I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon line and as a result I came into the Christian faith as a “North American Convention” Baptist believer. I was close to the Baptist roots back then: roots that have been slowly fading into the sunset as the Southern Baptist creeds creep into a total make-over of what was once the “priesthood of the believer“. Continue reading ‘Four Fading Freedoms’
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
Page 3 of 3
Jesus tore down religious walls and upon his death, the Bible records that the vail was rent and over the last two thousnd years, religious leaders have been as busy as they can patching that vail and building stronger and more fortified walls to keep out the gentiles, the lost, unsaved, and evil elements of society. The effect has done nothing but enclose the religious prejudices in four walls that we’ve come to know as “Churches“. Continue reading ‘Fortified High Walls’
I still have some Scofield’s scars and trying to make them vanish is very difficult because theywere built from the inside out. It’s amazing how much influence this Texas preacher, name C. I. Scofield (1843-1921) has had on those of us who live in the Southern Bible belt. Thankfully, it’s only down here in the deep South that the Scofield Bible is known. You can find it in every Southern ‘Christian bookstore”. So they say.
If you live in Manhattan, Chicago, or Seattle you can’t find a single Scofield Bible- not even at the public library. Even most historical reference books on American religion never mention what has to be one of the top ten influential books for the twentieth century- the Scofield Bible.
The Scofield Bible became the antithesis of the Jefferson Bible. Or as it has been said, Jefferson’s chaff was Scofield’s wheat.
Unfortunately, Scofield knew two important things about about Southern fundamentalists. First, they hardly ever read any books on theology and they read the Bible infrequently. Second, they wanted certitude, not complexities, contradictions, and ambiguities. And the Scofield Bible gave those things to them in spades!
And to add certitude to certainity, Scofield offered his theological conclusions as if:
1-They were beyond question
2-They were the historical traditional opinions
3-Any other opinion was a departure from the faith
To embrace any other thought was tantamount to heresy of maybe even a manifestation and validation of one’s lost nature. Charles Strozier put it that way, ” The Scofield Bible is the inerrant text of God in the minds of many unsophisticated fundamentalists believers who saw his “notes as canonical”. And anything gnostic was definitly a cult.
And while I have known a few loving fundamentalists, love is seldom a word that drips from their lips. Instead they possess a vocabulary of judgment, stern words, retributive punishment, eternal hell, and other less than pleasing attitudinal catch-phrases.
The GOOD NEWS is that I only walked around the fringes of Scofield, and while I owned a Scofield Bible, I seldom used it a a reference. Maybe that’s why I see God as so loving and also why some others see me as marginally saved, if at all. Thankfully, my Scofield scars are minimal.
When a new member of Congress is sworn in, they are given a copy of Jefferson’s Bible: otherwise known as, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth! It is thusly called the “Congressional Bible“. Pat Robertson and otehr right wing Christian leaders and groups mention it’s prominence in the governmental process. What they fail to say is how just the opposite it is of the Christianity that they proclaim and preach. Continue reading ‘Jefferson’s Bible’
From the earliest Gospel of Mark to Matthew and Luke, Jesus is reported to have said that there are just two commandments. The first is the vertical (to God) and the second is horizontal (to others). We must begin with an emphasis on the vertical which will lead us into another set of Ten Commandments.
I was going to use the word “persecuting” rather than killing, but killing Christians (whether emotionally or physically) seems to fit better. People kill with theological and psychological purposes as well as physically. The community of people who immediately proclaimed “Jesus is Lord” (after His resurrection) went from the simplistic, “I baptize you in the name of Jesus”, to fall in line with the established orthodoxy or die! All in less than 400 years! Continue reading ‘Killing Christians’
Catholicism has it’s Holy Father and Protestanism has it’s inerrant Bible. I subscribe to neither because I see both having been adopted out of theological rigidity and not out of a spiritual experience with God. In fact, there’s way too much in the American church scene that’s horizonal in orientation vs that which should be vertically oriented. Let me even take it one step further. Continue reading ‘Theological Rigidity’
Muslims & Fundamentalists
Let me state up front that I know that there are fundamentalists in every religion. All religions and cultures have their conservative elements; however, there are some that are far right of conservative and that’s what I call fundamentalists. Having visited an Islamic mosque a few days ago, my mind brought my fingers to type in this messsage today. Continue reading ‘Muslims & Fundamentalists’