Jon Touchstone

We've offered chances here for various people to speak for themselves

here in a more "neutral" venue- where they don't control the microphone.

That offer came shortly after they shut down THEIR OWN venue and silenced

their own rank-and-file, and has been open since. The closest we've ever

gotten was CANNED COMMERCIALS and people (john) pretending there was some

clever trick to referring to us without naming us, and addressing us

and PRETENDING he had no intention for his ADVERTISEMENTS to end up here

when they were WRITTEN FOR HERE.

Before that, I also so one of his people (as in, someone who answered to

him personally) go to Christian messageboards, pretend to be a Christian

unaffiliated with ces/stfi at the time, and say, in effect,

"Gee, fellow Christians, I just found this Christian website and I'm

finding it has some neat stuff on it, if unusual, what do you guys think?"

We've DECADES of experience with john (and others) making bland commercials

and refusing to communicate openly or as equals. (Not to mention lying-

John promised he would communicate PRIVATELY with anyone who contacted

him PRIVATELY and with their legal names- and some people did so over a

decade ago and still haven't gotten their responses.)

We're also familiar with how easy it is to both POSTURE and announce a

similarity to people in the Bible- they did that in the Bible, too!

It also demonstrates nothing to find a quote from someone else, recent or

old, and announce it is relevant and not bother to THINK FOR ONESELF rather

than a bland, canned response.

"A witty saying proves nothing."-Voltaire.

Except for the insiders who want to believe you, it fails. Outsiders can easily

see the LACK of personal attention and LACK of relevance- especially when asked

to explain the specifics and you are UNABLE or UNWILLING to do so.

====================

Other than wanting to silence the voices at the GSC, I don't see why you're here

so far, and you're no good at accomplishing that with your current efforts.

Perhaps you can make a real effort and are better than the bland attempts so far.

(Or perhaps not-perhaps you really DON'T think beyond repeating what your group's

said no matter how ridiculous it is.) We all have experience with that-

from twi and from the groups formed AFTER twi.

=======================

Meanwhile,

Steve brought up a good question.

We get john doing everything but actually addressing questions

or addressing us, but it's an important question.

Momentus was very harmful to many Christians who participated it,

and used techniques that your quote would seem to condemn.

We've heard that it is no longer OFFICIALLY being used, but is

being recommended under-the-table, covertly, secretly,

despite the known harm,

and no apology for harming anyone was ever made.

Has the thing finally been discontinued, or is it still being

COVERTLY used by john when the microphones are off?

Hi, WordWolf. I honestly wasn't following everything of what you were going on about, but I did find something you said mildly amusing -- that is, that you quoted someone else -- i.e., "A witty saying proves nothing."-Voltaire -- to make the point that I shouldn't quote someone else. That's good stuff there. ;)

As for your's and Steve's question about Momentus, you'll need to ask someone else. I haven't got the slightest idea of what that's about.

Take care.

Are you unable to speak for yourself Jon? A 202 year old quote....and a most pedantic and verbose one at that......somehow "sums up" all you have to admonish us with? It's only been 8 years since jallyroll Lynn showed up here and spoke for himself. What's taken him so long? Your Channing "longest quote ever" was finished 200 years ago. Is that how long it will take jally to come up with any answers of his own?

Do you have anything of your own to say? Or are you just a trained parrot for jallymog or Channing? Anything of your very own floating around between your ears that is in any way relevant to anything in any of the threads in this particular forum? It is ALL about JAL and all his various "ministries" he's splattered around the worldwide web and especially here at the GSC. He's been at this garbage since 1987. How long have you had your wagon hitched to his star? Bottley quit CFFM to become jally's puppet. Where did you get your ministerial Christian training and education? Was it at least a different CrackerJack box than Dan Gallagher? Schoenheit? Graesers? Did jally ordain you too, like Knopf, Wassung, and Bottley? What's that ordination "worth"? A free cup of pablum at the TLTF store? By what authority does lynn ordain you guys? Wierwille's? What ministerial association or Bible College signs your ordination certificate, Jon? Is it Bazooka Joe's Seminary and Bible College? The Way C of E? The Way College of Biblical Research, Indiana Campus? the Family Research Counsel? Schoenheit's STFI? Fred's BBQ and Bible Seminary?

What are your qualifications for sitting on the Board of Twustees of an International Community of Christian believers, in that penultimate "leadership" position? Master's of Divinity from where? ThD. from where? MBA from somewhere? Undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies somewhere? Moody's Bible Institute? Focus on the Family? Liberty University? Bob Jones University? Oral Roberts University? Oxford? Harvard? Princeton? Sam and Dave's Soul Man University? Dr.Ben Carson's Listening With A Purpose U? ANYTHING? Or are you as totally unqualified and non-credentialed as the rest of your Board of Twustees?

I'll tell Ya one thing.......you're more than qualified to post irrelevant, 200 year old "rants" from obscure, self-righteous nobodys. Your Director of Social Media, Ms. Higgins would term that 200 year old Channing nonsense as a "rant" would she not? How about some hint of a real human being instead of a horribly long section of Channing nothingness? Anything coursing through your grey matter that isn't a quote of someone else, Jon?

Yes, you are absolutely correct. It is a 200-year-old paper. Irrelevant? Ummm, not so much, but I understand why you dismiss it as such.

Ralph, you once were one of the finest and brightest. As I noted to you in our previous exchange, I was a fan. What happened to you? Is this how you're following "the Boss" these days? Is this what you, walking out the Lord's business 30 years later, look like? When he tells you to make your calling and election sure, is this what you do - hang out in chat rooms, bullying and insulting people? Have you forgotten, or does it even matter to you any longer, that the Lord hates bullies? When the Lord tells you to walk as he did, with lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love, I'm curious - what courses through your grey matter? Do these verses get a chance to bump around in your soul a little, or do you just summarily dismiss them as irrelevant so you can get back to railing on your brethren? Is venom and derision all you have left?

As for my qualifications, I suppose you're right. I have no theological qualifications ... outside of the holy spirit the Lord gave me and the Bible in my hand. It certainly is very humbling. The wonderful news, however, is that I'm among very good company, since these were precisely the qualifications of most of those biblical characters we know and love. I'm sure glad that the Paul didn't hold Peter to the same standards of authenticity that you seem to want to hold me to, brother. The funny thing is, I was under the impression that a person's true credentials come from Jesus, since the Bible teaches that "... it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends." As I recall, you used to teach this very thing, once upon a time. Do you now disagree with this, Ralph? If so, why?

Jon a Touchstone? A genuine TLTF Board of Twustees member??

OMG! Have you read that Channing quote to you "chief minister"? Humility, mildness and candor might be appropriate to introduce your "chief minister" to Jon. Maybe your pal Bottley too?

And maybe ... you, Ralph.

Can we get the condensed version?

Sorry about that, waysider. ;) It is what it is.

Prove all things, hold fast that which is good... ?

Come on, who is really suggesting we again, 40 years after some of us first delegated our right to critically analyze all things religion to a con man, that we continue on the path of deception based on the entertainment value of jalvis and his partners in crime?

Perhaps there is wisdom we (or anyone so inclined) can glean from the writings of William Channing, but I'm not so sure it's a fitting admonition for addressing the tone of this thread.

"In opposition to traditional American Calvinist orthodoxy, Channing preferred a gentle, loving relationship with God."

The subject of this thread isn't, and please excuse me if I'm wrong, about a relationship with God.

Yes, you have the sermon correct, Rocky, but I think you missed Channing's point. Please see below:

"I need not express to you our views on the subject of the benevolent virtues. We attach such importance to these that we are sometimes reproached with exalting them above piety. We regard the spirit of love, charity, meekness, forgiveness, liberality, and beneficence, as the badge and distinction of Christians, as the brightest image we can bear of God, as the best proof of piety. On this subject, I need not, and cannot enlarge; but there is one branch of benevolence which I ought not to pass over in silence, because we think that we conceive of it more highly and justly than many of our brethren. I refer to the duty of candid, charitable judgment, especially towards those who differ in religious opinion. We think, that in nothing have Christians so widely departed from their religion, as in this particular. We read with astonishment and horror, the history of the church; and sometimes when we look back on the fires of persecution, and on the zeal of Christians, in building up walls of separation, and in giving up one another to perdition, we feel as if we were reading the records of an infernal, rather than a heavenly kingdom. An enemy to every religion, if asked to describe a Christian, would, with some show of reason, depict him as an idolater of his own distinguishing opinions, covered with badges of party, shutting his eyes on the virtues, and his ears on the arguments, of his opponents, arrogating all excellence to his own sect and all saving power to his own creed, sheltering under the name of pious zeal the love of domination, the conceit of infallibility, and the spirit of intolerance, and trampling on men's rights under the pretense of saving their souls.

We can hardly conceive of a plainer obligation on beings of our frail and fallible nature, who are instructed in the duty of candid judgment, than to abstain from condemning men of apparent conscientiousness and sincerity, who are chargeable with no crime but that of differing from us in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and differing, too, on topics of great and acknowledged obscurity. We are astonished at the hardihood of those, who, with Christ's warnings sounding in their ears, take on them the responsibility of making creeds for his church, and cast out professors of virtuous lives for imagined errors, for the guilt of thinking for themselves. We know that zeal for truth is the cover for this usurpation of Christ's prerogative; but we think that zeal for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious, except in men, whose capacities and advantages, whose patient deliberation, and whose improvements in humility, mildness, and candor, give them a right to hope that their views are more just than those of their neighbours. Much of what passes for a zeal for truth, we look upon with little respect, for it often appears to thrive most luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up thinly and feebly; and we have no gratitude for those reformers, who would force upon us a doctrine which has not sweetened their own tempers, or made them better men than their neighbours.

We are accustomed to think much of the difficulties attending religious inquiries; difficulties springing from the slow development of our minds, from the power of early impressions, from the state of society, from human authority, from the general neglect of the reasoning powers, from the want of just principles of criticism and of important helps in interpreting Scripture, and from various other causes. We find, that on no subject have men, and even good men, ingrafted so many strange conceits, wild theories, and fictions of fancy, as on religion; and remembering, as we do, that we ourselves are sharers of the common frailty, we dare not assume infallibility in the treatment of our fellow-Christians, or encourage in common Christians, who have little time for investigation, the habit of denouncing and condemning other denominations, perhaps more enlightened and virtuous than their own. Charity, forbearance, a delight in the virtues of different sects, a backwardness to censure and condemn, these are virtues, which, however poorly practiced by us, we admire and recommend; and we would rather join ourselves to the church in which they abound, than to any other communion, however elated with the belief of its own orthodoxy, however strict in guarding its creed, however burning with zeal against imagined error."

-- William Channing, 1813

"... we think that zeal for truth, as it is called, is very suspicious except in men whose capacities and advantages, whose patient deliberation, and whose improvements in humility, mildness, and candor, give them a right to hope that their views are more just than those of their neighbours. Much of what passes for a zeal for truth we look upon with little respect, for it often appears to thrive most luxuriantly where other virtues shoot up thinly and feebly; and we have no gratitude for those reformers who would force upon us a doctrine which has not sweetened their own tempers or made them better men than their neighbours."

-- William Channing

It would be good for some on this site to consider this as they go about their Christian lives. Ridicule is not a fruit of the spirit.

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

1 Peter 3:8-9