I’ve Been Everywhere

...in Rusk County.

[Intro]

I was totin’ my pack along the dusty old Jones Lake Road

When along came a pickup truck with-a-out any load.

“If you’re goin’ anywhere in Rusk County, Mack, with me you can ride”

And so I climbed into the cab and then I settled down inside.

He asked me if I’d seen a road with so much dust and sand,

And I said, “Listen, I’ve traveled every road in this county’s land.”

[Chorus]

I’ve been everywhere, man

I’ve been everywhere, man

Crossed the hills and hollers, man

I’ve breathed Mount Enterprise air, man

Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man

I’ve been everywhere.

[Verse 1]

I’ve been to old Gould, New Salem, Moss Temple,

Mt. Zion, Zion Hill, Pleasant Hill, fairly simple; 

Red Level, Smith Chapel, Harmony Hill, Leverett’s Chapel

Chapel Hill, Craig, Grandview, Jacobs, Crim’s Chapel.

Holley Spring, Springfield, Chinquapin, Gourd Neck,

Stringtown, Stewart, Turnertown, Prospect, don’t object!

[Chorus]

I’ve been everywhere, man

I’ve been everywhere, man

I’ve been everywhere, man

Cross the hills and hollers, man

I’ve breathed Mount Enterprise air, man

Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man

I’ve been everywhere.

[Verse 2]

I’ve been to Brachfield, Pine Hill, Church Hill, Eulalie,

Millville, Laneville, maybe even San Cosme;

Church Hill, Laird Hill, Chalk Hill, Caledonia,

Anadarko, Monroe, Shiloh, but not California!

Mayflower, Minden, McKnight, Striker Lake,

Shakerag, Cherokee & Martin Lake, for Pete’s sake.

[Chorus]

I’ve been everywhere, man

I’ve been everywhere, man

Cross the hills and hollers, man

I’ve breathed Mount Enterprise air, man

Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man

I’ve been everywhere.

[Verse 3]

I’ve been to Sulphur Springs, Big Spring, Union Spring, Pleasant Grove,

Sweetgum, Tatum, Mooretown, Irbyville, Valley Grove;

Roquemore, Greasy Kitchen, Gray Hill, Watt Hill,

Oak Hill, Oak Flat, Sand Flat, Sand Hill, what a thrill.

Gaston, Overton, Henderson, New London, even

Pone, Pirtle, Pitner’s Junction, see what I mean-a?

[Chorus]

I’ve been everywhere, man

I’ve been everywhere, man

Crossed the hills and hollers, man

I’ve breathed Mount Enterprise air, man

Of travel I’ve a-had my share, man

I’ve been everywhere.

[Verse 4]

I’ve been to Arlam, New Salem, Buford, Fairview

Bryce & Price, Carlisle, Concord, Bellview,

Easton, Egypt, Frog Pond, and Glenfawn

Ebenezer, Mansinger, Dewey, and Compton.

New Hope, Good Hope, Good Springs, Gum Springs,

Crossroads, Rhodes, Sexton City, Selman City, what a pity.

When it comes to traveling Rusk County, Texas, I’ve been everywhere…

Pilgrims hated KJV, No!

Follow up hit parody:

Pilgrims hated KJV, oh!
For urban myths tell us so.
Little yarns to them belong—
Tell them loud and tell them loud.
Yes, Pilgrims hated, yes, Pilgrims hated
Yes, Pilgrims hated (the KJV); urban myths tell us so.

Sing to the tune Jesus Loves Me.

Avoiding pejorative labeling

(...like I avoid eating ice cream on a regular basis.)

I sincerely wish to avoid pejorative labeling, but I simply cannot avoid the parallels. There is massive overlap between the arguments made by those who claim Textual Confidence (those who use NA/UBS and modern translations) and the arguments made by those who are Textual Skeptics (those who hold a postmodern skepticism toward the text of Scripture).

• Both groups hold that we do not know the original words of the biblical writers.
• Both groups use the same key words to describe the transmission of the New Testament text: initial text, the evidence, science, academic standards, copyist errors, shortest is best, oldest is best, etc.
• Both groups agree that inspiration does not demand perfect preservation, and insist that we do not now have a text of exactly what the authors of the New Testament wrote.
• Both groups insist that preservation of biblical text is natural rather than supernatural, and what we do now have are chance survivals from the past.
• Both groups surmise that having only one Bible is mala doctrina.
• Both groups minimize the differences between the various transmitted Greek manuscripts.
• Both groups call the Textus Receptus corrupt.
• Both groups functionally resort to anything that is not the TR.
• Both groups do not put which Greek text in their church (and other institutional) statements and fail to specify on which they rely.
• Both groups assert intellectualism and credentialism to prop and promote their views.
• Both groups dismiss and ignore my arguments. Everyone should have to answer to me.

Note: (to make a point) a parody of comments made by Mark Ward HERE.

Let’s get it right

“I was shocked when I learned this hymn was actually sung in Calvinist churches” – so says someone at ‘Truth and Song Christian Bookstore’ on Facebook regarding the following hymn:

We are the Lord’s elected few,

Let all the rest be damned;

There’s room enough in hell for you,

We won’t have heaven crammed![i]

But was it “actually sung” in Calvinist churches? Really? Many people seem to think so, on the scantest evidence. In Theology of the Reformers (p. 241) Timothy George calls it a Particular Baptist hymn (and many have followed his lead on that), as well as an example of “smugness and ugly exclusiveness.”[ii]

In the Holman New Testament Commentary - Acts, Kenneth Gangel calls it a cryptic poem and gives us an only slightly different version.

We are the Lord’s elected few.

Let everyone else be damned.

There is no room up there for you

We don’t want heaven crammed!

It is featured comedy in atheistic circles familiar with Christopher Hitchens. For example in his God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything Hitchens seems to indicate it is “an old English plebeian satire,” and renders it this way:

We are the pure and chosen few,

and all the rest are damned.

There’s room enough in hell for you—

we don’t want Heaven crammed!

Fact is, the hymn has been credited to Puritans, Particular Baptists, Calvinists, Exclusive Brethren, Bible Christians – take your pick or pick your poison. If by all, likely by none. The poem’s mocking tone suggests to me that it is a parody of the belief in election, reprobation, and particular redemption rather than an hymn composed and sung by such believers. I could be wrong; I have been before.

Many of the references that I found to this “hymn” simply pass off the information as valid without ever bothering to cite a source for it. An old mention I found online was from 1898. Even then the author wrote “a learned friend of mine avers” it was a hymn of the Bible Christian “sect, which, however, my own researches have failed to discover in the songs of the Bible Christian Sion.”[iii] (”What Was Primitive Christianity,” W. S. Lilly, The Nineteenth Century, Volume 44, No. 259, July-Dec. 1898, p. 503) There, as referenced by Lilly, it looks like this:

We are the sweet elected few:

May all the rest be damned.

There’s room enough in hell for you:

We won’t have heaven crammed.

I also located a secular ditty, appearing at least as early as 1893, of which the so-called “hymn” might be a parody (or vice versa, or both may have an earlier source). “We’re Saville Row’s selected few, Let all the rest be damned; The pit is good enough for you, We won’t have boxes crammed.” (The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, by Lady Isabel Burton)

Going back nearly 20 years earlier, the poem is mentioned in The Education Craze and Its Results (D. C. L., London: Harrison & Sons, 1878). Here it is credited to the Ranters – apparently meaning the Primitive Methodists – again without support. It is intriguing, though, that these two early mentions connect the “hymn” to Arminian rather than Calvinist religious bodies.

All this to say: Let’s get it right! For all the fun all y’all are having quoting this poem, let’s not claim either that this was printed in a hymn book or sung in churches, unless and until it can be shown that it was. If not, you’re possibly just passing on false information. Most likely this was satire intended to object to what is considered a narrow viewpoint.

---

[i] “Dogma Beyond Anathema: Historical Theology in the Service of the Church,” Timothy George, Review and Expositor 84, no. 4 (1987) p. 705; Describing what is said in the journal article, Peter Lumpkins tells us that  “George quotes a verse from a popular hymn sang in Particular Baptist churches.”

[ii] Which it would be if seriously intended.

[iii] Curiously, though the Bible Christians may have been exclusivists, they were not Calvinists but were Arminian in soteriology, an offshoot of the Methodists – founded by William O'Bryan (1778-1868). Their hymnbook available online – A Collection of Hymns, for the Use of the People called Bible Christians – does not include this hymn.

Arminian Grace

A parody of the first line of John Newton’s “Amazing Grace”:

Arminian “grace”! how strange the sound--

Salvation hinged on me.

I once was lost, then turned around;

Was blind, but chose to see.

(Author unknown)

Twelve days of Bible Reading

In the twelve days of reading, my Bible taught to me:

Twelve sons of Jacob,
Eleven Judas-less apostles,
Ten great Commandments,
Nine lepers leaving,
Eight th' ark a saving,
Seven trumpets sounding,
Six days of manna,
Five loaves and fish;
Four winds of heaven,
Three grave nights,
Two Testaments,
and One Eternal Deity.

1.   Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 6:4-5 
2.   II Corinthians 3:4-16; Hebrews 9:11-28
3.   Matthew 12:39-41; Luke 24:1-27
4.   Mark 13:26-27
5.   Matthew 14:14-21
6.   Exodus 16:4-26
7.   Joshua 6:1-27; Revelation 8:1-6
8.   I Peter 3:18-22
9.   Luke 17:12-19
10. Exodus 20:1-17; Exodus 34:27-28
11. Acts 1:15-26
12. Genesis 35:22; Genesis 42:1-45:5