I recently got my first major hater, and you may know this if you saw my recent posts on Facebook and Gab. This wasn't a mere "ur wrong bigot" or some other innocuous trash comment. It was actually two comments at a near essay length on my video response to the TikTok lady theologian, from an alleged religious studies academic in South Africa by the name of Tristan Kapp. I Googled him out of curiosity and he seems to actually have a degree of fame...
... as a "Reverend" in the South African Satanic Church [I], with a Master in Divinity.
...
...
*WHEEZE*
Not kidding, just read the interview in footnote I.
Here is his first comment:
I of course responded with a miniature essay [II].
And this is his second comment:
And likewise my reply [III].
Take a minute to massage your face after it scrunched from all that cringe.
Now, I hope people can see how at least his second comment is utterly stupid (the first requires some specialised knowledge to see how he's wrong), and the sheer scale of his fallacies baffled me. But when I found out his position as a Satanic "Reverend", the pseudo-scholarship of his comments suddenly made sense. When you adopt man-centred ideals (an adjective his religion will happily accept) and want to see them flourish, it's very attractive when you see a section of biblical scholarship argue that such values are promoted (or at least not contradicted) in the scriptures; you could turn the foundations of Christians against them. Or, when they are too clear in their condemnation of modern activities, we just need to ridicule them with infantile assertions like in his second comment, as you will see in the second comment.
Now, notice what he says at the beginning:
"Doing my Ph.D. in Religion Studies..."
And at the very end:
"If you're looking for concrete research, confer Kapp, T. (2020), "Spiritual Sexuality: Towards a holistic and a-ecclesial sexual ethic", MDiv. Thesis..."
The guy has a Master of Divinity, AND is currently on his way to a Ph.D. So what does that tell you about the state of academia when he is publicly refuted by a guy with a mere Bachelor? How much twisting of facts and self-deception must you indulge in that you come to conclusions like these, despite clearly showing that you have at least some degree of access to the ancient sources that show otherwise? How was I able to find the papers and primary source evidence that I did and he could only give cherrypicked, mis-interpreted snippets?
It's quite obvious; the problem is foundations and integrity. You can have all the degrees you want, all the papers, all the academic reputation, and yet that does nothing to fix shoddy, atheistic foundations and rotten academic integrity. Having been drenched in liberal, unbelieving scholarship over the year, I see Mr. Kapp as the archetype of unbelieving scholarship; an activist for unbelief in a scholar's robes.
Does this necessarily means he lied about the evidence? No (but let's be realistic, that isn't an impossibility). I have seen how an off worldview can so thoroughly cloud your mind as to distort your search for and interpretation of your evidence. You can dismiss or ignore evidence without thinking you are actually doing so. It is, at its core, self-deception. These same deficiencies are visible in TikTok lady theologian in the original video Tristan commented on; despite her education, her ideology pushed her to adopt arguments that a first-semester theology student with functional reasoning could see through.
And that is the fruit of secular scholarship: men with funny hats perpetuating self-deception by drawing the coffee stain on their glasses onto the world in front of them.
This is a lesson for all lay Christians who were or may be intimidated by the claims of secular scholarship; drop the fear and stop mythologising the academy. As clearly seen here, people with degrees can and do make dumb takes even in their areas of expertise. Evidence is evidence and truth is truth, regardless of who says it or denies it.
But there is one final episode to this saga. Tristan soon private messaged me after our comments exchange:
My response in two parts:
1: *WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE*
2:
P.S. I couldn't find Tristan's comments a few days after they were posted. Perhaps he deleted them; take that as you will.
~~~
I - Tristan Kapp interview: https://pdby.co.za/sasc-rev-kapp-interview/
II - Response to first comment:
III - Response to second comment:
