Project Hindsight 2020

After a decade or more, any website will have a host of issues to address such as archaic third-party code (I have a load of that from YouTube) or broken links (plenty of those too). This gives me an opportunity to also read over old articles and see if I can (or need) to update them in terms of factual matter, new academic insights, and other miscellany (such as news of various opponents who have either quit the online field or are deceased).

I may as well have a name for this project: Project Hindsight 2020. Among other things, I will also be transferring items from other locations (like this blog, or the E-Block) into the main Tekton website, and I will also be asking guest writers for updates on their material. In some cases, if I no longer can get in touch with a guest writer, I will delete their material until I hear from them.

I expect Project Hindsight 2020 to occupy me through...well...the end of 2020. It's also all part of making sure that Tekton materials are ready for a transition to someone else's management at such time as that becomes needed -- probably not for at least another 20-30 years, but you never know.

Added 10/31: As part of this project, you will begin to see some old entries vanish from this blog as I transplant them to Tekton's website. 

Added 11/14: I have completed the process of transplanting all of my own writings from the Ticker (and Forge) to the Tekton website. Only a few items by me will remain on these blogs, as they were deemed more practical to keep here. I am now in the process of notifying guest writers of the option to review their material from here before I transplant it. Meanwhile, on the Tekton website itself, I have removed a few items for various reasons (such as the item I was responding to no longer being online) and fixed broken links. I will now begin the process of editing/updating articles.

Added 5/28/21: Editing and updating articles has become a far more mammoth project than anticipated. It is fair to say that I forgot the sheer volume of material that had been produced. I have been checking articles alphabetically by file name, and I am just now at the halfway point.

Added 11/7/21: I have completed updating all articles and have also created  companion vids for all the articles I believe I possibly can. I am now working on updating e-books.

Reconstruction in Progress

 I am working on moving the Tekton website to a new webhost, having become dissatisfied with the lack of service and lack of principle demonstrated by the former webhost. There are some minor technical issues (I think related to Javascript) that need to be worked out which I am discussing with the web designer who designed the site in its current iteration. Until these are worked out, access to various parts of Tekton may be limited. Hopefully it will not take long.

Stupidity Unmasked

There was a recent news item about a lawmaker in Ohio, Nino Vitale, who refused to wear a face mask under the premise that "we are all created in the image and likeness of God" and "(t)hat image is seen the most by our face." This news reflects a few thematic points.

The first theme is that utterly inane arguments like this one never die; they simply are resurrected repeatedly to serve newer and even stupider purposes. Vitale's rendering of the image language of the Bible is no different in essence than Mormon arguments which use the same passages to declare that God is a glorified human being -- arguments which I addressed and debunked in The Mormon Defenders back in 2001. (The sum of it: The language has nothing to do with physical appearance but with humans being designated authorities on earth. A mask doesn't change that.)

The second theme is that the resurrection of stupidity like this is a perpetual cycle which no amount of education can correct. A church that has gorged on Joel Osteen and messages and music designed to make themselves feel better will not be persuaded by facts or evidence when there is an agenda at hand to pursue. Apologetics is a practice for the sake of the dwindling few who are the exceptions to this -- and it is those I will continue to serve with this ministry.

Crowned with Viral Glory

The current crisis has not unexpectedly brought to light some darker corners of the church that had been better off remaining dark. A couple of examples:

Jim Bakker, whose reputation is so well known as to not require any further explanation, has been called down for promoting a fake toothpaste cure: 

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11/814550474/missouri-sues-televangelist-jim-bakker-for-selling-fake-coronavirus-cure

Rodney Howard Browne has been arrested for violating public health orders: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/us/florida-pastor-arrested-river-church/index.html  People might not remember Browne, so a reminder may be in order. He was a leading voice in the “holy laughter” movement some years back.  https://www.equip.org/article/an-evening-with-rodney-howard-browne/

For my part, I’ll just make a rather mundane prediction that for the foreseeable future, distance learning is going to become a much more popular way of teaching apologetics.

I’ll also take a guess that John Hagee’s next book with be about how this is the end of the world.