Re: Call me a fideist

An eye-opening read on Christianity in the "global South" for anyone on this
list is Philip Jenkins' book, _The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global
Christianity_ (Oxford, 2002).

Bob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joel Moore" <redsoxfan1977@gmail.com>
To: <glennmorton@entouch.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 10:06 AM
Subject: Re: Call me a fideist

> On 5/26/05, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>> Now, the problem I keep trying to get people to focus on is the fact that
>> the religious world is much larger than NOrth American christianity. Try
>> living in a place where no one shares your theology, or even has a
>> theology.
>> You quickly realize how sheltered North American Christians are. One
>> can't
>> start with "Assume the Bible is true therefore...."
>>
>> That approach, which both YECs and many ASA members take, quickly begins
>> to
>> sound like the man who went to the owner of a large chicken meat company.
>> The guy told the owner that he could cut the company's costs by 40% by
>> mechanizing the feather plucking. The guy told the owner that he would
>> no
>> longer have to hire hundreds of chicken pluckers. The owner, quite
>> interested asked how the man would do that. The man said, " I built a
>> feather plucking machine. Here are the diagrams. First, assume that you
>> have a spherical chicken....."
>>
>> When one looks beyond North America and sees what is out there, one
>> realizes
>> that we Christians are busy assuming spherical chickens. And then we
>> create
>> these marvelous apologetics which are utterly worthless.
>>
>>
>
> Glenn,
>
> You're absolutely right that the religious world is much bigger than
> North American Christianity but you seem to be failing to fully
> recognize that fact. The well-recognized rise of Christianity in
> Africa and Asia over the last few decades has little to do with the
> sort of apologetic that you and others on this list are trying to
> construct. The concerns of your average African or Asian convert are
> miles away from what we're discussing on this list. That's not to say
> that these discussions aren't important but I'd say you're mistaken to
> think the sort of scientific-type of apologetic you've worked on will
> have much traction beyond North American or European Chrisitanity. In
> my limited observations, most people who convert to Christianity do so
> because of personal testimony and a daily living out of one's calling
> to follow Christ.
>
> -Joel
>
Received on Fri May 27 11:12:44 2005