Blind belief

It's not just Christians who have their blind believers and fundamentalists - from fundies say the darndest things -

We Should show Christians that their religion shall not be tolerated. They
should all be put in extermination camps and they shall die. And then they'll
realize they have no soul and the bible is a bunch of crud."
Jtaylor1, Youtube [Comments
(36)] [2006-Nov-17]

It's a despicable attitude no matter who says it.

Obsidian Butterfly - Anita Blake

From the book Obsidian Butterfly Laurell K Hamilton makes an observation that is so true. "She was lying to herself, and thus she could not see a lie in someone else. She didn't understand what the truth was, so she couldn't recognize that either."

Those who live a lie cannot recognize a lie. Those who are unwilling to change their perceptions of who they are become unable to see what is happening before their eyes. To live for God, to live in truth one has to be willing to give up everything, every conception, every belief to examination. One has to step forward in faith that no matter what preconceptions may fall, God is faithful still.

The truth will set us free, but that doesn't mean that the truth will make us happy. One of the things I had to do to get out of depression was to look at the truth of who I was. And it was different from what I had imagined. I did not feel guilt over my mother's death as some people tried to tell me that I did or should. I am not a man who should ever marry a woman, though I love many women I will never love a woman in the same fashion as husband and wife should. Now depression is not the same thing as telling yourself lies about who you are, but the way out is the same. And that is to be willing to accept the truth whereever it may lead. And that is to be willing to tear down all of what you believe about yourself in order to see who you really are.

Awhile back I was writing a book called "To be as God created us to be" And it was one of my preliminary efforts and it would have made a decent paper, but not a book. yet that title remains good. We are to be, not as we think ourselves to be, but as God created us to be. We are not to impose our ideas of what is natural on ourselves, but to see ourselves as we really are.

And this is where fundamentalism of any sort - right or left, liberal or conservative, fascist, communist, feminist, christian, and more - goes wrong. Fundamentalism tries to protect faith by making precepts more important than truth. Because a fundamentalist cannot question, they cannot see the truth set before them. And the frustration is not because they're wrong, but because they are so close to being right and they stop before the final step. It is not enough to say you have the truth, what must happen is a continual examination to see if you have the truth.

Without a willingness to give all that we are and all that we believe, the truth will elude us no matter how nice, no matter how many rules we follow, the truth will continue to escape us until we make it more important than any precept that we claim to be truth.

How many

I’ve been asked the question of “How many people have you brought to the Lord?” And my answer is none. That confuses the Christians (and some of them are Christianist) who ask the question. But the answer relates to my understanding of the task and purpose of each Christian. I cannot save anyone or bring him or her to Christ. That was done about 2000 years ago by the only human without sin. That is the human who is fully human and fully divine.

When I read passages such as John 3:16 my understanding is that salvation and redemption were done for the world. My task, my purpose is about spreading the good news of that salvation, but bringing someone to the Lord is what God does. I serve and enjoy the one who saves me. But since I cannot and could not save myself, it is the height of arrogance to believe that I can bring another to salvation.

And the numbers game, however played, is not what faith in Jesus – the one who is fully human and fully divine – is about. The Jesus I worship came to save the world. And that salvation was God’s gracious gift rather than anything I could do by myself for myself or for anyone else.

hate and?

I'm really wondering in what world this person lives.

"As a Christian (of sorts and kind of), I know it is harsh, uncivil,
boorish and very unchristianlike not to wish someone a speedy recovery.
Nevertheless ... he's a Democrat. Democrats are the most horrific> >
enemies this Christian, conservative nation will ever face. They are committing
crimes against humanity and the conservative peoples of the United States.
Democrats are sympathetic to Muslim terrorists who want to murder conservatives.
They will dismantle the Patriot Act and Homeland Security in order to facilitate
and encourage terrorist, Jihadist activities against white conservative America.
Democrats, for the sake of harvesting votes, encourage the banding together of
all minorities in a united effort to destroy the white conservative. Democrats
praise African-American leaders who call for the extermination of the white race
To me they are the same as an enemy soldier trying to kill me. No wait!
Democrats are indescribably worse. The enemy soldier and I in Vietnam were only
doing our duty. Democrats are cowardly, spiteful, racist, hateful, self-serving
hypocrities. Not only do they want to kill me, but my children and grandchildren
as well. Democrats are more dangerous than "radical" Muslims. "Radical" Muslims
take great pride and delight in announcing they want to kill us. Democrats are
too cowardly to admit they want to kill us. I have more respect for "radical"
Muslims than Democrats."

To align with one party as the party of God? That's over the top. And I keep thinking back to passages like I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. If that is so, the search for truth or to help people live should be primary. Not the ringing in of one political party as the only true tone with which to find God.

Augustine on Genesis

In his work on The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine writes that:even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which peoples how up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. … If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.

Ex-gay course

On-line students are against a course that purports to teach people how to become ex-gay, In defense statements such as:

Responding to criticism of the course, a spokesman from the Universities and
Colleges Christian Fellowship said: "Surely it’s completely reasonable for a
Christian to believe what he or she believes and to say what he or she believes.
I am perfectly happy for LGBT members and the gay community at large to be gay –
I don’t agree with it but I will defend their right to be gay. "Remember that you choose your partner, it is a choice, and Christians should have a right to voice their beliefs and not be labelled homophobic."

were made. I certainly agree that each of us should be able to state our beliefs without being labeled as homophobic. But teaching a course means that we should make statements that are factually correct. To say that a course helps to cure something which is not considered a disease by any major medical or psychological body is to try to cure something which is not a disease. That means that the whole premise is factually incorrect and should not be taught as such. This isn't a matter of defending your right to believe as you wish, it is a matter of whether the coursework rests on facts and science or ritual and belief.

Scholarship

There are times when I wish my brain worked a little bit more quickly. A little while ago I got into a discussion with someone after they found out I knew a little Greek. And they were talking about how the New Testament was inspired by God and how this was shown in the special Greek used which was different from the rest of the documents we have. And I was drawing a complete blank.

Then they mentioned that this person who 'proved' the similarity of language in the New Testament and differences from the rest of the Greek language wrote his book around 100 years ago. And I went 'oh that must have been before many of the recent discoveries of papyri and pottery shards. And they didn't know what I was talking about. I still couldn't come up with why what I had learned was so different. Until after they left.

And then I realized I had heard mention once upon a time of the author and book. And it was discounted because the Greek manuscripts used were from classical Greek sources and the New Testament is in common or 'koine' Greek. One set of manuscripts were written by the educated for the educated, the other was what was used in the marketplace (agora in Greek) and city streets.

Now I suspect much of what I do is more akin to writing for the elite than talking in the marketplace. Who but an educated elitist would spend their extra money on buying books from the Loeb Classical Library and rather have that than an expensive meal. But, still, there are lessons. Philology and the study of language has changed because of more recent discoveries so that we can more clearly understand what was written. But sometimes our opinions are stuck back in the Reformation or before.

And I wonder if that's related to our view of Scripture. If we talk about Scripture as without error or a timeless understanding then we are more likely to treat previous generations as more correct than our current generation. If we talk about Scripture as the story of a faith journey, as the record of struggles, then we can look and examine what was done in our past as we go to the future.

I certainly don't deny the saints of the past who have taught me and others. As I think of the grandmother I knew and my mother I resonate with the letter to Timothy talking about his mother and grandmother. As I read Calvin again and again I recognize the faith and learning that went into them and am inspired to return to scripture once again. And as I read the confessions and creeds of my denomination I am reminded that councils may err and we are called to examine the past to make sure that we are not repeating the mistakes that they made.

The work in examining scripture needs to be done and redone since we are still learning and are like those looking in polished silver or bronze at our reflections. For Christians our golden age lies ahead in that realm towards which we work. We build on what the past has done, but look to what still needs to be done and what needs to be corrected.