Originally Posted by Carpenter (Post 326101)

While I am not given to reading long posts, I am anxious to read this topic.

Here is an email T.F. sent me in response to some comments, and questions I had about the book not long after it hit the mainstream market.



Thanks for writing and also for your comments. How did you hear about the book? I shall endeavor to answer your questions and the interesting points you raise. First, on the question of languages, I am unaware that many of the mendiscussing the new issue in those early days would have been schooled inthe Biblical languages. E.N. Bell would be an exception but of those onthe "Oneness" side like Howard Goss, Frank Ewart, Glenn Cook, O.F. Fauss and others I have never seen any evidence of formal training in the languages.

Moreover, their writings reveal no evidence that they took this matter under consideration. The reference to John 3:5 is especially important but here I could find no evidence of argument from theoriginal languages. There is still in my view, a small but largely silent PCI-like elementwithin the UPC.

Somewhere in the book you will come across a reference to a statement Nathaniel Urshan (immediate past GeneralSuperintendent)made to me in 1999 in which he thought there might be 200-300 ministers of that persuasion in the UPC but this out of 8,000. As you get into chapters 3 and 4 especially you will find some evidence of this.

Will the UPC re-examine their position? I doubt it very much. In my opinion the general feeling from the 1970s onwards has been that PCI theology needs to be buried and eliminated. Chapters 4 and 5 of thebook consist of a detailed elaboration of how that program was implmented and carried out.

I take your point about the academic tone of the book. The book was written initially and principally for an academic audience. I can certainly see the benefit in perhaps producing at some future point a shorter and less technical version aimed at a "popular" audience. There are no definite plans, however, at present to that end but there is always the chance that another publisher might want to produce such abook.

Overall, I think the book is accessible to the lay person. Yes,there are parts which tend to be a bit more technical but these could be skimmed or passed over without doing significant damage to the theme or arguments of the book. It is hard to give concrete guidance on this but for people really interested in some of this, I think they can read it to some benefit.

I can give you a personal anecdote from my students days. I became interested in some later medieval church history and oneof the subjects had to do with what is today the Czech Republic. Of course the place names and personal names were completely unpronouncible and for a while it was really off-putting. At length, I simply started to ignore words I could not pronounce and managed to learn a great deal.

The other thing is that hopefully the context of what I have written mayshed light on the meaning of technical words or passages.

Thanks for your sentiments about the UPC answering my book. I think they should. My book is not an attack on them and in fact I have just written a short essay on why I wrote the book which is being published at the first of next month on a website run by a UPC minister.

You are quite right to point out that normally the message is left unanswered while the messenger is clubbed. That is an unfortunate tactic. I have heard one comment second hand that a ranking official of the UPC in the mid-west has bought a number of copies of the book and is handing them out and intends to buy more. I cannot say what the motivation is,whether he is looking for support for a bonfire or thinks there is somemerit in the book itself which his colleagues need to read.

It is most unfortunate that UPC people generally do not read, study for themselves or exercise much critical thought about their faith andhistory. I do expect someone like David Bernard to write some type of review but I will not expect much more than a general dismissal based on a supposition that I have an axe to grind or something like that.

I would be pleased to again hear from you especially after you've had occasion to read the entire book. By the way, what part of the world do you live in and do you have UPC connections?

Thanks for your comments.

Best wishes,
Thomas Fudge