Re: Re: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"

I've been travelling the last couple of weeks and have only occasional access to my e-mail, so much of the last two weeks' worth of messages has been relegated to the "electronic dustbin." I figure I can catch up on the various threads on the ASA archive website once I get back.

I do feel that this thread (is God a socialist) strays some distance from the general thrust of the ASA, i.e., science and religion, unless the definition of science includes economics.

As a Canadian, I also note a considerable amount of, what I consider jingoism, in that the US is seen by many correspondents as the only hope the world has (somebody quoted the late US President Ronald Reagan here). I sense a certain degree of equating the US with Christianity. If that's what you want to do, fine, but you make the ASA increasingly an uncomfortable place for non-US people. If that's what your aim is, maybe I should look elsewhere for fellowship.

Don't get me wrong; I'm *not* 'anti-American.' I spent nine pleasant years in the US and married a fine US woman, who has since then become a proud Canadian. We will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversay this June, DV. I'm composing this e-mail in Salem, OR, after attending a conference in Tucson.

Chuck Vandergraaf

>
> From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
> Date: 2006/03/07 Tue AM 09:35:33 CST
> To: <asa@calvin.edu>, <janmatch@earthlink.net>,
> "Pim van Meurs" <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: The Left Hand of God or "is God a socialist"
>
> I have long agreed with the following paragraph in what Janice sent:
>
> 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.
>
> My agreement with the overall point is unqualified. That is, if people
> want to say that God is dead (and actually mean that God is dead, not just
> use those words to say that people don't believe in God anymore) or that the
> resurrection is a wild story invented by the disciples, then I do not
> believe such persons have a right to call themselves Christians. What God
> will do with them is up to God, just as what God will do with me is up to
> God (and believe me, I'm worried about that), but it's "intellectually
> dishonest" for such folks to transpose their claims to be Christians with
> their negative catechisms (no God, no resurrection, no divine governance,
> etc).
>
> The application of this paragraph is where it gets awfully hard. It is
> probably good to keep in mind that many Eastern Orthodox believers, ie, many
> members of the church with the best claim to the apostolic succession, would
> probably apply the final two sentences to me, to most or all "Protestants,"
> and for all I know Janice directly to you as well. I say this as someone
> who has a lot of good things to say about the Orthodox tradition, including
> its commitment to Biblical truth as their tradition understands it. I hope
> George Murphy or someone else will correct me if I'm mistaken here, but I
> think it's completely correct to say that "the majority of Christians over
> the ages" and perhaps a majority of Christians in our own day would consider
> the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist (ie, transsubstantiation or
> something darn close to it) to be "essential to the Christian faith." The
> Reformed view on this (the Eucharist as a means of grace) doesn't fit into
> this view and nor does the view of many fundamentalists (the MSLutherans
> would be an obvious exception) and all of the Anabaptists (the Eucharist is
> a remembrance of Christ, an ordinance rather than a sacrament). A lot of
> people in the ASA, at TDI, and at Answersingenesis would probably dissent
> from that opinion (and it isn't easy to say something like that). I'm
> curious, Janice--what do you personally think about this one? How
> "pluralistic" do you want to be, on something as "essential" as this?
>
> If you want to follow Mr Moser into these waters, you'd better find out how
> deep they are before you jump.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Mar 7 11:46:55 2006