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Even Jesus judged scripture. The Pharisees, He said, searched the scripture (OT) for salvation BUT THEY DIDN'T FIND IT THERE.
No Christian denies that the Scripture is inspired. It is the belief that it is inerrant and infallible that is a modernistic theme that is pretty much anti-Jesus in the way it is played out.
Absolute faith corrupts just as absolutely as absolute power. Real Christians have hearts seeking the truth and discovering greater depths day by day. Those who have arrived are like those Pharisees in Jesus day. They couldn't learn from Him because they already knew everything there was to know--like today's fundamentalists.
The great pretenses fundamentalists play on themselves--rejecting scientific proof of evolution, refusing to treat all men and women equally regardless of sexual orientation, refusing women an opportunity to serve God from the pulpit---are built up not to hide the evil and ugly in themselves, but rather the emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that isn't there.
Being a fundamentalist is easy. It requires no inner struggle. It only requires one to put their common sense and intellect on hold, and it is strangely reminiscent of the Pharisee who stood in the Temple saying in his prayer, "Thank God, I am not like that sinner over there."
Faith does not exist outside of doubt. The bible is a book inspired but also corrupted by the views of men, by both the original authors and the several hundred who edited it through the centuries. It takes real faith to read it every day seeking for how God can speak through it. But it's not hard when you see God speaking in it through literally dozens of fallible men who did some horrible things as recorded in scripture (Abraham, Jacob/Israel, Sampson, David, Solomon to name a few). God was proving to us that He can use fallible men AND their writings to give us a glimpse of Him. But it takes work, and study, and re-thinking. It take questioning and weeding out the garden to allow the flowers to grow.
Fundamentalism is all about the easy way. No work needed, just blind acceptance.
Fundamentalists have to lie to themselves. And lying to oneself is the loudest lie of all.
It sounds like everything is ultimately left up to the individual interpreter then. Each person decides for him/herself if a given passage is from God or men. Sounds like the beginning of the end of organized Christianity. Which sounds good to me.
It sounds like everything is ultimately left up to the individual interpreter then. Each person decides for him/herself if a given passage is from God or men. Sounds like the beginning of the end of organized Christianity. Which sounds good to me.
It is not a science and there are no certainties. But, you must admit that hard core Christian fundamentalists are not that different from hard core atheists.
It sounds like everything is ultimately left up to the individual interpreter then. Each person decides for him/herself if a given passage is from God or men. Sounds like the beginning of the end of organized Christianity. Which sounds good to me.
To some extent, yes, but not of Christian organizations, and there IS a difference. When we are listening to and for the Spirit, we often have the help and guidance of people whom we know to be doing the same thing. We tend to keep each other grounded.
It is not a science and there are no certainties. But, you must admit that hard core Christian fundamentalists are not that different from hard core atheists.
The only similarity I can see is this: both atheists and fundamentalists are Truth Objectivists. In other words, they both believe that truth is outside of themselves. But the similarity ends there.
The atheist typically looks exclusively to science for truth. In contrast, the fundamentalist looks primarily to The Divine Book written by the Source of All Truth in the Universe (aka God). The fundamentalist may also look to science, but will not consider any science that appears to contradict the Divine Book (that is Really Really Absolutely True). In fact, such science must be attacked. Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis has gone on the record as saying that no true science can contradict a literal reading of Genesis.
As opposed to Truth Objectivists, Truth Subjectivists generally look inside of themselves for "truth." They look to personal experience, personal preference, emotions, intuition, wishes, etc in their quest for "truth." If an idea makes them feel bad, it isn't true. If an idea makes them feel good, it IS true. This kind of thinking is totally foreign to me, but I do know people who think that way. If I could think that way, I'd probably be much happier. As they say, Reality Bites.
It sounds like everything is ultimately left up to the individual interpreter then. Each person decides for him/herself if a given passage is from God or men. Sounds like the beginning of the end of organized Christianity. Which sounds good to me.
Well we do have scholarship that leads us to understand when some things have been edited in--less often when something has been edited out.
But what is really sad, is that the fundamentalists for the most part out of and departed from a much older tradition called the "Priesthood of the Believer." It was part of the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther and had these concepts:
1) That the role of priests is nothing more than "functionaries" because ALL believers are priests. The functionaries are those who merely serve publicly as priests.
2) That all believers have a right to interpret scripture, and need not be dependent upon the pope (or anyone else).
3) That all believers have the authority to call other believers unto the council of the Word of God.
There was a heresy in the early church called Nicolaitanism.
Jesus said to the church at Ephesus: Yet this you have: you hate the works of th Nicolaitans, which I also hate. (Rev 2:6 ESV)
Jesus said this to the church at Pergamum: So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. (Rev. 2:15 ESV)
The word “Nicolaitans” comes from two Greek words: niko, meaning “to conquer, or overthrow,” and laos , meaning “the people or the laity.”…. They tried to establish an ecclesiastical order. This latter heresy is known as “Nicolaitanism.” This is an unscriptural idea that causes the church to become enslaved by one man or small group of men whose spiritual life can determine the spiritual success of the church. (Dr. Tim Layhe, Revelation illustrated and made simple, p. 26.)
Jack Van Impe writes in his book, Revelation Revealed (p. 35-36.): "Not only were the people of the first church of Pergamos worldly, sinful and idolatrous, but they also shared in the wicked practice of the Nicolaitanism as did the church at Ephesus. This, again, is ecclesiastical Hitlerism. It is when the minister says, “I am the head, and you have no choice in the matter,” allowing laymen no voice in the affairs of the church."
And that is exactly how fundamentalist denominations now operate. They have abandoned scriptural teaching to embrace their own kind of Popery.
But the NT clearly states "you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (I Peter 2:5 ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (I Peter 2:9 ESV)
"The priesthood of all believers... means that in the community of saints, God has constructed his body such that we are all priests to one another. Priesthood of all believers has more to do with the believer's service than with an individual's position or status. We are all believer-priests. We all stand equally before God. Such standing does not negate specific giftedness or calling. It rather enhances our giftedness as each one of us individually and collectively does his part to build the body (Eph 4:11-16). We are all priests. We are all responsible." (Daniel Akin in Perspectives on Church Government, p. 37).
At one time the above was the unadulterated position of the SBC. That's when I was a Southern Baptist. But after the fundamentalist takeover that doctrine was forgotten. Nashville became Rome for Southern Baptists. Pastors were no longer allowed to speak freely from their pulpits. If they took any other view of the Bible other than inerrant and infallible they, and sometimes their congregations as well, were driven out. Missionaries were required to sign statements about the plenary inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility of scripture, women were removed from positions of authority within the SBC (the Lottie Moon Fundraising drives), and professors and teachers at SBC colleges, universities, and seminaries were driven out--even those who were tenured, unless they would sign and agree to teach as Nashville (headquarters of the SBC), run by fundamentalists, demanded.
The sad results are now coming to a head. Southern Baptists are no longer the fastest growing protestant denomination. In fact, they are now declining. The concern of Nashville is less about spreading the Good News than it is about electing a conservative president. The only brother they want is a twin brother. The only acceptable member, one who toes the hardline fundamentalist position. If they haven't started yet, I believe they soon will, start requiring "applications" for membership that include a doctrinal statement regarding biblical beliefs.
As far as I am aware, and I study it a lot, the fundamentalist clergy of any Christian denomination no longer hold to the priesthood of the believer. They have indeed become that which Luther separated from---a top down church.
Is this one of those claims that are somewhere between right and wrong?
Your true colors are beginning to show. You actually have an agenda here.
You are absolutely correct. My agenda is to point out to anyone and everyone how dangerous religious fundamentalism is to the freedoms everyone enjoys. Some are further down that path than others, but the entire world right now is being torn apart by religious fundamentalists of the Abrahamic descent. OUR nation is being torn apart by fundamentalists attempting to insert themselves into every aspect of people's lives, from beginning to end and everything in between. Fundamentalists are the cause of gridlock in our nation's capital.
You, personally may not be a danger, but you are part of a very dangerous group and that makes you complicit in their attempts to run everyone's lives.
On another thread, one of your fellow fundamentalists tried to tell us that the bakers who refused service to a gay couple and then were sued were being persecuted for their religion. It was plain stupid. It was a business, not a church. He claimed those of us opposed to his beliefs were intolerant of religion. In other words, we were intolerant of his right to be intolerant to those people he chose.
That points out to thinking people how idiotic fundamentalism is. "Oh, you are intolerant of my intolerance, and therefore it infringes on my religious 'rights.'" Give us a break. It was the same intolerance expressed by Christians in the south during the fifties and sixties about black people. I was intolerant of their "religious right to be intolerant" then as I am now. And I was born in the South, my father's whole family filled Louisiana and Alabama--and they were all "Christians entitled to be intolerant" of serving black people in their stores and businesses.
Fundamentalists, are, I say again, insecure at their very heart. They haven't found the peace of God that passes all understanding, because, like their leader, Jerry Falwell said, who is now discovering the real truth from the other side of the river, "A fundamentalist is just a Christian mad about something."
Thank you Warden, I never knew what the "sin of the Nicolaitans" was. Is it at all strange that clergy commentors don't seem to have much to say about it? I did know that it was the essential apostasy of the established "religion," but I didn't know its name.
Thank you for your input. I know nothing about the history of the Southern Baptists, so I find your posts interesting.
As far as I know, the church I was raised in (LC-MS) was always very conservative. They split off from the "evil liberal Lutherans" in Germany sometime in the mid 1800s. They were also ethnically isolated from the rest of American society for much of their history. If I remember correctly, most churches had services in exclusively in German well into the early 20th century.
In that denomination, I was never taught that the pastor had any kind of absolute authority. Indeed, that would have been considered to be "too Catholic." The church has a congregational governance structure, but there are some who want to turn it into a hierarchy. All authority was given to "scripture alone."
I consider the LC-MS to be a fundamentalist denomination for the following reasons:
1) emphasis on sin, damnation, hell, blood sacrifice, and an overall "fire and brimstone" theology.
2) anti-evolution, rabid insistance on YEC, a literal Adam & Eve and a Global Flood to support said "fire and brimstone" theology. "As in Adam, so in Christ" is the heart of their theology. The book of Romans is more important to their theology than any other book, other than the constant references to 2nd Timothy 3:16.
3) they make homosexuality a de-facto unforgivable sin, even though (on paper) they say all sins are forgivable.
4) they say the bible is infallible and inerrant.
5) they believe that their interpretation of the bible is the correct one (and by implication, everyone else has it wrong).
6) they maintain an extensive network of K through 8 schools to protect their children from the (evil) outside world. They are almost like the Amish or a cult in that regard.
7) It's all about fear, guilt and hell-threat in the end. Unbelief itself is a sin. "Falling away" from the One True Faith is worst thing that could happen to a person. But remember, God is Love!
The only positive: they are not as openly theocratic as some of the other fundamentalist denominations. They may preach that abortion and gay marriage are against God's will, but they don't endorse specific candidates and they tend to discourage "preaching politics from the pulpit."
Thank you Warden, I never knew what the "sin of the Nicolaitans" was. Is it at all strange that clergy commentors don't seem to have much to say about it? I did know that it was the essential apostasy of the established "religion," but I didn't know its name.
Nateswift, if I were you I would study it for myself rather then take Warden information as he is not giving the whole truth on what the "sin of the Nicolaitans" was. As anyone in their right mind knows half truth is a lie, manipulative and will definitely lead a person astray !
What is hilarious is how you individuals mock the Christian for believing all the word of God being truth and accusing them for not thinking for themselves and taking the teaching of their Pastor to be true and here we have people listening to a man who is denying so much of the teaching and will of God on the internet and especially they have no idea about this man's real life and taking his word's as if he was God.....
Oh, boy, something just isn't right and is truly screwd up and backwards, LOL
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