Evangelicals are a contradictory lot. On one hand, Evangelicals will tell atheists to read the Bible, believing that if atheists will read the gospels, they will see the truth and be saved. Yet, when atheists read the Bible and reject its claims, Evangelicals are quick to say that atheists can’t “know” the truth because the “natural man understandeth not the things of God.”
This idea comes from II Corinthians 2:14:
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
The natural man is every human being except born-again people. Unsaved people cannot understand the “things of the Spirit of God — the Bible — because they are foolishness to them; neither can they know (understand) them because they are spiritually discerned. When sinners get saved, the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of them. From that moment forward, the third person of the Trinity is their teacher and guide. When Christians read the Bible, the Holy Spirit allegedly teaches them the truth. (Please see Know-So Salvation.) If this is so, why, then, do no two Evangelicals believe the same thing? Why do Evangelicals disagree on even the basics: salvation, baptism, and communion? Why do Evangelicals, in particular, wage incessant internecine wars amongst themselves over this or that point of theology? Surely, if the Holy Spirit — God himself — lives inside every Christian and gives them everything pertaining to life and godliness, Christians would all believe the same things. After all, the Bible declares “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.” That Christians can’t agree on the teachings of the Bible suggests that they are “natural men” too.
I was part of the Evangelical church for the first fifty years of my life. I attended an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college in the 1970s, and pastored churches for twenty-five years. Reading and studying the Bible was central to my existence. All told, I spent over 20,000 hours with my nose in the Bible and theological books. My mind is filled with Bible information and knowledge, including countless memorized verses. In recent years, I have had problems with my short-term memory due to a plethora of health problems. But my long-term memory where all my Bible knowledge resides? Sharp as a tack. Yet, scores of Evangelicals have told me that the moment I deconverted, all my Bible knowledge magically disappeared; that I am now a “natural man” who does not and cannot understand the Bible. This, of course, is absurd. Evangelicals can provide no evidence for their claim other than a single Bible verse.
Yet, these same Evangelicals will turn right around and tell me that I should read this or that passage of Scripture; that if I have an open mind God will reveal the “truth” to me. Never mind the fact that I have read from and preached from the recommended Bible verses; that I know what they say and could preach a sermon from them even today.
The Bible is just a collection of ancient religious texts that have been translated from Greek and Hebrew. The Bible is not a magical text that uses ESP to send special messages from God to Christians. It is a book that can be read, interpreted, and understood by anyone — including atheists — with the desire to learn what it says. Evangelicals tell unbelievers that the Bible is impossible to understand without the aid of a supernatural being living inside of you, yet, at the same time, Evangelicals say this Bible is so simple that even a child can understand it. Which is it?
Most Evangelicals are Gnostics, at heart. They believe that their peculiar God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, gives them special knowledge that unbelievers cannot obtain or understand. This, of course, is untrue. Anyone can understand the Bible if they put their mind to it.
For Evangelicals who object to the claims I have made in this post about the Bible and knowledge of its teachings, I challenge them to ask me any question about the Bible. Put together a test that will measure my Bible knowledge and that of the atheists and agnostics who read this site. I’m confident that I and my merry band of godless heathens will be able to pass this test. Sure, many atheists aren’t all that knowledgeable about the Bible, but neither are a lot of Christians. That said, countless former pastors, evangelists, youth directors, worship leaders, and college professors read my writing; many of whom have college degrees and extensive knowledge of the Biblical text and Christian theology. I have no doubt they will be able to pass any Bible test put before them.
Or, you can keep saying, “Bruce Gerencser doesn’t know anything about the Bible.” No one believes you, and I suspect that deep down in that mythical heart of yours, you don’t believe it either.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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The irony is that atheists/agnostics frequently have a better knowledge of the bible than believers. This is largely attributable, I think, to the fact that traditionally most people are raised with at least some exposure to religion, and hence the bible, but with better education they move away from religion (this is simply a brute fact). In amongst that education is very often a knowledge of the bible that is remembered long after belief has been left behind, whilst the less educated have a very different exposure to the bible, to the extent that they cannot comprehend how anyone can fail to be ‘captivated’ by it, not realising how poor it is as a life guide. For example, many Christians point to the various bible passages regarding the treatment of slaves, and how God encourages benevolence by being kind to them (though slavery represents one of the most inconsistent of all bible messages). A non-believer simply points out that slavery is wrong.
Christians can’t help but contradict each other and themselves. That’s what happens when you have nothing in your religion but demands for ignorance and fear.
I always marvel at your biblical knowledge, Bruce. I probably know more than the average person, but not a tenth of what you do. As a linguist, I’ve always been interested in qualities of the text, such as there being two conflicting versions of the creation story in Genesis (redaction), the presence of Aramaic in Daniel (anachronism), the differences in the portrayal of Jesus between the gospels of “Mark” and “John,” etc. The list of “curiosities” is endless. You will never hear such things pointed out in a Sunday sermon, and my guess is because it would start to pull at the house of cards. The Lord’s House is nothing if not a house of cards. One might say that II Cor. 2:14 is a biblical vaccine to protect against that pernicious virus called reality. It’s very effective, but oh my the vaccine-related injuries of thinking that ensue, where is VAERS when we actually need it? What I really love about your and Bart Ehrman’s critiques of the Bible is the knowledge of it you guys bring to the discussion. And you add that crucial dimension of having been a pastor. Too bad your health is not so good, I’d love to hear you on the YouTube debate circuit. I’m sure you could hold your own with anyone.
Rand–I think one reason why Evangelical Christians can’t agree among themselves (let alone with Catholics, mainstream Protestants and other Christians) has to do with the textual inconsistencies you point out–which has at least something to do with the translations. When I was an Evangelical Christian, I studied the Bible (something discouraged by the Catholic church in which I grew up) and dipped into theology. But I actually found the literary and historical contexts and influences of the Bible far more interesting–much of theology seemed like oceans of ink (this was before the World Wide Web) spilled to settle un-settle-able arguments.
Anyway, I quickly learned of a flaw in the beliefs of many Evangelicals I knew. They claimed “the” King James Bible was the most divinely-inspired, and therefore authoritative, edition. Never mind that it is just one of many translations. (Ironically, some of my local Spanish- and Creole-language churches use translations of “the” KJV.) Notice that I had “the” in quotes: I soon learned that there are numerous KJVs. Granted, the changes from one to the next may be minor, but no point is so fine that an Evangelical won’t try to use it as a weapon.
Of course, there are all sorts of other reasons, some of which have to do with language and historical and literary contexts, why Evangelicals can’t agree. And, really, Corinthians 2:14 sums up the only argument they can muster for their beliefs, including those about who is a “true” Christian and who truly understands the Bible.
Bruce–I related to your comment about your Biblical knowledge disappearing in an entirely unrelated way. When I underwent my gender confirmation, professional colleagues who saw me as a knowledgable and accomplished man suddenly saw me as an ignorant woman: The same people who, previously, would listen to me in a meeting would interrupt me and say, in essence, I didn’t know what I was talking about, even when the subject was something I’d studied or worked with to a greater degree than they had.
Thanks, Rand. Ehrman has such a wide range of knowledge. His mastery of the Greek New Testament is amazing — the product of decades of hard work.
I’m more of a specialist. Evangelicalism is my wheelhouse. ❤️
As a student grades 5-12 at fundamentalist Christian school, we received a lot of training on certain contents of the Bible, but we didn’t even touch other parts of it. Surprisingly, we were not required to read the whole thing either. Through 6th grade, we had Bob Jones University catechism, where we learned definitions of words like “soteriology”, “eschatology”, “justification”, “atonement” and the like. We learned a lot of Fundamentalist Christian theology but nothing about textual analysis or church history. We learned that the Bible was written by men inspired by God- the word “God-breathed” was used – and that the Bible was inerrant, literal, historical fact.
In college, I took a course “History of Christian Thought” where I learned about church history, canonization, etc. I was shocked, actually, to learn how politicized the church was. Yet that played into my upbringing teachings of “this is why we had the Protestant Reformation, because the Catholic Church was corrupted by humans”. It wasn’t until I was really deconstructing from Christianity that I sought out scholarship on Christianity. I think most Christians wouldn’t read Bart Ehrman and other scholars.