Monthly Archive for February, 2007

Just a thought … on selective irrelevance

Published
by
Ken
on February 28, 2007
in belief, bible, biblical interpretation, just a thought ... and truth
. 2 Comments

Different aspects of Christianity are handled differently. Some are considered “well defined” by the Bible. Some are “assumed true” even though we cannot fully comprehend them. Some are “tolerated” as paradoxical since both the one and the other hands are found in the Scriptures. And some are left as “things not to be asked” or “ill-posed” questions.

Topics such as the Trinity, Baptism, the existence of Evil are debated between Christian and non-Christian but also between Christian and “Christian”. Some Christians even go so far as to claim that certain beliefs about these topics are “wrong enough” as to bring the holder’s status as a “true Christian” into question. But everyone points to Scripture as the basis of their belief so it really comes down to interpretation.

I’ve read elsewhere and been taught that it is hermeneutically correct (and, indeed, necessary) to not base any doctrine or theological stance on certain Scriptures that put forth an idea which is opposed, and more voluminously so, elsewhere. So, there are “orphaned” verses, so to speak, that are not part of any doctrine, dogma, theology, etc. Well, at least “mainstream” doctrine, dogma, theology — however that is defined.

If these verses are to be ignored and treated as irrelevant to any disucssion then why are they part of the Scriptures? Remember that we are talking about the inerrant, inspired Word of God. Are they artifacts of a dead-end plot point? Are they remnants of God’s first draft of theology — a first draft that didn’t quite “work”? Or, are they glimpses of alternate “theologies” which are valid but other than the “popular” ones touted by our theologeans.

Might these alternate theologies mesh better with world views other than our own, Western Christian view? And if they do, might that not lend some credence to them? And if that be the case, can we really dismiss then as “wrong”?

Just a thought …

Affirmation for today (and tomorrow and the next day and …)

Published
by
Ken
on February 27, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!”

Just kidding.

But really. I’ve started getting a little discouraged with the blog. I saw a huge spike in traffic last week but now I’ve gone back to my usual trickle. I’ve been online only a couple months now and I know it takes some time but, you know … a little more traffic would be nice.

What I really need to keep in mind is that I’m doing this blog for myself and not the public attention, critical acclaim, “fame and fortune and all that goes with it. I thank you all.” I’m doing this blog to figure things out for myself and see where I really stand and what I really believe. Naturally, having input from others would help — sometimes I bore even myself with the stuff I write. But in the end, it’s only me who needs to benefit from this.

So, chin up, Ken. Keep up the good fight. Don’t let the lack of traffic and comments get you down. You’re the man!

That’s more like it! I’ll “borrow” from ol’ Stu Smalley but with my own little twist …

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, I don’t give a flying fiddler’s fuck if no one reads my blog!”

Religious tolerance the easy way

Published
by
Ken
on February 26, 2007
in prayer, religion and tolerance
. 1 Comment

The Kansas City Star’s weekly column, Voices of Faith, for last Saturday was the question: “Do you believe in generic prayers?” The two responders were the Lama of a Tibetan Buddhist monastary and the Pastor of a Baptist church.

The crux of the Lama’s answer is:

… our prayer should have the energy of faith, compassion and love. … Nhat Hanh says … “The mere fact that we pray doesn’t lead to a result.” … Public prayers should refrain from using language specific to one faith and instead be inclusive using language that reflects our rich diversity.

The crux of the Pastor’s answer is:

If prayer is done to pacify or is generic, based on the occasions that bring together people of all backgrounds and persuasions, then it calls for sincere desire by the one who is called upon to pray out of his own conviction.

So, both are advocating the generic prayer but with the pray-er being deeply sincere in his own heart.

To me, the generic prayer doesn’t do anyone any good. Trying to use language that spans all religions — language that no one really and personally uses — results in all religions being short-changed. Language that is not faith-specific can be neither heart-felt nor said with conviction. Can you imagine David trying to write a Psalm to “the great benevolent being” or “the universal life force”? No, Christians have to call out to the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Muslims have to call out to Allah.

In this day and age of “religious tolerance” being either the work of the devil or the ultimate in PC-ness, the generic prayer is an example of the easy way out. How hard is it to be tolerant of Muslims when no one mentions Mohammed or the Allah? How hard is it to be tolerant of Buddhists when no one mentions Buddha?

True religious tolerance is being able to kneel down next to a Muslim performing salah and pray with him. True religious tolerance is relating to your God in your way while the person next to you relates to her God in her way. True religious tolerance is not homogenzing everything into a bouillabaisse of meaningless rhetoric that is pleasing to the ear but meaningless to the heart.

God is not …

Published
by
Ken
on February 22, 2007
in christianity, god, holy spirit, jesus and trinity
. 0 Comments

I’ve touched on this idea in several other posts but while browsing my usual blogs I ran across several talking about the Trinity. The other day, I started outlining my own Trinity post but what I saw today led me in a slightly different direction.

On Faith and Theology, Kim Fabricius has a post called Ten propositions on the Trinity. Propositions 2-4 read as follows:

2. The Trinity is not an academic doctrine thought up by clever scholars, rather it grew out of the Christian experience of worship, i.e. it expressed the early church’s pattern of prayer to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.

3. The driving force of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity was Christological and soteriological, i.e. it served to articulate the Christian experience of salvation in Christ. The first Christians already knew God; through Jesus they came to know God as Jesus’ Father and Jesus as God’s Son; while in the Spirit Jesus continued to be present to them, forming a family of prayer to the Father and building a community of witness to Christ.

4. The church’s thinking was this: As God discloses himself in worship and salvation, so God must be in Godself. In the technical language of (Karl) Rahner’s Rule: the “economic” Trinity is the “immanent” Trinity, and the “immanent” Trinity is the “economic” Trinity. What you see is what you get, and what you get is what there is.

So, according to props 2 and 3, the Trinity “grew out of” and “served to articulate” an experience. But “experience” is very subjective. We can — and do in everyday life — experience things as “other than” what they are.

You experience the chair you are sitting on as a solid surface but at the atomic level there is far more empty space than occupied space.

You experience a firetruck as “red” but it appears red because that is the wavelength of light (i.e. color) that the paint on the firetruck rejects — it absorbs the other colors. So, is it really red or is it really not red or “other than” red.

We all experience time as other than the passing of regular intervals. “I spent the longest winter of my life in Chicago one weekend.” “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

I am fortunate enough to have seen Michelangelo’s The David in Florence. This is, in it’s physical essence, a chunk of stone. It’s been handled by a true genius but in it’s being it is a chunk of stone. But I experienced awe when I saw it. I did not perceive this piece of stone as just stone but as a presence.

So, is the chair “really” solid as I experience it? Is the firetruck “really” red as I experience it? Is The David “really” more than a chunk of stone as I experience it? Can we say that God “really” is a Trinity because that’s how we experience God?

Proposition 4 then claims that how God is disclosed to us through our experience must be God. This is the same God who could only flash his backside to Moses without killing him. We can know this God with certainty?

I find it simply fascinating that in one breath (some) Christians will talk about their perfect, all powerful, all knowing, all present God who is powerful enough to create the world by merely speaking and who works in such mysterious ways that we cannot know them and who is outside time and yada yada yada and yet in the very next breath say with utter conviction, “but that notion of God is 100% wrong”. In other words, “we can’t know everything that God is but we do know everything that God is not“.

Since (some) Christians experience God as the Trinity then God must be the Trinity and even though they don’t really know God they do know that if you don’t experience God as the Trinity then you are not really experiencing God and are a heretic. Bruce makes some excellent points along this line in his post Is Belief in the Doctrine of the Trinity Essential?:

The question I have is “can someone believe a heretical doctrine and still be a Christian?” How much heresy until they fall away from the faith? Where is that line where a person goes from child of God to child of the devil? Is salvation by “correct doctrine” or is it by personal faith in Jesus Christ? What about the Christians of the first 4 centuries before this issue was settled? Are they to be considered Christians if they did not believe in the Trinity they had not been taught yet? Did the Apostles teach Trinitarianism during the first 100 years of the Church? If not, how can they be considered Christians if Trinitarianism is essential to the Christian faith?

I also question our selective appeal to Church history. The Church, almost universally, throughout history baptized people for the remission of sins. History clearly bears this out. Yet, Baptists reject this. Are they not heretics for refusing the witness of the historic Church? Why is one group heretical but not the other? Who decides? The Pope? The National Council of Churches? The National Association of Evangelicals? Every little pope that pastors a local, evangelical Church? Who decides and by what authority?

I think that any and all notions of God that are disclosed to us (regular people — true mystics aside, perhaps) must be “dumbed-down” approximations of God’s true being. The concept of the Trinity (among others) is, very purposefully, just beyond our comprehension. It is a mystery that we can embrace without being completely overwhelmed. It is God showing us his backside as he did with Moses. But it is also less than God’s true being. It is the veil hiding God’s true face.

God may very well have seven veils — the Trinity being one. God may choose to disclose his being in different forms at different times to different people. If we have seen but the one veil, who are we to say that another, different veil does not hide the same face?

More thoughts (by other people) on inerrancy

Published
by
Ken
on February 21, 2007
in bible
. 0 Comments

Bruce makes an excellent point:

The early Church over several hundred years, canonized the Bible. We accept their judgment as to what is the inerrant Bible. How do we know that their judgment is correct? Why do most Evangelicals accept their judgment on the canon of Scripture, yet totally reject dozens of other truths they taught. How do we decide what to accept or reject? Is the Pope the final authority? Is John MacArthur the final authority? Or perhaps you and I are?

Just a thought … on literal symbolism

Published
by
Ken
on February 21, 2007
in bible, biblical interpretation and just a thought ...
. 0 Comments

Just a thought …

What would you say to someone who insisted that Moby Dick was really about a literal ship captain and a literal white whale? Or to someone who insisted that The Scarlet Letter was really about a literal woman and a literal affair she had with a literal pastor? Or to someone who insisted that The Bible was about a literal …

Like I said … just a thought

Thoughts on inerrancy

Published
by
Ken
on February 21, 2007
in bible, jesus and truth
. 1 Comment

These are some “stream-of-consciousness” thoughts on what it means for the Bible to be inerrant. So please take them as that — spontaneous ideas and questions that have not been fully thought out. As always … comments are solicited.

Does inerrant mean true? Absolutely true? True absolutely?

Does inerrant mean historically accurate, precise?

Does inerrant mean that Jesus really said the words attributed to him in the gospels? Does inerrant apply to the words spoken by Jesus — i.e. Jesus really said the words and the words he said are also inerrant?

If so, then Jesus’ parables are inerrant even though the events they depict did not actually occur. The story of “The Prodigal Son” is inerrant even though said son never existed.

So, the parables are inerrant in that their symbolism is accurate, true?

But back to true. If the entire Bible is inerrant then the entire Bible is true. But is the entire Bible equally true? If we are talking absolute truth then yes, the entire Bible would be equally true because absolute is absolute, no?

If the entire Bible is absolute truth then we seem to have a slight problem. Absolute truth does not change — otherwise it’s not absolute. One absolute truth cannot alter, modify, negate, replace another absolute truth. Therefore, we are bound by every absolutely true verse and therefore by the Old Testament Law and by the New Testament teachings. Absolute truth is not applicable based on social situations or time period or any other restriction. If this verse does not apply to me today then this verse cannot be absolute truth, i.e. truth without condition.

So, is the Bible, then conditional truth? This verse is true under these conditions, for these people, at these times, under these social situations?

But if it’s conditionally true, then isn’t it conditionally inerrant?

Christianity’s Evolution

Published
by
Ken
on February 16, 2007
in christianity, evolution, god and jesus
. 7 Comments

I think Christianity must evolve into something new. As I said in Beliefs that Work, religion has got to “work” and I think it’s pretty obvious that the “Old Time Religion” is not working for more and more people. And the timing is nigh perfect: 4000 years for the Old Testament and 2000 years for the New Testament means it’s time to start anew. Plus there’s a certain mathematical multiplicity to it.

I don’t have all the details worked out but extrapolating on the trend from OT to NT I think the next step will be that we are God and just don’t know it yet. Here’s my train of thought:

Old Testament New Testament New New Testament
Israel was God’s “chosen people” Christian’s were the “children of God” and Jesus was the “son of God” Since a “son” is the same as a “child” then we are the same as Jesus and, hence, we are God
God was “out there” and “up there” and very distinct from his people God was “in the hearts” of the Christians God is us
People had to go through the priests to have contact with God People could have direct contact with God People are God

The only problem with this new religion is that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the homeless guy on the corner are all God … just like me.

Thinking outside the box

Published
by
Ken
on February 16, 2007
in c.s. Lewis, carl jung, christianity, huston smith, j.r.r. tolkien, myth and religion
. 0 Comments

There is an alternative to the “Christianity is right” versus “Christianity is wrong” scuffle. The virgin birth, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, etc. can be other than literal realities or literal horse pucky. The alternative is that they are myth. Now, I’m not being pejorative with my use of the word “myth” which is greatly under-rated and almost entirely misunderstood in today’s world of science.

I found what C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien said about myth here:

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were “lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver.”

“No,” Tolkien replied. “They are not lies.” Far from being lies they were the best way — sometimes the only way — of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbor, whereas materialistic “progress” leads only to the abyss and the power of evil.

In his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung said:

For it is not that “God” is a myth, but that myth is the revelation of a divine life in man.

And in Why Religion Matters, Huston Smith said:

Science provides a useful analogy here. The entire scientific worldview has been spun from a relatively few crucial experiments, which can be likened to the numbered dots in children’s puzzles that (when they are connected by a line that is drawn through them sequentially) produces the outline of a giraffe or whatever. Myths are like the lines traditional peoples collectively and largely unconsciously draw to connect the “dots” of the direct disclosers that their visionaries report.

If number is the language of science, myth is the language of religion. It does not map literally onto the commonsense world — biblical literalists’ mistake is to think that is does …

Beliefs that Work

Published
by
Ken
on February 14, 2007
in belief, christianity, god, jesus, religion and religious pluralism
. 0 Comments

Why do we believe what we believe? I think that it’s because the beliefs we choose to believe are the ones that “work” for us. That is, there is something about the belief that attracts us. The belief makes “sense” to us. The promised results of believing are manifested. This is also the exact way that I word my main reason for leaving the Fundamentalist Christianity in which I was raised from the womb: it just didn’t “work” for me.

Christianity does work for some people — my parents, for example. They see God’s hand everywhere and feel God’s presence. They live “by the grace of God” through all their physical problems. They are not disillusioned by God’s “testing” them with yet another difficulty. And many people are converted to Christianity because it just makes sense — people like Lee Strobel and Ravi Zacharias. It just plain works for them. And that’s great. More power to them. But just because it works for you doesn’t mean that it will work for me no matter how hard I try.

I have seasonal allergies. I’ve had them my whole life and everywhere I’ve lived. Some years it’s not too bad and other years it is bad. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through is to overdose on allergy medicine, crank the AC to arctic conditions, sit down with my head tilted slightly back and go to sleep. When I’m in this condition, the worst thing possible is to be around someone who does not have any allergies. They just don’t understand what I’m feeling and can’t believe that all I want to do is sleep all day and all they want to do is go outside and do something. They just can’t sympathize or empathize. That’s how it is with Christians for whom Christianity really works. “If it works for me then it’ll work for anyone” … “You just have to hang in there” … “You can’t blame God or the church or your family” “God will see you through” … and on and on.

This is one reason I don’t think that Christianity can be the one and only true religion. It is unrealistic to force every person from every culture to believe the exact same thing and have those beliefs be alive and meaningful. Why do you think there are different cultures to begin with? The anti-pluralist Christians who say that everyone must be a Christian (and especially their flavor Christian) are a lot like Captain James T. Kirk who zooms around the universe telling everyone he meets that their brand of society and government is wrong and they need to be a democracy — just like his society. Democracy just doesn’t work for everyone the same way. And neither does religion.

For proof, I show you ol’ J.C. himself. Now many Christians will say that Jesus did not break from Judaism but only fulfilled the Old Testament and the prophecies. But it seems pretty clear to me that the Old Testament concept of God was not “working” for the Jews anymore. The Old Testament concept of God was not helping them cope with their current situation with the Romans. They needed something different. And that’s exactly what Jesus brought them. A new concept of God — the same God, so to speak, but a different way of approaching him and a different way of worshiping him. Something new that “worked” for them. So, if Jesus brought something new to a people for whom the old religions were not working, then how can you possibly think that 2000 years later the same Christianity should be expected to work for us?