Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Fundamentalism Revisited -- A Liberal View Message-ID: <1546@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 3-Dec-84 22:34:50 EST Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1546 Posted: Mon Dec 3 22:34:50 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 05:38:47 EST References: <1124@akgua.UUCP> Reply-To: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 84 This article is not intended to be a criticism of Bob Brown's views; my intent is instead to try to present a liberal vision of Christianity. I should begin by pointing out that there is little unanimity on the liberal side of the fence. There are those who would reject almost all of the "traditional" formulation of the faith; in an attempt to illuminate the essential differences between the various positions, I will present here a fairly conservative position, which (I hope) is commonly held by many Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, et cetera. Let me begin by recalling Bob's five Fundamentals: > 1) The Bible is the inerrant Word of God, trustworthy on all subjects that it deals with. > 2) The Deity of Jesus of Nazareth, that He was/is God incarnate and the awaited Messiah of Israel. > 3) The Virgin Birth, that Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit. His mother was Mary, Joseph's wife. > 4) The Crucifixion and shedding of Jesus's Blood as remission for everyone's sin problem. > 5) The Resurrection of Jesus, bodily, and His imminent return. In what I will refer to as a "radical conservative" formulation, we accept points 2, 4, and 5 without any reservations as givens. (Number 3 is accepted too, but is a derived truth.) Number one is the sticking point. In its place we have the following two principles: A) Together, human reason, scripture, and church tradition are authorative. B) No one of these is inerrant or possesses ultimate authority. Before I discuss these two principles, let me ensure that the meanings of the terms are understood. I think we can let human reason pass without definition, except to note that I DO NOT mean purely logical or scientific thought as some net.religion-ers would have us take it. Under scripture, we can restrict ourselves to the text of the bible as it is aceepted as canonical by the protestant churches. Church tradition, however, deserves some explanation. By tradition I do not mean merely the teaching of a denominational body at some point in time. Tradition consists of all the thinking of the Church that has gone before us. In particular, we include here the various creeds, the chiefest of which are the Nicene and Apostle's creeds. In the liberal view it is important to consult our forefathers (and mothers, I might add; there are some important medieval women) when we consider a theological problem. The chief difference between our position and the Fundamentalist position is, of course, that we do not accept the inerrancy of scripture. There are two facts which support our disbelief. First, there are many differences between any two ancient sources you care to choose, indicating that, regardless of the origin of the text, it has been allowed to be corrupted in transmission. Second, in any one text, there are obvious internal inconsistencies. In the most conservative view, we do subscribe to divine inspiration-- we also deny that it means that the evangelists were stenographers for God. Since we do not ascribe absolute authority to scripture, we must call upon other authorities in the search for doctrine. Here is where the other two authorities come into play. The normative liberal method for deciding a point of theology is thus; the appropriate group of christians reads the scriptures, is advised by church traditions, appeals to the Spirit, mulls the whole thing over, and makes their decision. The reason why we believe in the Virgin Birth is therefore because (1) scripture testifies to it, (2) chruch tradition agrees with this testimony, and (3) the Spirit assures us that this is so. Two things should be clear. First, it is clear that on any reasonably difficult question, there isn't necessarily any consensus. This I feel is a problem we must live with. The christian faith is both the simplest and most difficult of religions: simple, because belief in the resurrection is the only essential point; complicated, because of the difficulty and depth of both Gospel and church tradition. Second, there is no way to gaurantee that we are free of error. Given the history of christianity, I see recognition of the fact as a positive good; we need to keep a LOT of humility in our theology. [Would someone like to do us the service of presenting Catholic and Orthodox theology in a nutshell? Other protestant positions?] Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe