What Are Some Issues That Are of Concern in Religious Deconstruction?

The magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 2276-Hubble

“I’ve got a telescope in my garden and one of the things I love to do is go out and let the sky, the night sky, the galaxies, the Orion nebula, have an impact on my mind. I find that awe-inspiring. And just to contemplate on what the astronomers have revealed to us about the immense size and so on of the universe. I find that very healthy. And it’s a good thing to do.” — John Lennox


My mom is still in the hospital and maybe headed to short-term rehab. She will then return to the hospital for a further procedure. I have also been asked to adopt an 8-year-old pug who was found wandering in the streets. After removing most of her rotten teeth, she is in great shape and I decided to add her to the family. Her name will be Holly.


When approaching the issue of deconstruction, I decided to look at a post that dealt with the issue: The 6 Pillars of Religious Deconstruction by Keith Giles and posted at Patheos. Biles self describes:

Keith Giles is a former pastor who left the pulpit over a decade ago to follow Jesus. He’s the author of several books, including “Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb.”

He is co-founder of Pacifist Fight Club [www.PacifistFightClub.com] and co-host of the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast.

He and his family started a house church in Orange County, CA where 100% of the offering goes to help the poor in their community.

It appears that Giles might self-identify as a progressive Christian. I hope some TWW readers who are progressive Christians might weigh in here.

The first pillar of deconstruction is The Bible.

Giles makes a point here that I have oft heard repeated at TWW.

…one would assume that the foundation of the Christian faith would be “Christ“, but that’s not the case, unfortunately. For most Evangelical Christians, especially, the Bible is their authority, and they will gladly affirm this if you’re uncertain about it.

This quote links the reader to another post by Giles: Christ Is Our Authority [Not The Bible]. This post is interesting because he demonstrates how those who believed in slavery used the Bible to support slavery.

“Those who oppose slavery are engaged in willful or conscious opposition to the truth…Who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God, and…invent for ourselves a ‘higher law’ that those holy Scriptures which are given to us as a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths’ must answer?”–  Episcopal Bishop John Henry Hopkins (1864), “Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery.”, p.16

Giles makes the following point that many would find compelling. (I have decided not to argue Giles’ points since I want to carefully express his thoughts, not mine.)

Those who opposed slavery [the Abolitionists] had very little scriptural support for their position, but they were on the side of Christ all the same.

Why is it so hard for us today to see that there are times when we need to listen to the mind of Christ and the voice of the Good Shepherd in order to fulfill the law of love?

Giles goes onto to contend that the Bible is filled with all sorts of errors. For those interested, he links to some of these. Giles links to a number of his posts which deal with the specifics of his arguments that the Bible is flawed.

The second pillar of deconstruction is Eternal torment (aka hell)

Giles says:

For some, Hell is their first thread of doubt and once they realize that most of those verses in the New Testament that we were told are about Eternal Torment aren’t actually about where anyone goes when they die, the rest of their faith starts to buckle.

I know one person who started to examine the traditional doctrine of Eternal Suffering and totally left the faith after realizing:

*The Old Testament never mentions this doctrine at all

Giles is using this post to merely outline his thoughts on deconstruction and does not delve into this with as many links as his first pillar.

The third pillar of Deconstruction is Penal Substitutionary Atonement [or PSA].

Giles says:

Simply put, the PSA theory says that God’s wrath was so great against mankind’s sinfulness that Jesus had to come and take a bullet for us – receiving the full fury of God’s burning wrath on the cross – so that now God can love us and forgive us.

In this view, Jesus mostly saves us from His Father, not from our sins or from hell. This also paints God as a monster who responds to his children with anger and fierce violence rather than with love and compassion.

Giles has debated this topic here.

I’m interested in seeing what TWW readers know about this subject. I was presented with the Ransom Theory of Atonement as a new Christian. Here is a post that describes 7 Theories of Atonement Summarized. It includes the Ransom Theory.

The fourth pillar of Deconstruction: Suffering in the World.

This, along with eternal torment, are the two most difficult issues that are involved in deconstruction. In this instance, the author hastens to try to make sense of it as a progressive Christian. I have a feeling that I might find myself having more in common with him in this particular difficult pillar.

Some recent theories have made giant strides towards reconciling a loving God with suffering and evil, like the one set forth by my friend’s Thomas Jay Oord and Mark Karris. Their theory is that God is love and that perfect love is not coercive or controlling. Therefore, they would argue, “God Can’t” intervene in the world, but does work behind the scenes to bring good out of suffering.

,I looked around for a post that might define varying views on suffering. Imagine my surprise to discover that the NIH, whose varying studies I often quote, actually dealt with this. Measuring Beliefs about Suffering: Development of the Views of Suffering Scale

In particular, one essential set of religious beliefs, those concerning the reasons for human suffering, has remained virtually unexamined in spite of the potential clinical relevance of these beliefs. To fill the need for a measure of people’s beliefs about suffering, we developed the Views of Suffering Scale (VOSS). Analyses identified factors related to traditional Christian teachings, unorthodox theistic beliefs, karma, and randomness.

I think some of you may find the following interesting.

The Free Will, Open Theism, and Word-Faith perspectives are mutually exclusive beliefs about God’s role in suffering. The Free Will perspective (most clearly articulated by Reformed Protestant denominations and Catholic theology) emphasizes that suffering is present because the first humans broke the divine-human relationship; the world is no longer a just and perfect place, so people can expect pain until God’s eventual redemption (e.g., Aquinas, 1264/1944; Augustine, 388/1937, 421/1948; Piper & Ergenbright, 2002). In contrast, Open Theism (represented in a range of Protestant denominations) emphasizes that God chooses to suffer with people but cannot prevent evil from taking place because God chooses to limit his foreknowledge (e.g., Boyd, 2000). The Word-Faith Theodicy (also called “Health & Wealth” “Name it & Claim It” or “Prosperity” Gospels, most often present in Pentecostal denominations) holds that if one prays hard enough, believes strongly enough, and does not actively sin, he or she will not have to suffer (e.g., Hagin, 1966; Savelle, 1982).’

There is much more written in this paper that is of interest, at least to me…

The fifth pillar of Deconstruction is The End Times Hype.

Without reading this section of his post, I already knew what he was going to say. In the 90sm I was into this whole thing. I have repented. 🙂

If you live long enough, like me, you’ll start to notice an embarrassing yet consistent string of failed prophecies concerning the return of Jesus and the End of the World.

I get why people are so disappointed when they discover that Jesus is not returning on the timetable that they had hoped for. Although I am amillenial, I loved a set of books called The Lamb Among the Stars. In these books, Jesus doesn’t return until 10,000 years in the future. How many Christians would be outraged that it would take this long? I get why many are disappointed.

The sixth pillar is…The Church

This one is no surprise to those of us at TWW.

Giles says

For some, the Church pillar falls because they just get tired of being abused by those in authority over them, or called “Heretic” for asking too many questions, or labeled degenerates for being LGBTQ, or turned off because of the political entanglements they see in their fellow Christians.

Final Thoughts:

As I walked through my own period of questioning, I dealt with all of these pillars. I think all people who care about the Christian faith do so as well. This list represents many of the real issues that people who deconstruct must deal with. It sure beats the Gospel Coalition’s list in the last post I wrote on deconstruction. That author said people deconstruct because they want to have sex or street cred. I believe it goes far deeper than that and this post helps to understand those struggles.

Comments

What Are Some Issues That Are of Concern in Religious Deconstruction? — 258 Comments

  1. Oddly, next up on my YouTube watch later list is a discussion/interview given the title “Deconstruction: Can you Really Have a Personal Relationship with a God you cannot see?” I think that is a real pillar for those in church traditions that say not only it is possible but also that it is expected.

    On the first pillar above, there is no real argument against the proposition that God has greater authority than the Bible. But there are good arguments that we have no better means of access to God than the Bible. Pointing out flaws in the the Scripture isn’t really a counterpoint. We have Scripture, Tradition, Church Authority, and Direct Revelation as possible means. All have flaws, but I’ve never really seen anyone make a decent argument that one of the others is more reliable and trustworthy than the Bible, even with all the problems interpreting it.

  2. Surely Keith Giles makes interesting and relatable points. And much has been covered here at TWW, thanks to Dee and Todd and commenters.

    However, following anyone too closely (other than JC) is another entry ramp to deconstruction – of their stuff.

    That’s my comment. Beware of everyone. Is that too harsh? IOW, walk your walk with others but on your own two feet. Piggybacking the faith walk doesn’t work and isn’t fun anyway.

  3. Regarding the Bible, a pitfall is to listen to others, and not read for oneself.

    That being said, I like reading Marg Mowczko @MargMowczko ‘s scholarship. She seems to have studied and answers the mishaps of others. Then I go back to the text, in English however, for myself.

    I do my own gardening. I read the scholarly advice of others, but I garden myself. What works, works. What doesn’t, doesn’t, no matter what the “authorities” print or say. Maybe their soil & climate are different. A tasty red strawberry is evidence of what works in my garden. “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed are those who trust in Him, directly.” From Psalm 34.

  4. From the article up-top:
    “I have also been asked to adopt an 8-year-old pug who was found wandering in the streets. After removing most of her rotten teeth, she is in great shape and I decided to add her to the family. Her name will be Holly.”

    You are a righteous person dee, Proverbs 12:10 says so…

  5. “He and his family started a house church in Orange County, CA where 100% of the offering goes to help the poor in their community.”
    ++++++++++++++

    HELLO….

    he has me at hello

  6. Ava Aaronson: That’s my comment. Beware of everyone. Is that too harsh? IOW, walk your walk with others but on your own two feet. Piggybacking the faith walk doesn’t work and isn’t fun anyway.

    You know how I know I’m on the right track?
    I have been known to piss off both fundagelicals and progressives.

  7. Dee, I hope your mom continues to improve!

    And, congrats on the new addition to your family…… perfect timing for a Holly Jolly Christmas….. or should it be a Jolly Holly Christmas this year?

  8. PSA bothers me. It always has. It was the dominant explanation presented to me as a child, and I found it unsettling even then. I never knew until fairly recently that it was a medieval invention, and honestly it was a relief to me to realize that Christians were getting along just fine without it for over a thousand years till Anselm came along.

  9. PSA and Hell were prominent in my own deconstruction from Evangelicalism years ago. It had nothing to do with wanting to have sex (I was married) or some other such thing. I ended up in Eastern Orthodoxy.

  10. In the late 70’s, my parents attended a large ex-Assemblies of God church. The pastor had a weeks long series on the End Times. It was accompanied by a massive chart several feet high by many more several feet wide (so everyone in the 2,000 seat auditorium could see it) showing just what all to expect and in what order.

    He had it all down and KNEW what was going to happen. To his credit he did not make any predictions about when, but it was “soon”. It was, as one might guess, based on a premillennialism belief.

    What a colossal waste of time and energy on a teaching that no one can actually “know” in the first place and might actually be wrong. What hubris.

    But that is a classic example of a big problem in the evangelistic world. So many people believe something and mistake that belief for actually “knowing” when, in fact, they don’t know. But boy howdy are they sure about their belief, to the point of extreme arrogance. I certainly fell into the camp of “knowing” (and probably still do in many ways).

    I think a big part of deconstruction that needs to happen across the board is for the church to realize that it doesn’t (and actually can’t) know certain things. Things that it is so certain about. Things that can be ascribed to, but no further than that.

    It is the dogmatic “knowing” that is at the root of so many problems in Christianity. The younger generation seems to get that. The older generation? Well, maybe not so much if my old circle of friends is any indication.

  11. Atonement Theories…

    i guess the Christus Victor is the closest to how I see things.

    I still don’t really get it.

    I somehow think it’s all deeper than any of these theories. (sort of like the deep magic in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)

    i really loathe how it’s all so cute (well, not really) and cut-&-dried, wrapped up in a bow. and people talk about it like it’s Aunt Sally’s Ambrosia Recipe.

    and then we start singing heartfelt songs about nails in hands and blood and fountains filled with blood…..

    gawwwwd — get me out…

  12. Attempts by “christian” organisations to disrespect habitus will I hope fail as they are deeply immoral.

    I can’t help feeling Dee that you don’t deconstruct nearly enough. You only dispute directly. What about all the battle grounds they DON’T choose, like habitus and boundaries? Those are in my opinion more telling.

    As for the Bible, it doesn’t say what it doesn’t say, that can mean it is good. For a text, given that its meanings need to be taught, it is good enough to be going along with. They actually want us to disbelieve, because they disbelieve. By saying the “Bible says” when it’s them that are saying, they are deflecting from the fact that it’s them that’s saying.

    Dialectics and counter dialectics in rushing from one dumbed-down fad to another tell me about the dialectics. We also have to see a hierarchy of middle to lower-upper operatives who claim to hold to the face value of what they are pushing (the sort of people I saw promoted around me). Macarthur = Bill Johnson but at the same time Holy Scripture points to a range of real helps.

    Gifts are in the priesthood and competence of the orphans and widows (ordinary people). End times began at Jesus’ Ascension. To ignore the triumphalists for a moment, the world has been a continuous trouble spot for everyone ever since. Why would (the real) God want us to stop talking about the gifts, the crown of St Paul, the real meaning of the Kingdom and not any false meaning? When those “leaders” stop the walk being talked about, it will fizzle out, as it already has done across swathes of churches in the last 40 years. We need to keep up telling newcomers how to count the good cost.

  13. Investigating church history is another big one. For protestants, choosing to read church history is a bit like the choice to take the red pill – it will take you to places you never expected, and you will see things you won’t be able to unsee. Here are some things about the early church I discovered that don’t typically sit well with protestants (this list is not exhaustive):
    – Belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary (to be fair, all the reformers also believed in her perpetual virginity)
    – Calling Mary “Theotokos” (translated as “God Bearer” or “Mother of God” – there are good theological reasons for this name that few protestants understand)
    – Established offices of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons by the end of the first century
    – Belief that the bread and wine become the true flesh and blood of Jesus during the Eucharist (Zwingli was the first in documented history to suggest otherwise)
    – Belief in the authority of ecumenical councils
    – Worship being liturgical and sacrament from the very beginning
    – Fasting on Wednesdays, Fridays, and numerous fasting days in the liturgical year
    – Veneration of the relics of Martyrs
    – Emphasis on traditions, both oral and written, passed down from the apostles
    – Absence of anything supporting penal substitutionary atonement
    – Strong emphasis on free will (with the lone exception of Augustine)
    – Lack of agreement on contents of the New Testament until the late 4th century (if the church had fallen into apostasy by then it means the NT was canonized by apostates)

    People who are happy with their protestant beliefs should avoid studying church history. It’s a case where ignorance truly is bliss.

  14. “I’m interested in seeing what TWW readers know about this subject.” [PSA]

    Way too much. I’ve spent way too many hours investigating it. I found many excellent resources debunking it, from the perspectives of RC, EO, Anglican, and protestant. PSA is pure skubala with no historical basis.

  15. grberry: All have flaws, but I’ve never really seen anyone make a decent argument that one of the others is more reliable and trustworthy than the Bible, even with all the problems interpreting it.

    The process for canonizing the NT was messy. A great question is did the church form the bible or did the bible form the church? Sola scriptura was impossible for it least the first few decades of Christianity, and arguably not possible for the first few centuries. Perhaps the Holy Spirit had a role in holding things together through traditions (both oral and written) passed down from the apostles.

  16. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    It’s so interesting when you finally start seeing this stuff. Next up on my reading list is a book called Religion of the Apostles by Fr Stephen De Young, which makes precisely those points about the early church. He also is the theological brain behind a podcast on Ancient Faith Radio called Lord of the Spirits which looks at all the weird & wonderful spiritual creatures & entities in the Bible, from The Son of Man, to Angels & Giants…the EO have been thinking about these things for nearly 2 millenia, & it shows.

  17. elastigirl: i really loathe how it’s all so cute (well, not really) and cut-&-dried, wrapped up in a bow. and people talk about it like it’s Aunt Sally’s Ambrosia Recipe.

    Keeping it theoretical makes it easier – no soul work required, no action required.

  18. BeakerN: the EO have been thinking about these things for nearly 2 millenia, & it shows.

    Their theology, anthropology, and worship are amazing. But I have not been able to accept a lot of the baggage that goes with it.

  19. Ken F (aka Tweed),
    Your quote, “ ignorance is bliss” is right on target….
    I know of many, many more examples of early and middle ages church and, OT and traditional Jewish thinking that does not “jive” with orthodox, protestant thinking…
    Evangelicalism/fundamentalism has crafted a very specific narrative, and done a great job of “demonizing” anyone that strays from that narrative, even if historical facts say otherwise…

  20. I very much appreciate the series Dee has been doing on “deconstruction”…. I have thoughts, from my “evil, secular academic world”, but just have been to busy to put them down… will try to be concisely post in a few days..

  21. elastigirl,

    Being able to”explain it all” in nice, neat little package elevates said pastor/ teacher…. “Oh, you all need to hear so and so, he is so wise, etc”… great marketing tool
    As I keep saying, the more I learn about the physical world, the more I realize what I do not know/understand…. But people/students do not want to here that!
    How much more so understanding the Trinity, let alone the need for Christ to die, the problem of evil, and, of course, the biggies.. free will vs predestination and the omnipresent G$d…

  22. ” He and his family started a house church in Orange County, CA where 100% of the offering goes to help the poor in their community.

    It appears that Giles might self-identify as a progressive Christian.”

    His’ house Church’s giving to help the poor might very well raise them to the level we call ‘authentic Christianity’ in how it patterns after the sacred Scriptures, yes.

    ‘Progressive’? Am not there, no; am from the old ways . . . very old ways indeed. Maybe some day . . . 🙂

  23. Ava Aaronson,

    Kinda. Then the Sunday school teachers are also telling you that God is love, and there is fodder for some big time cognitive dissonance there. I think it was also tied in with a particular emphasis on total depravity. And remember, I’m a person who “prayed the sinners prayer” at age 6. Still unpacking the psychological and spiritual effects of this stuff on my kindergarten self.

  24. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    Messy indeed. The idea that human beings had a hand in forming the “holy book” and that the contents of the NT were not a foregone conclusion really unsettles some people. Let alone the Hebrew Scriptures!

    IMO it makes more sense to look at scripture as a joint work not only of God and the original author, as Protestants tend to do, but of the early faith community as a whole as well.

  25. (from OP) “I have also been asked to adopt an 8-year-old pug who was found wandering in the streets. After removing most of her rotten teeth, she is in great shape and I decided to add her to the family. Her name will be Holly.”

    Picture! Picture!
    Hoping the best for your Mom, also.

  26. grberry,

    If anyone has ever been in deep grief for the loss of a loved one and has prayed and felt the ‘peace of Christ’ as comfort;
    they will begin to comprehend WHY we say that God is the Creator of all that is seen and unseen.

    Grief is as real as it gets. So is the Comforter. Grief is a price we pay for loving someone and losing them when they pass on. It’s reality is EXPERIENCED but cannot be ‘seen’ in how painful it can be; but then comes the grace of ‘the peace of Christ’ for which there are not even the words to describe except that it is EXPERIENCED . . . a little bit like we are not alone anymore in our loss, but it’s ‘more than’ that and there ARE ‘no words’ for it, no.

    An old saying for them what may sometimes struggle with faith (pretty much all of us), this:

    “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
    (accredited to Thomas Aquinas)

  27. I’ve been through some religious deconstruction of my own over a long life. But, I’ve never ever thought of attempting to deconstruct the Word. I figure if I try to break it up, I’ll break myself going against it.

    Regarding Giles’ thoughts on “Christ is our Authority (Not the Bible”, I understand where he is coming from. Taking Biblical text out of context has been used to justify some awful things over the centuries. Cherry-picking Scripture is a dangerous game with God; the whole of the Bible must be taken into account. His post reminded me of the debate SBC had years ago on where final authority rests: in Jesus or the Word. The last time I looked, Jesus ‘is’ the Word!

  28. Max,

    While Jesus might be the Word, in practice, in most of the Christian orgs I have been associated with, the “Word” is what the “Preacher boy” leading says “org” says… and all sorts of peer pressure/bullying is used to enforce “Preacher boys” interpretation..

  29. grberry: We have Scripture, Tradition, Church Authority, and Direct Revelation as possible means. All have flaws, but I’ve never really seen anyone make a decent argument that one of the others is more reliable and trustworthy than the Bible, even with all the problems interpreting it.

    Good point.

  30. Afterburne,

    I knew people who were into the End Times stuff. As that fad faded, they got into Y2K. Did you know there are some Christians who say that their concern over Y2K saved us all?

  31. elastigirl: i really loathe how it’s all so cute (well, not really) and cut-&-dried, wrapped up in a bow. and people talk about it like it’s Aunt Sally’s Ambrosia Recipe.

    I believe that there is more mystery than many would admit. I loved this comment.

  32. Jeffrey Chalmers said “… in most of the Christian orgs I have been associated with, the “Word” is what the “Preacher boy” leading says “org” says …”

    The stuff that bad theology is made of! SBC’s Calvinist founders used that approach to justify slavery among its early membership (slaveholders in the South), preaching that sovereign God was on their side during the Civil War. Didn’t work out for them.

    (Note: I had to respond to your comment this way … the reply links are not working for me)

  33. “I have also been asked to adopt an 8-year-old pug who was found wandering in the streets.”

    How re-pug-nant! Some things go around over and over. And the poor pugs have become the brunt of the joke in the English language.

  34. Jeffrey Chalmers: I have thoughts, from my “evil, secular academic world”, but just have been to busy to put them down… will try to be concisely post in a few days..

    I look for ward to hearing your thoughts.

  35. In this guy’s view “I am okay and you’re okay”. Huh. Point well taken. I don’t need to listen to him. I am okay.
    Yet, I got this gnawing feeling of guilt. You see I have done some pretty bad things. I think that I have heard that the number one issue in professional counseling is the feeling of guilt. So how do we heal this wound? I sure don’t see the answer from this guy. He’s okay. But I need a little better help than to just keep telling me, it really doesn’t matter and that I won’t really face judgement. I must be hard wired as Augustine said, something like “We have no rest until we rest in you”. I confess, I need comfort. A substitutionary atonement, since that is what the Bible really teaches, offers the comfort I need. Many are the false prophets and charlatans. But I keep coming back to my Bible. I find hope and comfort. Thank God!!!

  36. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    So which Pope do I believe? So many contradict each other. History tells a much different story about what you are saying about the “perpetual virginity of Mary”. It is laughable.

  37. Muff Potter: You know how I know I’m on the right track?
    I have been known to piss off both fundagelicals and progressives.

    I’ve found that when you’re taking friendly fire from both sides, you’re usually on the right track.

    Especially in such a polarized Age of Extremes as today.

  38. Ken A: History tells a much different story about what you are saying about the “perpetual virginity of Mary”. It is laughable.

    Even Calvin and Luther believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. This is well documented. If you have evidence to the contrary please provide it so that we can all laugh together.

  39. Nyssa the Hobbit,

    Nyssa of the Fuzzy Feet!
    You’re over here, too!
    (She’s one of the regular commenters over at Wondering Eagle. And very knowledgeable about how German Christians won the Culture War in 1933. i.e. “The Leopards will NEVER eat MY face!”)

  40. Ken F said “People who are happy with their protestant beliefs should avoid studying church history. It’s a case where ignorance truly is bliss.”

    I will modify your comment a bit as an example “People who are happy with their Southern Baptist beliefs should avoid studying Southern Baptist history. It’s a case where ignorance truly is bliss.”

    The founding of SBC was scary … slavery justified by theology! Yep, it’s better to just enjoy the church potlucks and not think about that ugly chapter in SBC life.

  41. Deconstruction indeed can take us to some shall we say “awkward” moments!

    As far as the consecrated host and wine actually becoming the body and blood of Jesus and Zwingli being the first to refute that: maybe. Or maybe not. Some of the outlier groups are claimed by both sides of this debate.

    But I am chewing on this, and it is awkward given my current official status church wise: I think it is Isaiah 44 that talks about a man cutting down a tree. From part of it he builds a fire, from another part he carves an idol, bows down, and says “This is my God.” I am questioning how that is different than going into a kitchen, baking some unleavened bread or raising some grapes and making wine, and then bowing down to it saying “This is my God.”

    Many will find my questions offensive, I know. I mean no offense. But I am personally thinking the partaking of the Body and Blood is not about the elements at all, but about trusting only in what Christ did on the cross and His resurrection for our salvation. Thinking that every time we reflect on that we are “partaking of His Body and Blood.”

  42. Jeffrey J Chalmers:
    Max,

    While Jesus might be the Word, in practice, in most of the Christian orgs I have been associated with, the “Word” is what the “Preacher boy” leading says “org” says… and all sorts of peer pressure/bullying is used to enforce “Preacher boys” interpretation..

    You do know that “Org” is what Scientology calls their equivalent of parishes/churches?
    Somehow, it seems appropriate.

  43. Ken F (aka Tweed): It’s a case where ignorance truly is bliss.

    The version I remember from Ted the Locksmith, “Cal Poly Gang”, late 1970s:

    “Ignorance is Bliss AND I WANT EUPHORIA!”

  44. Max–that belief in a sovereign God being on their side is killing them even now, since if you “Trust in God’s sovereignty to decide if you live or die you do not need a shot or mask or social distancing or to wash your hands.” The CSA is alive and well where I live.

  45. Ken A: So which Pope do I believe?

    Your pick. I did not say anything about popes, so I don’t know why that is relevant to my comment. Do you have any evidence that disproves anything I wrote in my comment?

  46. Ken F ( aka Tweed),
    Wikipedia
    “The tradition of the perpetual virginity of Mary first appears in a late 2nd century text called the Gospel of James,[12] and came to be included in the thinking of theologians in the 4th century due to the writings of the Church Father Ambrose. It was established as orthodoxy at the Council of Ephesus in 431,[13] the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 gave her the title “Aeiparthenons”, meaning Perpetual Virgin, and at the Lateran Synod of 649 Pope Martin I emphasised the threefold character of the perpetual virginity, before, during, and after the birth of Christ.[14]
    The Apostles knew nothing of this doctrine. First sighting 2nd Century in Gnostic gospel. So you want me to embrace a doctrine that the first mention in history is from Gnostics? No thanks. I see this doctrine no where in Scripture. You see being a Reformed Christian where the Gospel was recovered from RC I know that the Scripture is the final authority for faith and practice. Once we make some human authority that plumb line where do you stop until you don’t have a gospel at all. No I will stick with
    Faith alone, in Christ alone, by scripture alone, by grace alone to the glory of God alone. Since that is what the scripture teaches. When did the RC finally make it a doctrine that “must” be believed?

  47. Jeffrey Chalmers,

    Why? I never understood that one. I think God “created them male and female”. Seems to me God invented sex. Why would it be looked at as something “soiled”. In God’s purpose of marriage it is a beautiful gift. I will go on record, I think it is very good!

  48. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    How about scripture using the word for “brothers” when it says about Jesus’ brothers. Not the Greek word for cousin or kin. But the word for brothers and sisters.

  49. Ken A: So you want me to embrace a doctrine that the first mention in history is from Gnostics?

    No, I am not asking you to embrace anything. You are free to believe whatever you want to believe (unless you are predestined to believe certain things, in which case you are not free). I am simply reporting what is in church history. I could not find any evidence of the early church not believing in the perpetual virginity of Mary. What is your explanation for why all the reformers believed it? If they were wrong on this important belief, how can we trust them on anything other important belief?

  50. dee,

    Have you read it? It’s going to take me a while as my chronic fatigue syndrome is bad right now, but I’ll get there eventually.

  51. Just saw breaking news, totally off topic but TWW is about protecting the victims. I understand if this is moderated and not accepted.

    Josh Duggar was convicted in his kiddie porn trial.

  52. Ken A: How about scripture using the word for “brothers” when it says about Jesus’ brothers. Not the Greek word for cousin or kin. But the word for brothers and sisters.

    Good try. The Greek word includes brother, cousin, and step brother, so the word is inconclusive. It might help you to read some EO and RC perspectives on this to understand why they believe it. Also, why do you think it is so catastrophic to believe it? Why does it matter?

  53. Ken A: You mean I can pick and choose what RC dogma I can believe and leave the rest behind?

    Yes. Exactly. Why would you not be free to do that? What constrains you?

  54. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    All I can say about the Reformers is, if I try to put myself in their shoes I could well see why they would hold to it in some fashion. Although I must say that I am a little bit skeptical that they believed what you are advocating. You see Jesus to be the acceptable sacrifice “without blemish” would need to be untainted by the offspring of Adam. I look in the early chapters of Genesis to find that Adam was made “in the likeness of God” Genesis 5:1. Yet after the fall, Adam “fathered a son in his own likeness”. So Adam’s children where corrupted. They couldn’t be a perfect sacrifice. Thus the need for a virgin birth. A perpetual virgin? I don’t see the need anywhere for that in scripture.
    The reformers where battling unbelief. I am guessing that if they did believe in “perpetual virginity” as you say, which I doubt is the same as what they RC church teaches now as dogma it would be because they understood the need for a virgin birth. I don’t know if they actually bought all you are saying. As I say, I am a skeptic.

  55. Leave your telescope in the garage (unless you have one of those amazing 1-meter class Dobsonians that these days can be had for less than the price of a typical course of chemotherapy) and instead check out Google Sky.

    Google Earth started “looking up” years ago, and Google Sky (last time I looked, which was years ago) is a much better experience of awe (perhaps better on a large-format high definition display — maybe hook your PC to the TV if your TV is a better display device than your PC monitor). Not sure where the wide-field images come from; presumably open data such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. When the Vera Rubin Observatory (aka years ago, perhaps still, as Large Scale Synoptic Survey Telescope) goes online and that is incorporated into GS, … well, it may be like an earworm that you can’t escape. You might not want to ever turn your gaze away from the splendor. Try to remember to not starve or develop deep venous thrombosis while glued to your PC. Perhaps get one of those “desk treadmill” things and get some conditioning while feeding your hunger for awe.

    ———

    Regarding the “End Times” pillar, there is a much more sympathetic to the Scriptures alternative, which is partial or (dare one say) full/consistent Preterism.

    Before readers take off their shoes to pelt me, I’ll note that RC Sproul (Sr, I hasten to add), a well-regarded (in many quarters) theologian and popularizer of (classical) Reformed theology, endorsed “most of the way” Preterism as a significant contribution to the defense of the integrity of the New Testament — RCS reckons that many of Jesus’ prophecies that are conventionally regarded to be future to us were actually fulfilled in the first Century. On the assumption that the synoptic gospels were composed prior to AD70, this would provide evidence of accurate fulfillment of NT prophecy, which RCS considered useful as a counter to deconstruction of conventional understandings of NT authority. Some recent printings of a 19th century explication of this view ( The Parousia , a bit more below) have an appreciative blurb by RCS on the back cover.

    For people who are willing to contemplate de- and re-construction of their understanding of New Testament eschatology (and its implications for other aspects of Christian theology), I think that a useful place to start is The Parousia by James Stewart Russell. The biblical analysis looks competent to me (not that I am a competent judge, but I did find it persuasive); the one thing readers may find objectionable is that the interaction with contemporary scholarship is highly dated, since JSR’s contemporaries are all 19th century people.

    An interesting historical note is that JSR roughly overlaps the period of Darby/Scofield, which led to a major modern form of futurist NT eschatology, Dispensationalism. I find JSR’s vision considerably more compelling.

    —-

    My private view of the matter is that “pillar 5” will be extremely important in future (no pun intended), and that it interacts in significant ways with other pillars, such as 1, 2 and 3. It’s already a significant part of NT Wright’s portrait of Jesus in Jesus and the Victory of God and if Volume(s) 5 of his life-project The New Testament and the People of God gets to publication, I suspect we will see a lot more on the subject. I earnestly hope that he lives long enough to complete it and that I live long enough to read it.

  56. Max:
    I’ve been through some religious deconstruction of my own over a long life.But, I’ve never ever thought of attempting to deconstruct the Word.I figure if I try to break it up, I’ll break myself going against it.

    Regarding Giles’ thoughts on “Christ is our Authority (Not the Bible”, I understand where he is coming from.Taking Biblical text out of context has been used to justify some awful things over the centuries.Cherry-picking Scripture is a dangerous game with God; the whole of the Bible must be taken into account.His post reminded me of the debate SBC had years ago on where final authority rests: in Jesus or the Word.The last time I looked, Jesus ‘is’ the Word!

    Hey Max,
    You and I were both SBCers for decades……. Remember Vacation Bible School? In VBS, everybody would pledge allegiance to the American Flag, the Christian Flag, and the Bible. We never pledged alliance to Jesus. Hmmmm ……..

  57. Max:
    I’ve been through some religious deconstruction of my own over a long life.But, I’ve never ever thought of attempting to deconstruct the Word.I figure if I try to break it up, I’ll break myself going against it.

    Regarding Giles’ thoughts on “Christ is our Authority (Not the Bible”, I understand where he is coming from.Taking Biblical text out of context has been used to justify some awful things over the centuries.Cherry-picking Scripture is a dangerous game with God; the whole of the Bible must be taken into account.His post reminded me of the debate SBC had years ago on where final authority rests: in Jesus or the Word.The last time I looked, Jesus ‘is’ the Word!

    Hey Max,
    You and I were both SBCers for decades……. Remember Vacation Bible School? In VBS, everybody would pledge allegiance to the American Flag, the Christian Flag, and the Bible. We never pledged alliance to Jesus. Hmmmm ……..

  58. Ken A: I don’t know if they actually bought all you are saying. As I say, I am a skeptic.

    This link has some quotes for you. There are many more links with quotes such as this. I was very surprised, and disappointed, to learn this. Disappointed because I wanted history to confirm what I had believed. I cannot now unseen what I have seen. Maybe it would be best for you not to read the quotes in this link:
    https://www.defendingthebride.com/ma4/reformers.html

  59. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    Again we will have to agree to disagree. It seems Luther as a monk was a devotee to Mary. But later in life he repented that. Sorry I don’t find you so far to be a good authority here.

  60. Ken F (aka Tweed): I could not find any evidence of the early church not believing in the perpetual virginity of Mary. What is your explanation for why all the reformers believed it? If they were wrong on this important belief, how can we trust them on anything other important belief?

    This is a good question.
    Why is perpetual virginity such a big deal for so many?
    Can you point to any writings (both Catholic and Reformer) in which they mention it? We may be able to see a common thread as to why.

  61. Muff Potter: Can you point to any writings (both Catholic and Reformer) in which they mention it?

    There are tons of RC and EO sites on the internet that go into great detail on why they believe this is so important. Anything I would link to would just be a subset.

  62. Ken A: But later in life he repented that.

    I am very interested in proof of this, such as quotes from Luther. If this is true there certainly must be evidence.

  63. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    Why anyone would pick up a Bible and read it and come to this conclusion escapes me. However, if you are told you must believe it to be orthodox and you want that affirmation, it seems you can find all sorts of way where you will insert it into the text by hook or by crook.
    “Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe”. I don’t believe Mary can do anything for me. The RC in the Middle Ages had some weird view that God was a mean god who was very angry and some how Mary was the compassionate one who could intercede for a man. Sorry I don’t see it in Scripture. It needed to go with a lot of other weird doctrines.

  64. dee:
    Afterburne,

    I knew people who were into the End Times stuff. As that fad faded, they got into Y2K. Did you know there are some Christians who say that their concern over Y2K saved us all?

    Interesting. I was in IT at that time and it was a bit interesting to say the least.

    I have on occasion wondered what adverse events were avoided given the amount of attention directed at potential issues.

    But to say that it was Christians’ concern about the issue that saved us? Oy!

  65. Ken A: Sorry I don’t see it in Scripture.

    If that is the standard then you must also reject sola scriptura because it too is not in the bible.

    Your dialogue with me here supports my original assertion: “Here are some things about the early church I discovered that don’t typically sit well with protestants.” There are really two issues here: 1) what is true, and 2) what did the early church believe. The two are not necessarily the same thing. The early church could have been wrong about everything I highlighted. But that would not negate the fact that they actually believed those things. On the topic of free will, for example, Calvin acknowledged that all of the church fathers other than Augustine believed in free will, but he dismissed all of them as wrong. At least he was honest about it – he did not try to rewrite history to make it sound like they believed something they didn’t.

  66. This post pretty much outlines my deconstruction experience – I questioned each point and came to my own conclusions.

    It’s nice to see my own thoughts mirrored.

    Same process just a different conclusion – a very good post.

  67. Ken F (aka Tweed): – Veneration of the relics of Martyrs

    Am curious about this one. Was this widespread before Jerome? I have the impression from Philip Carey’s outstanding “The Great Courses” survey of christian theology that this emerged relatively late.

    ——-

    Full disclosure: I’m much less picky about “what other people believe” than I was in my days within a quasi-classical Reformed corner of the evangelical movement. I no longer think that ultimate matters are at stake (a consequence of the deconstruction of my thinking about Pillars 2, 3 and 5) and that a better metric of the present utility of beliefs is simply “does it produce good fruit in people’s lives”; my present approach to theological system arguably resembles that of the ancient Hebrews, who drew the boundaries much more in terms of practices than doctrinal systems)

    That’s not to say that I think the truth status of doctrines no longer matters. It’s better that one’s beliefs more closely conform to reality than that they not, but many beliefs about doctrines do not IMO have dire consequences should they be ultimately found to have been mistaken.

    I’m curious about relics. It was an eye-opener to me to learn years ago (in the context of that Phil Carey series) that there is a mortal remnant of a saint incorporated into every Catholic consecrated altar. Obviously, it plays a significant role in their understanding of what is happening on and above the altar. I don’t stand in judgment of the system — I scarcely understand it — but I’m curious about when this practice became widespread.

  68. Samuel Conner: Leave your telescope in the garage (unless you have one of those amazing 1-meter class Dobsonians that these days can be had for less than the price of a typical course of chemotherapy) and instead check out Google Sky.

    I like to go out an sky gaze with my telescope. It’s simple but I can see Saturn and Jupiter with the four Galilean moons.

    Gazed at comet Neowise in 2020

  69. Jack,

    Agreed about the giant planets and, of course, the Moon — the light/dark terminator is always spectacular; you really get a sense of the 3D topography of the surface. A memorable experience for me was accidentally observing one of the Jovian moons emerge from behind the planet. A “pimple” appeared on the limb, gradually enlarged and separated. We had no idea what it was at first.

    For any “deep sky” object, I think Google Sky would be a much less frustrating (finding faint objects through present-day light pollution is difficult) and more awe-inspiring experience.

  70. Ken F (aka Tweed): There are tons of RC and EO sites on the internet that go into great detail on why they believe this is so important. Anything I would link to would just be a subset.

    I read just one so far, and from my point of view it had more tedious convolution than anything else.

  71. Afterburne: But to say that it was Christians’ concern about the issue that saved us? Oy!

    Sounds like they’re taking credit for the beneficial results of the very real concerns that IT managers all over the world had, that were mitigated by a multi-year effort that started in the late ’90s. My employer spent 2 years and a multiple of net earnings mitigating our problems in a bespoke IT system. We would have crashed without this investment, and I imagine that the problems would have been worse at many more IT-intensive enterprises, such as banks.

  72. Ken A: Why anyone would pick up a Bible and read it and come to this conclusion escapes me. However, if you are told you must believe it to be orthodox and you want that affirmation, it seems you can find all sorts of way where you will insert it into the text by hook or by crook.

    Well there’s some things that we’re told we should be doing but we don’t – for example, I sinned by eating eating shrimp fried rice last night, I haven’t sent anyone to their maker for committing “moral crimes”, likewise my son is still healthy and well in spite of not doing his homework (if the bible “laws” were followed explicitly no one would reach adulthood).

    The fact is, the bible is regularly cut up and reassembled just like those ransom notes made from magazine clippings.

    Personally, I think the obsession with what Mary did or did not do has more to do with cultural mores than anything biblical. The whole virgin obsession has been used to control women in the past and even now with some folks obsessed with “purity culture”.

    The bible is not a “how-to” manual – context is everything.

  73. Jack: The bible is not a “how-to” manual – context is everything.

    I believe there were many instances where Jesus attempted to make this point to the not always receptive men of his day.

  74. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    “If that is the standard then you must also reject sola scriptura because it too is not in the bible.”
    You might want to read your Bible. You know where it says “thus says the Lord”. What did the Lord tell Satan at the temptation in the desert? “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the God”. You want to tell me where else I can find those words?

  75. Jack,

    Maybe you are not aware that the New Covenant brought some changes to Man’s responsibility and how to please God? Read the Apostle (New Testement) they can enlighten you. I don’t have time in response here to get into why that is true. It won’t fit into a sound bite. I know in our 23 min episode sit-com and microwaves seconds and minutes food we like little sound bites. But God doesn’t seem to think that is the way to do getting to know Him. Sorry

  76. Ken A: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the God”. You want to tell me where else I can find those words?

    Perhaps it’s not my place to “butt in” to this conversation, but I think that when we see “word of the Lord” in the Scriptures, it refers to either

    a) the words of the prophets

    or

    b) the words of Jesus

    (this is tidily summarized at the beginning of Hebrews 1, for example)

    ——-

    Protestant identification of “the Word of YHWH” with the written scriptures makes sense within this aspect of biblical thinking in that the written Scriptures contain records of the words of the prophets and the words of Jesus.

    I’m not confident that it can be extended comprehensively to everything else in the written Scriptures. All scripture is God-exhaled and profitable, but that may not be the same thing as affirming that “all Scripture is ‘the Word of YHWH'”.

    That conceptual move has been extremely important to Protestantism, of course. I’m not personally confident that it was valid.

    This is doubtless an issue that will be endlessly debated as part of deconstruction and reconstruction of “pillar 1”

  77. Ken F (aka Tweed): could not find any evidence of the early church not believing in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

    Proving a negative is a fools errand. If this dogma is what you say it is it should be every where.

  78. Ken F (aka Tweed): People who are happy with their protestant beliefs should avoid studying church history. It’s a case where ignorance truly is bliss.

    However, we have to be careful in assuming a unity of belief and practice in the early churches, where one simply did not exist.

    I recommend people read “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas,” a document widely believed ny scholars to contain writings from a young, educated woman martyr named Perpetua. She was killed in 203. Carefully reading the document (preferably in a modern, annotated version) shows how the churches were not unified, at least not in Carthage. Perpetua is seen as a dreamer and is considered to have authority enough to tell a bishop and deacon to reconcile, even though she is newly baptized. There are other examples. The Constantinization / regularization of the church’s legal status basically squashed voices like Perpetua’s in favor of an all male priesthood with most of the authority.

    Instead we need to see the early churches as more independent than the post-legalization church.

  79. dee,

    Yes, I have heard variations and combinations of several of them. Personally I think the ransom/Christus Victor type explanation makes the most sense to me. There are probably elements of truth to all or most of these ideas. Yet at best they can’t be more than glimpses of something truly Mysterious. What is most problematic, in my opinion, is fastening on a single narrow idea as The Explanation, then passing everything else scripture says through that filter.

  80. Ken A: But God doesn’t seem to think that is the way to do getting to know Him. Sorry

    My perception — correct me if I am mistaken — is that Jesus’ own view of how to better know Jesus is to obey his commands. “He who loves me will obey me; I will love him and will disclose myself to him”.

    Study of the written scriptures does not seem, in the Scriptures’ own terms, to be a central facet of ‘knowing God’. That’s not surprising since through most of history, the written Scriptures were not accessible for individual study the way they are to us. One could hear them read at meeting days, and one could write individual commands on one’s living quarters or carry them in containers attached to one’s clothing — again, a suggestion that ‘obedience’ is a key component of the Bible’s understanding of “how to know God.”

  81. “The second pillar of deconstruction is Eternal torment (aka hell)”

    This really gets to the very heart of the matter. Jesus’ enemies were the religious right hypocrites (Pharisees) and the religious left liars (Sadducees) whose main belief was a denial of an afterlife including judgment and hell. They both wanted him dead and participated eagerly in making that happen. I have noticed that nothing has changed even two millennia later.

    The celebrities on the right use the scriptures to manipulate and abuse others and the celebrities on the left use the cherry picking of certain scriptures while loudly and proudly proclaiming others are lies to manipulate and abuse people! The former makes me angrier because I respect the scriptures, and ALL OF THEM. Hypocrisy is worse and it sure got Jesus’ to comment much more on the former sin than the latter. That is if you respect at all the scriptures we have. If not, then Jesus is just another celebrity jerk like everyone else.

    The hell thing is sure central to this whole thing as the right wing hypocrites loudly proclaim this truth while denying that they actually believe it by the ways that they act. The left wing hypocrites are harder to see because the hypocrisy is much more subtle. Yet I was shown hell in a dream the year my oldest brother died as a warning to him. It remains the most real experience I have ever had. That is my testimony yet do not believe me, believe Jesus when He said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” To deny this is to deny Jesus, at least the real one, and to substitute a pretend fake one in His place.

    But let me illustrate the hypocrisy for you. The scriptures state “and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.” The subject of this verse is sexual sin, defined as sex outside of marriage to the other party. So much for the quote I have read here by some of the liberals “that there is nothing wrong with consenting adults” doing what they do.

    My example: two religious celebrities decide to take a mistress. One on the right and the other on the left. They are both technically consenting adults but this is far from a victimless crime. They both make their mistress pregnant. At this point they cease to be fun. The right celebrity is keeping all this hidden as he tells everyone else this is wrong. The one on the left has an “open marriage.” He does this right out in the open to some extent. Yet they both get rid of their mistresses as she begins to show. The children are born without a father, or any of his support. The women fall into poverty. The babies get sick yet they do not see doctors who can make them better, because the celebrity fathers do not support their own child. And so both children die needlessly. Now the mistress is doubly the victim of heinous crimes. Then both men die suddenly without wills. The wife and the legitimate children inherit everything. The mistress gets nothing. And is now defrauded in real terms for the third time.

    Of course the wives are also victims in this situation and so are their children. I know a friend whose father had many affairs. She has suffered much beyond the divorce that this caused. Defrauding is all around and that why sex outside of marriage is defrauding. Mutual consent means nothing. Evil is evil rather it is on the obvious hypocritical right or the much less obvious hypocritical left. I write of circumstances that are real and have happened in the past to many people. They still happen today in places like Russia. If you are poor you do not get life saving treatment in many places in this world.

    And this only deals with the consequences we see here on earth. Those that we will only see at the Final Judgment are much greater and more permanent than these. I wonder if their exists a greater stupidity than to deny this…

  82. Samuel Conner,

    I take your inquiry seriously. 1st point – how can I obey Him if I don’t know what He taught? Where should I go to find that out? The only thing is where do I stop? Red letters? New Testament? Is He God? Then where do I stop and throw away the rest? It will take some time to know how and what to apply and why. That make take a little time. But James tells us wisdom is for He who asks.
    2nd point. While I think it was written down to be read, preached, studied, sung, etc., etc. We in a modern literate society are way to quick to dismiss the illiterate societies before us. People who were saved in those societies who could not read or write would have, in my opinion, been much better listeners. I think they would have been much better at remembering and committing to memory what was told them in scripture. They would have had to have been. I think there is a lot we discount that we don’t really have good reason to discount. It was there life the same way it should be ours to know what God taught. They would have been very good at this I would think. I have no reason to think they would have been any less joyful to make sure they knew what the Bible, taught than I would. I think they probably would have put me to shame by comparison.

  83. Samuel Conner,

    Valid points. I think it takes more thinking. At least it did to me. New Testament writers took verses written in the Old Testament and applied them to Jesus. John 12:41
    So where do I stop?

  84. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    I think there is a lot of truth to this. Not that “the early church believed this” or “the reformers believed that” means we should also believe any particular thing. But if we can grasp the incredible range of ideas that have historically fallen under the umbrella of orthodoxy, it may perhaps inspire more tolerance and humility. There are many, many, many ways to be a Christian, and no group or era was monolithic.

    Also, understanding the cultural context of particular beliefs can be eye-opening. For example, the perpetual virginity of Mary. As I understand it this idea arose after Christianity had become more Hellenized. So it may have been influenced by contemporary Gnostic-influenced ideas about sex being inherently polluting. If you step back and see how long that idea has hung around, then it may inspire some curiosity about what other treasured beliefs have cultural, rather than strictly scriptural, roots. (And of course the belief that everything we believe/practice needs to have some sort of scriptural proof text we can hang it on is a cultural development too!)

  85. “A substitutionary atonement, since that is what the Bible really teaches, offers the comfort I need.”
    +++++++++++

    Ken A,

    I think in great measure we all read and interpret the bible according to what offers us the comfort we need.

    and since there are “101” different interpretations (as in more dalmation puppies than one can fathom), my only solution is to make a boundary that I don’t act on something I deem ‘biblical’ that would be harmful, destructive, hateful to another person.

    really, the only way through this is to put that boundary in place.

    to put a finer point on it, another boundary is also needed:

    harmful and destructive means a way I would not want to be treated

    (to guard against redefining harmful and destructive as self-flagellation that’s good for you (& generally making your life miserable, dysfunctional, and solitary on some sick principle)

  86. dee: the 7 different perspectives? I didn’t know there were so many.

    I suspect that in coming decades we may see further developments in ‘theories of atonement and of the efficacy of the Cross’

    An (IMO) intriguing blend of theories 2 (ransom), 3 (Christus Victor) and 5 (PSA) can be discerned in the writings of present-day interpreters such as NT Wright and Andrew Perriman (and, doubtless, others of whom I’m not aware). Jesus suffers Israel’s coming penalty (violent death) at the hands of Rome (Rome is the hostage-taker, with its sword at Israel’s throat). It’s penal and substitutionary, but in ways completely different from conventional dogma. The ‘ransom’ and ‘victor’ aspects are more indistinct, but it may be that the pre-emptive execution of Israel’s hoped-for redeemer King delayed the war for a generation ( cf. Jn 11:50 and its context) and thereby saved many in Israel from a terrible death, at least at that time. The delay of Israel’s defeat at the hands of a pagan nation may have constituted a (temporary) victory over “the powers.”

    That’s a very historicist reading of the meaning of the story. It has little theological traction, of course.

  87. Ken A,

    The ‘doctrine’ supports tradition held by both the RC and the OC

    The term ‘God bearer’ (Theotokos) fits more with the doctrine of perpetual virginity in the sense that Joseph KNEW from the angel that Mary had conceived a child through supernatural means . . . Joseph’s role in tradition and in sacred Scripture was to be the ‘protector’ of Mary and of the infant Jesus, as the angel once again told Joseph to take Mary and the Child into Egypt and when to bring them home again after Herod’s death . . . in a sense, Joseph’s role as Protector superceded his role as ‘spouse’ in the natural sense, if you think about it, but that of course is open to conjecture

    The one I never understood well was how fundamentalists claimed Mary was a great sinner. . . . . I guess so much for ‘full of grace’, but still, I never got it (?)

    some thoughts

  88. Ken F ( aka Tweed): Even Calvin and Luther believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. This is well documented. If you have evidence to the contrary please provide it so that we can all laugh together.

    *tartly* Let me suggest that a bunch of men who see women as tainted by sin even worse than men because of the Fall would have every incentive to make the mother of Jesus a perpetual virgin. Then it gets pushed back to Mary’s mother, where Mary was conceived without the taint of original sin. (This is a Catholic notion.)

    Let me also say that Mary’s perpetual virginity is not attested to by the earliest texts, and in fact a couple of the Gospels point out that Jesus has siblings.

    Abd FINALLY, let me point out that saying a woman is a perpetual virgin does NOTHING for every other woman out there for the last 2,000 years. It leads to something called the “virgin / wh*re dichotomy”. No woman can imitate Mary because we can either be childless virgins or women who have children and obviously have sex*.

    I do not understand why people want to protect Mary from the expectations put on other women of the time, which was to marry and bear children to her husband. The perpetual virginity of Mary does nothing for women because her life is fundamentally different than ours. It also strongly suggests that normal marital sex that produces children is problematic.

    *Since 1978 it has been theoretically possible to have virgin mothers via IVF.

  89. Ken A: So where do I stop?

    I’ve found it helpful to distinguish between “what I believe that binds my conscience” and “what I can legitimately affirm ought to bind the consciences of others.” (In this you can see the strong Reformed influence on my thinking. They are very conscientious about attempting to distinguish between what God does and does not command.)

    I think it’s valid to imitate the NT writers’ ‘freedom’ of interpretation of the Old Testament for the sake of one’s own edification , but I think that one ought not to assume that one’s conclusions bind ought to bind the consciences of other people.

    To echo a NT writer, ‘let every person be convinced in his own mind’.

    This perspective seems highly valid to me:

    CMT: But if we can grasp the incredible range of ideas that have historically fallen under the umbrella of orthodoxy, it may perhaps inspire more tolerance and humility.

    I’ve already noted my view that these disagreements do not implicate the ultimate fate of individuals (it helps me a bit that I still favor a strong understanding of Divine sovereignty — as David put it, “maybe YHWH willed that he say that”. Perhaps there are Purposes in back of the visible doctrinal chaos and evolution). The disagreements are important, since it is better to believe things that correspond to ‘what really is’, but the diversity of views suggests to me that the chance that anyone is not seriously in error on multiple matters is not large. We all fall short of the truth of God.

  90. It’s interesting to me that there is no mention in any of this about the “second work of grace” heresy. That was the hardest thing for me to deconstruct. It was basically that being “saved” wasn’t “good enough”, and that you had to also be “sanctified”. Because it was easy to “backslide” from salvation, but to actually go to heaven you had to be perfect, which was accomplished by being “sanctified”.

    When I was a teen-ager, this was translated into perpetual trips to the altar. All my friends did this, and we all knew that we weren’t “really sanctified” because we knew we’d sin again. So we had to survive until the next altar call so we could lose all our sin, and get to heaven.

    Talk about crazy-making.

  91. elastigirl,

    I don’t remember who said it “the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things”.
    Obviously there are unstable persons who do extraordinary silly things with scripture. I don’t find reasonable people predominantly doing such things. I don’t think the Bible warrants extremisms.
    I stand by my statements. I don’t think them extreme. From beginning to end the Bible teaches that we got a problem. There is a Holy God who created us. It isn’t a light thing to defy Him. It has eternal consequences. We as humans naturally discount that. When I see the vision of Isaiah in Isaiah 6 where Isaiah the most holy man of his day trembling and pronouncing curses on himself because he “has seen the Lord” and he knows his lips are unclean, that validates that I need something else than my own righteousness. There are many, many other passages. Thank God he provides it in Christ’s substitutionary death and it is there for all who will receive it by faith.

  92. elastigirl,

    I like it.

    To your second boundary: very necessary, unfortunately. There are some to whom “loving” means “saying or doing whatever it takes to make you agree with me, since I speak for God.” All sorts of cruelty may be justified in the name of “saving souls” without this line in the sand.

  93. “All my friends did this, and we all knew that we weren’t “really sanctified” because we knew we’d sin again. So we had to survive until the next altar call so we could lose all our sin, and get to heaven.”
    +++++++++++

    Juulie Downs,

    i understand.

    seems to me this silly religion of mine is all about getting to heaven. that’s it.

    no matter how silly, nonsensical, illogical, toxic, dysfunctional, harmful, hateful, dishonest, corrupt, criminal, illegal…

    it’s not about doing right for right’s sake. (which is inherently for God’s sake)

    it’s certainly *not* about life in all its fullness and the Son setting us free, free indeed.

    it’s ‘shackle-city, sweetheart’ (not you, i’m just remembering a line from Sixteen Candles).

    very stylish shackles, even. so stylish people start competing for the most stylish shackles.

  94. Samuel Conner,

    I can see that you are a deep thinker. Of course there is the individual binding of things of conscience. I would only add on minor things of conscience. Of course we are all wrong on some things. We would necessarily have to be. I think you will agree that there are doctrines that one must not forsake though. They could cost be very costly.

  95. “Obviously there are unstable persons who do extraordinary silly things with scripture. I don’t find reasonable people predominantly doing such things.”
    ++++++++++

    Ken A,

    well, quite frankly, reasonable is as reasonable does.

    there are ‘101’ christian influencers who appear very stable yet decide unreasonable things are true. Things that impact others at ground zero like bricks hurled from on high.

    Although the ‘101’ are oblivious to this.

  96. Samuel Conner: I’m curious about relics. It was an eye-opener to me to learn years ago (in the context of that Phil Carey series) that there is a mortal remnant of a saint incorporated into every Catholic consecrated altar. Obviously, it plays a significant role in their understanding of what is happening on and above the altar. I don’t stand in judgment of the system — I scarcely understand it — but I’m curious about when this practice became widespread.

  97. christiane,

    Samuel Conner: I’m curious about relics. It was an eye-opener to me to learn years ago (in the context of that Phil Carey series) that there is a mortal remnant of a saint incorporated into every Catholic consecrated altar. Obviously, it plays a significant role in their understanding of what is happening on and above the altar. I don’t stand in judgment of the system — I scarcely understand it — but I’m curious about when this practice became widespread.

    Hello Mr. Conner,
    it is a practice from great antiquity that, on the grounds where an early Christian martyr died for the faith, where their blood soaked into the Earth, that a Church was built and if there were any mortal remains of the martyr, the martyr’s mortal remains also would be interred underneath the altar of the Church.

    There is a scriptural reference that you might be familiar with, this:
    “9And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld. 10And they cried out in a loud voice, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You avenge our blood and judge those who dwell upon the earth?”
    (from the Book of Revelation, chapter 6)

  98. Ken A: They could cost be very costly.

    Yes, though I suspect that we disagree a great deal about the “realm” in which the costliness is expressed.

    Right now I’m dealing with someone who subscribes to “Word of Faith” teachings, and who is facing medical challenges. The costliness here is the risk that needed medical care will be refused in favor of (what I think is) a flawed conception of faith and of the way that God customarily works in people’s lives at the present time. The penalty for this person’s shortcomings may be an untimely death — the wages of sin is, after all, death.
    The Romans 1 dynamic of flawed worship leading to darkened understanding, foolish life choices and bad life outcomes, and ultimately death, is plainly visible. This person may be under Divine wrath, even though her confessed faith in Jesus looks orthodox.

    There is, IMO, a great problem in the way that Evangelicals tend to favor (what I think is a flawed conception of) ‘faith’ over the OT conception of ‘wisdom.’ The OT is pretty plain that the most valuable thing is wisdom, and that wisdom will save you from death (which I assume must mean, ‘untimely death’ or ‘an appalling kind of death that is an expression of YHWH’s wrath’, since the OT also acknowledges that death overtakes everyone).

    I think that “pillar 2” is a very important point of deconstruction for recovery of (what I suspect would be) a more valid understanding of the meaning of the NT documents in their OT context. The quoted writer notes that present-day preoccupation with post-mortem punishments is not present in the OT documents. That’s a valid observation, IMO, and seems really odd if post-mortem punishments are as important as most present-day believers think. In the progress of revelation, the statements that provide the foundation for present day dogmas about individual eschatology are very late — the Gospels and revelation. One doesn’t see this in Paul’s writings, for example (in Romans 1, for example, the wrath of God is clearly ‘under the sun’ and leads, as in the OT, simply to death). Paul even charges believers to not seek revenge so that they can leave room for God to express His wrath — that clearly indicates that the realm of ‘wrath’ is “during under the sun life”; how could any finite revenge by an aggrieved believer crowd out God’s freedom to impose post-mortem torments?

    But ECT as the Bible’s understanding of the meaning of Divine wrath (or the meaning that is most of concern to present would-be YHWH worshippers) is basically non-negotiable for most people.

    And that’s fine, too (though I’m not pleased in the way it works out in the churches). Perhaps YHWH willed this, too.

  99. Ken A: Maybe you are not aware that the New Covenant brought some changes to Man’s responsibility and how to please God? Read the Apostle (New Testement) they can enlighten you

    I am aware of the New Testament, Paul told women they have to cover their hair, otherwise they may as well cut it off, they’re supposed to be silent too.

    Last time I was in church, didn’t see anyone sporting a “Sinead O’Connor” do. Pretty talkative bunch too.

    These are cultural affectations – if there was a new covenant then the old covenant was a mistake – that means God was wrong, and he can’t be wrong so then because we can’t bring ourselves to finish off the “morally decadent” and our misbehaving children and can’t help ourselves from eating the “surf and turf” at Red Lobster he took it out on Jesus or himself since Jesus is God.

    It gets to be too much for a poor Pooh-Jack to take….

  100. Headless Unicorn Guy: I’ve found that when you’re taking friendly fire from both sides, you’re usually on the right track.

    Especially in such a polarized Age of Extremes as today.

    No offense, but that’s rather cold comfort.

  101. I could say a lot in response to this post, but I’ll keep it short.
    I think this guy is worshiping a God made in his own image and he is banking on others not reading the Bible for themselves to find out the truth.
    Nothing is new under the sun and ~2,000 years ago both Peter (in 2 Peter 2) and Paul (2 Timothy 3) prophesied that these types of people (wolves in sheep’s clothing) would lead many astray. I pray that that isn’t the case for the readers here.
    In response to slavery, scripture in the New Testament instructed new believers who were already slaves how to live in their circumstances. There’s nothing in the Bible that says is supports slavery. The slaveowners twisted scripture to suit their own needs.

  102. Ken F (aka Tweed): Good try. The Greek word includes brother, cousin, and step brother, so the word is inconclusive.

    And the Aramaic is also ambiguous, reflecting the different structure and understanding of “family”.

    Perhaps a better translation would have been “Kinsman”.

    Also, why do you think it is so catastrophic to believe it? Why does it matter?

    NOT ROMISH tribal identifier, like married clergy?
    If Enemy Christians believe X, we True Christians must believe Not-X?

  103. Rosie,

    “I think this guy is worshiping a God made in his own image”
    +++++++++++++++++

    we all do, more or less.
    —————

    “…and he is banking on others not reading the Bible for themselves to find out the truth.”
    +++++++++++++++++++

    everyone who reads the bible believes they are doing so objectively and believes they are finding out the truth.

    it’s just so stinkin’ funny how many different and conflicting versions of the truth there are.

  104. Rosie: There’s nothing in the Bible that says is supports slavery. The slaveowners twisted scripture to suit their own needs.

    And the Jerk with his Kirk in Moscow, ID maintains this tradition.

    I understand there’s a similar tradition in some branches of Islam, i.e. The Holy Book speaks of slavery so God Must Command It.

  105. Samuel Conner: Am curious about this one. Was this widespread before Jerome?

    Probably. The first documented case is the relics of Polycarp in the mid 2nd century, well before Jerome.

  106. Ken A,

    This quote is from that article: “Luther did believe in Mary’s perpetual virginity.” This is exactly what I wrote. Are you now agreeing with me on this? Or do you have another quote saying otherwise.

  107. Muslin fka Dee Holmes: However, we have to be careful in assuming a unity of belief and practice in the early churches, where one simply did not exist.

    This is true. From what I have found, there was a lot of room for different views on many matters. That said, this 2nd century quote from Irenaeus is interesting:
    “The preaching of the Church truly continues without change and is everywhere the same. It has the testimony of the Prophets and Apostles and all their disciples.”
    He used the uniformity of belief among Christians as a proof against the Gnostics, who had widely divergent beliefs.

  108. CMT: For example, the perpetual virginity of Mary. As I understand it this idea arose after Christianity had become more Hellenized.

    The problem we have today is there is no evidence one way or another about what the very earliest Christians believed because if they wrote about it those writings did not survive, so we only know that it started fairly early. Anything else is speculation from silence. As for Hellenization, that had already started among the Jews, which is why the apostles quoted from the Greek Septuagint.

  109. Muslin fka Dee Holmes: I do not understand why people want to protect Mary from the expectations put on other women of the time, which was to marry and bear children to her husband.

    I am not trying to protect, defend, or advocate for any position on Mary. Rather, I am stating what was preserved in the historical record and how it differs from what most protestants believe today. A belief that she was not a perpetual virgin is not documented in the historical record, but it’s possible that people initially believed she was not. We simply have no way of knowing, so doubt it makes sense to be dogmatic about it either way.

    One of our problems is people tended not to include details that “everyone knows.” So it’s possible that there were things about Mary that “everyone knows” then but no one knows now. An example of this is “Against Heresies” by Irenaeus. It was so popular that no one thought about saving any Greek copies of the text, so it only survived in a Latin translation by accident.

    What I find interesting is how divided Christians are over this topic. It matters quite a lot to both sides, to the point of being a deal breaker. I don’t know if it should matter so much.

  110. Ken A: You might want to read your Bible.

    Like this verse? “So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold on to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.” (2 Thes 2:15)

    Or this one? “Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I handed them down to you.” (1 Cor 11:2)

    Or this one? “… which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” (1 Tim 3:15) Isn’t it interesting how he called the church, not scripture, the pillar and support of the truth?

  111. Afterburne: But to say that it was Christians’ concern about the issue that saved us? Oy!

    Wouldn’t be the first time Christians took credit (virtue-signalling their Righteousness) for what somebody else had done or for what occurred naturally.

  112. linda: Josh Duggar was convicted in his kiddie porn trial.

    Apparently this time Huckabee couldn’t “fix things” for his buddy Jim-Bob.

    And Jim-Bob needs to find another heir to his throne.

  113. Ken F (aka Tweed): The problem we have today is there is no evidence one way or another about what the very earliest Christians believed because if they wrote about it those writings did not survive, so we only know that it started fairly early.

    Paul’s letters are the earliest writings we have. He never mentions it.

  114. Jack: He never mentions it.

    Exactly – making it an argument from silence. There are a lot of things he did not write about.

  115. Muslin fka Dee Holmes: However, we have to be careful in assuming a unity of belief and practice in the early churches, where one simply did not exist.

    And in assuming that they were right, where we are wrong.

    Not that we are always necessarily right, ourselves. Just that each generation makes their own mistakes.

  116. Jack: It gets to be too much for a poor Pooh-Jack to take….

    If time during the next pandemic lockdown (either official or self-imposed) permits, Jesus and the Victory of God might refresh your interest in the New Testament and the “Jesus story”. The author, NT Wright, sees a lot of continuity between the OT story of Israel and the NT story of Jesus. IIRC he expressly asserts (this may be in some of his talks one can find on YouTube rather than in the book) that the NT story of Jesus means what it means within the context of the OT story of Israel (this is in contrast to much present day christian thinking that sees the “Story of Israel” context as pretty irrelevant to the meaning of the NT, which is regarded to be about the timeless problems of humanity and a timeless solution that could have equally well have taken place in any context and in any age). Wright’s work was a great encouragement to me as I was finding the (as they appeared to me) internal contradictions of present-day evangelical ways of being a Jesus-follower increasingly difficult to continue embracing.

  117. Wild Honey: Just that each generation makes their own mistakes.

    Oh, yeah. We’re listening to a book about two brothers crossing the Oregon Trail in 2011. At one point, the author observes that he read all the pioneers’ books and diaries, and then he still made the same mistakes the pioneers made in 1850.

    “Nobody knows,” he said. “You just have to deal with your problems.”

    That’s Christianity and getting through our life. You can read all the books, but then reality falls on you like a ton a bricks or a two-week storm front in Nebraska. Nobody knows until life hits them, and then you just have to deal with your problems.

    Give yourself a break. Entropy is hard. Give everyone else a break, too.

  118. Muslin fka Dee Holmes,

    Belief in Mary’s virginity protects all women from the assumption that they have no value, no reason for existing, unless they are used for sex by a man. Men hate women’s virginity unless they get to “take” it.

  119. Cynthia W.: That’s Christianity and getting through our life.

    Back in the day…
    “I’m a recovering Catholic…”
    or
    “I’m a recovering Baptist…”

    Sorting it out.

    ——–

    My spouse and I were raised in different traditions, so that helps. Another set of eyes. Then our kids came along. More sets of eyes. At home after church, we sort it all out. Still do even as our kids grow into adulthood and independence.

    Kind of like watchblogging but live, in person.

    Sort it out and cycle through, with the Bible, prayer, the Holy Spirit, and discourse of friends who share our values.

  120. elastigirl: it’s just so stinkin’ funny how many different and conflicting versions of the truth there are.

    Where’s Scully and Muldur when ya’ need em’?

  121. elastigirl,

    YES. A former pastor (one I actually still respect), in response to the idea that Christianity is all about getting into heaven, said “If you’ve got to be dead to ‘get into heaven,’ then you’re saying that Jesus has nothing to offer this life now.”

    Not that he was promoting a prosperity gospel type of situation, or that the miraculous healings Jesus performed would be normative in the life of the believer, but that there is peace/comfort/joy/fill-in-the-blank/FREEDOM, as you describe, to be found in this life now. And saying that all of this must wait until the next life is short-changing believers.

  122. “One two three four five six seven…
    All good children go to heaven…”

    — From the Beatles Abbey Road (1969) —

  123. Cynthia W.: Belief in Mary’s virginity protects all women from the assumption that they have no value, no reason for existing, unless they are used for sex by a man.

    Not Catholic, but also don’t have strong feelings about how important Mary’s perpetual virginity (or possible lack thereof) is in the larger scheme of things. Just for context for where my comment is (and isn’t) coming from.

    But I don’t find the idea of her being virgin to be empowering to me as a woman. Because she was still a mother. And married. And motherhood is not something that all women are going to experience, some by choice and some not by choice.

    I had a major identity crisis when I thought I might be unable to have children. As I pointed out to my husband, there are no infertile women in the Bible. They all go on to have children!

    So if someone were to ask me (which I realize you’re not, but I’m answering the question anyway 🙂 ), which women in the Bible are the most empowering simply by virtue of them being women, I’d be listing off women like Phoebe, Junia, Priscilla, Hulda, and those whose value didn’t come from their family role.

    Not to knock on Mary. There’s much to admire in her. Speaking as a mother (separately from as a woman), I love the story of the wedding at Cana. It happened shortly after Jesus’s baptism, when God said “this is my son, in whom I am well pleased.” But even after the God of the universe affirmed him, Jesus didn’t perform his first (recorded) miracle until after his MOTHER promoted him to.

    Try that one on for size, patriarchy.

    Just sayin’

  124. Wild Honey: But even after the God of the universe affirmed him, Jesus didn’t perform his first (recorded) miracle until after his MOTHER promoted him to.

    Try that one on for size, patriarchy.

    Hmmm.

  125. Headless Unicorn Guy:
    Nyssa the Hobbit,

    Nyssa of the Fuzzy Feet!
    You’re over here, too!
    (She’s one of the regular commenters over at Wondering Eagle. And very knowledgeable about how German Christians won the Culture War in 1933. i.e. “The Leopards will NEVER eat MY face!”)

    I read here, too. I just don’t always go into the comment section.

  126. Samuel Conner: Sounds like they’re taking credit for the beneficial results of the very real concerns that IT managers all over the world had, that were mitigated by a multi-year effort that started in the late ’90s. My employer spent 2 years and a multiple of net earnings mitigating our problems in a bespoke IT system. We would have crashed without this investment, and I imagine that the problems would have been worse at many more IT-intensive enterprises, such as banks.

    I remember doing something with this as well at my job working for an insurance agent. I don’t remember what I did, but I remember a stack of papers related to my boss’s computer and changes that had to be made.

  127. Juulie Downs:
    It’s interesting to me that there is no mention in any of this about the “second work of grace” heresy.That was the hardest thing for me to deconstruct. It was basically that being “saved” wasn’t “good enough”, and that you had to also be “sanctified”.Because it was easy to “backslide” from salvation, but to actually go to heaven you had to be perfect, which was accomplished by being “sanctified”.

    When I was a teen-ager, this was translated into perpetual trips to the altar.All my friends did this, and we all knew that we weren’t“really sanctified” because we knew we’d sin again.So we had to survive until the next altar call so we could lose all our sin, and get to heaven.

    Talk about crazy-making.

    This is very familiar. I never did understand sanctification.

  128. CMT: scripture as a joint work

    It actually alludes to the teaching of Jesus. We would do well to ask what would Jesus have taught if He Himself believed the whole of the OT and NT? If He knew why He was ascending? Jesus didn’t fall for the single issue fallacies of Bacon and Mills – Bacon was at the same time as the first couple of waves of Calvinism and the council of Trent (which I incidentally escaped). Jesus didn’t hold to the twisted categories of the fundagelicals. Jesus didn’t “take away from the words of this book”. “Love believes ALL things” (in My teaching) was Jesus’ teaching. I don’t see how you would have problems (except the emotional ones we were left with) if you stopped believing the fundagelicals. I thought this thread was supposed to about deconstruction of the fundagelicals not of Who they are deflecting the blame onto? We can’t contribute to a discussion where questions aren’t asked about other comments.

  129. Juulie Downs: being “saved”

    That’s because we “weren’t” saved like the backwoodsmen said, but instead we may individually infer some assurance of salvation. In that context, i.e the real, actual and true context, there is nothing wrong with sanctification which is Holy Spirit help amid life’s ups and downs to strengthen our habits of virtue such as belief to pray for our peers and belief in the gifts as providential perseverance.

    You can’t buy out of the untruths of the backwoodsmen by buying into the untruths of the backwoodsmen. If it’s not something my peers can give me, inspired by Holy Spirit, and that I can’t give them, it’s not belief.

  130. Ken A,

    God perhaps didn’t put you on earth in the 1500s unless you are the new Methuselah and in any case there were lots of people who were betwixt and between in beliefs but weren’t “allowed” by political power. There always have been good deconstructionists. Wasn’t Jesus one? I’m not sure politicians were that comfortable with Him mostly. God was glad when hermenutics and semiotics showed up which worldliness and worldly backwoodsmen have destroyed.

  131. I’m currently having significant issues with the idea of the Holy Spirit. And this ties to Giles’ point about the Bible. Most evangelical Christian theology teaches that the Holy Spirit will teach Christians how to follow Jesus, interpret the Bible, and grow as people.

    But after Christian college, seminary, and a number of churches, it’s clear to me that most of the Christians I’ve known either follow what their pastors tell them or choose a biblical philosophy that appeals to their worldview or personal ego. Very few read the Bible to find out what it really says, or question their translations and sources. Many stay completely stunted or even regress in their emotional and spiritual growth. And they often follow leaders who are even more stunted than them or who became pastors to take financial and emotional advantage of blind followers. I can count on my hands the few who have been in my life that actually are continuously living to follow Jesus. I’m not even sure I can count myself.

    Where is the Holy Spirit?

    I’ve been stuck here for several years now and am not sure I am going to get past this.

  132. One more thing that has led to my struggle over the Holy Spirit is the knowledge that the NT English translations have some very intentional mistranslation and bias to reinforce things like complementarianism. And that those decisions were driven by Christian celebrities and not language scholars. Even Al Mohler is not a language scholar and Christians should be treating him like he is. His rise to evangelical fame was because he was good at fundraising.

    I’ve been sharing Wm. Paul Youngs Ephesians 5 video with friends, who ask me if that’s really accurate to the Greek. When I say it is, and I came to the same conclusion in seminary, they are completely gobsmacked that the translations are so dishonest to hide the real meaning of the Greek text. And that’s not the only place.

    And now we have a movement that not only uses the dishonesty already in practice but acts like the ESV is inerrant and will only use a translation.

    I ask again, where is the Holy Spirit?

    For reference, the video (I believe it was Ken F that originally shared it): https://youtu.be/iqZQLAvgIWc

  133. Ken F (aka Tweed),
    I affirm all the scripture quoted. And if you can prove this “tradition” that you are advocating is what the Apostles taught, you are right. But I am sure you can not prove that. It isn’t in scripture. the adoration of Mary is idolatry. What the reformers believed is really irrelevant to the argument. I don’t believe what I believe because the reformers believed it. I believe anything they taught because what they taught was taught by the Apostles and prophets.
    Also I don’t think you have made the case that the early church taught that Mary was a perpetual virgin. There may have been some that thought that in the 2nd century and even beyond. Now for me to be orthodox it must be something I believe? I do not think you have made the case. Though perhaps Luther and Calvin may have believed that. Can I ask how that helps you case? Didn’t the RC anathematize(they couldn’t be saved) both men as heretics and outside the orthodox faith? I pray God’s blessing on you sir.

  134. ishy: I ask again, where is the Holy Spirit?

    I feel confident that the Spirit was driven away by the lovelessness. And perhaps that’s why in our time prayers ‘in Jesus name’ generally don’t get ‘heard’.

  135. ishy,

    Your question of “where is the Holly Spirit” is not just relevant now, one could ask that throughout history….
    We ( collective culture) tend to forget how nasty the US Civil War was, over 600,000 war dead, and all the rest of the suffering….
    Or, all the people burned “ at the stack” for questioning the authority of the church…. Or all the dead and suffering in Protestant/Roman Catholic wars….
    I am not hear to debate all the reasons behind all of the suffering I listed above, except to say that “Christianity and the Bible “ were used on both sides to justify terrible behavior…. Where was the HS??

  136. ishy,

    Thank you for re-highlighting this, please EVERYONE do not touch any Bible that issues “updates” every couple of years.

  137. ishy,

    It’s for you I’ve been offering my insights: Scripture has to have meanings; words allude; providential perseverance; etc.

  138. Samuel Conner: I feel confident that the Spirit was driven away by the lovelessness. And perhaps that’s why in our time prayers ‘in Jesus name’ generally don’t get ‘heard’.

    But wouldn’t the God of the Bible be bigger than lovelessness? Or any other obstacle?

    I’m not just questioning where the Holy Spirit went, but the fundamental nature of the Christian God.

  139. ishy: I’m currently having significant issues with the idea of the Holy Spirit.

    Sorry — just up and not properly caffeinated; didn’t notice your two-parter and started at the end of the queue.

    Your difficulties appear to me to be valid — I share them and it’s part of why I departed from organized evangelical religion — and it may be (my present hypothesis is that it is , but it’s only a hypothesis) — that the problem is that present conceptions of the work of the Holy Spirit in the churches see that work as the aggregation of “Holy Spirit work” in individuals as opposite to a work within/among groups. Sometimes ‘sum of parts’ does not make a functional ‘whole’ — this happens when interconnections between the parts are important for the function of the whole, something that surely is relevant to churches.

    The present doctrine assumes that the ‘location’ of the Holy Spirit is ‘within individuals’ and it is assumed that any genuine believer automatically has the Holy Spirit residing within that individual.

    This creates a puzzle — where is the evidence of the work of the Spirit who is declared by the doctrine to be present? And if “present but not working”, what good is that?

    Or, as you put it, “where is the Holy Spirit?”

    ——–

    Back in the early part of the mid-’10s, I was wrestling with this question in the context of a dying OP congregation. It had been a large, vibrant church of the OPC, one of the early foundings in its region, and occupied one of the finest buildings (a decades old legacy of the vibrant period) in its part of its state. But it was now small and dwindling.

    It was loveless, and the lovelessness arguably proceeded from the Session of Elders (sort of the opposite of Holy Spirit procession from the Father and Son). I was puzzled to understand the interpersonal dynamic within the conventional theory that the Holy Spirit individually indwells each believer. Doesn’t Paul write that the love of God is pour out in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit?

    You have asked “Where is the Spirit?”. I was asking “Where is the love?”.

    The thought occurred that the interpersonal dynamic within the Session of Elders looked a great deal like the interpersonal dynamic among the apostles during Jesus’ public ministry. There was a form of power struggle and competition to “get my way rather than yours.”

    One could ask of the apostolic band during Jesus’ public ministry, “where is the Holy Spirit?”

    Jesus gave an answer during his famous Johannine Supper Discourse: the Holy Spirit was par them, but not yet en them.

    par is “with” and en is usually translated, in HS texts, as “in” (in the sense of “within you individually”.

    But the semantic range of en also extends to “among”, as in Jn 1, “the logos became flesh and dwelt among ( en ) us.”

    So perhaps a better translation of Jn 14:17 would be that the Holy Spirit was present to empower certain works of the apostles (casting out demons, for example) but was not yet present among the apostles in the way that the Holy Spirit would in future be present among Jesus-followers in the churches.

    This will offend many adherents of traditional thinking about the HS, but I think it makes a lot of sense. The HS will replace Jesus — per Jesus own words — in the life of the apostolic band. As Jesus had been at the center of the apostolic band, so in the future the HS would be in that location — among the group, in the midst of the group.

    Jesus also said something that I have never seen a credible explanation for. He said that the Holy Spirit would not come into the midst of the apostolic band unless Jesus departed. It is not credible to me that Jesus’ presence by itself is repellant to the Spirit. It seems much more reasonable that something about the character of the apostolic band that arose because of Jesus’ presence deterred the presence of the Spirit.

    A good candidate for this “something” is “the character of the interpersonal relationships among the apostles”. They did not love one another — they were striving for Jesus’ attention and favor for their own purposes, to get the best places of authority in what they believed would be Jesus’ coming visible reign over Israel. They were a bit like present day power-holders in the Big Ev hierarchies.

    And this bad interpersonal relational environment would certainly continue as long as Jesus remained at the center of that group.

    This is, admittedly, a highly unusual proposal, but I think Jesus confirms in in the Supper Discourse. The two great themes of the discourse are “love one another as I have loved you” and “after I depart, I will send the Spirit”. The command of the first theme, if obeyed, creates the conditions for the fulfillment of the second theme.

    ————

    When we see Pauline HS language and the preposition en , it is generally with the plural personal pronouns “you(pl)” or “we/us”. The en is customarily translated “in” (in the sense of “within”) when it might be better translated “among”.

    In other words, Paul may be saying (as Jesus may have been saying) that the ‘location’ of the Holy Spirit is “within the group”, as opposed to “within individuals”.

    That Paul conceived of “Jesus congregations” as groups that were collectively “indwelt” by the Holy Spirit should not be controversial. He has a clear “corporate temple” conception of the church. Per Paul, believers are built together into a temple within which God dwells through the Holy Spirit. I think this ‘corporate temple’ concept is important but neglected in our day, given our pre-occupation with individuals.

    Perhaps in churches, as in the apostolic band, relational environments that are not characterized by love are displeasing or even repellant to the Spirit. Perhaps the Spirit departs those corporate temples. There is certainly an OT precedent for the Spirit forsaking a temple that is filled with displeasing things.

    Perhaps that’s why the loveless congregation at Ephesus is warned in Rev 2 that it may lose its lampstand. Paul had previously, in Eph 4, warned this same congregation to not ‘grieve the Spirit.’ Perhaps his warnings were not heeded.

    ———-

    Perhaps they have not been heeded by present-day congregrations, either.

    Where is the Holy Spirit? Perhaps not among those groups any longer.

  140. Samuel Conner: In other words, Paul may be saying (as Jesus may have been saying) that the ‘location’ of the Holy Spirit is “within the group”, as opposed to “within individuals”.

    You’re right, that is a better translation. And it’s an argument that makes sense from a non-evangelical perspective.

    Over the past 10 years or so, I have been visiting non-evangelical churches, but they haven’t done much better than evangelical churches in comforting my restless spirit. Like with a lot of people, I think the pandemic made me a “done”. I don’t know what I believe right now, but I didn’t find it in churches. I have way more Bible training than most Christians and the more I got, the more it just made me question all the assumptions in Christianity. A lot of churches and “Christian” leaders are so dishonest about the Bible, their own faith, and the church.

  141. Where IS the Holy Spirit?

    maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places at the wrong people?

    just a thought, before that second cup of coffee 🙂

  142. ishy,

    There’s an intriguing and IMO somewhat mysterious book by M Scott Peck about what he calls “community”. I read this decades ago, and recall very little of it, except that he asserted that it was possible for groups to transiently enter into a kind of ‘collective consciousness’ that was very powerful in the sense of promoting mutual concern and love.

    IIRC, he called this “entering community.”

    Back when I read that, I was intrigued but had no idea what to make of it. I certainly didn’t see any possible connection with Paul’s “one another” emphasis or implications for that of the location and presence of the Spirit. At the time, my thinking was firmly individualistic.

    But maybe what Peck was writing about has some connection with whatever group phenomena was going on in the early churches — they were known for their love one for another — that was, perhaps, a precondition for the presence and working of the Spirit.

  143. christiane: here IS the Holy Spirit?

    maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places at the wrong people?

    Part of my core problem is that I’ve literally been all over. All different churches. All different groups. All over the world!

    I’ve seen more mature people outside of the church than in it…

  144. ishy: A lot of churches and “Christian” leaders are so dishonest about the Bible, their own faith, and the church.

    I think that the Evangelical movement has become thoroughly postmodern. The ancient texts are often studied not to understand what the ancient authors meant to communicate to the original recipients; rather they are used to justify and amplify the present power relations that the interpreters prefer. It’s a post-modern approach to the texts.

    I urge you to not loosen your personal grip on the beauty of the Jesus story. It may be difficult or impossible to perceive that beauty within many or most present-day religious corporations — where is the love? where is the Holy Spirit? — but I think it’s still possible to live that beauty in one’s own interactions with people. And perhaps you will find individual like-minded people who, like you, thirst for the beauty of Jesus and who themselves seek to reflect that beauty into the world, and maybe you’ll even encounter groups that are like this.

    In his now decades old book about “community”, Dr Peck asserted that “community” might be essential for the future of the human race. I didn’t then (and still don’t) understand what he was talking about in his language about “community”, but I’m prepared to believe that he was right about its importance.

    I pray that you may find more glimpses of the beauty of Jesus in the present wilderness.

  145. Samuel Conner: some connection with whatever group phenomena was going on in the early churches — they were known for their love one for another — that was, perhaps, a precondition for the presence and working of the Spirit.

    that is a thoughtful comment, Samuel Connor

    my eldest lives in a group home at Eastern Christian Childrens’ Retreat in Wyckoff NJ and he has many ‘challenges’ but he can walk and has the use of his arms and hands. I have seen him get up and choose a musical toy from a shelf and carry it over and lay it VERY gently into the hands of a stretcher-bound resident. I was greatly moved when I saw this happen. The staff told me that my son often shows kindness to others in the home in this way. So he has an ‘awareness’ of those who can’t get up and walk and choose; and he ‘knows enough’ by the grace of God to ‘help’ them in the way that he IS able to do it. I saw that he had taken on the role in his community of ‘servant’ and I was grateful to God for giving him this gift that added such meaning to his own existence. God allowed me to see this.
    That was a blessing I didn’t deserve, but I needed to see and I was grateful for the privilege.

    ‘communal awareness’ 🙂
    and among those of our kind who we think are ‘limited’ . . . but maybe not so limited after all

    the interactions among the group home members showed a kindness to one another and an awareness of ‘need’ and there was ‘response’ in the way it could be shown and that to me signals something that very human was present in their world, and we might learn from their example something about ‘community’ and how it operates among the humble ones of our kind

  146. ishy: I’ve seen more mature people outside of the church than in it…

    Of course, it’s the unwell who need a doctor.

    What is distressing is that the ‘medicine’ doesn’t seem to have much in the way of curative properties.

  147. Samuel Conner,

    It is sadly accurate to see this described as “unusual”. It was you that gave me my last jigsaw piece last Ascension.

    Yes and He then becomes present in us each as well, because we accept Jesus’ teaching and not the elders’; not instead. That’s the only way our gifts get potentised and not stolen.

  148. Mr. Jesperson: Yet I was shown hell in a dream

    I am sorry for your suffering, and want to assure you that your dreams do not serve as messages from God to others about anything. Dreams should not cause daytime fear or changes in what we believe. They do not tell the Truth about where our loved ones go when they die. They do not warn. When we wake up from a nightmare, we see the world we know, with all its joy and hardship.

    Since childhood I have had dreams about cafeteria food. Sometimes the food disappears from my tray. This is nighttime brain activity, not theology.

    I wish you peace and comfort.

  149. Headless Unicorn Guy: If Enemy Christians believe X, we True Christians must believe Not-X?

    Exactly. So many people around me Roman and especially non-Roman wanted me to make an issue of this or that but as long as I refused to take any notice of any dialectic and counter-dialectic my instinct was sound. Nobody in authority cared what I believed (and it takes surviving some hazards to discover this).

  150. Friend,

    Did Mr Jesperson say he intends to impose fear on us? Your dream was about being deprived of choice (as Cafeteria Christian as well as in myriad other ways) which is just as relevant in theology as any other walk of life. I bet you didn’t wake up sweating. Appreciate your gifts. And when gifts manifest (which are meant to be either human or human and divine COMBINED) the right reaction is prayer. Since when was prayer nasty? This morning a very nice musician who had just played my favourite tune was talking personally at length with every single one in his audience, and it genuinely didn’t matter if we had resolved to stay shy.

  151. Max: The founding of SBC was scary … slavery justified by theology! Yep, it’s better to just enjoy the church potlucks and not think about that ugly chapter in SBC life.

    Maybe, Max, you’re being too hard on the SBC potluckers. SBC history=CRT. And isn’t CRT banned in schools and churches!! Not just slavery, but the old-time SBC potluckers who invited Jim Crow to join right in as the ladies set the jello molds and green-bean hot-dishes on the counter is the church basements, JC always asking the Lord’s blessing. Oh, yes, and the KKK never existed. No. I’m wrong. All those in the KKK, the Jim Crows, were Democrats just like Biden, Chuck Schumer and Nancy P are today.

  152. ishy: I’ve literally been all over. All different churches. All different groups

    Us bold explorers have got to stick together! Three of my grandparents changed religion twice.

  153. Ken A,

    I think you are missing the point. The same people who passed on the scriptures (the early church, the councils, and the reformers) that you quote as your only authority held very different beliefs than most modern Christians. If you disagree with their view on Mary there’s a plethora of other doctrines, writings, and practices (infant baptism comes to mind) that might surprise you from the same people literally responsible for preserving and determining the New Testament.

  154. ishy: I’m not just questioning where the Holy Spirit went, but the fundamental nature of the Christian God.

    Perhaps “love” is intimately connected with “the fundamental nature of the Christian God”.

    I Jn 4 has a lot about this, which I think further reinforces the ‘hypothesis’ about “love one another” as a precondition for “the presence of the HS among the group”

    If you embrace “free will” theory, the hypothesis fits quite nicely — God gives groups the freedom to be what they want to be, and sends the Spirit to dwell among groups that don’t grieve Him.

    It’s a lot harder if you have a strong conception of Divine sovereignty. Why would God decree loveless congregations that claim to worship Him? Doesn’t that give unbelievers grounds to ‘blaspheme the Name’? Me thinks it does. Why decree that?

    I don’t have answers (I lean toward “strong sovereignty”, so the problem is especially acute for me).

    But I do have a strong sense that Jesus is beautiful, and that “having that kind of beauty within oneself” would be better than anything else I can imagine. And there is reason to think that this is what the Creator intends to do in us (I Jn 3:1-3).

    That hope helps to alleviate my thirst in a dry and dusty wilderness.

  155. From my reading of the Church Father’s, and of those who comment on them, it seems to me that there was from the earliest times a PSA in embryo and I’ve spent part of this morning looking at the references and explanations. This is contrary to what Ken F says so there’s no surprise there but it does show that when Reformed folk read the Church Fathers -as all the Reformers did – they can make a very good case for Reformation and puncture the sanctimonious smugness that is usually confined to Orthodox chat rooms.

    I quite like the view of JND Kelly in Early Christian Doctrines – “Faced with this diversity, scholars have often despaired of discovering any single unifying thought in the patristic teaching about the redemption. These various theories, however, despite appearances, should not be regarded as in fact mutually incompatible. They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as complementary”

  156. Samuel Conner: Right now I’m dealing with someone who subscribes to “Word of Faith” teachings, and who is facing medical challenges. The costliness here is the risk that needed medical care will be refused in favor of (what I think is) a flawed conception of faith and of the way that God customarily works in people’s lives at the present time.

    With a similar outcome to a lot of Herman Cain Awards:

    Professions of FAITH not Fear, Name It and Claim It, followed by calls for Prayer Warriors, followed by the announcement of “The LORD Took Him/Her Home”, followed by the GoFundMe for medical and “Homegoing Celebration” (funeral) expenses. (Lather, Rinse, Repeat, Lather, Rinse, Repeat…)

  157. Headless Unicorn Guy,

    I perceive, sir, that you are a prophet.

    🙁

    This remark is uncomfortably close to the situation I am trying to mitigate. I suspect that Omicron will win this fight. Not sure what to do.

    I plan to order a copy of “Stop Walking on Eggshells”, which at least may help with “self-care”.

  158. Ruth Tucker: old-time SBC potluckers who invited Jim Crow to join right in as the ladies set the jello molds and green-bean hot-dishes on the counter is the church basements, JC always asking the Lord’s blessing

    Whoa! I missed that tidbit of SBC history! Whew! I’ll never look at a green-bean casserole the same again.

    (Jim Crow, of course, was not an actual person, but an ungodly racial ideology. However, I can certainly see those sort of folks sitting down to SBC potlucks in the past and, unfortunately, in the present. God would never bless a Jim Crow prayer.)

  159. As for Calvin’s view of Perpetual Virginity, here are his words on Luke 1:34 – “The conjecture which some have drawn from these words, that she had formed a vow of perpetual virginity, is unfounded and altogether absurd. She would, in that case, have committed treachery by allowing herself to be united to a husband, and would have poured contempt on the holy covenant of marriage; which could not have been done without mockery of God. Although the Papists have exercised barbarous tyranny on this subject, yet they have never proceeded so far as to allow the wife to form a vow of continence at her own pleasure. Besides, it is an idle and unfounded supposition that a monastic life existed among the Jews.
    We must reply, however, to another objection, that the virgin refers to the future, and so declares that she will have no intercourse with a man. The probable and simple explanation is, that the greatness or rather majesty of the subject made so powerful an impression on the virgin, that all her senses were bound and locked up in astonishment. When she is informed that the Son of God will be born, she imagines something unusual, and for that reason leaves conjugal intercourse out of view.”

  160. christiane: Where IS the Holy Spirit?

    As a believer, “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19). However, finding the Holy Spirit actively at work in most American church congregations is like looking for a needle in a haystack. As A.W. Tozer said:

    “If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.”

  161. Headless Unicorn Guy: Samuel Conner: Perhaps “love” is intimately connected with “the fundamental nature of the Christian God”.

    Not WRATH and POWER?

    maybe that’s why the broken and humbled among us are the ones able to sing ‘a cold and lonely Hallelujah’?

    . . . ? have they found the Source of ‘love’ in the ‘fundamental nature of the Christian God’ who say’s to them:

    “28Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (?)
    (from the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 11)

    is this the reason that it’s the humble ones who are so much more able to serve by helping others to carry their burdens in this strange and lonely wilderness where there is no water?

    as was prophesied BY Hosea ?,
    this:

    “4Yet I am the LORD your God ever since the land of Egypt;
    you know no God but Me,
    for there is no Savior besides Me.
    5 I KNEW YOU IN THE WILDERNESS, IN THE LAND OF DROUGHT.’

    some of us come to know ‘the Christian God’ the hard way, not in the social halls and on the stages of mega churches, but in the hard places no one seeks out, it is there we WILL find Him

  162. Michael in UK,

    The idea that “The work of the Spirit is hindered in relational environments that are not characterized by love” is from Paul David Tripp, in his “Methods of Biblical Change” class, that was taught at WTS from some time in the ’80s until PDT departed CCEF (in the ’00s, I think) to start an independent speaking/writing ministry.

    PT conceptualized “counseling ministry” in terms of four key functions (not necessarily sequential steps; each of the functions is always in view at all stages of the counseling relationship):

    Love/Know/Speak/Do

    Love: create a relational environment in which the Holy Spirit can work

    Know: help the counselee to see what the counselee needs to see (CCEF conceptualizes this “need to see” in terms of heart motivations as well as beliefs and actions). This is a kind of “self-discovery”, not the counselor declaring what the counselor thinks he sees.

    Speak: help the counselee to verbalize what is discovered and what needs to change. It is best if, in analogy to the famous incident of Nathan and David, the counselee is able to ‘self-confront’

    Do: Help the counselee to make needed changes.

    One may disagree with PT’s conception of counseling ministry, but I think this paradigm can be useful, and I think the “Love” function is very relevant to “the life of local congregations”.

  163. elastigirl,

    If you are still having problems with the reply links on TWW posts, my problem in that regard was with the Google browser. Apparently, a Google update affected settings on my end which prevented me from opening reply links. When I use another browser, I don’t have that problem.

  164. ishy: His rise to evangelical fame was because he was good at fundraising.

    I’ve always been curious to know what their ‘cut’ is when they haul in a bag of shekels so to speak.
    But then again, cuz’ they don’t hafta’ file IRS form 990, we’ll probably never know.

  165. Maybe deconstruction is a way to “de-weaponize” the bible.

    Everything from Leviticus, to Mary’s ostensible virginity, to Paul’s “Annie Lennox” fixation just puts others down.

    We’re constantly told by boring sermon after boring sermon what we should be doing.

    Most of us have it figured out. And for those that don’t – the answer isn’t in that acid flashback called Revelation.

    I’ve become a universalist, I no longer believe there is one way to the truth.

    It’s all right and it’s all wrong.

    Mary may have never done the “nasty” or maybe she was a complete libertine. I don’t know and I no longer care – as long as it was her choice and she didn’t harm anyone else.

    This civilization has bigger fish to fry – literally – see below.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57816922

    Once again, time to go on hiatus.

    I need a good shot of secularity…

  166. Michael in UK: Did Mr Jesperson say he intends to impose fear on us? Your dream was about being deprived of choice (as Cafeteria Christian as well as in myriad other ways) which is just as relevant in theology as any other walk of life. I bet you didn’t wake up sweating. Appreciate your gifts. And when gifts manifest (which are meant to be either human or human and divine COMBINED) the right reaction is prayer. Since when was prayer nasty? …

    I tried to extend compassion to Mr. Jesperson. His comment implies that he thinks people go to hell for sex outside marriage—perhaps even his own brother, although that is not clear. This is a common warning and threat spread throughout Christendom, and it creates more trouble and shame than it does repentance and clean living, in my humble view.

    Many TWW folk have been raised on the theology that God hates us, we are worms, we are used chewing gum, and our righteousness is filthy rags. These beliefs harm people who are just trying to live lives of faith.

    Forgive me, but I can’t understand why you asked, “Since when was prayer nasty?” I pray daily and would never say or think such a thing.

    I greatly value comments here, and always look forward to your insights. (My cafeteria dreams do have meaning, which is personal, and yes, sometimes the dreams are terrifying. That’s why I remember them.)

  167. Friend: he thinks people go to hell for sex outside marriage

    Which is sin, of course, put not the unpardonable sin. It is a repentable offense, to which Jesus would say “Go and sin no more” to those who are penitent. To continue to live in that lifestyle is not true repentance.

  168. I was convinced by the idea of Perpetual Virginity (which I resisted for a long time) by two things: One, yes, it was her choice. And especially Two, the concept that God had just passed through Mary’s body, and, well, look what happened when somebody just reached out and touched the Ark of the Covenant….

  169. Friend: Many TWW folk have been raised on the theology that God hates us, we are worms

    Some of us are worse than worms … we are worm sweat! For the life of me, I don’t understand why Christians give folks who preach like that the time of day.

  170. CJ and Bob Kauflin introduced an old Puritan hymn that had the line “I Am but a worm” don’t remember the tune or title-but I do remember how emphatic and emotional they were about bringing this precious little gem to SGM churches.

    As Mary Hopkins said best “Those were the days my friend”

  171. Max,

    My fundy HS elevated, and classmates memorized, and presented:
    “Sinners in the hand of an angry G4D”!!
    Jonathan Edwards..

  172. Friend: I tried to extend compassion to Mr. Jesperson. His comment implies that he thinks people go to hell for sex outside marriage—perhaps even his own brother, although that is not clear. This is a common warning and threat spread throughout Christendom, and it creates more trouble and shame than it does repentance and clean living, in my humble view.

    In some circles of Christianity, sex outside of marriage is theeee absolute worst thing there is.
    It’s even worse than stealing elderly widow’s houses with underhanded equity loans.

  173. Lowlandseer:
    These various theories, however, despite appearances, should not be regarded as in fact mutually incompatible. They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as complementary”

    The blind men and the elephant.

  174. Cynthia W.: fka Dee Holmes,

    Belief in Mary’s virginity protects all women from the assumption that they have no value, no reason for existing, unless they are used for sex by a man. Men hate women’s virginity unless they get to “take” it.

    This does NOTHING for me. Maybe it’s because I’m autistic and asexual, but I never looked to men for my value. I AM NOT PROPERTY. And I sure as heck do not feel orotected by Maryxs virginity.

    Really, the emphasis on virginity is overblown.

  175. Doubtful,

    I’m just reminded that the writers of the texts of the New Testament lived in societies where slavery was deeply ingrained in the economic life of the community. Also, women and girls were seen as property of their nearest male relative. If you don’t acknowledge these things baked in to the society of the time, you’re going to misinterpret the texts. That happens a lot. (Not just to say that some people would like to go back to enslaving other people because the Bible allows it. *cough* Doug Wilson *cough*

  176. Ken A: the adoration of Mary is idolatry.

    I never mentioned adoration of Mary, so I don’t know how your point here is relevant. The argument from silence for either perspective can yield wrong results. We have no way of knowing exactly what the earliest Christians believed about some of this things on the list, but two factors are important. First, no surviving historical records claim they did not believe these things. Second, the first historical records that do indicate these beliefs make them sound like they were common and nothing new. This is not unlike when scientists say they discovered a “new” species. It was really there all along but never documented. These beliefs appear to be like that. You can claim early Christians never believed these things, but your only evidence is lack of evidence. Even if they did believe these things, it does not mean the early church was right or wrong, and it does not mean we should or should not believe those things. It is just a simple fact that these beliefs were early and that they don’t sit well with most protestants, as is amply demonstrated by oue conversation here. Learning about things like this does in fact contribute to deconstruction, which was my main point.

  177. Lowlandseer: As for Calvin’s view of Perpetual Virginity,

    Calvin did not decisively choose one position or another. He made strong statements saying it is absurd to insist she remained a virgin, and also that is absurd to insist that she did not. The main point is he never claimed she did not remain a virgin. But all of the other reformers did.

    Have you read this quote from Calvin?

    This passage afforded the pretext for great disturbances, which were introduced into the Church, at a former period, by Helvidius. The inference he drew from it was, that Mary remained a virgin no longer than till her first birth, and that afterwards she had other children by her husband. Jerome, on the other hand, earnestly and copiously defended Mary’s perpetual virginity. Let us rest satisfied with this, that no just and well-grounded inference can be drawn from these words of the Evangelist, as to what took place after the birth of Christ. He is called first-born; but it is for the sole purpose of informing us that he was born of a virgin. It is said that Joseph knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born son: but this is limited to that very time. What took place afterwards, the historian does not inform us. Such is well known to have been the practice of the inspired writers. Certainly, no man will ever raise a question on this subject, except from curiosity; and no man will obstinately keep up the argument, except from an extreme fondness for disputation.

    John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, First Volume (page 107)

  178. Lowlandseer: From my reading of the Church Father’s, and of those who comment on them, it seems to me that there was from the earliest times a PSA in embryo and I’ve spent part of this morning looking at the references and explanations. This is contrary to what Ken F says so there’s no surprise there…

    Yes and no. Yes, the patristics wrote about Jesus suffering the penalty of death, but no, it was nowhere close to the current view of PSA, not even an embryonic form of it. The main difference is the central motif in the modern PSA view is the need for God to vent his wrath on someone as payment so that he can forgive without violating his justice. There is no hint in any of the patristics of Jesus satisfying the wrath of God, or of God turning his face away from Jesus, or of God needing to vent his wrath before he can forgive. All of the patristics affirmed God’s freedom to forgive. Do any modern reformed theologians accept a wrathless PSA?

  179. Ken A: And if you can prove this “tradition” that you are advocating is what the Apostles taught, you are right.

    Those passages and others affirm that Paul taught things he did not write down as scripture. He also described explaining (or hoping to explain) some things face to face, which means his written words alone were not sufficient. I also learned along the way that early Christians did not write down some of their most valued traditions because they wanted to protect them – like an early form of cyber security. There is no passage anywhere in the Bible stating we must rely on scripture alone. Nor did God reveal a written table of contents for the NT to use in canonizing it. So at a minimum, scripture alone could not be used to determine which books were and were not scripture. And scripture alone could not be used before the church sorted out the NT canon, which took a few centuries.

  180. Doubtful: The same people who passed on the scriptures (the early church, the councils, and the reformers) that you quote as your only authority held very different beliefs than most modern Christians.

    This is a very important point. I often hear protestants dismiss 4th and 5th century church fathers as papists, apostates, or heretics, but without questioning how the NT could have been canonized by them correctly. If they were apostates, how can we trust the NT. If they were not apostates, why should we reject what they taught?

  181. Ken F (aka Tweed): Second, the first historical records that do indicate these beliefs make them sound like they were common and nothing new.

    Anti-Catholics often harp on the Church “Creating Doctrine”, citing theological definitions over the first few centuries from Church Councils.

    The reason the Councils were held and defined was because the subject had not come up before then, and there was a knock-down-drag-out in progress over said doctrine. The councils often just formally defined what had been believed and taught up to that point but nobody had yet fought over it.

    It was like appealing a dispute to the Supreme Court these days; no dispute, no need for a ruling on it.

  182. Friend: Since when was prayer nasty

    yes this was rhetorical. I was proferring the idea in relation to dreams. Good that you are a dreamer. I think they should be seen not, as superstitious but as mnemonics, often meaning several opposite things at once, and of course you are right varying degrees of hilarious or bewildering nonsense also get weaved in quite often. As for the background to Mr J’s train of thought I wish churches would explain to us better, what is the effect of sins on the kingdom of God (the latter is not dominionism), then what he says wouldn’t seem to stand in such a vacuum. After all, Jesus promised at Ascension another Comforter.

  183. Ken F (aka Tweed): I never mentioned adoration of Mary, so I don’t know how your point here is relevant.

    When all you have is a “NO POPERY!” hammer, everything looks like a Papist nail.

    And if at first you don’t succeed, GET A BIGGER HAMMER.

  184. Ken F (aka Tweed),

    Exactly… you can’t point to the early councils and church fathers to support which books should be considered scriptures and then dismiss out of hand their interpretations of those same scriptures.

    Buyer beware for any modern Evangelical who goes searching for support of their most closely held doctrines in the early church-they are in for a bit of a shock.

  185. Muslin fka Dee Holmes,

    I feel the same way (about Mary, I am neither autistic nor ace). I would suggest that we have ample precedent from Jesus’ actions and those of the early church to establish the intrinsic value of women. Mary and Joseph remaining celibate or not does not seem to add anything, imo.

    Teaching that Mary never had sex doesn’t protect women. Teaching that women are whole people worthy of respect protects women. I am not sure where/when the previous poster’s idea originated, but it seems like a later justification for something the church originally believed for very different reasons.

    Also – I don’t personally know any men that “hate a woman’s virginity unless they get to take it.” I’m sure they’re out there and I’m sorry for the women who do know them. But, again, a belief about Mary isn’t very effective protection against that sort of misogyny.

    I have no clue how the perpetual virginity of Mary became such a hot button issue on this thread. Personally, I don’t care whether Mary had sex or not. It makes more sense to me that she did. Then the notion of her perpetual virginity arose after those who knew her and her family personally were dead, probably influenced by then-current ideas of sex as inherently polluting. Ofc I dont know that. Nor would that negate the fact that some women may find the belief that Mary never had sex comforting.

    I have no dog in the fight as to whether this idea is true, or how widely it was believed in the early church. All I’m trying to say is, it would be ok for some beliefs, even dearly held ones, to be purely cultural in origin. It would not trouble me in the least to know that every Christian from 100 AD to 1600 AD believed wrongly that Mary and Joseph were celibate their whole marriage (assuming this could ever be proved of course). Nor would it bother me that much if it could be proved she WAS a perpetual virgin. People are allowed to be wrong about stuff like that. People are a product of their time and place. Faith, much as we would like to think otherwise, cannot be stripped of all cultural flesh and reduced to a bare skeleton of objective reality. We don’t have the perspective for that, even if it would be desirable to do so.

  186. Doubtful: Buyer beware for any modern Evangelical who goes searching for support of their most closely held doctrines in the early church-they are in for a bit of a shock.

    That was me. I chose the red pill and cannot return to where I was before. I thought I would find support for my beliefs in the early church. I could not have been more wrong. I also thought I could find some kind of golden age of the church where they got it right. Instead, I found the church has always been messed up in one way or another, and we today are not better than our ancestors. I also found treaures in all that muck. Overall, it caused me to be more careful about being certain about “essential” beliefs, and more willing to try to understand perspectives of other Christian communities – new or old.

  187. Samuel Conner,

    Freedom and not being put upon will enable our creative intuition. When evangelising (a discussion that is beginning, mostly at distance, among some new acquaintances of mine) I think what will work will be to show and say that looking after us is part of the message. The what comes next, how to count the good cost. Jesus’ burden, our brother, ain’t heavy. Discernment is by the widows’ and orphans’ competence and priesthood.

    Trent, Loyola and the first two waves of Calvinism were all reactions to something which is why they revolved around each other. Backwoodsmen / Muscular Christianity / designer outlet superapostles want us to forget that my parents’ lives were hard. I have given a lot of time to religious leaders’ fantasies, and my judgment is that the newcomers won’t wear it any more.

    My heart sunk when I read that New Frontiers has been compromised by P J Smyth:

    https://julieroys.com/pj-smyth-complicit-disclosing-father-abuse/

    I had this leaden feeling in New Frontiers: the intuitions and gifts were going wasted. I wish I had been strong enough to stay and stand up for what was right among them against what was wrong among them. After that I and some others went to a denomination where the same was happening. In both, the concept of prayer was weird. One can’t survive when one can’t articulate.

  188. Ken F (aka Tweed): That was me. I chose the red pill and cannot return to where I was before. I thought I would find support for my beliefs in the early church. I could not have been more wrong. I also thought I could find some kind of golden age of the church where they got it right. Instead, I found the church has always been messed up in one way or another, and we today are not better than our ancestors.

    Very similar to my trip through the looking glass.

  189. Samuel Conner: Why would God decree loveless congregations that claim to worship Him? Doesn’t that give unbelievers grounds to ‘blaspheme the Name’?

    It gives generations of church insiders and successive leaders “grounds” to ‘blaspheme the Name’ by careless lack of critique.

    I’m thinking about your “strong sovereignty” idea. Obviously God created people to carry responsibility in relationships and power exercising. They do so to mixed standards. The entire punchline of Jesus’ ministry is His announcing Another Comforter at Ascension. To the extent we renounce rivalry because we trust Him to look after us, somehow, probably not conveniently, we are open to burden bearing and burden sharing, which is a witness. You said that, last summer. God is not a Fat Controller. His sovereignty is strong because He intends us to be free and creative. He is a more daring Being than is imaginable!

    “Homecoming celebration” is a nice sounding idea! The people that were given a warped Gospel will get to ask the questions and will be compensated by God to any individual extent.

  190. Ken A: where the Gospel was recovered from RC

    Just out of curiosity, approximately what year did the gospel get to the point where it needed recovery? And did it ever get to the point of needing recovery in Eastern Christianity?

  191. Ken A: When did the RC finally make it a doctrine that “must” be believed?

    yes it has often claimed that it has done such things. This confuses the issues no end. In practice, adherents ignore some or make them less important. The RCC forgot to teach me Trent altogether. I don’t remember being told we had to be in lockstep; my parents’ belief sounded the same as my secular school Scripture teachers taught, and the Church of Scotland lady up the road believed, and scarcely more ornate. I’m with your solas, pointing out that I go with meanings of Scripture, which arise from the intersection of allusions.

  192. A more lighthearted (and true) story about Mary’s reported virginity, in light of Christmas upcoming:
    Sitting in church with family waiting for Christmas eve service to start. One child (9 or so?) asks ‘Why do they always talk about Mary and not Joseph on Christmas?”
    I say ‘Because Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    (me thinking, ok, all these years of church and the concept of virgin birth definitely hasn’t come through)
    So I explain story of virgin birth and in the conversation used the word ‘sex’.
    Said child looks at me with wide eyes and says, ‘Mom, Don’t say that word in church!’

  193. CMT:
    Faith, much as we would like to think otherwise, cannot be stripped of all cultural flesh and reduced to a bare skeleton of objective reality. We don’t have the perspective for that, even if it would be desirable to do so.

    YES. The only one with that kind of perspective is God. So it behooves the rest of us (self included) to have have a little grace with each other when it comes to our individual interpretations.

  194. Ken F (aka Tweed): I also thought I could find some kind of golden age of the church where they got it right. Instead, I found the church has always been messed up in one way or another, and we today are not better than our ancestors.

    Taking it back further than the early church, it does not appear that the preservation of Old Testament Scripture was dependent on full and continual unanimity of correct thought and belief amongst the religious leadership during much of the times in which it was being written, nor when it was being received in canonical form (the Pharisees and Sadducees apparently didn’t even agree on life after death) — let alone dependent on faithfulness and righteous action of all of the religious leadership. One may take comfort in that God still could act to bring forth His word in the midst of all of this, a word that consistently called out unrighteous actions and practices from those who purported to be leading God’s people.

    Matthew 23:29-35 — “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous; and you say, ‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you bear witness to yourselves that you are sons of those having murdered the prophets. You, then, fill up the measure of your fathers. Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How shall you escape from the sentence of Gehenna?
    “Because of this, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and will crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and will persecute from town to town; so that upon you shall come all the righteous blood being poured out upon the earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.”

    Acts 7:51-53 — “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, also do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those having foretold about the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers, you who received the Law by the ordination of angels, and have not kept it.”

  195. Ken A: the adoration of Mary is idolatry.

    Not true.
    It is entirely possible to adore a person place or thing without worshiping said person place or thing.
    I for one love the story of Mary.
    The mystery and magic of her literal person.
    To me it is the most fetchingly beautiful story in all of Scripture, and I’m not even Roman Catholic.

  196. dee: Muff Potter,

    You understand my love for animals. I told Bill that I want him to call me St Francine.

    This, I love 🙂

  197. If we go with Sola Scriptura, then we very well can’t believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary since that is not in the scriptures.

    But then scripture itself does not proclaim Sola Scriptura either. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the God” is not a convincing argument for Sola Scritpura in my mind.

    God does not ONLY speak from scripture.

    He speaks through His creation.

    He speaks through other believers – even pastors on occasion (wink).

    He even, dare I say, speaks through me. Occasionally I end up say something that becomes spiritual bread for someone else.

  198. Headless Unicorn Guy: The councils often just formally defined what had been believed and taught up to that point but nobody had yet fought over it.

    My understanding of the 1st ecumenical council is both Arius and Anthanasius were quite effectively using scripture to defend their views, but it was tradition rather then scripture that prevailed. The council eventually resolved the impasse by going with what had been believed and passed down by tradition from the beginning. Scripture alone was insufficient to resolve the conflict.

  199. JDV: it does not appear that the preservation of Old Testament Scripture was dependent on full and continual unanimity of correct thought and belief amongst the religious leadership during much of the times in which it was being written, nor when it was being received in canonical form

    There does not seem to be a solid date for canonization of the OT. It looks like some of it was not canonized until as late as 200 AD. I was surprised to learn that RC and EO have slightly different OTs because they are based on different versions of the septuagint. It brings into question what Paul meant when he wrote that all scripture is inspired by God because at the time he wrote it there was no agreed upon version of “all scripture.”

  200. Afterburne: But then scripture itself does not proclaim Sola Scriptura either. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the God” is not a convincing argument for Sola Scritpura in my mind.

    Agreed. Hebrews 1, a part of the Scriptures, affirms that God speaks through human agencies — prior to the writer’s time through the prophets and then through Jesus. (And it appears to me that this affirmation does not in principle exclude other forms of revelation.)

    An interesting potential topic for ‘de-/re-construction” is the question of whether the bishops were right to have suppressed prophecy in the churches.

    The Scriptures affirm a source of teaching — the Holy Spirit working through individuals endowed with prophetic charismata — that is strongly rejected in many parts of the present-day ‘tapestry’ of churches descended from the churches that existed at the time of the suppression of prophecy.

    It may be that the closure of the canon is an historically contingent thing — had prophecy continued in the churches, it is entirely possible that some of that would have been written down (as prior OT and NT era prophetic utterances had been written down for the sake of preservation) and would ultimately have come to be regarded as part of the Scriptures (with the prophetic utterances recorded therein also considered “the word of YHWH”).

    The canon wasn’t just ‘closed’; arguably it was ‘slammed shut.’

    ——–

    I don’t have a strong opinion either way; I’m simply raising the question as it seems to me a good one. The early church hierarchy — it seems to me — suppressed a competing source of authority that, on Scriptural terms, had a claim to be a manifestation of the work of the Holy Spirit in the churches.

    I’m not confident that was such a good thing.

    Ishy, it may be that the answer to your questions is rooted much deeper in Church History than the narrow slice of history that we have observed within our own mortal spans.

  201. JDV: Acts 7:51-53 — “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, also do you.

    LOL — didn’t notice this before posting the prior comment re: suppression of prophecy in the churches. I think it’s a legitimate question whether texts like this have a valid ‘bite’ to take out of our ecclesiastical ancestors.

    While I’m not thrilled with what seems to me to be chaos in the wide and diverse charismatic/pentecostal movement (and then there’s the NAR), I’m also not thrilled with what seems to me spiritual inertia in highly rigid confessional traditions.

    Is there a middle road? Would it be possible to “bootstrap” from inertia toward something that resembles a fully-functioning body of believers, with each of the parts interacting with the other parts in mutually beneficial ways? I speculate that “love one another” might be a workable ‘bootstrap’ strategy.

  202. Muff Potter: I for one love the story of Mary.
    The mystery and magic of her literal person.
    To me it is the most fetchingly beautiful story in all of Scripture,

    Yet “Christian hateth Mary whom God kissed in Galilee…”

    As if for God to have Supreme Importance, NOTHING and NOBODY else can have any importance whatsoever.
    Fits right in with the HyperCalvinist view of God as Raging Egomaniac, fixated on His Own Glory.

  203. readingalong: I say ‘Because Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    (me thinking, ok, all these years of church and the concept of virgin birth definitely hasn’t come through)
    So I explain story of virgin birth and in the conversation used the word ‘sex’.
    Said child looks at me with wide eyes and says, ‘Mom, Don’t say that word in church!’

    And that says it all.

  204. Ken F (aka Tweed): the gospel get to the point where it needed recovery?

    This might be a bit of a trick question, IMO, without the additional clarification of what the inquirer (as well as the inquirer’s interlocutor) means by “the gospel”?

    It might be better to ask, “when did the churches’ theology and practice get so far out of alignment with some standard (and can we agree on that?) of what the Creator actually intended that their theology and practice be that they required reform or recovery?”

    ——–

    “the gospel” seems to mean very different things to different people. In John’s and Jesus’ mouths, it’s the announcement of the imminence of YHWH’s reassertion of kingly rule over Israel (with a corresponding call to repent). In Paul’s mouth, it’s the announcement of Jesus’ appointment, by the Father, to rulership and judgment over the nations of the Mediterranean littoral, with a corresponding call to repent.

    In Billy Graham’s mouth, it’s the announcement that individuals are in trouble with the Deity, but there is a narrow route by which to get out of the trouble, with a corresponding call to repent.

    Which gospel is in view in the question?

    I think it’s better to use the more precise language of ‘theology and practice’.

  205. Samuel Conner: This might be a bit of a trick question, IMO, without the additional clarification of what the inquirer (as well as the inquirer’s interlocutor) means by “the gospel”?

    I think it’s a fair question in light of the assertion the question addresses:
    “You see being a Reformed Christian where the Gospel was recovered from RC I know that the Scripture is the final authority for faith and practice.”

    If the gospel required recovery it seems fair to ask when recovery became necessary. But your are correct that there is much more that needs to be addressed, such as what is the gospel, in what ways was it lost/obscured, why did it need recovery, how widespread was the loss, how was it recovered, etc. LDS claim it happened right after the apostles died. It’s not clear to me when it happened according to those who are reformed, but all reformed seem pretty much in agreement that recovery was necessary.

  206. GEFS!

    Point 1 of 3 on deconstruction: pillars

    Different people will have different pillars. Moreover, some people will deconstruct because things that were pillars of their faith start crumbling; but other people will deconstruct because they discover new pillars. This was the case for the disciples when the first met Jesus, and then again after he was crucified and raised; and perhaps yet again at the coming of the Holy Spirit. And then again when the Holy Spirit fell on uncircumcised gentiles, upending all they had ever known about who was in, and who was out.

    There’s this idea going around that “deconstruction” means destroying and dismantling. But – if you’ll forgive the romanticism here – a caterpillar must deconstruct before becoming a butterfly/moth; and, for that matter, a seed must deconstruct (or fall into the ground and die, if you prefer) before producing any fruit. For me, deconstructing – which I’ve done more than once – has always been in search of more of God than I’ve previously known.

    The enduring problem with belief systems and systematic theologies is that they’re not very flexible wineskins, and they don’t have much room for learning. There was a lot of noise made back in the early days of the house churches about the traditional church structures being old wineskins, but it’s our mindsets more than our liturgies that are the wineskins. Oddly enough, “more of You, Lord!” was the Bigly Thing during the “Toronto Hingmy” a few years ago, but what in practice it meant was “more of this, Lord!” as folk rolled around on the floor, shaking and barking like fish. That’s not really what I want more of.

  207. ishy: maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places at the wrong people?

    Part of my core problem is that I’ve literally been all over. All different churches. All different groups. All over the world!

    I’ve seen more mature people outside of the church than in it…

    Ishy, you are confirming that the Holy Spirit goes where HE wills . . .
    we might find Him among those mature people if we see in them the ‘fruit’ of the Holy Spirit

    believe me, I’ve seen television shows of preachers so vile that one wonders how anyone could follow their B.S.,
    but apparently people do, and those preachers call for money and tell people how to vote and also call down contempt and hatred for ‘those other sinners’;

    but you never hear them speak of ‘mercy’ or show any humility, no

    I get it, what you have experienced. You sound like you have looked for authenticity in all the so-called ‘right places’, but instead you have found the ‘simplicity of Christ’ more among the unchurched . . .

    what is that saying? ‘just because the mouse in in the cookie jar, doesn’t make him a cookie’ 🙂

    finding a group of your ‘own people’ seems important to you, so keep looking . . .they are ‘out there’, surely, but not in some crazy cult or some political maga church, but likely ‘serving’ in some capacity those whose burdens are too heavy for them, in places you or I might not want to live . . . I could bet on it.

  208. Part 2 of 3: The 'scribsher' pillar

    Scribsher’s an interesting one, actually. My first major deconstruction was when I joined a Restoration-based house church in Cambridge, and it involved the Bible among other things. I was a new Christian, albeit with a Nanglican choral background, but this was the first time I’d come across the idea that The Bible Is The Word Of God, and that Everything We Do Is Based On The Bible. If nothing else, that did enlarge my view of the Bible; it got me reading the Bible all the way through, for instance. But it was a major change, and a major challenge – I had to re-think many things about my approach to Christianity.

    But I remember to this day an occasion when a young leader in the congregation (older than I was then, but still far too young to know how young he still was) literally thumped his Bible while shouting me down. This was my first introduction to the way in which knowledge makes us arrogant, and scribsher knowledge makes us ****ing arrogant. Indeed, regardless of whether scribsher is sufficient to give us a technically correct specification for Jesus, it’s clearly not sufficient to make us become like him.

    A more recent deconstruction I’ve undergone has enlarged my view of the Bible again. I’ve stopped seeing it as though it were written by a westerner, for one thing. So, for instance, I reject the idea of having to believe EITHER that “a day” means exactly the duration of 794243384928000 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom *, OR that the Bible is false and God is a liar. I’m increasingly learning to see the Bible as an unfolding story of God’s self-disclosure, but one that includes humanity’s attempts to understand and respond to his self-disclosure. To put it another way, I’d rather learn what it actually feels like to love my enemies than learn why they’re all going to hell (which probably isn’t true anyway).

    Some who are wedded to ideas around scribsher being authoritative, and/or sufficient, aren’t able to distinguish this from abandoning the Bible. They don’t, for instance, seem to get why/how the Bible could be necessary but insufficient. I don’t need God to reject them so that I can follow him; nor do I think they’re losers who haven’t yet learned to agree with me yet – they need never agree with me.

    * I do know in essence what the definition of the second is, but I admit I had to look up the exact number (unlike 299792458 m/s which I know by heart).

  209. Part 3 of 3: the Church

    The more I become a None, the more I love the Church. Ironically. I stand in ever greater awe of who She is (in fact I’ve not only taken to using the feminine pronoun on a semi-regular basis, but I’m capitalising it as well) and what She represents.

    Lesley and I met as part of an offshoot of the Restoration movement, that – while we were there – did indeed shoot off well and truly, and become the power-base of the divisive individual that took it over. This was not what either of us emigrated to Scotland to plant. We were eventually thrown out of it for rejecting his claim to authority over our lives – or actually, we left, and were formally excommunicated and shunned. Nobody leaves Voldemort’s gang, after all. (The business has grown, but rather like Mars Hill, has become embroiled in ever greater controversy in the last couple of years, to the point where whole congregations are leaving and being denounced as “demonic” by the CEO, to whoever will listen – including the national secular press.)

    Then we moved to a smaller, more local congregation (it’s a “Baptist church”, but please be aware that this means something very different in Scotland to what it does in Americaland, so I don’t generally use the term here in Wartburgh). But in due course we were forced out of that one too, because a divisive and influential individual there objected to Lesley’s personal story of physical healing.

    We struggled on and on to find a Christian setting in which we could actually fit, in person, on a regular basis (as in, you know, Church). Eventually we thought: See tae be oanest? Phuq this. So now we gatecrash two local places of worship on alternate Sundays. One of them is a Nanglican congregation, such as I moved away from 30 years ago, and see tae be oanest? Surely the Lord was in that place and I didnae ken it.

    To my dying day, I will seek the Church over “a church” – a concept I will always reject. Whether we’ll ever find a way in which that works in this mortal life, I don’t know. But we’re not going back.

  210. Part Cricket of 4: The Ashes

    Englandshire have successfully deconstructed their attempt to win any of the 5 Ashes Tests so far, losing the first by 9 wickets. It was only a temporary uptick in form from Root and Malan that stopped us losing by an innings.

  211. Ken F (aka Tweed): such as what is the gospel, in what ways was it lost/obscured, why did it need recovery, how widespread was the loss, how was it recovered, etc. LDS claim it happened right after the apostles died.

    And they’re not the only ones.

    Any splinter church will claim that view of church history to give themselves Divine legitimacy; to proclaim themselves the One True Church Refounded and discredit all the others.

    Islam also has this phenomenon, with forms of Islam that tend to get in the news (Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, ISIS/Daesh) proclaiming their Islam as a return to True Islam As It Was In The Days of The Prophet.

  212. Nick Bulbeck: The enduring problem with belief systems and systematic theologies is that they’re not very flexible wineskins, and they don’t have much room for learning.

    Very good analogy. I think two contributing factors to inflexible winseskins are “sunk cost fallacy” and “loss aversion.” Both are based on fear of loss. So if I question your (generic) belief system or point out problems, I become the problem, because your fear of loss is too great to admit your belief system could be faulty. People become the enemies rather than potentially wrong ideas being the enemies. It seems like the apostle Paul had a quote about this. And it’s not just Christians who act like this.

    Deconstruction is overcoming loss aversion and sunk cost fallacy. It takes courage because the outcome is uncertain and one can lose lots of friends in the process if they start viewing you as the enemy who threatens their homeostasis. It’s not for the faint of heart.

    IIRC, Jesus’ incarnation was for people, not for belief systems. “For God so loved systematic theology that he…”

  213. Ken F (aka Tweed): Deconstruction is overcoming loss aversion and sunk cost fallacy.

    Agreed, and I would amplify the “loss aversion” element of your analysis.

    No-one wants to discover that they have been mistaken for a long time. As I was questioning what I had thought was “settled doctrine”, it was very disorienting — so many years (decades!) of life, so much time and money; had I really been making deeply flawed “investments” all that time? No-one is eager to contemplate that possibility. It’s like giving up a significant element of “who one is.” It’s a kind of death.

    But the “fear of loss” can be much worse than that. On prevailing views of “individual eschatology”, there are dire, ultimate, and everlasting bad consequences if you get your theological system wrong. The fear of entailing those risks is IMO for many the overwhelming motive for not questioning what one currently has accepted as “settled doctrine”.

    Of course, there is such diversity of doctrine that it might be better to contemplate the questions, since the great majority of people arguably have beliefs that could disqualify them from enjoying the preferable individual eschatological outcome. One is more likely to discover that one is on the wrong side of an important issue by continuing to ask questions.

    The posture that “I have found the true system and now am perfectly safe” is, IMO, actually a quite risky posture on its own terms.

    My private view is that the prevailing conception of individual eschatology is seriously flawed, and that one needs to deconstruct “pillar 2” in order to escape the fearful paralysis that prevents one from looking at the other 4 pillars mentioned in the OP, and still other unmentioned pillars, such as our understanding of the the “location” and work of the Holy Spirit.

  214. christiane,

    Michael in UK,

    I really appreciate these (and others of yours and others’) comments. I’m in the middle of SMILOC (“Sunday Morning in Lieu of Church”) and trying to catch up on the parts of this thread that I overlooked in prior days. I hope that my non-response (in this and other threads) to what may be intended “direct address” does not cause offense. I have a habit of going on and on and I suspect that I have posted too much in this thread, even without pursuing side discussions in response to edifying feedback.

    I need to remember that it may often be better for me to, like Job, cover the mouth with a hand and remain silent.

    Again, thank you all.

  215. Nick Bulbeck: To my dying day, I will seek the Church over “a church” – a concept I will always reject. Whether we’ll ever find a way in which that works in this mortal life, I don’t know. But we’re not going back.

    Samuel Conner: I’m in the middle of SMILOC (“Sunday Morning in Lieu of Church”)

    Well, here’s my SMILOC thought.

    I am in anguish for the future of Christianity.

    There is no perfect formula to create both safety and sound teaching. If all the churches in the US close, what will happen to Christianity in the US and indeed worldwide? Would people flock to other houses of worship, or would synagogues, mosques, etc., close down too?

    Of course Christians should read the Bible, pray, and listen for the indwelling Holy Spirit. Of course.

    The other day I realized something. The people who abused me were volunteers, “sincere Christians” who lacked a salary and formal theological training. One of them volunteered with my high school youth group. The others were in my college fellowship. Some TWW readers may recall my stories of the DIY exorcisms and accusations of witchcraft in that all-volunteer group, which met in borrowed rooms.

    Keith Giles is a licensed and ordained pastor who served in congregations before starting ministry to the poor. He has formal theological education, and he previously received money for working inside a church building. We can’t excise or exorcise his training and prior income from his present work.

    We must fight abuse. Abandoning our own churches is our choice. The bad ones are doing quite a good job of alienating the public, and watchblogs are helping to expose wrong.

    But let’s think very carefully about calling for all churches, or even specific denominations, to be eliminated.

    This is my plea to my brothers and sisters on TWW.

  216. Friend: I am in anguish for the future of Christianity.

    I suspect that you are experiencing something very close to the anguish that Jesus felt as he wept over what he saw coming against Israel and Jerusalem … near total desolation. Or the anguish Paul felt as he considered what seemed to him to be a hardening that YHWH had imposed on Israel. Paul’s conception of ‘strong sovereignty’ did not lead him to a happy place.

    For my part, I departed Evangelical religion for the sake of peace. My views had become unacceptable to the groups I had previously been welcome in. I was considered a good fit for deaconship in the little OP congregation, and was asked to become a member so that they could ordain me to that office. I declined, explaining that I reckoned that on examination, they would refuse me admission to membership. That was a sign it was getting close to time to step away.

    I’m with Nick in what I interpret to be his dream of a beautiful Bride, adorned for her Groom. The churches could be magnificent, glorious, breath-taking. They could be ‘under-the-sun’ images of the extravagant, spectacular beauty of Jesus, who himself is ‘the exact representation of God’.

    I think that they will move in that direction, or they will perish as ‘not fit for purpose.’

    IMO a new ‘reformation’ may be needed, and it may be deeply turbulent and sorrowful.

    A thought that is comforting to me is that the beauty of the Story of Jesus and Israel will not vanish, even if most of the present-day churches do — and I’m not calling for that outcome; it’s my hope that they will change. But it may be that the Creator Himself has set His face against many of them — there is certainly precedent for this in the OT story of YHWH and Israel. People in whom (my strong sovereignty gleaming through) God implants a thirst for the beauty of Jesus will continue to be fascinated, captivated by this Story, and perhaps they will find each other and constitute new assemblies in the aftermath, if that does take place, of a present-day desolation of the people of God.

    It’s my prayer that the desolation will not take place — that the changes that are needed to avoid it will take place. And it’s my hope that if it does take place, there will still be a future for the people of God.

  217. Samuel Conner: IMO a new ‘reformation’ may be needed, and it may be deeply turbulent and sorrowful … It’s my prayer that the desolation will not take place — that the changes that are needed to avoid it will take place.

    Samuel, I’ve sensed this is headed our way for some time. The American church is so off-track from the divine plan for the Body of Christ that a great shaking is the only thing that will get it back on course. “The changes that are needed to avoid it” are framed in 2 Chronicles 7:14, but I don’t see much movement in that direction. It could be that we are already in the beginnings of a “turbulent and sorrowful” period that will eventually stir both pulpit and pew to do the right things.

  218. Friend,

    I appreciate your comment, and let me (for whatever it’s worth) encourage you that I don’t want to see the elimination of any given church or denomination. What I do want to see, by contrast, is the steady erosion of the walls dividing them. For me, learning to gather, on Sunday or otherwise, with more than one species of Christian has been enormously beneficial. I realise I’m being a bit simplistic here, but those walls are really the only thing that prevents each instance of “a local church” (which to my mind are actually para-church organisations) from being the local Church together.

    Also, what Samuel Conner said…

  219. Nick Bulbeck,

    Thank you. I didn’t assume you wanted to eliminate denominations, etc., and should have been more clear that I was both responding to you and generalizing.

    I used to love worshiping in different churches and traditions, gleaning new insights whenever one of my little assumptions turned out not to be universally held. Maybe next year, if we run out of Greek letters to assign to an array of microbes. We can hope. 🙂

  220. Samuel Conner: On prevailing views of “individual eschatology”, there are dire, ultimate, and everlasting bad consequences if you get your theological system wrong.

    This is what we get pounded with in evangelicalism, but Jesus said he will separate the sheep and goats by how well they loved others, not by how perfectly they parsed their doctrine. For all the emphasis on sola scriptura, I don’t know why that scriptura does not get more attention. Because it sounds too much like works? Too much like social justice? Too uncomfortable? Too humiliating? Too much like God actually loves people – all people? Because Jesus said it and Paul didn’t?

    As for being mistaken for a long time, that is me. I honestly wonder if it would have been better for me to have avoided digging into church history. I cannot unsee what I have seen, and it has many impacts. One of those impacts is anger from having been lied to for so many years. Another is trying to undo the harm I did to others. I am hoping to find a way to sort through all of it.

  221. Samuel Conner: Paul’s mouth

    To Paul, the rule of Holy Spirit is just as much an economy as it is in Is 55, 58, 61, the feeding of the thousands, and James.

  222. The people with their hands on the levers always preface their next gambit with “OK, now we are going to . . .”

    (Notice it’s never us that has the gambits)

    History has increasingly been one “iteration” after another

  223. Michael in UK:
    The people with their hands on the levers always preface their next gambit with “OK, now we are going to . . .”

    (Notice it’s never us that has the gambits)

    History has increasingly been one “iteration” after another

    Like the repeating patttern of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
    1) Deified Leader, who by Conquest, Ego, or just being Imperfect leads to
    2) War
    3) Pestilence in the aftermath
    4) Famine and economic Exploitation
    With Thanatos and Hades (“Death and Hell” in Kynge Jaymes Englyshe) scooping up the casualties all the way.

  224. Samuel Conner: I suspect that in coming decades we may see further developments in ‘theories of atonement and of the efficacy of the Cross’

    An (IMO) intriguing blend of theories 2 (ransom), 3 (Christus Victor) and 5 (PSA) can be discerned in the writings of present-day interpreters such as NT Wright and Andrew Perriman (and, doubtless, others of whom I’m not aware). Jesus suffers Israel’s coming penalty (violent death) at the hands of Rome (Rome is the hostage-taker, with its sword at Israel’s throat). It’s penal and substitutionary, but in ways completely different from conventional dogma. The ‘ransom’ and ‘victor’ aspects are more indistinct, but it may be that the pre-emptive execution of Israel’s hoped-for redeemer King delayed the war for a generation ( cf. Jn 11:50 and its context) and thereby saved many in Israel from a terrible death, at least at that time. The delay of Israel’s defeat at the hands of a pagan nation may have constituted a (temporary) victory over “the powers.”

    The thought occurs that an historicist reading of the efficacy of the Cross also encompasses a form of Theory 1, “Moral Influence”, in that Jesus’ death, as Israel’s King, at the hands of Israel’s principal enemy, may have discouraged those in Israel who were advocating for war with Rome, thereby delaying the war and, for a time, saving many in Israel.

    Paul, in Roman’s 5, asserts that Jesus’ death occurred at the right time, while some group of people (which seems to have included Paul), were “still weak”. Evidently, in Paul’s thinking, it is conceivable that a “too late” advent and atonement — at a time when that group had become strong — might not have been as efficacious a manifestation of Divine mercy.

    In my reading of commentary on the biblical texts, this “at just the right time” issue in Romans 5 is generally passed over or flat-out rejected. Perhaps it’s a hint that the historical circumstances of Jesus’ advent, ministry and suffering are important for understanding its purpose and meaning.

    —–

    CMT: The blind men and the elephant.

    Maybe it’s a woolly mammoth. 🙂

  225. Wish I had read this article earlier this month while comments were coming in. I think another reason that people deconstruct is that they read the Bible. In reading the Bible, they come to recognize this God as monstrous – one who promotes genocide, rape, slavery, child abuse and misogyny. I also think that ‘progressive’ Christianity is just a step leading to leaving the church altogether and becoming an atheist, because they cannot reconcile the god of the Bible with a loving, merciful being. Deconstruction is akin to a thousand cuts that slowly wear away on a person until they can no longer justify believing in God