C. J. Mahaney is wrong -- >:^(

I'll admit from the outset that I know next to nothing about C. J. Mahaney. He's supposed to be a good guy. He's supposed to be Reformed and Charismatic, which... no comment. MacArthur invited him to preach. That last one really proves he's a good guy, to many. And that, really, is about all I know.

Well, that, and this: he has ruled that Real Men don't use smileys. His dictum:

Real men do not use smiley faces on e-mails! This is fine for the ladies, but not the men. Real men communicate humor effectively without having to use a smiley face and real men can discern the presence of genuine humor without seeing a smiley face. So let our blog be free from all wimp-like communication!

Perhaps he is some-kind-of joking, although his thought is echoed here and there -- the latter of which featuring some very, ah, lively interaction.

Maybe C. J.'s joking. If so, no one's sure. Of course, he could have removed all doubt by ending his post with a (c; -- but that would have made him a wimp.

It is passing ironic to have a Charismatic objecting to men expressing emotions. My objection is simply that it has no Scriptural basis. Well that, and that it's silly. To me, it would make as much sense to call emoticons "wimpy" as it would to stigmatize people who use certain letters of the alphabet, or compound verbs or predicate adjectives, as being a bit light in the loafers.

"Say, Dirk -- do you notice that Francoise over there says 'down-size' an awful lot?"

"You know, Crusher, you're right. And the letter 'q' seems to keep cropping up."

"Yeah. D'you think maybe...?"

Silly. If we're going to judge by such trivia, what about people who go by their initials, instead of their given name? Pretentious, much?

In other words, it makes no sense.

Is the goal communication, or isn't it? I say it is. Even John felt the limitations of mere pen and ink, powerful as his writing was (2 John 12; 3 John 13). How often have you written something in a light mood, or meant to be taken lightly and chattily, and had it received as if it were a thunderous denunciation? If an emoticon better communicates the tone of a note, where's the bad?

And by the way, Mahaney wrote, "Real men communicate humor effectively without having to use a smiley face and real men can discern the presence of genuine humor without seeing a smiley face." But many of us don't know whether he's serious. So... does that mean he isn't a real man, since he didn't "communicate humor effectively"? Or that we aren't, since we didn't "discern the presence of genuine humor without seeing a smiley face"?

Hmm.

:^/