Pastor Andrew I appreciate your willingness to look at them. I ended up bringing home 1 and 2 Peter and Jude from the set since your sermon was in 1 Peter. Message me your address and I can mail it to you if needed.
In my heart of hearts I figured there would be issues like this.
Don’t know if this will help.
catamite
Pronunciation /ˈkadəˌmīt/ /ˈkædəˌmaɪt/
NOUN
archaic
Origin
Late 16th century from Latin catamitus, via Etruscan from Greek Ganumēdēs
Greek Mythology
A Trojan youth who was so beautiful that he was carried off by Zeus to be the cupbearer for the Olympic gods.
You are correct, I think, in the meaning of “wanton.” It is boyishness preserved.
From The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot 1538:
EFFOEMINATI: menne wanton and delicate, or tender, enduryng no hardnesse. (source: https://leme.library.utoronto.ca/lexicon/entry/53/5013)
And, I would urge you to go here: https://leme.library.utoronto.ca/search/quick and search “wanton” for years 1500-1600. It is clear that it was very much linked to effeminacy. Lots of entries and common themes.
Compare that to “catamitus” search on the same site and you will see clearly that catamite has always meant a boy who is abused rather than someone who is acting gay.
Also the following later dictionaries on wanton:
Bailey’s Dictionary 1726 gives the following:
WANTON: Full of waggery, light, lascivious [Minshew derives it from want one, q.d. wants one to play with; Skinner rather chooses to derive it from Walnen, Dutch “to imagine,” because such persons are full of Imagination and Fancies, or Wendtelen, Dutch, “to turn about,” because such persons run skittishly about] (source: https://archive.org/stream/universaletymolo00bailuoft#page/n3/mode/2up)
Johnson’s from 1768, which also equates “gay” and “gayly” with wantonness:
WANTON: 1. a lascivious person, a strumpet, a whoremonger South 2. a trifler; an insignificant flatterer Shakespeare 3. a word of slight endearment (source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_dictionary_of_the_English_language_Abs/bXsCAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP9&printsec=frontcover)
As I started my day, I was thinking about the sad fact of translators’ aspirations corrupting their work. This is the only explanation that makes sense with Canon’s treatment of “malakoi.” They know it’s a fault line and don’t want to associate with us in it. Too controversial. If anyone thinks they used “catamite” b/c it’s accurate, I simply know not what on earth to say more than has been said. Sadly, Canon too is aspirational in their translation. Until the world and church were filled with effeminates, everyone translated the word in a way that precluded readers thinking the sin being warned against was merely being buggered (rather than buggering). But now…
I saw Andrew’s and Tim’s recent comments pointing out Canon Press’ unfaithfulness in translation. It called to mind a debate I remember watching/listening to several years ago between Doug Wilson and Andrew Sullivan about gay marriage. Today, I took the time to look the debate up on YouTube. See link below.
Fast forward to the 2hr and 4 minute mark (2:04:00). Listen to the young lady’s question about what you would do if your son came out to you. Doug’s answer is adequate. Then, Sullivan asks Doug a followup: what would you do if your son told you he was gay, but had never engaged in the sexual act. Where’s the sin there? Doug’s straightforward answer: I do not believe that homosexual orientation is a sin.
This debate took place in 2013. This was before Obergefell, before some of these controversies became hot. My memory is that Doug has since taken the opposite position, close to Warhorn’s position, after the Revoice controversy. I may be wrong. I’m not trying to cover for Doug’s bad answer. I’m simply pointing to the timeline, and where I believe his position did change.
Since Canon is Doug, his shift may have created some uncertainty that led his translators to make this move under his nose. It makes sense to me.
The debate is about 2 hours long. I did not re-listen to the whole thing. I remembered the bad answer was in the Q/A section, and I wanted to double check before charging ahead with it. I like Doug’s faithfulness to quote Scripture in a public policy debate, to not be ashamed of God’s Words. This is where Doug has been very helpful to me personally. And yet, there were times as I listened that Doug seemed too libertarian. His demeanor toward Sullivan seemed too much like Bill Buckley’s in his debate with Hugh Hefner on the old Firing Line. That’s not meant to be a flattering comparison. Look that one up on YouTube.
I know it’s easy for me to criticize Doug’s doing it when I have not done it. And yet the bad answer and the libertarianism and the Buckleyite pose seem relevant now. I’m aware Doug has denied that he’s a libertarian. I’ve never bought it. I’ve read too much Doug Wilson to buy it.
It’s common for celebrity pastors to be disingenuous unintentionally. This is Doug with libertarianism and theonomy. Doug denies both, but, Doug is actually both.
A libertarian theonomist? Is that a theonomist who doesn’t think the civil law has no role in personal morality?
The joke is good, but theonomists hang around with libertarians a surprising amount. Both are fringe political positions with much to criticize about the modern order and not much hope of mainstream acceptance.
I’m not familiar enough with Wilson’s work to say he is/isn’t either, but I was a libertarian long enough to see a few essays by Gary North and RJ Rushdoony. (North may not have been strictly a theonomist, I’m not sure, but he certainly wasn’t a doctrinaire libertarian.)
Doug has called himself a theocratic libertarian before.
Read Doug on politics and how we will use Scripture to support his politics. Many times his use of Scripture is bold and necessary and brave. At other times he uses Scripture like a theonomist does. He uses Scripture as a very precise blueprint for elaborate civil reform that is undeniably clear and obvious if only you can break right on through to the postmil other side. Doug is not as bad about this as some of his younger disciples. But the fruit tells you something about the tree.
OK I’ll bite.
It’s been about 18 years since, as a baby Christian, I got my noodle baked by reading Bahnsen’s Always Ready and his Van Til book and listening to a lot of his debates. In my zeal to pass this solid gold material around I’d occasionally be looked at askance by folks warning me to “Watch out… he’s a THEONOMIST!!!” I still don’t get it.
I know there are theonomists out there who spend most of their time parsing hypothetical questions about the application of God’s law that have absolutely no relevance to the here and now. Is that the main problem people have with it?
If the various expressions of Theonomy are mottes, what’s the bailey? What is the appropriate role of special revelation in culture? Who should I be reading on this?
Dear Jay,
I’m an idiot for ever bringing this up. I’m destroying this thread with unnecessary gab.
The problem isn’t so much with theonomy itself or with postmillennialism itself. It’s the cocksure way proponents of these positions carry themselves. It’s the lack of self awareness. It’s the lack of propriety: do we need pastors to weigh in on the federal budget?
Postmil partial preterists especially remind me of the cocksure dispensationalists of my youth with all their charts and quick answers. There’s no humility. Vern Poythress is no slouch, but Vern will write about how he isn’t sure about this or that about eschatology. Could we get Cross Politic and Apologia and the rest of them to do the same?