Some genuinely nice stuff on this site, I love it….

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Just to clarify a bit… My response is, of course, not to say that we won’t sometimes agree on some issue with those with a deficient gospel. Neither does it mean we have to avoid causes they take on. But we must avoid rubber stamping those with a deficient gospel for the purpose of fighting the “enemy”..

Thanks for the reply! That is a pretty good quote, but I’m unsure how it is relevant.

First of all, in what sense is this declaration doing a deed or being “in the arena”?

Second, how is writing a declaration (or signing it) related to “the rough work of a workaday world”? Something tells me your usage of this quotation is comparing two highly disparate situations. Do you believe Teddy was referring to something analogous to writing up a declaration and then getting people to sign it? Don’t you think he was referring to something a bit more gritty than that?

I’m not trying to be harsh here… But depending on how you define things, Gal 1:8 may be a more relevant consideration in this case than the Teddy quote. When you make a declaration against a King’s Enemy, and your declaration is inclusive and speaks glowingly of people, who on a central point, are in agreement with the Enemy over against the King, the King is generally not pleased… That is at least one way to look at it, and it makes a whole lot of sense to me.

The gospel is our means of fighting the enemy. We fight the enemy by declaring the gospel. We can not fight the enemy, on the terms stated in the declaration, together with those who have a deficient gospel.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.”

Theodore Roosevelt.

My hat’s off to those who actually worked to draft the declaration, who used their pens to resist the Enemy and not to criticize those who are resisting the Enemy. I have added my signature in support of their leadership and of their effort.