Re: Apologists and other salesmen

D. Eric Greenhow, M.D.,Ph.D. (egreenho@mail.med.upenn.edu)
Mon, 28 Oct 1996 23:31:55 -0500

At 09:18 AM 10/28/96 EST, you wrote:
>Glenn Morton wrote:
>
>>My main gripe about those in the Christian apologetical business is that they
>>do not put out the hard work to keep up with the fields they purport to study
>>and thus they teach Christians things that are out of date and wrong. We
>>should do better than that. Remember James 3:1.
>>
>>glenn
>>
>-------------
>Amen, Glenn. I too have seen enough of attempts to "please God with a lie" as
>Francis Bacon put it.
>
>The Protestants, when they severed ties with Rome, did so because the Pope was
>wrong about some things. But ironically, in doing so they lost the ability to
>provide safeguards to protect their own message from becoming corrupted. As a
>result, we now have a situation where:
>
> a) anyone can publish materials for church people without passing any peer
>review process;
> b) the apologetic message of the Church is being co-opted and
manipulated by
>shrewd politicians and other salesmen;
> c) innocent lay people in the churches are taught all kinds of nonsense --
>anything will be accepted as long as it is made to appear consistent with the
>Bible.
> d) the Bible itself is being crowded out by the pretentious commentaries of
>authors who load such verbose footnotes into the pages that they look -- and
>function -- more like the Talmud.
>
> If Christian apologists cannot be trusted on scientific matters, who will
>believe their reports about the Gospel? This is a problem that Augustine
wrote
>about in the 5th century. After all this time, apologetics is still in such
>sorry shape that I feel that it often does more harm than good.
>
> "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
> W. B. Yeats
>
>
> Do we need an "Evangelical Council of Scientific Accountability" to police
>ourselves on scientific matters?
>
>
>
> Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
> Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084
> 73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
>(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)
>
>
>
>Add Medicine to the list. Evangelicals have been among the worst to
succomb to homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic and other alternative
systems that have little or no scientific basis, and accuse me specifically
and the medical profession generally of being opposed to them on strictly
financial terms. This was the case way back with Luyties Pharmaceuticals -
anyone out there remember ferrum phos and natrum mur? - and is the case now
with Amway, Shackley, and other purveyors of nostrums to the evangelical
community.

Eric Greenhow