Tag: John Mark N. Reynolds

People Say Nice Things About You When You Are Gone

At every funeral I can remember, almost everyone is cordial and says nice things. I have heard that it isn’t always that way for everyone but that has been my experience. When they passed many years ago, I heard so many nice things about my parents that I never knew before. Over the years, I have thought I should say more nice things to people while they are alive because it is nice to hear when you can enjoy it. I don’t think I live up to that aspiration like I should.

Reading the reaction of others to the near death of my blog at Patheos has been a little like being able to attend my own funeral, except thankfully it is my blog’s funeral.  Last week and yesterday, I posted links to bloggers who had nice things to say about me but less nice things to say about Patheos. In fact, they had questions which still require answers.

One blogger who almost always has nice things to say is Patheos blogger John Mark N. Reynolds. Today, he penned a kind and clever defense of my time at Patheos. 

It is for all these reasons that Patheos and Patheos Evangelical needs Warren Throckmorton. He is a scholar with a light touch, but one who sees the absurdity of the powerful. He has the temerity to keep telling the truth until the truth, absurd in our particular era, makes you laugh. It is obvious now that someone like David Barton was a fraud, but Throckmorton recognized it first.

His targets? They are many, but his humor and good will are true, start to finish. He is right again and again and when he is wrong he is sorry.

I wasn’t first but I was and am persistent.

He continues:

If you have ever been disillusioned by an abuse of power, Warren Throckmorton understands. He knows it is absurdity to marry Jesus to power.

Yes, I think I do. No matter what the reason for the decision to 410 the blog, how it is being handled is an abuse of power. I know John Mark is speaking about other people I have written about, but he could also be writing about the instant case.

John Mark would like Patheos to bring me back. Now he is the one with the sense of humor. Maybe he could carry the mantle over there; at least until he tells the wrong truth.

 

Post-Barton Christianity and the Constitution Mini-Series

photo-1432164245265-ab19a48c3d09_optI am taking part in a brief series of posts this week at Eidos, the Patheos blog of John Mark N. Reynolds (no relation to Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds) about a post-Barton analysis of Christianity and the Constitution. The other professor is Hunter Baker, who teaches religious liberty at Union University (TN). Baker’s article is titled “Barton Is Wrong and So Are the Godless Constitutionalists” while mine is “Post-Barton: Christianity and the Constitution.”
Later today, our responses to each other will be posted and then tomorrow, John Mark will summarize and provide his reactions to both of us. John Mark’s introduction is worth repeating:

A Note from John Mark N. Reynolds:
Christians in the academy disagree on many things, but nearly universally reject the historical analysis of David Barton. This is not because they are liberal (though some are) as many of his critics are very conservative politically. It also is not because the “guild” is protecting anything: good high school teachers who compare what Barton claims to the source material one can Google are disappointed in his work. Barton is, at the very least, incompetent. 
Let’s move past Barton. How should we view the Constitution? 
I have asked two scholars I trust, Patheos friend Warren Throckmorton and longtime friend and colleague Hunter Baker to respond to the prompt: “Post-Barton- how should we think about the Constitution.” 
I have not edited these posts. Tomorrow both scholars will have a chance for a brief response and I will try to sum up what I have learned. 

I hope you will check out both posts, and weigh in there and here.
 

1787 Constitutional Convention Series

To read my series examining the proceedings of the Constitution Convention, click here.  In this series, I am writing about any obvious influences on the development of the Constitution which were mentioned by the delegates to the Convention. Specifically, I am testing David Barton’s claim that “every clause” of the Constitution is based on biblical principles. Thus far, I have found nothing supporting the claim. However, stay tuned, the series will run until mid-September.
Constitutional Convention Series (click the link)
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