Dwight Hornbacher

[Dr. Shane]

Dwight's sister sent me a message today that he passed away last Friday unexpectedly.  He went to work in the morning and was found slumped over his desk later in the day.  Dwight was an active member here several years ago.  He was a geologist who worked for a marine drilling company.  I believe he got his PhD from Texas A&M but had been educated at an Adventist university before that.  He was a staunch creationist and an excellent apologist.

 

This is taken from his Facebook timeline:

 

 

Dwight himself understood how terrible death is, but more importantly how urgent it is to make a decision for Christ. Below is a post he wrote where his experience and insight can be appreciated.

 

 

I am alone on the core deck, and it is a quiet Thursday night, as quiet as a ship can get with its engines running to maintain a comfortable environment. I am listening to some of my favorite hymns and songs. As I sit here, comfortable, at my computer interface creating another application for use on the ship, a lonely, heart-piercing dirge stops me in my thought processes bringing back a flood of memories from Vietnam. “Mansions of the Lord” recalls a broad sweep of haunted faces of friends who will never walk upon this earth again in this age. As the lone flute sends out its mournful tune, I think about suffering and all which we, as men and women, have experienced while sojourning through this vale of tears.

 

Death is a common enemy; it comes to all of us robbing us of people whom we have held dear. I think of my step-father. He was a great man who stepped in and befriended two young kids and became their father by marrying their mother. A man who had been molded by the depression and as a member of the armed forces in World War II. He was brave and compassionate and cared for us deeply. He taught us and our step-brother how to be men and women. There were others along the way who are gone now. I think of those sailors who were fellow shipmates with me in the Navy who died at sea after their planes took the final plunge into the deep blue-green of the ocean waves. Five of us cousins were in Vietnam at the same time, only I returned alive. It totally devastated one of my uncles. War is a terrible scourge upon the land.

 

'Pie Jesu” is playing. “Merciful, Jesus, the one who took away the sin of the world, grant everlasting peace unto those who sleep; Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world, grant everlasting peace unto those who sleep.” God now looks over where each of them rests; silently, in consciousless sleep, they wait for the final resurrection, some to eternal life and some to judgment and eternal annihilation. So it has been the lot of those who go to war in order to further the causes of the nations either for good or for evil. A band of brothers who have shared in the atrocities which come as a result of war; a majority cut-down in the prime of life and youth. Never to know the love of a woman or a man; never to hold their children in their lap or to watch them grow into adults.

 

And behind all of this was and is the great antagonist and rebel, Satan, himself, working to bring enmity among the nations in order to destroy that which God lovingly created in his image. Every man and woman killed as a result of war was a child of God for whom Christ poured out his lifeblood to save. Now, many of these are forever lost, their lives cut short, having died without having surrendered their hearts and lives to God. It has ever been Satan's desire to bring heartbreak to God by killing his children while they werer still in rebellion; those for whom God expressed his everlasting love by releasing his son to the earth in order to take the place of man so that man might be saved.

 

“For in this way God manifested his love in that he gave a very unique and only son so that whoever might trust in him might not perish, instead, might have eternal life. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world.”, John 3.16, 17.

 

It is time to bring his monstrous rule to an end. How much more grief, heartache, and tears must man suffer in order to satisfy this monster's lust for revenge and cruelty. How many more wives must wait for the one who will never return? How many more children must grow up never to see or never to know their fathers or mothers? How many more mothers and fathers must loose their children in order to satisfy the blood lust of this monster?

 

Yet, God waits in order that all might have an opportunity to learn of him, to come to him, to surrender, and to come into eternal life where war will never again be a plague upon the earth. Where death, horrendous death will never be again. God is waiting for each one of us to come.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man will open the door, I will come in unto him and have supper with him.”

 

The choice is still ours; it is available as long as we walk upon this earth. Death forever seals our decision for or against God.

 

 

[Gail]

I thought I recognized his name! Can you remember if that was his username?

[Gail]

I just looked it up. That was what he was known by here. I'm sorry to hear that

[Kevin H]

I am also wondering what his username was

[aka]

  This is really sad news for me. One of my special member of my groups of 'cyber-spooks' is now permanently gone from message sharing.

-after 17 years of my being online there has been a loss of ever so many. 

I do grieve for the loss.

 

Dwight and I wrote pm's occasionally but mostly I read with great interest his messages on Club. 

He was of sound mind and a true christian spirit.

 

One part of the messages on a topic we discussed I'll share here:

 

Based upon the Pauline principles as outlined to Timothy, I must accept the idea that women were never to be pastors in the Christian Church. I accept Scripture as it reads unless there is other Scriptural texts which show the current reading is to understood in another sense.

Personally, Scripture, as I read it and understand it, indicates that it was never in God's plan, after sin, for women to be in positions of authority over men. I would very much like to say that this is not the case, but Scripture controls what I accept as truth. I cannot use my own judgement to go against what I see as clearly defined instructions in this regard. I believe that God is wiser than me, so therefore, I will accept that His plan is the best even though I do not understand the reason for the discrimination.  

 

Again, let us remember that it was God, in Christ, who put the wife in subjection to her husband after the fall. He is also the one who declares that He is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Paul in Timothy is simply declaring what Christ had commanded in Genesis 3.

The wife is to be subject to the husband.

Because God declares that there is no difference between Jew and Greek, Slave and Free, Male or Female does not mean that God has not also, in this life, made the slave subject to his master nor the women subject to her husband. Equality does not mean lack of submission. Rather, in Ephesians, Paul declares that we are all to be submissive one-to-another.

Again, if inspiration has meaning then we cannot lightly disregard what has been written. You cannot decide for yourself what is inspired and what is not. What you will obey and what you will not obey. I am bound by the Word of God, and I have accepted it as the inspired revelation of God given to us from God through the instrumentality of the written word. Whether I agree with its commands or not, it is still God's inspired revelation, not man's. Here I stand; I can do not other.

Dwight Hornbacher

[Stan]

Dwight was one of the  'good guys', and he went way to young.

[phkrause]

I thought I recognized his name! Can you remember if that was his username?

For me too, his name was very familiar! Sorry to hear of his passing.

[Gregory Matthews]

I have missed him and often wondered what had happened to him.  He was a good man and did good work.  His posts here on CA were appreciated by me.

 

NOTE:  I do not think that he actually had a PhD.  He told me once that he was actually ABD.  In any case, he did good work and will be missed.

[Jeannieb43]

facepalm.gif  

 

One part of the messages on a topic we discussed I'll share here:

 

Based upon the Pauline principles as outlined to Timothy, I must accept the idea that women were never to be pastors in the Christian Church. I accept Scripture as it reads unless there is other Scriptural texts which show the current reading is to understood in another sense.

Personally, Scripture, as I read it and understand it, indicates that it was never in God's plan, after sin, for women to be in positions of authority over men. I would very much like to say that this is not the case, but Scripture controls what I accept as truth. I cannot use my own judgement to go against what I see as clearly defined instructions in this regard. I believe that God is wiser than me, so therefore, I will accept that His plan is the best even though I do not understand the reason for the discrimination.  

 

Again, let us remember that it was God, in Christ, who put the wife in subjection to her husband after the fall.

 

 

 

Well, I never knew or corresponded with Dwight Hornbacher, but based on this communication and his partial quoting of the Bible, I'm compelled to conclude that he was an honest man, but not fully informed.   He has omitted a very important part of that Scripture:   "be subject to your husbands as unto God...."     In other words, if the husband (or the man) is not acting in a way that God would act in that situation, then the woman need not be subject to him!

 

None of us on this earth are acting as God would act.   I believe that the custom of the country (in Jesus' time on this earth) was that women kept their heads covered and were subservient to men.   That was based on the culture of the times.  Today's culture is entirely different.   Women have a place in God's work, and should be heard to speak in public and to lead out in meetings of God's people, if they have something to contribute.

 

I feel sorry for people who take the Scriptures literally in all areas.   The parable of the wise man and Lazarus is another example.  God never intended it to be taken literally -- even as he told it in the first place.   It's always been a parable, IMHO.

 

We have to use discretion in sorting out information from various sources.

[Dr. Shane]

I found Dwight on Facebook about six years ago and had been following him there since.  He was a pilot in Vietnam and the only one of five cousins that returned alive from the war.  He was 68 years old and had not retired.

[Naomi]

I am only just now reading this.  Dwight was indeed one of the "good guys" for some years we communicated frequently but life gets in the way.  Not long ago I was wondering what happened to him ... now I know.  He was too young