WHY I BELIEVE THE BIBLE

Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law

    We have been challenged numerous times on this blog by one of our most faithful (an antipun?) commenters to explain how we can accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God when other religions can make the same claim for their sacred books. Are not all claims equally valid? And since they cannot all be valid, equally worthless? Is not the real reason I hold the Bible in high regard the fact that I was conditioned to do by my own culture? Would I not feel the same way about the Qur'an if I had been born and bred in an Islamic culture?
    The question is a fair one and deserves a candid answer. Admittedly we do have a bias here, and yet the question itself is far too important simply to leave it as a matter of personal preference. As human beings faced with our own mortality we have a vital interest in knowing the truth, no matter what that may turn out to be. Our eternal destiny rides on the outcome. And so we must examine the competing claims of the various religions and evaluate them as objectively as possible.                                        
    First of all, what exactly does the Bible claim for itself? The short answer is contained in II Peter 1:21: ". . . for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (NKJV). To read the descriptions of the phenomenon of prophecy in the Old Testament, sometimes God would speak directly to the prophet, as for in example the case of Moses. Sometimes the prophet would see visions, hear voices, or dream dreams. Sometimes the Holy Spirit would simply descend upon the prophet and speak through him. By whatever means the Holy Spirit communicated the message to him, the prophet would then put it down in writing. The Bible we have today is the collection of what they wrote.
    But, our interlocutor might say, exactly the same claims have been made for the Qur'an and the Book of Mormon. How can we say that the Bible is true and the other two are false? How can we tell who, if any, is telling the truth? Shouldn't we simply dismiss them all?
    The problem is analogous to a courtroom trial. Suppose that you are sitting on a jury in a criminal trial. The attorneys for each side produce witnesses to support their respective cases. But both sides cannot possibly be right. The defendant is either guilty or he is not. How would you decide who is telling the truth?
    What is not an option is simply dismissing the whole case as nonsense. The defendant's name, freedom, and possibly even his life are at stake. The court has the responsibility to make a determination. Somehow a way must be found to arrive at the truth. The evidence must be sifted through and weighed carefully.
    The prosecution presents the first witness. The first thing we would want to consider is the witness' credibility. Does he appear to honest and sincere? Is there anything in his background that would cast doubt upon his character? Is there any apparent conflict of interest? Was he in a position to have first-hand knowledge of the case?
    Secondly, we would want to weigh the testimony itself. Is it self-contradictory? Does the witness keep changing the story?
    But perhaps more importantly, are there corroborating witnesses? Are there others who saw the same thing?
    Now I cannot said that I have read every piece of religious literature that has ever appeared in the world, but I am fairly familiar with the Bible, and have read sections of the Gnostic gospels, the Qur'an, and the Book of Mormon. I have also available to me general information about several other major world religions. What, then, do we make of all of this?
    The Book of Mormon can really be dismissed at once. Not only was it written by a single author, but it was an author who had a reputation for dishonesty. He claimed to be translating tablets which were then taken back by the angel Moroni. Much of the material appears to have been plagiarized from other sources, including the King James Bible. Our conclusion, then, is that Joseph Smith is hardly a reliable witness.
    As for the Qur'an, it too has the problem of having been written by a single person whose testimony is impossible to corroborate. Moreover, when we examine the content of the Qur'an, it too looks suspicious. Much of it is bitter invective directed at Mohammed's critics and enemies. In some cases there are outright misrepresentations of the facts, such as when Mohammed accuses the Jews of being polytheists (9:30). Moreover it grants Mohammed himself special exemptions from the rules that apply to everyone else, such as the number of wives he was allowed to have (33:50). In short, the Qur'an looks as though it were the self-serving product of a single author.
  

Tintoretto, Transport of the Body of Saint Mark

  But what about the Bible? It comprises the cumulative testimony of over thirty different authors writing in three different languages over a span of more than a thousand years. The authors, as far as we can tell, appear to be humble, self-effacing men sincerely believed what they were writing. In some cases they suffered severe persecution for their beliefs. With the exceptions of David and Solomon, none of them became rich through their religion. Yet in spite of the tremendous diversity of authorship, they spoke with one voice down through the centuries. Their message centered around one grand theme - - the history of redemption that culminated in Jesus Christ.
    But what is even more striking is the content of the message itself. In vivid contrast to all of the other cultures of the ancient Near East, the Hebrew prophets alone proclaimed that there is only one God, and that He is the sole Creator of the universe. Moreover the Scriptures a lofty standard of ethics and morality that stands in stark contrast with the rest of the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world. The Bible paints a dismal picture of human nature, and apart from Christ Himself all of its major characters are deeply flawed individuals. The Bible makes no attempt to flatter humanity. How likely is it that such a book could have had a purely human authorship?
    And at the heart of the Bible's message is the proposition, still held in disbelief today, that mankind needs a Savior, that only a Person Who is both God and man at the same time could fulfill the role, and that He would die on a Roman cross to atone for our sins That Person was Jesus Christ, and His deity was attested by miracles He performed and by His own resurrection from the dead, all of which were public events and seen by numerous eyewitnesses.
    But there is also a more personal reason why I believe the Bible. When I read it, it speaks to my conscience and soul. It has the ring of truth to it, and it imparts wisdom and understanding. It is truly "a lamp to my feet / And a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105).
    In short, there is no other book in the world like the Bible.

For related blog posts see:
!s the Bible the Inspired Word of God? -- click here, here, and here.
Are the Gospels Historically Reliable? 
Who Wrote the Gospels? 
Science and Scripture 

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - VII

We proceed with our response to the "Raised Evangelical" series on the atheist blog "Love, Joy, Feminism."
Section 9: Coping
Question 1: Does having been raised evangelical or fundamentalist make you feel "different" from the rest of society, or like you stick out or don't fit in in some way? Explain.
    Well, I should certainly hope so! Christianity is supposed to be more than just being a nice, respectable, middle-class American. It is supposed to be an inward transformation that changes you and makes you different. If you are a genuine Christian you "march to a different drumbeat" than the rest of society.
    It is supposed to be a life of discipleship. It is fascinating to see how Jesus dealt with inquirers – He would actually turn people away. He did not say "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Just say this little prayer and everything will be taken care of." What He actually said was, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me" (Matt. 16:24; NKJV).
    Bear in mind that the central issue here is salvation. The problem is our sin and our guilt, which we share with all of humanity. To come to Christ we must acknowledge our guilt, ask for forgiveness, and place our trust in Christ as our Savior. This is accompanied by the New Birth – an inward spiritual renewal that results in a transformed life. If you have genuinely repented, and your life has been changed, then you will be different – different from what you were before, and different from "mainstream" society now. "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind . . ." (Rom. 12:2). You cannot live with one foot in the world and one foot in Christ, although many professing Christians try to do so.

 
Question 2: What do you think is the biggest way being raised in an evangelical or fundamentalist family and church community has influenced who you are today?
    Well today, by God's grace, I am still a Christian, and I would not to have it any other way. This is not to say that it has always been easy. As a Christian you often feel a little bit like a fish swimming upstream, because your priorities are often different from others around you. Sad to say, even other professing Christians will sometimes disappoint you and let you down. But I have a sense of purpose in life, the Lord has met my needs, and I have peace within my heart. That is really all a person could ask for.

 
Question 3: How did you perceive your childhood and evangelical or fundamentalist religious upbringing at the time compared to how you see it now?
Question 4: What do you think were the most beneficial things about being raised fundamentalist or evangelical? What were the more problematic things?
    The Christian life is an ongoing process of spiritual growth. As you learn more your perceptions naturally change. As a general rule I am probably more conservative now theologically than I was then, but politically more liberal. I am probably a combination of John Calvin and William Jennings Bryan, if such a thing were possible!
    As a historical movement I think that Fundamentalism has had its pros and cons. On the positive side there was a heroic stand for historic Christian truth; on the negative side there was often a bitter divisiveness that left a black mark on the entire movement. History has certainly borne out their assessment of the situation in the mainline denominations. One could only have wished that they could have combined the courage of their convictions with a gentleness of spirit. Fortiter in rem; suaviter in modo!

    I think that aside from the opportunity of hearing the gospel, the most valuable practical lesson I learned growing up was how to resist peer pressure. Just because the herd is rushing headlong over the cliff does not mean that you want to go there too. Being able to say "no" has spared me a lot of heartache and grief in life.

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - V

We continue with our responses to the "Raised Evangelical" series by the atheist blogger Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism.

 
Section 5: Purity
Question 1: What were you taught about physical and emotional purity, and also about modesty? What did your family believe about dating and courtship? How was sex education handled?
    At that point in time society as a whole still had a lingering Victorian attitude toward sex. It was never discussed in public, and there was no sex education in the schools. I think my parents gave me a booklet on the subject and told me to read it (it was by a Christian publisher, if I recall correctly). I do remember one visiting evangelist railing against "short shorts" and "necking and petting," and mixed bathing was problematical. Dating was considered normal -- you just weren't supposed to make out in the back seat of a car.

 
Question 2: How did the things you were taught about purity, modesty and dating/courthip work out for you in practice? Did you date, and at what age? Did you have sex before marriage, and if you did, did you experience guilt? In essence, explain how belief met practice and with what results.
    I didn't date until well after high school. I was always a little shy around girls, didn't have a driver's license, and wasn't too encouraged by the example of my parents' marriage. I did not have sex before marriage – you just have to be careful to avoid compromising situations.

 
Question 3: How do you feel about your family and church's purity, modesty, and dating/courtship teachings today? Do you think there are any parts of these teachings that still have value? How do you plan to handle these issues with your own children?
    I think that for persons of my generation one of the biggest changes that we have seen over the last fifty years is the collapse of public morality and with it the breakdown of the family structure. When I was growing up in the late '50's and early '60's we took a stable, two-parent family for granted. Kids knew their biological fathers – he was right there at the dinner table every night. Today these kinds of families have practically disappeared. When I worked on the U.S. Census in 2010 I was always surprised when I encountered a household in which everyone had the same last name. I think that this has left an emotional void in the hearts of the rising generation. President Obama has given us a compelling account of this in his autobiographical book Dreams from My Father.


 
Question 4: Do you feel that the purity, modesty and dating/courtship teachings you were raised with still have lasting impact on your life today? If so, how? What do you feel is the most detrimental effect of purity teachings?
    Frankly, the part of my upbringing that has had the most detrimental effect on my life is what I absorbed from Hollywood. The whole Hollywood concept of "falling in love" creates unrealistic expectations. And if I had taken the time to think about it, there was an obvious flaw in the message I was getting. If Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney couldn't make it work in real life, what made me think it would work for me? What took me many years to learn is that it takes character to make a marriage work, not sex appeal.
    Interestingly, there was a brief period when Feminists actually worked together with Evangelicals to fight pornography and the sex industry. At that point Feminists were concerned about women being treated as sex objects. But that didn't last very long, and now we are back to sexualizing girls at younger and younger ages.

 
Added note:
    Sex is something that was created by God, and is a beautiful expression of love when done in the context of a healthy marriage. When done for selfish reasons, however, it can be tremendously destructive.
    We have encountered a vivid example of this recently in Gen. David Petraeus. It seems that his conquests weren't confined to the battlefield. The femme fatale in this drama, Paula Broadwell, was caught sending threatening e-mails to another woman whom she suspected also had a romantic interest in "her man."
    Ms. Broadwell's predicament is a perfect illustration of the moral principle involved. We hope that she is struck by the anomaly of her situation. All of the parties involved (the general and the two "other women") are married. As long as Ms. Broadwell was the only paramour in the picture, she was apparently unconcerned about the sanctity of marriage vows. But when she began to fear that "her man" might be getting involved with yet another woman, this one even younger and more attractive looking than herself, she was overcome with jealousy. The shoe didn't fit so well on the other foot.
    Ms. Broadwell has now experienced firsthand the emotional impact of infidelity, and can see, we hope, the unspeakable harm that she has done to the general's wife, Holly Petraeus. A distinguished career has been ruined, the CIA director left himself vulnerable to blackmail, and three marriages are under stress. Ms. Broadwell is the home wrecker par excellence.
    Because marriage involves such an intimate physical and emotional bond, infidelity is bound to be devastating. Adultery is one of the cruelest things that one can do to one's spouse. It is an assault on one's self esteem, destroys trust, and rips families apart. Anything that tends to undermine marriage or cheapen or degrade sex (including immodest dress in public) is to be totally abhorred. "Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. 13:4; NKJV).

 

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - IV

We continue with our responses to the "Raised Evangelical" series on the atheist blog "Love, Joy, Feminism" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism).

 
Section 4: Education

 
Question 1: What sort of education did you have: public school, Christian school, or homeschool? What reasons did your parents give for choosing the method of education for you that they chose?
    In those days there were no such things as Christian schools, and homeschooling was unheard of. The only alternative to the public schools were the Catholic parochial schools. There were a few private prep schools and military academies, but they were for the rich. Why did my parents choose the public schools? The answer was obvious – we weren't Catholics!

 
Question 2: Briefly describe the academic aspect of your educational experience, . . . featuring on the role played by religion. If you were public schooled, did your parents try to counteract anything you were learning at school with different teachings at home (i.e., sex education, evolution)? Or, did the public schools in your area find ways to include things like creationism or abstinence only sex education?
    Our church participated in a "release time" program in our local public schools. If I recall correctly this occurred on school property during school hours and was strictly voluntary. But this was something extra that was tacked on to what was essentially a secular education. I don't think that most people at the time had any conception of a "Christian worldview." 2+2=4 whether you were a Christian or not. And of course most older evangelical Christians at the time would have been educated in the public school system, and wouldn't have seen any major problems with it.
    Sex education was handled at home and was not taught in the public schools at all.
    There were a few areas of conflict, however. Evolution was obviously one. I forgot exactly how our church handled it, but I personally never found evolution convincing. Then there was the issue of square dancing in gym class. Good Fundamentalists eschewed dancing, although on this one I think my parents were divided. There was also an art teacher that my parents thought was a Communist sympathizer or something. And then there was the English teacher who wanted us to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (My parents had me moved to another English class).

 
Question 3: Briefly describe the social aspect of your upbringing, especially as influenced by religion. How did your education experience (public school, Christian school, or homeschool) affect your socialization? Was your friend group religious diverse or more homogenous? If you were public schooled, did your religious background cause you any social problems in school?
    I basically had two "friend groups" (where did this term come from?) – one was the youth group at church and the other was mostly kids from the Honor Society at school. The Honor Society kids were hardly a bunch of rowdies, and so I got along fine with them, except that some of them probably found me a bit opinionated at times. You could almost say that I was a blogger before there was even an Internet!

 
Question 4: Did you attend Sunday School, youth group, Bible club, or church camp? Please describe your experiences.
    I attended all of the above, although I don't remember a lot of what was specifically taught. I do remember preferring to be in classes taught by the pastor himself, since they were bound to be a little more challenging and informative.
    I also remember an episode at camp. One of the counselors urged us to be willing to do whatever God wanted us to day in the way of a career. I really struggled with this. I inherited from my mother a dislike of hot weather. I told the counselor that I was willing to go anywhere the Lord wanted me to go, as long as it was not to a country with a hot, tropical climate! Much to my chagrin, years later I found myself in the Army bound for Viet Nam. And they didn't even give an "invitation" or altar call! It was get on the plane or go to jail. I somehow managed to survive the experience.

 
Added note:

 
    Some of our readers at this point might be tempted to ask, why Christian education? What is so bad about public schools? Some might even go so far as to suggest that Christian education is nothing more than propaganda that leaves students with a false and distorted view of reality.
    So what is so bad about public schools? It depends largely on how one conceives of the purpose of education. If the only goal of education is to prepare people to work for corporate America, then most public schools do a passably good job. The provide their students with the basic math, science and English skills necessary to function in the workplace (although we have heard employers complain about job applicants who can't read a tape measure or find their own addresses in a street atlas!). If, however, education is supposed to serve some higher purpose, to mold character and help students understand life as a whole, then public education is a dismal failure. It fails to provide a coherent worldview and it fails to impart a clearly defined value system. It often fails to give students a basic understanding of their own culture and civilization ("books by a bunch of dead white men"!). The science teacher might be a rigorous materialist, while the English teacher might be a Postmodernist. The student is left in a state of confusion.
    But is Christian education merely propaganda? It all depends on the nature of reality. If God actually does exist, then it is the secularists and atheists who have a warped and distorted view of reality. It makes no sense at all to say that God exists and is somehow the Creator, and then construct an educational system that completely ignores Him. And yet this is the position that most American parents find themselves in when they send their children to public schools.

 

 

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - III

Section 3: Gender and Family
Question 1: What did your church teach about gender roles, the family, and marriage?

 
    For the most part these were issues that I can recollect. This was before the "Sexual Revolution" and the Women's Lib movement. We lived in a middle class, suburban community in which the two parent family was the norm. It was more or less taken as a matter of course that the husband was the "Head of the House" and that mom stayed home and took care of the kids. Thus our church's beliefs on the subject weren't noticeably different from the thinking of the rest of society, and didn't receive a whole lot of attention.

 
Question 2: Describe your parents' marriage: was it complementarian (i.e. "soft" patriarchy) or more openly patriarchal, or in practice egalitarian? Did your family or church use any of these terms?

 
    I don't think that my family or church even ever heard of any of those terms. If you were to ask most women at the time, they probably would have said that the husband was the head of the household, but often what really went on in the family was another story. My mother had her issues – let's just say that she could be difficult to get along with. I think that in actual practice we operated on the principle that "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

 
Question 3: In what ways were boys and girls in your family expected to dress or act differently from each other? Were there certain things it was appropriate for girls to do but not boys, and vice versa?
Question 4: In what ways were girls and your family expected to be stay at home mothers or to hold jobs? Did your mother work, and if so, how was that viewed by your family and church?

 
    I think that it was generally assumed in society at the time that men and women were different from each other and should be treated differently. The expectation was that when girls grew up they would get married, have children, and stay at home to take care of them. Day care centers were unheard of. Why would you pay someone else to raise your own children for you?
    Child rearing was aimed at preparing boys and girls for their future roles as husbands and wives. The gender roles were reinforced through a formal code of etiquette. Men were expected to show deference to women, to respect them, and to treat them gently. To that end boys were taught to hold doors open for girls and to help them into their seats. In high school boys were required to take shop classes and girls home ec.
    There was also a real difference in the way that boys and girls were treated. Boys were expected to be tough and "take it like a man," while girls were consoled when they cried.

 
Added Note:

 
    Much has been said in recent times about the alleged "misogyny" of the Bible. It must be frankly admitted on any honest reading of the Bible (which is the way that the Bible should be read) that the Bible definitely assigns a subordinate role to women in the family and the church. This is probably the major reason why many American women today either object to a literal reading of the text, or reject the Bible altogether.
    Is the Bible wrong on this issue? By whose standard? Where does that standard come from? The contemporary standards of modern society? The problem here is that the atheist has no objective standard by which to judge anyone's beliefs or behavior, because an atheist will not admit any moral absolutes. But who is the judge, anyway? In the end will the Almighty give a hoot about what American feminists think? And if the so-called "evangelical feminists" resort to a contorted exegisis to eliminate the patriarchalism of the Bible, aren't they picking and choosing what they wish to belief? Aren't they in fact chasing a God Who in the final analysis is merely a figment of their own imaginations? Doesn't this give credence to the charge of atheists that religion is all make-believe?
    But more to the point, subjection to lawful authority is not "oppression." Several different New Testament passages discuss a wide variety of relationships that involve the exercise of authority by one person over another: husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, rulers and subjects. The Bible never questions the legitimacy of any of these relationships per se. In fact, Paul even goes so far as to call the civil magistrate "God's minister to you for good" (Rom. 13:4; NKJV). And this was written at a time when Nero was the Roman Emperor! The plain fact of the matter is that human society cannot function without such hierarchical relationships, and so we are instructed in Scripture to "submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake . . ." (I Pet. 2:13).
    Rather than challenge the legitimacy of such relationships the Bible instructs us on how to treat each other within the context of these authority structures. In general, persons in authority are to treat their subordinates with justice and humanity, and the subordinates are to honor and respect those in authority over them.
    The apostle Paul gives us a beautiful picture of the ideal of Christian marriage. He compares the relationship of a husband and wife to that of Christ and the church. Is it an egalitarian relationship? Obviously not. Is husband free to mistreat and abuse his wife any way he pleases? "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Eph. 5:25).
    The underlying principle here is Christian love, expressed in humility, patience and a willingness to serve others. Paul enjoins believers of both genders to "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3,4). Christianity and Feminism are operating on diametrically opposed value systems.

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story - II

    We continue with our responses to the series "Raised Evangelical" on the blog "Love, Joy, Feminism" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism).

 
Section 2: Theology

 
Question 1: Briefly describe the church your family attended while you were growing up. What role did the pastor play? How large was it? What sort of programs did it offer? What denomination was it? How many times a week did you attend church? How about Bible study or Bible club?

 
    In many ways the church was a typical fundamentalist Baptist church. It was affiliated with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC). It had about a hundred members, as I recall, and had the usual round of services and programs: Sunday School, morning and evening worship, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and young people's group. The pastor was looked up to as the spiritual head of the congregation, but was not particularly dictatorial. My father was an especially firm believer in regular church attendance, and I can still remember going with him to church in the middle of bad snow storms (this was central New York State, bear in mind).
    There were two things that maybe made our church a little different. One is that we were a fairly new congregation, and many of its members were adult converts who were serious about their faith. The other thing is that we were one of the few evangelical churches in an area that was predominantly Roman Catholic and liberal Protestant. This tended to make us a little more self-conscious of our identity as a fundamentalist church.

 
Question 2: When and how were you "saved"? How did your parents and church community respond? Did you have a "relationship with Jesus"? If so, at what age did you form this relationship? Please describe what all it entailed . . .

 
    Shortly after my parents joined the church a travelling evangelist held a series of meeting there. One Sunday evening he addressed the young people's group. He told us about our need to accept Christ and of the eternal consequences of not doing so. He urged us to make a decision right then and there, but in my typical fashion I wanted to think it over first. At that point I didn't know much theology, but I knew I was a sinner – I had an ego and a bad temper – and I sure didn't want to go to hell. So that evening, by myself in my room at home, I asked Christ to save me.
    At that age there is always a question as to how well I understood what I was doing. I doubt that I could have explained the atonement very well. But in my case, at least, my profession of faith has stood the test of time. I was baptized when I turned ten.
    My "relationship with Jesus" has deepened over time, albeit in fits and starts. It wasn't until college that I learned the meaning of prayer. A friend of mine and I determined to spend a certain amount of time each day in prayer -- I think it may have been an hour a day. I'm not sure that it did much good. Then one night, when I was home on break, I was praying alone by myself when suddenly it dawned on me: do you know who you are talking to? I was awestruck, and maybe a little terrified. The next night I prayed again, only I kept it very short and very reverent, conscious that I was in the presence of Almighty God. I think that that was a real turning point in my life.
    I have often read about the great revivals of the past, but I have only personally experienced it two or three times in my whole experience as a Christian. They are awesome occasions, but ever so rare!

 
Question 3: How did your family and church view the Bible, and what role did it play in your life growing up and in the life of your family and church? How often did you, your siblings and your parents read the Bible? Were you guided by your parents or pastors in how to interpret the Bible, especially certain passages, or were you generally free to form your own ideas about what the Bible said?

 
    My father faithfully read his Bible every morning. I knew that when I got up I would find him sitting in his easy chair in the living room reading his Bible and underling key passages with a red pencil.
    Fairly early on I became convinced of the need to read the Bible every day as well. I determined to read through the entire New Testament. So beginning with Matthew 1:1 I faithfully read a chapter every day until I finished the book of Revelation. Unfortunately, when I got done I could not have told you a single thing that I had read! My eyes had looked at every word on the page, but I wasn't reading for comprehension. It wasn't until late that I got interested in serious Bible study.
    Nearly everyone in our church (myself included) had a Scofield Reference Bible. Since nearly all the other churches in our area were either Catholic or liberal, I just naturally assumed that whatever our church taught, Scofield notes and all, came straight from the Bible itself. It wasn't until much later that I learned that there was anything the least bit controversial about any of this.
    There was one preacher who came to our church and laid down this rule of interpretation: "If the plain sense makes horse sense, seek no other sense." And that is the rule of interpretation I have used ever since.

 
Added Note:


 
    The modern mind, of course, rebels against the idea of authority in knowledge. "Sapere aude" (Dare to think) the German philosopher Kant famously said. For modern man, his own intellect is the final arbiter of truth.
    There are, however, two considerations that should be kept in mind. The first is the obvious fact that man's knowledge is limited. We cannot observe the physical universe in its entirety, let alone the spiritual realm. We are the tiniest of specks in a vast cosmos, and our range of perception is severely restricted.
    The second consideration is that God is omniscient – He knows everything. Indeed, He is the Creator of everything. Only He can tell us about Himself, about the ultimate purpose and meaning of reality, and about what lies beyond the grave.
    Thus we are dependent upon divine revelation for answers to some of the basic questions of life. We do not deny the facts of reality: let science discover what it can. But we use the Bible to interpret the facts and provide us with a coherent explanation of reality.

Raised Evangelical: Bob’s Story

    One of the more tragic stories is to be found on a blog on the atheist channel of Patheos. The blog is called "Love, Joy, Feminism" (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism), and is written by a young woman who identifies herself only as "Libby Anne." Libby Anne was raised in a very conservative evangelical home that was strongly influenced by the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. Homeschooled, she went off to a secular college, and confronted with the evidence for evolution her faith began to crumble. Unable to discuss her doubts with her family, in which her father's views were to be accepted unquestioningly, she chose to leave Christianity altogether and is now an atheist and a feminist.
    One of Libby Anne's ongoing projects is a series called "Raised Evangelical," in which she invites readers who have had experiences similar to her own to tell their own stories. The respondents follow a standard question and answer format. Each story is different, but there are certainly common underlying themes. Most of the respondents are young women, there was often an authoritarian parent or pastor in the picture, and there was often difficulty in living the Christian life. In many cases there seems to be confusion about the way of salvation. Even though the person may have been outwardly quite zealous in high school, he / she goes off to a secular college or university and it is only a matter of time before faith in God falls by the wayside.
    Since Libby Anne has a strict policy of "no proselytizing" (she once accused this blogger of delivering a theological lecture on her blog) it is hard to post critical comments on her blog. Yet the stories are profoundly disturbing, and the issues are of immense significance, and so we shall attempt a response here on my blog. Since I do not know Libby Anne or any of her respondents personally, I thought it would make more sense to tell my own story, using her standard format. The questions are grouped together in nine sections, each section dealing with a different topic. Since her questions and my answers are sometimes quite involved, we will spread this out over several blog posts. I will begin with Section 1 (Inroduction) and then go directly to Section 7 (Questioning), since that addresses the central issue. Then, in subsequent posts we will go through most of the remaining sections, since they provide cultural context. In the end I think we will be impressed with how much the world has changed in the last fifty years, and how much Evangelicalism has been radicalized as a result.

 
Section 1: Introduction

 
Question 1: Please introduce yourself before we get started, providing a brief snapshot of your background and overview of your beliefs today.

 
I am a 62 year old widower and father of three daughters. I was raised in Fundamentalist Baptist home in the Syracuse, NY area, and first made a profession of faith at age 7. I went to a public high school, attended a Bible college for two years, spend three years in the Army, then went to a Christian liberal arts college and finally seminary. I spent most of my adult life working at a wide variety of secular jobs. I am still a conservative evangelical and am currently attending an informal house church fellowship.

 
Question 2: How did your family and religious community self-identify? As evangelicals? As fundamentalists? Or as something else? What did these terms mean to your parents and religious community?

 
We saw ourselves as fundamentalists, by which we understood born-again, Bible-believing Christians. (Most other churches in our area were either liberal Protestant or Roman Catholic.)

 
Question 3: How did your parents become evangelicals or fundamentalists? Did they grow up in evangelical or fundamentalist families, or did they convert later?

 
They converted later in life. My father had practically no religious upbringing at all – his father had been an agnostic. As a girl my mother had attended a liberal, mainline Presbyterian church. After my parents married they both attended mainline churches. When I was about six my family moved back to the Syracuse area, and for some reason my parents had a hard time finding a church they liked. However a new church opened down the road from where we lived, and my parents decided to visit. It was a fundamentalist church, and there they heard the gospel. They made professions of faith, were baptized and joined the church.

 
Section 7: Questioning

 
Question 1: In what ways did the culture of your family and church differ from "mainstream" American culture? To what extent were you integrated into or isolated from "mainstream" American culture? To what extent do you feel that evangelicalism creates a sort of self-contained culture of its own, with Christian bookstores, Christian music, etc.?

 
    Back then (the late 50's and early 60's) the "mainstream" American culture had not departed nearly so far from its Judeo-Christian roots as it has today. On such issues as marriage, abortion, homosexuality, etc., what is considered today the distinctive agenda of the "Religious Right" was "mainstream" then. We were just ordinary, middle-class Protestant Americans. There was a small evangelical subculture – Christian bookstores and music publishers, as well as Bible colleges, but that was about it.
    On the other hand Fundamentalists distinguished themselves from the rest of the culture by abstaining from the petty social vices of the 20's : movies, drinking, dancing, smoking, card-playing and the like. In these areas we were expected to practice "personal separation."

 
Question 2: What first made you question evangelicalism / fundamentalism? Was this initial questioning a frightening or liberating experience?
Question 3: What did you struggle with most when you were in the midst of questioning and leaving evangelicalism / fundamentalism? What was the hardest part?

 
    I think it is pretty normal, as you get older, begin to think for yourself, and become more aware of the broader world, to question your parents' beliefs. You can't help but wonder whether all the things they told you were really true. To further complicate matters, your childhood and family experiences may not have been entirely happy, and that will tend to drive you into a different direction.
    In my case I went off to a Bible college that was approved by our church, and had some very positive experiences there. At first I was tempted to dabble in the "youth culture" of the late 60's, but then was led to examine my faith more closely. There was one professor in particular (a history professor) who was both a godly Christian and a serious scholar. I had a circle of friends who were serious about their faith. Then I began attending a church of a different denomination (Reformed Episcopal) where I heard some first-rate expository preaching.
    I also read books. I was so engrossed by The Escape from Reason by Francis Schaeffer that I read practically the whole thing in one sitting, although I didn't understand it until almost the end. Later I also read The God Who is There, by the same author. I was also impressed by a book with a decidedly different orientation – The Imitation of Christ by the late Medieval Catholic mystic Thomas a Kempis. What a Kempis did was to challenge me to think about whether or not I really loved Christ.
    What I began to realize is that the question comes down to this: either God exists or He does not. I was convinced that He existed; the order and complexity of the universe cannot be adequately explained by a blind, purposeless natural process. And if God did not exist, where would that leave human society? What answers would we have? Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll? (Believe it or not, that was what passed as an alternative to our parents' materialism in the late 60's.) Life without God looked like a dead-end street to me.
    And if God exists, the only question that mattered was, what does He think? And the only way to know that is through the Bible. My parents and my home church pastor may or may not have been right on a variety of issues – and they undoubtedly were wrong –they were, after all, only human beings. But in a very real sense now that I was a young adult what my parents had said was entirely irrelevant. I was accountable directly to God for what I believed and how I behaved. Ever since then I have applied myself to the study of Scripture.
    I was soon to be exposed to the larger world in a dramatic way. At the end of my second year of college I was broke and since I had a low draft number, I enlisted in the Army. I served tours of duty in both Viet Nam and West Germany. The experience left me with no illusions about the goodness of man apart from God. At one point, when I was in Nam, I became our company's drug and alcohol abuse counselor. I got the job by default – I was the only guy in the company that didn't use either drugs or alcohol. A couple of times I had to pull guard duty with the company "skag freak" (heroin addict).
    And since then not much of anything has happened to me to change my perception of things. I have seen marriages end in divorce, careers ruined in a haze of alcohol, lives end in suicide. The road of life is littered with wrecked and ruined human beings. You say that the world would be better without God? I have seen it with my own eyes. It is not a pretty sight.

 
Question 4: Among those who grew up around you who were also raised evangelical / fundamentalist, what proportion still hold those beliefs and what proportion have also left them?

 
    Unfortunately I have long since lost contact with most of the people with whom I grew up. I have met people who were raised in conservative evangelical homes and have since left the faith. I have also met people who came from ungodly backgrounds and are now vibrant Christians. For an interesting story about a friend of mine who was not a Christian when I knew him in high school, visit his website (http://www.billbalson.com/conversion.htm).
    Ironically as it may seem, there is a sense in which a person raised in a Christian home actually has a harder time coming to Christ than someone from a totally ungodly background. The youngster in the Christian home knows what he is supposed to believe. He may genuinely have tried to please his parents and church leaders. He (hopefully) managed to stay out of serious trouble. And everyone may assume that he is already "born again" because of an early childhood profession of faith. But what is often the case is that the young person has only a second- hand faith. Unfortunately wanting to please your parents is not the same thing as wanting to please God. And once the person leaves home for college or the military, it becomes apparent that his "relationship with Jesus" was purely imaginary, and they abandon the pretense, usually saying that evangelical Christianity is out of touch with reality or that there is no evidence that God exists. God is not real to them, and in a sense they are absolutely right: they have no real relationship with Him.
    Part of the difficulty is that a young person growing up in a Christian home may have never repented, because he never really saw himself as a sinner. As far as he can remember, he has always tried to do the right thing. But Jesus came, not to save the righteous, but sinners. The outwardly moral person has a hard time relating the gospel to his own personal experience because he can't see the problem with himself.
    It is also easy for a person from a Christian home to take Christianity for granted. It is just something that was always there, maybe even something that was forced on you, whether you wanted it or not.
    But for the person who was not raised in a Christian home, like my friend Bill above, it is a matter far different. He has seen the heartache and trouble, the hopelessness and despair. He has fallen prey to various addictions, and seen where the path leads. It is not hard to convince him that he is a lost sinner. Thus, when the light breaks through and he finally comes to understand the gospel, he eagerly embraces it – it is his life raft in the raging sea of sin. And thus, in a strange, ironic way, "Many who were first will be last, and the last first" (Matt. 19:30).

 

 

 

Is the Bible the Inspired Word of God? - III

Personal Factors
    In our last two blog posts we considered several evidences that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. There is an additional factor, however, that must be taken into consideration. The Westminster Confession of Faith mentions several characteristics of the Bible "whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God," but then adds this qualification: "Yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts" (W.C.F. I.v.). For some people, the content of the Bible is actually an argument against its being divinely inspired. To them the message of sin and salvation is obscene – it condemns men as guilty sinners and requires them to believe on Christ in order to escape eternal punishment. That, they say, is too demeaning to be acceptable!
    What it comes down to in the end is a matter of perception. The average person does not like to see himself as being a sinner and in need of salvation. Thus to him the Bible's whole theology of sin and redemption looks unreal, if not patently offensive. But to the individual whose eyes have been opened to see his condition as God sees it, and is troubled by what he sees, the Bible speaks with a stark realism like no other book can. He knows that he has heard the voice of God speaking through its pages. His conscience tells him that what the Bible says is true, and so does the Holy Spirit when the individuals is in the throes of a conversion experience.
    We might add one other observation as well. Once a person becomes a committed Christian he is likely to find that the Bible is a sure and reliable guide through life's perplexities. He passes through "many dangers, toils and snares," to quote John Newton's famous hymn. He is surrounded by friends and acquaintances who have made shipwreck of their lives. But the believer, if he relies on Scripture as his guide through life, spares himself many sorrows and finds peace and rest at last. This, too, is a testimony to the Bible's divine authorship.
    An atheist, of course, can deny practically anything if he is really determined to do so. But on this issue the atheist has to deny too much. On his scheme of things none of the writers of the Bible knew what they were talking about, and half of them wrote under fictitious names. None of the miracles in the Bible ever took place. Jesus was flat out lying about His identity. The several dozen witnesses to His resurrection were all hallucinating. The apostles got it all wrong, and the entire Christian Church was taken in by the scam! At some point, however, it takes more faith to deny than to believe!

Is the Bible the Inspired Word of God? - II

The Unique Content of the Bible

    But then what about the content of the Bible's message? Does it look as though it might have been divinely inspired? When seen in the context of ancient history one of the most striking features of the Bible is its monotheism. Israel alone among the peoples of the ancient world held to the idea that there is only one God and that He is the sole Creator of the universe. Granted, there was one Egyptian pharaoh, Akh-en-Aton, who took a step in the direction of monotheism in the 14^th Century B.C., but he may very well have been influenced by Moses and the events of the Exodus (the Amarna Letters, written at about the same time, describe the invasion of Palestine by the "Habiru," who may very well have been the Hebrews of the Old Testament). In any event, the reforms of Akh-en-Aton did not last long, and Egypt quickly reverted back to its older polytheism. To us the idea of monotheism seems fairly obvious, but in the ancient world only the Israelites held to the idea. Why?
    Another aspect of Israel's religion that made it stand out from the rest was its lofty ethical standards. The pagan gods worshipped by the surrounding nations were hardly better than their morally debilitated devotees, and pagan worship often involved licentious practices such as temple prostitution. But the Bible holds the human race accountable to a strict standard of morality, sternly condemning every form of dishonesty and exploitation, calling men and women to the strictest standards of fidelity in their relationships to each other.
    By the same token the Bible paints a dismal picture of the human condition. Originally created in God's image, we have fallen far short of His standards. The Bible records a long and depressing history of human failure and perfidy. Even the heroes of the Bible – Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon – are deeply flawed characters who disappoint in the end.
    The question is, how could Israel have arrived at such an unusual religion, and how could such an unusual book have been written? How could a book with a purely human authorship paint such an unflattering portrait of the human race? What possible motive could its authors have possibly had? Again, the answer that the authors themselves gave is that they were telling the story from God's perspective, and they told it from His perspective precisely because they had gotten the message from God Himself.
    Then there is the phenomenon of fulfilled prophecy. This, of course, is controversial. Liberal critics will routinely date individual books of the Bible after the events they predict. But one class of prophecies is not so easy to dismiss, and these are the prophecies in the Old Testament about Christ Himself. New Testament writers could quote numerous passages from the Old that told of a Messiah that would come from the line of David who would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, minister in northern Palestine, and suffer and die for the sins of the people. All that the modern skeptic has to do is to listen to a performance of Handel's Messiah and hear all these texts set to music!
    The Bible, then, contains an extraordinary message that is not the typical product of the human imagination. In short, the Bible bears the unmistakable imprint of the Divine.

Is the Bible the Inspired Word of God? - I

The Credibility of Its Authors
 The Bible is no ordinary book.  It claims to be nothing less than the inspired Word of God.  "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God . . ." (II Tim. 3:16; NKJV).  ". . . holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit" (II Pet. 1:21).

But, it will be objected, other religions make similar claims for their sacred texts as well.  How do we know that the Bible's claims for itself are true and that the others are false?

First of all, it should be noted that the Bible itself acknowledges that there have been and continue to be competing voices.  Right from the very beginning there were false prophets and false teachers, all saying different things.  In this cacophony of conflicting claims, how can we tell who is telling the truth?

At the time that the biblical prophecies were originally received there were a variety of ways to authenticate the message.  Could the prophet perform miracles?  Did the prophecy come true?  Was it consistent with earlier, known prophecies from God?  The nation of Israel had witnessed the dramatic events of the Exodus, and had every reason to believe that Moses had received his message from God.  Likewise Elijah, centuries later, could demonstrate through the miracles that he performed that he was an authentic prophet from God, and his prophecies came true.

But what of us today?  We can know these things only from the Bible itself.  How can we know whether or not this testimony is true?

If we were jurors in a court trial, and the witnesses were giving conflicting testimony, how could we tell which ones were telling the truth?  We would undoubtedly look for clues about the witnesses' character, we would look for internal consistency in their testimony, and we would look for corroborating evidence.  And so it is with our evaluation of Scripture.

First of all, what may we gather about the character of its human authors?    While we obviously cannot know them personally, what we can know about them leads us to believe that they were honest and sincere people.  They were earnest preachers of righteousness -- we would hope that they practiced what they preached.  Moreover their ministries often came at a great cost to themselves.  Their message was not always well received.  Elijah, Jeremiah, and Paul, not to mention Jesus Himself, put their very lives on the line.  Would they have done so if they had not felt a higher accountability to God?  It seems unlikely.

But secondly, we want to look at the consistency of their testimony.  They were united in preaching the true religion of the God of Israel as it had originally given to Moses, and they continued to do this even when it was unpopular and the tide of history was running against them.  What is especially striking about this phenomenon is the sheer number and diversity of the human authors involved.  Unlike the Koran or the Book of Mormon, which were both written by solitary individuals, the Bible was composed by at least 25 different authors writing in three different languages over a span of more than a thousand years.  The possibility of that that many different people could have conspired together to produce an elaborate forgery is zero.  What it does suggest, however, is that they had a common underlying source of inspiration, and they themselves identified that source as the Spirit of God illuminating their minds and speaking through them.

We should also note the consistency of the Bible with the known facts of history.  The biblical writers were insistent that they were reporting real history and not mere myths, and that the Lord could be recognized as the true and living God precisely because He actually did things in space and time.  The available archaeological evidence bears out the historicity of the narrative.  The authors were indeed describing real places and people that actually existed in history.

The biblical writers, then, were honest and truthful witnesses.  


 

Are the Gospels Historically Reliable?

We have already stated in a previous blog post that our knowledge about God and reality rests upon the concurrence of three independent lines of evidence: nature, Scripture and conscience. Skeptics, however, have challenged all three. We have already devoted attention to the first, nature, involving science and evolution. What about the second, Scripture? In a recent comment on this blog Tildeb stated the objection this way: "All we really have is testimonials – often contradictory and out of sequence – in the form 'I know a guy who knew a guy who said he once knew of this guy who performed miracles.'" Making allowance for a certain amount of exaggeration on Tildeb's part, the statement does more or less reflect the thinking of modern critical scholarship on the issue. But is it true?

    Almost all of the information we have about the historical Jesus is contained in the four gospels of the New Testament. The "Gnostic gospels" of which we have heard so much about lately have little historical connection with First Century Palestine and are obvious attempts to recast Christianity in the mold of Greek philosophy.

    But how historically reliable are the four biblical gospels? Who wrote them, and how much did they know? The traditional view was stated by the Second Century church father Irenaeus, who tells us this: Matthew originally wrote his gospel in the language of the Hebrews (evidently either Hebrew or Aramaic). Mark wrote down what the apostle Peter had preached. Luke did the same with the Apostle Paul, and then finally John, a member of Jesus' inner circle, wrote his gospel. Thus while John gives us a firsthand eyewitness account, and Mark relates for us Peter's firsthand account, Luke is the careful third person historian, diligently gathering information and scrupulously weighing his sources, to give us a comprehensive biography of Jesus. Thus if the traditional accounting is correct, we are hardly dealing with hearsay evidence.

    All of this has been called into question in modern times, however. The chief stumbling block appears to be that all of the gospels record Jesus as performing miracles. Again, Tildeb states the objection. In order to believe the gospel accounts we have to suspend what we know about nature. Miracle do not happen; therefore the stories are implausible. The historical Jesus could not possible have done some of the things that He is reported to have done.

    How, then, did these stories get into the Bible? The modern critical answer is pretty much "I know a guy who knew a guy . . ." According to the modern critical reconstruction of events, the four gospels were written at a relatively late date by persons who were not eyewitnesses. Stories were handed down by word of mouth, and changed over time to meet the apologetic needs of the church.

    However, the methodology of the modern critics is questionable. They begin by subjecting the available evidence to intense scrutiny, and then conclude that it is either ambiguous or unreliable. One might suppose that this would leave us in a position of skepticism about the origins of the gospels, but surprisingly it does not. The critics go on to reconstruct the history of the gospels, relying very heavily on a subjective reading of the texts. But the reconstruction is mostly conjectural. What the critics have done, in effect, is to get rid of the evidence and replace it with speculation. O the marvels of modern scholarship!

    Ironically, confirmation of the traditional view comes from an unlikely source. One of the leading liberal theologians, Dr. John A. T. Robinson, published Redating the New Testament in 1976. Dr. Robinson was struck by the fact that not one of the New Testament writers mentions the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as a past event, which they almost certainly would have otherwise. Dr. Robinson went through and reexamined all of the evidence, and concluded that conservative scholars had largely been right all along. Most, at least, of the books of the New Testament had to have been written prior to A.D. 70.

    What the "I know a guy who knew a guy . . ." scenario overlooks is the role of the apostles in the transmission of information about Jesus. Jesus did not leave Himself without witnesses. He worked closely throughout His earthly ministry with a group of handpicked disciples. They saw Him alive after His crucifixion. The books that make up the New Testament are in the New Testament precisely because they were either written by apostles or by people who were closely associated with the apostles. The witnesses are so many, and they are so close in time to Jesus Himself, that they cannot possible all be wrong. Thus when we weight the evidence carefully and objectively, we are face to face with a crucified and risen Savior!

 

 

Letter to a Unitarian Minister

The following is an extract from a letter we once sent to a Unitarian minister, whose sermon "Where Is Our Holy Text?" we happened to hear one Sunday morning. The minister was emphatic in denying that the Bible is a divinely inspired text, and cited a canon of several feminist authors as her own "holy text."

 

    "I appreciate the candor and frankness with which you expressed your opinions, but I do feel that they call for some sort of response. I was fortunate to have attended an evangelical seminary (Westminster, in Philadelphia), and to have been exposed to a body of conservative biblical scholarship that has examined liberal critical objections to the Bible and nevertheless found the Scriptures to be trustworthy. I was especially privileged to have taken courses under Leon Morris and Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, both of whom have written a number of very fine commentaries on various books of the New Testament. Personally, at the end of the day, I can see no reason to question the veracity and authority of the Bible.

    "I might also point out that the 'Sunday school faith' you described in your sermon was the faith of Athanasius and Augustine, of Thomas Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers, of Jonathan Edwards and the great Princeton theologians of the 19^th century. It is the historic faith of the Christian Church. It deserves to be treated with more respect than you gave it in your sermon.

    "I think that you probably approached the crux of the issue when you quoted a statement from the Humanist Manifesto of 1933 to the effect that 'All reality is self-creating.' If this statement were actually true, then you would be perfectly justified in your attempt to marginalize God. The statement, however, is palpable nonsense. If something does not yet exist, then by the very nature of the case it lacks the power to do anything. It can cause no effect, and it certainly cannot bring itself into existence. Or, to rephrase the question in more concrete biological terms, we might ask 'How did life begin'? Under a strict evolutionary scenario that excludes the possibility of 'Intelligent Design,' at some point what amounts to spontaneous generation must have occurred, which, as we know from scientific experiment, is impossible. This, then, brings us right back to the inescapable question of God. If, in fact, we have been created by a Supreme Being, then the Westminster Shorter Catechism is absolutely correct when it says that 'The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.'

    "I know that the Unitarian Universalist Association is proud of the freedom of thought that it seeks to foster within its fellowship. But at some point we as human beings have to deal with questions of ultimate truth. Is there a God? Does life have meaning and purpose? Is there really a difference between good and evil? Is there life after death? At death these issues will be inescapable, no matter how hard we tried to avoid them in life. And apart from some form of divine revelation we have no means of answering these questions, and we are left in profound ignorance of the matters most important to us. Given the attitude of Unitarians toward Scripture it is hard for me to see what can save you from the kind of abject nihilism typified by Friedrich Nietzsche. You profess to believe in a very idealistic set of social principles, but they are suspended in metaphysical thin air. The ever looming danger is that someday your ethics will catch up to your intellectual skepticism, and then you will have nothing left at all to offer society. That kind of moral skepticism is, in fact, the general trend in society today. . .

    "I will probably decline any further opportunities to participate in Unitarian church services. I have no desire to give human beings the place of honor that rightfully belongs to God alone. I noticed that your responsive reading last Sunday came from the writings of William Ellery Channing. William Ellery Channing did not give me life and health, the air I breathe or the bread I eat; much less did he die for my sins. I owe Channing nothing; I owe Christ everything. I shall worship Him Who deserves my praise and no one else. 'Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father'(Phil. 2:9-11; NKJV)."

 

Sincerely,

Robert W. Wheeler

 

 

God v. the Canaanites: a Miscarriage of Justice?

     In his October 10, 2010 editorial in USA Today, columnist Tom Krattenmaker discusses the presence of verses in both the Bible and the Quran that seem to sanction violence.  As far as the Bible goes he mentions one episode in particular, the conquest of Canaan by the invading Israelites, in which the native population was annihilated.  Mr. Krattenmaker calls the description of this in the Book of Joshua (he seems to be quoting Josh. 6:21, describing the destruction of Jericho) an "appalling account" and "not exactly inspirational."
     Mr. Krattenmaker makes reference to a book by Randy Frazee entitled The Heart of the Story, in which Frazee points out that the Amorites (one of the native peoples affected by the mass destruction)  were destroyed because of their sins.  Mr. Krattenmaker counters, however, by citing another book, Laying down the Sword: Why We Can't Ignore the Bible's Violent Verses, by Prof. Philip Jenkins, in which Prof. Jenkins argues that there is no evidence that the Canaanites were any worse than any of the other ancient peoples.  Prof. Jenkins contends according to Mr. Krattenmaker, that the Old Testament was written at a time when people had "a vastly different moral understanding of violence and its justification."
     Prof. Jenkins' contention implies, of course, that the biblical text is not divinely inspired.  Presumably it is a human production that reflects the commonly held values of its own time and place.  Thus, according to Prof. Jenkins' own moral understanding, God could not in reality have given the Israelites any such command to annihilate the Canaanites.  The biblical account reflects an unfortunate misunderstanding of what God actually expects.     
    For those of us who accept the Bible as divinely inspired, however, the Book of Joshua cannot be dismissed as "an appalling account" that arose from "a vastly different moral understanding of violence."  Mr. Frazee is right.  The Bible explicitly states that the annihilation of the Canaanites was a just retribution for their sins.  What these sins were is spelled out in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20.  It is significant that the evils mentioned center on licentious sexual practices and infanticide.  God calls these practices "abominations."
     But what of Prof. Jenkins' contention that the Canaanites were no worse than any other ancient people?  That may be perfectly true.  What is not true, however, is that God does not punish other peoples for their sins.
     God assures us in His Word that He is perfectly just.  We can see a partial demonstration of His justice throughout history.  Nation after nation has been destroyed by war, famine, natural disaster, and disease.  Where now is Assyria or Babylon, or ancient Rome?  All gone, in the dust bin of history, as are the Third Reich and the Soviet Union in more recent times.  But the complete and final demonstration of God's justice will not come until the end of history, when Christ returns to judge the entire earth.  Then each person will receive exactly what he is due,, and no one will be able to complain that he is being treated unfairly.  The Law of God has been revealed so "that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God" (Rom. 3:19, NKJV).
     The question is, are we any better than the Canaanites?