Maybe The Bible Isn't The Cornerstone Of Christian Faith

[Evolution_beyond]

My wife (she's Catholic) said an interesting thing to me last night.

 

We were discussing my bisexuality and I mentioned why I felt nervous discussing such things with priests (she told the priest that married us that I was having questions and confusions about my sexuality). I said that the Bible says that homosexual activity is wrong.

 

And she said - "The Bible was written by men. So sometimes it is out of bitterness. I don't always agree with everything in the Bible"

 

She doesn't seem to think that there is any conflict between being a christian and accepting that some parts of the Bible may be wrong because it was written by human beings.

 

And it got me thinking - is the Bible really the cornerstone of Christian belief? Does a Christian have to believe everything that is in the Bible in order to be a Christian?

 

I come from a more liberal, questioning christian background because my parents were very educated and my Dad is very interested in science (even though the Salvation Army does seem very evangelical in some ways).

 

Anyway - it seems to me that the fundamentalist approach to Christianity is actually quite a recent development. That sort of Christianity began in the 19th Century. Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutherism etc are far older.

 

Maybe taking the Bible literally, word for word, is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity after all. It's moslems that treat a book as the infallible word of God, not Christians. With Christians it is not a book that matters but a person.

 

Theoretically there is no reason why a Christian couldn't focus totally on Jesus as portrayed by the gospels and totally discount everything else in the Bible as the witterings of fairly ordinary believers - sometimes God inspired, but sometimes just plain wrong. Theoretically a Christian could even lift the teachings and traditions of the Church above the words of some ancient book, on the understanding that times change and peoples and societies grow and learn better - and that God/Jesus could still be inspiring and teaching men to a better understanding of things.

 

It seems to me that Catholics, like my wife, place more importance on the figure of Jesus Christ, on his story and what it represents and on the traditions of the Church than they do on random passages from the Old Testament or from Paul's letters.

 

Not that it matters too much now that I don't believe in God or in Jesus anymore. But it is certainly food for thought.

 

Fundies shout the loudest and so we tend to think of Christianity in their terms. Fundies want us to believe that they have a monopoly on what it means to be a Christian.

 

But why should we believe their drivel, when it is so clear that they are utterly wrong about everything? Could it be that Christianity does not equal fundamentalism? Could it be that the older forms of the faith are more true to what Christianity is supposed to be about?

 

I'm not saying that Christianity is not flawed, even in a more relaxed, centred and balanced form. There are huge logical problems with the whole theology. Christian theology is total garbage I think. But perhaps in our anger against fundamentalism we fall victim to their propaganda that theirs is the only true form of Christianity. Perhaps something like Catholicism, Anglicanism or Eastern Orthodox is more accurate to what Christianity is supposed to be about.

 

Just a thought...

[Kurari]

I think you are quite right. With over 34,000 denominations all with they're own interpretations of the Bible and each follower having their own opionions, I'd say the Bible isn't much of a cornerstone to anything. I often see a big rift in what the Bible SAYS Christianity is, and what Christians THINK it is. Mostly I just see the Bible being used as symbolic, with few people having actually read the thing. I've encountered a lot of people who never realized Leviticus even HAD any other rules other than "Homosexuality is a sin." They sure don't pay attention to not eating shrimp or pork or whatever.

[R. S. Martin]

EvolutionBeyond,

 

I feel like an amateur but I did spend quite a bit of time working on a Masters in theology with a focus on the history of fundamentalism. I'm still working on it. The points you make are the very things I have been learning. I went through your post, highlighting and deleting stuff to bring out the points I want to comment on below.

 

1. My wife (she's Catholic) said an interesting thing to me last night.
   
2. And it got me thinking - is the Bible really the cornerstone of Christian belief?
   
3. Anyway - it seems to me that the fundamentalist approach to Christianity is actually quite a recent development. That sort of Christianity began in the 19th Century. Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutherism etc are far older.
   

Maybe taking the Bible literally, word for word, is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity after all. It's moslems that treat a book as the infallible word of God, not Christians. With Christians it is not a book that matters but a person.

 

Theoretically there is no reason why a Christian couldn't focus totally on Jesus as portrayed by the gospels and totally discount everything else in the Bible as the witterings of fairly ordinary believers - sometimes God inspired, but sometimes just plain wrong. Theoretically a Christian could even lift the teachings and traditions of the Church above the words of some ancient book, on the understanding that times change and peoples and societies grow and learn better - and that God/Jesus could still be inspiring and teaching men to a better understanding of things.

 

It seems to me that Catholics, like my wife, place more importance on the figure of Jesus Christ, on his story and what it represents and on the traditions of the Church than they do on random passages from the Old Testament or from Paul's letters.

 

1. I am always very interested in the gender of posters and finally I get you figured out. Yes, I am aware that some same-gendered couples talk about husbands/wives but I think you're fairly clear.

 

2. I consider it significant that these thoughts are stimulated by a Catholic. I am told that for Catholics, the Bible is one of three bases for the faith. The other two are tradition and...I don't remember if it's teachings of the church or what but I get the impression that teachings are extremely important. Also, in my reading of Princeton theologian Charles Hodge, 1870, I got the distinct impression that he read the Bible according to a predetermined storyline. This alerted me to the fact that all Christians are making statements as to the real meaning of scripture, as though something pre-existed the biblical story. So I asked my professor on what the Christian faith is based, what this pre-existing storyline is, from what it is derived.

 

His answer, which was so obvious that I felt embarrassed for having asked, was the experience of the person Jesus Christ.

 

Instantly I remembered a conversation I had several years earlier with another prof about whether Jesus actually existed. This was outside the theology department so it was okay challenging the historical Jesus. That prof (Amish turned RC) told me: One thing we know for sure. In the middle of the first century there was a community of people who believed he existed.

 

3. The Roman Catholics and Lutherans definitely think they are more orthodox than the fundamentalists. The Anglican priest I talked to told me, "We like to think we're Catholic, too." So I never know how to classify them. They are the same as the Episcopals in the US. (There are fundamentalists/conservatives in every denomination.)

 

Fundies shout the loudest and so we tend to think of Christianity in their terms. Fundies want us to believe that they have a monopoly on what it means to be a Christian.

 

But why should we believe their drivel, when it is so clear that they are utterly wrong about everything? Could it be that Christianity does not equal fundamentalism? Could it be that the older forms of the faith are more true to what Christianity is supposed to be about?

 

I'm not saying that Christianity is not flawed, even in a more relaxed, centred and balanced form. There are huge logical problems with the whole theology. Christian theology is total garbage I think. But perhaps in our anger against fundamentalism we fall victim to their propaganda that theirs is the only true form of Christianity. Perhaps something like Catholicism, Anglicanism or Eastern Orthodox is more accurate to what Christianity is supposed to be about.

 

I am so glad you are raising this topic. I'm getting my education from fairly liberal Lutherans who see things pretty much the way you are presenting them here. Fundamentalist theology is barely mentioned, or if it is, it is discussed as something that missed the message of Christ by a very wide margin. I would not put it past them to label fundamentalism as a heresy.

 

It seriously bothers me when exChristians on this forum insist that the form of Christianity they experienced is the only real Christianity. It isn't! Historically, as you have shown, it probably isn't even real Christianity!

 

You also mention Orthodox Christianity. One semsester I had a classmate who was Greek Orthodox. He was a talkative young man and we didn't know too much about Greek Orthodox so we had some interesting conversations. At one point he told us that his church went all the way back to the apostles. He wasn't bragging; it was clear from his tone of voice that he thought he was imparting a matter of historical fact. The prof gently informed him that pretty much all branches of Christianity make those claims.

 

Perhaps none make it as loudly and boldly as fundamentalists. I think I accidentally deleted the part where you mention the history--oh no, it's in Point 3 above. When I told my prof that I wanted to study the history of fundamentalism, he told me I had to read Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology, which was written about 1874. So that became the "official" date in my head for when fundamentalism started. Some say it started with the publishing of The Fundamentals: A Testimony to Truth, ca 1910-1915; others set the date around 1925 for the Scopes Monkey Trial when evolution was taken to court.

 

Sometimes I wonder if "real" fundamentalism, or the seriously dangerous kind, started when Jerry Falwell et al took religion to the political level late in the 20th century. (There really should be a hell for those guys to spend some time in. I can't decide if they are good enough for the company of Hitler and Stalin or if we need a specially heated cell for them.) But one thing they're not is the love of Jesus exemplified. That's my opinion on the matter, given my experience with liberal Christians.

[R. S. Martin]

I think you are quite right. With over 34,000 denominations all with they're own interpretations of the Bible and each follower having their own opionions, I'd say the Bible isn't much of a cornerstone to anything. I often see a big rift in what the Bible SAYS Christianity is, and what Christians THINK it is. Mostly I just see the Bible being used as symbolic, with few people having actually read the thing. I've encountered a lot of people who never realized Leviticus even HAD any other rules other than "Homosexuality is a sin." They sure don't pay attention to not eating shrimp or pork or whatever.

 

So how many pages do they think it takes to write "Homosexuality is a sin"?

 

Oh let's see. They don't think. Yeah that's right. I keep forgetting.

[Amethyst]

 

I thought that way too for a while and then realized I was just picking and choosing what I wanted to believe in. If you want to take the label of a religion, you are taking on the bad as well as the good. If you just want the good of that religion and not the bad, it's not that religion, it's really your own customized one.

[R. S. Martin]

 

I thought that way too for a while and then realized I was just picking and choosing what I wanted to believe in. If you want to take the label of a religion, you are taking on the bad as well as the good. If you just want the good of that religion and not the bad, it's not that religion, it's really your own customized one.

 

 

 

QUESTION: How do you rationalize that Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism--all of which existed at least two or three centuries before fundamentalism--are "customized" Christianity? What EvolutionBeyond decribes IS these three orthodox versions of Christianity. Can you please explain the logic behind your statement? Thank you.

[Brother Jeff]

Maybe taking the Bible literally, word for word, is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity after all.

It is for fundies. Fundies generally make an idol of the supposed "Word of God" and insist that it is inerrant and infallible, even though it obviously doesn't even come close to being either. They base their belief on verses such as 2 Timothy 3:16:

 

2 Tim 3:16 All scripture is given by the magical inspiration of the Holy Farter, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in self-righteousness, arrogance, bigotry, how to be proudly and stubbornly ignorant, for judging and condemning others, for denying science, and whatever other general bullshit the Spook of Kryasst who is also somehow magically Him magically deems necessary:

Nevermind that Paul didn't write the book of 2 Timothy. Most fundies don't know that. Nevermind that the NT didn't exist as we know it today when 2 Timothy was written. Most fundies don't realize that. It probably wouldn't matter if they were aware of the facts. In their minds, the bible says it, they believe, and that settles it! Glory!

 

Theoretically there is no reason why a Christian couldn't focus totally on Jesus as portrayed by the gospels and totally discount everything else in the Bible as the witterings of fairly ordinary believers - sometimes God inspired, but sometimes just plain wrong. Theoretically a Christian could even lift the teachings and traditions of the Church above the words of some ancient book, on the understanding that times change and peoples and societies grow and learn better - and that God/Jesus could still be inspiring and teaching men to a better understanding of things.

Yeah, theoretically... but that's not the way it is in reality. Fundies "think" very rigidly in black & white. They believe that the bible is the inerrant, infallible "word of God", and that's foundational for them. In their minds, if the bible isn't that, then it can't be the "word of God" because "God wrote it without error and He has miraculously preserved His Word".

 

With Christians it is not a book that matters but a person.

Amen, Brother! After all, Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship! Glory!

 

Fundies shout the loudest and so we tend to think of Christianity in their terms. Fundies want us to believe that they have a monopoly on what it means to be a Christian.

They think they do have the one and ONLY "Truth", and that their way is the ONLY correct way to believe. Those other "Christians" haven't been Born Again, so they aren't REAL Christians!

 

But perhaps in our anger against fundamentalism we fall victim to their propaganda that theirs is the only true form of Christianity. Perhaps something like Catholicism, Anglicanism or Eastern Orthodox is more accurate to what Christianity is supposed to be about.

Yeah, maybe. I dunno...

[Amethyst]

 

I thought that way too for a while and then realized I was just picking and choosing what I wanted to believe in. If you want to take the label of a religion, you are taking on the bad as well as the good. If you just want the good of that religion and not the bad, it's not that religion, it's really your own customized one.

 

 

 

QUESTION: How do you rationalize that Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism--all of which existed at least two or three centuries before fundamentalism--are "customized" Christianity? What EvolutionBeyond decribes IS these three orthodox versions of Christianity. Can you please explain the logic behind your statement? Thank you.

 

I didn't say Lutheranism was, or any of those. What I mean is when people start liberalizing Christianity and say things like they believe in heaven but not hell, or angels but not demons, or that Bible god is a kind and loving god and they ignore all the bad stuff, and then those same people continue to carry the label of Lutheranism, or Catholicism, or Anglicisim or whatever when they don't really believe in their church's official teachings (for example, that hell and demons are real and that non-believers get tortured). That is the sort of thing that so many Christians do these days -- they believe whatever they want to but hang on to their old labels.

 

However if you really thing about it, it is all customized because no two people believe the exact same thing. They may claim to, but two people's perceptions are not going to be identical logically because they are not the same person. Christianity is really about worshipping what an individual's perception of the Biblegod is like, since no two Christians have the same perception. It is what I like to think of as the Mary Sue effect.

 

Mary Sue, in fan fiction, is an idealized character an author writes about in a story that is set in an already developed universe (like Star Trek), usually not on purpose but it can be on purpose too. The Mary Sue (for women, Marty Stu/Gary Stu for men) is usually whatever an author thinks is cool, pretty, just all around great. There are even Mary Sue villians. Most Sue authors do not realize what they are doing because they are too close to the character, but it becomes apparent when a second person reads the story and recognizes the character is just too idealized.

 

The Biblegod is like a Mary Sue. He generally becomes whatever people want him to be. This I have noticed from all the Christians I have ever met, anyway, and I've met Christians from more denominations besides just Lutheran. This is what I mean when I say religion is really a set of customized beliefs and individual perceptions.

[R. S. Martin]

 

I thought that way too for a while and then realized I was just picking and choosing what I wanted to believe in. If you want to take the label of a religion, you are taking on the bad as well as the good. If you just want the good of that religion and not the bad, it's not that religion, it's really your own customized one.

 

 

 

QUESTION: How do you rationalize that Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Anglicanism--all of which existed at least two or three centuries before fundamentalism--are "customized" Christianity? What EvolutionBeyond decribes IS these three orthodox versions of Christianity. Can you please explain the logic behind your statement? Thank you.

 

I didn't say Lutheranism was, or any of those.

 

Maybe you didn't read the entire OP and my post, because both Evolution Beyond and I emphasized the historical perspective, and mentioned the historical churches (which includes Lutheranism) over against the fundamentalist churches as being the real Christianity. From the historical perspective, fundamentalism is a new religious movement and IMO it makes no sense raging against it as though it were THE Christianity. Raging against fundamentalism makes sense, but using it as The Standard against which all of Christianity must be measured makes absolutely no sense to me. If you disagree with the argument of this thread, I would be interested in the logic behind it.

[Amethyst]

Maybe you didn't read the entire OP and my post, because both Evolution Beyond and I emphasized the historical perspective, and mentioned the historical churches (which includes Lutheranism) over against the fundamentalist churches as being the real Christianity. From the historical perspective, fundamentalism is a new religious movement and IMO it makes no sense raging against it as though it were THE Christianity. Raging against fundamentalism makes sense, but using it as The Standard against which all of Christianity must be measured makes absolutely no sense to me. If you disagree with the argument of this thread, I would be interested in the logic behind it.

 

I do disagree, sort of. Fundamentalism is the standard for those of us who grew up with it, in my case, Lutheran Fundamentalism as opposed to say, Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. It does not make sense for those of us who grew up with it to suddenly apply a different standard to the religion that we were raised with black and white beliefs in and call it the same religion. Because it is not the same religion, if you were raised that you either believed in the Bible or you did not believe in it. Especially if you were in a church like I was in, in which liberal Christians were considered hell bound, although we didn't tell them that to their faces. There was no in-between.

 

I am not saying that, for the sake of discussion, liberal Christians cannot be called Christians also...but those who grew up with the type of black and white Fundamentalism that many here escaped, did not usually include liberals in one's definition of those who were Real True Christians when they were brainwashed. Many fundamentalist churches do not officially recognize many sects as Real True Christians to be able to share communion, and they often teach officially that the other sects are going to hell. For example, many Baptist churches don't officially recognize Lutherans and Catholics as Real True Christians even though Lutherans and Catholics claim they are.

 

But...what I am disagreeing with is this.

 

Maybe taking the Bible literally, word for word, is not the be-all and end-all of Christianity after all. It's moslems that treat a book as the infallible word of God, not Christians. With Christians it is not a book that matters but a person.

 

If you don't believe literally in the Bible, then you are cherry picking and essentially creating your own religion. Bible belief is how Christianity is defined, after all. The problem with the Bible is that one can choose whichever verses one wants to support pretty much anything. This is why there are thousands of religious sects all carrying the Christian label. Some of them, probably nobody would recognize as Christian.

 

But I was raised that the definition of Christianity is, if you don't at least literally believe in the basics, for example Jesus being real and having died for your sins, Heaven and Hell being real, then you are not really Christian.

 

When I deconverted, it was because I was to the point of cherry picking everything, and I had admitted to myself that I didn't know anymore if Jesus had been a real person or not, and I couldn't believe in hell, but I wanted to believe in heaven. I realized that was NOT Christianity. I had essentially made up my own belief system to be whatever I wanted, and I had done it to gain acceptance from my family because they wanted me to believe in something.

 

It was like Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule: People believe whatever they want or fear to be true. I believed what I wanted to be true, not because I had any proof that it was true. And at that point, I could no longer carry the label. Certainly, anyone can pick any label they choose and say they are Christian if they want to, but if they don't follow the basic things of that label, are they really that label?

 

If someone wanted to carry the label of Doctor but did not have a medical degree, just a couple years of schooling in medical classes but dropped out of college, and now does auto mechanic work and reads biology books on the side, is that person a Doctor? No.

 

If someone wanted to call himself a Republican but did not agree with over 90% of the Republican party's beliefs (for example, they were not fiscally conservative, they were pro-abortion rights, they did not support gun ownership rights, they did not like the death penalty, they did not care for faith-based policies, etc.) but the one thing they did agree with was support of NAFTA, is that person a Republican? Er...not really, more than likely they're actually a Democrat or their beliefs fit into some third party. (I'm not Republican BTW, just using that as an example.)

 

Likewise is a person who doesn't literally believe that Jesus exists and doesn't believe in hell or demons but believes that heaven exists a Christian? I would say they are deists or universalists, most likely, but are probably afraid of taking the actual label that describes what they really are for fear of rejection from friends and family. It is that fear that keeps people hanging on to the Christian label.

[Artur]

*

[Jubilant]

Whoa, whoa, whoa....Fundamentalism is a recent phenomena? Someone should jump in a time machine and go back to medieval times when people used "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" to kill people they suspected were witches. What about the Crusades? What about Protestant Inquisitions? Martin Luther, this wonderful fellow credited for starting the Reformation, wrote a horrible and disgusting book, The Jews and Their Lies because of how LITERALLY he took his biblical view.

 

Fundamentalist Christianity is not new...those other forms of INSANE literal views were held long ago. Catholics may no longer be fundy-minded but at one time they were.

[Deva]

Your statement here points to a difficulty inherent in discussing christianity. Christianity has only recently, and by only a fraction of its adherents, been defined in this manner. It is certainly defined in this manner by modern, western evangelical/fundamentalist christians, but that is a bare fraction of what falls under the “christian” umbrella.

 

Artur, you are correct.

 

Modern fundamentalism which holds the Bible up as the absolutely inerrent and authoritative guide to life and science and the "word of God" is a recent phenomenon of the late 19th, early 20th century. It was a reaction against the modern world. It did, of course, have much earlier roots and first began in the reformation idea of "sola scriptura" the notion that the priests and the Church were not necessary for salvation, only the Bible. Out of that idea arose (with some Biblical support) the "priesthood of the believer," the idea that people could privately interpret scripture. Prior to the reformation, this was heresy.

 

This modern, fundamentalist idea of the Bible as an idol (described so well by Kryasst) would not have been meaningful to a pre-reformation, medieval person who was most likely illiterate. The Church was then the authority and interpreter. No average person had any form of a Bible before the invention of the printing press or could read it except preists and monks and possibly some of the nobility. It would be bizarre to medieval people to see a preacher of today waving a book in the air and making all these claims about its being inerrent and having a whole service centered around the preacher's own interpretation of what this book said. Instead, they had the Church traditons set forth by the magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church, the Nicene creed, the Bishops, the Priests and above all the Pope or Patriarch as their authority. The church service was centered around the eucharist, as it still is in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churchs (among others) of today, not a sermon and Bible preaching. One of the explanations the Eastern Orthodox church gives for its use of icons is that they were used as a teaching aid in the centuries when people were illiterate.

[Guest Marty]

Fundamentalism is the standard for those of us who grew up with it, in my case, Lutheran Fundamentalism as opposed to say, Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. It does not make sense for those of us who grew up with it to suddenly apply a different standard to the religion that we were raised with black and white beliefs in and call it the same religion...

 

If you don't believe literally in the Bible, then you are cherry picking and essentially creating your own religion... The problem with the Bible is that one can choose whichever verses one wants to support pretty much anything.

 

This is what I've been thinking while reading this thread. I was rasied Evangelical Lutheran. I've heard others define Lutheranism as a "Liberal" xtianity, or "catholic lite", but I never understood that grouping untill I realized what an "evangelical" actually was. When I watch the fundies on TV like Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, I remember and relate to those types of people, and they remind me of the atmosphere I was raised in. When I hear liberal xtians speak, I still consider them "wrong", even though I know the bible is horse shit. The bible says it, if you claim to a xtian, you MUST follow all laws written therein.

 

The teachers I had in that school were Pat Robertson. I was taught Luther's idea of "sola scriptura", or "only what is written in scripture". This literal reading of the bible is what I was taught from the begining. And really, if you can not read the bible literally, of what value is it?

 

Ironicly, it was being taught this that led me to de-convert too. One day I was taught to read the bible literally, then the next was told that the commandment to kill homosexual men was a product of an ignorant time. I got no answer when asked how we could tell if resurection from the dead was also not a product of an ignorant time.

 

I hate fundamentalism, but it really is the only sect that has it "right" as far as what the bible is...a rulebook to follow for proper living. I disagree with large parts of it, so I am no longer a xtain.

[Jubilant]

I look at evangelicals and laugh because all though they claim that the Bible is the "inspired, inerrant, infallible" word of God, they DO NOT live their lives as they preach, if they did, they'd sell all there belongings, live in communes, and follow Jesus. They wouldn't be so hell bent on their desire to keep illegals out because they'd give "freely" including their land. There would be excommunications on a regular basis if they were following commands by Paul on how to deal with sinners in the church, something like five steps and then give them over to Satan in order to bring them back. They wouldn't be trying to impose their morals regarding homosexuals because "after all, "the" law is obsolete". I could go on, but I think you get my point. They claim "inspired, infallible, inerrant" but the CHERRY-PICK they daylights out of the scriptures. In essence, they are nothing but a bunch of babbling hypocrites.

 

In regards to this, I'm still failing to see the difference between then and now. For the most part, "the" church is still trying to impose on its followers what the Bible "really" says. You can believe in Jesus Christ but if you don't believe in a literal hell...then you are considered hell-bound. Perhaps I just need to ponder on all of this awhile, maybe I'm just missing something, I'll try to be open minded.

[Mythra]

But why should we believe their drivel, when it is so clear that they are utterly wrong about everything? Could it be that Christianity does not equal fundamentalism? Could it be that the older forms of the faith are more true to what Christianity is supposed to be about?

 

What do you mean, "supposed to be about" ? According to who? According to GOD? Or are you saying that the religious denominations that have been established for hundreds of years are the closest to what the earliest christians practiced?

 

During my long sojourn with the religion, I spent some time in a Lutheran denomination (ELCA) . They go from one holy day to the next. The ashes on the forehead thing was a bit much. But, I fail to see your point. Are liberal christians better people than fundies? Probably.

 

Do they still base their worldview on an antiquated book that is filled with absurd stories? Yes.

 

So what if they tend to think that Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, and the Exodus are all allegorical tales. They still think that Jesus rose from the dead to save a fallen mankind from sin. And they maintain a superior attitude - like they are the ones who hold the truth and it's the goofy fundamentalists and holy rollers who are out to lunch.

 

And, with regards to Catholics, I never met a Catholic who had the slightest idea what was in the bible. They know all about the saints and the latest pronouncement from the pope. And they know about communion and confession. But it's a foreign concept to them to even bring a bible to church with them.

[Jubilant]

And, with regards to Catholics, I never met a Catholic who had the slightest idea what was in the bible. They know all about the saints and the latest pronouncement from the pope. And they know about communion and confession. But it's a foreign concept to them to even bring a bible to church with them.

 

Until recently, I never knew this tidbit about Catholics, I find it fascinating. Even though one of my dearest childhood friends is Catholic, they still teach a literal hell and Catholics believe that...well, they believe in "levels" and "purgatory" as well. One of my fundy friends was talking about how "silly" it was that Catholics believe in levels of hell, I didn't say anything but was thinking, "And believing in just one hell isn't silly?" LOL

[Mythra]

Catholics have some strange ideas, for sure. (at least I saw them as strange when I was a fundy). Such as the fact that they pray to Mary and they appeal to the various dead saints to intervene on their behalf with the big Guy. And all of the candles. And the rosary. And crossing themselves. And all the kneeling.

 

Of course, now I see those things as every bit as reasonable as to think that a ghost inseminated a virgin, creating a hybrid ghost-man. Or that a deity is reading my mind and analyzing and influencing my thoughts 24/7. Or that the devil roams the earth just looking for his next victim to tear apart. Or about a thousand other ideas that are incredibly stupid and detrimental to a healthy state of mind.

[Amethyst]

Defining Christianity as faithfulness to the bible makes no sense for much of Christianity’s history. For the first several hundred years, there was no complete “bibleâ€, but only the Jewish scriptures and various writings that would later be compiled into the New Testament. Early Christianity was more fluid and depended more on following the consensus views of church leaders (see, for example, the early Council of Nicea, which says nothing of official “scriptureâ€, but defined christian faith in what came to be known eventually as the Nicene Creed).

 

But we live in modern day society and not in the ancient world, so there is no reason to not define it by at least some literal belief in Jesus's teachings, which are in the Bible. Even the ancients were literally believing in things that their church leaders told them were Jesus's teachings, which is no different than what people today do.

 

If you cannot define a religion by faithfulness to its beliefs, and you are instead defining it by the labels that people choose to carry because no two people in that religion have the same set of beliefs, then it is not a religion but a customized set of beliefs by each individual member. And then you have no way to define who is Christian and who is not except by who takes on the label of Christian.

 

You are saying we cannot have a standard set of beliefs, but we need to have a standard set of beliefs to define the religion. If people do not have at least *some* literal belief in a religion, and more than just 10% of it, then that religion becomes meaningless and they might as well call themselves deist, universalist, neopagan, agnostic, atheist, or whatever they really are.

 

I still think the main reason that people in our society do not label themselves correctly, and continue to hang onto Christian labels, is fear of rejection.

[Amethyst]

Whoa, whoa, whoa....Fundamentalism is a recent phenomena? Someone should jump in a time machine and go back to medieval times when people used "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" to kill people they suspected were witches. What about the Crusades? What about Protestant Inquisitions? Martin Luther, this wonderful fellow credited for starting the Reformation, wrote a horrible and disgusting book, The Jews and Their Lies because of how LITERALLY he took his biblical view.

 

Fundamentalist Christianity is not new...those other forms of INSANE literal views were held long ago. Catholics may no longer be fundy-minded but at one time they were.

 

Jubilant has a point. Literal belief in Biblical teachings is not new. A rigid, black and white style of thinking and a belief that your way is The Only Way is all you need for fundamentalism. Those people who burned women because they were accused of being witches were fundies. Those who started the Crusades were fundies. Martin Luther was a fundy. If they did not have literal belief, as well as an arrogant attitude, they would have never done those things.

 

One doesn't have to be, for example, a Southern Baptist to be a fundamentalist. My mother was a fundy Lutheran. I have relatives who are still fundy Lutherans as well. Fundamentalism is not limited to one or two denominations.

[Artur]

*

[Deva]

I think there are some misunderstandings about the word “fundamentalism.”

 

fundamentalism – (1922) 1. a. A movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teaching. b. the beliefs of this movement c. adherence to such beliefs 2. ; a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principals. – Webster’s 9th ed.

 

Evolution Beyond: “..it seems to me that the fundamentalist approach to Christianity is actually quite a recent development.”

 

Correct, EB. In its most common meaning “fundamentalism” refers specifically to the early 20th century movement in the protestant church involving a literal interpretation of the Bible. I can agree with you, Amethyst, if you are using the second dictionary meaning of “stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principals,” but that is not the most commonly used definition. Strictly speaking in most centuries past there was obedience to church authority and not the Bible as a privately interpreted authority (which is post-reformation). Luther was in rebellion against the Church and probably was in fact interpreting scripture in a literal way. I am sure other theologians of his time and prior to him did also. He was educated and literate (most people of his time were not). But if you said to him “you are a fundamentalist,” in its most commonly understood meaning, he wouldn’t know what you were talking about. It is a modern word. It only started being used in any form in 1922.

 

EB: “It seems to me that Catholics, like my wife, place more importance on the figure of Jesus Christ, on his story and what it represents and on the traditions of the Church than they do on random passages from the Old Testament or from Paul's letters”

 

That’s right. Catholics do place more importance on traditions. Roman Catholic teachings are based not only upon the Bible, but also on tradition. Teachings such as the infallibility of the pope, the Immaculate Conception, assumption of Mary into heaven, etc., are 19th and 20th century additions to the church’s teachings. They are not Bible based. They are equally authoritative for Catholics, though, because the pope speaks for Christ on earth and can establish doctrines, which must then be believed (a problem for me).

 

The inquisition burned women because the governments of that time gave them the authority to do so and for reasons other than “the Bible says so.” They were obeying the Bishops and the Pope. They had developed a whole manual defining what a “witch” was (the Malleus Malificarum) and it was also authoritative for them. The fact that the Bible said “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” was a justification. Call them dogmatic, call them crazy, but I wouldn’t call them fundamentalists in the commonly used sense of that term. Their reasoning did not involve simply a literal, private interpretation of the Bible. Christianity in all its forms has evolved through the centuries, and continues to do so. Because of that fact, one must question a Christian today to find out what their understanding of the word “Christian” means.

 

Of course in modern times “fundamentalism” is found in every denomination because there are literal minded people everywhere. The word generally means people who take a literal view of scripture. That could also refer to other religions.

 

Christianity is flawed. But there are different ways of understanding the symbols behind it, and some of them are more damaging than others.

[Evolution_beyond]

What do you mean, "supposed to be about" ? According to who? According to GOD? Or are you saying that the religious denominations that have been established for hundreds of years are the closest to what the earliest christians practiced?

 

Well maybe not closest to the earliest christians because that would probably be gnosticism or something.

 

But yes, I suppose I meant closest to what Christianity was like when it first emerged as a fully formed religion (some time around the Council of Nicaea perhaps)

 

Although I've just seen the flaws in that argument - because the original form of Christianity was probably some kind of Gospel of Thomas proto-gnosticism. In which case new-age types or Unitarian Universalists may be closer.

[Evolution_beyond]

Catholics have some strange ideas, for sure. (at least I saw them as strange when I was a fundy). Such as the fact that they pray to Mary and they appeal to the various dead saints to intervene on their behalf with the big Guy. And all of the candles. And the rosary. And crossing themselves. And all the kneeling.

 

Yeah, a lot of that stuff is weird. But I like candles

[Evolution_beyond]

But we live in modern day society and not in the ancient world, so there is no reason to not define it by at least some literal belief in Jesus's teachings, which are in the Bible.

 

Indeed. I said that Christianity is defined by belief in a person - Jesus. So the gospels need to be taken at face value for someone to be a christian. But there's no reason in theory why someone couldn't reject the rest of the Bible and still be a christian because they accept the story of Jesus and follow him. After all, a christian would say that Jesus is God, so what he said and did is divine revelation. They could also say that the rest of the Bible only comes from man, and not necessarily God and so it could be flawed. This latter belief would not stop them from being a christian.

 

If you cannot define a religion by faithfulness to its beliefs, and you are instead defining it by the labels that people choose to carry because no two people in that religion have the same set of beliefs, then it is not a religion but a customized set of beliefs by each individual member. And then you have no way to define who is Christian and who is not except by who takes on the label of Christian.

 

Kind of like a straight man can sleep with men sometimes and still be straight because that is how he defines himself - or a gay man can sleep with a woman once and still be gay because that's how he defines himself?

 

The truth of the matter is that everyone defines their own faith (or lack of it) in their own way. Labels are just a convention for making sense of things and talking about them.

 

We define sexuality according to someone's 'identity', rather than their actual behaviour. What's the difference between sexuality and faith? Is someone finds something of value in the Christian tradition, if someone is following the religion in some form or other than aren't they Christian? Don't they have a right to call themselves that? Seems to me that if someone follows Christ, they are a christian - that's all the name means after all.

 

Why are you arguing for True Christianity ™? That's the point I was making - too many ex-fundie ex-christians are still making the same arguments that fundamentalists make. Fundamentalism is not the only form of Christianity!