Some might be tempted to use the word over-reaction with regard to my interactions with Terry Morin in this space. And I agree that too much more of this would make that a warranted reaction. Now that the subject is thoroughly ventilated, there is no need to keep going over the same ground. Those who have looked at this stuff and do not see what is happening here will not have a change of heart just because I spend another couple hours at the keyboard — although of course they might be persuaded if I print it out, put the key word affidavit at the top and have somebody at the bank notarize it. That might change everything. Someday I might have to spend a couple bucks to find out.
Just a few final comments then. In the news department, as might be expected, Terry responded to my disinclination to take down my posts by putting his back up again. Also, just as expected, he did not post a copy of the December 5, 1993 letter from the CEF elders, for to do so would turn one of his affidavits into a risible affair, and we can’t have too much more of that. Why dabble with a mere Proof when you are much more comfortable with Impressions and Feelings?
So why deal with this kind of thing at all? Well, if you note the dates on these things, that is just the approach we took for about a decade. Let sleeping dogs lie, that sort of thing. We are told in Scripture that as far as it is possible with us, we are to be at peace with all men. Would have been nice to keep it that way. But unfortunately, World magazine opened up this particular can of worms for us on a national level, and are now too busy bringing us next week’s news from a Christian worldview perspective to help us put any of them back in the can.
Incidentally, just as an aside, someone should let Terry know that when you click on his new set up of the letters at his web site, the whole thing appears, everybody’s name and all, and then a split second later, his cyber marker pen blacks out the name that everybody just saw, letting us know exactly which person’s wishes he is disregarding.
What is it that drives this kind of pettiness? I have seen this phenomenon more than once in this whole fracas, and think I have figured it out. Someone gets fully and completely convinced in their own mind that they are right about one thing, and they believe that we know that they are right about it, and yet we perversely refuse to admit that they are right about that thing. They then focus on this one thing in such a way as to justify being wrong about everything else, knowing that they must be up against Real Evil (because of that one thing that they are so right about). Even if this approach to ethical theory were biblical (and it obviously isn’t), the really unfortunate thing is that in these instances the individuals have been fully, completely, and demonstrably wrong. Wrong about that “one thing.”
I believe, with all this said, that I am now prepared to be done on this subject. I will do my level best to stay off it now, but who knows? At some time in the future I may have to return to the subject of my sordid past in order to interact with a State of Idaho Affidavit asserting that I pushed a kid on the playground once in 6th grade. And if I rise to defend myself again, I will do so with enthusiasm and verve.