Sometimes over at Atoday.com I read the most stupid arguments...and that includes the article writers. I think, how can anyone publish this stuff and not realize that one stupid paragraph actually destroys the credibility of their entire article. Because if someone is so biased why would anyone believe the rest of their analysis has any reliability. It seems it must come from a thought process that is so encased by only talking to people of their own political beliefs that they don't even see their statement as complete prejudice masquerading as fact. Here is what Monte Sahlin writes in his article The Problem with a Fundamentalist World View:
The true believers in the pro-life movement—who I
largely agree with on moral grounds, despite their widespread hypocrisy
on capital punishment and feeding babies once they are born—believe that
if Roe v Wade is rescinded or restrictive laws such as recently voted
in Texas are adopted that it will impose moral order on a society where
traditional ideas about sexuality have been discarded by most Americans.
They simply don’t get the fact that it will change nothing about the
sexual behavior of most people and it will create unanticipated
outcomes, possibly more terrible than the present situation.
The pro-life movement is involved in wide spread hypocrisy because it allows and accepts capital punishment of criminals. Really that is somehow connected to the right of a baby to be born? Innocent unborn life should have a right to exist therefore to not be a hypocrite guilty adults should not be executed after due process. By that reasoning the pro-choice movement must be hypocritical when anyone is sent to jail being then their choices are taken away. What about the second line, are pro-life people against feeding babies once they are born? Is there some kind of protests going on that I have not heard about where the pro-lifers are marching against giving babies food? Well probably to a political liberal mind welfare reform is taking food out of a babies mouth even though that is generally not what happens since the reform is found in making sure that the monies go to people who really need it and not fraud and waste. As for Roe v. Wade it should be rescinded and sent to the states. Surely by now we all should know that Roe was never a rape victim as the case was presented. So a case law was made based upon a trial where one of the prime principals in the case lied. seeDo You Know the Fascinating and Troubling Story About the Woman Behind the Roe v. Wade Case? Is the Texas Law limiting abortions so that late term abortions are not allowed really that bad, as the Daily Caller writes:
Every modern poll on the issue shows the same thing: Large majorities
say babies should not be aborted in the later stages of pregnancy.
Looking at Gallup over the years, opposition to abortion after six
months has never dropped below 80 percent. Even at three months, the
numbers are still impressive: Over 60 percent of Americans consistently
oppose abortions after the first trimester, and in 2011 they rose to 71
percent.
If these were election results, you’d call it a landslide.
But to Monte Sahlin such widespread agreement on limiting late term abortions is a method to change people sexual behavior! Or even worse if states like Texas limit late term abortions it may make things "possibly more terrible than the present situation." It is really troubling to me that people can be so thoughtless and yet pretend to be thought leaders.
Ultimately his fictional paragraph leads to his conclusion:
Fundamentalists believe that they can control
society’s sinfulness. Jesus knows otherwise. He says, Peter put away
your sword. "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." Love your
enemies. Turn the other cheek. Go the second mile."
Actually every religious and social organization likes to think they can limit society's sinfulness and fundamentalists at least Christian Fundamentalist are not trying to limit society's sinfulness with a sword. That might be true of Muslim Fundamentalists but it really has no application to Christian Fundamentalism. But as with the other facts Monte Sahlin conflates Fundamentalism as well pretending there is some major similarity between the Christian Fundamentalism and what is been much less accurately called as Muslim Fundamentalism ( remember the Muslim's in question don't even call themselves fundamentalist, it is quite different from the beginnings of Christiain fundamentalism where they wrote and expressed what their fundamentals were. See: Christian Fundamentalism on Wikipedia
The Adventist Review continues upon its course of fundamentalism with the article from Mark A. Kellner the news editor of the Adventist Review. In his article entitled If the Creation Account Isn't True... he presents his best evidence why the Genesis 1 account is true:
If the Bible account of Creation isn’t true, as Giberson and Stephens imply in offering to “incorporate” Darwinism in Christian faith, what must logically follow?
If there’s no Creation . . .
. . . where, and how, did sin enter the world?
. . . why do we need a Savior?
. . . from what did God, if He even exists, rest?
. . . why should we rest if, absent Creation, there’s nothing from which God rested?
. . . how can we believe anything else in the Bible?
Let us first define Darwinism since it seems for many Adventists it is a scary word with meaning that they really must not know.
Is natural selection incompatible with Christianity? It has considerable evidence to indicate the genetic action of natural selection, why should it not be able to be incorporated into Christianity. Do we have trouble incorporating Electronics or Physic into Christianity? But apparently biological science is not acceptable to many Adventists and of course to Christian Fundamentalists.
Let us take a closer look at the reasons Mark Kellner gives us:
If there is no Genesis 1-3 literal Creation story “. . . where, and how, did sin enter the world?”
You will notice that I did not say as Kellner deceptively said, “If there’s no Creation” because even if one is a theistic evolutionist or an Intelligent Design believer there is still a creation, the how is simply not known, it does not mean there was not a first cause or creation event. But as you read the fundamentalists you will see that they are very manipulative and love to distort the beliefs of others. That is understandable...when you have a weak theory you need to support it and promote it as best you can and for them the best way is to distort information.
Where did sin enter the world? According to the Genesis 1-3 creation story there is no sin...sin is not mentioned until the Cain and Abel story in Gen 4:7. So we have to read the sin into the story based upon subsequent information. But let us assume that the actions in the story are taken as disobedience which is sin, where did sin enter the world?
The answer is in Eden which is located:
Gen 2:10-15 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (NIV)
Where is or was that you may ask? No one knows. So the first answer the where is unknown, we don't know where. “How” is his next question. The answer assuming the sin was found in the act of eating the forbidden fruit is to be found in the temptation of the couple in Eden by the most crafty of creatures the talking serpent! You may wonder where do talking serpents come from? A good question we don't find many talking animals in the world or even in the pages of the Bible. This serpent then seems to be the instigator of sin because he contradicts God (later in the book of Revelation we read of the serpent of old as a reference to Satan, but Satan was unknown in the Jewish religion until much later, so to understand the story let us look at it from the perspective of those who heard it). So the how for Mark Kellner is sin came because a man and woman of relatively little experience decided to believe a talking snake and follow its arguments (remember Satan is not a part of the story until several thousands of years later). How comfortable are you with that as the story for how sin entered the world? A talking snake that not only spoke the human language but who happened to be in that particular tree at that time with those particular insinuations about God. I suppose if you are comfortable with that you will be just as comfortable with God expelling them from Eden for this one mistake instead of teaching them about what truth is and what lies are and why God may have more reason to be believed then a talking snake.
His next point, why do we need a Savior? Again there is no savior or mention of a savior in the first several chapters of Genesis. There is an announcement of the human superiority to the snake, at least after the snake is cursed for being such a crafty creature. The snake is cursed to crawl on its belly, nothing is said of it losing it ability to talk however which really seemed to be the root of the problem. But with the curse the descendent's will be able to stomp on the heads of the snakes:
Gen 3:14-15 So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." (NIV) Actually many people take this verse as a Messianic prophecy. However it is never in the Bible, the old or new Testament used in any way as a reference to the Messiah. That is a later view developed later during the time of the Early Church Fathers, which is where a lot of our traditions come from, even though many of them are purely fanciful ideas. Ultimately the Genesis story says nothing about a Savior or our need for a Savior.
His third point, “from what did God, if He even exists, rest?” According to the story He rested from speaking, because that was the method of creation, “And God said”. The Genesis account says nothing about anyone else needed to rest. So his fourth point is once again not something from the Creation account.
“Why should we rest if, absent Creation, there’s nothing from which God rested?” According to Jesus the Sabbath rest was made for man not because God rested. Mark 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: (KJV) Even if you use one of the versions of the ten commandments it is rest from human work that is given as the reason. Then there is the common sense argument that one should take some time away from working everyday. Could we not answer the question from experience? Or must we like him make it appear that it comes from a creation account that says nothing about people resting? When people ask questions which have nothing to do with the real subject you can be pretty sure that are desperately searching for something to support their preconceived idea.
Kellner's final point in his list is “how can we believe anything else in the Bible?” Now if he really has no ability to tell an analogy from a metaphor or a parable or a symbol, then in fact he must have serious problems interpreting the Bible and everything else that is written or spoken. Should we ask him how can we believe anything of Jesus Christ because he told the story of the rich man and Lazarus.
Luke 16:20-31
At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.' "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'" (NIV)
If you are going to take something in the Bible literally that sounds way more literal then the talking snake story. But of course the point of the story is that people don't just change because they see a miracle. And that is really the point of the Genesis creation story, the miracle of creation does not make us believe, whether as literal 24 our days or some other method. God was there and He was the cause, God is the power of the creation, it is not about how it was done. When we see the evidence from nature we simply can't ignore it to cling to the simplistic explanations used to help a privative man understand that there was more to this life then what they could see. Which is such an important lesson because the more we learn the more we find that there are vasts areas of information that we could never see before. We keep exploring and learning more, it makes no sense to me that God did not expect us to continue to grow in understanding of our world and universe. He would not expect us to cling to a simplistic story made for people who did not even know that they lived on a planet, let alone one that was not the end of the universe itself.
So please don't let the Fundamentalism take over the Adventist church even though that is our current leaderships desire.
I came upon the following quote from the speaker Brene Brown on her lecture “The power of vulnerability” at the TED website :
“The other thing we do is we make everything uncertain certain religion has gone from
faith and mystery to certainty, I'm right your wrong shut up that's it just certain...”
This is such an amazingly true statement yet so simply put that it becomes striking. This is so true of Fundamentalism and now becoming undeniable in Adventism. In a previous post I mentioned an Andrews Seminary student who I think is the perfect example of this. In Ervin Taylor's Blog entitled “Forward into the Past” we read this statement directed toward me:
“..It is also just funny how you and some others speak against the doctrines of the church and at the same time don't leave the church . People like you should be disfellowshiped , and given them a restraning order from our churches”... [please not I don't correct spelling or grammar when quoting blog comments]
I put that quote in because most who read the quote by Brene Brown will see the truth of the first part of the sentence but think that we don't actually have people saying shut up if you are not certain like them. Later on this seminary student who apparently is also already a Pastor from what he says, was more magnanimous, saying:
...”Ervin , Ron and Elaine , your problem is that you don't believe in the inspiration of scripture .As a Pastor , I wouldn't mind having you visit my church . I would just not baptize you or give you any privileges ( like preaching , or teaching a Sababth school class or leading in small groups ) So I believe there is place for everybody in the church , and I think that is what the church does to you , I don't think any of you teach or preach in the churches you attend but I am sure that people smile at you and invite you to stay after potluck . ELder Wilson say we should read more Ellen white , I thik she will answer your questions . read the chapter on creation and you will change your view .I am glad that God the remnant church the gift of prophecy and we have Ellen white who has been right on final events and every single area she wrote . Ellen is our modern day "Moses " who is going to take us to the promised land . If you don't want to be deceived by the Satan ,read her writings .”
Church is to be a place to be smiled at and maybe invited to a potluck just as long as you don't talk about what you think and are given no opportunity to express your beliefs or opinions or uncertainty. Shut up unless you believe like me seems to be the new Adventist Fundamentalism. Did you also notice that he would not even baptize those who don't believe like him. My statements here are not simply representative of this seminary student but upon the actual experiences I have in my local church and many churches I have visited. This seminary student is just a recent example who I have in writing so I don't have to rely on my memory of personal experiences.
Certainly about faith and ancient stories and ancient history is really not that wise. It leads to false acceptance of non facts to be facts. I have reason to believe the stories about Jesus Christ but that is based upon certain evidence but evidence is not completely solid which is why it has from the New Testament times been termed faith. But faith that becomes certainty is no longer faith and if that certainty is based upon the misuse of facts or the absence of facts then that certainty is hubris.
Religion as hubris is not attractive! Certainty becomes exclusiveness and rather then spreading the idea of love and acceptance with the humility to learn more, the “certain” church becomes accepting of those who believe like them, love is lost unless you believe as they do or at best a pipe dream talked about but not practices. Humility and learning become the qualities on the outside, they out there, study the natural world and they study mankind with it's many attributes, inside we have our beliefs and we are certain of them because Scriptures can only be interpreted as we on the inside interpret them. Those who are certain don't need to learn anything because it might go against their certainty, and humility becomes humility based upon the assumption that they have the truth, the certainty of their own view of the truth. As we look at history it is often those who are the most certain who are the most dangerous, you only have to look at certain segments of Islam to see that certainty in action and it deadly consequences.
A religion that has lost it's faith and mystery has lost it reason to exist.
Two of the most intriguing movements in Christian history are Fundamentalism and Gnosticism. These two subjects were placed together in an interesting book entitled: Revival of the Gnostic Heresy -- Fundamentalism by Joe E. Morris (2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, New York, NY). The book seeks to trace the history of the Gnostic doctrines to the arrival of Fundamentalism with as the title portends the idea that Gnostic religion has had a rebirth in what is now termed Fundamentalism.
To this end the book begins witha section on Gnosticism followed by a section on Fundamentalism. This is where the book shines. Written clearly and concisely it gives an excellent introduction to Gnosticism in Christianity. Christians for far too long have ignored the Gnostic doctrines and have assumed too little about fundamentalism ignoring some of the subtler ideas it encompases. The ignorance of the Gnostics is however understandable since it was not until the Nag Hammadi Library find in 1945 that we really had a good collection of the Gnostic documents. As the author points out:
“There are some who say that Gnosticism simply never left and that the relatively
recent discoveries of old books and publications of new ones had little to
do with “jump starting” a movement that never died. Those confident of this
belief are members of Ecclesia Gnostica and other Gnostic congregations like
them scattered around America and throughout the world. They were here first,
before James Robinson translated the ancient Nag Hammadi texts for the world
to read and before Elaine Pagels’ The Gnostic Gospels was published.These latterday Gnostics will direct your attention to history and point out that the Cathars,
Rosicrucians, Knights Templar, Esoteric Freemasons, and Theosophists had roots
in Gnosticism.7” (Introduction page 3)
Gnosticism however is not some unified doctrinal statement of beliefs so the author takes some time to introduce us to some of the basic tenets. After Athanasius in 367 C.E. sent out his letter listing the 27 New Testament books and proscribing for destruction those writings which were not in harmony with the 27 the author writes:
“A secondary outcome of Athanasius’s declaration was an action at a remote
Coptic monastery. To protect their valued manuscripts, they buried them in the
desert. For seventeen hundred years, all we knew about Gnosticism was what
scholars could glean from a handful of texts and filter through the heavily biased
writings of the early Church fathers. The discovery of thirteen codices at the
foot of the mountain Jabal al-T_rif, near the village of Nag Hammadi in Upper
Egypt, changed all that. These forty-six treatises, often referred to as the Gnostic
Gospels (though some are more Christian than Gnostic), have shed considerable
new light on Gnosticism, a very diverse phenomena represented by many groups
with myriad religious beliefs and practices. The task at hand, based on this new
knowledge, is to condense all of this data into a core of basic tenets.”
On page 26 the author summarizes the Gnostic concepts as follows:
Gnosis means knowledge, and it is knowledge that saves. For Gnostics, salvation
lies in discovering the truth of their identity, their origin, how they came to
this earth, and how they can return to the divine heavenly realm, which is their
ultimate destination and goal. This is the knowledge, the truth that leads to salvation.
But it is grasped by only an elite few who are “in the know.”
Gnostic cosmogony, or worldview, is dualistic. Reality is composed of spirit
and matter. Spirit is good. Matter is evil. Because there is evil in the world, it
could not have been created by the one True Divinity, or God. Therefore, evil
came about through a catastrophic cosmic disaster. As a result, the spirit became
trapped in the evil, material world. In order for this spirit, represented as divine
sparks in certain humans, to return to its heavenly divine realm it must acquire
saving knowledge. This saving knowledge comes from a divine redeemer. This
divine redeemer came into the world to save the lost sparks of the spirit.
So far, all of this sounds vaguely Christian. Then comes the significant factor,
or hermeneutical key, that differentiates Gnosticism from Christianity: flesh
is evil; therefore, the Gnostic redeemer is all spirit and never became flesh. For
Christians, “the word became flesh.” For Gnostics, the word became spirit. No
flesh was involved. From the Christian perspective, the Gnostic divine redeemer
was impotent. He (or she) lacked humanity.
Gnostic Christians were active in ChristianChurches but did not believe all
Christians would be saved, primarily because they did not have access to the
saving knowledge. Because many belonged to the Church, and because of their
insistence that the one true spiritual God could not have been human, Gnosticism
posed a very real and major threat to the existence of the young struggling
Church. Their ascetic ethic was another serious challenge.
As with Gnosticism Fundamentalists also contain a variety of beliefs, thus there are different fundamentalist denominations and there are fundamentalists within most all denominations, the 5 Fundamentals then are starting points but do not encompass all of Fundamentalism. As the author states on page 86:
These five concepts are the “Fundamentals” of Fundamentalism. However,
Bawer reminds us that not all legalistic Protestants are Fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are elitists, he states and “keep themselves apart from the evil mainstream culture and thus pure.”21 William Loader also cautions against viewing Fundamentalism as a monolithic system of thought.22 Many who are fundamentalist in their thinking are not fundamental in their demeanor, outlook, or behavior.
They possess Fundamental beliefs because they were raised in a Fundamental milieu and knew nothing else. Their spirituality, however, functions on a different level. They are not ideologues. They manifest an openness, compassion, and flexibility not usually associated with their more rigid and purist cousins. “Their approach to the Bible is just an element of their spirituality.”23 He advises this additional caution: "Some assume all too readily that to espouse anything other than a fundamentalist stance towards the Bible means to devalue it.”24 The Bible is not an all-or-nothing proposition. In spite of its flaws, it is appreciated and valued. There are many differences and variations within the multiple Fundamentalist denominations. Some espouse themes and concepts not included in the Five Fundamentals.
In the summary of the chapter on The Basic Tenets of Fundamentalism Similarities between Early Christianity and Fundamentalism page 88 the authors writes:
Today’s Fundamentalism is a relatively modern phenomenon that began as a reaction
to modernity. The basic tenets of Fundamentalism were first generated in a series of pamphlets written between 1910 and 1915 entitled “The Fundamentals,”
which were reduced to the “Five Points” generated by the 1910 General
Assembly of the Northern Presbyterian: biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth of
Christ, substitutionary atonement of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, and
the historicity of miracles.
It is significant that the first tenet is biblical inerrancy. Without it, the others
would not be tenable. Of the five, the one less commonly held is the substitutionary
atonement that portrays God as punishing his Son. There is linkage
among the remaining four to the extent that they all rely on each other. If one
falls, the others fall with it. This reasoning suggests that, for Fundamentalists,
salvation comes from “right belief ” and not grace, a concept that aligns them
with Gnosticism.
One is cautioned against lumping Fundamentalists into one theological mold.
Not all Fundamentalists share every principle. In cases where they unanimously
agree, emphasis often falls unevenly across the spectrum. There are differences
and variations among the multiple denominations. Some have dominant themes
that are not included in the “Five Fundamentals.” Examples of those differences
include snake handlers of Appalachian notoriety and foot-washing Baptists.
In some ways, current Fundamentalism is similar to primitive Christianity.
Early Christianity, in a short period of time, understood its beliefs and practices as
representative of the one true religion. All others were excluded from the circle of
salvation. Some Fundamental denominations and sects are preoccupied with the
“golden past” of the Church’s history. This “golden” time should be maintained
and relived at some future time.
The idea that “right belief” aligns the fundamentalist to Gnosticism is interesting. The first reaction most would think to this comment is “well don’t all Christians believe that right belief is important if not critical to Christianity.” Here I think the author is wrong. Having grown up after the age of Fundamentalism in a church filled with Fundamentalist perhaps my view of Christianity is thoroughly indoctrinated with Fundamentalism’s philosophy. Yet I don’t really think he is right because as he noted this idea of right belief existed in the early Christian church and it most certainly existed during the Reformation. Where even remarkable Protestant thinkers thought other Protestant thinkers were so completely wrong as to be of the Devil. He may be correct in regards to the Gnostic idea that right belief causes salvation and Fundamentalist think that their right belief causes salvation whereas the majority of Christianity see the salvation process as up to God’s grace. But even there it is doubtful that many Fundamentalist would think that it is really their right beliefs that save them as opposed to God’s grace.
The author attempts to identify dualism as very similar between the Gnostics and the fundamentalists. However here I think he fails because it is simply a part of Christianity, dualism is even as the author notes prominent in the New Testament.
For some, dualism and Gnosticism are synonymous.11 Dualism is certainly
not a foreign concept to Christianity. It is ever present in the New Testament and
in some parts of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. That is hard scriptural
fact. Themes in the Gospel of John and Letters of Paul are unmistakably dualistic.
They are conspicuous in the Gospel of John. When the writer (or writers)
speaks of light and darkness, the spiritual versus the physical world, he is in the
realm of dualism. Though he does not speculate about the divine or lower worlds,
Paul’s letters are replete with the antithesis of flesh and spirit, where “flesh” represents
fallen humanity. Perkins expresses that “Paul’s perception of the flesh as
the entry point for the sinful desires that ultimately bring death to humans unless
they receive the Spirit of Christ comes very close to what one finds in Gnostic
mythologizing.”12 This dualism of evil and good, flesh versus spirit, surfaces in the
synoptic gospels and Johannine epistles, which, most scholars agree, were targeted
by the writer specifically against a Gnostic group or sect that had broken away
from the Church.
These dualistic themes within the New Testament, however, are within the
context of an incarnated Christ, “The word became flesh” (John 1:14). They are
pulled together, gathered into that singular event and person, so the polarities,
the contradictions, are subsumed and held in balanced tension. Except in parts of
the Gospel of John, a theological dialectic is maintained between the humanity of
Christ and His divinity. Conflicts would rage about this issue for centuries. The
strife continued through the Councils of Nicaea (325 CE) and Chalcedon (451
CE) where the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, were hammered
out and articulated in creedal form.13 The dualism of Gnosticism and Fundamentalism, of the physical world versus the spiritual world, is another matter. Most scholars contend that they are not only imbalanced but also significantly skewed toward the divine pole of the theological spectrum.
Where is dualism, the splitting of reality into physical and spiritual (evil and
good) compartments, evident in Fundamentalism? On the surface it is not openly manifested. Nothing in its creedal statements, resolutions, or “Five Fundamentals”
overtly states that the Spirit is good; matter is evil. There are no seminary
classes in conservative schools of theology labeled, “Dualism 101.” It is neither an
obvious theme preached from pulpits nor sung specifically from hymnals. Dualism
is not among the Fundamentalist “formulas” one hears—sin, salvation, judgment,
redemption, atonement, and so on. But dualism is there. It is imbedded
in the themes of evil flesh and saving spirit. Dualism is evident when one speaks
of the bad world and the need to set oneself apart from that world by leading a
spirit-filled, or spiritual, life . . . by knowing Jesus. It is implied in any messages
one hears about a God who is good and a Satan or devil who is bad.14 (page 94)
What appears to be the case here is that the author wants to make the dualism his corner stone argument but it simply does not work because dualism is simply a part of Christianity. On a related not however he does present a better argument:
Gnosticism is basically a return to salvation under the law. “The Gnostics
believed that salvation must be earned. They believed the individual must make
a science out of his own redemption.”26 This also sounds very much like Scientology,
where one works through a number of spiritual levels to attain the pure
spiritual self through a process called “auditing.”27
In Fundamentalism, one achieves salvation through personal decision.
This is not a divine act of pure grace and acceptance from above. This is conditional
grace. One must accept, and “know,” Christ before salvation is possible.
There is no other way. This is one of the results of dualism. Religions advocating
their way is not only the way, but the only way, imply an either–or dualistic split
in reality. This is Fundamentalism. It is Gnosticism. (page 98)
This has always been a weakness in the Fundamentalist Christian worldview where they use the text that says there is no other name by which men can be saved than Jesus. So what about all of those who have never known about Jesus? It is a terrible limitation on God but it is a wonderful inspiration for the Christian to tell people about Jesus. It unfortunately has lead to the kind of street corner evangelists who draw a crowd telling how Jesus loves them and condemning them as horrible sinners and then asking to pray the “sinners prayer” for salvation. They get to hear about Jesus but that is about all and it is not a very attractive Jesus at that. No doubt it has led to others doing true evangelism and missionary work also out of a genuine desire to spread the gospel and save souls.
According to the book the dualism’s keystone is as follows:
The most significant similarity between the two religions, the keystone of both
and the one upon which this book is predicated, is their concept of divine
redeemer, the Anointed One, the Christ….(page 98)
Doctrinally, Fundamentalists give a tacit cognitive (literal) nod to Christ’s
humanity. At deeper more visceral levels, with their near-obsessive need for inerrancy
and purity, it is very difficult for them to conceive of the Christ as capable
of doubt, fear, despair, sadness, depression, or loneliness, or to see him as human,
of being compatible with sin . . . of being sin. They are much more comfortable
with Luke’s patient, serene, and resigned righteous martyr who, during his crucifixion
from the cross, utters, “Father into your hands I commit my spirit” (23:46);
as opposed to the hostile, lonely, despairing, and agitated Jesus of Mark who
becomes “deeply distressed and troubled” (14:33); whose soul is “overwhelmed
with sorrow to the point of death” (14:34); who asks his Father to “take this cup
from me” (14:36); and who, eventually, from the cross, cries out “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me” (15:34)?29 In short, for Fundamentalists, divinity
dominates humanity.
This is the key similarity between Gnosticism and Fundamentalism. Their
redeemers never achieve humanity; they never become flesh and blood. They
never become real but evolve into fantasies and magic that many scholars argue
is the Oriental mystical cradle from which Gnosticism came. It is easy to see how
this type of one-sided Christology might affect one’s approach to the Bible and
scriptural interpretation. The Bible truly becomes the divine. (page 99)
While he may be fairly accurate here as to what people see that does not make it accurate as to what the Fundamentalists are teaching. As he notes the Fundamentalist has a cognitive nod to Christ’s humanity, that it may not encompass the passion the author wants it to encompass does not warrant it as the keystone connecting Gnosticism to Fundamentalism. It is not only Fundamentalists who see that “divinity dominates humanity” it is all of Christianity because if humanity dominate Divinity there is no hope, salvation would be a dream that God Himself could not grant. After all the New Testament focus is “God with us” we already know what humanity is like and it is not pretty even when not involved in sin agitation, despair and loneliness plague us, it is a comfort to know Christ felt those pains also but far more comfort to know that the divinity conquered all of those and death as well.
Hopefully I have covered adequately the major considerations of the book, at least the major portions which I think are encompassed in the title of the book. But you will notice I end at page 99 of a 230 page book not counting the Bibliography. While I can’t fully agree with the proposition the book puts forward I do find this book to be packed with useful information and challenging material. The book written in a very easy to read style that is wonderful to find on the subject of history and religion. And after all how could anyone pass on the chance to read a book attempting to connect Gnosticism to Fundamentalism?
The Adventist Review recently offered their take on the controversy over science and traditional Adventism at La Sierra University. To which La Sierra University published a letter of their own noting the numerous deficiencies and what appears to be biased reporting of the Review. Now, that the Adventist Review is biased toward traditional Adventism and Fundamentalism is hardly a surprise to anyone. Most of us know that the Adventist Review makes no effort to be objective either in reporting or in their selection of articles or writers. That is why you hardly ever read both sides of a story or multiple ideas about a particular belief or doctrine even though the multiple ideas are present in the Adventist community. After all that is the major problem with traditionalism and fundamentalism. It is either their way or heresy.
The La Sierra University letter presented a very good example of this limited perspective found in the traditional/fundamentalist side of things when the letter reported the incidents that occurred between one of their Professors and the website EducateTruth.com. Here is what the letter said under point 8:
The most recent example of the attack website’s questionable practices is a posting on the site made by Dr. Larry Blackmer, the North American Division vice president for education. Dr. Blackmer stated in his post that a number of his remarks made at a LakeUnion education summit “had been taken seriously out of context” by the website. Dr. Blackmer’s words reveal the seriousness of his feelings regarding the web editor’s actions. “I feel betrayed by this website,” Dr. Blackmer wrote. “I have explained the context of my remarks, yet you have taken my remarks and used them in a way that demonstrates exactly what I was speaking against.”
Dr. Blackmer, in his post to the website, went on to share his thoughts on the creation/evolution debate going on in Adventist higher education and to offer his support for La Sierra at the current time. The attack website removed Dr. Blackmer’s post within hours. It went on to privately offer to him a heavily edited version of his statement that the website would find acceptable. The edited version contained roughly half of Dr. Blackmer’s original thoughts and removed his direct challenges to the website for posting his comments inappropriately. Dr. Blackmer did not authorize the posting of their revision.
It is a sad fact that those who think themselves with the most truth often fear the most truth. Those who seek to control information seek to control the population. It is true in churches and denominations just as it is true in society and politics. When you know so much that you can’t listen to the other side you really don’t know much at all.
Benton Johnson, Dean R. Hoge & Donald A. Luidens. I encourage you all to take the time to read the article. It is from the archive of First Things magazine. While the research is predominately from the Presbyterian Church I think it can be more broadly applied to most main line churches and also the AdventistChurch as well.
After listing two common ideas for the decline in Main lineChristianChurches, a shift to greater individual autonomy and as a protest against the churches perceived lack of care for the poor and political issues like abortion, the article states:
A third intra-religious theory was advanced by Dean M. Kelley in his controversial book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, published in 1972. Kelly argued that the mainline denominations have lost members because they have become weak as religious bodies. Strong religions provide clear-cut, compelling answers to questions concerning the meaning of life, mobilize their members' energies for shared purposes, require a distinctive code of conduct, and discipline their members for failure to live up to it. Weak religions allow a diversity of theological viewpoints, do not and can not command much of their members' time or effort, promote few if any distinctive rules of conduct, and discipline no one for violating them. In short, strong religions foster a level of commitment that binds members to the group; weak religions have low levels of commitment and are unable to resist influences that lower it even further.
Since careful tests of these theories have never been made, no consensus has emerged as to which, if any, of them best explains why mainline churches have lost members. To gain new insights into the reasons for the decline, the three of us decided to interview a national sample of baby boomers who had been confirmed in mainline Protestant churches during the 1960s. To simplify our task, we concentrated on a single denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), formed in 1983 by merger of the nation's two largest Presbyterian bodies. In 1989, with a grant from the Lilly Endowment, we drew samples of names from confirmation lists of churches in six states and located as many people in the samples as we could. We completed 500 Gallup-style telephone interviews and forty face-to-face follow-up interviews.
What they found is interesting:
…In short, our baby boom drop-outs did not leave the Presbyterian church in search of salvation or enlightenment; they left because religion itself had become low on their list of personal priorities. They pray occasionally, they hold Jesus in high esteem, and they have some interest in such questions as the purpose of existence and the fate of the soul after death, but they do not consider it necessary to attend church in order to nourish what faith they have.
The underlying cause it appears is what they call “lay liberalism”:
…We have named this pattern the theology of lay liberalism. It is “liberal” because its defining characteristic is the rejection of the view that Christianity is the only religion with a valid claim to truth…
…Most lay liberals “prefer” Christianity to other faiths, but they are unable to ground their preference in strong truth claims. A few simply told us that Christianity is “true for me,” whereas Buddhism or Islam may be true for others, and some explained that they preferred Christianity because they were raised in that faith. But most lay liberals we talked to were uneasy with the nihilistic implications of this line of thought, and they proposed some universal grounding for their religious preference. Some believe that a common thread of truth runs through all the world's major religions and that at base all religions teach the same thing…
…If God helped write all the world's scriptures, there is no harm in belonging to any religion that one finds congenial. Lay liberals have a much broader notion of what is religiously respectable than old-time Presbyterians had. They are hard put to offer theological reasons why anyone should remain a Presbyterian, or even a Christian…
Ultimately the reason for the decline is:
Orthodox Christian belief of one variety or other, which the fundamentalists and other conservatives in our sample espouse, seems to impel people to commit their time and other resources to a distinctively Christian regimen of witness and obedience in the company of other believers. Lay liberalism, on the other hand, is not an empowering system of belief but rather a set of conjectures concerning religious matters. It supports honesty and other moral virtues, and it encourages tolerance and civility in a pluralistic society, but it does not inspire the kind of conviction that creates strong religious communities.
It seems to me that the answer is found somewhere between the foolish certainty of fundamentalism and worthless all roads lead home of the “lay liberalism”.Fundamentalism encourages the idea that they have the truth and that all other ideas are wrong but it is largely based upon fictional interpretations and beliefs which cannot be maintained under questioning. Both sides are based upon unreasonable methods of interpretation. To say that all sacred books are inspired by the same God even though they contradict each other makes no sense unless God is terribly confused. That does not mean that there cannot be good things in all the different sacred writings we know that there are, but they all carry an underlying goal or principle to which the various religions aspire. Having some good parts does not make the overall document all good or all inspired by God. Neither is the fundamentalist dismissal of all other religious ideas feasible either. Which is why we need to enlist our minds in the analysis of religious ideas. What has happened however is that we have become scared to discuss religion. Not just different religions but even religion in our own faith traditions. One more quote from the article:
Given the reluctance of so many baby boomers to talk about religion or to instill their own views in their children, the prospects that their offspring will make a serious Christian commitment are even dimmer than their own prospects turned out to be. And among the “religious” dropouts the prospects are dimmer still. They are virtually unanimous in wanting their children to have a religious education, but less than a third with children at home have actually enrolled them in Sunday School. Many hesitate to do so for fear of getting “roped in” to a round of church activities themselves. They are “too busy,” and they have a myriad of other commitments. Above all, they see no real point in getting involved.
Modern Christianity has become afraid to deal with “God talk”. This is just as true in the Adventist church as any other church. The fundamentalist style of God talk is largely the reason I think that Christianity has lost the ability to do what it was called to do. The fear most Christians have of looking like an intolerant uneducated narrow minded bigot. The fundamentalist camps have created their own internal support but they have poisoned the water of everyone else. Their ranks are not really growing they are just not shrinking as fast as the rest of Christianity. (see: Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds
Adventism needs to pull itself out of this guilt by association predicament. We need to be willing to engage in God talk without the enraging insistence that our interpretation is the only correct view or it is our truth or nothing. We must learn how to engage in the market place of ideas with respect and knowledge and make the case for Christ upon an intelligent argument from history and we must learn to include a new understanding of the information that science provides us. Faith does not simply believe in traditions, faith is believing in a God of grace and goodness who we can share as a relevant part of human life. God is not destroyed by evolution any more than He is destroyed by fundamentalism or legalism; somewhere in between there is something worth holding on to.
If our church can’t find that balance then some other church will most certainly find the balance and continue the work of God despite our pollution. Because certainly God has never given up because people misunderstood Him, at least that is something that history always makes clear.
