Tag Archives: Bible Authority

Charles Spurgeon’s View of the Bible

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spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon was a 19th century Baptist pastor in London, England. He pastored, at that time,  the largest Protestant church in the world and is revered today by Baptists everywhere. (He was a five point Calvinist but did not believe in double predestination)  Spurgeon was an alcohol drinking, cigar smoking, grossly overweight man, prone to bouts of severe depression.

The following quote shows that the Evangelical belief about the Bible predates the modern Evangelical era. According to Charles Spurgeon, the Bible was written by God himself:

Stand over this volume [the Bible], and admire its authority. This is no common book. It is not the sayings of the sages of Greece; here are not the utterances of philosophers of past ages. If these words were written by a man, we might reject them; but O let me think the solemn thought, that this book is God’s handwriting– that these words are God’s! Let me look at its date; it is dated from the hills of heaven. Let me look at its letters; they flash glory on my eye. Let me read the chapters; they are big with meaning and mysteries unknown. Let me turn over the prophecies; they are pregnant with unthought- of wonders. Oh, book of books! And wast thou written by my God? Then will I bow before thee. Thou book of vast authority! thou art a proclamation from the Emperor of Heaven; far be it from me to exercise my reason in contradicting thee. Reason, thy place is to stand and find out what this volume means, not to tell what this book ought to say.

Come thou, my reason, my intellect, sit thou down and listen, for these words are the words of God. I do not know how to enlarge on this thought. Oh! if you could ever remember that this Bible was actually and really written by God. Oh! if ye had been let into the secret chambers of heaven, if ye had beheld God grasping his pen and writing down these letters– then surely ye would respect them; but they are just as much God’s handwriting as if you had seen God write them. This Bible is a book of authority; it is an authorized book, for God has written it. Oh! tremble, lest any of you despise it; mark its authority, for it is the Word of God.

Rebellion and how an Authoritarian God Deals With It

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(Thomas Jefferson)

Rebellion is a common word in the vocabulary of Evangelical Christian pastors, church leaders, husbands, and parents.

The Bible considers rebellion a serious matter:

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (1 Samuel 15:23)

Those who practiced witchcraft were to be put to death (Exodus 22:18, Deuteronomy 18:9-11) so it is clear that God considered rebellion to be a serious matter.

God commanded a harsh punishment for a rebellious son:

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you and all Israel shall hear, and fear. Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

The Old Testament is the written record of how a Holy God dealt with a rebellious people, Israel. Page after page details God’s judgments against his people. (and those who got in his way)

When we get to the New Testament, the word rebellion is not used. Does this mean that God had changed? Of course not. How is it possible for a perfect God to change?  Malachi 3:6 says:

For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

The Bible says, speaking of Jesus:

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8)

It is clear that God is immutable. He doesn’t change. (though there are texts that seem to suggest otherwise)

The Evangelical Church is a sect that accepts both Testaments as authoritative. (especially those Old Testament verses about tithing) Granted, Evangelicals are quite contradictory in their interpretations of the Old Testament, picking and choosing what they want to believe, but they do say all 66 books of the Bible are authoritative.

And there is the key word, AUTHORATATIVE.

Evangelicals take seriously the matter of rebellion because they believe that Bible is an authoritative text and from the text they deduce an authority structure.

It goes something like this:

  • The Christian God is the supreme authority over everything. He is the sovereign over all. He is the creator. He is in complete and absolute control.Even with salvation, no one can be saved unless God permits them to be saved.(both Calvinists and Arminians alike believe God is the final arbiter in salvation)
  • The Christian God has established authority in the church. Under Jesus Christ, pastors (elders, bishops) are the head of the church. They have been called by God to teach, correct, lead, and direct the church. They are to initiate discipline when necessary to ensure the church is a pure, holy body. (though many churches have a pretty low standard for pure and holy)
  • The Christian God has established authority in the home. Again, under Jesus Christ, the husband is the head of the home and his wife is to submit to his authority. Children are to to obey their parents and submit to their authority.
  • The Christian God has established authority in nations. All nations are to bow to the authority of the Christian God. Their laws should reflect God’s law. Better yet, theocracy, God rule, is the best form of government.

The Evangelical Christian believes God rules over all. There is no King but Jesus and no God but the Christian God.

The problem here is that Evangelical Christians are human. Contrary to all their talk about being saved and sanctified, Christians are pretty much just like the rest of us. For all their praying and confessing sin they live and talk just like everyone else. Simply put, like all of us, they do what they want to do.

And that is a big, big problem.

You see the God of the authoritative Bible demands obedience. God expects Christians to implicitly obey his commands. All of them. God will have none of this picking and choosing that American Christians love to do.

So everywhere you look you have Christians in some form of rebellion against God, the pastor, their parents, or their husband. No matter how much they pray, read the Bible, go to the altar, and promise to really obey God this time, they continue to lapse into rebellion.

This is what Jesus told his followers in Matthew 5:48:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

It seems Jesus didn’t lower the standard. God expects and demands perfection. God will have none of this “I am not perfect just forgiven” cheap grace Christianity. Jesus expects his followers to walk in his steps. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, they have been given everything they need pertaining to life and godliness. (2 Peter 1:3)

But, let me say again:

The problem here is that Evangelical Christians are human. Contrary to all their their talk about being saved and sanctified, Christians are pretty much just like the rest of us. For all their praying and confessing sin they live and talk just like everyone else. Simply put, like all of us, they do what they want to do.

The difference between the atheist and the Evangelical Christian is guilt. The Christian lives in a constant cycle of living right, rebelling, feeling guilty, repenting, and back to living right. This cycle can go one numerous times a day.

The atheist can feel guilty at times but since he is not encumbered by a long list of laws, commands, rules, regulations, precepts, or standards he is less likely to feel guilty. With no God hovering over him, with no pastor thundering at him, the atheist is pretty much free to enjoy life. He tries to live by the maxim, don’t hurt other people and when he fails he is likely to make restitution and ask for forgiveness from the person he hurt. No need for a God, Bible, church, or pastor. As a human, he has all the necessary faculties to be a good person.

What makes it worse for the Christian is that they go to church and their pastor reminds them, from the Bible of course, how rebellious they are. He points out their sin and reminds them that God hates sin. He rightly calls on them to repent.

You would think that people would get tired of all this but each week they dutifully return to church so their pastor can remind them about their sinfulness and need of repentance.

Children, especially teenagers, get this same treatment from their parents. When they don’t obey their parents they are chastised and reminded that God hates rebellion. But kids will be kids, as every parent knows…and in Christian homes it seems that children are either starting into rebellion or coming out of it.

Parents are commanded by God to beat the rebellion out of their children. They have a good example in God. Hebrews 12:5-10 says:

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

The Bible records how God goes about chastising rebellious Christians. He maims them, makes them sick, kills their family, takes away their possessions, starves them, and if necessary kills them. God goes to great lengths to make sure a Christian seeks after the “peaceable fruit of righteousness.” (Hebrews 12:11)

Here is how God expects Evangelical Christian parents to respond to the rebellion of their children:

Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)

Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. (Proverbs 23:13,14)

Let me tie this all together.

An authoritative text from an authoritarian God establishes authority structures for the church, family, and nations. Disobedience to authority is to be be punished.

For those of us raised in this kind of Christianity (and all forms of Christianity have some of this, even liberal iterations of Christianity) we well know how this practically works out.The Bible, in the hands of God’s man, the pastor, is used to dominate and control people. Individuality and freedom is discouraged and, in some cases, severely punished.

Pastors remind the church of pastoral authority. Parents remind children that they are to be obedient at all times and threaten them with punishment if they don’t. Husbands remind their wives that they are the head of the home and their word is f-i-n-a-l. Collectively, Christians warn government officials that Jesus is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings and God demands they submit to the authority of God, the Bible and his people. (this is the essence of the theocracy movement in this country)

Some readers are likely weeping by now. Their mind goes back 20 or 30 years to a time when they were teenagers. Their parents considered them rebellious. Often their rebellion was things like listening to rock music, smoking, getting pregnant, talking back, having sex, or smoking marijuana.Their parents, needing to show them that they were in charge, sent them off to group homes to get their “rebellion” problem fixed. What really happened is that they were cruelly misused, abused, and debased. Years later their lives still bear the marks of the Godly “rebellion” treatment they received.

It is hard not to see cultism in all of this. I am sure Bible-believing Christians, people of the book, will scream foul, but the marks of a cult are there for all to see if they dare but open their eyes. Millions of people attend churches that believe the things I have written about in this post.

This is what Bible literalism gets you. How can it be otherwise?

If The Bible is God’s Word

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Guest post by Exrelayman

If the Bible were God’s word:

1. It would be perfectly engrossing. You would love reading it.

2. It would be perfectly clear. There would not be any disagreement anywhere about the meaning of any verse or passage.

3. It would be perfectly persuasive. People of any other faith would convert immediately upon reading this clear and persuasive message.

4. It would perfectly distributed to all the cultures of the world simultaneously, in their own language.

5. It would be perfectly indestructible. Neither years nor flood nor flame could mar or destroy it.

6. It would be perfectly original and accurate in all that it says.

In brief, it would be a perfect revelation proceeding from a perfect God.

And what do we observe in the real world:

1a. Very hard to force yourself to slog through it. Most who profess Christianity don’t struggle through all the begats and directions for making temple garments. Very inferior to myriads of mere human novelists.

2a. Earnest disagreement about what it actually says has led to thousands of differing denominations. Not so clear then.

3a. It needs a bit of help. Pastors must spend Sundays being persuasive. Persuasive hymns and apologetics are needed. Heaven and hell must be dangled as carrot and stick to evince coercion through hope and fear rather than clear evidential persuasion.

4a. Given at one part of the world, the gospels especially through unknown biased writers at unknown places and times.

5a. As susceptible to decay and destruction as any other book.

6a. Sadly imitative, many other dying and resurrecting savior gods from surrounding cultures preceded the Christ story. The Old Testament stories largely derive from antecedent cultures also. Flatly in conflict with what science has discovered about the age of the Earth and the evolution of life upon it. Flatly contradictory with its own self in numerous places.

At each expectation of what the revelation of a perfect and powerful God would be like, the Bible fails. Now these expectations are admittedly subjective, so that each one of them might be arguable. But cumulatively they become, at least as I see it, irresistable. Thus the verdict that it is not a divine document, but is shown by its own nature to be the product of ignorant and superstitious men writing in ignorant and superstitious times.

Who Determines What the Bible Says?

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2000 years.

2000 years of Jesus.

From the beginning, Christians put their teachings, their beliefs, into writing. The Bibles that modern Christians use all trace their authority back through history to Christian writings dating from the late first century forward. (speaking only of the New Testament in this post) The original writings, the first edition writings, do not exist. (any claim of inspiration for the  “original” writings is nothing more than a wishful, fanciful claim that cannot be proved) Every claim ever made by the Christian church rests on text of the Bible and how the church has interpreted it.  I am well aware that, over its long history, the Christian church has been influenced by Gnosticism, but, for the most part, Christianity is a text based religion that places the text of the Bible above personal experiences and revelations. Even when personal experiences and revelations are given weight they are almost always expected to conform to what is found in the text of the Bible.

Most Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God. They believe the words of the Bible came from God or at least represent,in fallible human form, what God wants humankind to know about God, life,salvation, death, judgment, and the afterlife. Some Christians believe every word is inspired by God and some Christians even go so far as to say that a particular translation, the King James Version, is inspired by God. Christians who hold this extreme view believe that God has preserved his Word through time and that every word of the King James Bible is from the lips of God himself.

Most Christians believe the Bible is truth. While they may not believe ALL the Bible is truth, every Christian, at some point or the other, says THIS is truth. A person who does not believe the Bible is truth is not a Christian in any meaningful sense of the word.

There is a silly form of Christianity floating  about these days that suggests a person can be a Christian and not believe the Bible. In many cases these kind of people are what I call cafeteria Christians. They pick and choose what they want to believe. Most cafeteria Christians believe in Jesus since they DO want their sins forgiven and they DO want to go to heaven when they die. (I am sure Thomas Jefferson would be proud of them) But, when it comes to the hard sayings of the Bible, the teachings that get in the way of the American dream and living the way they want to live, the cafeteria Christian dismisses such sayings and teachings as old, outdated relics of past that have no value or application today. Simply put they want a Jesus divorced from anything else the Bible says. Cafeteria Christians become quite adept at explaining away anything in the Bible they disagree with.

This brings me to the point of this post. Who determines what the Bible says? Who decides what this verse or that verse says? Who is the truth arbiter? It boils down to authority. Who is the final authority?

Some Christians says GOD is the final authority. The Bible is God’s Word…..THUS SAITH THE LORD!! These well meaning Christians think that the Bible is clear in what it says and that any person can know what the Bible says. Why then do they go to church on Sunday and listen to a man tell them what he thinks the Bible says? Why do they read books and commentaries written by people telling them what they think the Bible says? If the Bible is a self-attesting, self-explanatory text why all the middlemen?

Some Christians say the HOLY SPIRIT is the final authority. God gave New Testament Christians (Old Testament believers only got a part-time Holy Spirit) the Holy Spirit to be their teacher and guide. The Holy Spirit teaches them everything necessary for life and godliness. It is not hard to see the gnostic influence in this kind of thinking.

If there is ONE Holy Spirit who teaches and guides every Christian, why is there no consensus on what Christians believe? Why does the Holy Spirit give contradictory instructions or lessons? Why are there so many Christian sects? Surely, if the Holy Spirit is on his game, every sect would believe the same thing and they would become ONE body with ONE Lord, ONE faith, ONE baptism.

Some Christians are what I call red-letter Christians. They give great weight and authority to the “words” of Jesus in the gospels. With great passion and commitment they attempt to walk in the steps of Jesus. (WWJD) Unfortunately, they rarely consider whether or not the words attributed to Jesus in the gospels are actually his words. Jesus didn’t write any of the books found in the Bible. (which is odd) Many modern scholars question who actually wrote the gospels and some scholars doubt that the actual writers were Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. The words of the gospels were not put on parchment until decades after the death of Jesus, the Christ, so the best a modern-day Christian can say about the gospels is that they are words written by an unknown person who recorded what someone told the writer Jesus said.

Believing that God or the Holy Spirit or Jesus wrote, spoke, or guided the writers of the Bible text requires faith. Such claims cannot, outside of the text itself, be proved. Either you believe the Bible is truth or you don’t. I am an atheist today primarily because I no longer believe the Bible is truth. It’s all about faith.

Every Christian belief rest not on God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, but on the authority of a human being or a group of human beings. It is humans who decide what the Bible says. It is humans who decide what this or that verse means. Whether it is a denomination, the Pope, theologians, a pastor, or an individual Christian, it is a human who is the final authority. At best, the only thing a Christian can claim is THUS SAITH THE POPE, MY DENOMINATION, MY PASTOR, MY COLLEGE PROFESSORS OR MYSELF!! Any claim that it is God speaking of leading is a matter of faith, a matter that cannot empirically be proved. In other words, you are just going to have to take their word for it…….or not!

Christians need to get off their Bible High-Horse and admit who the real final authority is. The fact that there are thousands of Christian sects shows very clearly that humans are the ones with the final say on what the Bible does and doesn’t say. It is humans who preach, write books, teach theology classes, blog, and debate.

God may have said, but it is humans who get the final say as to what God actually said or what he meant to say. Every Christian statement of belief is an interpretation of the Bible. It is that person or group saying this is what the Bible says. In other words, the person is saying I know what God said.

Name one Christian teaching that ALL Christians agree on? That Jesus was a real person……and that’s about it. Every other teaching of the so-called “faith once delivered to the saints” is disputed by some Christian sect or the other. If the Christian church was a married couple they would have long since been divorced for irreconcilable differences. Oh wait, that is exactly what has happened. The Christian church is hopelessly splintered with no hope of unity.

Children in Evangelical Sunday Schools learn to sing the B-I-B-L-E song. In light of what I have written above, the lyrics of the song should be changed:

The  B-I-B-L-E, yes that MIGHT be the Book for me, I SOMETIMES stand alone on the WORDS OF MEN, the B-I-B-L-E.

B-I-B-L-E!!

Until God shows up in person and says YES, I wrote this convoluted, contradictory book that makes me out to be a hateful vindictive sadist, I am not going to believe the Bible is God’s Word. If God really wrote the Bible do you think he would have written what he did? If God had control of the writing process do you think he would have included his unsavory side? If God was involved in putting the Bible together don’t you think he would have proofread it and made sure that there were no mistakes and that the text was internally consistent?

Instead, Christians spend countless hours trying to harmonize (making it all fit) the text of the Bible. They put forth laughable explanations for the glaring errors found in the Bible. Well, you know Bruce, Jesus cleansed the Temple at the start of his ministry and the end of his ministry! Sure he did. Sometimes I wonder if Christians know how foolish some of the harmonizing attempts sound to those on the outside of the church. (or someone like me who has been on both sides of the fence) Of course, according to the Bible, the harmonization’s sound foolish because the non-Christian doesn’t have the Holy Spirit inside of him teaching him what is true. And so ‘round and ‘round the merry-go-round goes.

If Christians want to believe the Bible and worship God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit I have no beef with them. If they want to believe the Bible and its teaching who am I to say they can’t.  However, when they insist that everyone believe the Bible and believe in their God and that the Bible and their God is the only one, true religion then I have a problem. When Christians insist that the Bible and its teachings be taught to public school children I have a problem. When Christians try to make the moral and ethical code taught in the Bible (or their interpretation of it) applicable to everyone I have a problem.

Here’s what I am saying…..take the Bible, go to your houses of worship and believe and worship as you will. It is your business and I have no grounds for complaining about it, However, I expect you to keep your beliefs to yourself. If I don’t ask, you don’t tell. Stop all the theocratic, God-rule talk. Stop trying to turn American into a Christian nation. Stop demonizing everyone who disagrees with your beliefs. In other words, be a good human being, and not a prickish religious fanatic who thinks everyone should hear about the Christian God whether they want to or not.

Do you think American Christians can do what I mentioned above?

Not a chance.

So we fight on……..

You Say You Speak For God

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Millions upon millions of voices all clamoring at the same time, all uttering the same thing.

God says…

The Bible (God) says…

God is leading me to say…

God is telling me to tell you…

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. right?

Get a Baptist and a Catholic in the same room and let them duke it out over One Baptism.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost and these three are one. Surely everyone agrees?

Baptism saves. It doesn’t save.

Communion is the Lord’s Supper is the Eucharist, is really body of Christ, kind of the real body of Christ or a memorial?

Pre, Mid, Pre-wrath, Post rapture and tribulation.

Pre, A, Post millennial reign of Christ.

Dispensationalism. Non-dispensationalism. Hyper-dispensationalism.

Calvinism.

Arminianism.

Pelagianism.

Cessationist. Non-cessationist.

The Old Testament is for today. No it is not.

The gospels are for today. No they are not.

New Perspective. Old Perspective.

Pauline or Peterine.

The OT law is still for today.

No it’s not.

Yes it is but only the Ten commandants.

No, only Nine commandments. (No rest for me) and maybe the verses on tithing. Got to pay my salary you know.

Only the words in red matter.

Only what Paul writes matters.

Eternal Security. Perseverance of the Saints.

Losing your salvation.

66 books in the Protestant Bible. Catholics, and Orthodox count differently but no matter they aren’t Christians.

So you say:

God says…

The Bible (God) says…

God is leading me to say…

God is telling me to tell you…

Pray tell…why should we believe you?

Can you even answer the most basic questions?

What is salvation? How is a person saved?

By Grace?

By faith?

By works?

By faith, plus works?

By faith, plus works, and staying true to the end?

I can choose or not choose?

I can’t choose?

God chooses me?

I choose God?

Baptism saves?

Baptism doesn’t save?

You argue endlessly among yourselves.

The Bible SAYS!

God SAYS!

Our Church SAYS!

The Pope SAYS!

The Pastor SAYS!

There is one TRUE Church and it is ours, hundreds and hundreds of denominations say.

With us and heaven is your home.

Against us you fry.

Your lack of unity is the indictment against you.

Your lack of a singular voice is clear to all who dare listen.

You should not then be shocked when you try to tell non- Christians that God says or the Bible says

that they

smile

and turn a deaf ear.

Oh wait, they are deaf because God made them that way.

And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. (Luke 8:10)

It’s God’s fault.

The Bible Has Survived for 2000 Years Without Being Changed

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This entry is part 4 of 22 in the seriesLetters to the Editor

What follows is a response to the letter to the editor I recently submitted to The Defiance Crescent News.

We don’t have God’s mind

In reference to Bruce Gerencser’s letter of June 1, his honesty and willingness to stand by what he believes is commendable. It puts many of us Christians to shame.

Yes, I am a Christian and declare Christ as my Lord and Savior. God doesn’t need me nor anyone else to defend Him, however, I wish Gerencser knew how much Christ loves him.

His comments show that he does have a knowledge of the Bible. Has he ever questioned how it is that the Bible has survived 2,000 years without being changed or its message diluted? The Dead Sea Scrolls show it, still today, being authentic when compared with these documents.

I do believe in the rapture of the Church, however, I am not overly concerned with end-time predictions. When I breathe my last breath that will be my end of time, so every day is the time to be ready to meet the Master. Yes, indeed, I am going to heaven.

We don’t have the mind of God. Our understanding is like that of a child compared to an adult so, of course, we have many disagreements and misinterpretations. As I Corinthians 13:12 says, “we see in a mirror dimly.” It is like trying to read fine print without your glasses. If you read the entire chapter of I Corinthians 13, loving God and each other is the cornerstone of our faith.

R Thomas

I really don’t have much to say about this letter. R Thomas seems sincere and I appreciate that she was polite in her reply to me.

Thomas expresses a view of the Bible that is quite common in conservative, Evangelical Churches. For 2000 years the Bible has survived without being changed or the message diluted. The Dead Sea scrolls prove that the Bible we have today is the same as the Bible used 2000 years ago.

Thomas’s view of the Bible has no rational foundation but I don’t blame her for being ill-taught concerning the Bible.  The blame lies at the feet of the clergy who know better. They know the truth about the Bible but they say nothing. If pastors ever told their congregations the truth about the Bible the result would be catastrophic. Without an inspired, infallible Bible the foundation of Christianity crumbles.

Why do pastors not tell the truth about the Bible?  Who told Thomas that the Dead Sea Scrolls prove that the Bible is true?  (read here to refresh your memory about the Dead Sea Scrolls) If God is who the Christians say he is the Bible should withstand scrutiny. There is no need to obfuscate the truth about the Bible if it is indeed a supernatural book given to humankind by a supernatural God. 

A Few Thoughts About Christianity

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For the uninitiated. I was a practicing Christian for almost 40 years. I pastored Evangelical/Fundamentalist Churches for over 25 years.  I married a pastor’s daughter and we raised 6 children in the Christian faith.

I know the doctrines of the Christian faith. I know the history of the Christian Church. I was an expositional preacher, so I spent countless hours studying the Bible in preparation to preach on Sunday. Over the course of my ministry I preached close to 5,000 sermons. (Sunday morning, Sunday night, Midweek service, revivals, special meetings, Bible conferences, camp, etc)

Those are my stats.

When some Christians come upon my blog they react rather violently at times. Some very close friends have attacked me in ways befitting of the Inquisition.

Here are some of the things I have heard from Christians:

  • I never was saved
  • I met a false Jesus
  • I have lost my salvation
  • I am still saved but backslidden
  • I am still saved but God is, or will sometime soon, chastise me

Most of my critics blame my defection from the Christian faith on the fact that I read too much. One former friend told me I should stop reading anything but the Bible, and the King James Bible at that. Books ruined me.

After all, how often do Christians hear from the pastor that many people miss heaven by 18 inches. (the distance from the head to the heart) Never mind the Bible says as a man thinks in his heart so is he. The heart IS the mind. (lest you doubt how prominent this thinking is try this Google search)

Moving on…

What are my reasons for defecting from the Christian faith, for de-converting?

  • I could no longer embrace the teachings of the Christian Church.
  • I no longer believed the Bible to be the inspired Word of God
  • I saw little or nothing within the visible expression of Christianity that appealed to me.
  • I could not reconcile the existence of war, violence, famine, disease, and suffering with the God of Christian Bible.
  • My personal experience with the Christian Church has marred my life, left me mentally and physically damaged, and has caused great pain in my life. I will likely be in counseling the rest of my life as a result.

Martin Luther and I have a lot in common. Luther said “Here I stand; I can do no other.”

And to that I say Amen.

I refuse to be a fake Christian. I refuse to be a fake worshipper, an insincere seeker. That’s why I do not call myself a Christian. It is hypocritical to claim the name and not play the game.

That said, it does not necessarily follow that I am an atheist. That I don’t believe in God. You would err in making such assumptions about me. I may not believe in YOUR God or YOUR sacred text but that does not mean I reject the concept of God altogether. (however this should not be viewed as an open door for me to return to orthodox Christianity. That door is closed)

I am an agnostic because I believe that God is unknowable. The concept of God is a metaphysical claim. It is beyond proof.

To some degree I am putting God to the test.  If what gains a person a place in heaven is believing the right things, going to a certain building at a certain time on a certain day of the week, and consigning all other human beings who think differently than me to hell, then I suspect I will end up in hell.

However, if what matters is how I live, how I treat my fellow man, then I just might have a chance. I find the teachings of Jesus of much help in this regard. If this is the standard, and God exists, all will be well. If God does not exist, and I live by this standard, I will then have lived a good life. (Pascal’s wager for agnostics) :)

Contrary to what some Christians believe, not believing in a personal God or Saviour does not result in immorality and hedonistic living.  I live a better life than many Christians I know.  I am not being prideful. I am just stating what I have observed. The very same people who have condemned me to the flames of hell are also some of the most hateful, mean-spirited people I know. They are bitches and sons-of-bitches in every sense of the word.

I have little respect for people who preach at me, quote Bible verses to me, send me literature, or invite me to their Church. Such people are willingly blind to the arrogance of their own religious views.

I do respect Christians who live their faith. I do respect those who tolerate, and make an attempt to understand the viewpoint of, others.

I am only one person with a story to tell. I have no group, no party, no posse.

I am one old man with a life lived. I write what I think I know, what I have experienced.

I am prone to error and I have few final answers to give anyone. I am not anyone’s lifeline.

I am a frail voice in a frail world.

I am grateful for all who read my writing, even those who think I will burn in hell some day.

There Can Be No Orthodoxy Without Bible Inerrancy

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So says Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mohler writes:

Back in 1990, theologian J. I. Packer recounted what he called a “Thirty Years’ War” over the inerrancy of the Bible. He traced his involvement in this war in its American context back to a conference held in Wenham, Massachusetts in 1966, when he confronted some professors from evangelical institutions who “now declined to affirm the full truth of Scripture.” That was more than fifty years ago, and the war over the truthfulness of the Bible is still not over — not by a long shot….

…Many thought the battles were over, or at least subsiding. Sadly, the debate over the inerrancy of the Bible continues. As a matter of fact, there seems to be a renewed effort to forge an evangelical identity apart from the claim that the Bible is totally truthful and without error.

Recently, Professor Peter Enns, formerly of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, has argued that the biblical authors clearly erred. He has argued that Paul, for example, was clearly wrong in assuming the historicity of Adam. In Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, published in 2005, he presented an argument for an “incarnational” model of biblical inspiration and authority. But in this rendering, incarnation — affirming the human dimension of Scripture — means accepting some necessary degree of error.

This argument is taken to the next step by Kenton L. Sparks in his 2005 book, God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship. Sparks, who teaches at Eastern University, argues that it is nothing less than intellectually disastrous for evangelicals to claim that the Bible is without error.

His arguments, also serialized and summarized in a series of articles, are amazingly candid. He asserts that evangelicalism has “painted itself into an intellectual corner” by claiming the inerrancy of Scripture. The movement is now in an “intellectual cul-de-sac,” he laments, because we have “crossed an evidential threshold that makes it intellectually unsuitable to defend some of the standard dogmas of the conservative evangelical tradition.” And, make no mistake, inerrancy is the central dogma he would have us let go.

God’s Word in Human Words is an erudite book with a comprehensive argument. Kenton Sparks does not misunderstand the evangelical doctrine of biblical inerrancy — he understands it and sees it as intellectually disastrous. “So like any other book,” he asserts, “the Bible appears to be a historically and culturally contingent text and, because of that, it reflects the diverse viewpoints of different people who lived in different times and places.” But a contingent text bears all the errors of its contingent authors, and Sparks fully realizes this.

The serialized articles by Sparks appear at the Biologos Web site, a site with one clear agenda — to move evangelicals toward a full embrace of evolutionary theory. In this context, Sparks understands that the affirmation of biblical inerrancy presents a huge obstacle to the embrace of evolution. The “evidential threshold” has been crossed, he insists, and the Bible has come up short. The biblical writers were simply trapped within the limits of their own ancient cosmology and observations.

But Sparks presses far beyond this argument, accusing the Bible of presenting immoral teachings, citing “biblical texts that strike us as down-right sinister or evil.” The Bible, he suggests, “exhibits all the telltale signs of having been written by finite, fallen human beings who erred in the ways that human beings usually err.”

When Peter Enns and Kenton Sparks argue for an incarnational model of inspiration and biblical authority, they are continuing an argument first made long ago — among evangelicals, at least as far back as the opening salvos of the battle over biblical inerrancy. Sparks, however, takes the argument further. He understands that the incarnational model implicates Jesus. He does not resist this. Jesus, he suggests, “was a finite person who grew up in Palestine.” While asserting that he affirms the historic Christian creeds and “traditional Christian orthodoxy,” Sparks proposes that Jesus made routine errors of fact.

His conclusion: “If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error.”

That is a breath-taking assumption, to say the very least. But, even in its shocking audacity, it serves to reveal the clear logic of the new battle-lines over biblical inerrancy. We now confront open calls to accept and affirm that there are indeed errors in the Bible. It is demanded that we accept the fact that the human authors of the Bible often erred because of their limited knowledge and erroneous assumptions about reality. We must, it is argued, abandon the claim that the Bible is a consistent whole. Rather, we are told to accept the claims that the human authors of Scripture were just plain wrong in some texts — even in texts that define God and his ways. We are told that some texts are just “down-right sinister or evil.”

And, note clearly, we are told that we must do this in order to save evangelicalism from an intellectual disaster.

Of course, accepting this demand amounts to a theological disaster of incalculable magnitude. Rarely has this been more apparent and undeniable. The rejection of the Bible’s inerrancy will please the evangelical revisionists, but it will rob the church of its secure knowledge that the Bible is indeed true, trustworthy and fully authoritative….

….The rejection of biblical inerrancy is bound up with a view of God that is, in the end, fatal for Christian orthodoxy. We are entering a new phase in the battle over the Bible’s truthfulness and authority. We should at least be thankful for undisguised arguments coming from the opponents of biblical inerrancy, even as we are ready, once again, to make clear where their arguments lead.

Mohler continues to insist on the status quo. No matter what historical, archeological or scientific discovery brings to the table, Mohler continues to clear the table of anything that challenges his tightly-held belief that the Bible is without error.

Why Evangelical Christians Believe the Bible

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Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit. Enlightened by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgement or that of others, that the Scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgement, feel perfectly assured—as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it -that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God. We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgement, but we subject our intellect and judgement to it as too transcendent for us to estimate.  (John Calvin)

I wish Evangelicals would be honest about this instead of trying to “prove” the Bible is true ,reliable, accurate, scientifically accurate, historically precise, etc, etc, etc.

Evangelicals believe the Bible because the Holy Spirit tells them it is truth. This is a matter of faith.

Evangelicals embarrass themselves, and their religion, when they attempt to “prove” that the Bible is the truth.

One either accepts the claims of the Bible as truth or they don’t.

It has always been about faith.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:1-6)

HT: Ken Pulliam

What Do Christians Really Believe About God, Jesus, and the Bible

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I have spent a good bit of time today on Facebook, via email talking about God, Jesus, the Bible and salvation. Great way for an agnostic to spend Easter. :)

I am more convinced than ever that:

  • Christians say they believe the Bible but they really don’t. They believe the parts they like and they ignore the rest.  In other words, the Bible is one big proof-text book. It used by most Christians to prove they are right.
  • Christians say they believe in God but the God they believe in is one they have made in their own image. The same could be said for Jesus. (personally I like the pacifist, socialist anti-establishment Jesus). As a result there are actually millions of Christian gods.
  • Christians are confused about what salvation is. Of course this is understandable because the Bible teaches many different plans of salvation.
  • Christians say that salvation is by grace but they really don’t believe it. Why? Because they each have their own version of what constitutes a “real” Christian. Can someone be a Christian and___________________?(fill in blank with appropriate sin, lifestyle or belief)
  • Most Christians can not clearly defend the Christian faith. Christians are woefully ignorant of what the Bible teaches. All they know is that Jesus loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life.  Even on the basics Christians are ignorant. When asked what is the most important doctrine of Christianity, the one teaching on which everything stands or falls, most Christians will say—the death of Jesus on the Cross. Buzzzz. Wrong. It is the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

I mean no disrespect to my Christian readers. Of course, the Christians that frequent this blog tend to be liberals or universalists so I am not really talking about them. Forget the apology.  :)

I will say this…If you are going to embrace a religion that changes every aspect of your life it behooves (great King James word) you to know what you believe. It is not good enough to just say “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

Now…at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter to me. Whatever you want to believe is fine with me. Whatever helps you get through the day is fine by me. Each to their own. Different stokes for different folks. There are a lot of colors in the crayon box.  (gotta love the clichés)

But, if you want me to join your happy band or you want to convince me of the truth of the Christian faith then I expect you to know the Bible.  I expect you to engage me and answer the issues I raise from the Bible.

The Bible is the final authority. The serpent in the garden said “Yea hath God said?” The Christian replies “YES, God has said”. Where do we find what God has said? The Bible.

The B-I-B-L-E
yes that’s the book for me.
I stand alone on the Word of God
The  B-I-B-L-E. 
BIBLE!