J. E. Choate: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
J. E. Choate: Concerning those with personal conversations with the Holy Spirit: I would not want to be left alone with any such--not for one second.
J. E. Choate was born in Wingo, Kentucky on February 27, 1916 and received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1954. He is married to Marie Jones and they have two children.
He was taught from the junior high school through college level and has preached the gospel for more than 56 years in an area around Wingo, Kentucky and Nashville, Tennessee. He has published books in the history of the Old West as well as several religious publications, restoration history biographies of Boles, Keeble, Goodpasture, and Calhoun and Sounding Brass and Clanging Cymbals (a history of music in the Restoration Movement from Alexander Campbell to the present)
Links to some key J. E. Choate writings including Postmodern Theology: The Beast Slouching Towards Calvary by J. E. Choate.
You may look at some of his scholarly work here. At this link, Curriculum-Based Assessment and Programming -- Joyce S. Choate, et al. Dr. Joyce S. Choate is J. E. Choate's daughter-in-law, retired Dean of the University of Louisiana at Monroe, LA. jec
If you hear someone disparage "conservatives" the epithets flow from the conviction that the "old view" was based on the Bible while "we enlightened ones" have, as one writer explained of Rubel Shelly, "He has moved beyond you." So true. If we can trust the Bible in the musical accounts as witnessed by the prevailing secular view at the time, once you have been dissociated and fallen into trying to worship a Spirit God with the works of human hands "you have fallen and you are not going to get up--ever."
Dr. J. E. Choate has been crying in the wilderness probably before the church rose up to play at our Mount Sinai and moved into the wilderness. His voice has been a trumpet on the watchtower but too many churches have been experimenting with "trumpet quartets" called "musical worship teams" and just couldn't hear and have missed their shot at the question: "What would YOU do with Jesus?"
As a retired Electronics Engineer with a huge collection of historical material about music as "worship," I can assure you that it has a 100% negative connotation, and in the Bible usually says to God: "We will not listen to you." Those who oppose Brother Choate have ZERO AUTHORITY as foundation for a new emerging church. The odds in favor of "mediating between man and God with musical worship teams standing in the holy place" does not have a pretty future for the agents of the Beast. I wouldn't go there, but if you do your blood has been washed off the hands of Brother Choate.
Writing about the current Beast Slouching Toward Calvary at Madison Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, Dr. J. E. Choate speaks for the other voices which will not be washed away in the flood of Satan's new system of "infiltration."
Brother Choate has given me permission to post this letter. This does not mean that he endorses my site.
J. E. Choate:
To Concerned Members:
Writing as a church historian with credentials, I am casting myself in the role of an analyst of the ongoing Madison church of Christ tragedy. I am unable to detect the faintest sign that the slide of the Madison church into this latest neo-modern "community" type church denomination under its present leadership will be reversed. This observation is based upon documented factual information.Within the control of the present leadership, there are elders, and especially one, with personal ties to Don Finto and the Belmont Church which date back several years. Within the Madison eldership there are positive connections with Willow Creek, the Vineyard churches, "Third Wave" Pentecostal, and the Kansas City Prophets, which can be traced to and laid squarely on the steps of Rubel Shelly.
The Concerned Members can play a very vital role in chronicling to the final chapter the decline of the Madison church as it sinks into another Bill Hybel's community church type. A primary reason for this is to save other churches from this Willow Creek/Saddle Back fatal attraction.
As a reminder, you are dealing with a church leadership with a very poor conception of general and Restoration church history. We may give Bruce White a good grade for attempting to lead this church out of its present state of confusion, but in the words of Dante "leave all hope at the gate(?)" you who have entered into the conflict of this embattled church to bring it down.
All this talk about LOVE makes no sense without common sense. I am never comfortable with my brethren who have direct connections to God's throne and who have personal conversations with the Holy Spirit. I would not want to be left alone with any such--not for one second.
With concern,
J. E. Choate
Concerned Members at Madison Church of Christ, Nashville