Thursday, December 15, 2016

On the new disclaimer

This blog is my personal blog. All views and articles expressed and written here are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or denomination or anyone else. Most posts are written for my own personal edification, and are not written in response to any external situation, unless otherwise and explicitly stated. Nobody should be reading into them anything other than what is explicitly stated, unless otherwise confirmed by me in writing.

In my interactions with others, it is sometimes amazing how many times people have oftentimes not understand or make false associations when it comes to communication. Communication by words implies words in its literary context. The larger context is basically the collection of posts on my blog, which can be called the "canonical context." Interpretation of texts in context implies interpreting what I say and write according to proper rules of hermeneutics. It does not mean interpreting what I say according to a foreign context, as like how the book The Pooh Perplex does to the classic children's story of Winnie the Pooh.

So, in the interest of actually aiding understanding, I have placed a disclaimer on the top of my blog. And I will here breakdown what the disclaimer means.

Nobody should be reading into them anything other than what is explicitly stated, unless otherwise confirmed by me in writing.

It is sometimes amazing how people seem to read all sorts of connotations into what I have said or not said. Let me put it here bluntly: If I did not say something explicitly, there is a 90% chance that I did not mean what you think I meant implicitly. This is how my mind words: I have at one time 4 to 5 thought processes running concurrently in my mind, most of them in the background. And these thought processes are oftentimes independent of each other. One could be about Critical Race Theory, another about Soteriology, another about the current document I am working on. If I post consecutively one tweet about Critical Race Theory, another about Soteriology, and another about the document I am working on, it DOES NOT MEAN that the three are in any way connected! It only means I have all three topics in mind. Putting these three, or any permutation of stuff, together, as if they have something in common, is to misunderstand and misinterpret what I am trying to say.

Therefore, unless something is explicitly stated, or confirmed by me, chances are that any "reading between the lines" is just eisegesis. If I didn't say it, I didn't mean it, period! And in fact, I am sure that such interpretations and associations will not pass muster in any court of law, so perhaps everyone should be a little more logical and rational here.

Most posts are written for my own personal edification, and are not written in response to any external situation, unless otherwise and explicitly stated.

My blog is primarily for myself. From the very beginning, its primary purpose was for me to put my thoughts into words. Only secondarily it is for communication and interaction. Also, it is not uncommon for me to ruminate on various topics for a long time before expressing them. In this light, my recent tweet about wishing to do something about church order did not arise out of the blue. Rather, it was something I was considering for the last 2 months in private, and only now when I am more seriously considering it did I tweet about it. This of course does not MEAN that everything I have ever posted and will post has been in the works for a long time. Rather, this is to say that one cannot ASSUME that anything I write is in response to any external circumstance. It might be, it might not be, but unless I explicit state why I saw what I say, any guesses by anyone is probably wrong, so just don't.

This blog is my personal blog. All views and articles expressed and written here are solely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or denomination or anyone else.

So far, I have seen how the disclaimer has been interpreted in really astonishing ways. Remember, if I did not mention anything explicitly, chances are your interpretation is wrong! So just for some people who have some really strange interpretations: This disclaimer was NOT written because I have a disagreement with my church or denomination, or anyone else. This disclaimer was NOT written because my views necessarily diverge from my church or my denomination. This disclaimer was written not because (with the false association) that I have a different view of church order from One Covenant Church or the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. All of these false interpretations of the disclaimer, and any others, should be discounted immediately. If you don't know why I did what I do, ASK. Don't ASSUME.

The reason why this disclaimer was written is to distanciate myself and my blog from my church and my denomination. I do not wish for anyone to think that whatever I have written is necessarily the view of my church or denomination. It might be, it might not be. But I have no wish for anyone to go and pester them about what I have written. Anyone has a problem with me or what I write, please feel free to contact me on my blog, via email or in person. Don't pester others about what I have written. The buck stops at me; that is all! There is no real occasion for my disclaimer other than I have no wish to implicate anyone in anything I have written, good or bad. You have a problem with me, talk to me mano a mano. Leave my church, pastor(s), and denomination out of it.