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Frank Viola: Clarifying

By Josh Brown ⋅ February 6, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

**UPDATE** I’d like to publicly update my thoughts. I know most of you probably don’t have the time to read through all of the comments below but it’s been brought to my attention that I might have come off a bit harsher than I meant to. In hindsight, this is probably true. I’m not going to take the original post down because I’m not a revisionist. But here’s what I would like to clarify.

I obviously don’t think Frank was literally going to hit anyone. That was meant to be a joke. The stuff about the old people at the bottom was also a poorly delivered joke meant to say that older people are typically those who would say AMEN and that I like to think people who like to say AMEN as sort of the AMEN corner. And since I haven’t heard someone say AMEN in about 10 years nor do I know of any young people who say AMEN and nod their head when listening to a speaker, I thought I’d try to be funny. Again . . . it was just a very poorly framed joke. Humor is not my strong suit. So no offense to people with gray hair I hope.

As for what I believe/know about Frank . . . 1) I don’t think he’s anti-semitic, 2) I don’t think he’s a horrible historian, 3) I think he’s a nice guy, and 4) I’ve got no problem with passionate people or people who arrive at different conclusions than I do.

As for what I stand by, 1) I think a conversationalist, house church, church-as-family guy wouldn’t resort to passionate Pentecostal-like preaching, 2) I think there were some great historical leaps made that made most everyone in there think that it was common sense knowledge, 3) there were a lot of high school students in there and even young college kids (and probably even some adults) who probably don’t have the ability to differentiate very well the difference between historical accuracy and historical stretches, 4) if you are going to take the endorsements of the blog and podcast, then it’s only fair that I get to revise my opinion after hearing someone in person, and 5) if you’re known in the blogosphere and in christian circles as the extreme, polarizing, passionate guy (that you get marketed as by publishers) . . . then don’t get mad when someone calls you on it. This last point is less directed to Frank and more directed at the supporters of Frank who have participated in the comments. Because I think Frank could actually care less about what some hack behind a computer blogs about. In that way, we’re both probably pretty ambivalent.

I apologize if it appears I made the post with ill intent or malice towards Frank. That’s not the case. I’m sure Frank is a nice guy. I’m sorry I came off like an ass. And I’m sure my jokes weren’t funny.

But I do stand by my previous reflections and do not apologize at all for what I felt like sitting there, bad jokes about snakes and Mike Tyson aside.

I really just wanted to correct my previous endorsements. While I am no Ted Kennedy or Caroline Kennedy, I don’t want someone to buy the book based off of my previous statements and defenses of Frank. I want them to be informed on both ends. And so if I persuaded someone to buy the book with my endorsement, which is what Frank and his publisher wanted us to do when he came on our podcast, then I feel like I’ve got a right to temper my endorsement if at any point I don’t feel like being as gung-ho about it as I was before.

So that’s that.