The Clergy Project

So far as I can see your objection to the list is that the people signing it agreed with the statement.I say that the number of signatories - and the fact that there are many Protestants - is significant. It certainly indicates that you should be qauliftying your references to "Protestant" theology since there are so many Protestants who reject it.

This gets into some points that Faith made in her thread, {YEC vs. EVO presuppositions / methodology} that I have not addressed there (and don't want to obfusticate my discussion of perceptions of reality with).Excerpts from Faiths thread This is asserting a {single\set\body} source for Faith's position, "a coherent theology of the Bible that is orthodox and representative of a solid" "body of Protestant literalist theology," so to validate that what she was saying comes from that source, and not her opinion of it, all she needs to do is show the source material. How can this be hard to do if there is a coherent source?If nothing else she should be able to establish what the "important points" are where there is "perfect consistency" as a starting point. But then here she is asserting that her opinion is a selection mechanism for what that {family\body} of theology contains within its scope.Just as she has been doing with this list here.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
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quote:

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No equivocation on that statement, unlike the one used by the Discovery Institute, there is no mistaking their intent:

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Their intent is most certainly acceptable and highly commendable to the fundamentalist Christian.What a 'fundamentalist' really is:"The word fundamentalism has to do with a distinctively Christian belief system, the formal definition of which issued from the Niagara Bible Conference of 1895 and consisted of fourteen articles of faith, the first five of these being commonly spoken of as the Five Fundamentals: the divine inspiration of the scriptures and their inerrancy in the original texts; the virgin birth and divinity of Christ; the substitutionary atonement of Christ's death on the cross; the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead; and the imminence of the Second Advent. These articles of faith were fixed upon by Protestant theologians of significant scholarly accomplishments, and they were intended, not to restore Christianity to its primitive, or fundamental, state, but to shape it to check the apostasy that had advanced with the advance of the nineteenth century."
Excerpt from an essay by Patrick MeehanDenoting the fundamentalist as intolerant, narrow-minded, ignorant - applications nurtured and advanced in academies and newsrooms, is as erroneous as is the belief that the RCC doctrine of the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Christ.The determination that public schools should NOT teach religion of any kind, is a thoughtful conclusion and should be endorsed by every truly fundamentalist Christian. Children should be taught religion in their home, where content and intensity are the parents responsibility - or - by choice, no religion at all. Christianity is accepted by choice, the right to choose is a divine gift, and the right to mess with that choice is not a right.

The problem with this is that they almost posit evolution as an absolute, and the literal bible as absolutely certainly not the case.I personally can't take this approach as it renders God incapable of something, which is ludicrous. It's as though they place more credence in evolution rather than God. I can't understand that, as a believer.Not that I think evolution didn't happen, but rather that I would say that all science is a worthy pursuit, via the gift of knowledge and intellect God has endowed us with.One doesn't need to say, "I accept evolution, to the demise of literal possibilities". In this sense, I think these people's hands are somewhat forced, because the debate is well known, and it's not good to be seen to be supporting radical theorists like YECs.For example; a clergyman wouldn't be under pressure to accept gravity, rather than scriptures. It begs the question as to the actual posited misconception evolutionist's claim; that evolution doesn't thwart BibleGod. Is there some truth to it thwarting him, afterall?Honesty would pay off. Scientifically we can't say he's thwarted, but the opinions of many, is that he is. And it's a complex issue, because of the ambiguity of the bible, and when it was written.I think there is a pretence that evolution doesn't favour a random and Godless picture. Not that evolution excludes God, but it certainly removes his sting, wouldn't you say?The YEcs don't want this. Thus they will only accept a clearly intelligent answer, because an intelligence is still valid, even if evolution is the case.

always nice to see the basis of the fundamentalist movement restated, particularly to show the time period where it originated.1895 ... well into the beginning of the scientific era. Agreed.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

My objection is that the list is regarded as representative of Christianity or of Protestants in particular when it is so predominantly a list of the liberal groups. I would rather keep the focus on Protestantism, but the list doesn't. I have been looking for a list of Conservative Christian and Conservative Protestant denominations online or a list of clergy or denominations that specifically affirm Biblical creationism against evolutionism, to demonstrate the unrepresentativeness of the pro-evo list, and haven't found anything specific enough for the purpose. I did list a few myself. The only thing that would be a fair comparison would be a petition signed by clergy AGAINST evolutionism and apparently this hasn't been done.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:21 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:22 AM

Is it possible, since over thirty different churches were included, that what you call Liberal groups are representative of Christianity?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

"Fundamentalism" is the colloquial term that was applied to the group of conservative clergy and churches that resisted the liberal influences that had been growing in the churches through the last half of the nineteenth century. "The Fundamentals" was their statement of the conservative position against this encroaching liberal distortion of the Christian message. They were scholars, and a new conservative seminary, Westminster Seminary, came out of the dispute.Here's a link to The Fundamentals:It's Saturday!Here's a link to J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism which defined the conservative position against the liberals, and you can see by his title that he treated the conservative position as synonymous with Christianity itself, from which liberalism was a deviation.http://www.biblebelievers.com/machen/And since that will no doubt provoke all kinds of attacks on his character, here are a couple of biographical sketches of Machen: 404 Error - Page Not Found | Desiring God http://www.apologeticsinfo.org/papers/machen.htmlThis message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 11:55 AM

I don't really care about your petition. The simple existence of so many "liberal" clergymen (where "liberal" seems to refer to anyone who is not an extreme conservative) is enough to show that your view is far from the only significant view within Christianity.

The "extreme conservative" is simply a Christian. The liberals have to reject parts of the Bible to embrace evolution. They are the deviants.AbE:
It would be nice to know the numbers or get a little closer to an approximation, and a petition to the conservatives would do that, but it doesn't matter how many really. As Jesus said "FEW there are that find it." In the end the majority will be the false Christians and the true Christians the decided minority.This message has been edited by Faith, 11-26-2005 12:11 PM

Mike you need to distinguish between saying that God almost certainly DIDN'T do something and that God COULDN'T do something. One of the assumptions underlying it is probably the assumption that God is honest - they He wouldn't leave huge amounts of misleading evidence around to fool us.Here's a simple example. If someone stands up in court and says that God told him to commit a murder we regard him as crazy. But you would not say that God was incapable of sending those messages - you would sya that God would not do so.

You changed your post before I could ask where you got your definition of Christian as someone who can not reject any part of the Bible.

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Asgara
"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"select * from USERS where CLUE > 0http://asgarasworld.bravepages.com
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The "extreme conservative" is simply a Christian. The liberals have to reject parts of the Bible to embrace evolution. They are the deviants.

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No, they simply take a different view of the Bible than you do.But don't worry. I don't think of you as a Christian either.

Sorry to change it on you. I decided I didn't want to open that can of worms here but I guess it's opened. It's understood in conservative churches that a Christian is one who submits to God's word as the rule of his life. The Bible is God's word and God's word cannot be disputed. My own pastor reiterated this recently, when he said there is no other kind of Christian than a "Bible-believing" Christian, although we use that qualifier a lot in venues like EvC for the sake of discussion because so many claim the title.

It's a fair point that you're making. And infact, depending on what part of the bible you're reading, then God could have ordered to kill.I personally only believe in Christ, for sure. So my own ideology would say that God wouldn't order this.I'm happy to say atleast, that a literal interpretation of scripture that specifically excludes evolutionary science, is infact something which cannot be supported by any reasonable person, IMHO. Such an exclusive ideology on what God says, is heavily biased, and infact no man can claim to understand scripture this thoroughly, IMHO.God would be asking us to observe something in nature, which appears to happen, according to the evidence, as false. He would be asking me to dismiss the causality of honest atheists/theists etc, which led them to such brilliantly clever findings.The only argument with credence, is that God didn't say we should investigate these matters in the first place. But that contradicts my statement about God-given intellect which insists on such pursuits. Nevertheless, God's intention might have been that these pursuits could have been meant to happen, with God. That we should proceed, with him in mind. (Yet that could have been the case to believing investigators)I think one can believe the bible literally, in a way.For example; I do think there was evidence of a local flood which could have been misconstrued as "the whole world", in that; to a person in those days, his whole world was flooded. Do you know how I mean? This is why I reserve a complete refrain from condemning literal possibilities. Because stories such as Noah, could have literal meaning to an extent.We are partaking of unwitting equivocation simply by observing scripture in English. There's so many interpretations, aswell as mis-understandings. (Like the sea of reeds. Red sea).So my personal statement, would be to allow for every viewpoint; as all things being equal, they are all somewhat guesses, and should be equally and freely allowed at the individual's discresion, as long as they don't do harm to others.P.S. I might not respond to this post for a while, and others like Tusko's post to my I.D. viewpoint. You reserve the right to forego responding to my post, IMHO. Forgive my lack of presence at EvC.This message has been edited by mike the wiz, 11-26-2005 12:37 PM