Sword of the Lord Editor Retracts His Rebuke of the Blogosphere!!!
Shelton Smith is the editor of The Sword of the Lord, a publication which for years has reprinted Charles Spurgeon's sermons, all the while editing out portions that demonstrated Spurgeon's Calvinism. Whether the intent was to mislead the readers or not, I suppose I can't say. Let's just say it's a pretty amazing coincidence if it wasn't intentional.
A few days ago Smith published an editorial rebuking the Christian blogosphere. You can read that editorial here.
However, I will now publish below an edited edition of that editorial that clearly reveals that Smith didn't believe what he actually said, but really is quite the blog junkie:
Christians . . . ought to . . . blog . . . since . . . the Internet . . . is . . . good. . . . There’s a problem! Some . . . Christian leaders . . . spew . . . venom . . . and . . . there . . . is . . . no accountability, no checks or balances at all. . . . They . . . should be exposed! The scoundrels should expect to get some bad press. . . .
The blogosphere . . . has . . . journalistic credibility. . . . My thoughts . . . are . . . shameful . . . and . . . bitter. . . . Christians, . . . go on a crusade against . . . the sword of the lord [sic]. . . . You . . . have a scriptural obligation to . . . disgrace . . . us. The current state of things in the Christian blogosphere could . . . aptly be described as . . . constructive.
posted by Ben on 3/28/2007
19 Comments:
This is just too funny!
But hey, as someone said on SI, of course you have a right to edit his article! You're publishing something, aren't you?
LOL...that is rich...very nice...or are you one of those bitter bloggers.
Bravo!
Thanks, Ben. I needed a good laugh this morning.
Uh-oh! Coffee out the nose! Tremendously funny! Thank you! I plan to link to this from my blog
BASSENCO
It looks like a Spurgeon sermon that has been cut-and-pasted, which is commonplace at the Sword. Bravo!
THAT'S GREAT!! A good laugh to start my day..Thanks!!
Beautiful!
Brilliant!
I tried to read the editorial, but I got confused:
"They can castigate and vilify Christian leaders, churches or colleges with impunity and with absolutely no accountability to anyone."
Was he referring to the blogs, or the Sword?
My goodness, how could I have missed that?????
Shelton Smith is a lot more liberal and easy going than I thought. Lisa Simpson was right! You have to listen to the notes they DON'T play!
Go ahead and file this as your best post ever--classic!
I am looking forward to the Sword's official response as I am sure your blog is in their favorites.
The SWORD can publish whatever they want. Edit what they want...and how it must hurt that others can do the same thing.
Awesome! Good job! I only wished I had thought of it first.
I feel I must point out the error of your ways. The Sword style book dictates omitting the ellipsis when deletions are made. The way you have done it reveals that material has been removed from the original. Please correct this in all future edits.
For years the Sword was able to pull the wool over people's eyes regarding Spurgeon's Calvinism. Even Rice stated that Spurgeon wasn't a Calvinist in the sense of the "Westminister Confession". They wanted a fundamentalist, free-willing hero that connected them to history, and Spurgeon the soul-winner was their man. Now that the internet exposes them, they have a hissy fit. Maybe they can find another poster boy to connect them to history and give them legitimacy, but folks today know to much about the five-pointer CHS.
Ben
I am so convicted about how I used to edit the Trumpeter at MBBC. Thanks for pointing out the dangers!
I'm willing to believe The Sword of the Lord edited out Spurgeon's Calvinism out of a motive to provide that which they found helpful without intentionally misleading people about the nature of his convictions about the sovereignty of God's grace. They just wanted to ignore it, rather than lie. But I would still say it did mislead a few generations of fundamentalists who wouldn't read anything but fundamentalist organs.
Your parody of such editing was truly inspired!
SOTL, Spurgeon and the "Trumpeter" at MBBC... never expected those three things to be mentioned in the same comment thread.
By the way, the "Trumpeter" is now completely electronic...no paper copies to be found. I wonder if that will ever happen to the Sword?
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