All Scripture or Every Scripture That Is - 4

So anyway, as I was saying in my last post...

Beth, my little agnostic, has a big problem with the OT. Heck, as recently as a few years ago, I had a huge problem with the OT. How many people have rejected God simply because of what they see him depicted as in the OT? Go to any of the skeptic sites on the internet, that dissect and criticize and defame God because of how they see him depicted there.

We'll skip any and all digression about Beth...and get back to the OT and the God we see depicted there? I wrote the following a year or so ago...

I've come to believe that there are two voices of God in the OT. One is the true God, the other is the voice of the god of this world...Satan, the carnal man....whatever you want to call him/it. Part of our spiritual journey is to learn to identify which god is which...and discerning this in the pages of the OT is one of the biggest challenges.

I think it is evidence that we are the offspring of God...and that the holy spirit is working within to give us discernment when we are repulsed by the stories of the atrocities in the OT....the seemingly schizoid behavior of God....loving and compassionate one minute....ready to smite and punish and reject the next.

So when the children of Israel "heard God" tell them to wipe out the Amalekites, or the Canaanites...or when Abraham "heard God" tell him to sacrifice Isaac, it was not THE God, it was the voice of the impostor (however you see him...Satan, the carnal man....whatever you want to call him/it) Even the ten commandments warn us about other gods.

My "rule of thumb" has become to filter everything through the image of the invisible God we see in Jesus. There are four gospels in the Bible. Four times, the same story, with little discrepancy is told, and retold. Four chances for us to see it and get it right. THIS is the picture of the invisible God....the face of God is the face of Jesus. If what I read in the OT does not line up with that....out it goes.

I know the stories are there for a purpose....perhaps to instigate this rising up within us that cries out that it does not jive with who we know God to be. The beginning of the journey to discernment that leads us to the true God of light and love....just may begin in the OT when we begin to see that something is amiss. The pieces to the puzzle just do not fit.

 And later in the thread:

About the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil having two fruits. Does the text say that? I think that it is one and the same fruit whether we are eating from the good side of the tree (church going, God fearing, legalistic Christian) or the bad side of the tree. We are not supposed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge at all...but rather from the Tree of Life!!!

I think strict adherence to doctrine of the total, complete, inerrancy of the Bible comes from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. We exalt the Bible to the point of blocking out the voice of Life which is living in each and every one of us...the Holy Spirit...the Spirit of the Risen Christ....which tells all of us that something is not right in the party line view of God in the OT.

Some people react to that belief by becoming atheists....wanting no part of that God. Others react by simply ignoring the OT and become New Testament Christians...Red Letter Christians. Others react by trying to make sense of the atrocities in the OT by claiming that His ways are above our ways and that all God's judgments are good no matter how they appear to us or how heinous and unfair they seem. God's acts in the OT are often referred to as atrocities because the ARE!!!!

Others strain their ears and try to listen to the voice of the Living God... ....the Voice of the Good Shepherd.... THE VOICE....and accept what He is whispering to their heart. I believe that it is only with His help that we can truly discern the truth in the scriptures. We tend to cling to the Tree of Knowledge....which is, I think, the root of the inerrancy view of the Bible. Just write it down and tell me what to believe.

Perhaps I am wrong...but if so I am confident that the Holy Spirit (whom Jesus promised would lead us into all truth) can right my course and show me the truth. I am trying to learn to put my faith in what HE is telling me...and not simply the words on a page.

Like I said, that was written a year or so ago...and I still see things pretty much the same.  A related post here on Mercy you might want to check out HERE. 

 

All Scripture or Every Scripture That Is - 3

Some of the following was written several years ago on the Beautiful Heresy Message Board.  It was a post within a thread that discussed  the Old Testament...and the inerrancy of the words written there.  So...and this feels kind of weird, let me quote myself...and then the peanut gallery will comment on the peanuts gallery's yesteryear musings.  Hmmmmm....

Beth, my little agnostic, has a big problem with the OT. Heck, as recently as a few years ago, I had a huge problem with the OT. How many people have rejected God simply because of what they see him depicted as in the OT? Go to any of the skeptic sites on the internet, that dissect and criticize and defame God because of how they see him depicted there.

Beth the agnostic?  Yep that was written several years ago.  The agnostic?  That might be a bit of an understatement.  You mean the angry, defiant teenager who wore the YOUR GOD IS DEAD T-shirt...last year?  The shirt she hand painted with angry red and black graffiti like letters?  The one she wore on her walk to the library one day...a walk that just happened to coincide with quitting time for the new pastor at our church.  As he was driving home, he saw her walking.  The t-shirt was impossible to miss.  YOUR GOD IS DEAD?  Them, there's fighting words for a United Methodist pastor.  He went around the block to try to find her and talk to her...but she was out of sight (no doubt offending people in the library with the sentiments expressed on her shirt)

And so she became the sermon illustration the following Sunday.  Being new he had no idea her mom..and sister...were sitting right there listening to the sermon. Distressing moment during a time I was sure things with Beth would never get any better and would never be okay.  Anyway...I am digressing big time...so do I go back to the subject at hand or plunge farther into the valley of digression?  Hmmmmm.  Okay...lets plunge...

The following is a post I wrote...about a year ago...to EU chronicling the very upsetting experience.

A few weeks ago when Beth was at her angriest (I actually called the police on her when she was trashing her bedroom) she painted a shirt that said in big graffiti letters "YOUR GOD IS DEAD".  She wore it last week on her way to the library.  Part of it was anger at God....the other part was, of course, up yours defiance, and to get attention.  She wrote about it on her myspace blog....and a confrontation she had with a man who stopped to defend God.  He wasn't the only one who noticed the shirt .....and she got attention all right.  She made the sermon yesterday at church.  All three sermons!!!  About six hundred people heard about the girl in the Your God Is Dead T-shirt. 

The sermon was about "who is Jesus to you" based on the scripture when Jesus asked Peter "who do people say I am" "Who do you say I am?"  Peter answered, "thou art the Christ, the son of the Living God". 

The springboard was the "Living God" part....because from there he went on to say that the other day, when he was driving home he saw a girl walking down Market Street....wearing a T-shirt.....and he could not believe what it said.  Emily and I looked at each other.  OMG, we knew where he was going.  Yep...the T-shirt said, "YOUR GOD IS DEAD" He went on to say that he turned his car around to go talk to her but she had disappeared by the time he got back to where he'd last seen her.  He said he could not imagine how sad and lonely (and he used a few other adjectives) that girl's life must be to wear a T-shirt that not only said her God was dead but that YOUR God is dead too.   Em and I, of course, knew who the girl was....and the two youth leaders Emily is so close to and who Beth was very close to at one time knew...and another girl who is friends with Em (and used to be friends with Beth) 

Later, when the service was closing, Spencer (youth leader) asked if he could say something....and he said something about if you are here and do not know who Jesus is, ask one of us...ask the person who brought you....because, that girl in the T-shirt......I know that girl". "she's been to our home...she's been to this church".  He said some other stuff, too, about being Christ to people.  The pastor had no idea, I'm sure.  As I said, he is a new pastor there and I'm sure he thought the girls' parents were sleeping off Saturday night's hangover and definitely not sitting in his new sanctuary.  (It was the consecration of the newly remodeled sanctuary....big crowd Sunday) 

There were refreshments after the service, but I left right away.  Later I wrote him an email introducing myself as the mother of the girl in the Your God Is Dead T-shirt...and let him know that my other daughter, Emily, is very active in the church and in the youth group.  She is part of the youth leadership committee etc.  He wrote back today and said he would pray for Beth. 

Just another one of life's interesting moments.  Ya' gotta' wonder what was God's purpose in it. Shrug.

Still haven't figured out God's purpose in all of it, although I will say that things have improved somewhat with Beth.  Thanks to any and all (Jack) who prayed for her.  And please keep praying because she turns 18 this month which is sure to involve a learning curve for all concerned. 

Tomorrow...I'll get back to the topic at hand...

More All Scripture or Every Scripture That Is?

Okay, back to the slippery slope ....our musings about the inerrancy of the scriptures. When we begin to question which scriptures might be inspired and which ones are not...we seem to be fulfilling the common fundamentalist "slur" about picking and choosing.

My thoughts have been spurred on by many influences during the course of writing this series, including a conversation Keith and I had and, as is usually not the case, we agreed on quite a bit.  I invited him to write his thoughts down so I could post them here. In the meantime, however, back to the Quaker article I mentioned in my last post.

For Quakers, the Bible is a declaration of the fountain, the Spirit, and not the fountain itself. Therefore it is not the principal ground of truth; direct experience of the Spirit is the principal ground. The Bible may give secondary guidance, but even to read it properly we need to read in the Light of the Spirit.

Okay...two thoughts here. First of all I am reminded about the finger and the moon thing. A story I came across on the internet:

The nun Wu Jincang asked the Sixth Patriach Huineng, "I have studied the Mahaparinirvana sutra for many years, yet there are many areas i do not quite understand. Please enlighten me."

The patriach responded, "I am illiterate. Please read out the characters to me and perhaps I will be able to explain the meaning."

Said the nun, "You cannot even recognize the characters. How are you able then to understand the meaning?"

"Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?"

And how about the following quote from De Mello:

As we say in the East, 'When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger'.

Ahhhh....yeah...okay....I get the gist of that...see the implications and similarities to those who cling to total literal inerrancy of the Bible. 

Back to the Quaker article....

Second, for Quakers, the Bible is the record of others’ encounter with the divine, of the Spirit as it spoke through others. It is the record of revelation, not Revelation itself.

and

Quakers believe in ongoing revelation; if Spirit spoke through others in the past, why should that process have ended? Friends’ experience is that that process is ongoing, as Spirit continues to inspire our words and actions.

Sort of like the catch phrase for the United Church of Christ...."God is still speaking."

Which reminds me....I visited Beliefnet this weekend and there was a post on the Christian to Christian message board about the Bible. The guy who started the post was in the opposite ditch of Biblical literalists. He found little if any value in the Bible. I felt moved to respond....and this is what I said:

I think it is just as misguided to claim that God DOES NOT/CAN NOT/ WILL NOT speak to us through the scriptures...the Holy Bible....as it is to say that he can ONLY speak to us through the Bible.

God has said plenty to me through the Bible...which is ever alive and ever new upon each reading. However, I have heard him speak through other writings, old and new, secular and holy. I have heard him in the lyrics of a song, the script of a movie, conversations with others...sometimes unbeknownst to them....and I have heard his still small voice speaking in the depth of my heart. There is a Christian denomination (United Church of Christ?) whose tagline is, "God is still speaking." Which begs the question...are we listening?

I heard a quote a long time ago that stuck with me...and I paraphrase it here since I didn't actually write it down at the time.

You can read the scriptures in the King James Version, the Concordant Literal or the original languages but unless you read it "in the spirit" you will never hear Abba speak.

More on all of this tomorrow....

Christ of the Abyss...

This morning, via a message board for bloggers called Authority Blogger, I happened upon a blog....Adam Snider - Writer For Hire.  The author is based in Edmonton, posts on Authority Blogger and has written a Christmas post entitled, Taking Christ Out of Christmas, from the perspective of someone who is not Christian...yet not at all militant about it.  Check it out.

The picture he used to illustrate his post is rather...ahhh....eery?  At first glance, I thought it was a mountain like structure somewhere. A religious Mount Rushmore of sorts.....picture taken from afar...and that the bits of green were actually patches of wild brush.  When I investigated the photo, it turns out that it is actually a submerged statue of Jesus called Christ of the Abyss.  As I look at it a bit more closely I can see that it is obviously not a mountain sculpture. Duh.  The thought that this is submerged is really kind of eery...or is it?  Any thoughts? 

And giving credit where credit is due, this photo was taken by vgm8383 and resides on Flickr.

There are three well known casts of this statue in various underwater places plus other casts in lesser known locations above and below the waterline.  There is  more info on the statue\...where else...Wikipedia.   

 

And below another pic from the State Library and Archives of Florida

 

None But Jesus....

While bouncing around on a few different blogs tonight, I came upon the following remark on the Decompressing Faith Blog. It is a response to a meme about religion.  First question...what is your home religion? Questions two and three...name two other religions that interest you.  It was the answer to the first question that caught my eye. 

 1. Jesusism. I don't like to call it Christianity, because it's 98% not traditional Christianity (i.e. what percentage of the bible consists of words Jesus actually said?).But what I can say is that no matter how I have stretched my boundaries, Jesus has a grip on me that I can't shake. I have tried to walk away, but have had no peace until I have returned to him. I have no real explanation, except to say that is where I fall and I'm happy with it.

Indeed.  Even though I "window shop" other belief systems...and find bits and pieces here and there that enhance my faith...practical things that open up the scriptures to me, yet.....Jesus has a grip on me that I can't shake. Reminds me a bit of what Beatrix said a few weeks ago on a Thomas Merton list where I am a member. 

Still our god-imagery is rich in its  diversity all around
the world. Perhaps there are many "faces" of God,  as
some wise folk have suggested. I have followed the
Continuum of  these faces come down through the
ages, but Jesus is ours!

I do think there are "many faces of God" down through the ages...and...I don't quite know how to reconcile these many faces with the Bible's clear teaching that Jesus is the name above all names.  I don't discount the path to God others follow....around the world and down through the ages....but for me...there is "none but Jesus."  At church, we often sing a song by Hillsong...."None But Jesus." Video and lyrics follow...

 

In the quiet
In the stillness
I know that You are God
In the secret of Your presence
I know there I am restored
When You call i won't refuse
Each new day again I'll choose

There is no one else for me
None but Jesus
Crucified to set me free
Now I live to bring Him praise

In the chaos in confusion
I know You're sovereign still
In the moment of my weakness
You give me grace to do Your will
When You call I won't delay
This my song through all my days

All my delight is in You Lord
All of my hope
All of my strength
All my delight is in You Lord
Forever more

All Scripture Is or Every Scripture That Is...

And moving right along this path to sure apostasy...an article ended up in my inbox the other day, that...imagine...goes along with this series. The article is called A Quaker Response to Christian Fundamentalism. The article can be found at the Quaker Universalist web site

Like yesterday's post, the article addresses more than the inerrancy question. It takes an overall look at the main differences between Christian Fundamentalists and liberal Quakers. As I read the article I found that the beliefs of liberal Quakers fit quite nicely with the beliefs of other more progressive faith groups. In many (most) areas, their beliefs are the antithesis of the beliefs of Christian Fundamentalists. It might be interesting to look at the article in a bit more depth and talk about some of the other issues it addresses....issue like original sin, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Salvation and relations with other religions. But for this post, let’s just hone in on the inerrancy thing. The author of the article mentioned something I have never heard before. There are scholars who believe 2 Timothy 3:16 might be mistranslated.

We all know the traditional rendering….

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

The article explains:

How do Friends view the Bible? Not surprisingly, early Friends were not fond of 2 Timothy 3:16; moreover, a number of them did not accept the standard translation of this passage as correct. Early Quaker theologian Robert Barclay, among others, argued that an ambiguity in the original Greek version of the passage allowed it to be translated as, “Every scripture inspired by God is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” This translation opens up the possibility that only some passages in scripture are inspired by God, while others are not. Interestingly, the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible gives this alternate translation in its footnotes

And it is not just in the footnotes of the New Revised Standard Version. I found the following information on the Tyndale Archive of Biblical Studies. The article compares many different versions and their translation of this verse.

In this category, the verb "is" does not appear immediately following the word "Scripture." It is restrictive because the statement refers only to Scriptures that have been inspired by Yahweh. It suggests that there are Scriptures that have not been inspired by Him. It also suggests that Yahweh can instruct other servants throughout later times to write. Again, the translators have taken a stand, whether or not they accept the implication.

BNT - Every divinely inspired scripture is also useful for teaching the truth, for the refutation of error, for moral correction, and for training in the good life. (Barclay New Testament)

DRB - All scripture, inspired of God, is profitable to teach, ...( Douay-Rheims Bible)

LBP - All scripture written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is profitable for doctrine, ... .(Lamsa Bible)

NEB - Every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, ... .(New English Bible)

REB - All inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, ... .(Revised English Bible)

WTNT - For all scripture given by inspiration of God, is profitable to teach ... . (William Tindale Newe Testament)

EDW - All Scripture, divinely inspired, is indeed profitable for Teaching, ... .(The Emphatic Diaglott)

IV - And all Scripture given by inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, ... .(Inspired Version)

WAS - Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, ...(Worrell New Testament)

HBME - Every Divinely inspired and useful writing was intended for teaching, attestation, and education in righteousness, ...( The Holy Bible in Modern English)

TCNT - Everything that is written under divine inspiration is helpful for teaching, ... .(The Twentieth Century New Testament)

And there are several other translations that are very similar.

American Standard Version
Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.

Bible in Basic English
Every holy Writing which comes from God is of profit for teaching, for training, for guiding, for education in righteousness:

Hebrew Names Version

Every writing inspired by God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction which is in righteousness,

And the online Greek Interlinear Bible at Scripture For All agrees with the above renderings.

Hmmmmm.

And what are the implications of this…if indeed the verse means what it appears to mean in the examples listed above? 

Let’s talk more about that….tomorrow…..

The Slippery Slope - Don't Go There....

Fred Plumer's essay, Don't Go There, gives three examples of these "don't go there" places.

The first example is a woman who reamed him out royally in a break out workshop on the second night of a four day conference. Her beef? What he had mentioned briefly the night before in his keynote address...musing about whether Jesus was born of a virgin. Although she was not the least bit put off by some of the other progressive thoughts and actually agreed with him on most, the virgin birth was (as my friend Kathy used to say) a hill she would die on.

The next incident

This time a man, who had attended one of my speaking engagements, caught up with me as I was getting ready to leave. We stood outside by our cars in the cold and talked for twenty minutes. He was completely engaged and amicable until I questioned the need for Jesus to be the one and only unique God in our world. This man got red in the face and said, "Don't go there!" and I didn't. Interestingly, we had talked comfortably about other parts of the Christian story, how they might have come to be and why it was okay to let them go, or simply let them be myth. But for him it was unthinkable to let Jesus only be an enlightened man, a teacher and a prophet. For him, Jesus was God and that was a "don't go there."

And the final incident he talks about was one of his own "don't go there places"

Recently, I was on a conference call with a highly respected seminary president and three other people. As we were discussing the future direction of TCPC, he suggested that one of the things I might want to consider is moving past being an exclusively Christian organization and shift more towards a Unitarian Universal perspective. It was as if the wind had been knocked out of me. At first, I could not respond. Although I didn't say it out loud, my first thought was "don't go there!" When I finally was able to respond, I mumbled, "But I love Jesus." And no one was more surprised by my response than me.

The author's take on this....

.....if we dig deep enough, most of us seem to have a "don't go there" spot in our beliefs and traditions - that place where we lose a little of our otherwise rational thinking. And I suspect that it is often our inability to get past those "don't go there(s)" that holds back our personal growth and change.

Or as he said in the first essay about progressive religions, we must

"let go of the need for dogma or inflexible belief systems" and "learn to move with the flow of the spirit,"

And now, since you can't see me, let me just say that I am wearing my question mark face, shrugging my shoulders and shaking my head. Truth is, I don't know where the line is drawn between faith and dogma...between inflexible belief systems and moving with the flow of the spirit. I don't know...but since the purpose of this blog is not to tell you your answers...but rather to pique your questions,  I will leave you with this one...

How do you know which hills to die on?