Thursday 5 March 2009

Retractions

A week or two ago I published a post about a new magazine, noting that its stated aim and its actual contents and other features of it were at variance. This generated a variety of responses, by comments (some of which were published, some not) and e-mail.

Having considered them, I think it's fair to say that the tone of my post was unnecessarily and unhelpfully aggressive. For that I apologise. It is in part my fault that it provoked at least one aggressive reaction I've seen in the blogosphere (which went beyond what I had actually said). It was not needed and I should not have done it. I could have written the post in a more objective manner that would have been more edifying.

I unrepentantly stand by in full the substance of the post; it is still clear to me (from such things as the magazine's leadership, its contents, its choice of books to be reviewed, its choice of authors, from those who have promoted it on the web (even before the first issue's publication date!)) that this new magazine is going to be, intentionally, a medium for channeling in some of (inter-related) sub-cultures of American Presbyterianism (Federal Vision theology, James Jordan, "Reformed Catholicism") which are at present overwhelmingly not accepted by the actual British Reformed movement. These are trends I shall by God's grace remain an unrepentant and staunch critic of! But, also by God's grace I shall try to be more constructive in how I go about it. My thanks to AR for calling me to account, I appreciate it.

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