Editorial license

Somehow, I saw this t-shirt design . . .


. . . and was reminded of my complaint) about Answers in Genesis' "correction" of their "error" in handling Spurgeon's 30th sermon. (Click on this link, then do a search on Mark Looy to discover why I put the word error in quotes.)

Interesting: Someone--whoever controls their website--has now revised AiG's revised version of Spurgeon's sermon further.

In some ways, I'd say it is an improvement over the previous emendation. They have removed their two rewritten sentences that changed Spurgeon's obvious old-earth "Gapism" to a young-earth creationism in six 24-hour days.

I would say that is an improvement.

But it the fact that they removed four highly telling sentences and noted their revision solely with a virtually unnoticeable footnote-- . . . I'd say that is just as misleading as my illustration, above, shows.

Supposing you are a footnote-reading scholar, however, at least you have the good probability of being able to tell what they have done to the text.


--I've made the entire screenshot, above, clickable, so you can go to the footnote as it appears on AiG's website.

Follow-Through on AiG/Spurgeon/John Holzmann/Mark Looy discussions

One of my readers here wrote to me wondering if, following my last post concerning Mark Looy and AiG, I had left any possible means for Mark and me to work out our differences:

If a person or organization does you public harm, is there any process by which they can come to you in private, to work things out? . . . What would it take for a person to communicate with you in private, with confidence their communication will be kept private by you?

Three things hit me immediately as a result of his questions.

1. If Mark has any interest in coming to some kind of mutual understanding, I want to work toward that end.
    
2. I want Mark to be able to feel free to come to me in private and know his private communication will be kept private.
    
3. I need to apologize.

As a result, I wrote Mark a letter and, among a whole lot of other things, wrote the following. This was "up top" in my letter to him:

Honestly, when I read your letter in which you requested that we meet soon--as I think my follow-up letter at least implied ("I feel badly that I didn't reply to your suggestions about meeting face to face, nor to your gracious offer of hospitality if I'm ever in the Cincinnati area (or can arrange to get there!).")--I really missed that request and certainly didn't understand it as any more than what I have said: a statement of personal preference, not any kind of expectation on your part. As you said, "Let's try to meet soon." And, "I hope this can be arranged soon. . . . I truly hope you can tour our museum one day soon . . . and communicate face to face as opposed to web postings and emails."

So I want to apologize for having misunderstood--and, as a result, for having completely overlooked--your expressed desires and hopes and/or your intentions in expressing those desires or hopes. I completely missed these things. Will you please forgive me for that insensitivity and failure on my part?

I would like to ask your forgiveness, too, for my emotional outburst following your response to my email and post. At this time, I don't believe the content of my reply was improper; but, certainly, the tone could have been far more gracious. And for that, too--for my failure to honor you in my manner of speech and in my tone--will you please forgive me?

I sent that letter late last Friday evening. Mark replied on Monday.

I was away at a conference all weekend . . . through Monday evening. And I have been heavily preoccupied with other matters. So I didn't get around to writing back to Mark till this afternoon.

I believe it is appropriate for me to note that Mark said some things in his response that I found quite encouraging. And, truly, I am encouraged.

As far as our correspondence itself, I wrote back to him,

I want to keep our correspondence, here, private, in an attempt to honor your preferences; however, I sense I need to make my apology to you more public because the faults I have admitted to you privately impact my audience as well as they do you. I believe I need to make my apologies public in the same way that my faults were public. And so I intend to post at least one more statement on my blog that will address what you and I are doing right now. I have no intention of revealing any secrets. But I do think I owe my readers an open declaration of my perspective on what I believe I have done wrong to date and what I am (and we--you and I--are) doing . . . i.e., discussing these matters privately in hopes of some form of reconciliation.

I "just" thought it was appropriate that you--my readers--should know what is transpiring.

Mark and I are talking. And I think we are making some progress.

Thank you.