Ground Rules for the Tenets Game
All arguments make assumptions. Why, for instance, is Scripture true, and how? For you and me to do anything but yell at each other across a chasm of total disagreement, that is, to actually communicate, there must be some agreement on the assumptions that are held. Generating heat is fairly simple, as the old cliche acknowledges: the devil quotes Scripture for his/her own purposes. Fostering en-light-tenet-ment (a bad pun, I know, but what the "hell") is much more difficult. Your assumptions are what they are, and I expect to find out shortly what you think of mine---if anything. But since the opinions in this column are mine, and not necessarily those of Postfundamentalist Press, I want to begin each issue by describing at least one of the assumptions upon which my opinions are based.
This month: "The
Authority of Scripture."
Scripture is authoritative when it is the Word of God. I say "when." This means that Scripture, or the writings contained in the Bible, are not in and of themselves the Word of God. In fact, they are only the Word of God when they become the Word of God. Let me explain. To be authoritative any experience must have both an objective authority source, and a subjective authority source. An objective authority source is a source beyond the self.If some guy goes up on the watchtower of the University of Texas and shoots people to death, and then claims that Jesus told him to do it, we can say he is crazy, take him away to a padded cell. Why? Because Jesus never would have told anyone to do that. And how do we know that? Because we have the objective story about who Jesus is and what he stands for in the Scriptures, and/or we have the objective testimony about who Jesus is and what he stands for in associations of his followers, eg., the church congregations and councils and hierarchy.But an objective source is not sufficient: because if ten people study the Scriptures and only five are converted, then how do we explain that? We explain it by reference to a subjective authority source, the religious experience of the people involved.My assumption concerning the inspiration of Scripture is that when the believer is open to the activity of the Holy Spirit in his/her life, the writings of the Bible can - yea, will - become the redemptive Word of God for that person in their life situation. "Redemptive," at this point, means that such an experience is often, and can be, life transforming. In future installments we will explain how the bible portrays the difference between the redeemed and the unredeemed life, and differentiate the biblical view from the self-righteous moralisms that dominate much of contemporary perversion of biblical Christianity.
Someone once asked a great Indian Mystic what holds the world up in the heavens. The mystic replied, "it is riding on the back of an elephant." To which the seeker replied: "but what holds the elephant up in the heavens."
To which the mystic replied: "it is riding on the back of an elephant." Though the mystic meant to reduce the seeker's question to absurdity, a paradigm phrase emerges from the tale.All systems of thought have somewhere in their text some elephant statement/passage, some assertion(s) upon which the whole systems rests. This section will, each month, attempt to ferret out an elephant statement from some passage of Scripture, and to "post it" for discussion by a brief explanation and some open-end questions.This month I offer Romans 7:10 as an elephant statement for the theology of the Apostle Paul:
"the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me."Paul originally believed he could be saved by being righteous, by obeying the law, by observing the ten commandments. And this belief, by which he confused immorality and sinfulness, almost cost him his life. When he came to see his error, he quickly recognized that all he had gained and fifty cents would buy him a hershey bar (at least at Walmart).
"If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith."Philippians 3:4-8
What is the relationship between "sins" and "immoral acts"? When is something a sin, and when is something immoral?
Are some kinds of sexuality sinful and others not? Would Paul care? (Disclaimer: all references to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.)
All rational reflection upon religious experience is called theology, or, literally, the study of God. Therefore, all theology assumes that religious experience is experience of God, or it would be some other kind of experience.Correspondingly, theological language is language about religious experience and not language about God, at least directly. For instance, when we say "God sent the Son into the World" we do not make a spacial designation, as if God lived on Mars, or somewhere across the galaxy, from which Jesus came. And when we say "God loves us," we do not mean that if things don't go right, or if God meets someone else, we might be in for a divorce.Therefore, theologizing is often more like building a computer than it is like looking something up in a dictionary: even when you seem to have all the components you will ever need, the process is never over. This monthly section is for adding to the process, for musing on the issues that make religious experience what it is.Now, I could begin just about anywhere: God, the nature and work of Jesus as the Christ, the meaning of the death and resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Church, eschatology (the last things, the things of the end-time), sin and salvation, et.al. But I would much rather begin where there is interest, that is, in response to questions or needs.This is an ANONYMOUS form. Please include your E-MAIL ADDRESS or we cannot respond to you. You may also send an e-mail message to the Rev.
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NOTE: The opinions and positions expressed in PostFundamentalist Press are not necessarily those held by the Reverend Nelson.
