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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The Evangelical slide into Fundamentalism
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm intrigued at the proof of Brian McLaren's declaration of foundationalism in common between liberalism and evangelicalism in particular.
Both are legalistic - use case law - and therefore based on a wooden cascade of beliefs using pre-modern rhetoric.
Both use the same useless, unreal mechanism to polarize over issues like homosexuality.
Horseman Bree (ay up) and others repeatedly say that as the Old Covenant and its prohibition on shellfish is dead therefore that on homosexuality is.
How ... Aristotelian.
Evangelicals seem to find all sorts of reasons and reasonings not to approve of homosexuality as justification for it not being included in Judeo-Christian orthopraxis.
Horseman Bree has also brought up before, as have others, it's anadromous here somewhere, that evos believe that divorce is a sin but tolerate it (true - or their churches would be empty) but won't go 'further' and accept homosexual partnerships.
All examples of legalistic rhetorical foundationalism.
All wrong. As is bringing in usury.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I know these are issues that the likes of Mudfrog and CSL1 are likely to have to deal with pastorally at some point because they are - or have been - in leadership positions...I'm tempted to ask how they would deal with someone in a leadership position (or potential leadership position) within their church who confided in them that they had homosexual tendencies or inclinations.
I was in a leadership position (local director-level, not ordained pastoral) within the PCUSA, not exactly a hotbed of anti-homosexual rhetoric!
Not sure I'm comfortable with having my nom de plume preceded by "the likes of", but I'll get over it. I've been described in harsher ways.
If someone in a leadership/pastoral position told me they had homosexual tendencies, I'd tell them we all have tendencies towards that which the Bible defines as sin, and that I'm no better or worse that they are because I'm included within that category of "we all". But I wouldn't tell them that acting out on these tendencies was OK any more than I'd expect them to tell me acting out on my tendencies is OK.
And yet I do act out on my sinful tendencies, so who am I to judge someone at the deepest level, to think myself inherently better than them? I am no one and have no such right. But that still doesn't mean sin isn't sin: mine or theirs.
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
...evos believe that divorce is a sin but tolerate it (true - or their churches would be empty) but won't go 'further' and accept homosexual partnerships.
All examples of legalistic rhetorical foundationalism.
Fair point.
Of course not all evangelicals tolerate divorce, many vigorously attempt to hold friends to their marriage vows, presumably made to God and friends/family. Had a friend in the church one time who left her husband and dragged their daughter away from father because, in her words, "Bob can't manage money, we've gone bankrupt twice, I can't take it anymore." It's been over a decade, but I tried--ultimately to no avail--to talk her out of it, it was morally wrong.
All sin is sin, but some sins may well have far more deleterious effects.
I think you've put your finger on a huge blind spot with many evangelicals, they've fudged the divorce issue and as a result children have been emotionally brutalized. My wife had to suffer through her mother's three divorces growing up, two of them after she became a believer.
It's a blamed tragedy, and the church is paying a heavy price for turning a blind eye, generations have grown up rejecting the faith of their parents--which I believe to be the only objectively true one--because it apparently wasn't enough to "keep mom and dad together".
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Hmmm ...
It seems to me that the apostle Paul had something of a downer on marriage at one point - even though he'd probably been married himself at some stage previously in order to have qualified for the level he'd reached as a Rabbi ... mainly because he believed the Second Coming was imminent.
At any rate, he seemed to be advising against it but had sufficient pastoral compassion and savvy to suggest that people who wanted to get married, ought to get married ...
'It is better to marry than to burn.'
Whatever we make of all of that, it does strike me that there was a certain amount of 'economia' in his approach. Ok, so we don't know what he'd have done if a gay couple (in contemporary terms) had approached him for counsel. I suspect he would have had some harsh things to say. Who knows?
The point, though, is what do we do now?
On the divorce thing, yes, it is painful and awful thing - I grew up in a broken home - but it happens. And it happens to Christians as well as to anyone else - to people of all faiths or none. Just as Christians get killed in road accidents or die of deadly diseases just like anyone else does.
I apologise for the 'likes of' - simply a slipshod expression on my part. I certainly wouldn't lump you in with the likes of Hagin, Copeland or Aimee Semple MacPherson either - although I'd probably cut her more slack than the other two ...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
What if people can't 'help' but be attracted to people of their own sex? Is that sin any more than to be left-handed is sin?
I really don't know where I am on this issue - I think it is well-nigh impossible to make out a biblical case that is in anyway sympathetic towards homosexual practice - but there's the letter of the law and the spirit of it and so on and so forth. I have friends in same-sex relationships. I don't treat them any differently to the way I'd treat people in heterosexual relationships. I'd rather they were in civil partnerships and monogamous relationships than in promiscuous ones, but it's none of my business ultimately.
In some ways the kind of argument that says that people 'shouldn't' be gay reminds me of the way some of the health-wealth people go around saying that people shouldn't be ill. I'm not classing you in with that lot, but there are some parallels to an extent. People are ill, people get sick. Ok, so you can cite texts like 'Trophimus I left sick at Miletus' to indicate that the NT sees nothing unusual or reprehensible about people being ill - 'Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thy frequent illnesses' - whereas every reference to homosexual practice in the scriptures is a negative one. Granted.
But we still have to deal with the fact that some people have homosexual tendencies whether we like it or not. Disapproving of them doesn't get us very far. Perhaps a 'do not promote, do not forbid' stance would be a pragmatic one - rather like the one that the old Church of The Nazarene took on the 'tongues' issue ... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I'm becoming increasingly liberal on this issue, but I can't cite chapter and verse to support that. But pragmatically ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Any further mention of homosexuality or same-sex practice has to be linked explicitly to the OP. Or the thread will be moved.
John Holding
Purgatory Host
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
I am saying that by that rule, unless we know of a valid non-religious reason, all other Mosaic prohibitions should be lifted. But of course we don't say that (hence the incest, etc) but we still allow for homosexuality because in the last 40 years it's become acceptable.
No, of course we DO say that. Because we DO have other, valid non-religious reasons for banning incest, etc.
That's the very point. You've actually articulated extremely well the reasoning process, and then dodged sideways past the inclusion to suggest that the only reason we continue to say no to incest is a religious one.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But if "evidence "is ever changing then I would question the extent to which it can be relied upon as evidence
A better word in this case is "accumulating"-- at long last, after centuries of more-or less deliberate concealment.
But I would nevertheless question its epistemological value if it is - for whatever reason - being continually revised. One is reminded of the tiresomely frequent changes - sometimes contradictory - in medical advice on this and that. The 'evidence du jour should not be taken as the Gospel truth, unlike the...er...Gospel.
The problem, though, is that people tend to use the Gospel to back up their view. There were passages in the Bible that were used to show that of course the sun moved around the earth.
Those passages are still there. They're not read the same way in the light of new evidence.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
Any further mention of homosexuality or same-sex practice has to be linked explicitly to the OP. Or the thread will be moved.
John Holding
Purgatory Host
If either of my posts violated this ruling, it's because I hadn't seen it yet. Hopefully they don't, as I'm trying to talk much more generally about reasoning processes. How do we read rules and statements in the Bible?
To me, one of the characteristics of 'fundamentalism' is precisely that statements are read in a bald, "that's what it says" manner with no room for argument or consideration of what it 'means'.
[ 26. July 2012, 23:03: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
All 'becauses' are post-hoc.
Dammit, that's the second thing in the space of a month that you have said that I not only understand but enthusiastically agree with.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But if "evidence" is ever changing then I would question the extent to which it can be relied upon as evidence
As we rely upon any evidence: provisionally. We're not promised certainty in this life.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But I would nevertheless question its epistemological value if it is - for whatever reason - being continually revised.
Isn't that exactly the situation we have in driving a car? The incoming data ("evidence") is constantly changing. Driving, like learning --which this life is-- is an iterative process. When the light changes, we have to put on the brake. When we see a huge pothole, we have to swerve to miss it. But the basic direction, the basic premise of driving a car, isn't changed by that.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Orfeo -- not aimed at you or anyone else in particular. More an expression of frustration after reading 3 pages or more where most people talked of little else.
John
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
If there was a proper study of this then maybe we would discover the dangers and hence see why God prohibited it.
Though, of course, there have been studies. Though, perhaps the one's I'm aware of (from about 20 years ago - though, why should the analysis of the holiness codes have chnaged since then?) may have been conducted by people who are considered "too liberal" for evangelicals leaning towards the fundamentalist end of the spectrum. Although, those studies were by people I'd consider as evangelical, some of them subsequently got frustrated with evangelical mainstream and became associated with 'post evangelicalism'. I can't remember the people who did the studies off the top of my head, I can remember John Peck leading a discussion talking through the relevant Biblical and early Church material at Greenbelt that included some of the stuff (though no great depth into the purpose of the holiness code at that session).
Is disregarding scholarship from more liberal parts of evangelicalism, let alone the rest of the church, an indication of a slide towards fundamentalism? Or is it simply intellectual laziness?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
This shows that my purposive approach isn't restricted to utilitarian ethics. For me, this is about being faithful to moral rules, using our best understanding of their purposes. I see this approach as preferable to applying moral rules literally, regardless of their purpose ... don't you? Of course, your approach may well be different from either of these views. What is your approach to applying the Bible's moral rules?
It's a relational approach - not one where we apply woodenly, neither one where I feel free to tell God that because I can't see the purpose of his rule he must be wrong. I think the rules paradigm is a bit unehlpful to be honest - it's got much more to do with knowing God in such a way that you are likely to trust he is right.
quote:
Originally posted by Allwyn
If the evidence changes, I'm open to changing my mind - aren't you?
On incest? Not really. If psychology changes its mind on that, that would probably reflect a changing societal view of harm rather than it actually not really being harmful any more. IMHO.
quote:
Originally posted by Allwyn
As I said, this would depend on whether I could find a moral principle that justified the no-incest rule, regardless of harm.
To ignore changing evidence would seem like the rigid thinking that's characteristic of a 'slide into fundamentalim'.
Also, while the evidence has changed about same-sex relationships, the evidence hasn't changed about incest. I don't see any reason to treat the last 50 years of thinking on same-sex relationships as predictive of the next 50 years of thinking on incest ... do you?
No, there's clearly no direct link. However, even in that article you quoted, it's clear that in the media incest is now being treated as the "shocking taboo" that same sex eroticism once was.
I can't buy the harm principle because the Christian duty seems to me to be to follow both the first and second great commandment. As I think the framwork we have for sex is primarily about loving God, and marriage is ultimately a pciture of his nature, I think moving away from that model, even if we can see no harm to others being done, as ultimately disobedient to the first commandment.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
There is something worrying going on aboard Ship. Like Mousethief I have understood and agreed with several of Martin's comments recently.
Either I'm cottoning on to his writing style or he's expressing himself a lot more clearly.
@Leprechaun, even if that is the case and that homosexual practice is a violation of the first commandment as you seem to suggest - the fact remains, what can we do about it?
In attempting to keep this in line with the OP, I agree with your point about trusting God implicitly enough to obey his commands even if we don't, as yet, understand the reason for them.
However, I would suggest that the issue isn't as clear cut as that. As Orfeo has suggested there is the whole issue of meaning and context and not a simplistic 'it says that so that settles it' argument. As has been said, there are texts that could be taken to imply that the world is flat, yet we don't read them that way anymore - at least, most of us don't ...
I recognise that there is something of a slippery slope here - where do you draw the line? If the Bible is unreliable on some points then how can we trust it on others etc etc.
I'm not sure that's how these things work, though.
Anyway, overall, I don't see much evidence of a general evangelical slide into fundamentalism. If anything the movement has 'come of age' to a certain extent - at least here in the UK and some aspects of evangelicalism in the US - if that doesn't sound too much like a Pond chauvinism.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Gamaliel
There is something worrying going on aboard Ship. Like Mousethief I have understood and agreed with several of Martin's comments recently.
Either I'm cottoning on to his writing style or he's expressing himself a lot more clearly.
Yes, I've noticed this too. In fact, it's pretty rare for him to post things that I could disagree with, these days. Maybe the fact we are viewing things in similar ways has helped me to understand his style more. I've certainly expanded my quotes file!!
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In attempting to keep this in line with the OP, I agree with your point about trusting God implicitly enough to obey his commands even if we don't, as yet, understand the reason for them.
However, I would suggest that the issue isn't as clear cut as that. As Orfeo has suggested there is the whole issue of meaning and context and not a simplistic 'it says that so that settles it' argument. As has been said, there are texts that could be taken to imply that the world is flat, yet we don't read them that way anymore - at least, most of us don't ...
Please don't misunderstand me, I was not denying that the issue in question is very complex. I was responding to a specific point about deciding which rules are applicable by working out the reasons behind them and then, if we can't, discarding them. I'm merely saying I don't think that's a very useful hermeneutic.
I'm not at all saying that everyone who disagrees with me on the issue at hand does so for that reason.The issue is complex.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
You still haven't answered my question.
I think I did a page back. But to address it perhaps more directly, if someone wanted to compare a man being married to a woman for 23 years to murder or beastiality, then I'd say they're 100% wrong, because there's nothing in the Bible that condemns such behavior. ...
You've told me what you'd say. You haven't told me what you'd feel. In the past, when people asked me 'how do you feel about X?', they've observed that I responded in a similar way (from my head, not my heart). I can hardly blame you, if you have the same tendency!
Maybe it will help if I answer my question. Suppose I'm in a loving marriage and I'm taking part in a moral debate. Suppose my opponent compared acceptance of my marriage to acceptance of paedophilia, bestiality and incest - abusive relationships. How would I feel? I'd feel confused because (like you) I wouldn't see my relationship as sinful. I'd feel angry at my relationship being linked to abusive behaviours. In a debate with an audience, I'd feel unfairly treated - that my opponent was trying to make me look bad by associating my relationship with relationships that people find repugnant.
You previously asked:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
By your standards, who are you to judge a shepherd who decides to couple with a sheep and derive pleasure therefrom in the isolation of a meadow far away from civilization? By what objective standard do you judge this behavior? Is your judgment made right because "people find" such behavior "especially repugnant"? Really? That justifies your judgment of such private behavior that presumably does nothing but give a person pleasure?
Please tell me by what standard do you judge this behavior.
Here, you seem to imply that I'm a moral relativist. I have no problem with the idea that there are objectively right answers to our moral questions (for me, they're the answers that God would give.) I don't claim that I (or anyone else) knows God's mind on every moral question.
No, my judgement isn't made right because people find conduct repugnant. As I showed above, my comment about 'behaviour people would find repugnant' was about unfair debating tactics, not how to answer moral questions.
The basis for my moral judgements is (I hope) a purposive understanding of moral rules, not whether people find behaviour repugnant. Previously, Leprechaun asked whether I would see adult, consensusal, non-harmful sibling incest as morally wrong. If I thought that repugnance towards behaviour was sufficient to regard that behaviour as bad, then I could have said so. However, I replied that, to regard such conduct as wrong, I'd need to find a moral principle explaining the purpose of the no-incest rule.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
It's a relational approach - not one where we apply woodenly, neither one where I feel free to tell God that because I can't see the purpose of his rule he must be wrong.
How is your relational approach different from an approach that would apply moral rules from the Bible literally, disregarding their purpose?
I don't 'feel free to tell God that because I can't see the purpose of his rule he must be wrong.' As I've shown, for me 'trust in God' includes the idea that there are purposes behind moral rules - it's our job to work them out as best we can.
The (apparent) implication that my view leads to being 'free to tell God that ... he must be wrong' seems to conflate 'what God thinks' with 'what churches teach that the Bible means'. As I see it, no-one has a perfect understanding of God's answers to moral questions - not even churches. Being 'independent of what the world says, neither automatically opposed to it nor in favour of it' (as arthosemyfeet helpfully put it) includes the possibility that Christians' moral judgements can be informed by secular information (bearing in mind Matt Black's wise comment that 'The evidence du jour should not be taken as the Gospel truth'). Would you say that Christians should always ignore information from secular sources when making moral decisions?
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
I can't buy the harm principle because the Christian duty seems to me to be to follow both the first and second great commandment. As I think the framwork we have for sex is primarily about loving God, and marriage is ultimately a pciture of his nature, I think moving away from that model, even if we can see no harm to others being done, as ultimately disobedient to the first commandment.
Here, it sounds like you are taking into account the purpose behind moral rules. You wouldn't necessarily need to 'buy the harm principle' to adopt a purposive approach to moral rules. Moral principles (without involving harm) can explain the purpose of moral rules. For me, an understanding of morality that always ignored harm would be incomplete; of course I realise that some people see morality differently.
You mentioned obedience to God's commandments. Suppose you were a teenager with a much younger brother. Your parents took you and your brother to a park and gave you both a rule: stay in the park. You deduce that the purpose behind the rule is to prevent you from wandering into a busy road. Suppose your brother left the park - listening to loud music, with his back to you - and was wandering into the road. Suppose your parents were nowhere near. You could:-
(a) apply the rule literally: stay in the park
(b) apply the rule purposively: leave the park to bring your brother back
For me, (b) involves truer obedience than (a).
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I'm tempted to ask how they would deal with someone in a leadership position (or potential leadership position) within their church who confided in them that they had homosexual tendencies or inclinations...
Some people are gay. Get over it...
There is nothing at all blameworthy in having homosexual tendencies - the origins and extent of this is a mystery.
It is the practice, the genital expression of these tendencies that is not, in our opinion based on Scripture, permissable in the life of a Christian.
The wonderful thing is that you will find that most Salvationists will be accepting of a couple that might come into worship. We would welcome them as a couple but full covenant membership where they would sign a covenant with god and wear a uniform would not be available to them. Adherent membership - a status taken by an awful lot of people who, for example, still want to drink, is fully available to them.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
The (apparent) implication that my view leads to being 'free to tell God that ... he must be wrong' seems to conflate 'what God thinks' with 'what churches teach that the Bible means'.
This.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
How is your relational approach different from an approach that would apply moral rules from the Bible literally, disregarding their purpose?
Well I don't accept the rules paradigm for relating to God, but I think it differs in that the rules are a source of revelation of God's character. Your approach as you expressed it before (and it may well be more nuanced than this in reality) was to say that God's character and the rule conflict, and so we go with God's character. I can't buy that I'm afraid.
quote:
I don't 'feel free to tell God that because I can't see the purpose of his rule he must be wrong.' As I've shown, for me 'trust in God' includes the idea that there are purposes behind moral rules - it's our job to work them out as best we can.
The (apparent) implication that my view leads to being 'free to tell God that ... he must be wrong' seems to conflate 'what God thinks' with 'what churches teach that the Bible means'.
Absolutely not. I'm no more claiming a perfect interpretation than you. But you specifically said that we can discard the rule (not what a church says about the rule) should we no longer see the moral purpose behind it. Changing the discussion to be about the fact that there are interpretative questions too is simply obfuscating.
quote:
Would you say that Christians should always ignore information from secular sources when making moral decisions?
Clearly not. It's impossible to make myself free from the influence of secular sources and would imply an extremely diminished view of God's relationship to creation so it's not desirable either. But there is a difference (for example) between accepting that a psychologist will have useful insights into the relationships that tend to go along with incest, and saying that unless the psychologist can provide a reason why incest is wrong, on their secular definition of harm, that I won't accept it's wrong. That reduces the Bible to merely being helpful background to what we are capable of working out ourselves.
quote:
Here, it sounds like you are taking into account the purpose behind moral rules. You wouldn't necessarily need to 'buy the harm principle' to adopt a purposive approach to moral rules. Moral principles (without involving harm) can explain the purpose of moral rules. For me, an understanding of morality that always ignored harm would be incomplete; of course I realise that some people see morality differently.
That much, I think, is not in dispute between us. You seemed to be giving harm a far more central role than you are now suggesting in your previous posts.
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He hath loved us, He hath loved us, because he would love
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
But you specifically said that we can discard the rule (not what a church says about the rule) should we no longer see the moral purpose behind it. Changing the discussion to be about the fact that there are interpretative questions too is simply obfuscating.
I'm not going try and speak for Alwyn (he can do that perfectly well for himself). But, I don't see it as a simple question of "there is a rule" and "this is what the church says about it". We're basically stuck with "this is what the church says" most of the time. Perhaps it's a mark of fundamentalist leanings to equate "the Church teaches" with "God says".
To return to the homosexuality example. The church has traditionally taught "homosexuality is a sin" with the corresponding rule "thou shalt not engage in homosexual acts". This teaching is based, in part, on an interpretation of Scripture. If one is open to an honest re-evaluation of the Scriptures (which I would say evangelicals should always be open to) then the possibility is there that Scripture does not infact teach that homosexuality is a sin, and therefore the rules of the church should be similar to all other non-sinful sexual acts - that there is a proper place for such acts; within a faithful, committed relationship (which we call marriage).
If there is a slide towards fundamentalism in evangelicalism then I would say that an uncritical acceptance of an interpretation of Scripture would be a mark of such a slide.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If there is a slide towards fundamentalism in evangelicalism then I would say that an uncritical acceptance of an interpretation of Scripture would be a mark of such a slide.
The way some seem to be claiming that you cannot be a Christian if you don't believe in seven day creationism, or dispensationalism, or that homosexuality is always sinful - often all three - is evidence of this. At least amongst the conservative end of the evangelical continuum.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Mudfrog, yes, I am aware of how the Salvation Army responds to people who might not, how can we put it, live up to its standards. I well remember how the Sally Army married a friend of mine from school and her boyfriend when she fell pregnant - something none of the other churches in town were prepared to do.
Neither were Salvationists.
I s'pose what I find difficult is the idea that whilst homosexual inclinations might be acceptable, their physical expression isn't. I'm not sure how I square that particular circle. It's something I would leave to the individual conscience - as indeed it would seem by your example of Salvation Army adherents who might be gay or who might not wish to be teetotal demonstrates in your case.
My own view is evolving but I think it would be very hard - contra Alan Cresswell - to make a case for the Bible being neutral or even supportive of homosexual activity. Every single reference to homosexual activity in the scriptures that I am aware of appears to be negative - and yes, I am prepared to accept that much of it would be referring to older fellas and minors, pagan temple practices and so on - but I'm not sure all of the references fit that interpretation so neatly.
The one NT reference to lesbian activity, for instance, Romans 1:26, doesn't seem to lend itself to that interpretation and strongly condemns such sexual expression as 'against nature'. What do we make of that and how do we deal with it?
I know a lesbian Anglican priest. Would it mean that I should treat her differently to other Anglican priests? That I should never hear her preach nor receive the sacraments at her hands? I haven't done either, by the way, but were I around when she was preaching or presiding, what would my attitude/reaction be?
In terms of Alan Cresswell's comments, though, if I don't accept - as he does - that scripture is capable of being interpreted in favour of homosexuality, where does that leave me?
There are only a few options, but plenty of nuances, I would suggest ...
1. We accept that the Bible is uniformly negative about homosexuality and say, 'that was then but this is now ...'
2. We try to make the scriptures fit our own more liberal views on the issue. Hard. They don't bend that much. However, there is always the 'spirit but not the letter' of the law.
3. We hold to the traditional view at the risk of being labelled fundamentalists, yet try to be as open and welcoming to people with a homosexual orientation as we can possibly be without compromising our convictions.
4. We seek another way ... something that draws on the insights of each ...
I hope that doesn't take us too far away from the fundamentalism issue ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
Your approach as you expressed it before ... was to say that God's character and the rule conflict, and so we go with God's character.
You're right that God's character is part of how I'd work out the purpose of a rule. What should we do if God's character and a rule appear to conflict?
In my example (above) of the family in the park, suppose you know that your parents love you and your brother. If your brother left the park and was in danger, the rule ('stay in the park') would appear to conflict with your parents' character (they love your brother, they'd want him safe.) Suppose you obeyed the rule literally and your brother was hurt. You told your parents what happened, explaining that you obeyed the rule (even though you knew that its application in this situation conflicted with your parents' character). Wouldn't your parents say "but you're old enough to know that, when we said 'stay in the park', we didn't mean '... even if your brother's life was in danger'"? If a bystander then accused your parents of 'discarding' their stay-in-the-park rule, I doubt that the bystander would convince many people. There's a difference between (a) discarding a rule and (b) using its purpose to work out that it doesn't apply to a particular situation.
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
... you specifically said that we can discard the rule ... should we no longer see the moral purpose behind it.
My first reaction to this was to think 'where did I advocate discarding applying rules because we don't see the moral purpose behind them'? As I see it, I'm aiming to follow the Bible's moral teaching, not trying to 'discard rules.'
My second reaction was to guess that you were referring to our discussion of the rule against incest. I see my comments on that as a discussion of the limits of the rule's application - not 'discarding the rule.' If rule X was never intended to apply to situation Y, then - if someone demanded that we must apply rule X in that situation, I wouldn't see that as a sign of obedience to the author of the rule.
I wasn't advocating the 'discarding' of the rule against incest. At that stage we were talking about a very exceptional case of adult, consensual, non-harmful sibling incest. Even then, I didn't say that the rule should be 'discarded'. I was discussing the limits of the application of the rule; I said that I'd need a moral principle to explain why the rule should apply even in that case.
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
[QUOTE] ... But there is a difference (for example) between accepting that a psychologist will have useful insights into the relationships that tend to go along with incest, and saying that unless the psychologist can provide a reason why incest is wrong, on their secular definition of harm, that I won't accept it's wrong. That reduces the Bible to merely being helpful background to what we are capable of working out ourselves.
As I said, in that case I'd need either evidence of harm (e.g. from a psychologist) or a moral principle that would explain how the no-incest rule would still apply. My approach is informed by secular information; it's not wholly dependent on that information.
I don't think my approach reduces the Bible to 'mere helpful background'. The Bible can provide vital insights into the purpose behind a moral rule. Many Christians believe that, to understand the Bible, we need to use our best understanding of what it meant to its original readers; only when we've done that can we faithfully determine its application for us. I see the purposive approach to moral rules as an application of that approach to the Bible.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
... I don't see it as a simple question of "there is a rule" and "this is what the church says about it". We're basically stuck with "this is what the church says" most of the time. ...
I think that's a good point.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
You're right that God's character is part of how I'd work out the purpose of a rule. What should we do if God's character and a rule appear to conflict?
Maybe this is where I am a fundamentalist. Because I think you say "I must have misunderstood God's character. The law of the Lord is perfect for its purpose of revealing God's character. My understanding was wrong." It's where the parent analogy doesn't hold - because, unlike God, they can't know the future. (One of the many ways I think the analogy doesn't hold - because I'm not sure parents particularly give us rules in order to reveal their character to us..., but anyway)
quote:
Originally posted by Allwyn
My second reaction was to guess that you were referring to our discussion of the rule against incest. I see my comments on that as a discussion of the limits of the rule's application - not 'discarding the rule.' If rule X was never intended to apply to situation Y, then - if someone demanded that we must apply rule X in that situation, I wouldn't see that as a sign of obedience to the author of the rule.
I understand that. I don't think its how the Bible writers envisage us responding to what God reveals through them, but I do understand it.
quote:
I was discussing the limits of the application of the rule; I said that I'd need a moral principle to explain why the rule should apply even in that case.
You see, I do think that's weird. The moral principle at play is that God has revealed it is at odds with his character in itself? The holiness code makes no mention of its potential for abuse.
quote:
I don't think my approach reduces the Bible to 'mere helpful background'. The Bible can provide vital insights into the purpose behind a moral rule. Many Christians believe that, to understand the Bible, we need to use our best understanding of what it meant to its original readers; only when we've done that can we faithfully determine its application for us. I see the purposive approach to moral rules as an application of that approach to the Bible.
I don't think the purposive approach is an application of that. For example, I think it's possible to argue that the rule against incest applies to us differently because, unlike the original readers) we can stop children being born from incestuous relationships. (as you do) I think if you consider the POV of the first readers of the holiness code, they would have thought it was wrong because God said it, not simply because of the associated risks (and in fact the law says that is the reason to obey it repeteadly). So I'm not sure going to the original readers POV (even if it's possible) helps you much except to show how very different a modern non-fundamentalist approach to the Bible differs from theirs.
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Grammatica
Shipmate
# 13248
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Posted
Again (perhaps for the last time?) I wish we would not attempt to discuss the "Evangelical slide into fundamentalism" without discussing the political uses to which Evangelicalism has lent itself in the last thirty-forty years, and not only in the USA.
The cause is more likely to be found in Evangelicals' close alliance with populist politics, usually of a right-wing kind.
Populist politics deals in sound bites, simple yes-or-no answers, black-and-white moral judgments, emotionalism rather than thought. It is to political thinking what fundamentalism is to religion.
Contemporary Evangelicalism is conditioned at least as much by populist politics as it is by its purely religious beliefs. Thus it has taken on a fundamentalist cast, because populism, expressing itself as religiosity, becomes fundamentalism.
We would be paying no attention to any of this if it weren't so reliably easy to round up populist/fundamentalist Evangelicals at election time and get them to the polls. The ever-looming DH issue would be nowhere near so salient to the Evangelical mind if Evangelicalism was really a product of Bible-reading and Bible-reading alone, but "Adam & Steve" gets 'em going and gets 'em to the polls.
Just like the Bible verses that are against gun control? You all know those, right?
Posts: 1058 | From: where the lemon trees blosson | Registered: Dec 2007
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Jolly Jape
Shipmate
# 3296
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Posted
Hi Grammatica,
Pond difference.
I would think over 90% of British evos would not recognise evangelicalism in those terms. There is little pattern to political beliefs amongst British evos, but, if I had to take a punt, I would say that most are to the left of the UK political centre, which is to say well to the left in US terms.
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To those who have never seen the flow and ebb of God's grace in their lives, it means nothing. To those who have seen it, even fleetingly, even only once - it is life itself. (Adeodatus)
Posts: 3011 | From: A village of gardens | Registered: Sep 2002
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
You still haven't answered my question.
I think I did a page back. But to address it perhaps more directly, if someone wanted to compare a man being married to a woman for 23 years to murder or beastiality, then I'd say they're 100% wrong, because there's nothing in the Bible that condemns such behavior. ...
You've told me what you'd say. You haven't told me what you'd feel.
Are you asking me to assume arguendo that my relationship was that of divorced/remarried, unmarried/cohabiting, practicing homosexual, incestuous, marriage to an unbeliever, or one of the other relationships that are generally considered to violate scriptures and believed to be sinful by those who have a fundamentalist or evangelical view on faith?
If it fit one of the categories, I don't know how I'd feel, because I'd be a different person than I am now, openly living in a relationship that violated the precepts of my faith, I'd probably be experiencing severe cognitive dissonance, I'd probably have developed a certain defensiveness, I'd likely feel angry and try to find some weak spot in the accuser who compared my relationship to other sins.
But if that were the case and I were defensive, upset, whatever, I'd be objectively wrong, I should feel conviction, repent of that which is giving me cognitive dissonance and change my life and come to eventually thank the person for their admonition.
I've certainly had people--mainly, my wife, and now, my teenage daughters, sometimes others with whom I have fellowship--who have very much brought my sins to my attention, and it has quite often been of a rougher nature than goes on in this forum! Some of these corrections have cut to the very core of my being. I've typically felt anger and defensiveness at first, but usually felt sheepish in time and told the person I was sorry for being such an ass, for doiong this or that, for being a pig. That's the whole point of Christian fellowship, that we learn from one another because we all have blind spots.
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
You previously asked:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
By your standards, who are you to judge a shepherd who decides to couple with a sheep and derive pleasure therefrom in the isolation of a meadow far away from civilization? By what objective standard do you judge this behavior? Is your judgment made right because "people find" such behavior "especially repugnant"? Really? That justifies your judgment of such private behavior that presumably does nothing but give a person pleasure?
Please tell me by what standard do you judge this behavior.
Here, you seem to imply that I'm a moral relativist.
I am.
So I think I've answered your question, will you answer mine now?
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grammatica:
Again (perhaps for the last time?) I wish we would not attempt to discuss the "Evangelical slide into fundamentalism" without discussing the political uses to which Evangelicalism has lent itself in the last thirty-forty years, and not only in the USA.
The cause is more likely to be found in Evangelicals' close alliance with populist politics, usually of a right-wing kind.
Populist politics deals in sound bites, simple yes-or-no answers, black-and-white moral judgments, emotionalism rather than thought. It is to political thinking what fundamentalism is to religion.
Contemporary Evangelicalism is conditioned at least as much by populist politics as it is by its purely religious beliefs. Thus it has taken on a fundamentalist cast, because populism, expressing itself as religiosity, becomes fundamentalism.
We would be paying no attention to any of this if it weren't so reliably easy to round up populist/fundamentalist Evangelicals at election time and get them to the polls. The ever-looming DH issue would be nowhere near so salient to the Evangelical mind if Evangelicalism was really a product of Bible-reading and Bible-reading alone, but "Adam & Steve" gets 'em going and gets 'em to the polls.
Just like the Bible verses that are against gun control? You all know those, right?
Fair point. I think that the evangelical slide in the U.S. is often one of political beliefs and I believe it's cause for alarm, because while there's nothing per se wrong with right wing or left wing beliefs, I believe we have a God Who generally defies political description.
The idea that we can discern what His position would be on gun control, the flat tax, flag burning, etc., is sophistry. It also can move one along a path towards idolatry. The evangelical can become as much a worshiper of the Republican Party Platform as the Lord God.
This is not exclusively a problem of the Religious Right--the evangelical/fundamentalists--though, I've seen it in the Mainline Left. It's ultimately about who will be your god, the real God or political ideology?
[ 27. July 2012, 16:19: Message edited by: CSL1 ]
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... Are you asking me to assume arguendo that my relationship was that of divorced/remarried, unmarried/cohabiting, practicing homosexual, incestuous, marriage to an unbeliever, or one of the other relationships that are generally considered to violate scriptures and believed to be sinful by those who have a fundamentalist or evangelical view on faith?
No - as I aimed to show when I answered own my question, I assumed that you're in a loving marriage (or imagining yourself to be, for the purposes of this question). Part of the point of this is that you don't believe that your relationship is sinful, even though another person is linking acceptance of your loving relationship to acceptance of abusive, sinful relationships. Does that help?
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... I am.
So I think I've answered your question, will you answer mine now?
I think I did so, in the last part of this post (the bit below 'You previously asked').
[ 27. July 2012, 16:23: Message edited by: Alwyn ]
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
... Because I think you say "I must have misunderstood God's character. The law of the Lord is perfect for its purpose of revealing God's character. My understanding was wrong."
I find that helpful in clarifying how we see this differently. As I see it, when the purpose of a rule (perhaps understood through God's character) and a literal application of a rule conflict, we have two options:
(a) "I misunderstood God's character and should apply the rule literally."
(b) "I misinterpreted the rule; it wasn't intended to apply to this situation."
I tend to prefer (b) because a purposive approach seems like a more faithful way to apply moral rules. If I understand your comment about 'the law of the Lord is perfect', for you (a) is always the right answer (I may have misunderstood you, of course).
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
... (One of the many ways I think the analogy doesn't hold - because I'm not sure parents particularly give us rules in order to reveal their character to us ...)
I don't think parents give us rules to reveal their character to us either. Children can learn about their parents' character from everything their parents have said and done. We can learn about God's character from everything that God has said and done (not just the rules).
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... I am.
So I think I've answered your question, will you answer mine now?
I think I did so, in the last part of this post (the bit below 'You previously asked').
Nahh, you sidestepped. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair would've been proud, come on, by what standard would you judge the shepherd's behavior--or would you judge it?
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... by what standard would you judge the shepherd's behavior--or would you judge it?
As I said, my judgement wouldn't be based on 'whether people find the behaviour repugnant.' As you'd expect, I'd apply a purposive approach. I'd think about the purpose for the rule against bestiality. My understanding of the purpose of this rule would probably be something like this: a moral principle requiring compassionate treatment of animals and prohibiting abuse of them. On that basis, I'd conclude that the shepherd acted wrongly.
Do you think my approach is wrong? If so, then what, specifically, would you do differently and why?
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... Are you asking me to assume arguendo that my relationship was that of divorced/remarried, unmarried/cohabiting, practicing homosexual, incestuous, marriage to an unbeliever, or one of the other relationships that are generally considered to violate scriptures and believed to be sinful by those who have a fundamentalist or evangelical view on faith?
No - as I aimed to show when I answered own my question, I assumed that you're in a loving marriage (or imagining yourself to be, for the purposes of this question). Part of the point of this is that you don't believe that your relationship is sinful, even though another person is linking acceptance of your loving relationship to acceptance of abusive, sinful relationships. Does that help?
I don't believe that ipso facto a relationship between a man and a woman within marriage is sinful, of course the Bible doesn't identify it as such. But if such a relationship were prohibited by the Bible, both OT and NT, I'd have to take a different view of it and either 1). Ignore the Bible, or 2). Reinterpret it to suit my fancy, such as by saying it's a "loving relationship", and therefore Biblically acceptable (and by the way, our marriage is most certainly not always about love, many times it's about selfish manipulation).
Define "abusive" and "sinful".
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE:
If an adult and a child of eight choose to engage in sexual activity and both enjoy it--theoretically possible--and feel love for one another, who is anyone to say that the child can't give consent and that it's not a "loving relationship"? For example, a child of eight can certainly consent to playing rec football, which they might also enjoy in addition--theoretically--to the sexual activity with the adult? And if so, why do we treat one type of consent differently from another? What's so special about sex? Further, who is anyone to call that activity "abusive" or "sinful" and what standard do they do apply when they do so?
I'm merely trying to discover your basis for moral judgments.
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... by what standard would you judge the shepherd's behavior--or would you judge it?
As I said, my judgement wouldn't be based on 'whether people find the behaviour repugnant.' As you'd expect, I'd apply a purposive approach. I'd think about the purpose for the rule against bestiality. My understanding of the purpose of this rule would probably be something like this: a moral principle requiring compassionate treatment of animals and prohibiting abuse of them. On that basis, I'd conclude that the shepherd acted wrongly.
Why do you define the coupling as abuse? Suppose the animal likes it? Is it OK then?
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
Do you think my approach is wrong? If so, then what, specifically, would you do differently and why?
Of course I do, it's what I'm getting at. It's more of a Buddist and Hindu standard (Do no harm) or a utilitarian standard (see generally, Bentham, J.S. Mill) than it is a Biblical standard. I'm not saying that the Hindus and Buddists have it all wrong or that even utilitarianism has it all wrong in all circumstances, but what I am saying is that your standards could be read to presuppose that there is no Creator against Whom an offense might lie.
If the Lord says "X is wrong", then it is wrong, and it's not really for us to rationalize it out of existence to fit within the framework of an xtrabiblical standard.
I am an evangelical who does not condider myself a fundamentalist--though you might--and I think the chief problem is not so much that I and other evangelicals are sliding into fundamentalism, it's more that we're sliding into moral relativism, utilitarianism, standards of the day rather than immutable standards.
As has been pointed out by another poster, many evangelicals have gotten fuzzy on the divorce/remarriage issue, such that a well-known evangelical leader can "suck his wife of two or three decades' standing for the simple reason that her subcutaneous packing was deteriorating" (as Tom Wolfe so incisively put it) for the "trophy wife" or "lemon tart", and that their ministries continue on packing in crowds and pulloing in donations. Parishoners can do likewise, and their standing within the fellowship is oft virtually unchanged, no one says a thing for fear that they'll be branded "judgmental", perhaps the greatest sin of modern mankind.
It's a shame. The big problem is the slide towards relativism and good old-fashined selfishness, not fundamentalism.
[ 27. July 2012, 17:14: Message edited by: CSL1 ]
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
Buddists
Sorry for misspelling: Buddhist
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
"suck"
SHUCK - good gosh (though at least a humorous typo).
Posts: 172 | Registered: Jun 2012
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... I don't believe that ipso facto a relationship between a man and a woman within marriage is sinful ...
... and you accuse me of sidestepping a question ![[Confused]](confused.gif) ! I asked how you would feel ... where in your response are there any words that people use to describe feelings? I showed how I'd answer my question (I'd feel confused, angry and annoyed that the other person was trying to link my loving relationship with abusive ones); even that didn't seem to help you. I'm genuinely confused.
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... Define "abusive" and "sinful".
Why? You seem to make me want to 'jump through hoops.' On this thread, I've shown how I work out what's sinful (ie morally wrong). I've explained the purposive approach repeatedly.
You don't appear to explain how, specifically, your approach would be different or better. Are you willing to?
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... I'm merely trying to discover your basis for moral judgments.
Maybe so; but my presumption of good faith is wearing a bit thin. I may be wrong, but I'm beginning to feel as if you're trying to win this debate by wearing down your opponent through endless questions - while refusing to answer my 'how would you feel' question, despite repeated invitations to do so. For me, that would be another example of an unfair debating tactic.
I've explained my approach repeatedly. I've shown how the purposive approach applies to incest, bestiality and parents who tell their kids to 'stay in the park'. If you cannot work out the basis of my moral judgements from all of that, then I don't see how jumping through yet another hoop will help you.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
... Because I think you say "I must have misunderstood God's character. The law of the Lord is perfect for its purpose of revealing God's character. My understanding was wrong."
I find that helpful in clarifying how we see this differently. As I see it, when the purpose of a rule (perhaps understood through God's character) and a literal application of a rule conflict, we have two options:
(a) "I misunderstood God's character and should apply the rule literally."
(b) "I misinterpreted the rule; it wasn't intended to apply to this situation."
I tend to prefer (b) because a purposive approach seems like a more faithful way to apply moral rules. If I understand your comment about 'the law of the Lord is perfect', for you (a) is always the right answer (I may have misunderstood you, of course).
If "apply literally" means "take as an accurate representation of God's character" rather than simply "do" then I think we're almost understanding each other. I think the purposive approach alone depends too much on us knowing the mind of God.
I agree with you about knowing parents through what they say and do. But because I think God's law is specifically a revelatory tool, that's what I'm looking at it to find (rather, even, than "which bits of this is it right to obey, and when?)
[ 27. July 2012, 17:37: Message edited by: Leprechaun ]
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... I don't believe that ipso facto a relationship between a man and a woman within marriage is sinful ...
... and you accuse me of sidestepping a question ! I asked how you would feel ... where in your response are there any words that people use to describe feelings? I showed how I'd answer my question (I'd feel confused, angry and annoyed that the other person was trying to link my loving relationship with abusive ones); even that didn't seem to help you. I'm genuinely confused.
OK, now I'm the confused one.
Here's what I said, a direct quote:
"I'd probably be experiencing severe cognitive dissonance, I'd probably have developed a certain defensiveness, I'd likely feel angry and try to find some weak spot in the accuser who compared my relationship to other sins.
But if that were the case and I were defensive, upset...
I think those are exactly the sort of words you were looking for, the ones that describe "feelings":
defensive
angry
upset
So I answered your question. I think you must have skimmed my answer, the only explanation that makes sense.
[ 27. July 2012, 17:38: Message edited by: CSL1 ]
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CSL1
Shipmate
# 17168
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
...but my presumption of good faith is wearing a bit thin....jumping through yet another hoop will help you.
I'm acting in good faith here, but I fully admit I'm trying to back you into a corner so that you face the consequences of your ethos. You still haven't answered my question about the farmer and the sheep or the adult and the eight year old.
Explain your purposive approach in relationship to those specific examples, just as I specifically told you--but you missed it due to skimming--how I would feel.
[ 27. July 2012, 17:43: Message edited by: CSL1 ]
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
In terms of Alan Cresswell's comments, though, if I don't accept - as he does - that scripture is capable of being interpreted in favour of homosexuality, where does that leave me?
There are only a few options, but plenty of nuances, I would suggest ...
When Christians disagree on matters they think are significant, they tend to join different churches or denominations. There's hardly anything unusual or distinctive about that! This particular issue wouldn't have to absorb so much (fruitless?) energy if Christians simply agreed to disagree, as they do about, say, the Assumption. And differing beliefs needn't prevent Christians from loving each other, or coming together ecumenically for altruistic purposes, etc.
Re fundamentalism, one view is that it becomes more prevalent as society becomes more secular. In other words, it's a reaction to pressures from outside. If this is true, then the increasingly tolerant attitudes seen elsewhere in society are unlikely to be mirrored by churches at the more conservative end of the evangelical spectrum; they're likely to become more fundamentalist. Those at the more open evangelical end may decide that their future lies with a broader consensus.
Which end of the spectrum will 'win'? I don't know, but evangelical or fundamentalist attitudes are only important if they have political and/or cultural influence. Without that, their beliefs are surely irrelevant to outsiders. In countries where the conservative evangelicals are deemed to be too powerful the challenge is how to reduce that influence.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Right, let's pick another rule, then.
Do women have to wear hats in your church?
If not, why not?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
quote:
Originally posted by Alwyn:
...but my presumption of good faith is wearing a bit thin....jumping through yet another hoop will help you.
I'm acting in good faith here, but I fully admit I'm trying to back you into a corner so that you face the consequences of your ethos. You still haven't answered my question about the farmer and the sheep or the adult and the eight year old.
Explain your purposive approach in relationship to those specific examples, just as I specifically told you--but you missed it due to skimming--how I would feel.
Since when do either sheep or eight year olds have the capacity to stand up to you and say "I love this man, what we're doing isn't wrong?"
Because if you're asking about the farmer or the adult, you're asking the wrong question.
[ 27. July 2012, 23:31: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
quote:
For example, a child of eight can certainly consent to playing rec football...
Every rec football league I've ever known required parental consent before the child could participate.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
Leprechaun - thank you, that's helpful. I think you're right, we almost understand each other. Maybe you can help out with my conversation with CSL1, which is going around in circles. When neither side in a debate thinks that the other is really listening, then the chances of 'almost understanding each other' seem distant.
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
... Here's what I said, a direct quote:
"I'd probably be experiencing severe cognitive dissonance, I'd probably have developed a certain defensiveness, I'd likely feel angry and try to find some weak spot in the accuser who compared my relationship to other sins.
So I answered your question. ...
In the post that you quoted, you assumed that you were imagining yourself to be in an "objectively wrong" relationship. If you read my posts, then you know that wasn't what I meant. I asked how you'd feel in one situation; you told me how you'd feel in a different situation. You're still not answering the question.
The point of my question was that linking someone's loving relationship to behaviour that people find repugnant (abusive relationships) is an unfair debating tactic. Having not answered my question, you compared me to a President who notoriously (allegedly) misled the US public about an affair, and a Prime Minister who notoriously (allegedly) misled the UK public about a war - more behaviour that people find repugnant. By using that tactic, you show that you missed the point and provide another reason to question whether you're just messing me around. You say "I'm acting in good faith here, but ..." ... that's a 'yes, but' statement. Most people know what 'yes, but' means, don't they?
quote:
Originally posted by CSL1:
Explain your purposive approach in relationship to those specific examples ...
I explained how my approach applies to your first example. If you need clues, orfeo and Timothy the Obscure have provided good ones. If you cannot use my previous explanations to work out how my approach applies to your second example, then I don't think you've been listening to me at all.
Why don't we just skip ahead to the part where you explain why my approach is wrong, how your approach is (a) different to mine, (b) different from a literal application of the Bible's moral rules, disregarding their purpose (if it is different) and (c) why your approach is better.
[ 28. July 2012, 06:19: Message edited by: Alwyn ]
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
Hi Grammatica,
Pond difference.
I would think over 90% of British evos would not recognise evangelicalism in those terms. There is little pattern to political beliefs amongst British evos, but, if I had to take a punt, I would say that most are to the left of the UK political centre, which is to say well to the left in US terms.
Though the position of evangelicals on the political spectrum on different sides of the Pond is clearly different, there are some strong similarities too. The one Grammatica highlighted is that on both sides of the Pond politics and society has adopted a "sound bite culture", and evangelicalism has bought into that culture - partly for the very good reason of needing to talk to people who have become used to having everything fed to them in sound bites.
I would say that a sound bite culture lends itself to a more fundamentalist approach to faith. Evangelicals of a few decades ago would have happily launched into a discussion of the context of passages of Scripture, in a sound bite culture such a discourse becomes more and more a turn off and people get fed a diet of "The Bible says ..." statements largely divorced from context.
It's easier to say "God created the earth in six days" than spend a few hours summarising the scholarship on the style of literature, the way the rest of Scripture talks about creation etc ... let alone what the story says about the nature of creation and creator.
It's easier to say "a man shall not lie with another man, this is an abomination" than to spend a few hours summarising the scholarship on the nature and purpose of the holiness code, how some of it is irrelevant, the way some commandments are supported by parallel statements in a wide range of different contexts and so could be safely taken as universal, while others are unsupported elsewhere in Scripture and so more likely to be provisional, how the commandments in the holiness code relate to other (sometimes contradictory) statements elsewhere in Scripture.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mrs whibley
Shipmate
# 4798
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Right, let's pick another rule, then.
Do women have to wear hats in your church?
If not, why not?
I've often wondered this, but I don't have an answer.
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I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous - Mike Yaconelli
Posts: 942 | From: North Lincolnshire | Registered: Aug 2003
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