Thoughts on The Glass Bead Game, with a P.S. attached

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I was being sarcastic.


Yes


Yes.

My point was that no matter who I set forward, you will find some good reason why he isn't a Christian.

I wasn't being sarcastic.

Again the standards by which I measure artists and writers is the same I would use to measure the reliability of someone writing on theology. I wouldn't read a theological work by a random Anglican from the 18th century thinking he would be as sound as Samuel Rutherford; likewise I'm not going to accept mere affiliation with the Anglican church in the 18th or 19th centuries as evidence of anything more than the standard practice of most respectable persons at that time. The prevailing spiritual deadness and formalism of that denomination in that time is well attested by those who were the Lord's people and had experienced that spiritual deadness first hand.

If, in your own words, "good reason" is available to doubt the profession of such a person perhaps they're not good examples of professing Christians who also produced great works of art?
 
The prevailing spiritual deadness and formalism of that denomination in that time is well attested by those who were the Lord's people and had experienced that spiritual deadness first hand.

That is the fallacy of division.
I wouldn't read a theological work by a random Anglican from the 18th century thinking he would be as sound as Samuel Rutherford

What random Anglican? I didn't argue for just any random author. And Samuel Johnson is the doyen of the English language (whose piety far exceeded anything I will ever have, which might indicate I am not a Christian). He is probably the least "random" person on the planet.
 
That is the fallacy of division.


What random Anglican? I didn't argue for just any random author. And Samuel Johnson is the doyen of the English language (whose piety far exceeded anything I will ever have, which might indicate I am not a Christian). He is probably the least "random" person on the planet.

Again being the "doyen of the English language" is not a spiritual qualification. I did not say he was a random Anglican, I said his affiliation with the Anglican church is a very low bar in adjudicating one's Christian credentials ergo if I were to look for profitable theological writings I would want to know more about the author other than the fact he was an Anglican. Just as I would be more prone to read a theological work by a Free Churchman of the latter half of the 19th century than a Church of Scotland writer of the same period.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is which you are having with what I'm saying. You are a member of a particular denomination. You obviously judge that denomination to be a more faithful denomination than others (hence why you are a member with that one rather than another). I would assume you would be opposed to your denomination uniting with certain other denominations, for example the PCUSA. I am only applying that same judgment here.
 
I'm not quite sure what the problem is which you are having with what I'm saying. You are a member of a particular denomination. You obviously judge that denomination to be a more faithful denomination than others (hence why you are a member with that one rather than another). I would assume you would be opposed to your denomination uniting with certain other denominations, for example the PCUSA. I am only applying that same judgment here.

My problem is that when I initially set forward a list of people as Christians, you immediately attacked those people on the grounds of "Well, do we really know?"

My point wasn't that we should presume Johnson to be a Christian because he is an Anglican. My point was that when someone pleads the blood of Christ (as Johnson did numerous times), we shouldn't employ some "he-really-isn't-Christian-enough" criteria.
 
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