(18 votes, average: 4.94 out of 5)
Loading...In my last post I began to discuss the importance of “truth” to conservative evangelical Christianity, through a bit of autobiography. You don’t need to have read that post for this one, so I begin here with the final paragraph that I left off with there. This is from my book Forged.
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One of the ironies of modern religion is that the absolute commitment to truth in some forms of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, and the concomitant view that truth is objective and can be verified by any impartial observer, has led many faithful souls to follow the truth wherever it leads, but where it leads is often away from evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity. That is to say, if you can, in theory, verify the “objective” truth of religion, and then it turns out that the religion being examined is verifiably wrong, where does that leave you? For many one-time evangelical Christians it leaves them in the wilderness outside the evangelical camp, but with an unrepentant view of truth. Objective truth, to paraphrase the not-so Christian song, has been the ruin of many a poor boy; and God, I know, I’m one.
Before moving outside into the wilderness (which, as it turns out, is a plush paradise compared to the barren camp of fundamentalist Christianity) I was intensely interested in “objective proofs” of the faith: proof that Jesus was physically raised from the dead (Empty tomb! Eyewitnesses!) , proof that God was active in the world (Miracles!), proof that the Bible was the inerrant word of God, without mistake in any way. As a result, I was devoted to the field of study known as Christian “apologetics.”
The term apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which does not mean “apology” in the sense of saying you’re sorry for something, but in the sense of making a “reasoned defense” of the faith. Christian apologetics is devoted to showing not only that faith in Christ is reasonable, but that the Christian message is demonstrably true, as can be seen by anyone willing to suspend disbelief and look objectively at the evidence.
The reason this commitment to evidence, objectivity, and truth has caused so many well-meaning evangelicals problems over the years is that they – at least some of them — really are
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The more I studied the evangelical truth claims about Christianity, especially claims about the Bible, the more and more I realized that the “truth” was taking me somewhere that I very much did not want to go. After I graduated from Moody and went on to Wheaton College to complete my bachelor’s degree, I took Greek so that I could read the New Testament in its original language. From there I went to Princeton Theological Seminary to study with one of the great scholars of the Greek New Testament in the world, Bruce Metzger; I did a master’s thesis under his direction and then a PhD. During the years of my graduate work I studied the text of the New Testament assiduously, intensely, minutely. I took semester-long graduate seminars on single books of the New Testament, studied in the original language. I wrote papers on difficult passages. I read everything I could get my hands on. I was passionate about my studies and the truth that I could find.
But it was not long before I started seeing that the “truth” about the Bible was not at all what I had once thought, when I was a committed evangelical Christian at Moody Bible Institute. For one thing, I became puzzled by the fact that we don’t any longer have the original copies of any of the books of the New Testament, but only later copies, most of them dated many centuries after the originals. All of these later copies have mistakes in them, many thousands of minor mistakes, but also hundreds of major ones, alterations of the text that change what the text means.[1] I began to wonder why I should think that God had inspired the very words of the text – the view that I had at Moody – if he had not seen fit to preserve the words that he inspired. It would take no greater miracle to keep the words intact than it would have been to inspire them in the first place. In fact, it would be less of a miracle: it is not impossible to copy a text correctly, after all. But Christian scribes never did. If I knew for a fact that the original words had not been preserved, why should I think that they had been inspired?
But the problems that I had with the Bible came to be much bigger than that. For the more I studied the more I came to realize that the Bible contained discrepancies and contradictions.[2] If you read the Gospels very carefully in relation to one another, it is quite simple to show that the same story is frequently told in more than one Gospel, but the accounts differ, depending on which Gospel you read. And some of these differences are not merely an additional detail found here or there; sometimes the accounts are actually at odds with one another. After Jesus was born, did his parents take him and flee south, to Egypt, to escape the wrath of Herod, or did they head north, back home to Galilee? It depends which Gospel you read. Did Jesus die on the afternoon before the Passover meal was eaten or on the afternoon after it was eaten? Depends which Gospel you read. Did the disciples go to Galilee to meet Jesus after he was raised from the dead, or did they never leave Jerusalem? Depends which Gospel you read. These are three simple discrepancies. There are dozens. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.
The more I saw that the New Testament (not to mention the Old Testament, where the problems are even more severe) was chock full of these kinds of discrepancies, the more troubled I became. At Moody, as a committed evangelical Christian, I thought that all discrepancies could be objectively reconciled. But eventually I saw that in fact they could not be. I wrestled with these problems, I prayed about them, I studied them, I sought spiritual guidance, I read all I could. But as someone who believed that truth was objective and who was unwilling to believe what was false, I came to think that the Bible could not be what I thought it was. The Bible contained errors. And if it contained errors, it was not completely true. This was a problem for me, because I wanted to believe the truth, the divine truth, and I came to see that the Bible was not divine truth without remainder. The Bible was a very human book.
But the problems didn’t stop there. Eventually I came to realize that the Bible not only contains untruths or accidental mistakes. It also contains what almost anyone today would call lies. That is what the present book is about. [I’ll say a bit more about the book, Forged, in a future post]
[1] I have explained this problem at greater length in my earlier book, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).
[2] This is the problem I address in Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know about Them), (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2009).
My HB upbringing was full of miracles.The textual inconsistencies that even as children we understood to exist,were irrelevant.We loved to discuss and debate them.We weren’t big on objective truths- my God, that text is ” really “old!-but on what we could learn from each different answer.
As I left childhood,I concluded that the expectation of miracles was an insult to God,an innapropriate request for extra fireworks.This entire existence of ours,I thought,our unlikely Universe,the anthropic principle,all pointed to “miracles” of coincidence and improbability that still had the power to instil daily wonderment and marvel in our world,formed over eons by natural forces,seemingly for our benefit,a modern kind of magic.
This state of mature innocence was not unaware of Creation’s dark side and the suffering of most of this planet’s human populations.
Then there was transcendence:our need to exist in realities larger than ourselves.
All this pointed to an atheist, paradoxically,being able to become truly religious.To invoke one book’s felicitous title, “When God is Gone,Everything is Holy”.
You yourself have not lost the message of Christianity you always keep reminding us of.Yet this powerful message- whose Word was it?- has transcended the mistakes, contradictions and lies you have encountered.
How do you explain it?
I’d say the message can be powerful at heart even if it’s problematic in all or most of the details. But I agree, the universe is miraculous beyond comprehension. But that doesn’t make it created….
Wonderfully put, DrE, as usual.
These words accurately reflect the essence of my own “spiritual” journey.
Thank you!
It seems to me that an important part of Jesus’s portrait in the gospels is of a person of power and authority.
Of course it’s probably somewhat different in each gospel. But my point is not so much that it’s very similar in all the gospels. But simply that it’s an important part of my picture of Jesus that was gained from the gospels.
Do you think it’s correct that it’s an important part of Jesus’s portrait in the gospels?
(Until recently my image of Jesus as overwhelmingly compassionate kind of crowded out his power and authority.)
I think that’s one of the major emphases of the Gospels, including the first, Mark. I have my students sometimes read Mark 1-6 and write a paper on JUST what it says about Jesus, how it portrays him. They are often completely surprised that these opening chapters don’t talk about Jesus’ love for others, but portrays him as authoritative and even angry.
I’m surprised that, in these struggles, you didn’t consider the possibility that there are two kinds of truth — objective (external) truth and subjective (internal) truth. Objective truths can be defined and tested. Subjective truths cannot be defined (poetic words are required) and independently tested. All spiritual truths can only be validated for the believer by the believer’s experience and judgment. Thus, the Bible can offer only testimonies to spiritual truths, the content of which cannot be objectively verified. But how the testimonies came to be written and preserved and passed on — those can be defined and objectively debated. It is the difference between how something happened and why something happened. Many fruitless arguments arise when these two kinds of truth are confused.
I’m actually have thought long and hard about that since I was in my early 20s. My view today is that the sharp dichotomy people draw between “objective” and “subjective” truth is highly problematic and is by and large a product of the Enlightenment. (Some theorists such as Terry Eagleton and many others ahve argued that the idea “objectivity” was invented by post-Enlightenment scholars as a rhetorical device, not founded on anything, well, objective, but as a way of convincing others that their views were right. I don’t go quite that far any more, but I think there’s a lot to be said for the view. “Hey, I”m not makin’ this up! It’s objective truth! And if you don’t believe it, YOU’RE bein’ subjective! 🙂 )
I feel your essay is a very credible critique of Christian scripture. Not to be snarky, but I also feel that precisely the same critique could be credibly applied to the NYT or the WSJ. The discrepancy in where Jesus’s family traveled is surely worthy of note, but it seems to me that the key issues of the Gospels are whether the miracles actually happened and whether the Resurrection was really a resurrection. If all 4 Gospels precisely agreed on all points, it still wouldn’t shed any objective light or provide proof on whether or not these events occurred.
If many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians are committed to objective truth, why do they need faith? And why is there a need for revelation? Faith can mean a variety of different things. But one of the major meanings is believing something without certainty.
Is it the main claim that the Bible is objectively true and that it can be shown to be true?
Or that initially belief in the Bible is based on faith but that it’s also possible to show that the Bible is objectively true?
Should people who have never heard of the Bible be able to discover the truth of the things that happen to be in Bible?
Or that the things in the Bible do not contradict any other objective truths, eg, those of science?
Yeah, I know.
And yes, that’s the claim: the existence of God, Jesus’ resurrection, biblical inerrancy — all demonstrable thorugh “objective” argumentation. It’s a very strange view from the outside, and inherently sensible from the inside.
The errors and contradictions of the bible are no longer a stumbling block for me… In fact without such I would be less convinced that Jesus was actually a person. I am a pilot, and I closely follow Aircraft Accident reports. One thing common to all Eye Witness accounts is that they have errors from what was proved later to be facts, and they contradict other Eye Witness’s accounts. Basically none of them have the “actual” facts straight. All such accounts are from their own personal perception and conceptual understandings. What they honestly believe to be facts are not really the facts.
You had a preconcieved concept of God provided by the stories told by others which you accepted as facts. What you found was that the bible did not actually support the stories that were told which formed your preconception of God.. “Teachers” in Christianity is what creates the Stories. Seminaries are where Teachers are taught how to twist the writings to fits the Concept of the Religion.
Jer 31:31-33 and Rom 1:19-20 are the two passages that “woke me up” where I found a new concept of God that does not defy science. Now the bible make sense.
When I read “Forged” for the first time and ran across the first lines put here, an incredibly similar view staked out by Nietzsche, my favorite thinker/writer, flashed in my mind. I cite 357th paragraph (fifth book) from “The Gay Science”, an absolute masterpiece (as pretty much everything else he put out):
“One can see what it was that actually triumphed over the Christian god: Christian morality itself, the
concept of truthfulness that was taken ever more rigorously; the father confessor’s refinement of the Christian conscience, translated and sublimated into a scientific conscience, into intellectual cleanliness at
any price”.
Is the October Q&A going to post soon? I look forward to the Q&A every month 🙂
Uh, I thought it was posted a long time ago? Could send a query to Support (click on Help)?
Wrecking ball is a great metaphor. But you should have said “rubber” wrecking ball, or maybe “nerf” wrecking ball. That would be more descriptive of the effect of truth upon fundamentalism.
Hi Bart,
This is not a post-related question; it’s about Gold membership on the blog. I’m a fan; I check the blog out every day and find it fascinating and helpful. Books, courses, great stuff. I’ve read many, taken courses. But the Gold Q & A seems to be slipping farther and farther behind. Having the posts read is a good thing, but it’s not a help to me, as a fast reader. The Q & A is why I jumped to Gold; it’s always fascinating and illuminating. Could you be sure to make time to get up to date and keep up to date on it? I’d appreciate that very much.
Thanks!
I’m not sure what you’re asking. I think the Q&As are up to date, no? You’re the second person to ask, so I’ll find out. (I *DO* them but I myself don’t post them)
Somewhat off target… I have a couple of questons about your view of the End Times as a literal perspective.
First
It appears based on the dating of the Canon Gospels, that they were written after the destruction of the Temple. Do you ever wonder if the destruction of the temple was what spurned the writing of the Gospels giving an explanation of destruction? I’ve always wondered why such a long gap, and absense of writings between Jesus’s death and the writing of the Gospels except for Pauls letters. Was the destruction of the Temple what really convinced some jews that Jesus was real deal?
Second.
1Cor 15 perplexes me. From where did Paul get his understanding of the 2nd coming?
If the Risen Jesus had told him this, then it seems very unlikely that it would not have happened. The Gospels were not yet written as source of information. And it seems Paul did not have any close association with the other apostles as sources for such. So what if he was not wrong? The sound of Trumpets infers a war.. and “coming in the clouds” infers spiritual (hidden). Were the Trumpets the Roman Army destroying the Temple?
1. Yes, a lot of scholars have thought that, and it may be right. But my sense is that no one wrote the Gospels earlier both because very few Christians in the early decades were capable of writing this kind of finely crafted narrative and because they all expected the end to come right away and so it never occurred to them to write something for posterity.
2. Most of the imagery is traditional Jewish apocalyptic imagery; the trumpet appears to refer to the coming of the king — in this case Jesus.
I have always found conservative Christians using liberal interpretations to justify their rigidity while castigating liberals for trying to make god more merciful in the modern era. Take the idea of generational curses. The first one of course is Adam and Eve. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to kick Adam and Eve out of Eden and then bring their children and subsequent generations into Eden and try them to see if they are worthy? Or what about Exodus 20: 5 God will visit the sins of the parents onto the third and fourth generation of those that hate me?
In answer fundamentalists take such positions as ‘the parents sinfulness passes itself onto the children, they sin and thus are cursed.’ This is not what these verses say however. There is no exception in the old testament and only a rather passing reference in Corinthians in the new testament. Even if we except Paul’s justification, was god in error before Jesus? Note: Hebrews 13: 8, Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
This closed philosophical system lends itself to the secular authoritarian governmental concepts prevalent today.
Lately I’ve been thinking that religion is mainly a matter of practice rather than belief. Besides doing good-which, in my view, is the most important Christian practice-there are prayer, worship, forgiveness, asceticism, interpreting events as divine interventions, etc.
No doubt such practices involve an element of objective belief as part of their foundation. But it seems like they can be meaningful to individuals, eg, comforting, reassuring, confidence-building, hope-inducing, etc, with little or no effort to prove objective truth.
I think the search for objective truth, both within and outside religion, is among the most important human enterprises. But I wonder if religious practices, in their own proper, restricted sphere, have a sort of pragmatic validity independent of their basis in objective truth. I guess what I’m saying is that they could be “subjectively” true. Or even if their literal expressions cannot be shown to be objectively true, maybe they could be pointing toward truths that are currently beyond our comprehension.
Or there could be psychological explanations for why these practices are found to be satisfying.
I’m not sure what my question is other than do you have any thoughts on this?
It depends, I guess what on what you mean by “true.” Many religions, of course, are not interested in truth claims at all; when Christianity appeared on the scene, it was about the only one!
I think there’s an important difference between claiming and purporting to show that religious beliefs are objectively true, on the one hand, and on the other hand, arguing that they do not contradict and are or can me made consistent with other objective truths like those of science.
Those who take the second approach often say that religious beliefs are reasonable, or at least not unreasonable. Besides consistency with other more firmly-grounded objective truths, there are also some positive reasons for the truth of religious beliefs-but not enough to call them objectively true.
I think the problems that the first approach leads to are pretty clear.
What are your thoughts on some of the problems that the second approach might lead to?
If I were a religious person still, I would *certainly* want my faith to be reconcileable with the claims of science. The main problem with religious and philosophical truth claims (as with most truth claims outside mathematics and the laws of physics) is that there is no way to *know* if they are “objectively” true since we are *subjects* who are investigating and thinking about it.
Ah yes, what is truth? I think one of the better answers was given by Carl Sagan in his book ‘The Demon Haunted World.’ In this book he basically defines truth as a process roughly corresponding to the scientific method: gathering facts, hypothesis, theory, discussion and pier review. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well, various authoritarian systems: German Nazism, Soviet Communism, Maoism, ETC. have this type of process and one may think that the process described above doesn’t work very well. The key to the four items described above is the pier review portion. This can only be done in an atmosphere of free expression, free exchange of ideas and a democratic political system.
Fundamentalist of any kind: religious, political, nationalist ETC. tend to oppose such pier review–operating in a more or less closed philosophical system.
In the US and now spreading to other countries, you see more and more of this with respect to religion and nationalism. I think they are linked and I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think that various powerful forces are orchestrating this monstrosity. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but that’s what I believe.
I’d say that political and economic systems are not what Sagan had in mind. Astronomy, geology, evolutopinary biology — all these do indeed follow the scientific method; but you simply can’t do that with, say, religion or politics.
Hate to ask a question so off topic… But a friend mentioned their vicar said that they thought Paul was married (based on the fact he was a Pharisee & ‘rabbi’ or something). I’d never heard this, is this something which scholars have thought about?
Oh yes, lots of opinions. Most everyone thinks he was single when engaged in his mission/writing his letters. But was he a widower? There’s no compelling reason to think he *had* to be married though. Lots of Jewish teachers and layfolk were unmarried. For one thing there’s the demographics. Except in times of war, there are always more men then women around, because women die in childbirth. So not every many *can* be married. Plus we know of unmarried Jewish apocalyptic Jews — the Essenes, e.g., (authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls).
Dear Bart,
There is a well known numerical contradiction between 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles regarding what punishment David will choose for his crime of taking the census. Most translations say that God offered 7 years of famine in 2 Samuel, whereas he offered 3 years of famine in 1
Chronicles. However, the ESV recently changed them to both read “3 years.” Is it true that they had no manuscript basis for doing this, but just wanted to remove the uncomfortable inconsistency?
The Septuagint (Greek OT) has “3” and so they probably are thinking that was more likely the original Hebrew as well?
I have an issue with the concept of Original Sin. Am I correct that this is largely due to Augustine of Hippo and not Jesus? If Christianity is to lead or emulate a life like Christ, I am very curious about the differences of the teachings of Jesus and what Christianity is today. If Jesus were to come back today, what do you think he would say about Christianity? Who made Paul the authority? Are Paul and Augustine the appointed judges of the law (or teachings) of Jesus? Is there appeal process to their decisions?
If Paul wrote most of the NT, who decided his interpretation is the inerrant word of God?
Again, thank you for all your hard work and for helping us all find our own path.
Yes, Jesus says nothing about “original” sin in the way it developed later among theologians, esp. Augustine. Lots of Christian theology — most of it, actaully — post-dates Jesus. Very littel of modern Christianity is the religion Jesus himself had. But that doesn’t make it *wrong*. It just makes it *different*.
Actually no, they’re not up to date. The Sept Q&A was posted in early October. The October Q&A has not been posted yet. The November Q&A request for questions has not been posted yet, as of today, Nov 26.
Sorry. I checked. October was produced but not published for some reason. It now has been as of yesterday. November’s is a mess because of personal situation on my end that took me out of commission for two weeks. I’ll look into it though. Thanks for letting me know.
Sixty ish years ago all freshmen at the University of Florida took “Comprehensive Logic” regardless of intended major. syllogistic logic and set theory. I think I just realized how important that was!
Hi Bart
As a fan who’s been reading you from way back, I greatly appreciate the research you’ve done to illuminate the life of Jesus, the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I grew up Catholic, was a devout little believer, but in time my belief began to erode as I began using my rational mind. My comment, though it might seem a little off topic, is about having belief, not in the Bible but in whatever it is that people have been feeling spiritually, since the earliest times. I became a Buddhist, and my conception of God became more aligned with a recognition of a strong, positive force or energy that is embedded in life itself. I’ve come the believe that that’s what everyone talks about in the spiritual experience. Without going on too much about it, I was just wondering if you yourself, who lives in a very positive humanist way, with compassion, which is the best aspect of all religions, can see your way through to having belief in something like that, a god or force that isn’t personified, what Jesus was talking about when he said he and his followers lived in the life-breath.
Response To Bart’s comment on Sagan:
I don’t think he would agree with your analysis. He relates science to society.
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Carl Sagan, from Demon-Haunted World (1995)
OK, but you can’t apply the scientific method to fields within the humanities or social sciences.
OK, Bart, but I think you may be abstracting what Sagan is saying. Basically its more fundamental than just not applying strict scientific methods to the humanities. In the total information society (note 30 second / 10 second sound bytes Sagan referenced) people are being conditioned to not think logically at all. This is having a definite impact on the progress of humanity as well as the open scientific and philosophical system itself.
As mentioned in another variant thread of this discussion, authoritarian forces are now trying to legislate their religion/philosophy–and are getting a lot of support from a less and less logical populous.
I’m quite surprised — and even more pleased — to see you venture beyond historical strictures to consider the theological implications of your considerable knowledge. Given your professional expertise and personal, life journey, it’s safe to say that everyone here finds your insights invaluable. I can think of no one more qualified to examine religion (or, at least, Christian doctrine) and wield a much-needed and long overdue wrecking ball. 😎
That said (if you’ll pardon the threadbare cliché)…
In John’s version of Jesus’ trial Pilate asks him the seminal and in this thread especially relevant question: “What is truth?” In the Superstar version he adds the insightful observation “We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?”
In a word: no.
Unfortunately, unpacking that answer in another 199 exceeds my highest level of incompetence. But in a single, summary sentence: Spiritual truths are inherently subjective and, therefore, entirely personal and individual.
These kinds of truths (arguably worthy of a capital “T”) are NOT the same for Jesus and Pilate.
In assuming that any spiritual “truth” is singular, i.e., “objective and can be verified by any impartial observer,” the apologists for “evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity” you mention set out on a fool’s errand.
In presuming that it is even possible to verify the “objective” truth of religion, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians show themselves to be as much children of the Enlightenment as everyone else.
Regardless of whether we humans were created by God on the 6th day or are the end product of a few billion years of evolution, we are (temporarily) living beings. Like every other living thing, made over the preceding few days or evolved over the preceding eons, we are at the (exceedingly transitory) nexus of the physical and spiritual planes — the yin and yang of existence to which we have attached the label: life.
Science provides the tools and methodology for apprehending the *material* universe. The idea that these can similarly provide testable evidence of the ethereal universe is utterly wrong-headed.
Asking for scientific proof of the existence of God is like asking Bach to compose “Starry Night” for string quartet, or Van Gogh to paint “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” in oils on canvas.
Pagan mythology made at least one, potential contribution to Christianity. It bequeathed to the apologists who hope to PROVE the existence of God their ideal patron saint — Sisyphus.
If God wanted to leave irrefutable proof of His existence for everyone to see, why not simply shear off a face of Mount Sinai and carve His inerrant instructions for salvation in letters a hundred feet high?
I will hazard to guess that you don’t provide your students with proof of your expertise by furnishing a list of the answers to their mid-term exam — *before* they take it.
IMHO “Divine Hiddenness” is not just understandable; it is axiomatic. But Divine Misdirection? Not so much.
What kind of God creates a universe a mere six millennia ago, scattering fossils about that are by all indications *millions* of years old? Or (my personal favorite) in creating light on the very “first day” includes some that is 6,000 light years from earth and shifted down the EM spectrum to make it *look* like it has been on its way for the last 13.8 billion years?
Really? God as cosmic, practical jokester? 😧
Of course, humor is all in the timing. The punchline for the Redshift Ruse is spot-on for the development of radio astronomy. I can imagine Yahweh popping out from behind a burning bush and shouting: “Gotcha!” 😂
In my own experience an “absolute commitment to truth in some forms of evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity” is more than merely “ONE of the ironies of modern religion.” These self-proclaimed “Christians” seem to have no commitment whatever to the truth brought into this world — at horrific cost — by the Incarnate Word.
Jesus summed up his truth in the admonition to devote all heart, soul, mind and strength to love of God and neighbor. Genuinely doing so precludes even the possibility of passing judgment on the efforts of our fellow seekers (something, it’s safe to say BTW, that *no one* wants reciprocated.) Can any of us see past planks to find splinters? Is any of us worthy of casting the first stone?
It is surpassingly ironic that evangelical and fundamentalist Christians — supposed worshippers of the judge-not-lest-ye-be-judged Son of God — are the apotheosis of judgmental. Their imperious condescension often reminds me of something my dear, departed, Irish-Catholic mother used to tell us kids: “Put your nose back on your own face!”
Their “absolute commitment” is not to truth. Or even to Jesus. It is to church doctrine über alles — starting with the (borderline idolatrous) concept of “Bible Inerrancy.”
Why would any Christian think there is *proof* of God’s existence that is objective and can be verified by any impartial observer? “Only an evil and adulterous generation wants a sign; and so a sign will not be given to it.”
In what little survives of the words of the Word (thanks to previous generations of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians) Jesus says: “Ask and it will be given to YOU; seek and YOU will find; knock and the door will be opened to YOU.”
He did, indeed, promise that “Everyone who asks receives.” But this open invitation doesn’t include “and guest.” Every ticket through the Pearly Gates says: “Admit one.” Those who don’t ask or seek or knock for themselves, are gatecrashers — “men of violence” who attempt to “take it by force.”
The idea that anyone can *prove” the existence of God to anyone else not only rests on bizarre theology, it flies in the face of everything Jesus taught.
An even greater irony than the judgmental attitude of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians is that someone who doesn’t even take the Bible to be magically “inerrant” constantly finds himself quoting scripture to those who do!