Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris.

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me, for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me.

All mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language, and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

There was a contention as far as a suit (in which piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

from Meditation 17
"Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions"
by John Donne

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The Significance of McCotter’s Great Commission at the University of Oklahoma Campus, Geoffrey Botkin, Vision Forum, New Zealand and Homeschooling

 

For those who follow Vision Forum’s homeschooling ideology and teachings, the Great Commission’s problematic history of college campus evangelism proves to be of great significance because not only because the problems manifested by Vision Forum’s “vision” match the very same problems of the Great Commission group (GC) at the height of their activities, it should also be noted that Geoff Botkin of Vision Forum worked with and for this cultic and aberrant evangelical Christian group for approximately 30 years. I’m told that the group leader and founder, Jim McCotter, was quite impressed with his creative ideas for evangelism dating back to their association in Norman, OK in the 70s on the campus of the University of Oklahoma (OU). I have found no documentation or testimony noting that Geoff Botkin renounced the past abuses of the Great Commission teachings and practices, actually now using Vision Forum to perpetuation the same core ideas. This information is also significant, because it relates to Geoff Botkin’s claims of a history of Marxism in his family and/or early history. (Please refer to this previous post with links to documentation the history of McCotter and his relationship with Geoff Botkin.)

The religious system that developed from Jim McCotter’s efforts quickly became an aberrant group, getting caught up in the peripheral aspects of the Christian faith by focusing on pet doctrines, performance standards, and a demanding submission to church authorities. There were many other churches that developed in the 1960s and ‘70s that fell into this same error, and this movement in evangelical Christianity became known as the Shepherding Discipleship Movement. Bill Gothard and Sovereign Grace Ministries are groups that advocate homeschooling as a religious right, groups that also classify as part of the Shepherding Discipleship ideology. According to the model framed by David Henke, these groups exemplify spiritual abuse because they manifest these hallmark signs: they are authoritarian, perfectionistic, image-conscious, they squelch criticism of their system, they are elitist, and they are unbalanced in that they focus on peripheral doctrine rather than essential doctrines of the faith, veering off-center from orthodox Christian teachings.

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