Apparently, while I was writing my long response to Jim West’s harsh backlash at my search for his “careful exegetical work” on cessationism, Jim deleted the post to which I was responding and substituted a new, longer, but similarly harsh post. In the new post, Jim writes:

I will say, though, that my intention in those writings that Chris evidently found a good deal of satisfaction in denouncing weren’t written for Chris. They were written for the average, run of the mill, pew sitting Christian who doesn’t have the benefit of years of theological or exegetical training. So while Chris feels like he needs to denounce me to the academic community (to make himself feel better or look better?) I will continue to write for the average, run of the mill Christian. Chris can write (does he write anything?) for whomsoever he wishes. He can share his bountiful fruit with whomsoever he pleases- and he can criticize me as much as he likes; pointing his crooked and gnarled finger in my direction with all the derision and contempt that he can muster (and he can evidently muster a great deal) and it will not make one whit of difference to me. I simply don’t care what Chris thinks because he is not my intended audience.

Chris may not care that biblical exegesis (and that’s what interpretation is) trickle down to the average Christian. He certainly is not engaged in ministry to the community of faith in any direct way (unless he simply has failed to mention his regular responsibilities as preacher and / or teacher at a local congregation) . But I do care.

And so until Chris, and Michael, and the rest of the lot who have decided that my efforts are meaningless will step up to the plate and do it better (since they obviously both feel like they can), then I suppose I will just have to survive their derisiveness and continue to do what they are unwilling to do – i.e., make the Bible comprehensible to the folk for whom it matters.

May no one ever deny that Jim has a way with words! Curious as it may sound, I actually found myself enjoying the vividness of the first paragraph above—and please, I mean that in all sincerity, not in sarcasm.

But rhetorical flair, however aesthetically pleasing it may be, is no substitute for argument, and accusing one’s questioners of malice and elitism is no substitute for answering the question. If you’re already tired of this debate, then please, move on to a different post (whether by me or by Jim or by whomever should be dictated by your own interests). However, I feel compelled to make a couple of additional points here.

First, with this response, Jim has attempted to shift the ground of the debate completely. The kerfuffle started with Michael Westmoreland-White wrote, in a comment on Pat McCullough’s blog, that he was put out by one of Jim’s recent outbursts against “charismatic” Christians; Michael asked whether any of us had seen careful exegetical work on Jim’s blog, on any topic. Jim responded on his blog that a blog was not the “proper venue for meticulous work,” and suggested that Michael ought to “buy a book and read careful exegetical work” instead of “pretend[ing] to have read everything I’ve written.” The thing is, I have read much of what Jim has written, and I had the temerity to say, in detail, that I have not found much “meticulous work” or “careful exegetical work” there. I asked Jim where we could find this work, specifically on the topic of cessationism, or more broadly, on any topic. Now Jim’s stance is that he writes for “the person in the pew.” A popular audience is, of course, a fine audience for which to write—but if Jim has chosen to write almost exclusively for a popular audience, why did he lambast Michael for not reading his “careful exegetical work”? This could almost be a Monty Python sketch:

Michael: Has anybody ever seen any careful exegetical work on Jim’s blog?

Jim: A blog’s not the place for that. If you want careful exegetical work, read my careful exegetical books and articles.

Chris: Uh, Jim? Which books and articles would those be? I’ve not been able to find them.

Jim: I write for the person in the pew! You can’t criticize me for not presenting meticulous footnoted exegesis in such works!

In other words, Jim criticizes Michael for not reading works that do not, at present, exist and then, when asked to demonstrate the existence of such works, attempts to make a virtue out of their nonexistence. It’s a classic technique of rhetorical evasion—but it doesn’t work.

Second, although I will inevitably sound egoistical in so doing, I cannot let slide Jim’s claim that “Chris may not care that biblical exegesis (and that’s what interpretation is) trickle down to the average Christian. He certainly is not engaged in ministry to the community of faith in any direct way (unless he simply has failed to mention his regular responsibilities as preacher and / or teacher at a local congregation).” Warning: I am about to toot my own horn, and I am going to sound defensive. If you don’t want to see it, please don’t read on. But I find those charges so hurtful and just plain incorrect that I cannot help but answer them.

I got into academic Bible study precisely because I cared, and cared a great deal, about “the average Christian,” Jim’s beloved “person in the pew.” It’s true that I do not express that priority through paid ministry on a church staff; I do not preach to a congregation more than once or twice per year. Yet I have devoted the largest portion of my professional life to teaching undergraduate students, chiefly first-year students and candidates for ministry, about the Bible. Teaching is my profession, true, but I also consider it a ministry to my students. On two occasions in the last four years I have indeed taught a semester-long “Sunday school” class—once for twentysomethings, mostly young married couples, and once for third-graders; these do not include frequent leadership of “one-time” Sunday school classes (most recently on the “Jesus tomb” nonsense on Easter Sunday). Surely these activities are not those of an elitist snob who cares nothing for hoi polloi. The elders in my congregation (Churches of Christ have no higher institutional authority, save for Christ himself, who rarely fills out paperwork) have explicitly affirmed, in writing and for legal purposes, that due to my activities in the congregation and at Pepperdine they consider me a “minister in good standing” in the congregation, albeit unpaid. Had Jim bothered to give my list of publications even a cursory glance—much less actually read any of it, as I have read his—he would surely see that alongside of my published dissertation, essays in scholarly editor-reviewed compilations, articles in peer-reviewed journals, and presentations at professional conferences, I have written a brief commentary (on Genesis) for a popular audience (it’s still in press), published a few articles in ministry-oriented journals, and given lectures to lay audiences, in addition to the occasional direct teaching and preaching in churches. Quite simply, I am not detached from the church, and I resent Jim’s snide charges to that effect.