I think I used to be a fundamentalist. It's explained well in his blog here: http://davidmschell.com/god-prejudiced-my-behalf and other posts on his site. Basically, he takes fundamentalism to mean God --> Bible --> Mind as Truth. The blogger's point is to remind people that there is a lot of context and process between those things: the author's culture and worldview, then translation of text from language to language, to name a few... then to be understood in our mind through the lens of our worldviews, church traditions (ex. Protestant vs Catholic), etc. That is such a good point. Considering all factors is important.
I don't think I'm a fundamentalist anymore, for this reason and others. My point is, amazingly, the Holy Spirit still works through the Bible. Even with all those things in between, my beliefs mean that God still uses what little we understand of the Bible and makes it useful, often. Yes, former Christians justified slavery with the Bible, which was sad. But a lot of Christians are agreeing that Jesus taught Love, Forgiveness, and that the gospel means Grace over Legalism. I think that means the Holy Spirit is getting through to many of us, at least in part! We can still agree on that, I hope, whether or not you believe that the Bible is inerrant (perfectly true and contains no mistakes). Jesus memorized, quoted and affirmed many Old Testament passages as being relevant and true, so I do.
I'm saying all this because you eventually have to do something that matters with what you've got. I think that's where I'm confused with this blogger. He is defining his views on who Christians can be (gays) and don't have to be (political conservatives). And that's helpful for him. I am already planning on learning to love everyone I meet and create space for where they're at with Jesus and spirituality, because God loves us all where we begin. But for me, I need to know what to do with the Bible that is or is not inerrant. Because it's still important to my spiritual life. I need to know what to do with evangelism (which this blogger had a beef with), because if God is continually drawing people to Himself (see 2 Corinthians 5:18), what is my role in that? I don't want to just tip-toe around People I Might Offend and only say what we shouldn't do with it. I have to distill what little I believe I understand from Jesus' life and the Bible and then do something useful in this world with it.
David-the-blogger says he's bothered by Christians making it their purpose to evangelize to others. He even says that evangelicals are motivated to believe that Gallup polls on percentages of Christians in America are inflated, so that they'll have a higher portion of people to convert and because "it just couldn't be true" so many people live so differently than they, the conservative evangelical/fundamentalist Americans.
And he has a point: we as Christians shouldn't just go around looking to convert every suspicious person. Then we'd all just be awkward, house-calling Mormons, and I as a devout Christian dislike that. People can sniff out an agenda a mile away! Jesus was about hearing people's stories where they were at and healing them, inside and out. David-the-blogger says just love, I guess, and don't evangelize because we don't even know who is a "true" Christian or not. And yes, the wheat and chaff will be separated at the end, by God (Matthew 3:12), not by judgmental Christians... But, personally, I don't believe that one in four people living in America are Christians (Gallup poll data) either because I personally know people who consider themselves Christians who know very little about Christ, and admit they're not living out what he did and said. We can argue all day about what exactly makes someone a "Real Christian", but knowing and emulating something about the "Christ-" part of that word is probably high on the list!
Response #1: "That's offensive. We're all children of God already." Okay, so you're a universalist. Jesus said there are sheep and goats, humble and Pharisees. He said that some people would be punished for their life, after death. Based on that, I'd say Christ was not a universalist. (See John 1:12)
Response #2: "I believe in God. I pray. That's what matters." Okay, so you're a theist. That's not the same as Christian. That does not sum up the gospel. (James 2:9)
I attend a Vineyard church these days and I have heard some helpful pictures explained for this situation. Fundamentalism and even evangelicalism can burn a lot of people because it's always the "in crowd" vs the "out crowd". (The Pharisees were like that too! And Jesus sure didn't like them!) But I like the picture called the "Centered Set": Jesus is a dot in the center and all people are dots somewhere around Him.
There's no line or circle drawn for dots closest, just directions of those dots. Is a far-away dot moving towards Jesus? Then that's what counts right now, as Jesus draws that person to Himself. Is there a close dot that's moving away from Jesus? If there were a circle drawn, Close Dot would be "In" but God desires that person's motion to be ever toward, not away. So I'm less concerned with defining who's in and who's out, and more concerned with loving people well, and hearing their stories when they're ready to share them, and encouraging them to move toward Jesus. As one commenter on David's site said, that's telling them about the transformative, inclusive "life to the full" that Jesus preached (John 10:10). I think a lot of people could be open to hearing about that!
But David has a gap there: if evangelism is not a major purpose in the lives of Christians, what is? "Just love"? Then why was Paul of the early Church so adamant about going to lots of places to preach? What are we to do with Jesus' last recorded command in Scripture? "Therefore go, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19) I know a lot of people have been hurt by unloving faith-sharing, but --gasp!-- I do think it's possible to share what's transformed my life in a loving way! "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." (1 Peter 3:15)
Another point this blogger brings up, and is a big part of current debate, is whether biblical passages should be taken literally. For this I am grateful for whoever pointed out a certain story in the book of Acts of the New Testament. The background is that the early Church began as Jewish guys who personally knew Jesus, coming from the Old Testament and Jewish tradition (there were extra-biblical texts that listed a lot of Jewish teaching and customs beyond the OT). But since these guys started figuring out that Jesus meant His salvation was for everyone, not just Jews, these new Christians had to decide how much was vital to pass on, and how much was just culturally significant tradition for them to hold on to. (Note: all verses are NIV translation and emphases are mine.)
Acts 15, v1: 'Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them.'So in the letter to new believers, they say it so humbly and gently [v28]:
[So Paul says.. v 7:]"God made a choice among you that the Gentiles [non-Jews] might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us." [Paul continues in v19]: “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood."
"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:..."and listed what Paul said. At the end of the letter, they justify what they chose simply [v29],
"You will do well to avoid these things."Isn't that sweet? They wanted to be the most helpful towards faith and the least obstructing. Considering all the laws and rules in the Old Testament, they boiled it down so much! This is more on a practical side of how to be a Christian-in-the-early-church, but maybe it could have applied theologically too. Like, they're probably going to disagree on things, now that the gospel is spreading beyond the Jews. It would get to get more and more complicated in how people interpreted things. Also, Jesus preached following the Lord with your heart ("God, who knows your heart" quoted above), more than by legalistic religious acts, so Jewish customs everywhere would have been seriously burdensome and very difficult to include in evangelism. That is, to borrow a phrase from my parents, "Major on the majors, and minor on the minors." Put more effort into what's more agreed upon and more central to the faith, and less (not none) into the rest.
So that's great for David-the-blogger's case: taking the entire Bible literally is going to weigh people down more than it's going to show them the Big Picture, which is redemption available to everyone through Jesus. But I do think that what they do include is telling: sexual immorality is a big category, one which requires discussion today to decide what all was meant there. But I won't go into that here.
So that's all I'll say today. Just needed some writing space to work through my reactions to current Christianity issues that are being debated.
Ever thoughtful, trying to be practical, I remain
Ellen H.
