I’ve been a bit discouraged about writing lately because it seems that I still haven’t been discovered, and also because I feel like I’m being judged if I’m “on electronics” all day. But staring off into space and/or sleeping all day isn’t really any better. I did get a recent morale boost when the hospital’s chaplain read this blog. She also actually looked up R.C. Sproul and the 1689 and that made me feel like she took an interest in my “culture of origin.” Her analysis?
”It scared me,” she said plainly. “And it was bad exegesis.”
Somehow, it was comforting that this chaplain had actually made it through seminary without hearing of these guys, but she looked them up anyway and her educated opinion was that they were wrong. I knew I had left a cult but somehow I had never thought of it as a fringe group. We were the center of our own universe, so I just assumed everyone who went through seminary would have known who we were. Somehow, this chaplain had managed to never hear of us and when she found out who we were, she was not exactly overcome by the sensation that she had stumbled upon THE fringe group that had gotten everything right. Plus, she took an interest in where I had been and where I was going. She’s a cool chaplain, and it’s comforting that cool chaplains are a thing.
Interestingly, while I was googling the 1689 a while back, I came across this image:
I remembered seeing this book displayed prominently around the house when I was small. It has at least one newer edition that looks different, but this was the one that was “popular” in my early years. It was amusing to me that some jokers on abebooks.com literally thought they were going to get over $250 for their copies. (Search Results, n.d.) I also had not known that Sam Waldron wrote the book. When I was a teenager, he used to come preach at our church sometimes. I had no idea at the time that he was considered by some to be big stuff. Comfortingly, I don’t think the chaplain would have known that about him, either.
References
Search Results. (n.d.). AbeBooks.com. Retrieved October 1, 2021 from https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/kw/0852342683/
Waldron, S. E. (1989). A modern exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. Darlington: Evangelical Press.
