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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Not in front of the children
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I think this:
First, if God holds the keys to life and death, then we can't really call him a murderer when he decides that our time is up now, rather than later.
Of course, death very often seems like a great injustice when someone seems to be full of life and have so much more things to do and see.
So I think it follows that God is no more a murderer if he chooses to end someone's life in a lava flow tomorrow, to be stabbed through the gut next Thursday or to die an excruciating death from a contagious disease in 50 years.
However, I do think there is something seriously wrong and warped with the idea of a deity who asks individual humans to kill on his behalf - if only for the reason that people are not to be trusted and nobody can be 100% sure that it is God telling them to be his weapon.
Therefore for me I am reasonably comfortable with the idea that God uses natural events to judge humanity, at the same time as I believe he doesn't actually do that shit, because it is ridiculous and petty and the kind of thing you'd expect from a playground not from a fully-grown deity. And also because it is liable to be misunderstood when we're also told the opposite (ie natural events are not judgement from God).
In my view, Karl is taking this idea of "God the murderer" to a silly extreme here. If I've made a computer programme and turn it off, I'm not a murderer. Ever.
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arse
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Or even: 'there are many stories about God in the Jewish Bible, and there is no consistency. Jews are quite OK with this, and allow a kind of conversation between all these stories'. Well, some Jews.
OK, not for toddlers.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Forget the obsession on a particular word.
What you have, if you insist too closely on God dictating bible stories, is a massive inconsistency with Christian values.
God as a capricious, vindictive, spiteful bastard = bible storys are written by God.
An approach more consistent with contemporary Christian message would be " This story is written by people attempting to make sense of the world. But the important message contained within is X"
There is quite a lot of room between those two extremes. But discussion of how precisely, if at all, Scripture is inspired, is pretty much a Dead Horse.
[massive cross post]
[ 04. September 2015, 16:13: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
And what a judgement! God kills a baby to get at his father. You want to teach my kids that God might kill them if I sin?
If you want to use that episode to teach that point, you would not qualify as Sunday School teacher material in my view, no.
But that is exactly what happens in the story!
quote:
To me the overwhelming message of the story is that if we do bad stuff, shit is likely to happen to and/or around us.
And that isn't. It's not "shit is likely to happen" - it's "God does the shit."
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
. God is not portrayed at being "dead chuffed" at genocide.
It doesn't matter is he is happy or reluctant. He set the rules which allowed this to happen.
If you construct a football pitch on a sloped field next to a cliff, you are to blame if a player falls off.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think this:
First, if God holds the keys to life and death, then we can't really call him a murderer when he decides that our time is up now, rather than later.
Of course, death very often seems like a great injustice when someone seems to be full of life and have so much more things to do and see.
So I think it follows that God is no more a murderer if he chooses to end someone's life in a lava flow tomorrow, to be stabbed through the gut next Thursday or to die an excruciating death from a contagious disease in 50 years.
However, I do think there is something seriously wrong and warped with the idea of a deity who asks individual humans to kill on his behalf - if only for the reason that people are not to be trusted and nobody can be 100% sure that it is God telling them to be his weapon.
Therefore for me I am reasonably comfortable with the idea that God uses natural events to judge humanity, at the same time as I believe he doesn't actually do that shit, because it is ridiculous and petty and the kind of thing you'd expect from a playground not from a fully-grown deity. And also because it is liable to be misunderstood when we're also told the opposite (ie natural events are not judgement from God).
In my view, Karl is taking this idea of "God the murderer" to a silly extreme here. If I've made a computer programme and turn it off, I'm not a murderer. Ever.
If your computer program achieved sentience and elements within it started to have an experience of life analogous to how humans experience life, actually I think you would. I don't think this is a "silly extreme" at all.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
I'm out of time here, but briefly
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider: quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus: quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:And what a judgement! God kills a baby to get at his father. You want to teach my kids that God might kill them if I sin?
If you want to use that episode to teach that point, you would not qualify as Sunday School teacher material in my view, no.
But that is exactly what happens in the story!
I would dispute "to get at". "In judgement following his father's actions" I would accept. Contra lilbuddha, God's motivations and feelings, assumed or implicit, are important. quote:
quote:
To me the overwhelming message of the story is that if we do bad stuff, shit is likely to happen to and/or around us.
And that isn't. It's not "shit is likely to happen" - it's "God does the shit."
God judges, yes. But my point was that the focus of the narrative is the adults, and not the child, which is how you pitched the story above. I would be surprised if kids listening to the story were to identify with the child.
[ 04. September 2015, 16:19: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It seems a perfectly apt term for what's described here; meting out suffering or punishments in response to defiance or wrongs committed.
Except that the term carries with it the notion of disproportionate and often ill-considered punishment, such as that threatened by Lemek.
Not necessarily. A lot of revenge is very thoroughly considered. Still, the idea that punishing parents by killing their children is proportionate and well-considered is not an idea we'd entertain if the perpetrator were anyone other than God. For example, when we hear about some guy killing his children because he's in the middle of a divorce we usually don't say "well, I'm sure he had very good reasons".
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
The passage in Romans you quote is telling christians not to take revenge but leave any such action up to God, trusting that he will pass judgement appropriately.
Not judgement, vengeance. If you're going to claim there's a difference between the two at least be consistent about it.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If your computer program achieved sentience and elements within it started to have an experience of life analogous to how humans experience life, actually I think you would. I don't think this is a "silly extreme" at all.
Even though my teenage years were filled with reading Asimov, I still don't believe that someone who turns off a robot is a murderer. Sorry, I just don't.
Deities even more so.
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arse
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Not judgement, vengeance. If you're going to claim there's a difference between the two at least be consistent about it.
Again, in haste:
In Deuteronomy, which is what Romans is quoting, the two terms are used synonymously. Quick'n'dirty explanation is that when God exercises vengeance, he can be trusted to do so justly, whereas humans can't.
God threatens to avenge anyone harming Cain sevenfold, Lemek escalates this to 70-fold. Yes even God's threatened retaliation appears unpalatable but the point remains that his vengeance is not seen, biblically, as the moral equivalent to human vengeance.
Of course if you think God is nothing more than an anthropomorphism you're going to dispute that, but I think he is more than that.
And it still doesn't say, as you implied, that David and Bathsheba's son dying was an act of revenge, which you alleged.
[ 04. September 2015, 16:26: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
I had a very conservative evangelical upbringing in which I learnt, as a child, OT Bible stories like the Flood, battle of Jericho, Daniel in the lion's den, etc etc etc. None of this turned me into a cold-blooded sociopath who thinks genocide is OK.
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Similarly, I would like to see where it says God was "dead chuffed" at genocide. I seem to remember something about him taking no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Yes, Ezekiel 18:23.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
And it still doesn't say, as you implied, that David and Bathsheba's son dying was an act of revenge, which you alleged.
Which part of this doesn't sound like revenge? Because it sure does to me: David, you've sinned, I'm going to spare your life but take the life of your son.
quote:
2 Samuel 12
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for[a] the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
What definition are you using for revenge if that isn't revenge?
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I had a very conservative evangelical upbringing in which I learnt, as a child, OT Bible stories like the Flood, battle of Jericho, Daniel in the lion's den, etc etc etc. None of this turned me into a cold-blooded sociopath who thinks genocide is OK.
Well nor did I. But that isn't to say that a) some child might (in the same way that, apparently, Islamic State uses the Koran) and b) even if they don't they still might be confused and/or emotionally scarred.
Personal experience of having lived through something is not really evidence that that thing was good and healthy and the right thing to do.
[ 04. September 2015, 16:31: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Not judgement, vengeance. If you're going to claim there's a difference between the two at least be consistent about it.
Again, in haste:
In Deuteronomy, which is what Romans is quoting, the two terms are used synonymously. Quick'n'dirty explanation is that when God exercises vengeance, he can be trusted to do so justly, whereas humans can't.
If the two are synonyms, at least in a Biblical context, why all the semantic games insisting that God does one but not the other?
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
And it still doesn't say, as you implied, that David and Bathsheba's son dying was an act of revenge, which you alleged.
I have it on very good authority that revenge and judgement are synonyms when applied to the Biblically described actions of God. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Seriously though, killing someone's child because they did something to piss you off (God's grievance against David can be found here, via the prophet Nathan) is the sort of thing we'd usually call "revenge" without controversy. Your argument is essentially special pleading because you don't like the idea that revenge can be associated with the Christian deity, despite the fact that He promises to get revenge on His follower's behalf.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Your argument is essentially special pleading because you don't like the idea that revenge can be associated with the Christian deity, despite the fact that He promises to get revenge on His follower's behalf.
What I'm contesting is the anthropomorphism that consists in ascribing the defective aspects of revenge as exacted by humans onto a deity that is otherwise portrayed as without defects.
If "revenge" is taken to mean "exacting judgement in some appropriate manner" then I'd say that's God's prerogative and that unlike his creatures, he's supremely able to take revenge justly (whether or not it looks just to me or not).
But conceding God is entitled to that kind of revenge doesn't mean revenge exercised by God has to mean "devising suitably disproportionately nasty ways for getting back at someone who's pissed him off".
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
It's an old issue. Is at least some of the biblical representation of God a misrepresentation? And if so, what does that do to traditional views of the authority and inspiration of scripture?
These days there is a good deal of support for the view that there are different understandings of God in the Old Testament; a tribal God, a henotheistic "King above all Gods", a monotheistic "I am the Lord and apart from me there is no other". I think it's possible to argue, justifiably, that the human tendency to anthropomorphise may be at work in all the stories of told by folks who had these varying understandings of God.
All of which can make a simplistic approach to telling biblical stories from the OT to children a pretty chancy, potentially very misleading, affair. They are not straightforward morality tales along the lines, say, of Aesop's fables.
In a recent thread I quoted an observation by Winston Churchill's son Randolph. Following an assertion by him that he had never studied the bible, he was encouraged to read it by a friend. A few days later, after wading through the Penteteuch, Joshua, Judges and a bit of the histories, he told his friend he's given up in disgust, thought that "God was an absolute shit". A literal reading can do that to people.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Sorry, Eutychus, but worshiping the God you describe is functionally no different than attempting to choose the appropriate dance steps to draw moisture from the sky.
The Bible is supposed to be God's communications in His terms. Throwing up your hands and saying "who can understand a God"? is abdicating any discernment one might attempt and ignoring His chosen method.
And, if we are in his image, it sure as Hell isn't anthropomorphism.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Bible is supposed to be God's communications in His terms.
Says who? My working hypothesis is that the way revelation works is that God's Spirit acts with and through the Scriptures to reveal God's character to those who seek him sincerely. That discounts neither divine input nor human limitations. quote:
Throwing up your hands and saying "who can understand a God"? is abdicating any discernment one might attempt and ignoring His chosen method.
Says who again? The unknowableness of God, and particularly how his justice pans out, is all over Scripture - as is the Son making him known within human limitations.
Admitting we cannot fathom all the moral workings of a being that is infinite orders of magnitude greater than us is hardly the same as abdicating discernment.
What my discernment tells me about the David and Bathsheba story is that it's not there to highlight how God exercises mean and arbitrary revenge as though someone had stolen his football, but that having a wandering eye, committing adultery and arranging for one of your best friends [Uriah was one of David's "mighty men"] to be killed to try and cover up the crime is going to result in bad stuff happening. quote:
And, if we are in his image, it sure as Hell isn't anthropomorphism.
Either you need to read the Bible more or you are acting deliberately ignorant. The Bible has it that man is in the image of God and that this image has been corrupted, not the other way round.
As far as I'm concerned, I can also live with the idea that the early writers of Scripture were struggling to come to terms with God's revealed nature and that this makes their depiction of God more anthropomorphic than later on. Or maybe that God had to accommodate himself to their limited understanding and expectations of gods.
I still don't appear to have been put off God by my Sunday School experiences. Perhaps I am a rice Christian, as one of my earliest memories is of harvesting corn flakes off the classroom floor in a re-enactment of God sending manna.
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
The Son made Him known as kind, elliptical, tolerant, blunt, subtle, empathic, friendly, faithful, hyperbolic, generous, patient, oracular, merciful, warm, restrained, courageous, forgiving of His murderers.
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Reflecting on which, St Evagrius of Pontus observed this.
quote:
God cannot be grasped by the mind. If he could be grasped, he would not be God.
I like C S Lewis's use of the word "inkling". There is a territory to explore and we have inklings about how to explore it. Some of that territory is marked out by scripture, some by tradition, some by contemplation, some by personal experience, some by reflections on the natural order, some by recognising that the heart has its reasons.
We are not in the process of bottling moonbeams; rather it is about doing something with awe and wonder, discovering that there is a journey well spent to be seeking, finding and following.
[ 04. September 2015, 20:40: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Reflecting on which, St Evagrius of Pontus observed this.
quote:
God cannot be grasped by the mind. If he could be grasped, he would not be God.
I like C S Lewis's use of the word "inkling". There is a territory to explore and we have inklings about how to explore it. Some of that territory is marked out by scripture, some by tradition, some by contemplation, some by personal experience, some by reflections on the natural order, some by recognising that the heart has its reasons.
We are not in the process of bottling moonbeams; rather it is about doing something with awe and wonder, discovering that there is a journey well spent to be seeking, finding and following.
Thing is, though, I've never gotten the impression that the writers of things like the Flood story regarded God's actions as some sort of mystery to be grappled with on a winding journey of discovery.
They seem to think they have a pretty clear understanding of what God did, and accept his reasons for doing it without any trepidation. Basically, they're attitude boils down to "God wiped out almost all of humanity because they had become wicked, and that's
fine with us".
[ 04. September 2015, 20:54: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
There seems to have been a lot of thread added since I went to bed last night. Apologies for going back so far. quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Actually, it would be at odds with an interpretation of the text which considers it to be a historical account. If the text is something more than an embellished historical account then the "caused by God" part of the words of the text are less of a problem. And, there is a lot to teach in the passage, although much of it would be beyond very small children.
Well then you don't sound like any Evangelical I've ever met. You are arguing that these verses which say that these things happened because of God are wrong:
IME, thinking evangelicals will always seek to work hard at understanding a text, taking account of literary styles, working within it's own context and the context of Scripture as a whole. Part of that context is the tendency in parts of the world, and at different times, to ascribe natural events to direct divine action, it's part of the normal human response of attempting to make sense of the world around us.
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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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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Thing is, though, I've never gotten the impression that the writers of things like the Flood story regarded God's actions as some sort of mystery to be grappled with on a winding journey of discovery.
Just to follow up on my last post to mr cheesy. There is actually a sense of that. We still have a tendency in the event of a tragedy to ask "how could God let that happen?". If you introduce a stronger role to God in the world, that everything is caused directly by the actions of the divine, then you move to "how could God do that?". That is a mystery to be grappled with, a step along the journey of understanding God. We may be, and often are, deeply uncomfortable with where that journey took people. But, it was still an attempt to understand God and his actions.
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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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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
My (adult) take is that sometimes, individuals can be the victims of collateral damage in God's judgement through no direct fault of their own. The observation that individuals' actions can have knock-on collateral effects on others, especially those of their own families, is hardly earth-shattering and a salutary one.
We, in the west at least, have a strong tendency to individualise sin. But, sin always has a much wider impact than the individual. We actually know this, both for sins and for judgement. We know that individuals with drug addictions not only screw up there own life, they often damage the lives of their families. There is a fairly continuous debate about the rights and wrongs of incarcerating women convicted of serious crimes because the result is to also punish their children - I sometimes wonder why we don't have the same concerns about locking up fathers, because surely depriving children of being able to spend time with their father is also extending the punishment to them.
Without a modern welfare system, if a man was to die it would often result in his wife and children being left destitute. If that death was seen as just consequences of his sins there may not even be much sympathy and someone willing to step up and provide charity.
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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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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Thing is, though, I've never gotten the impression that the writers of things like the Flood story regarded God's actions as some sort of mystery to be grappled with on a winding journey of discovery.
Just to follow up on my last post to mr cheesy. There is actually a sense of that. We still have a tendency in the event of a tragedy to ask "how could God let that happen?". If you introduce a stronger role to God in the world, that everything is caused directly by the actions of the divine, then you move to "how could God do that?". That is a mystery to be grappled with, a step along the journey of understanding God. We may be, and often are, deeply uncomfortable with where that journey took people. But, it was still an attempt to understand God and his actions.
Mr Cheesy is correct Alan, you may say you're an evangelical but what you write here indicates you mostly do not believe what most gospel propagators do. My problem with your position as indicated elsewhere is that you can't have a gospel that saves from sin unless you have a definitive source of sin. Your thinking does not have this as you think we evolved via natural processes.
Regarding God's responsibility for evil,that was actually Einstein's stumbling block was it not?Your typical evangelical response to that is two fold. First, God is good and has integrity despite what we see, think or experience. Sceptics, of course, write this off as denial. Second, as John said, the whole world is in the power of the evil one and this present age is an evil one which God will one day bring to a close by his return. Meanwhile, evil must run it's course until that time comes. The positive side of things is that the power of the gospel to save is not diminished by evil's presence. The gospel is the power of God for salvation.
The many questions raised by this thinking either lead us to God or away from him. As Ruth did,you come under the shelter of the God of Israel or you do not. if you do this does not necessarily shield you from hurt, grief or illness or age but it ensures your eternal destiny.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
My problem with your position as indicated elsewhere is that you can't have a gospel that saves from sin unless you have a definitive source of sin. Your thinking does not have this as you think we evolved via natural processes.
Why do I need to understand the origin of sin? I know sin exists, I know it's destructive of relationships with others and with God. I only need to look in the mirror to see that. What does it matter where that sin came from? It's here, it needs to be dealt with, I can't do that myself and I need help. In Christ, God has broken the power of sin. Is that not what "most gospel propagators" believe?
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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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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I had a very conservative evangelical upbringing in which I learnt, as a child, OT Bible stories like the Flood, battle of Jericho, Daniel in the lion's den, etc etc etc. None of this turned me into a cold-blooded sociopath who thinks genocide is OK.
I haven't heard anyone here suggest we should stop teaching these stories because they will turn children into sociopaths. Becoming a cold-blooded sociopath is probably the worst thing that could happen to a child-- but it's not the only bad thing. We don't make kids brush their teeth because we're afraid if they don't they'll become sociopaths. We make them brush their teeth so they don't get tooth decay, which, while certainly better than being a sociopath, is still not a particularly good thing.
Similarly, I believe teaching these stories mindlessly-- i.e. blithely trotting the animals two-by-two into the ark as the humans (and non-chosen animals) are drowning and neatly passing over the obvious questions-- does, in fact, do children harm. Thankfully,it doesn't usually turn them into sociopaths-- but I think it does harm to their view of God. In some cases, as we have seen here, it may lead to a loss of faith. As a woman of faith, I happen to think that's a less-than-good thing.
I do believe some of these stories can be explored with older children-- carefully, mindfully, and honestly. I think it's good to tell older children that we struggle to understand these stories. But it's done carefully-- when they have developed enough abstract reasoning (older elementary at the earliest) to understand that and deal with paradox and ambiguity. And it should be balanced with a good foundation of the other parts of the Bible-- the parts that show God to be good, and kind, and compassionate.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It's an old issue. Is at least some of the biblical representation of God a misrepresentation? And if so, what does that do to traditional views of the authority and inspiration of scripture?
How can one have a misrepresentation of God, let alone a representation, since all representations are from the human imagination and deduced from allegorical stories?
I've been trying to remember the context in which I learnt all those OT stories, and of course at that time there was no challenge about God's motives - well, not in the middle-of-the-road CofE background where the majority were - they (the motives) were taken for granted as being in our best interests since they were God's. Further questions, beginning with, 'But how ...' or 'But why...' were answered with ones like, 'God moves in mysterious ways...'And of course we all sang the hymns!
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
All of which can make a simplistic approach to telling biblical stories from the OT to children a pretty chancy, potentially very misleading, affair. They are not straightforward morality tales along the lines, say, of Aesop's fables.
This is where we came in - over here in Ecclesiantics, I said:
quote:
(I ran the pram service for years and got very particular about which OT stories I was prepared to tell to toddlers and their parents.)
Enoch, some time later, replied:
quote:
If we think we are entitled to reconstruct Christianity to make sure it fits our own particular package of prejudices, then it's time to take a long hard look at ourselves. We've got something very fundamental the wrong way round. We follow Jesus. We don't expect him to fit in with us.
Which triggered this thread.
When I started running the pram service, having planned an outline of the year that allowed me to follow the lectionary for much of the year and tell the story of the Bible, I started with the materials on offer and blithely went through the OT stories usually told to children: Creation, Adam and Eve in the garden with the snake, Noah's Ark, Jacob and Esau, Jacob's ladder, Joseph and the coat of many colours, Moses in the bulrushes, Moses and Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, David and Goliath, the story of Ruth, Esther, Jonah, Daniel in the lion's den ... This was all for the autumn term, then moving into the annunciation and nativity story in the run up to Christmas, life of Jesus in the spring term leading up to Easter ... Ascension, Pentecost and the stories of Acts and Paul in the summer term. (Yes, I did the manna story one year, didn't use cornflakes though, possibly had unconsecrated wafers to try.)
There were other challenges. Some families only came for a year, others were there for three or four years, so it was trying to tell a coherent story of the Bible using different stories and activities each year. So I only told Noah's Ark once.
Then I started talking to the parents and thinking much harder about the stories to offer and began to seriously wonder. Which was why the last year I did it, I very deliberately spent 7 weeks on the Creation story to avoid much of the OT for these very young children. Because I was less and less comfortable with the assumption that these were easy children's stories, particularly when we had parents and carers getting interested in Christianity through this pram service. (It had been running for years, but one of the many people on placement who observed it was praising such a brilliant fresh expression.)
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Mr Cheesy is correct Alan, you may say you're an evangelical but what you write here indicates you mostly do not believe what most gospel propagators do. ...
Wow. Does that categorise itself as a 'Reverse No-True-Scotsman Gambit'?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Not really, it isn't about "true evangelicalism" but about being true to the thing you say you are part of. I don't know any evangelicals who would consider that when the bible says "and God says," he didn't.
Alan is entitled to believe whatever he likes, but what he describes would not be recognised as an evangelical belief by many/any evangelicals.
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arse
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Only post-evangelicals. I haven't encountered ANY Anglican clergy or laity that fully embrace emergent church postmodernism. I met a lovely Baptist minister and his wife in Wales who HAVE!
There IS hope. As there was in Cappadocia ...
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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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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Evangelical belief would declare that the Bible is our supreme authority on matters of faith.
The vast majority of evangelicals would say that the Bible is something that requires study to interpret, and that that study deserves the best we can give to it. Most would say that would include doing our best to understand the intentions and worldviews of the people who recorded and passed on the stories and documents that make up the Bible, to try our best to understand how those who first wrote the Bible texts understood them as an important step to do our best to understand what God is saying to us through them today.
Within that context of evangelical belief there will be considerable ranges of ways of interpreting any given text. In the case of the Flood narrative that would range from a view that says they've very literal, historical accounts of what actually happened (including that it was a definite act of Gods judgement, directly caused by Him) at one end. At the other end of the spectrum would be that the accounts are mythical, possibly loosely based on cultural memories of particularly severe local floods, that encompass the understanding of the people who recorded it about the nature of God and sin. In relation to these narratives, I happen to be at one end of that spectrum, a position I do recognise many fellow evangelicals would disagree with.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
It's an old issue. Is at least some of the biblical representation of God a misrepresentation? And if so, what does that do to traditional views of the authority and inspiration of scripture?
How can one have a misrepresentation of God, let alone a representation, since all representations are from the human imagination and deduced from allegorical stories?
Of course if your belief that there is no God serves for you as an axiom, there can be no misrepresentation, only fiction.
I remember hearing Quintin Hogg say that for him, it was central to his faith that God is good. Thereby making it clear that he believed in a divine Creator, and he believed that creator was benevolent. That's pretty much where I come from.
The key issue for me is this one. What constitutes Divine benevolence? Most Christian believers acknowledge that our understanding of what is good is at best imperfect, tainted by sin, or self-interest, or whatever you want to label it. And there's a common belief that we cannot grasp the Divine perspective - as Eutychus was explaining a few posts earlier. So we are involved in learning (discipleship) what is good and how to put that into practice.
There is a much quoted scripture from Micah which describes our touchstones as acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly. I think all of those are good, though finding out what they might mean in specific circumstances isn't always easy.
I think you believe that a belief in God is not necessary in order to try to live your life according to such touchstones. Perhaps that works for you? In my case, it was belief in God which clarified and confirmed that those touchstones constituted the right way to live. Not so much a discovery, more an uncovering of what was, in part, already there for me. A context in which I could make sense of the "why" question.
When trying to help children grow up, giving them some moral foundations, I think anything which supports those touchstones is valuable. But, like cliffdweller, I'm not convinced that some of the OT stories taught to children always help with that. I suppose it may depend on how they are taught.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I'm with Alan and Barnabas on this one.
I also don't think a person can say 'you're not an evangelical because you don't fit with what I've decided an evangelical is - Oh and I don't like them but you're not so bad. So that's another reason why you can't be one'.
Besides, I know lots of people who self-identify as evangelical and who are at various different places on Alan's spectrum, including where he is.
As an aside, I'm also quite uncomfortable with the use of the phrase 'gospel propagator' as a sort of insult. Whatever we may think of the way some people present the gospel, we're all supposed to be gospel propagators, even if we're the spikiest Forward in Faith or the most wifty-wafty Sea of Faith.
Besides, going back to Barnabas's reference to Micah, one could say that that is inconsistent with some of the bloodthirsty passages people have cited as excuses to reject the whole notion of God. So even in the Old Testament, there's a chronological progression in how people understood God. Would much of Isaiah made much sense to Joshua? And that's without Jesus, the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
As has been said elsewhere, scripture is a book of open questions, not closed ones.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
I don't know about the situation in the US, but Alan and I are by no means alone amongst self-declared UK evangelicals. Use of historical-critical methods in studying scripture, acceptance that such approaches may clarify what is a decent hermeneutical approach to difficult or arcane scriptures, is much more acceptable than, say, 50 years ago.
Normally, as a bit of light relief, I make use of this well known "West Wing" clip. It's not perfect of course, and a number of conservative critics have provided incredibly detailed analysis claiming that it is unfair. But the truth is that a lot of evangelicals have been making selective use of OT scripture for decades - or using rationalisations to explain away the "plain meaning", sometimes without even being aware of what they are doing. That clip illustrates rather well the dangers of decontextualising scripture.
But I must stop there, otherwise we stray into the Dead Horses of innerrancy and homosexuality.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
No Barnabas62. It's perfect.
You, Eutychus and Alan, kind giants whose feet I'm not fit to wash, seem to be clinging to something that really, REALLY needs to be let go of.
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm with Alan and Barnabas on this one.
Besides, going back to Barnabas's reference to Micah, one could say that that is inconsistent with some of the bloodthirsty passages people have cited as excuses to reject the whole notion of God. So even in the Old Testament, there's a chronological progression in how people understood God. Would much of Isaiah made much sense to Joshua? And that's without Jesus, the gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
As has been said elsewhere, scripture is a book of open questions, not closed ones.
This is a rather ironic thing for someone to say who previously said this on
another thread
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
If we think we are entitled to reconstruct Christianity to make sure it fits our own particular package of prejudices, then it's time to take a long hard look at ourselves. We've got something very fundamental the wrong way round. We follow Jesus. We don't expect him to fit in with us.
and this
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Few, if any, of us have the wisdom and self awareness to be entrusted with the ability to discern between the counsel of God and our own particular package of prejudices. There was a time, back in the fifties and sixties when fashionable theologians spoke of 'mankind having come of age'. That phrase sounded then as though people somehow believed that 1933-45 had been a mere temporary aberration. Now it just sounds presumptuous, flatulent and complacent.
It seems to me that "reinterpreting" is exactly what Alan is doing above and exactly what Enoch was getting on a high-horse about in a different thread.
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arse
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
No Barnabas62. It's perfect.
You, Eutychus and Alan, kind giants whose feet I'm not fit to wash, seem to be clinging to something that really, REALLY needs to be let go of.
What is it that we need to let go of? Evangelicalism because some of our brothers and sisters have made idiots of themselves and given the rest of us a bad name? Well, Christians have been giving us all bad press since at least the Crusades. That hardly seems to be a reason to ditch the faith, more likely a reason to stand up and let it be known that we aren't all like that.
Or, are you wanting us to give up the idea that the Bible is the best way to try to understand our faith and live lives worthy of Christ? If so, what do we replace that with? The Traditions of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches ultimately rest on the Bible (albeit a slightly enlarged group of books) as the first parts of that Tradition. We just cut out the middle man and go back to the beginning (letting all the careful and intelligent scholarship and devotions of the rest of the Church help us understand the faith).
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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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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Agreed with Alan. But I tend to put it more crudely, Martin.
I'd rather be inside the tent pissing out. I've made a lot of good friends inside the tent and don't see a single good reason for not living with differences - and trying to make a difference.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I don't know about the situation in the US, but Alan and I are by no means alone amongst self-declared UK evangelicals. Use of historical-critical methods in studying scripture, acceptance that such approaches may clarify what is a decent hermeneutical approach to difficult or arcane scriptures, is much more acceptable than, say, 50 years ago.
fwiw, I'm a graduate of two of the largest and oldest evangelical seminaries in the US and teach at one of them. What Barnabas and Alan have said would be characteristic of what was taught at both, going back more than 30 years, and would characterize my position as an American evangelical pastor and teacher.
Evangelicalism is extraordinarily diverse. As was mentioned on another thread, about the best anyone can do as any identifying beliefs is the Bebbington Quadrilateral which includes simply "bibliocentric". Evangelicals as a group hold a high view of Scripture as a source of authority. Beyond that, though, you're going to have a pretty broad spectrum on precisely what that means in terms of literalism, historicity, etc.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Agreed with Alan. But I tend to put it more crudely, Martin.
I'd rather be inside the tent pissing out. I've made a lot of good friends inside the tent and don't see a single good reason for not living with differences - and trying to make a difference.
I agree. Evangelicalism is simply my "tribe." It's where I belong-- where I've always belonged since coming to faith in my early 20s. There are lots of relatives on the evangelical bus who embarrass the bejesus out of me, but I can no more throw them off the bus than they can me. We are family-- an awkward, contentious, at times quite loud family-- but a family nonetheless.
[ 05. September 2015, 13:32: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'm DEFINITELY in the same tent Barnabas62. All my congregational fellowship - 98% - since 2005 when I became Evangelical - has been with evangelical Anglicans and will remain so. This is my shoal. And I am no parasite. No tare. To segue metaphors. I love my men's group, supporting CVM, I've made the best Christian men friends for decades in the past couple of years.
So, I embrace myself and them. And as you know I've been in some appalling places. Well up there Alan with the aberrations from the get go in the church. The very same heresy of the Galatians for decades.
And Alan, I'm NOT getting at you, even if I am with my 'seems'. There's probably a fag paper between us if anything.
quote:
Alan: Or, are you wanting us to give up the idea that the Bible is the best way to try to understand our faith and live lives worthy of Christ?
I want us to give up any hint of believing that God wrote the Bible. Which of course you don't. But there feels like a 'yeah but' going on. And that's just my lack of nuance on you and Barnabas62 and Eutychus probably. I FULLY believe that God is behind and beyond the Bible DESPITE our three to thirteen year old child cultural context of its two thousand year incubation.
Sola scriptura without the FULL blast of 'careful and intelligent' postmodernism 'scholarship and devotions of the rest of the Church' is dead. Useless.
We know God in Christ. ONLY. That's the start. Not in Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Elijah. Except for glimmers through the horror of smoke and blood shed in fearful ignorance. Although that was His start. That from which He transcended.
If you are trying to see the transcendence of God, of Love through the Bronze Age nightmare, like me, then I apologize.
I LOVE Abraham under the Terebinth Trees at Mamre. Love it. Love Him! I'm in AWE of that God. And I want to repent of that. And embrace it and move on from it. I LOVE having a jealous God, the God of Hezekiah on the walls of Jerusalem with an ocean of Assyrians at the gates. I tear up at now that and swirl with the Angels of Mons, Anglo-Israelism. But I MUST put away childish things. The myth of redemptive violence.
quote:
Alan: If so, what do we replace that with? The Traditions of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches ultimately rest on the Bible (albeit a slightly enlarged group of books) as the first parts of that Tradition. We just cut out the middle man and go back to the beginning (letting all the careful and intelligent scholarship and devotions of the rest of the Church help us understand the faith).
We don't replace it. We embrace it, include it, absorb it, transmute it in postmodernism. For years I was the champion of God the Killer on this site. No more. There is no going back. NONE. Not a HINT of justification of the death of David and Bathsheba's son due to some ineffable - MEANINGLESS - aspect of God's 'higher purpose'. His ways that aren't ours. Let alone genocide upon genocide upon genocide upon genocide. Tens of millions in the Flood and the Exodus, the Judges, the Kings. Nothing compared with Revelation of course.
There is NO pragmatism in God. There OBVIOUSLY is Zen. Infinite patience. And NO condemnation. At all. Let alone sheer bloody murder. Where 1 is as bad as a billion.
But I'm bound to have got the wrong end of the stick with you guys.
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It isn't for me to say what anyone should do, but it seems to me that when you stop talking like Evangelicals, the honest thing to do is admit that you're no longer Evangelicals. Still in the structures, maybe, but embracing a theology which is far from the norms. Yes, I agree there is a big diversity but this is well outside the usual frameworks.
Anyway, in a sense it is a bit irrelevant. We seem to have agreed that there are bits of the bible we wouldn't teach our children, and there are bits of the bible where we actually disagree with what the text says. Which is essentially what I said in the first place.
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arse
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It isn't for me to say what anyone should do, but it seems to me that when you stop talking like Evangelicals, the honest thing to do is admit that you're no longer Evangelicals. Still in the structures, maybe, but embracing a theology which is far from the norms. Yes, I agree there is a big diversity but this is well outside the usual frameworks.
No, it's not. See link re Bebbington Quadrilateral-- it is well within those guidelines, which are the only meaningful guidelines anyone has been able to come up with to define what it means to be an "evangelical." It's also, as I noted, consistent with what is taught/accepted in at least two (but actually quite more) of the largest and oldest American evangelical seminaries. We may not talk the way you expect us to talk, and that's a problem, but it's not a change in core identity, values, or purpose.
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Anyway, in a sense it is a bit irrelevant. We seem to have agreed that there are bits of the bible we wouldn't teach our children, and there are bits of the bible where we actually disagree with what the text says. Which is essentially what I said in the first place.
I don't think that's quite what we've agreed to. Certainly it's not what I anyway would agree to.
I would agree there are bits of the Bible I wouldn't teach young children (I would, however, teach them to older children w/ abstract reasoning skills). And there are bits of the Bible where I disagree with what the text appears to be saying-- where I have to hold up some degree of ambivalence/ mystery in what it means/ why it's here. Some where I'm not willing to speculate as that often leads to ridiculous exegetic gymnastics that do more harm that good- but I'm also not willing to elevate my own wisdom/understanding above the ancients and say I know for sure it's just not right. That's not the same as saying I disagree with what the text says-- it's saying I don't understand what the significance of the text is, and am disturbed by the so-called "plain meaning" of the text.
That may sound like quibbling to you (in which case, perhaps I'm sounding more like your mental image of an "evangelical") but it's important to me in maintaining that "bibliocentric" aspect of evangelicalism.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
No I think I'd agree with most of what you say, but for me as a consequence, I don't believe I am an Evangelical. I believe the Bebbington definitions are functionally useless when those within do not consider others to be Evangelicals.
The fact is that this definition includes such wide diversity that there is very little in common.
Maybe it is semantics, I would be very pleased to find Evangelicals in my locality who spoke like you and Alan - but I am unaware of any.
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arse
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
No I think I'd agree with most of what you say, but for me as a consequence, I don't believe I am an Evangelical. I believe the Bebbington definitions are functionally useless when those within do not consider others to be Evangelicals.
Yes, there's a lot of terms that have been suggested to describe us-- or self-chosen by those in our spot-- post-evangelical, neo-evangelical (although that was really the last battle-for-the-Bible's term), emergent, etc. For myself, I've chosen "lefty evangelical" and that feels right, and good. It fits. Perhaps to some degree because of my generation (waaaay too old to be "emergent".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
I would add that, for me, the broadness of the term is precisely it's appeal-- because I think it speaks to the wider reality reflected in the body of Christ as a whole. The fact that there is absolutely nothing that binds this group together-- not politics, not social policy, not economics, not worship styles-- nothing at all except this one uniting belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ as witnessed to in Scripture-- that is true. The fact that it requires me to be in fellowship with Pat Robertson as well as Jim Wallis, with Joel Osteen as well as Eugene Peterson-- that is what it means to believe in the gospel. Even the fact that it requires me to embrace Mark Driscoll (can't decide between ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif) and ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) ) as part of my dysfunctional clan-- is probably ultimately a good thing in terms of what it does to my heart (in between all the ![[brick wall]](graemlins/brick_wall.gif) ).
[ 05. September 2015, 17:05: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
The thing is, though, Cliffdweller, that even if we broaden out to label ourselves as 'Mere Christian' rather than 'evangelical' - which is what I'm inclined to do these days, I don't confine myself to 'evangelicalism' per se - we also find ourselves with associates or bedfellows we'd rather not be associated with ...
I'm increasingly of the view that the term 'evangelical' will only take us so far - and it's more a description of an ethos as it is a theological label.
I find it a lot easier to disassociate myself from the less acceptable people on your list if I don't self-identify as evangelical ... but even if we simply say that we are Christian it doesn't take us out of the woods.
If we were RC or Orthodox we'd also find ourselves associated with some pretty perfidious people ...
People are people. There are good ones and bad ones. The same applies to Christians or all stripes and persuasions.
There's no way around that for any of us.
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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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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Besides, surely evangelicalism isn't the only Christian tradition that focuses on the 'person and work of Jesus Christ as witnessed to in Scripture'?
What do RCs and Orthodox focus on if it isn't that?
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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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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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I find Bebbington's criteria rather vague, and open to multiple interpretations.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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