Chasing Christians Down the Rabbit Hole
Here at DC we are debunking generalized notions of evangelical Christianity. When it comes to what you as a Christian believe, I say "if the shoe fits wear it, if not, then don't try to put in on." What's there not to understand about that? Just recently Jim Jordan, who visits us regularly and should know better, wrote this: "If you want to call this "Debunking Apostasies of Christianity" I think we'd all find common ground there. :-)" But I have a big problem with him saying that this is what I did, or what we do here at DC.
We used to be evangelicals, or at least, that's how we best described who we were as former believers. We know what evangelicals believe. Or do we? Well it depends on what beliefs are essential to evangelicalism, doesn't it? Maybe I should start a post and limit participation to Christians themselves, who would debate what beliefs are specifically Christian, along with who or what is an evangelical? That would be fun, except that few Christians would participate because they know the rest of us would be laughing our butts off as they debate those things.
This is not a one-on-one discussion. There is no way we can address any specific professing Christian's beliefs, unless we know what they are. We write from our background as former evangelicals, and that's all we can do. If others visit DC who claim the evangelical faith is different than what we express, or if a liberal Christian visits here, remember: "if the shoe fits wear it, if not, then don't try to put it on," okay? And to demand of us to write about stuff we don't want to write about, or to demand we deal with things that are uninteresting to us, is unreasonable. What if I demanded the same thing of you? Would you write about uninteresting stuff you don't want to write about just because I demanded it? Hardly.
We cannot write any given blog entry against the whole gamut of Christian beliefs, or it may end up being somewhat of a book. But if you tell us what you specifically believe about Christianity and if it's interesting to us, then we might. Keep in mind that we cannot deal with what every single believer thinks is the case. That's why we're reduced to writing generalized accounts from our own experience of what evangelicals believe.
Not long ago over at Parchment and the Pen was a discussion about why Christians have doctrinal disputes. After reading through this discussion here's my explanation for why they do:
Now back to Jim Jordan. Jim, would you be so kind as to tell us the beliefs that professing Christians hold to that you think are "apostasies," why you consider such beliefs to be "apostasies," how many professing Christians agree with you about them, and what it means to describe those beliefs as "apostasies?" Would you also explain why Christians have so many doctrinal disputes over their beliefs? Would you additionally explain why you think what you said applied to what I had written? Lastly, don't forget to tell us what are the true set of Christian beliefs.
This should be very interesting. Sheesh.
We used to be evangelicals, or at least, that's how we best described who we were as former believers. We know what evangelicals believe. Or do we? Well it depends on what beliefs are essential to evangelicalism, doesn't it? Maybe I should start a post and limit participation to Christians themselves, who would debate what beliefs are specifically Christian, along with who or what is an evangelical? That would be fun, except that few Christians would participate because they know the rest of us would be laughing our butts off as they debate those things.
This is not a one-on-one discussion. There is no way we can address any specific professing Christian's beliefs, unless we know what they are. We write from our background as former evangelicals, and that's all we can do. If others visit DC who claim the evangelical faith is different than what we express, or if a liberal Christian visits here, remember: "if the shoe fits wear it, if not, then don't try to put it on," okay? And to demand of us to write about stuff we don't want to write about, or to demand we deal with things that are uninteresting to us, is unreasonable. What if I demanded the same thing of you? Would you write about uninteresting stuff you don't want to write about just because I demanded it? Hardly.
We cannot write any given blog entry against the whole gamut of Christian beliefs, or it may end up being somewhat of a book. But if you tell us what you specifically believe about Christianity and if it's interesting to us, then we might. Keep in mind that we cannot deal with what every single believer thinks is the case. That's why we're reduced to writing generalized accounts from our own experience of what evangelicals believe.
Not long ago over at Parchment and the Pen was a discussion about why Christians have doctrinal disputes. After reading through this discussion here's my explanation for why they do:
The real reason why other Christians don’t agree with you is because of the nature of a history itself, along with the fact that God purportedly revealed himself in the ancient past. My argument is that if God did reveal himself, he chose a poor medium (history) and a poor era (the ancient past) to do so, and that makes an omniscient God look stupid.
We have a hard enough time understanding one another living in today’s world. We disagree about everything and we are constantly correcting misunderstandings about what we have said. So it stands to reason that this is compounded when we try to understand the literature of the ancient past. This is just obvious to me.
Of course, if God wanted to communicate more clearly and he could foresee that Southern slavery and witch hunts would result because he wasn’t clear, he could’ve said “Thou shalt not own, buy, sell, trade or beat slaves of any kind,” and said it often enough that believers could not misunderstand. He could’ve done the same with witch hunts and avoided the Galileo debacle as well. Genesis 1 could’ve started out by stating more clearly the nature of creation. [If you’d like, I could show you how an omniscient God could’ve communicated better, and I only have an IQ of 160.]
What’s the alternative, you may ask? For God to reveal himself today on the great issues that divide the church. How could he do this? Through miracles and the church’s recognition of a 14th Apostle “like unto Paul.” In the meantime the disunity of the church speaks against the existence of the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit who has not done his job down through the centuries, and therefore provides evidence the Christian faith is a delusion.
Now back to Jim Jordan. Jim, would you be so kind as to tell us the beliefs that professing Christians hold to that you think are "apostasies," why you consider such beliefs to be "apostasies," how many professing Christians agree with you about them, and what it means to describe those beliefs as "apostasies?" Would you also explain why Christians have so many doctrinal disputes over their beliefs? Would you additionally explain why you think what you said applied to what I had written? Lastly, don't forget to tell us what are the true set of Christian beliefs.
This should be very interesting. Sheesh.