Serious Question: What distinguishes a "Fundamentalist Christian" from other Christians? (believe, Christ)
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Worshipping the Bible? Do you worship the voices in your head?
Just like I said before, you went right back to quoting the bible, the book which you reject. It never fails
PS You know nothing about me, so you might at well quit telling me what I believe, worship, or whether or not I am saved.
Seems to be an epidemic of this throughout the board...I have personally been told numerous times I am not a "christian". not saved, and destined for hell on teh fast train....guess only fundies can say this because they have special connection to the error ridden book?
{Not an insult}..just asking as curious minds would love to know..
Last edited by zthatzmanz28; 03-20-2015 at 09:22 AM..
Actually, Thomas, I know next to nothing about "50 Shades of Grey". Speaking as a woman I can tell you it's just not my thing and none of my female friends have read it. None of us saw the movie and the longest conversation I had about it was while I was in Costco with a friend and I saw it on the book table, "Look. They're selling "50 Shades of Grey". Her reply: "Oh. Did you see the DVDs? They have "Frozen" on Blue Ray." Then I said, "I'm a little surprised they're selling it at Costco." and she said, "Let's get pizza while we're here."
You asked what's the attraction? I have no idea. I'm more qualified to discuss the attraction of "Frozen". (Starting with the outstanding animation. The folks at Disney hit that one out of the park.)
But thanks for letting us know your circle is discussing a book that you call porn and you have a theory about it. More proof of my theory that the more conservative the Christian...... the more they love to talk about sex.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 03-20-2015 at 09:27 AM..
Worshipping the Bible? Do you worship the voices in your head?
Just like I said before, you went right back to quoting the bible, the book which you reject. It never fails
PS You know nothing about me, so you might at well quit telling me what I believe, worship, or whether or not I am saved.
Well let me call you on your prevarication regarding how I view the Bible. I do not view it as an idol. I view it in the orthodox manner of "inspiration" which you fellas have subjugated with your modern, cultic views.
So the Bible is an inspiration, you just lack the faith to see it properly. Throughout all it's texts God proves over and over that it is His preference to work through flawed men. And, guess what? He is able to encourage and inspire through that which is not perfect.
He does so through the Bible as well. It takes tremendous faith to separate the wheat from the chaff as recorded by the biblical writers. On the other hand, starting from a premise of a "perfect" Bible is not exercising faith, it is refusal to use God given reasoning and intellect.
You see yourself as having hold of salvation through a perfect Bible. I see you as lost and wandering through the wilderness because of your inability to exercise faith.
So you are welcome to proclaim to everyone I don't believe the Bible ( certainly not as you do), and every time you do, I will remind everyone that you exhibit all the characteristics of fundamentalism, but none of the characteristics of a child of God.
So, if it is so abundantly clear that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, why does it not declare that of itself?
You are practicing what John warned about in Revelation 22:18-----adding words to the Bible. What plague do you expect to hit you first?
So, if it is so abundantly clear that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, why does it not declare that of itself?
You are practicing what John warned about in Revelation 22:18-----adding words to the Bible. What plague do you expect to hit you first?
... This is a primary example of how fundamentalists misapply Scripture in an attempt to demean and dominate women, who biblically, are more likely to exercise faith than men who ran away to hide during Jesus' crucifixion, were absolutely more likely to underwrite the work of disciples (like Paul who praised women for providing for his needs on more than one occasion, and generally show more of the compassion Jesus urged His followers to practice.
So your wife's views are well grounded scripturaly. Neither of you should listen to fundamentalist trash talk designed to tear down rather than build up.
The tone with which you use the phrase 'fundamentalist' almost sounds derogatory.
Of course, the Spirit can mean anything. Both Fundamentalists and Liberal Christians claim to get their guidance from the Spirit. And yet the two camps vehemently disagree with each other. One must conclude that the Spirit is awfully confused, or has trouble getting his (or her) message out.
I would suggest that the Spirit is actually a person's own ego, and revelations from said Spirit are usually just a person's existing thoughts and opinions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TroutDude
Generally, I agree. Although it might be splitting hairs, I'm not sure that ego, and one's small, inner voice are the same. At least, mine seem to be at odds occasionally.
What the fish guy said. But Freak's right--it's the people who are confused.
That's why you will never hear me say, "The Spirit revealed to me that..." even if I think so. My first thought when someone proclaims that is "I doubt it" and I know if I claimed God gave me some special revelation somebody else would be thinking exactly that about me, and they would probably be right.
If I think God is telling me something, I'll keep it to myself and see how it plays out.
The tone with which you use the phrase 'fundamentalist' almost sounds derogatory.
Which seems to be a sub-theme to this thread.
Well, we did discuss this, if you read through the thread. E.g., I never thought the term "Fundamentalist" was supposed to be derogatory, although it has become so sometimes. On the other hand, I've heard bible-infallibility/inerrancy people proudly claim the title.
Do we have an acceptable term for Christians who believe the bible is the literal, infallible, voice of God that we can all agree on so we can proceed with the conversation without anyone perceiving name-calling?
Just an aside here, I spoke with my wife about this topic a while back as these section of 1 Corinthians really got me thinking. My wife calls herself a "Christian Feminist", so this portion also troubled her a lot while in Bible college. She explained it to me this way:
During the time this was written, women traditionally did not study scripture and were not knowledgeable on spiritual matters in the same ways as men of the time. Paul wrote this suggestion for the sake of stability during church services. Imagine if someone in a classroom constantly raised their hand to interrupt the lecture or to ask questions. They might be intelligent, thought-provoking questions that add to the discussion, but the point of the lecture is to listen and learn, not interact. Paul suggested that women be silent in services and to ask their husbands about spiritual matters when they got home, because otherwise they were being disruptive or distracting during services. Women aren't any less capable of learning, understanding, or preaching spiritual things, but they, at that time, were far less knowledgeable than men who had been privileged with teachings for years. Obviously there were women scholars and teachers throughout the Bible, so I don't think they are any less capable than men, although Paul probably didn't agree because during his time most women were second class citizens and like infants as far as religious knowledge went.
I have also heard this passage put into this same context.
I've seen a lot of talk in this forum about fundamentalist Christians - mostly negative. I'm curious: In your (polite) opinion, how would you describe what separates or distinguishes someone you consider to be fundamentalist from other Christians? Or, better yet, from yourself?
Conversely, what do you say is a better answer than the principles you consider to be fundamentalist? Please don't bash anyone, but I'd like to know why you feel fundamentalists are misled and why your view is more true. Or maybe why you ultimately changed your stance if you were a fundamentalist. I'm aiming these questions at other Christians who believe they're less radical, so to speak.
Please try to keep this civil, I'm genuinely curious what's meant by the label "fundamentalist".
I'm with you on the puzzlement about the application of the term. I do not generally throw the term around, but here's what I think folks mean by it:
Oddly enough, it tends to refer to Sola Scriptura (aka doctrine and practice derived from Scriptures and only Scriptures) Protestants. This seems a bit contrary to me since Catholicism and several eastern religions predate the Protestant Reformation by over a millenia.
Folks who cling very hard and stubbornly to doctrines based on ancient Christian tradition. Examples: Ex Nihilo creation (creation of something out of nothing), the Trinity, a closed canon of scripture, an eternal duration of suffering in hell, etc. There's a lot more of them, but those are the ones that come to mind since they're constantly being debated.
Those who believe that anyone disagreeing with those and many other ancient Christian traditions are going to burn in hell for eternity, are not true Christians, are heretics, etc.
I think #3 is the biggest qualifier. Most of your free-thinking Christians in the world don't have a problem if somebody believes in something really old. But we do tend to get annoyed at folks who condemn us and want to kick us out of the "Christendom fraternity" for disagreeing with ancient traditions.
I have also heard this passage put into this same context.
And it might even make sense if the original meetings were liturgical in nature, but they weren't. Paul describes a typical meeting in which one person might lead a song, another a prayer, a third a reading from scripture and so forth. To have one lecture would be fairly rare except when there was a travelling evangelist present.
I like the old Quaker women's response: "Well, thee knows Paul was no Quaker." They seemed to know when a particular passage stepped outside the operation of the Spirit.
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