London Baptist Confession or at least show how that it was wrong on that doctrine.  People don't do that.  They just call you cultic, which is actually how cultic people operate.  They try to intimidate people by calling them cultic.  It is carnal weaponry.  It works with some people, but they are left with attempting not to be cultic as their reasoning behind what they do.  This is functioning like the slave of Galatians and not the son.  The son obeys out of love.  The slave does it out of intimidation.