(10-28-2010 12:11 PM)Rick Schworer Wrote: [ -> ]Interesting. I'll admit I'm insulated from many of the internal wars of the IFB movement, being placed within the far northwest of Idaho. My pastor has said the King James issue was won, and I was just going off of that. He could be wrong too though!
One thing is for sure, if the IFB movement thinks that Lee Robertson and especially John R. Rice were the ideal defenders of the KJB, they're completely nuts. John R. Rice was a very avid Bible corrector and said that the ASV was the most accurate version available. Dr. Robertson, though he never spoke against the KJB and said he "preferred it", had his faculty infested with Bible correctors.
For good and for ill, I've been a bit less insulated. I've followed the IFB wars from both sides: reading such things as the Ruckman "Alexandrian Cult Correspondence"
and subscribing to
SOTL. And I was acquainted with Lee Robertson personally, which produces no happy or edifying memories.
I'll say that your pastor's remark was a great example of faith, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen!"
Not meaning to pile on here or anything...
But...
I was raised in the Midwest - Minnesota to be exact - in Independent, Fundamental, Baptist circles. This circle was the Dr. Richard Clearwaters circle of Fourth Baptist Church, Pillsbury Baptist Bible College (now defunct)(Owatonna, MN), Northland Baptist Bible College (Northern Wisconsin), Maranatha Baptist Bible College (somewhere in Wisconsin), Central Baptist Theological Seminary (which operates under Fourth Baptist Church), Faith Baptist Bible College (in Iowa), and Central Seminary's twin sister Seminary in Detroit, MI (can't remember the name now.)
Anyway, these were all Independent Baptist ministries, and represented scores of Independent, Fundamental, Baptist churches all over MN, IA, WI, ND, SD, and MI. These all taught sound doctrine at the time, including dispensationalism, anti-calvinism, etc. (Of course, they couldn't handle the meat that Dr. Ruckman has! But I had a good grasp of Larkin's material BEFORE I ever heard of Dr. Ruckman! Dr. Ruckman just "put the icing on the cake" as far as dispensational salvation, the gap, and all that other "nutty Ruckman stuff.")
These were NOT KJB only churches, and corrected the Bible at will. I attended a church started by a Pillsbury/Central grad - Dr. Bob Riley, now in Heaven - and also attended Fourth Baptist Christian School, where we were taught from 7th-12th grade that the KJB had errors, etc., etc.
It was only by the grace of God that a young lady at the Christian School told me that the KJB was the perfect word of God. At the time, I laughed her off, but when I came to "the end of my rope" and wanted answers, I visited her church, and found the power of God in the pulpit. The pastor was a PBI grad, and "jump started" my walk with the Lord.
It seems hard to believe that happened 20 years ago now...wow!
Anyway - the IFB movement is much larger than the Hyles crowd ever anticipated, or anyone else. The idea is mainly INDEPENDENT - so there is no continuity to the "movement" at all. (I think Hyles and all his cronies are a little bit egocentric, to be honest!)
The KJB crowd is almost exclusively Baptist (not completely - but upwards of 90% I would imagine), but that equation doesn't work the other way. Just because someone is an "Independent, Fundamental, Baptist" doesn't necessarily mean that they are anywhere near a REAL Bible believer, let alone a KJB Wannabe!
just my two cents, for perspective's sake!
In Christ,
