|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
EvC Forum active members: 60 (9208 total) |
| |
Skylink | |
Total: 919,430 Year: 6,687/9,624 Month: 27/238 Week: 27/22 Day: 9/9 Hour: 0/0 |
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Evangelical Support Group | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18633 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.1 |
I realize that there are many opinions and belief paradigms that exist regarding what Christianity is or is not.
Anglican Belief Assemblies Of God Google any denomination and you shall find their Belief Statements online. To be clear, I want to limit this discussion to Christian denominational beliefs. As a sub-category, we can discuss our own personal beliefs, but I do not want this to become a debate room for potshots at Evangelical Beliefs or the lack thereof. Just to be clear where I stand, I firmly believe that God existed long before humanity. We are His creation. He is not a product of our imagination. Period. End of debate with me.(on that particular issue) Bishop Spong recently answered the same question that we are discussing. To Wit:
Spongs Blog writes: Katherine Edman from Mason, Ohio, writes:Thank you so much for your series on the rise of fundamental Christianity. I particularly enjoyed the essay that described the Five Fundamentals and the one on the First Fundamental - the inerrancy of the Bible. I have wondered whether the Bible itself ever claims to be the inerrant word of God. I recognize the difficulty of this question, since the Bible itself is a hodgepodge of many books that have been bundled together over the ages. What I have found, however, is that discussing biblical scholarship with fundamentalists usually gets me precisely nowhere. They are unwilling to recognize that Moses could not have written the Torah, or that the gospels were written years after Jesus' death. They continue to believe that the books of the Bible arose more or less intact in that particular order and mystically assembled themselves into a unit. They insist that the obvious contradictions or factual errors are just our misunderstanding of "the Word." They propose that the "texts of terror" have been misinterpreted to justify the social evils of slavery, racism, and sexism, or - worse - fundamentalists continue to quietly believe that these social evils are indeed ordained by God! So, I want to take the argument back into their court. I want to challenge the fundamentalists to prove to me, via the Bible, that the Bible actually claims to be the inerrant word of God. If the Bible itself doesn't claim it, why do they believe such an outlandish claim? And my question to you is: does the Bible anywhere make this claim? Spong Replies: Dear Katherine ,The immediate and short answer is no, though fundamentalists will quote various texts (like II Timothy 3:16) to prove it does. The problem with that text is that when it was written there was no such thing as the Bible as we now know it. The New Testament had not yet come into being. The fact is that even to ask the question the way you did makes a presupposition that is quite fundamentalist and thus plays right into the hands of this absurdity - for even if a particular book of the Bible were to contain that claim, the author of that book would have had no idea that his work would someday be included in a book called the Bible. The various texts that together we Christians now call the Bible were written over more than a thousand years between about 1000 BCE and 135 CE. It was not a single book by a single author but rather 66 separate books (and even more if we count the Apocrypha), written by a variety of authors. None of these authors believed that someday their words would be invested with either holiness or inerrancy. When the authors of the books that we now call the New Testament referred to scripture (Matt 12:10, 15:2,3, Luke 4:21, 22:27 and John 2:22, 7:38, 3:42, 10:35, 12:18, 17:12, 19:24, 19:28, 19:36-37, 20:9, and even the author of II Timothy to which I referred to earlier), they are referring only to the Hebrew Scriptures, since at that time there was no New Testament. It is noteworthy that when the author of II Timothy wrote that all "scripture is given by inspiration of God," he was referring to the Old Testament since again, at that time, there was no such thing as the New Testament. So the claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is itself a non-scriptural term and indeed was imposed on the texts of the Bible at a much later time to meet the need of church leaders to have an ally in their struggles to clarify their authority. If the "Word of God" agrees with me then clearly my position is the correct one. There arose from that corruption of both truth and rationality the incredible number of abuses about which I have spoken so often in this column from biblically-endorsed racism, sexism and homophobia to biblically-endorsed war, persecution, and torture. Hope this clarifies your concern. -- John Shelby Spong I attend a Nazarene church and my Pastor does not believe in Biblical Inerrancy either--although he does take a stand on matters concerning salvation. I may have overreacted a bit with PaulK, but I do not want this thread to turn into an open debate on the definition of faith, belief, and whether or not God exists. I respect Spong quite a bit, but I disagree with him when he says things like this: Page Not Found | The Episcopal Diocese of Newark Thre is a book that is written by one of Spongs critics that I would be interested to peruse. Look inside the book here. (To be fair, I always like to read human opinions on spiritual matters, as long as the human opinions line up with belief in Jesus. I do have my limits on how open minded I choose to be!) The man is a towering intellect, however, and I would be ill equipped to debate him! Heck, I can't even handle you guys here! Edited by Phat, : reformatted and eliminated my fleshly outburst Edited by Phat, : added features and dogma! Edited by Phat, : added Spong critics book link
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
How can the Bible be misrepresented? What standard is used to represent it? The Bible can be misrepresented in many ways. One that we see here all the time is by selective quotemining. The standard that must be used to judge the Bible is context, the world we live in and reason.
if one has a room full of books, how do humans determine the ones they trust? You test them against the world we live in and reason.
can't a belief be based on a consensus? Sure, many are. And they are still wrong. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4309 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
The standard that must be used to judge the Bible is context, the world we live in and reason. If evangelicals are the descendants of the early catholic churches, as they claim to be, then this isn't true, though I know most of them would agree with it.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Equinox Member (Idle past 5392 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Erases all doubt in what? That a god of some kind exists?
Yes, that's precisely what I'm saying. OK, then what you are saying your experience proves makes sense. Please do not extend it, as I’ve so often seen done, to erase doubt that, say, Jesus was born of a virgin, or that the bread literally becomes flesh at communion, or that the KJV is inspired, or that the God of the Bible (as if that were clear in itself) exists, or that Jesus died for your sins. People of all faiths use non-doctrinal encounters with God to affirm their whole system of belief. Even I believe in God, depending on how you define that term.
The differences between the NIV and the KJV do not change the textual meaning any more than Olde English does to modern English. What is the difference between: "Thou hast found sin in my heart" Compared to: "You have found sin in my heart" First, some changes are much larger than that, I hope we both agree. For instance, from GoJ chap 5: KJV has:
In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. NIV has:
Here a great number of disabled people used to lie”the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.
The total amount of text removed is claimed by KJV onlyist Christians to be greater than the entire texts of I and II peter put together, and futher say that the following major Christian doctrines are attacked: 1. The Deity of Jesus Christ is attacked often in the modern versions (see Gn 22:8, Mic 5:2, 1Tm 3:16, Hb 1:8)2. The Trinity is attacked. Most modern versions delete 1Jn 5:7. 3. The virgin birth is attacked, by altering Isa 7:14 in some versions. 4. The doctrine of a literal fiery hell is attacked, by changing the word 'hell' to 'depths', 'grave', 'hades', etc. 5. The first Gentile salvation recorded in scripture, the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-39), is attacked by most modern versions deleting all of Acts 8:37, his saving testimony, which also sets the Biblical requirement for Believer's Baptism, ...If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest...; 6. The salvation of St. Paul is attacked, by altering Acts 9:6; 7. The blood atonement of Jesus Christ is attacked in several places, one example being the removal of through his blood from Col 1:14 8. Salvation as a one time, permanently settled event in the life of any believer is attacked by inserting the word being into 1Cor 1:18;; 9. The ascension of Jesus Christ is attacked by removing and carried up into heaven from Luke 24:51, despite Luke's own reference to the ending of his Gospel in Acts 1:2 10. Salvation as a requirement for heaven is attacked by removing of them which are saved from Rev 21:24 Do we agree that the changes amount to much more than just forms of words such as hast/have? Whether or not the difference affect doctrine is something that non-KJV onlyists fall back on, but simply looking at the statement shows that it makes no sense. Many Christians start out with their doctrine, and then read the bible such as to make the Bible fit their doctrine. So of course changes won’t effect doctrine, since it’s already decided. For instance, if I found a “Bible” that listed only the Nicene creed and a couple other sentences, and claimed it was a new, correct version of the bible, one could claim that this new “version”, that is less than a page long, is not a significant difference, since it doesn’t change any doctrine. Secondly, and more importantly - saying that the versions are the same is again raising the “pretty good god” issue. In other words, are you saying that the versions are the same because God is in control of the process of Bible transcription? If so, you are saying that God is just a pretty good god, because the KJV and the NIV are pretty good in agreement in most places, but obviously aren't perfectly in agreement. If you think humans are in control of the process, then why do you care if the results differ? You are entitled to interpret the evidence any way you’d like, but you are not entitled to pretend the evidence doesn’t exist.
66 books in the modern canon, 72 if you add apocryphal texts.
I was making an example of what a simple encounter with God doesn’t prove. Besides, the majority of Chrisitians use a bible with 73, not 66 books, though if you see my notes at the end of my previous post, the books in the canon has seesawed quite a bit over time, even for the new testatment. How are you sure that the 66 book canon is correct?
God does not speak to me audibly. But out of a well spring in my heart come torrents of His words.
The medium doesn’t matter. I was asking how you keep them from being changed over time in your mind, as happens normally with many human memories. This is important because if your ideas about what God said change in the wrong way, you could end up in Hell for all eternity.
Maybe you are misremembering it if you haven't.
Maybe flying pink elephants live in the 6th dimension. Maybe flugersnorts swim in the 7th. From my own life, my father met with a boyhood friend, and described how he remembered the time that they were out on a cold day, and how this friend had suddenly told my father to be still, and pulled out a handgun and shot at a clump of grass a ways away. They walked up to the clump, and retrieved the shot rabbit, which the friend said he knew was there because he could see the exhaled breath of the rabbit. My father's friend replied that the memory never happened, because he has never owned a gun, or even hunted rabbits.
How would you know if you weren't sure in the first place?
Ah, but I was sure in the first place. That’s the whole point, that memories we are “sure” of could still be misremembered, and without outside evidence, we have no way of knowing.
And what do you have to say for those that weren't raised with God, but some other notion of god? There are innumerable converts from other religions that have met HaShem. What about them? Ravi Zacharias grew up in India, heir to a caste of Hindu priests. And yet on a bed of suicide, knowing nothing of Christ, did he come to meet him.
Well, several things. First, that cases of people having religious experiences of deities outside their raised religion do happen. People like Ravi and others certainly have heard enough of the other religion to be somewhat familiar with it. Plus, even if that weren’t the case, how would you (you, NJ) know? Couldn’t RZ or anyone else make up an experience like that wholecloth? A combination of those two is most likely, I think, where someone like RZ has heard a few things, has a religious experience, converts, then learns more, then tells the story to people who already know a lot of Christian stories, and it is all woven together easily. Even with these, as Ice age pointed out, sticking within what you were raised with is overwhelmingly more common.
But really, there is only one of three things to choose from.
But really, to exclude the thousands of other options makes no sense. Maybe you have met one God, and the 32 others haven’t met you yet. Maybe you’ve met two gods pretending to be one. Maybe you’ve met a demon who has convinced you he is God so as to keep you from the one true Buddhist church. Maybe the God you met espouses a 81 book canon. Maybe there are no gods, but people have a tendency to make them. Maybe after death we all gain the ability to enter into people’s thoughts, where they think we are God or Gods? Who knows? I always cringe at the “do you believe in God?” question, because it is so massively oversimplified that the only thing it does is demonstrate to me that the asker hasn’t given the question of God any thought. Oh, and do we have a similar picture of Jesus’s statement about the OT (did you see post 126)? Enjoy this day- -Equinox
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Other than the three things I mentioned, what else is there?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4309 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined:
|
The man is a towering intellect, however Chances are, Spong really is a towering intellect. I haven't read his writings, so I wouldn't know. However, on the matter you are quoting him, he is simply and factually wrong.
Spong per Phat quote writes: So the claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is itself a non-scriptural term and indeed was imposed on the texts of the Bible at a much later time to meet the need of church leaders to have an ally in their struggles to clarify their authority. This is nonsense. It was not "imposed on the texts of the Bible...to meet the need of church leaders...to have an ally in their struggles to clarify their authority." Start however early you want in the writings of the church, and they regard the apostles as authority. They didn't need to make the NT texts "the inerrant Word of God" in order to appeal to apostolic authority. In fact, the reason the apostles' writings became Scripture was because they were the apostles' writings. Irenaeus appealed even to churches with apostolic origins as having authority to speak on what is true. To the early church "The Word of God" was Christ. They didn't refer to even the OT Scriptures as "The Word of God." You'll find the same thing true even in the apostolic writings. You won't find the NT writings saying "The Word of God" as a reference to the Scriptures anywhere. I don't know when that practice started, but you won't find it in the 2nd century writings, either. Lists of what books of the NT could be included with Scripture began as early as AD 161, where we have the Muratorian fragment giving a canon very similar to the one decided on in the 300's. Church leaders had no need at that time to declare anything to be the word of God for the purpose of authority. At the end of that century they assigned that sort of authority right to the councils. Spong's description of the Scripture becoming "the inerrant Word of God" for the purpose of enhancing the authority of church leaders is simply inaccurate history, completely made up.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4309 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Other than the three things I mentioned, what else is there? Spiritual revelation. I was mostly objecting to the word "context." The NT writers regularly pull Scriptures out of context, and all the early fathers followed right in their footsteps. How much more out of context can you get than Isaiah's prophecy about the virgin birth? Anyone can read Isaiah 7 and see that Isaiah could not possibly, in context, have been talking about a virgin birth 700 years in the future. A birth had to occur before Hazael and Pekin stopped being king, because Emmanuel's ability to discern good from evil was to be the time when those two men stopped being kings. Yet the whole early church believed that was a prophecy, completely against context, for nigh on 3 centuries, then made it official doctrine of the universal church at Nicea. If the 1 Cor 1:20-27 represents Christian doctrine, then the Scriptures are not for the wise, but for the simple. The things of God, says Paul, are spiritually discerned, and it is through spiritual discernment that the early churches taught that food laws were given by God to teach us that we are to be in fellowship with those that ruminate on the Word of God and part from the world, not so that we would avoid pork. Context would completely disagree with that.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 662 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
truthlover writes: If the 1 Cor 1:20-27 represents Christian doctrine, then the Scriptures are not for the wise, but for the simple. "Wise" and "simple" are not mutually exclusive. Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Spiritual revelation. And my answer to that is until it is tested, how can we know who the revelation is from?
I was mostly objecting to the word "context." The NT writers regularly pull Scriptures out of context, and all the early fathers followed right in their footsteps. How much more out of context can you get than Isaiah's prophecy about the virgin birth? Anyone can read Isaiah 7 and see that Isaiah could not possibly, in context, have been talking about a virgin birth 700 years in the future. Yes they most certainly do pull out of context and continue to do so even today. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Equinox Member (Idle past 5392 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Lists of what books of the NT could be included with Scripture began as early as AD 161, where we have the Muratorian fragment giving a canon very similar to the one decided on in the 300's.
Minor clarification:There is no date on the Muratorian fragment (even if it had one, that wouldn't be the final word). It is usually dated to around the end of the 2nd to the middle of the 3rd century (which could approximately include TL’s date - I’m not disagreeing with that date in general, just that it’s too specific and at one end of the range). Marcion’s canon is earlier, around 150 - of course Marcion was a considered a heretic by the Catholic church, but his canon was an abridged GoLuke + Paul’s (non-forged) letters. The muratorian canon is very similar to the Athanasian NT canon, as truthlover mentioned. It adds the apocalypse of Peter, and excludes 1 & 2 Peter, James, Hebrews and 3rd Jn. If that’s “very similar” or “significantly different” depends on your tastes.
However, on the matter you are quoting him, he is simply and factually wrong. Spong per Phat quote writes:
So the claim that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is itself a non-scriptural term and indeed was imposed on the texts of the Bible at a much later time to meet the need of church leaders to have an ally in their struggles to clarify their authority. . ..began as early as AD 161 I’m not sure Spong is factually wrong. He could be thinking the same thing Truthlover is thinking. After all, the 2nd/3rd century could be thought of as “much later” by Spong while still being “as early as” to Truthlover. Have a fun day all- -Equinox P. S. Truthlover gets yet more respect points in my book.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4309 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Equinox,
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I have to say that I was quite surprised by your honesty as well, and the respect is mutual.
I’m not sure Spong is factually wrong. He could be thinking the same thing Truthlover is thinking. My argument was that Spong said the PURPOSE of calling Scripture the inerrant Word of God was to give power to church leaders. I don't think there's even a hint of that. I'd call it a conspiracy theory. Irenaeus argued for the authority of the catholic (Pre-Orthodox or PO, per our terminology last time) churches, while being able to assume the authority of the apostles. He didn't have to argue for a closed canon or "the inerrant Word of God" to do so. Tertullian was the same. His _Prescription Against Heretics_ argues that the "heretics" have no right even to use the Scriptures. They belong to the catholic (PO) churches. Far, far later, the Roman Catholic church also had no need to bolster its authority by arguing for "the inerrant word of God." They argued for their own authority. And, come on, the Scriptures say that the church is the pillar and support of the truth. In what way does "the inerrant word of God" bolster the authority of church leaders? Look at history! Appealing to "the inerrant word of God" has been almost exclusively the domain of those who are in rebellion against church leaders. They appeal to Scriptural authority to overthrow traditional authority. The whole idea that Scripture became "the inerrant word of God" to bolster church leaders' authority has lots of evidence against it and not one bit of evidence for it that I can see. And as for the time frame, Spong's terminology seems to limit him to no earlier than the 4th century, because that's the first time there was a church-wide declaration about the Scriptures. Even then, it was not concerning their authority, nor concerning whether they were inerrant, but simply concerning which books were Scripture. At that point the vast majority of the books chosen were not at question, though some of them may have been a century or two earlier.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
truthlover Member (Idle past 4309 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
And my answer to that is until it is tested, how can we know who the revelation is from? Perhaps the most debated question on earth. My answer is that you'll know a prophet by his fruit. For ancient Christianity (for equinox' sake: the Pre-Nicene, "catholic" fathers and the churches they represent) truth resided in the church/churches, not in individuals. The church is the pillar and support of the truth, it says in I Timothy. "Ye" (plural, not singular) know all things, John writes, and need not that any man should teach you, but the anointing teaches all things. Where the church is, in all its power, its life stops the mouth of gainsayers. Thus, Paul's confidence and boasting. There, my confidence as well. Others believe differently. It's debated everywhere. That's because the church Paul knew about has been so rare and difficult to find in modern times. It has the power to eliminate debates. Edited by truthlover, : Minor grammatical editing for clarity's sake.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
My answer is that you'll know a prophet by his fruit. Which comes back the the point I always try to make. It is not what you profess or claim or even believe, it is what you do. The Gospel is that it is okay to fail, just not okay not to try. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2420 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Don't know if you think this post of mine is on topic, but I'd like a reply if you think it is, phat, thanks.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18633 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.1 |
Nator writes: OK. I can see why not to confuse integrity with charisma.... I once had a charismatic Pastor. He wanted to be famous in the worst way! Now, he finally has his own internet site where he preaches. I could tell you many stories of why the man has little integrity, however.
Integrity is doing what you say you will do, even when it isn't easy or convenient. Don't confuse integrity with charisma or conviction. Nator writes: It is human nature to avoid uncertainty, but settling on an answer to a question merely to relieve our emotional discomfort seems a poor way to find truth. Perhaps. Settling on an answer to a question without all the facts is a viable option when the alternative is uncertainty. For you, uncertainty is a challenge since you still have a goal. (Finding the truth)
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024