OBJ: “In your recent article about being made for small things you referred to people who had caused you trouble as “nutters” and “idiots”. I don’t think that the Lord Jesus would approve of that as befitting a follower of His. If you ask me, you need to moderate your language to be more like Him”.

ANS: Really? I thought that I was being ultra-kind in restricting myself to those words. If you truly understood what it is that I and others are dealing with, you would think that too. In order to be “more like Him” perhaps I should have referred to the troublemakers (i.e., gossips, slanderers, liars, and good-ministry-destroyers) as “hypocrites” and “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:13-29), “snakes, offspring of vipers” (Matthew 23:33), or “children of the devil” (John 8:44). As you can see, I was being rather moderate in my use of sobriquets.

I welcome genuine correction, but before you come on to me with your rather sneering disapproval, you really need to walk in my shoes for a bit (it’s called empathy). I am by no means the only recipient of this nutty and idiotic behaviour. Far from it. I know of good ministries that have been badly affected through the calumnies of these slanderers. I also know of good churches which have been adversely affected by them too and their congregations diminished as a result. Of course, one can pray for these twisted folks but that does not negate the need to call a spade a spade. I am not of the ilk which calls a spade by some lily-livered euphemism. If that offends you, then so be it.

A problem is that most orthodox Christians who attend nice little churches every Sunday (and I suspect that you are one of those) are never confronted by the totally off-the-wall idiots and nutters in the wider Christian scene who mostly manifest on the internet with the most insane ideas and equally insane Bible exposition (which deceive many weaker brethren) and who especially reveal themselves to those who are trying to create an honest ministry, whom they slander and even attempt to destroy because those honest ministries do not share their insane ideas and denounce them as being harmful to the body of Christ. The cunning, deviousness, and even viciousness of these idiots and nutters has to be experienced to be believed. Thus, those orthodox Christians who attend nice little churches every Sunday never experience the relentless evil and vitriol of these idiots and nutters. If they did, they would know what epithets to use to describe them.