All together, now:
Happy Birthday, Tutu
Happy Birthday, Tutu
Happy Birthday, dear Desmond
Happy Birthday, Tutu.
The former Archbishop of South Africa is 79 today.
Anonymous users wishing to paste in the comments box need first to select 'preview', then close the preview box. When posting your comments please give a full name and location. Comments without this information may be deleted.
Thank you Bishop Tutu for your global leadership! Best wishes on your special day!
ReplyDeleteMike (New Orleans)
I wish him a long and silent retirement while he learns some biblical theology.
ReplyDeleteJohn, do you really allow anonymous posting of the sort above? It says a lot about you if you do. Let's hope it is a slip of the software. If not, I'd like to complain and suggest that perhaps you could ask the poster to add a name and remove the self righteous and unsubstantiated comment until then.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, can I thank Archbishop Desmond Tutu for his wonderful and clear biblical leadership over so many years.
Andrew, as you can see there is a very clear comments policy on this blog, asking people to "give a full name and location", adding "Comments without this information may be deleted."
ReplyDeleteAs you will also be aware, there is a lot of anonymous and pseudonymous posting on Christian blogs as on others. I don't like it, but it is wearisome enforcing a rigorous name and address policy without deleting half the stuff that gets posted.
As it happens, even you haven't given a location, so you see my problem!
My location is not exactly a secret is it?! I will happily state it as Exeter Cathedral. So having done that I once again raise a complaint about the anonymous post on your blog and ask that you either remove it or ask the poster to give their name.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, there's a bit of the sense of 'high horse' about this. However, since you've complained, let's see if the anonymous poster gives their name and address.
ReplyDeleteIt would take you a while, though, I suggest, to go through the whole blog and identify all such miscreants.
If you think it says "a lot about me" that this post made it onto the blog, so be it.
John - the Gospel calls us to be generous in heart and spirit - 'liberal' - as one translation puts it. You, rightly in my view, offer love and congratulations to one of the greatest Christian leaders we shall ever know on the occasion of his birthday. Some anonymous person makes a most mean spirited comment calling into question the very credentials of such a gifted leader. I drew this to your attention, and asked if you could correct that. If that has a sense of 'high horse' about it I'm happy to ride it. Desmond Tutu has been valiant for truth and justice and enabled many people to have a voice. That one of your posters wants to now silence him, and that you stand by and let it happen does indeed say something about you and your blog.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, if you weren't so 'in your face' with comments, you might actually get somewhere!
ReplyDeleteLet's take this apart.
You first wrote,
"John, do you really allow anonymous posting of the sort above?"
Now I thought this was an odd question, given the posting policy is set out in plain English. But before dealing with that, we come to the next bit:
"It says a lot about you if you do."
Not nice.
Then:
"Let's hope it is a slip of the software."
So not only not nice, but not even sure of its ground.
Actually, I doubt whether my removing the comment would suddenly make you think either I or my blog were models of erudition for recommendation to the wider church, but having got my back up from the word go, it was always going to be tricky.
Ahh John - and you don't think your whole blog isn't 'in your face'?
ReplyDeleteHow about addressing my last post rather than simply attacking the poster?
And for the third time - please would remove the unpleasant, unnecessary and defamatory post?
Oh and - genuine question - given the posting policy is 'set out in plain English', why is it that you don't bother to adhere to it?
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I dealt with your last question in my first response: "As you will also be aware, there is a lot of anonymous and pseudonymous posting on Christian blogs as on others. I don't like it, but it is wearisome enforcing a rigorous name and address policy without deleting half the stuff that gets posted."
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons it is wearisome is that one gets tired of repeating oneself!
As you say it is tiring repeating oneself. But let me put it in plain English one more time as you seem to ignore it over and over again:
ReplyDeleteI want to make a formal complaint about the anonymous poster who made the defamatory comment about Desmond Tutu. I'd be grateful if you would deal with that. Many thanks.
Andrew, I hear your complaint. I've suggested the poster come forward with a name and location. That's it as far as I'm concerned.
ReplyDeleteAnd if the poster does not come forward, you intend to simply leave it there? You think it is an acceptable post?
ReplyDeleteI also think it a great shame that someone has published such a hateful comment about such a great leader as Desmond Tutu and with Mike and Andrew want to thank the Archbishop for his amazing courage and Christian leadership.
ReplyDeleteCanon Andrew: I am only a humble churchgoer (albeit one who dares to have opinions on theology that differ from my betters in the church hierarchy like yourself), but I have to ask: is there really so little work to do at Exeter Cathedral, that can spend your days picking utterly trivial fights on theologically conservative blogs?
ReplyDeletePresumably you spend an equal amount of time on Thinking Anglicans making sure that lies and ad hominems against Evangelicals do not go unchallenged?
Revd John: please keep the comment up. It may be a little harshly expressed, but Tutu's undoubted social and political achievements do not give him a free pass as far as dodgy theology is concerned.
Strike a blow against high-handed pomposity!
It would seem to me that the anonymous poster has not cast aspersions on Tutu's humanitarian work such as his opposition to apartheid (for which he is best known), but on his theology which appears to be a modified form of liberation theology.
ReplyDeleteSuch a view of scripture while sitting well with liberals does not sit well with conservatives and on a conservative blog like this, it is entirely in order to point this out. As Niall has stated. I hardly think that Liberal blogs would have reciprocated in kind.
Chris Bishop
Devon
And you don't think the opposition of apartheid was not theologically and biblically motivated?
ReplyDeleteIn the belief that it will be good for everyone concerned, comments on this thread are now closed.
ReplyDelete