This statement belies, in my mind, almost every single assertion he makes about his faith. Instead of going in private to correct an error - which I had done with him in the past - he went directly to the jugular, and goes directly for my Christian witness. Is that the action of someone "defending the faith"? Before you turn that around - go through this entire debate, and check the amount of times I exhaustively attempt to point out error in doctrine, and error in behavior, by Biblical means.

It's not a contest about "popularity", or about "who's right" - it's about dragging the Lord's reputation through the mud - then through the latrines, while he's at it. THAT is what made me angry, and what put him in my crosshairs, the rest of the debate. It wasn't to make him look stupid, to mock, or to ridicule him. It was to point toward the real gospel, and the real message, as unmistakably as I could, as I went down in flames. I knew I was going to, because I already knew the outcome. I said what it would be several posts prior.

I felt, and I still do feel, that the attempt was well worth the loss of any sort of "popularity" or anything else I'd gained in that community - simply for the opportunity to point out, as unmistakably as possible, the error, and the danger, in believing in a "social" gospel, a gospel without personal accountability, and a gospel in which, supposedly, one must not even be born again. That is not only dangerous - but downright destructive to the gospel. I have the spiritual gifts, I believe, which make it well-nigh impossible to let an attack on the gospel go by without an answer. This, I truly believe, was a straight on, direct and cutting attack on the gospel.