> After a discussion with another church member last night, I was thinking of
> issues that have caused the "church" to adjust its teaching of what the
> Bible requires. Help me with my history. Of course a simple one that came
> to mind was the Heliocentric verses Geocentric issue.
Excellent question. I'd like to quiz a church historian about this.
Relying just on my memory, I came up with the following list. (Note:
Some of the issues on this list are related to science, many are not.
Each one of these issues is unique, with particular historical nuances
on which I don't have the expertise to expound. On some of these
issues, a very large portion of the church has "changed its mind." On
others of these issues, only one significant sub-set of the church has
had to struggle.)
(New Testament-era issues)
----Should Gentile believers in Christ have to obey Mosaic Law?
----Is it OK to eat meat which was sacrificed to idols?
(largely "scientific" issues)
----Geocentrism.
----Do people live at the antipodes? (Augustine argued from scripture
that, although the earth was spherical, no one lived at the antipodes
because scripture taught that the gospel was preached "to the ends of
the earth," but no one had preached at the antipodes yet.)
----Is there a large subterranean ocean under the land? (Some people
argued from scripture that there must be a large subterranean ocean,
since God "...founded it [the land] upon the waters, established it
upon the Flood."
----Is there a solid "Firmament" holding back "waters above the sky"?
(This is an interesting issue. The Old Testament cosmology believed in
a solid-dome firmament and waters above the sky. Many Old Testament
passages refer to it. However, the Greeks figured out that the earth
was spherical several centuries before the New Testament. That
knowledge must certainly have made its way to SOME Jews by the first
century A.D. This certainly would have been known by well-educated
Jews who used the Septuagint and lived all over the Roman Empire. Did
the apostle Paul know about this? What about the average person-on-
the-street (or the average religious leader) living in Palestine at the
time of Jesus? Did they know that the earth was spherical? Did they
see a conflict with the Old Testament cosmology and references to the
firmament and waters above the firmament? How did they deal with this?
I would like to see someone dig in and answer those questions
sometime.)
(issues of relationships with non-Christians)
----Should Christians discriminate against (or even hate) Jews? (Many
church leaders throughout the past centuries quoted from the Bible to
justify such attitudes).
----The Crusades: should the church advocate the use of violence to
take control of the "Holy Land"?
----Is it OK for Christians to "push out" indigenous peoples (through a
variety of methods, typically starting with bargained agreements and
typically ending with violence) to settle in new lands?
----Is it OK for Christians to own slaves? Is it OK for Christians to
use peoples of other races as slaves?
(government and social policy issues)
----To what extent does the king's God-ordained right to govern give
him the right wield great power over his subjects (in the Middle Ages,
scripture was used to argue for this), and to what extend do all humans
have certain rights from the Creator which limits the power of what
government can do to them (which allows people to overthrow rulers who
trample on those rights)?
----Should all frontier and wilderness be tamed and settled? (Until
recently, many Christians would have quoted scripture ("subdue the
earth") to support the idea that ALL wilderness and frontier ultimately
should be settled, forests chopped down and turned into farmland,
predatory species eliminated, etc. Now we believe that a lot of
wilderness should be preserved as wilderness.)
----Should women be allowed to vote and hold public office?
----Should women be allowed to work outside the home?
----Is it OK for a Christian to take civil oaths?
----Should Christians always be pacifists?
(Theological and church-specific issues)
----Should women always cover their head in church?
----Should men and women sit separately during church services?
----Is the King James Version the ultimate English translation, or are
there better ones?
----Does the church having "the keys of the kingdom" mean that the
church can (and should) sell (for money) indulgences for the
forgiveness of sins?
----Is witchcraft common? Should we actively seek out witches in our
community? What sorts of physical and behavioral signs indicate a
witch?
(recent issues where parts of the church have not so much dramatically
changed its mind as shifted its emphasis)
----Is it OK for Christians to participate in "worldly" activities
(such as gambling, going to movies, play cards) which might not ALWAYS
be sinful, but often are? Or should Christians, on principle, ALWAYS
refrain from such activities?
----To what extent does beautiful art, in our places of worship,
promote worship, and to what extent does it promote idolatry?
----Where is the boundary between healthy leisure activity and
idleness?
----Where is the boundary between healthy corporal punishment and child
abuse?
==================
On all of these issues, there has been some noticeable historical shift
in the thinking of the church, church leaders, or at least a
substantial sub-set of the church. Some of these issues fit the
description of "the church adjusting its teaching of what the Bible
requires" -- in that a vast majority of the church made a one-time
change of opinion since the New Testament times. To this smaller sub-
set of issues belong (in my opinion): geocentrism, subterranean oceans,
anti-Semitism, witchcraft, indulgences, slavery, crusades, taking land
from indigenous peoples, and "taming" all wilderness. (I could easily
be convinced by historical evidence that some of the items I put on
this shorter list don't belong there, for one reason or another.)
Whatever the specific historical details on the issues mentioned above,
the list as a whole is certainly humbling. But it also gives us reason
to be amazed at God's patience and generosity -- patience for
continuing to use the church to spread his Kingdom, despite all our
failures, and generosity of his Spirit eventually leading us to better
understandings of His will.
Loren Haarsma