Friday, May 16, 2014
Reasonable Point, But "Bullying" Overused
Justin Taylor links to a Sam Storms post about pastors that domineer over their congregations commenting on I Peter 5:1-3. Fine material, only problem is both posts are titled "Pastoral Bullies."
Friends, for very practical reasons we cannot participate in the societal efforts to define down the term "bully." The pastors these posts discuss are jerks, bad pastors, but they are not "bullies." When I was a kid, bullies were the ones that BEAT YOU UP for your lunch money. The kids that called you names, were pushy, rude and otherwise sought to dominate the room were a$$holes, but they were NOT bullies. Bullying involves the use of physical violence, rhetorical violence is wrong and bad but it is not bullying.
Why must we resist this defining down? It's simple, the effort to define down the term is aimed directly at us, as Christians. It is a tool of the more liberal elements of our society to define the Christian declaration of homosexual practice as wrong as an evil in itself. There are many people that are jerks when it comes to confronting homosexuals. Not my point. My point is they are jerks, not bullies.
Taylor and Storms are here fueling a fire that can only burn us in the end.
bullying definitions words
Friends, for very practical reasons we cannot participate in the societal efforts to define down the term "bully." The pastors these posts discuss are jerks, bad pastors, but they are not "bullies." When I was a kid, bullies were the ones that BEAT YOU UP for your lunch money. The kids that called you names, were pushy, rude and otherwise sought to dominate the room were a$$holes, but they were NOT bullies. Bullying involves the use of physical violence, rhetorical violence is wrong and bad but it is not bullying.
Why must we resist this defining down? It's simple, the effort to define down the term is aimed directly at us, as Christians. It is a tool of the more liberal elements of our society to define the Christian declaration of homosexual practice as wrong as an evil in itself. There are many people that are jerks when it comes to confronting homosexuals. Not my point. My point is they are jerks, not bullies.
Taylor and Storms are here fueling a fire that can only burn us in the end.
bullying definitions words
