E-mail dialogue between Ramie Lynch and Steve Scianni after Pastor John Coleman interviewed Dan Mages on Truth Radio 10/7/06
Below
is a dialogue between myself (Steve Scianni) and Ramie Lynch, a friend of Pastor John
Coleman. After Dan Mages appeared on Pastor Coleman’s web cast radio
show, Coleman posted these remarks by Ramie on his webpage,www.johnecoleman.org.
[Ramie's original remarks]
I listened to Dan Mages on your Saturday web cast. I have some
serious issues with his positions. In my opinion, he is an apostate and
heretic. I don't know him personally but I can judge him by the corrupt
fruit he is producing.
One point he kept hammering stood out to me that he needs to repent.
He kept saying that he does not believe in an eternal burning hell; and
if there was one, God is evil and he would rebel against him. This
sounds like the crap that Pharaoh told Moses. "Who is the Lord that I
should obey him?" God is the Sovereign ruler of this universe. He can
do whatever he wants with his creation. It is no different than if I
build a sandcastle. I am its creator. I am its owner. I can do whatever
I want with it.
God has proven that he is just and loves us by extending all of us
faith through Jesus Christ. He offers us a choice. We can accept him or
reject him. Just as Adam chose to disobey him in the garden and get all
of humanity in this sinful mess.
Anyway, I will stop going off. All I want to say is that in my
opinion Dan came across as an apologist for Satan's viewpoint. He came
across as someone who thinks he has the authority to challenge God's
motives. This guy needs to repent or he will find himself in the
eternal hell fire that he denies.
Ramie Lynch
[Email sent to Pastor John Coleman, I could not find Ramie’s direct address]
Ramie, hello there, my name is Steve Scianni, an old friend of
Pastor John and long time friend of Dan Mages. I recently had the
opportunity to read your comments on Pastor John’s webpage in regard to
Dan’s Interview and I felt compelled to write you a response. So if you
don’t mind, hear me out as I listened to you.
While I understand your zeal and respect your desire to defend
that which is true and good (Dan and I share that same drive) I am
persuaded that it is misled and that your language toward another
person you’ve never met and don’t fully understand needs to be
refined. It is, to be frank, slanderous – an unjust libel which attacks
the character of a man all would be lucky to have as a friend. Dan is
one of the most caring, gentle, and sincere people I know, driven by an
intense love for truth, learning, careful scholarship and studious
discipline. “Apostate and heretic” are therefore, simply cheap,
disgraceful and disrespectful words for him. They are not the words of
the humble and thoughtful, but of the cowardly and ignorant who have
the bully of power and tradition behind them.
But the saddest part of the name calling is that you never
consider that perhaps what you have been taught is the real “heresy,”
or that what you teach is the real ‘corrupt fruit.’ You do not allow
for even the possibility of this and that is of course your first and
most fundamental error…shared in common by the majority of religious
people. So when someone comes along who once thought what you thought,
who has studied these issues intensely and genuinely, and happened to
change his mind, going in the direction of that which he felt compelled
the evidence led, you do not appreciate the struggle, or applaud the
honesty, or commend his pursuit and love of Truth. Neither do you
humble yourself and seek to perhaps learn something – instead, you
dismiss him instantly with two terrible words, groundless
presuppositions, poor logic and the tired, nauseating clichés of an
arrogant and pompous dogma. Intimidation, threats of hell, and medieval
curses are simply the Church’s pitiful substitute for reason, evidence,
and dialogue. They don’t impress or scare anyone anymore, so the time
to think and speak in a more rational, professional and academic manner
is now, because you are going to be held accountable for what you have
to say.
Finally, I don’t find it necessary to critique the paragraph
word by word, point by point, but I will be happy to do so, if ever
need be. Suffice it to say, your promotion of tyrannical power-worship
and comparing humans to sandcastles didn’t make a compelling case, but
only solidified in the minds of any reader how infantile, treacherous
and pathetic Fundamentalist Christianity is. Lastly, please know that I
do not attack you as a person, Ramie, I’m certain you’re an amiable man
with good intentions, but the words you chose to use and the dangerous
ideology you align yourself with and choose to promote ought to be
scrutinized. So in hopes that we all become dedicated to Truth, not
Creed, I submit this to you respectfully,
Steve Scianni
[An email from Pastor John Coleman]
Steve, this is Ramie's reply. . .
He does not wish to continue the discussion. I hope this clears things up for you.
Pastor John
[Ramie's final reply]
Hello Steve
I apologize if my original message made you think that I was
personally attacking Dan. I was not. I was attacking the heresy he was
spreading over the webcast. Like I said, I don't know Dan personally. I
was only judging him by the fruit (unsound doctrine) he was spewing
over the net. If I judge him by what he says he believes, I can only
conclude that he is an apostate and heretic. His doctrine does not line
up with the word of God. He can be the nicest person in the world, but
that does not change the fact that he needs to repent of his apostasy.
I do not stand in judgment of him. All I can do is tell him the truth.
If he does not repent, he will end up in the eternal burning hell fire
that he denies. If I did not love him, I would remain silent and let
him continue in his error. If I do not warn him, his blood will be on
my hands.
I have no doubt that Dan is a good, nice, upstanding, well-rounded
person; but being a good, nice, upstanding, well-rounded person does
not mean that his views are Biblically correct. In essence, he
questioned the sovereignty of God. He stated that he does not believe
in an eternal burning Hell. He then stated that if there was one, God
was evil and that he would rebel against him. Now, if you heard that,
how would you judge him? Would you consider that position Biblically
accurate? Would you dare challenge the fact that God has the power to
do whatever he wants with his creation? God's wisdom and majesty are
beyond comprehension. How can a mere mortal question God's motives? God
clearly states in Isaiah 55:8-9, "For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
The bottom line for me is that I read my Bible and abide by it's
teachings. I don’t follow man, I follow the word of God. I don’t care
how nice you are. If what you are teaching is wrong and can endanger
someone's eternal soul, I'm going to say something about it. Even Paul
had to correct Peter about the foolishness he was promoting. All
believers should follow the example of the Bereans. "These were more
noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with
all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those
things were so." Acts 17:11 If we followed their example, read our
bibles, examined the scripture to see if what is being preached lines
up with the word, maybe the Church wouldn't be so screwed up.
In closing, I ask you to examine Dan's views. Search the scriptures
and see if his views line up with the word of God. If they do not, come
against these false teachings. This is a serious matter because those
who follow them could endanger their eternal soul.
Ramie Lynch
[Steve's response/e-mail back to John]
Hi John, thanks for sending the reply and I apologize for the
delayed response. I understand that Ramie can get busy and probably
doesn't have a lot of time to email back and forth, which is fine, I
feel I made the point I wanted to make and judging by his reply (or
inability to address what I wrote) our time is probably better spent
doing something else. But I won’t be silenced just because he doesn’t
want to continue any longer, so I will be happy to take the last word
and say a few things in response.
Ramie's disclaimers of "I'm not judging, or attacking, or
condemning," etc. are all insignificant, because those are the very
things he does involuntarily, and the point still remains that to call
someone a 'heretic and apostate' is a slander and that is because
anyone who listens to Ramie, or who views your website, will
automatically view Dan negatively, including seeing him as a 'wolf,'
'deceiver' or 'enemy of god' or as some other charlatan. That is to
stack the deck completely against him so that he will never get a fair
hearing from your audience. Irregardless of how atrocious Ramie may
think his theology is, he has poisoned the well. And he did this
unfairly and without justification.
He can say all manner of things, including, 'doesn't line up with
the word of god,' or 'unsound doctrine,' but little to no attempt is
made to prove these claims, and no humility is ever shown in even
considering the possibility that Dan may have the more biblical view of
hell or God. He shows no willingness to listen, change, or rethink;
just the same mistaken assertions. And this is the whole point, Pastor
Coleman. Are not the 'people of God' better than this? Does truth
need to run and hide and be propped up by words like 'heretic and
apostate' and silly threats of hell? Imagine the Universities and
science community acting like this. The days are over when arguments
are won by whoever has the most people on their side or by whoever can
use the nastiest names and threats. So all I'm pulling for is that the
“Lovers of God” be lovers of Truth and to act in an intelligent,
scholastic, professional and reasonable manner. God doesn't need Ramie
to defend him from Dan, nor should the Church ever fear having her most
precious teachings critically examined. If they are true, they will
stand the test, and if they are false, no amount of threats or curses
is ever going to make them not false. Simply show Dan where he is
wrong, make good arguments, present solid evidence and he will change
his mind. But call him names and just declare that he’s wrong, solves
nothing and only proves a lack of maturity and knowledge.
Ramie asks if I ‘dare challenge the fact that God has the power to
do whatever he wants with his creation,’ and I say absolutely that is
NOT a fact. Contrary to what he might say, God cannot do
whatever he wants with his creation. He cannot lie to his creatures,
and he cannot be evil to his creatures. He cannot be unloving to his
creation, and he cannot be unjust to his creation, right? So I’m not
sure where Ramie gets this notion that God can do whatever he wants. In
fact the very opposite is the case, any person who creates just to
destroy or torture we call wasteful, incompetent, or wicked, so why
should we expect different from God? What do we expect a loving, just
and wise being to do with his creation? The very opposite of what Ramie
strangely imagines he will do.
And finally Ramie asks, if I heard that Dan denied eternal torment
and that if there was such a place we should rebel against this evil
God, how I would judge him and if this position was biblically
accurate. My answer is simply that I would rebel against all things
that were abhorrent and unjust, and as an eternity of torment is
unspeakably violent and cruel, at extreme variance with our moral
conscience and sense of justice, and universally judged to be excessive
and morally reprehensible, I would rebel against that teaching or any
being who would inflict it. The bottom-line is that every human being
has the right to question, doubt and disagree no matter who or what
authority speaks…period. To deny human beings the right to ask for a
justification or an explanation, or disregard their freedoms of speech,
thought and conscience are the crimes of tyrants and despots.
SO AT THE VERY LEAST, I WOULD QUESTION whether that doctrine were
even true or not! I wouldn't lie down, like the religious masses do,
and be spoon-fed it and just take it as true and then try and make up
all these ad hoc excuses for God trying to justify it. That is the
absurdity the church finds itself in and the irony is that it’s not
even a Biblical teaching! That is why intellectual humility should be
practiced and stressed, because Ramie and the rest of the Church
continue to make outrageous claims and they don’t even know what their
own book says. If they examined this doctrine fully and in detail they
would find that the bible is overwhelmingly not on their side. The
Church should heed Ramie’s advice and “read [their] bibles, examine the
scripture to see if what is being preached lines up with the word,”
that way “maybe the Church wouldn't be so screwed up.”
To conclude, Ramie's response is classic fundamentalist propaganda,
typical of someone who is heavily indoctrinated and hasn't learned how
to fairly consider another's viewpoint. He repeats constantly that he
is ‘biblical,’ that he ‘reads the word,’ and ‘abides by its teachings,’
that he doesn’t ‘follow man’ he ‘follows the word of God,’ and on and
on. This is the party line of every evangelical parrot and anyone who
really knows what’s going on, knows that this is not the truth. In
reality, he had someone read the Bible for him and tell him what it
says; now he reads it in that light. He’s only as ‘biblical’ as his
church will allow him to be, he has no freedom to disagree. He doesn’t
abide by the teachings of the Bible, he abides by the teachings of his
Church, and he does in very fact follow man because he is a follower of
certain men’s interpretations of the Bible. So he can disclaim all he
wants but everybody knows there is no substance to it.
Pastor John, I thank you again for reading, if you feel gracious
enough to post it on your webpage, again I feel your readers would be
served. If you feel Ramie might benefit from it, you can send it his
way and even though he doesn’t want to continue a discussion, he may at
least find the time to read it. I appreciate you, John, and consider
you always a friend and dear person…ciao!
Steve Scianni
