McDurmon’s Affirmative. Preston’s Avoidance.

July 21, 2012 by Jason Bradfield

21 Comments 21 Comments

Here was Joel McDurmon’s opening affirmative speech, followed by Don Preston’s response. Notice that Don says barely a peep about the Job passage and though he touches on Luke 20, he didn’t really address the meat of the argument regarding the inheritance of the earth. And then, get this, Don accuses Joel of being “dispensational” because Joel believes that we will physically resurrect and live physically on a renewed physical earth.

Um, Don, it appears you have spent so much time in heresy that you have forgotten a universal, foundational truth of Christianity. Premills, amills, and postmills all affirm a physical resurrection and inheritance of the earth.

This constant spin by hyperpreterists to try to pin the “dispensational” label on people is absolutely absurd and reveals an ignorance of Christian doctrine.

VIDEO HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCE.

SharonNichols

“This constant spin by hyperpreterists to try to pin the “dispensational” label on people is absolutely absurd and reveals an ignorance of Christian doctrine.”

Exactly right Jason. Hyperpreterists must scorn anything to do with physical because it flies against their spiritual only doctrine.

What I find quite comical is their attempt to spin historical Christianity as Gnostic. LOL
John Marra

Jason,

Based on what you’ve seen of the debate, do you think Joel McDurmon did an adequate enough job of refuting Preston’s erroneous view of the nature of the resurrection to make spending the money to get the DVD’s worth it? Or should I save my money for the debate between Preston and Sam, whenever that happens?
Samuel Frost

Well, Jason, Pretcompost is at it again, raising “legal” questions as to whether or not, based on a “court reporter” being there, we have the “rights” to post this. According to Mike Sullivan, “I’m just curious – If I’m not mistaken, Jason and Sam got the boot from the chat room when Joseph pointed out they hadn’t paid the 79.00 like the rest of us.
And do they have rights to the debate?”

Mike Sullivan is wrong, again. First, I was booted off because I was called “rude” (never mind the extreme comments of Mike Sullivan calling me a liar and one guy calling Joel an “a**hole” and told one guy “fu” (we know what “fu” means). As far as Jason being booted off, I saw where a guy named “silas” was. But, here we go again with the “avoid the facts and just slam” Obama campaign techniques. I was booted off not because of not “paying” (it was on there for free, how do they know I have not paid, or am planning on sending a check?). How these guys jump to conclusions is beyond me….but typical of them….
Samuel Frost

and dorothy responds, “I don’t know whether Jason and Sam are encroaching on some legal issues here but I do know one thing, if I were Joel and had been depending on Sam and/or Jason for anything, then their activity in the chat room would be enough for me to want nothing to do with them. I heard they were pretty out of line.” She wasn’t even there…..rofl….she just “heard”….from another hyper, no doubt….I was there, Dorothy…..for all of it…..and all the chat…..saw it ALL…..and, no, the way they talked about Joel, it was not pretty at all…..downright ugly…..
Jason Bradfield

The video is on a public site for ANYONE to see. There is absolutely nothing on that site prohibiting embedding. The embed option is featured on the video.

If they don’t want it viewed, then take it off. It is as simple as that.
Samuel Frost

Once something is viral and public, it’s public and free for viewing. There are no “legal” issues or “rights”. Same with You Tube or anything else. Once you go public, you go public. Welcome to the Internet.
Jason Bradfield

And just for clarity sake, Sam, THEIR “technical guy” is the one making it public, not me.
Jason Bradfield

Looks like the techie guy finally figured it out. haha.
Samuel Frost

Jason, I wanted to post your post on Facebook in case it gets deleted:

lol. Wow. The manipulation is absolutely incredible. I get blamed for things i didn’t do, and then one of the blamers tries to play hero by offering to pay the fees for us. I guess waving around a little cash waves away all the trash talk and slander. Absolutely incredible.

Don, it goes against my better judgment to entertain your question, considering that i have been down this road before of trying to clear my name against manipulators like Allyn and Sullivan, but considering that i am hopeful that there are still those within this heresy of whom God has not completely handed over, i will answer your question ONLY for their sake.

I was at my desk thursday night working on some store glitches for the whitefield media site. I got a PM from a friend on FB (who is slowly coming out of hyperpreterism) informing me that the debate has been made available for public viewing. He then gave me a link:

https://new.livestream.com/accounts/1121975/events/1006920

I clicked on the link and the video immediately started buffering, then playing. It was around 9 pm. There was nothing about a password, fee, or anything else.

I told him thanks and that i was not aware that they were going to stream the debate for free. He said, “Neither did I. Don’t thank me. Thank Michael Sullivan.”

I asked “Why?” And he told me that Michael Sullivan posted the link at pretcosmos. This was the link he gave me:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PretCosmos/message/32009

Now, i did not even bother going to the PC link nor could i, because i have had that site blocked now for months. However, in light of all this fuss today, i just searched Google’s cache and found Google’s “copy” of Sullivan’s post here: (i’m also posting this just in case Sullivan tries to delete his original post)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A9N8NRwgigHgJ%3Agroups.yahoo.com%2Fgroup%2FPretCosmos%2Fmessage%2F32009+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

So, as you can clearly see, the actual man who is guilty of advertising the link to the public is Michael Sullivan. Oh, the irony of all ironies. The guy running his trap the most appears to be the one who made the link available to the public to begin with. lol.

And i suppose the other person(s) you ought to blame are your so-called “programers” who streamed your debate on a PUBLIC venue. “Glitch” my behind. This was incompetence.

ANYONE could have visited livestream and saw the debate streaming. ANYONE. It was public, with absolutely no wording whatsoever about fees, passwords, and the like. NONE.

Sam, the chat room was told, got booted off for being rude and not paying. YET, you had hyperprets who didn’t pay being allowed to view the stream AND being just as rude, if not more so, than Sam supposedly was. One hyperpret called Joel an “asshole” and told a person “F.U.”

So this baloney about being booted because of rudeness and not paying is…well…just that. Pure baloney.

Now, as for Mike ‘the link sharer’ Sullivan’s false accusation that i “copied” the video…no such thing happened. I mean, for crying out loud, here’s a guy who has scared off at least two webmasters (me and Bryan Lewis) with his nonsense and even threatened to sue me for supposedly hijacking his site simply because his site wouldn’t load one day (the HOST changed his password)…you’re going to take any website/internet claims from this nut seriously?….

Again, because of the incompetence of your “programers”…the recorded streams were archived on the page for PUBLIC VIEWING. Seeing that they were being made available, all i did was copy the EMBED code ON THE PUBLIC PAGE and pasted it in a post i wrote up about the debate. It’s the same principle at work when people embed YouTube videos.

PPW Conference by Joseph Vincent
new.livestream.com
Watch Joseph Vincent’s PPW Conference on Livestream.com..
Samuel Frost

Irony of irony indeed…..I was prepared to pay for the debate, yet I saw the same link – thanks Mike! My thought, like everyone elses practically, was that they were making this free (maybe because they wanted to let everyone see Joel get “slapped”). Having seen it, though, I would have been very disappointed. The frame froze repeatedly. Volume would sometimes come in and out. The frame would occassionaly reloop – causing me to miss parts here and there several times. I would have been P.Oed for eighty bucks. I probably would have wanted my money back, or at least a pro-rate. If Jason was in charge of a debate that we wanted people to pay-per-view and he did this…..needless to say I would be sore and let him know it (we have already talked about this last weekend). As for those who watched for free? Well, I certainly would not ask them to pay. I would have to accept Jason’s blundering as the responsible thing.

Now, as to the ethic of “well, you knew” – true. Is it “stealing”? No. It was free to the public (not my fault). Now, if Jason had paid and sent me and others his paid for password, well, now you have a point. That would be theft. If, knowing now that Joseph took it off Livestream, and Jason purchased a copy and THEN posted it…theft. That would be wrong. However, viewing a free event that was set up that way is not stealing anything. It’s free. Unless, of course, every time you listen to a song on You Tube, you pay the royalty to the artist you are listening to! They HATE You Tube! Wonder why you see those CD bins at Best buy for 4 bucks? Cause no one is buying them any more! It’s on You Tube. And I bet, I just bet, you have listened to your favorite songs….I know I have….welcome to the Internet. When you go public, you go public.
Samuel Frost

Jason….as predicted….you were deleted….whew…glad I save it!
- http://www.facebook.com/kingneb Jason Louis Bradfield
  
  Sam, i’m not sure what happened. But i know better than to post a comment and not save it. lol. I posted it again and so far, it is sticking.
  
  I’m not saying anymore on the matter. I’m tired of that whole scene.
SharonNichols

Hi Sam and Jason,

As for me, I accidentally ran across the link on Facebook. Being curious, I clicked on it and was able to access it. At the time, and after reading the comments on the chat-feed, I figured it was because they had had so many technical problems, perhaps they were allowing public access.

But when I saw on Facebook that Don wasn’t aware of what happened, and since I knew ahead of time that it was supposed to of been a pay-for-view event, I felt bad and offered to at least purchase the MP3 since that is all I can afford. I do believe this is reasonable considering the small amount of time I actually watched the video. Don may disagree but I will try to do what Don thinks is reasonable.

I see your point about the public access part. But whether it was a mistake or not, since I did know it wasn’t supposed to be a free public event I do have guilt over my watching once it has been brought to light it shouldn’t have been a free event. In order to make it right I feel responsible to do something to amend my actions.

It doesn’t matter whether or not I agree or disagree with their view. It doesn’t matter whether or not it was their fault or not. The fact is, I feel what “I” did was wrong (now that I know it wasn’t supposed to be free) and the right thing to do is try to make amends for my actions.

That is my opinion and, of course, you guys are free to have your own opinion about this. Having friendly disagreements is the best part about being free in Christ. :o)

Blessings,
Sharon
Samuel Frost

Sharon, as always, more than appreciated. I have thought about that, believe me. I was prepared to pay, and even asked Joseph about how to pay because Don’s website didn’t seem to indicate how to go about that. Secondly, after the fact, with the constant break ups, loops, black outs, mic problems, I would have been pissed that I paid that amount for what I judge as a fourth grade attempt. I would have wanted some pro rate. So, do I “feel” bad about that? No. Now, after the fact, if Jason posts “excerpts” and the like, that’s a problem. It’s not my fault Vincent bungled the deal for what would have been more lucrative for Don. If that happened to me, I would have had to eat cake.

By the way, it looks like Las Vegas in October.
Paul

Where in the ecumenical creeds of the first five centuries of the development of the New Covenant Christian Faith is the “physical” elevated to the status of defining orthodoxy and relegating preterists to heresy? If the full preterists err in assuming that all who oppose them are influenced by dispensationalism, it is just as clear that anti-preterists are fanatical about making the nature of the physical body after one dies into a fraudulent litmus test of declaring preterists to be, essentially, gnostics.

Believing that all of life is about continuous and ongoing fulfillment makes the label “full preterist” not accurate for me, but I have really seen no difference at all in the treatment of preterists by their attackers than the Council of Trent against the Protestants! In order to avoid dealing with the straightforward issues raised by consistent preterism, more than a few evangelicals have abandoned all together any pretense of holding to Luther’s early convictions that the conscience is subject to the Word of God. Instead, like the Pope of Rome,they impose the Nicene Creed as essentially equal to the Bible, thus committing creedal idolatry, as preterists allege. There is a better way!
- Paul Gates
  
  Paul,
  
  You ask…
  
  “Where in the ecumenical creeds of the first five centuries of the development of the New Covenant Christian Faith is the “physical” elevated to the status of defining orthodoxy and relegating preterists to heresy?”
  
  I presume you are inquiring about the body. Have you read J.N.D. Kelly’s book on early Christian Doctrines? If not you may want to pick up a copy. The book documents the development of orthodox doctrines in answer to heresies developing within the Church.
  
  The Gnostics denied the resurrection of the body, the early theologians like Irenarus and Tertullian go so far as arguing the resurrection of the “flesh”. Origin took a different slant but even he argued for the resurrection of the body identical, as in “form”, to what expired though the nature of the body was different. Nevertheless, the body was “corporeal” which I believe would address your “physical” question.
  
  You may want to research the subject a bit.
Paul Richard Strange, Senior

A few questions—
(1) The physical raising up of the natural bodies of dead Christians occurring on a future last day of human civilization informs us about the nature of the loved one who has died in the Lord in what way? By this I mean, are we to rejoice when the minister says that Brother or Sister so and so is now “with the Lord”, or should we think that our loved one is sleeping or what?
(2) Is it possible that opponents of Christians who are described as so-called “hyper-preterists” are just as likely to abuse the historical definition of gnosticism in order to condemn preterists as they claim preterists are quick to attribute all anti-preterist critique to dispensationalism? It appears to me that both groups tend to over-do labeling without explanation, and even more so those of you who cannot stand consistent preterists;
(3) Why does it appear that many people who grew up in the evangelical tradition of believing that the Bible is sufficient to resolve our honest disagreement have come to embrace the view of the bishops at the Council of Trent in demanding that the Nicene Creed be equal to Holy Scripture in authority? The early Luther, while gladly ahering to the Nicence Creed, would have blasted such a notion! It seems that many once-evangelical Americans have become total creedalists as their main protection from engaging the thoughtful issues raised by consistent preterists.

In the King of kings, paul
- Paul Gates
  
  Paul Richard Strange you ask…
  
  “The physical raising up of the natural bodies of dead Christians occurring on a future last day of human civilization informs us about the nature of the loved one who has died in the Lord in what way?”
  
  Where did you get the idea the body raised will be the “natural” body? Paul claims the natural body sown will be a spiritual body when raised. I’m not sure God’s plan of redemption was based on informing us about the nature of the loved ones who have died in the Lord. Thus I’m not sure how your question is germane to the subject at hand. You go on to ask,
  
  “By this I mean, are we to rejoice when the minister says that Brother or Sister so and so is now “with the Lord”, or should we think that our loved one is sleeping or what?”
  
  Paul considered the dead in Christ “sleeping”, although he also explains “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord”. And he also explains it is better to be with Christ than remain here, so I would think the Christian response to death should be joy in realizing the departed loved is with Christ waiting that great day when the dead in Christ will rise. You go on to ask,
  
  “Is it possible that opponents of Christians who are described as so-called “hyper-preterists” are just as likely to abuse the historical definition of gnosticism in order to condemn preterists as they claim preterists are quick to attribute all anti-preterist critique to dispensationalism?”
  
  I suppose anything is possible, but then I haven’t seen a hyperpreterist provide any evidence to suggest their view of the nature of the resurrection of the dead isn’t either Gnostic-like in that it denies the resurrection of the body or a take-off on the pagan notion of transmigration of the soul. Is it possible you don’t understand the issue at hand? You continue…
  
  “It appears to me that both groups tend to over-do labeling without explanation, and even more so those of you who cannot stand consistent preterists;”
  
  Then you may want to educate yourself on the issue because appearances can be deceiving. You continue…
  
  “Why does it appear that many people who grew up in the evangelical tradition of believing that the Bible is sufficient to resolve our honest disagreement have come to embrace the view of the bishops at the Council of Trent in demanding that the Nicene Creed be equal to Holy Scripture in authority?”
  
  Whatever gave you that idea? You continue…
  
  “The early Luther, while gladly ahering to the Nicence Creed, would have blasted such a notion! It seems that many once-evangelical Americans have become total creedalists as their main protection from engaging the thoughtful issues raised by consistent preterists”
  
  And how pray tell does this criticism apply here at this web-site?
http://gravatar.com/preteristpages Sharon N.

“By the way, it looks like Las Vegas in October.”

Alright! When you narrow down the dates please let me know ASAP. I am going to try to get out there. :o)
Paul Richard Strange Senior

I appreciate the reference to J.N.D. Kelly’s work on the subject of heresies. The Saducees denied the whole idea of resurrection. The nature of the “body” seems to be distinguished in the 15th Chapter of Paul’s first letter to the believers in Corinth. In other words, the confession of a new body for the believer is certainly an expectation of a “bodily resurrection”, but the distinction between a natural and a spiritual body pre and post death seems to be pretty plain, as well. Is the bigger deal whether the bones return to life from their natural life state, or that the new body eternally exists? The Gnostics were trying to destroy the implications of what our Lord accomplished at the Cross. The believers in Century 21 who confess that the events of Century 21 ended the Old Covenant and fulfilled the need for any further eschatological completions do not, as far as I can tell, have any Gnostic goals of undermining the redemption achieved at Calvary.
Is that a concern?
- Paul Gates
  
  Paul Richard Strange you opine…
  
  “I appreciate the reference to J.N.D. Kelly’s work on the subject of heresies. The Saducees denied the whole idea of resurrection. The nature of the “body” seems to be distinguished in the 15th Chapter of Paul’s first letter to the believers in Corinth. In other words, the confession of a new body for the believer is certainly an expectation of a “bodily resurrection”, but the distinction between a natural and a spiritual body pre and post death seems to be pretty plain, as well.”
  
  I’m not sure what you are getting at, nor do I understand what you mean by “new” body. The point is, the body raised has different characteristics than the body sown the point remains it is still the same body. You continue…
  
  “Is the bigger deal whether the bones return to life from their natural life state, or that the new body eternally exists? The Gnostics were trying to destroy the implications of what our Lord accomplished at the Cross. The believers in Century 21 who confess that the events of Century 21 ended the Old Covenant and fulfilled the need for any further eschatological completions do not, as far as I can tell, have any Gnostic goals of undermining the redemption achieved at Calvary.Is that a concern?”
  
  I’m not sure what this mean, “believers in Century 21 who confess that the events of Century 21 ended the Old Covenant and fulfilled the need for any further eschatological completions”
  
  The “deal” is God’s plan of redemption and what it entails for humanity. As with the second century Gnostics who claimed redemption was in essence all about escape and release, so too are the advocates of hyperpreterism aka “full” pretersim claiming a view of escape and release which undermines what Christ achieved at Calvary.

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