At 11:43 PM 3/6/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>... it is capitalism itself which undermines much of religion and faith.
@ You are clueless. Get up to speed
here: http://www.freerepublic.com/~matchettpi/
>The more I think about it the more I come to realize that Jesus was
>quite a socialist in his days.And note how God in Leviticus seems to
>support the redistribution of wealth
@ Read about yourself here:
How to Talk to a Theological Liberal (If You Must)
http://www.tektonics.org/guest/libspeak.html
Justin Moser
----------
No doubt, you have run into one in the past, or if you haven't, you
will soon. This is especially true if you go to a University, or if
you are on the Internet. I am referring to people who are "liberal"
in their theology. That may seem strange to talk about -- most people
are familiar with those who are politically liberal. Now, political
liberals and theological liberals are probably about as annoying (I'm
speaking generally, I know a few political liberals I can converse
with without the urge to bonk them over the head), but theological
liberals can also be potentially dangerous to those who are weak in
faith or seeking. As such, I figured it would be worthwhile to do a
piece for Tekton on them. Holding has probably run plenty through
with his social-historical sword, but here I'd like to focus on their
methods in a way which he might haven't, yet.
What do I mean by theological liberal? Unfortunately, what they
believe will vary greatly depending on what axe each individual has
to grind. In fact, the term "theological" is misleading, since many I
have conversed with are essentially naturalists. The best way to
describe them is that they associate themselves to Jesus or Paul or
the Bible, but in a way that distorts the essential message. They use
Bible passages for their purposes which conveniently look like they
may support the liberal's axe grinding, yet they dismiss anything
which they don't like as myth. They are fond of Christ myth and other
kooky conspiracy theories, fuzzy logic, and untenable translations of
the original texts. They posit as fact various unsubstantiated (or
even impossible to substantiate) theories about the Bible, all along
dismissing what hard facts we do have available. And that doesn't
even talk about how badly these people anachronize what they read
with their own modernist presumptions.
Before we go on, it is important that I note that one can be
politically liberal yet theologically "conservative." One does not
have to lead to the other -- I've conversed with orthodox Christians
who hold to the same values as the political left. This discussion
will focus on the theological variety.
Really, it is almost pointless to try to reason with such people.
Theological liberals (hereafter, just liberals) tend to be so
enamored in their way of thinking that there is usually no hope of
knocking sense into them. Without fail, every conversation I've had
with a liberal ended in a Texas spitting match. Personally, I believe
it is fruitless to try to reason liberals into the fold; the only
reason I'd even talk to a liberal is if it was in a public setting
where he or she could influence other people. Of course, you may run
into one who can actually be reasoned with -- I've seen stranger
things during my 25 years of life. But as far as I can tell, liberals
are a blight on the church.
So, let's look at and critique the liberal's most common debate methods.
Method #1. I'm a Christian (even though I deny X, Y, Z, ...).
Yeah, and I'm a baked potato, even though I don't have a crusty brown
exterior nor a mushy white interior. At least, not to my knowledge.
The thrust of the tactic here is that the liberal wants be understood
as an insider rather than an outsider. What better way to influence
the people you want to influence than to associate yourself as one of
them? "You can trust me, I'm a Christian like you." And then he or
she starts spouting off garbage, which many Christians may not be
able to discern due to the nature of our times (i.e., fast food faith).
You have to understand that we cannot let people get away with this.
If the term "Christian" is to have any meaning at all, it has to have
a specific meaning. And it already has a meaning: how it has been
defined for the past ages -- and how it is defined by the majority of
Christians today. Shall we revise the definition of this word simply
because a few people will have a hissy fit if we don't? Of course
not! If you deny the core beliefs that the majority of Christians
over the ages consider essential to the Christian faith, you should
not call yourself a Christian. To do so is intellectually dishonest.
A fun way to mess with the liberal is to call him or her a Nazi. Of
course they will be offended, but explain it this way: if you can
call yourself a Christian even though you deny core essentials to
Christianity, then I can call you a Nazi, even though you deny such
things as Aryan supremacy, the use of death camps, etc. This person
is simply a liberal Nazi!
Method #2. We need to be tolerant of other people, since all faiths
lead to God in their own way.
Of course, most Christians are tolerant anyways, simply not in the
way the liberal demands. (See my article here on
<http://www.tektonics.org/guest/tolerant.html>Tolerance.)
With regard to the pluralistic view that all roads lead to God, it
seems that liberals always have the unfortunate problem that logic is
just too darn inconvenient! In the general, there are at least two
kinds of religions: those that hold that there is one way to God, and
those that hold that there are many ways. The problem is, if the
former type of religion is correct, then the latter must be wrong,
and vice versa. In the specifics, every religion says a set of
propositions about who God(s) is; yet every religion contradicts
every other religion in some way. If two religions didn't contradict
each other, they would really be the same religion. Thus, no more
than one religion can possibly be right in its view of God. The law
of contradiction holds to even God Himself. If it doesn't -- and it
is a shame the liberal doesn't think this out this far -- God would
be incoherent and thus unknowable. If all religions are right, then
all religions are also wrong.
A quick and easy way to refute the liberal on this point is to ask
them, why they don't tolerate traditional Christianity? What you want
to do is put them in a dilemma: either you have to "tolerate" (by the
liberal's definition) Christianity, and thus "tolerate" no other
religion, or not "tolerate" Christianity, and thus you are not
tolerating everyone like you should (according to the liberal). Then,
grab some popcorn and enjoy the show as they try to squirm out.
Method #3. History is always rewritten by the winners.
I find this assertion odd, considering that the only people I know
who blatantly rewrite history are the liberals themselves, and they
are the biggest bunch of losers around! ;)
This is typically an attempt to sidestep the evidence we do have
about Biblical history, so that the liberal can prefer his or her
kooky conspiracy theory. And it's brilliant too: if you can convince
people that Paul took over Christianity and changed it as he saw fit,
you can get them to believe that the primitive Christianity of Jesus
was anything you want it to be.
Of course, we could do the same thing with any other popular
character. Gandhi? He was a red meat eating, gun toting capitalist!
What happened was the media misunderstood him, because his followers
perpetuated a distorted version of his teachings. Martin Luther King
Jr.? He didn't even exist! What we remember from the old black and
white news reels was an actor; it's all a big government conspiracy.
(And by this, I mean no offense to anyone; this is just an exercise
in reductio ad absurdum.)
Try it out whenever you run into a theological liberal who does this
(or skeptics, as well). And when they say how ridiculous it is, you
say "Exactly!" that was your point. Or if they have the gall of
bringing up the extant evidence we have of these people, it's time to
get into apologist mode and show them how they just put the bullet in
their own rotting carcass of a "theology."
In reality, this isn't how historical studies work (or, at least it
isn't how they should). In many cases all we have as evidence is the
report of an ancient historian, and sometimes even a bleak line of
archeological evidence. If we were collectively consistent in
applying this methodology to history, we would have absolutely
nothing useful about history to learn. That includes anything from 5
minutes ago, since there might have been a vast conspiracy and 4
minutes 59 seconds ago you were brainwashed and all your memories are
fake. While this might be entertaining to conjecture about
philosophically, we simply cannot live like this. To some extent, we
have to give the benefit of the doubt to what we perceive has
history, whether it be recent or ancient. With ancient historians,
they are the closest we have to eyewitnesses. Some may have
malevolent purposes in how they report their history, but with enough
study a good, consistent historian can sort out the fact from the
fiction to an extent.
Method #4. Jesus was a Marxist, vegetarian, who stood up for
homosexual rights and drove a solar car, etc.
Yes, not even Jesus can escape the whackiness of the theological
left. Every theological liberal I've talked to has had a political
axe to grind, and it almost always emerges in their "theology." And
it always ends up having Jesus as its biggest advocate. And it's no
wonder! Who could argue with Jesus Himself? If Jesus was a socialist,
how could we Christians be capitalists? I can seriously see how
tempting it can be to make Jesus out to be the progenitor of your
political party (Some would argue the political "religious right" has
done the same thing).
But really, how much can we really extrapolate about Jesus' political
views? You have to understand, many of the political issues we face
now did not exist in the first century Palestine. The people had much
to worry about in surviving alone without dealing with the
sociological impact on policies regarding (say,) abortion or
homosexual marriage. It is a terrible anachronism to expect such
things as economic and environmental policy to be serious issues to
Jews at the time. Or with homosexuality and some other issues, at
least, it was an easy choice: it was against the Torah, therefore it
was illicit in Jewish society.
Furthermore, Jesus and the Apostles (as well as the rest of the early
church) had to be very careful what they said about politics. Jesus,
himself, had to deal with Jews who wanted to make Him into a
political king in hopes that He would overthrow the Roman rule in
Judea (cf. John 6:15). He also had enough fun trying to explain the
nature of His messiahship (e.g. John 3) and other aspects of His
teachings... He had maybe one point in His ministry where He made a
politically significant point, but that was only because the
Pharisees were trying to entrap Him (cf. Matt. 22:17-21). Besides,
why should he? The politics of the day were basically what the Romans
said they were, and why would the Romans listen to a traveling Jewish
preacher in a "backwoods" province? At best Jesus would have been
ignored, and at worst he would be dealt with as a political insurgent
and a threat to the Pax Romana. There was no incentive for Jesus to
go into details about the "virtues" of Communism or the "evils" of
capitalism. The case was the same for the Apostles and the rest of
the leadership of the early church.
I am not saying we cannot take Biblical principles and apply them to
the existing political sphere in democratic/republic societies today.
The only point here is that it is a terrible injustice to
intellectual integrity, to the Bible writers, and to Jesus to put
words in their mouths about issues the had no reason to speak about.
Conclusion
As you may have noticed, none of the prescriptions are designed to
take the theological liberals seriously. And certainly they will be
offended. But that is actually the point. What the liberal wants is
for us to take them seriously. If Christians take them seriously,
some of the weaker among us might think that they have something to
say that is worth hearing. And then when they are taken seriously,
they will go and start spouting off their usual nonsense. No, it is
just best for everyone if these people get nothing from the Christian
community except for utter contempt. Too long have we granted people
to be their own authorities simply by virtue of them being able to
communicate their opinion.
~ Janice
Received on Tue Mar 7 00:20:12 2006
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