User:Will3935

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Contents 1 About Me 2 My Contributions 3 Some of My Favorite Authors 4 Fiction 5 Poetry 6 Non-fiction 7 Some Wikipedia Articles Whose Quality I Appreciate 8 Probably My Worst Flaw 9 Before Contributing... 10 An Editorial on Editing Conflicts 11 How to Censor Wikipedia: A Satire (even though it works) 12 How To Spam Wikipedia: A Satire (even though it works) 13 Ten Easy Steps to Becoming a Postmodern Scholar (by Will3935) 13.1 1) Regurgitate 13.2 2) Create 13.3 3) Separate 13.4 4) Integrate 13.5 5) Speculate 13.6 6) Instigate 13.7 7) Obfuscate 13.8 8) Debate 13.9 9) Destabulate 13.10 10) Pontificate 14 Some Quotes I Like 15 My Address Book

[edit] About Me

I am a former English teacher and pastor. I have also had articles published in various publications, books, and websites. In addition to a BA in English education I have a Bible college diploma and two graduate degrees in theology. I am married with three kids and the best cat in the world. I have been a loyal, suffering fan of the New Orleans Saints since their beginning.

[edit] My Contributions

I mostly limit myself to articles related to Christian doctrine and practice. I have contributed most to the article on the emerging church movement since I have done a lot of research on this movement and am currently working on a book to be published on postmodernism and the Church. Other articles I am contributing to at the moment include Jonathan Edwards, Missional living and Brian McLaren.

[edit] Some of My Favorite Authors

[edit] Fiction

Jack London, Ernest Hemmingway, Charles Dickens, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Elisabeth Elliot (No Graven Image)

[edit] Poetry

Christina Rossetti, John Milton, Philip Sidney, William Cowper, Fredrick W. Faber, Amy Carmichael, C. S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll

[edit] Non-fiction

Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, Charles Finney, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Andrew Bonar, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, D. A. Carson, R. A. Torrey, Earl E. Cairns, Donald Gee, George Eldon Ladd, A. W. Tozer, Clovis Chappell, Alexander MacLaren, Lewi Pethrus, Francis Schaeffer, C. S. Lewis, Morris Williams, Gleason Archer, J. I. Packer, Ronald Nash, B. J. Oropeza, Walter Kaiser, David F. Wells, Gordon Fee, Ted L. Nancy, God (the Bible)

Jonathan Edwards
Born	October 5, 1703
Died	March 22, 1758

[edit] Some Wikipedia Articles Whose Quality I Appreciate

Gnosticism -- It is now broken into parts in the series on gnosticism. This article is well researched, insightful without indulging in original research, up to date, and well written.

Scientology -- This article has also been broken into the smaller parts of a project. It is quite thorough and well organized. Scientology is such a massive subject to study that all books and articles must be selective in what they discuss. I believe the authors of this article showed skill in this selection process.

Arminianism -- This article is very accurate in spite of covering a controversial subject that editors may have had strong feelings about. It is well orgainzed and well written.

[edit] Probably My Worst Flaw

I become overly obsessive when working on a project. This causes me to work myself sick and I can become impatient with others who interfere with the quality or completion of the project (sorry fellow editors).

[edit] Before Contributing...

I have found that sometimes unqualified people weigh in on Wikipedia articles, reducing the accuracy and quality of these articles in spite of their good intentions. Based on my experience, I believe these editors genuinely believe they are improving the articles they contribute to. The phenomenon reminds one of the deluded contestants who try out for American Idol and only end up humiliating themselves. When the judges offer sound criticism to these contestants they tend to respond quite angrily. So it is, I have found, at Wikipedia. Being honest with these editors sometimes results in hard feelings on both sides. Perhaps I can prevent some of these hard feelings by sharing with you the criteria I try to abide by and subsequently expect of other editors. Before contributing, ask yourself the following questions: 1) Am I qualified to write? That is, do I possess a sufficient mastery of English to make a worthy entry in an encyclopedia? Am I aware that writing for an encyclopedia requires a set of skills not needed on a blog? If you are not a good writer consider running your proposed edits past those who do possess such skills before you make changes to an article. 2) Have I mastered the subject matter about which I am writing? Having expertise in one field or subject does not make one qualified to write on another. Nor does reading just a few books and articles about a subject necessarily make one sufficiently knowledgeable to address an issue in a reference work. This mastery of the subject must involve a thorough reading of many books and articles that express various views. Spending time talking to one's friends on a blog does not qualify one academically to contribute to an encyclopedia. 3) Am I willing to accept correction on matters of substance and style? Wikipedia articles are constructed by the consensus of a community of editors. Individual contributors can not expect to bypass this community, and they must be willing to accept correction or criticism without getting angry or bitter. 4) Am I sufficiently confident in my edits that I do not believe I need to resort to sockpuppetry or other violations of policy for my edits to stand? If one thinks that his or her edit will not stand community scrutiny on its own merits they should concede its exclusion from Wikipedia. 5) When engaged in an editing conflict with someone is my goal accuracy or victory? Wikipedia's purpose is to inform its readers not to boost the egos of its editors.

– Will3935

[edit] An Editorial on Editing Conflicts

"I recognize a distinction between editing conflicts and edit wars. Edit wars involve obstinate reverts and refusal to collaborate. Nevertheless, even in the absence of edit wars, conflicts can arise between editors. It is as easy to be against these editing conflicts as it is to be against real war. Nevertheless, as those who reject all engagement in military conflict would surrender the world to agressors who will take advantage of them, so it is an unfortunate fact that an unqualified pacifism in editing results in a surrender to imcompetent agressors who would reduce Wikipedia to a junkpile of misinformation and poor writing. I agree that all editing conflicts are bad, but in an imperfect world I do not believe they are all avoidable. Participants in such conflicts should, however, observe all Wikipedia policies and conduct themselves in a mature and civil way. Those who have conducted themselves inappropriately should be quick to apologize and mend their ways." -- Will3935

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[edit] How to Censor Wikipedia: A Satire (even though it works)

Censoring Wikipedia is easy if you know how to do it! You do not have to resort to anything so sophomoric and unskilled as obstinate reverts or sockpuppets. Just use the two easy techniques below:

1) "POV" content you dislike.

In an article about addition one may dislike a statement such as "2+2=4." Don't worry. The accuracy of this statement need not detour your censorship. Just claim that 2+2=4 is a point of view edit. After all, it does presume a "modern" view of truth which should not be imposed on others! Replace the offensive statement with the following one: "2+2=something." Just describe your edit as a minor POV rewording!

2) "Catch 22" links you dislike.

Suppose you find that a Wikipedia article about colors has an article linked to it entitled "A History of the Color Green" by Bud Light. As a recovering alcoholic you dislike the author's name and wish to delete the link. You are intimidated, however, by the facts that Dr. Light is well respected in academic circles, and that the article is widely recognized by scientists and historians alike as the definitive account of green's history. No problem! If the article is posted on a website owned by Dr. Light disallow it as a self-published work. If the article is posted on a site that Light does not own just call it a "deep link" and delete it for that reason.

It's that easy!

[edit] How To Spam Wikipedia: A Satire (even though it works)

Wikipedia says they do not allow editors to use its space for advertising and self-promotion but we have all seen it done successfully. Play your cards right and you too can get away with spamming! There are two ways to get the job done:

1) Find a mellow article (hardly edited anymore) related to your product, service, or blog and link yourself or your friends there. It will be a long time before anyone notices and when they do they probably won't care!

2) Find a hot article (much controversy and quarreling) related to your product, service, or blog and link yourself or your friends there. When someone objects to your spam because it violates policy, scream bloody murder! Insist that the real reason an editor has deleted your spam is that they are biased against your product, service, blog, or perspective. Intimidate them into submission. Ask who they think they are to censor your valuable link. Get your friends to join in the fight. Happy spamming!

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[edit] Ten Easy Steps to Becoming a Postmodern Scholar (by Will3935)

Postmodernity has made it easier than ever to be a scholar. One need not worry about data or logic, and postmodern Christian scholars can bypass all of the stuffy, old, "modern" concerns with exegetical hermeneutics. Since nothing matters anymore but one's feelings anyone can be a scholar! Just follow the ten easy steps below:

[edit] 1) Regurgitate

You must first conform to postmodern usage by regurgitating and making liberal use of the latest and coolest words such as "deconstruct," "community," "narrative," "authentic," "postfoundational," "paradigms," "models," "connectivity," "generous," "missional," "new," "signify," "reductionist," "semantics," "systems," "reification," "logocentric," "node," and "matrix."

"The giving-wayness of reductionist systems reconceptualizes the authentic matrix of deconstructed, community paradigms; signifying the emergence of non-reified narratives which produce a more generous, missional model of new, postfoundational connectivity."

[edit] 2) Create

To stand out you must create new jargon and mix it with the standard postmodern vocabulary. In this way postmodern scholars can substitute style for substance by just sounding sophisticated! Simply follow the pattern below to create and use your jargon:

A. Take an existing word and add prefixes and/or suffixes. See the examples below:

• "television" ... "televisional"

• "stereo" ... "destereoization"

• "history" ... "rehistoricalized"

B. Especially make novel use of the prefixes "post" and "neo."

• "neo-cathode, post-conductivity considerations"

• "neo-scanning, post-televisional signifiers"

• "neo-silly, post-parodiness paradigm-attenuators"

C. Graft another word onto the existing one.

• "televisional broadcasticity"

• "factized post-destereoization"

• "rehistoricalized narrativeness"

D. You must then use your jargon frequently for it to gain credibility.

• "Televisional broadcasticity causes a new, missional matrix."

• "All efforts to impose one's own narrative on another person are subject

to factized post-destereoization"

• "Outdated, propositional signifiers are being questioned as a result of the deconstruction inherent in the rehistoricalized narrativeness discovered in new community paradigms."

[edit] 3) Separate

Nothing screams "scholar" these days like categories. All you need to do is separate into distinct sub-groups whatever phenomenon your are interested in discussing. Don't worry, you need not do any in-depth research or cite any hard data (too modern anyway), just invent categories to go along with your jargon!

"There are three levels of televisional broadcasiticity:

1. Depixelized regional broadcasticity, in which magnetic remuses degauss the tubeness of the set matrix.

2. Reenhanced definitional broadcasticity, in which the scan lines are multiplicitalized to authentic bi-levelness.

3. Deelectrified broadcasticity, in which the consumeral person has deconstructed the pluggedness of his set from the wall.

[edit] 4) Integrate

Now that you have your categories, make up some way they are interacting:

"Decreased activity among those who embrace reenhanced definitional neo-broadcasticity has caused modalities in the deelectrified level to reexamine their outlet paradigms. This will no doubt lead to new, community models of connectivity."

[edit] 5) Speculate

"Truth" is no longer enslaved to any real world referent. Since it is subjective and relative to postmoderns, your "truth" is as valid as anyone else's as long as it pleases postmoderns!

"Improved broadcasticity awareness mandates that I become the star of my own sitcom."

You don't need a reason for the "mandate" since reason is an outdated, modern concept! Freedom from the bonds of reason also enables scholars to defend themselves against critiques with ease. If a modern disagrees with your truth just say that he or she misunderstood you. It does not matter what either of you said, postmodern denial always trumps modern accusation. Since your truth is relative to you, no modern can defend themselves against your claim they have misunderstood! Just try it and watch the moderns squirm!

[edit] 6) Instigate

The spirit of postmodernism is the spirit of rebellion! Don't be shy. Challenge the status quo wherever you find it. Let your motto be "the old is bad and the new is good." You do not want to "add to" anything; your goal is to deconstruct the "modern" status quo. Be bold! Lead a charge! Death to reason and values!

• "Intelligent audio broadcasticity signifiers are no longer tenable in a time when experiential viewerizing has replaced content watchedness. Postmodern broadcasters must respond to this paradigm shift with a total rejection of understandable speech-event signifiers in favor of a new randonimity of audio experience waves."

[edit] 7) Obfuscate

Since postmodernism does not recognize absolute truth, it presents countless opportunities to manipulate language to one's advantage. It is child's play to create a public understanding that differs from your private meaning:

"We did not have unethical relations with that company, Reductionist Broadcasticity!"

Skillful communicators can also mean different things to different people at the same time! Speaking out of both sides of the mouth is now a respectable, scholarly enterprise!! Say just enough to enable your friends to know what you really mean but don't say so much that your critics are able to point to a specific, incriminating statement. Have fun communicating freely to your cohorts while at the same time frustrating your critics!

"Our current economic desaturation phase requires us to transact deelectrified televisional units."

• Tell critics this means "In the current economy it is cost effective to manufacture energy efficient televisions."

• Cohorts know you really mean "Since we are going broke we plan to maximize profits by selling televisions with no power cords or power supplies."

When critics catch on to your obfuscation use #10 below.

[edit] 8) Debate

Once you have done all of the above you can easily defeat moderns in debate since their logic is powerless against postmodern thinking. Watching moderns debate postmoderns is like watching sword-bearing soldiers fight against an enemy's underground bunker from which a gas attack is launched. Good luck to them in using those solid weapons against a vaporous foe! What's more, moderns' logic confines them to set positions on the battlefield. They can't be all over the place at the same time they way we can and there are scientific limitations to their weapons. Since we are no longer bound by logic we may use fallacies with impunity. It no longer violates any rules! One need not get too complex with their fallacies. The old one-two punch of straw man / false dilemma works most effectively.

1. Misrepresent your modern opponent's views.

2. Present your own views (which you may have cosmetically altered for the moment) as the only alternative to the straw man.

You Win!

[edit] 9) Destabulate

This is just postmodern babble. Do whatever it means to you!

[edit] 10) Pontificate

Remember, you need not substantiate your jargon, categories, speculation, or integration with research or data. Nor need you explain your obfuscation. Your scholarship is authentic to you and that is all that matters! Just say it loud! If anyone questions your work, simply call them names and say they are mean. This really works these days! Enjoy being a scholar!!

(also see the randomly generated parody at [1])

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"We can clearly see that there is no bi-univocal correspondence between linear signifying links or archi-writing, depending on the author, and this multireferential, multi-dimensional machinic catalysis. The symmetry of scale, the transversality, the pathic non-discursive character of their expansion: all these dimensions remove us from the logic of the excluded middle and reinforce us in our dismissal of the ontological binarism we criticised previously." -- postmodern psychoanalyst Félix Guattari

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[edit] Some Quotes I Like

"Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than truth itself." -- Irenaeus

"To love every ideal equally is to be indifferent to truth....It's simply not true that 'all you need is love.' You also need truth. A surgeon needs more than love. He also needs light." -- Peter Kreeft

"True worshippers will also worship God 'in truth.' Many people today have the idea that it's not necessary to worship in truth as long as we worship sincerely. Remember -- it is possible to be sincere -- and sincerely wrong." -- Ed Young

"Sincerity does not change error. A man may mistakenly board a plane for New York thinking that he is going to Los Angeles, but that does not change his destination." -- Robert Coleman

"There are some who feel obliged to capitulate to the most fashionable ideas of the moment, and reinterpret Christianity accordingly." -- Colin Brown

"The culture is to be constantly judged by the Bible, rather than the Bible being bent to conform to the surrounding culture." -- Francis Schaeffer

"I have often heard of 'narrow-minded views', and 'old-fashioned notions', and 'brimstone theology', and the like. I have often been told that 'broad' views are wanted in the present day. I wish to be as broad as the Bible, neither less nor more. I say that he is the narrow-minded theologian, who pares down such parts of the Bible as the natural heart dislikes, and rejects any portion of the counsel of God." -- J. C. Ryle

"Faith never means gullibility, the man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything." -- A. W. Tozer

"Credulity is as real, if not so great a sin, as unbelief." -- R. C. Trench

"Tolerance of everything is a mark of an empty head not a mark of agape love" -- Edward J. Carnell

"If I am afraid to speak the truth lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say,'You do not understand,' or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put myown name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love. If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying peace, peace where there is no peace; if I forget the poignant words, 'Let love be without dissimulation' and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love." -- Amy Carmichael

"Worst of all my foes, I fear the enemy within." -- John Wesley

"No man hath anything of his own, except his sins." -- Charles Spurgeon

"A HEART alone is such a stone, As nothing but Thy power doth cut." -- George Herbert

"Man is not the center. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. 'Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.' (Rev. 4:11)." -- C. S. Lewis

"God intends to give us what we need, not what we now think we want." -- C. S. Lewis

"This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget That tho' the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world. The battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied, And earth and heaven be one. This is my Father's world. Should my heart be ever sad? The Lord is King, let the heavens ring, God reigns;--let the earth be glad." -- Maltbie D. Babcock

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[edit] My Address Book (Feel free to add your address with a list of articles we share a common interest in.) Gold Dragon (Emerging church movement -- supposedly too busy for us now that he's in med school) WestonWyse (emerging church -- haven't heard from him in a while) Niceguy2all (emerging church) Artisan949 (emerging church) Rafael, the Gawain (emerging church, interwiki specialist) Loudguy (emerging church and related articles) Thinkenstein (postmodernism, emerging church) ginkworld (emerging church) Mrupert@gmail.com (emerging church) CyberAnth (emerging church) technopilgrim (emerging church) DaveDV (Missional Christianity) Jwiley80 (emerging church related articles, parachurch) Boco XLVII (emerging church) Virgil Vaduva (Brian McLaren) Steve Dufour (Religious topics) Wjhonson (Emerging Church, Brian McLaren) -- very helpful Roderick E (Brian McLaren) Pentecost (fellow Assemblies of God minister) Seraphimblade (a helpful fellow editor, now an administrator) END This user has no more userboxes.