Tag Archives: Inspiration of the Bible

Evangelicals and Their Bible

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gods_bible

The Bible is the foundation of Christianity. Without the Bible, Christianity would not exist. When I make statements like this, some Christians remind me that Christianity started with Jesus and his disciples, not the Bible.

Certainly Christianity started with Jesus and his disciples, but we must not forget they had a foundational religious text, the Old Testament. All of the Abrahamic religions have foundational religious texts.  While an argument can be made for there being multiple Christianities in the Bible, be it the Jesus sect or the Paul sect, all of them find their roots in the soil of the Bible. I can not imagine any way Christianity exists apart from the Bible.

There is an increasing number of people who call themselves Christians that want to hang on to Jesus but reject the teachings of the Bible. Some reject the parts of the Bible that offend their moral sense, others reject the Bible completely, I am at a loss to understand how it is possible to believe in Jesus and not accept the Bible, to some degree or another, as a divine, authoritative text.

While I think people are free to believe whatever they want to believe, I question whether a Christianity without the Bible is Christianity at all. At best, they have a spiritualized Jesus but, again, what kind of Jesus is this without the Bible?

Evangelical Christianity is a text-based religion.  The sixty-six books that make up the Christian Bible is the foundation of Evangelical Christianity. Remove this foundation and the Evangelical house comes crashing down.

When Evangelicals deconvert it is almost always due to a loss of belief in what is claimed for the Bible. As I have said many times, my deconversion came about because  I came to see that the Bible was not what Christianity claimed it was.

What claims do Evangelicals make for the Bible?

Inspired

All Evangelicals believe the Bible is inspired by God.  2 Timothy 3:16 says:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

2 Peter 1:20-21 says:

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.  For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The phrase, given by inspiration of God , is one Greek word, theopneustos (heh-op’-nyoo-stos). The word inspiration means, God breathed. The Evangelical believes the Bible was breathed out, given life by Jehovah. Therefore, the Bible is considered a supernatural book spoken forth from the very mouth of God. It is a book unlike any other book ever written. It is the only book written by God himself.

Evangelicals hold varying opinions to “exactly” what is inspired by God. Some Evangelicals believe only the original manuscripts of the various books of the Bible are inspired. However, the original manuscripts no longer exist. The extant manuscripts are copies of copies of copies of the original manuscripts, or so the theory goes since there are NO originals to compare the copies to.

When Evangelicals read the Old Testament they assume they are reading a text that dates back to the beginning of the human race, six thousand years ago. Little do they know that the Old Testament text is not  as old as they think.   As you can see from the Wikipedia table below,  the extant Old Testament manuscripts are dated thousands of years after God supposedly created Adam and Eve.

old_testament_texts

The New Testament fares no better.  As Wikipedia makes clear, most of the extant manuscripts of the New Testament were written a thousand years after the death of Jesus. :

Parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Gothic, Ethiopic, Coptic and Armenian. The dates of these manuscripts range from c. 125 (the John Ryland’s manuscript, P52; oldest copy of John fragments) to the introduction of printing in Germany in the 15th century. The vast majority of these manuscripts date after the 10th century. Although there are more manuscripts that preserve the New Testament than there are for any other ancient writing, the exact form of the text preserved in these later, numerous manuscripts may not be identical to the form of the text as it existed in antiquity. Textual scholar Bart Ehrman writes: “It is true, of course, that the New Testament is abundantly attested in the manuscripts produced through the ages, but most of these manuscripts are many centuries removed from the originals, and none of them perfectly accurate. They all contain mistakes – altogether many thousands of mistakes. It is not an easy task to reconstruct the original words of the New Testament….”

No two manuscripts are the same. It is estimated that there are over 400,000 variations among the manuscripts. There are more variations than there are words in the New Testament.

When Paul wrote to Timothy, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, what Scripture did he have in mind? It couldn’t have been the New Testament because it didn’t yet exist. Paul was clearly speaking of the Old Testament when he wrote of a God inspired text. While 2 Timothy 3:16 is used as a proof text for the entire sixty-six books of the Bible being inspired by God, such a claim can not be sustained if the verse is understood in its historical context.

Preserved

Many Evangelicals attempt to address the above mentioned problems with inspiration by saying that God has supernaturally preserved the Bible through the centuries. This is a faith claim since there is no evidence that God preserved the text of the Bible. In fact, based on the extant manuscripts and the plethora of Bible translations, it could be argued that God deliberately tried to hide or obfuscate  his inspired words.

On the extreme end of the Evangelical spectrum are Christians who believe a particular translation of the Bible is inspired, having been preserved by God down through the centuries.

Answers in Genesis states:

One of the most amazing testimonies to Scripture’s truth is its preservation over thousands of years, despite sometimes intense efforts to destroy it.

Jesus Christ made an amazing prophesy about this preservation of His Word: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away” (Mark 13:31; also Matthew 24:35). He believed that God’s Word is indestructible (“And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle [small mark in Hebrew lettering] of the law to fail” Luke 16:17).

Moreover, Jesus believed His words would spread around the world: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14); “the gospel must first be preached to all the nations” (Mark 13:10). And that is what we find today. God’s Word has been preserved.

The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 confirmed that we still have the same Old Testament as they did at Jesus’s day. The survival of thousands of New Testament manuscripts confirms that the New Testament writings were also providentially preserved. The question among textual scholars is not whether some words are missing, but which variant readings, in a few minor cases, are the correct ones…

…The Bible has not only been preserved, but translated into over two thousand languages (both ancient and modern). Many of the earliest surviving manuscripts include translations, such as Syriac versions, showing that God’s Word was spreading from the very beginning, and the words of its message have been preserved in many languages.

John Burgeon, a 19th century defender of the Bible wrote:

If you and I believe that the original writings of the Scriptures were verbally inspired by God, then of necessity they must have been providentially preserved through the ages.

Jack Moorman, a  British defender of the King James Bible wrote that believing in the preservation of the Bible requires  faith. Moorman states:

Like all other Bible truths, the Scripture’s teaching on its own preservation is to be in the first instance accepted by faith. Edward F. Hills in his outstanding book, The King James Version Defended calls it “the logic of faith.” The facts and evidence of such preservation will then follow.

What Moorman seems to be saying is this, if you look at the inspiration and preservation of the Bible solely on rational grounds, it will not make sense, but if you have FAITH it all makes sense.

In other words, just take our word for it.

bible_confusion

Inerrant

Most Evangelical church members believe the Bible translation they read from and their pastor preaches from is without error. Pastors are quite dishonest when they do not tell church members that this is not true.

Outside of pastors who are King James Only, most Evangelicals pastors believe  the original manuscripts were inerrant and the translations we now have are faithful and reliable but not inerrant.

Many Evangelical pastors will make a claim of partial inerrancy. They believe, when it comes to salvation and the core doctrines of the Christian faith, the translations now in use are indeed inerrant. Any errors found in the Bible do not affect the core teachings of the Bible, so the errors are not a concern to them.

Of course, Evangelical pastors have no way of knowing this. How can  they know what is inerrant and what is not not? This is a faith claim that usually comes down to inerrancy being applied to whatever part of the Biblical text the pastor thinks is important.

Is it the pastor or the professor’s place to decide what is important and not important in the Bible?  If the Scripture is God-breathed, is it not  the height of arrogance for a pastor or professor to suggest that some parts of the Bible are less inspired, less important? If God is perfect in all his ways, it stands to reason, that a perfect God inspired a perfect text and that this perfect text would say exactly what God meant it to say.

I can think of no way to maintain the integrity of the Evangelical belief about the Bible and, at the same time, say a verse or passage of Scripture is errant, fallible, mistaken, or not important. Is this not tantamount to what the Serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Eden, Yea hath God said. (Genesis 3)

The authority for everything the Evangelical believes and practices rests on the notion that the Bible is the inspired, preserved, and inerrant Word of God. Without this belief, the entire Evangelical house comes crashing down.

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……..

Liberals and the Bible

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I understand where Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians are coming from when it comes to their belief about the Bible. It is liberal Christians I have a hard time understanding. While I certainly wish every Evangelical would become a liberal, that doesn’t mean I think the liberal Christian belief system is rational and logical. In fact, I find liberal beliefs quite confusing and often contradictory. As I have often said, liberal religious beliefs are like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

Every Christian sect believes that Jesus Christ is God. Every Christian sect believes that Jesus became a human, died on the cross, and rose again from the dead three days later. Every Christian sect believes that Jesus, while on earth, was God in the human flesh. He came to earth to become the atonement for humankind’s sin. He was buried and rose again from the dead three days later securing life everlasting for all who will follow him. Every Christian sect believes that Jesus ascended to heaven and some day will return to earth again to usher in his eternal kingdom.

Most sects would also say they believe Jesus was born of a virgin, healed the sick, and raised the dead. The bottom line is this…….Jesus was a supernatural being who came to earth to do a supernatural work. From start to finish, Jesus’s life was anything but ordinary human.

Where do we find the story the Jesus? The Bible. This story is found nowhere else. Surely we all would agree that Jesus Christ is the alpha and omega of the Christian religion and all that every Christian sect knows about Jesus comes from the Bible. Without the Bible there would be no discussion going on about the historicity of Jesus.

On what basis do Christian sects believe what the Bible says about Jesus? Is the Bible just another work of literature? That’s what liberal Christians would have us believe. The Bible is just another work of literature and should be treated like any other text from antiquity.

If this is so then why have doctrinal statements or for that matter have churches at all? If the Bible is just an old book then why invest so much time and money in believing and living out its story? Quite frankly Harry Potter would be a much more interesting God and I suspect children would LOVE going to the First Church of Harry.

At this point……liberals start stammering and steaming….

You see, the Bible really is MORE than just another work of literature. Every Christian sect believes that the Bible is revelatory, that God, through the text of the Bible speaks to humanity. We can fuss and fight over words like inspiration, inerrancy, and infallibility but the fact remains ALL Christians give the Bible weight and authority that they give no other text. Without an authoritative text there is no Jesus and without Jesus there is no such thing as Christianity.

We can argue endlessly about the various critical methods and hermeneutics but sooner or later every Christian must say, THIS I BELIEVE. And when they do this they are saying, I believe the Bible, to some degree or another, to be true/factual/correct.

Liberals and Evangelicals alike continue to shed beliefs like lovers and their clothes on a hot, steamy summer night. Science continues to challenge and attack Christian beliefs and Christians back up and retrench. The Christian Church has gone from a doctrinal sumo wrestler to a wasting away anorexic model. Doctrine after doctrine is abandoned or reinterpreted and it seems only Jesus is safe from discard. And even with Jesus, we now have liberals who are quite willing to jettison the virgin birth, Jesus’s bodily resurrection from the dead, and his bodily ascension back to heaven. At the rate they are going the only thing left will be Jesus’s image on a piece of toast.

Atheism is not Christianity’s biggest problem. Atheism will not bring the Christian house down. Christians will do that all on their own. When people realize that NOTHING matters they will conclude that NOTHING matters and they will stop attending church and stop giving their money. The beast will die a slow, agonizing death, a death brought on by their unwillingness to have beliefs that matter.

Currently, there is a battle raging over the historicity of Jesus. Christianity finds a strange champion in Bart Ehrman. He has done much to hasten the death of Christianity, yet here he is, defending their man. I suspect any day now there will be a liberal theologian or pastor somewhere that will say, “Well, we don’t really need to believe Jesus was real to be a Christian.” Game over.

As an atheist, I think Christianity is false. I reject any, and all, claims made by the various Christian sects. I don’t think Jesus was anything that the Bible says he was. While I believe Jesus the man was a real historical figure, I reject any supernatural claim made for Jesus. At best, the Bible is an admixture of fact and error and it is almost impossible to tell one from the other. That said, I have great respect for people who have beliefs they are willing to stand up for and defend. There is something about a person’s willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter the cost….I admire such boldness, such conviction.

I know someone will be sure to suggest that I still think like a fundamentalist. Believe what you will. While I am most certainly not a fundamentalist, I do admire people who have courage and conviction. I respect people who believe something enough that they are willing to give their lives to it.

Are Evangelicals Embarrassed By The Bible?

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Evangelicals are theological fundamentalists. They believe the Bible, every word of it, is the Word of God. They believe the Bible is inspired (breathed out) by God. While they may hold to differing views on how  God transmitted the text to man, a true Evangelical believes that the final work product, the originals, were inspired by God.

Many Evangelicals believe the the original texts, written primarily in Hebrew and Greek were directly inspired by God. Of course the original texts do not exist. All the Evangelical has to hold on to are manuscript copies, complete with errors. The originals do not exist.

From these flawed manuscripts translations were made. In the 16th century English translations were made using the manuscripts and previous translations in the other languages like Latin. In 1611 the King James Bible was produced and it became the standard bearer for English speaking people for almost 300 years.

Over the last century, and in particular the last 1/2 century, dozens of new translations have been produced. Some are “new” translations of the extant manuscripts and others are “updates” of older translations. (i.e. KJV to NKJV and RSV to NSRV and ESV)

Why all the new translations? Have there been new and exciting finds that have altered the text? Outside of the Dead Sea scrolls, I can’t think of any major manuscript find that would affect modern translations in nay meaningful way.

Here’s what is really going on. Evangelicals are stuck with the Bible. God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me. In this modern scientific era the Bible is being challenged on a regular basis and Evangelicals are reeling from the challenge.

A hundred years ago most every Christian believed that the earth was 6,000 years old. We now know how foolish such a belief is but Evangelicals are stuck with a Bible that says, if taken literally,God created the world in six days. The Bible gives the chronology of the human race showing that the human race is about 6, 000 years old. Only the most stubborn of Christians believes this.

A hundred years ago most every Christian believed that homosexuality was sin. (along with many, non-missionary position, sex practices) To them, the Bible was very clear……sodomy, lesbianism, and all other other sexual acts except heterosexual intercourse within a monogamous marital relationship was a sin.

Fast forward to 2011. With no new textual information over the past 100 years, Evangelicals are now practicing what I call revisionist Christianity. They take 1900 years of Church history and theological teaching and throw it out the window. They have no textual warrant to do so but it doesn’t matter. Even the historical data has not changed. (and I am aware of the few novel reinterpretations of the history concerning Christianity and homosexuality) What changed then?

Simple. Society has become more comfortable with homosexuality. We now have laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Some states permit gays to marry. These moves toward a more honest, open, and just society run smack dab into the Bible prohibitions on homosexuality.(and this is why there is a culture war going on) Evangelicals don’t want to be seen as hard-nosed fundamentalists so they reinterpret the Bible and history to justify their new gay-friendly viewpoint.

Evangelicals have faced other embarrassing realities over issues like women in the ministry, women in the workforce, women in politics, and racial equality.  Evangelicals have been forced to repeatedly retrench. Those who don’t join the ranks of hard-core fundamentalists who refuse to enter the modern world.

Hard-core fundamentalists warn that our culture is collapsing and the only hope of recovery comes through a return to explicit, literal teachings of the Bible. Repent or perish, is their battle cry. In their closed, little mind they are the watchman on the wall warning everyone of impending doom.

While Evangelicals by definition are fundamentalists they recoil in horror at hard-core fundamentalism. They want nothing to do with their crazy cousins. What’s the Evangelical to do? If he thinks science reveals to us the natural world and how that world works he has a real dilemma on his hands. If he accepts some form of evolution, believes the astronomical and geological record shows a world millions and billions of years old what’s he to do? If he believes cultures change and that the moral and ethical teachings of the Bible are deficient and at times outdated what can he do?

Here’s what he can’t do. Remain an Evangelical. Being an Evangelical requires fidelity to the Biblical text. Once a person says “did God really say this?” they have left the ranks of Evangelicalism and moved towards progressive/liberal Christianity. (which is a good move in the right direction)

It is time for Evangelical Christians to own up to their embarrassment. Stop giving silent consent to the culture warriors. Be true to your beliefs. No need to play the “let’s revise the Bible and history” game. If you still want Christianity and Jesus there are non-Evangelical sects ready to take you in. (and that’s not to say that I don’t have serious problems with how liberals do “theology” but that’s fodder for another post)

The Delusions of A Christian Warrior

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Chris Honholz at Defending Contending writes:

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God. That means it is the direct revelation of God to man. This means I believe everything it says. Everything. When it says something is a sin, it’s a sin. What culture says about it today is irrelevant. No matter how we try re-work or re-word what God has already said, His truth remains. I will not bend, I will not yield, I will stand. I will proclaim God’s word, all of it. I may be called arrogant. I may be called ignorant. I may even be called a hateful bigot. But no matter what the world thinks of me, I care more of how I am viewed by my Savior than by anyone else. Jesus paid my fine with His life’s blood. I owe Him nothing less than my total love and obedience.

Because I trust in Christ for my salvation, and because I believe God’s word is true, I will proclaim to the world that it is in sin against God. I will proclaim that through Christ and Christ alone is their salvation. I will do this because I love people far too much to leave them in the delusion that they are “OK” with God. I love them enough to warn them of the judgment that is coming. I love them enough to risk being hated by them, and even have them turn against me. If I am willing to risk my life to save a drowning man, or a child trapped in a fire, how much more must I be willing to risk my standing in people’s minds to try and rescue them from the fires of Hell. It matters not if a blind man does not believe in the cliff he is walking toward. Thus, I cannot and will not stop my warnings because people do not believe as I do. I love them too much to stop.

I make this declaration today because I believe the world is beginning to openly war against Jesus Christ and those who follow Him. I make this stand today to make it known I will stand for Him no matter how tough the opposition may be, and no matter what it may cost me personally. I declare this to let you all know that I believe the greatest love I can possibly show is to point to the way of salvation, not to allow people to remain comfortable in their sins.

Chris is convinced that the Bible is truth and that his interpretations of that truth are that which MUST be believed by everyone. It doesn’t matter to him what others think of his beliefs or his attempts to evangelize people who do not believe like he believes. Like all zealots armed with infallible truth, Chris cares only for his beliefs. They are the truth that all humans must believe lest they die and go to hell.

Chris has no time for concerns about feelings, appropriateness, and the like. His truth MUST be heard even if people don’t want to hear it. Chris thinks he has the God-given right to interrupt and accost people at will. Don’t like it? Tough shit. Chris is working for God.

Zealots, armed with truth, begin to see everyone else as the enemy. Chris, living and blogging in a nation built on freedom of expression, thinks that those who believe differently than him are at war with him.  He wants everyone to know that no matter how tough the opposition is and how much it costs him, he is going to stand on the truth of God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant Bible, also known as “Chris’s Little Book of Truth.”

Chris, I beg you come in from the cold. It is making you delusional. There is no WAR going on. There is no ENEMY out to get you. The truth is your Bible and Jesus is becoming irrelevant. As Americans continue to move toward a cultural, name-only form of Christianity, people like Chris will feel more and more threatened. Their rightness is proved by the disaffection they see all around them.

I understand Chris and his delusion. I once was where he is now. Armed with certainty, I felt it my duty and obligation to tell everyone the truth. What people thought of me and my truth didn’t matter. What God thought of me was the only thing that mattered.

Until Chris sees that most people just want to be left alone and that they really don’t give a shit about what he thinks about God, the Bible and eternity, there is no hope for him.

Discussing God, the Bible, and eternity with people who WANT to talk about those things is fine. I am all for open and honest discussion about everything related to the Christian religion.(and all religions) Free discourse is an important part of a free, open society. At the same time, we have the right to be free from the Chris’s of the world and their insistent truth selling. Find someone who WANTS to listen to it…….I for one don’t.

Think you have a right to come to my home and preach at me whether or not I want to hear it? Let me introduce you to another long-held American right….. the right to throw your ass off my porch.

Why Some Preachers are Moral Crusaders

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Let me tell you about a preacher I once knew.

This preacher grew up in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church movement. From the time he was 5 until he was in his mid-40’s he was a card-carrying member of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church movement.

He was saved as a teenager and called to preach a few days later. He went off to train at an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist college. After leaving college he immersed himself in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist culture. He was the assistant pastor of several churches and then finally he started a church of his own. His church, from scratch. Finally, he could do things God’s his way.

Over the course of a few years the church grew. Souls were saved and the preacher began to get “noticed” by the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist big wigs.

The preacher, full of the Holy Spirit, full of himself determined that he was going to be a moral crusader. With God by his side and a bible in his hand, he set out to right all the moral wrongs he could find.

The preacher was a hard-core, right-wing, God is a Republican, hell-fire and brimstone, Baptist. Politics and morality were one and the same. Compromise was never an option.

When the biddy football league began playing games on Sunday he objected. Children needed to be in church.

When the governor advocated giving condoms out to combat the spread of AIDS the preacher took out a full page ad in the local paper. In large letters the page said WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY? The rest of the page was filled with Bible verses and the preacher’s condemnation of the governor’s condom policy.

The newspaper ad made him famous overnight. Local news channels covered the ad and its message. The preacher began to write letters to the local newspapers condemning the moral laxity of the non-Christian world. (though he knew from counseling church members that Christians were quite immoral too)

His church continued to grow. People loved having a preacher who stood up for Christian morality. The preacher thought, “I must be doing right because look at all the people who are coming to my church to hear me preach!”

By now, you may have figured out this preacher is me.

Why are some preachers moral crusaders?

First, let me say very clearly that many moral crusaders are well-intentioned. They become crusaders because they think God is pleased with them if they do. After all, if preachers don’t stand up for morality then who will?

Second, most preachers who are moral crusaders believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. They believe that the moral strictures of the Bible are applicable for everyone. They believe the only way for a nation to be a great nation is if the citizens of that nation obey the teachings of the Bible. God has spoken,obey. Even if some people don’t become Christians they still should be expected to obey the moral teachings of the Bible. After all, Bible morality is good and best for everyone.

Third, most preachers who are moral crusaders believe they have been called by God to stand up against Satan and the moral wickedness of the world. They see themselves as having no option. Either they stand up for God and his moral teachings or they risk falling into disfavor with God. Once again, if preachers don’t stand up for morality then who will?

Fourth, some preachers who are moral crusaders were converted (saved) out of lives of debauchery. They know firsthand what “sin” can do to a person so they sincerely believe they MUST spare everyone else what they went through.

Fifth, some (many?) preachers who are moral crusaders struggle with secret sin. I am of the persuasion that those who scream the loudest about sin often commit those very same, or similar, sins in secret. By preaching against this or that moral sin, they are preaching to themselves, call themselves to repentance.

As long as there are preachers that believe the Bible is God’s divine truth moral crusaders will be with us. After all…..God said!

Were you a moral crusader at one time? What changed your view? Did you ignore the moral failures in your own life as you preached about the moral failures of others?

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. 

What Motivated Me to Work So Hard for Jesus?

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It all started with my belief that the Bible was the inspired, inerrant Word of God. I considered the Bible the roadmap for navigating through a sin plagued world under the domination of Satan.

The Bible taught me that every human being is a sinner under the just condemnation of God. Every human being deserved to burn in hell for all eternity.

The Bible also taught me that God had graciously provided a way of escape for humankind. God sent Jesus Christ, the son of God, to be the final atonement for humankind’s sin. Jesus Christ died on the cross for humankind’s sin and three days later he rose again from the dead. Humankind’s salvation, humankind’s eternal  destiny rests squarely on the merit and work of Jesus the Christ. God calls on every human being to repent and believe the good news of the Christian gospel.

The Bible taught me that I, as a God called, God ordained minister of the gospel,  had a solemn obligation to preach the gospel to everyone and everywhere I could. Work for the night is coming. Leave everything for the sake of the gospel. Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ.

Every Church I attended, every youth group I went to, every summer youth camp I went to, reinforced the truth that God wanted (demanded) 100% of me. All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give.

I went to college to train for the ministry. Every class, every professor, every chapel speaker shouted for all to hear:

Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.
Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.
We never will give in while souls are lost in sin
Souls for Jesus is our battle cry.

My wife went to college to marry a preacher, A God called, God ordained, preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She knew that she would have to make sacrifices for the sake of her husband’s call. She was taught that Jesus came first, the church came first. She was taught her husband was specially chosen by God to proclaim the good news of the gospel. She was encouraged to read biographies of great men and women of faith to learn how their families dealt with it.

So my wife and I entered marriage and the ministry knowing God had called us to a life of self-denial and devotion to the work of the ministry.

I consider  1983-1994 to be the high point of my ministerial career. I pastored a growing and busy church. Souls were being saved. New people were joining the Church. It seemed God was smiling on our work.

A typical week for me:

  • Jail Ministry on Tuesday
  • Nursing Home Ministry on Wednesday
  • Midweek Service on Thursday
  • Street Preaching 2-3 days a week
  • Taught Sunday School class
  • Preached Twice on Sunday

We also had a Christian school and I preached at other churches fairly often. (revival services, bible conferences, pastor’s fellowships)

I was motivated by what I believed the Bible taught me about the work of the ministry.  I looked at the life of the apostles and thought that they were a pattern to follow. Run the race Paul told me. And so I ran.

I was 100% committed to what I believe was God’s calling in my life.

Some Christians object and say “you are the one who worked yourself to death. Don’t blame the Church or God. OUR pastor doesn’t work this way. He takes time for his family. Blah. Blah Blah.”

Even now, as an atheist, I find such objections lame. If the Bible is true, if what it says about God, sin, salvation, death, hell and heaven is true, how dare does any preacher, or ANY Christian for that matter, treat the gospel of Jesus Christ so carelessly.  How dare any preacher not burn himself out as long as souls are in need of salvation. No time for pastor busy work. Heaven and Hell are calling out. Truth is there are a lot of lazy hirelings in the ministry who do just enough to keep from getting fired. They pastor a church 2 or 3 years, wear out their welcome, and then move on down the road to another church. Cynical I know, but it is what it is.

I have no respect for pastors who defend their laziness by stressing the importance of balance in their lives. Bullshit. Where do they find such a notion in the Bible they say they believe? Jesus does not call  them to balance. He calls them to forsake all  and follow Him.

One of the reasons I see Christianity as a bankrupt religion is the lackadaisical approach Christians and their spiritual leaders have towards matters that have eternal consequence. Most of what goes on in the average Church is meaningless bullshit. Call a meeting to decide on the color of the paint for the nursery walls and everyone shows up. Implore people to come out for Church visitation and the same 3 or 4 people show up. (the same 3 or 4 people that do 20 different things in the church and God bless them for doing so)

Why should I take the Bible, God, Jesus, salvation, heaven or hell seriously when most Christians treat these things as of no more importance than “what’s for dinner tonight.”

It took leaving the Christian Church, leaving the ministry, for me to realize that most of what I was chasing after was nothing more than a fool’s errand. Many of the ex-ministers who read this blog know what I am talking about . So much of life wasted and for what?

Too bad I had to be 50 years old before I realized what life is all about. Too bad I sacrificed my health on the altar of the eternal before I realized that there is no eternity, just the here and now.

Of course, from a psychological standpoint I must reckon with the fact that my type A, work-a-holic personality was an easy mark for pastors who worked very hard to have more notches on their gun  by sending lots of preacher boys off to Bible college.

I still have the same tendencies. The difference now is that the list of things that matter to me continues to shrink. Family matters. My neighbors matter. The future of humanity matters. Baseball matters.

But matters of eternity, heaven and hell? Nary a thought these days. If the Christian God exists then I am screwed. A lot of Fallen from Grace readers are going to be my roommates in hell. However, I don’t think the Christian version of God exists so I am investing all my time, money, and talent on the the only life I have. I will leave it up to the gods and my family to do what they will with me after I am dead. Of course, I could come back and write a book, “Heaven is Real and Boy are the Atheists In Trouble.”  

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.