From time to time, I get questioned about why I quote the people I quote. It is almost impossible to answer anything in depth on Twitter, so I have decided to write a detailed answer for anyone bored enough to read it.
The first thing to understand is that I am not intentionally trying to stir up a debate to drive eyeballs or clicks. When I entered the pastorate almost three decades ago, I discovered a wonderful new tool called email. I had a wide circle of friends in college. As I was reading a book I would come across a quote I thought was good. I decided to ask a few of my friends if they would like for me to send them the occasional quote via email. Over the years the Quote List, as I call it, has grown to encompass nearly 600 men in ministry. I still send one every day. And my files are filled with thousands and thousands of quotes lifted from hundreds and hundreds of books. Several times a week I will go into those files, pull out the next quote in line, and put it on Twitter.
The second thing to understand is that we just may well differ on who is a bad man and who is not. This comes up in reference to a quote from Jack Hyles, for example. I'll get a response of horror, and a link to some news story from a Detroit tv station thirty years ago. The simple truth is I've read and watched and seen everything there is to see. Somewhere in my files is a 3000 word synopsis of what I think about it all. There isn't any aspect of his whole saga I'm not familiar with. And I have no illusion he is a saint. But I don't think he was the devil either. I think I have a balanced view of him. It may be as simple as the fact you are in line with the opinion of two sentences ago. And I'm not.
The third thing to understand is that when I'm not in line with the popular opinion of who is acceptable to quote and who is not I am not about to be stampeded by a Twitter mob. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to listen to a reasonable argument, especially when that comes from someone with whom I have some sort of constant contact. But stampeded I will not be.
The fourth thing to understand is that the thousands of quotes I have archived over the years contain some aspect of distilled wisdom. That's why I originally noted them in some book or other, sent them out to hundreds of pastors, and then filed them for later. That distilled wisdom is still wisdom even if the individual saying it is/has become a notoriously bad person in your eyes. Truth that is well said is still truth even if the sayer doesn't have a life that backs it up.
The fact is all of us quote people all the time whose lives are wretched. In one sense, we have to, because all of us have wretched lives. Perhaps the most under-stated verse in the Bible is the one that says we come short of the glory of God. A quote is exactly that - a quote, a selection of well-worded wisdom - not a recommendation for you to hire them as your life coach.
I freely confess the inconsistent application of selective outrage to certain quotes is frustrating. I quote Emerson and nobody blinks, but he was a Transcendentalist. So was Thoreau. Henry Ward Beecher had a way with words like few others, but almost certainly lived a life of hypocrisy and adultery. A. W. Tozer and Billy Sunday were terrible fathers. Nobody gets upset about any of these. On the other hand, you quote Martin Luther King, and expect to be commended for it. But he consorted with known communists, was a theological liberal who believed in the social gospel (which makes him a heretic), committed serial adultery all over the country, and the FBI swears it has a recording of him participating in a rape. But I'm out of line because I quoted a man who may or may not have done some wrong at some point? I don't think you should stop quoting MLK nor do I think you should ask me to stop quoting So-and-so.
The fifth thing to understand is that my use of quotes from good men you think are bad, bad men who used to be good, or from plain bad men is not inconsistent with my recommendation that we screen whom we read carefully. And if you will re-read that sentence I think you will see why. I've read many books from/about men who I later came to see in a different light. So I wouldn't read after them again. But their quotes are still in my files and they still contain wisdom. Additionally, some of those quotes from men you don't think I should quote aren't from books by them, but from books in which they were referenced at some point. I'm not being hypocritical; when I was younger in the ministry I did not read men I thought would be a bad/dangerous influence and I still do it only occasionally. But did you ever stop to think I probably came across that quote some other way, or at some other time?
"Fine. But you still shouldn't quote them."
Then don't. And if you don't want me to do so then send me a bunch of books by men you think are good to quote from. I'll happily accept them, hopefully get around to reading them someday, and pass along to others the distilled wisdom I find in them.
As for myself, I'm content to stand before the Lord and answer for how I have stewarded the influence with men He has graciously given me.
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