I'm all for fundamentalism but this is too far.

[Gregory Thompson]

Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years; 5And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings; for so ye love to do, O ye children of Israel, saith the LORD God. 6And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack {want} of bread in all your places; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith the LORD. 7

So I understand that Israel was in idolatry and they were using the things of God in the wrong way. I not sure about the sacrifices every morning, tithes were every year, sacrifice with leaven rather than without leaven, and bragging and boasting about free offerings.
God sent famine but they wouldn't turn from their idolatrous ways.

So I don't think this is talking about the third-year tithe that you rightfully pointed out as a valid tithe.

Very possible, the levites would act like they were financial slaves of the other tribes and do whatever they asked. So tithes being paid less often than instructed in the law would make sense.

 

[Bible Highlighter]

If you ask me the Bible should be the central point of every Christians life for how do we know how to be a Christian without the Bible? How do we know what angers God and what pleases God? How do we know anything about creation or theology without reading and applying the Bible? I'm all for the fundamentalist movement but theres fundamentalism and there's fundamentalism taken WAY too far.

If theres one thing I cannot stand it's a fundamentalist that tries to push their views on another Christian, WITHOUT IT EVEN BEING IN THE BIBLE! An example? Fundamentalists who say in order to be married in the eyes of God you have to have a church wedding. Otherwise you're not married and are living in sin when you have relations together or just even spend time together.


Cool, only it's NOT in the Bible. There isn't a single verse in scripture that says only a church wedding is valid. The Bible has plenty to say on premarital sex, and divorce but it says NOTHING about what marriages are valid in the eyes of God. Instead the Binle says that ALL heterosexual marriage is a gift from God.

There is much wrong with the mainstream popular evangelical churches today. Most teach you can sin and still be saved on some level just because you have a belief alone on Jesus.

In addition, there are no commands telling us to go Bible school and learn the original languages and put ourselves in debt as a result, and to the build a big building to worship in on Sundays.

That said, while it is true that there is no command to be married in a church (in order for a marriage to be valid), it has to be done with legal documents according to your State and country. In the OT: When they allowed for divorce under more circumstances, they would write a bill of divorcement. This was a writing. For when you receive a bill in the mail it is a piece of paper telling you what you owe. Romans 13 also says we have to obey the law of the land, too (as long as it obviously does not conflict with God's laws). So we need to be married according to the law of the land to be married in the eyes of God. Just having sex does not constitute marriage. That would simply be fornication. For what distinguishes fornication vs. non fornication? Our word? Saying that we are married when we are not married? Surely not.

Now, I would encourage a believer to be married by a minister who does believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior. I was married near the water, and it was the most beautiful words I heard in a wedding by a Christian minister for a wedding. If the person who married us was a judge or an atheist, it would make the whole event seem unspecial and ungod like. I was fortunate that only Christians were present for my wedding and it felt like God's Spirit was with my wife and I that beautiful day. My church was there. For God's people are the church. The church is not a building.

Or the fundamentalist church that says that in order to follow the Bible you must tithe. Bzzt! Wrong! Not ONE verse in the New Testament says that tithing (or giving of any kind) is technically required. You want to give your church? Do so. But don't give in to this fundamentalist hogwash that if you don't tithe than you arent following the Bible it just isnt true.

Correct. Tithing is an Old Testament custom that applied only to the Israelites. The New Covenant way of giving is to give what God has purposed in your heart to give. For God loves a cheerful giver (See: 2 Corinthians 9:7).

Here is a site you may enjoy:

No More Tithing | No More Tithing

Or when they try to tell you what music to listen to. Honestly? Unless it isnt talking about death, sex, or cusses every 13 seconds there technically isnt anything wrong with it. The Bible says absolutely nothing about most kinds of music out there. Whether it be rock, rap, country music, or anything.

Reading portions of Scripture like: 1 John 2:15-17 and Matthew 16:24 in prayer and in honestly wanting to seek the Lord will change your perspective on worldly entertainment.

I believe worldly entertainment is ALL of the devil.
Granted, we can learn from educational videos, like: nature documentaries or how to survival in the wild type shows, or recipes, and or build your own home videos, fix your own car, etc. we still need to weed out and reject their philosophies or false new age thinking or psychology they push in them sometimes. Also, fictional entertainment is an entirely different thing, as well. It pushes for us to escape into the minds' of unbelievers entirely. Nothing educational is to be gained by them. It is to escape into their world that does not include Jesus Christ.

I think the more we will want Christ, the less and less we want of this world. Our love for Christ will surpass the things of this world.

The rich man went away sad because he did not want to give up his riches in favor of following Jesus. He loved his riches more than he loved Christ. A person can do this with music, or movies, or other worldly things. They can love their junk more than following Jesus and abiding in Him and His good ways.

I mean, I get it. I threw out my comic books into the trash, not one time, but.... TWICE!!! It's easy to let the enemy suck us in to loving the things of this world rather than loving only Christ and His good ways. But our love for one must give way. For Jesus says we cannot serve two masters. For we will hate the one and love the other.

I love Jesus and His Word. Worldly entertainment is worthy to be dumped into the trash (Where it belongs).

 

[Maria Billingsley]

If you ask me the Bible should be the central point of every Christians life for how do we know how to be a Christian without the Bible? How do we know what angers God and what pleases God? How do we know anything about creation or theology without reading and applying the Bible? I'm all for the fundamentalist movement but theres fundamentalism and there's fundamentalism taken WAY too far.

If theres one thing I cannot stand it's a fundamentalist that tries to push their views on another Christian, WITHOUT IT EVEN BEING IN THE BIBLE! An example? Fundamentalists who say in order to be married in the eyes of God you have to have a church wedding. Otherwise you're not married and are living in sin when you have relations together or just even spend time together.


Cool, only it's NOT in the Bible. There isn't a single verse in scripture that says only a church wedding is valid. The Bible has plenty to say on premarital sex, and divorce but it says NOTHING about what marriages are valid in the eyes of God. Instead the Binle says that ALL heterosexual marriage is a gift from God.

Or the fundamentalist church that says that in order to follow the Bible you must tithe. Bzzt! Wrong! Not ONE verse in the New Testament says that tithing (or giving of any kind) is technically required. You want to give your church? Do so. But don't give in to this fundamentalist hogwash that if you don't tithe than you arent following the Bible it just isnt true.

Or when they try to tell you what music to listen to. Honestly? Unless it isnt talking about death, sex, or cusses every 13 seconds there technically isnt anything wrong with it. The Bible says absolutely nothing about most kinds of music out there. Whether it be rock, rap, country music, or anything.

The fundamentalist movement is a fantastic movement. I'm a fundamentalist myself. But before you go out and declare what being a fundamentalist is actually about , make sure you actually have your facts straight. Please!

I agree, the fundamentalists are the counter movement to modern theological liberalism who maintained a certain purity of the Gospel however, when a movement becomes yet another theological system itself, it has defeated its initial purpose.
Let's face it, with the plethora of denominations in the Protestant circle today , it is down right embarrassing that we can't get it together and be unified. So as we bicker and complain about our brothers and sisters within the SAME Body of Christ, we should ask ourselves...What is the Church?
Be blessed.

 

[JacksBratt]

Thank you for the compliment.

There are many Christians serving faithfully and doing wonderful work for the Lord. But we don’t talk about them. We don’t discuss the lives being touched and transformed by acts of love and kindness.

Its always something bad. We focus on the rotten apples and what’s awry. That isn’t edifying and it doesn’t demonstrate the Lord’s impact on your mind and heart.

Knowing how He’s made a difference strengthens others. Hearing about the small things you’ve done encourages another to do the same and God is glorified.

~Bella

I agree... and.. often times we group all of one group by the actions of very few.

 

[bèlla]

I agree... and.. often times we group all of one group by the actions of very few.

Rotten apples get a lot of attention in our culture. But when you find a fellow believer sharing good news and supporting your walk that’s priceless.

~Bella

 

[All4Christ]

You might be interested to know that Christian church weddings were not mandated until the 11th century. Before that, they were optional and in many cases they were to cement family alliances for wealth and power.

FWIW, the timeline was different between the East and the West for this. In the early church, a “Christian marriage” wasn’t handling any of the contractual elements. A couple essentially received a blessing for the marriage and partook of the Eucharist together - kind of like “sealing” the marriage. In the second century, Tertullian writes that a Christian marriage “[that] is arranged by the church, confirmed by the oblation (i.e., the Eucharist), and sealed by the blessing, is proclaimed by the angels and ratified by the Father.” The contractual element of marriage, however, remained civil, despite its importance to the Church for Christians to marry Christians, etc (which can be seen in 4th century canons).

 

[JacksBratt]

Rotten apples get a lot of attention in our culture. But when you find a fellow believer sharing good news and supporting your walk that’s priceless.

~Bella

absolutely

 

[K2K]

If you ask me the Bible should be the central point of every Christians life for how do we know how to be a Christian without the Bible? How do we know what angers God and what pleases God? How do we know anything about creation or theology without reading and applying the Bible? I'm all for the fundamentalist movement but theres fundamentalism and there's fundamentalism taken WAY too far.

If theres one thing I cannot stand it's a fundamentalist that tries to push their views on another Christian, WITHOUT IT EVEN BEING IN THE BIBLE! An example? Fundamentalists who say in order to be married in the eyes of God you have to have a church wedding. Otherwise you're not married and are living in sin when you have relations together or just even spend time together.


Cool, only it's NOT in the Bible. There isn't a single verse in scripture that says only a church wedding is valid. The Bible has plenty to say on premarital sex, and divorce but it says NOTHING about what marriages are valid in the eyes of God. Instead the Binle says that ALL heterosexual marriage is a gift from God.

Or the fundamentalist church that says that in order to follow the Bible you must tithe. Bzzt! Wrong! Not ONE verse in the New Testament says that tithing (or giving of any kind) is technically required. You want to give your church? Do so. But don't give in to this fundamentalist hogwash that if you don't tithe than you arent following the Bible it just isnt true.

Or when they try to tell you what music to listen to. Honestly? Unless it isnt talking about death, sex, or cusses every 13 seconds there technically isnt anything wrong with it. The Bible says absolutely nothing about most kinds of music out there. Whether it be rock, rap, country music, or anything.

The fundamentalist movement is a fantastic movement. I'm a fundamentalist myself. But before you go out and declare what being a fundamentalist is actually about , make sure you actually have your facts straight. Please!

Is it the Bible or Christ that is actually fundamental to Christianity?

It seems to me that the Bible clearly point to Jesus Christ - and that if I am going to be a Christian then I am going to be a follower of Jesus Christ!

According to the Bible, He said His sheep hear His voice. Moses wrote that the word of God was near us. John wrote that it is the Spirit who give life and that His words were spirit and are life.

I am all for what it written in the Bible, but when I read the Bible it seems clearly that it is saying that we need to seek the voice of the Lord! That the Father has set Jesus Christ as the King! That He would never leave me.

I think of myself as a fundamentalist, but want I think is not what others who boldly say they are fundamentalist Christian are thinking.

I have a Lord, that I hear from. His first words to me were "Read you Bible", which clearly indicated about what He thought about reading the Bible yet at the same time showed that He was not the Bible but the One who says read your Bible. Perhaps He is not the only one saying 'Read your Bible', but He has become my Lord - not the Bible, but Him.

But if the conversation is actually about where to get married - why not in a Christian church? Maybe they are not all hearing from Him like the Bible says they should, but at least somewhere behind "their" fundamentalist point of view is the mention of Jesus Christ. Perhaps Jesus Christ is somewhere behind the Bible, but He is there is at least name if not name only.

 

[BobRyan]

Is it the Bible or Christ that is actually fundamental to Christianity?

Its like saying "is it the Father or the Son that is fundamental to Christianity"

 

[PaulCyp1]

The Bible didn't even exist until three and a half centuries after the original Christian Church was founded by Jesus Christ. Yet, that Church taught the fullness of God's truth during those 350 years, just as Jesus promised it would. In the mid-4'th Century, the Pope instructed the bishops of the Catholic Church to meet together to study, pray about, discuss and discern the hundreds of ancient documents the Church had in its possession, to determine which of them could definitely be considered divinely inspired. After about 6 years of study, discussion and prayer, they presented a list of the 73 texts the Holy Spirit had guided them to. They bound these documents into a book for the first time. Because they were from many nations, and spoke many languages, they had communicated in Greek, the universal language of educated people of them time, so they called this book "Biblios", which means "the Book". However, having this book didn't change the slightest detail of what the Church taught, since it was already teaching the fullness of God's truth. The Bible gets its contents and its authority from God's Church. His Church does not get its authority or its teachings from the Bible.

 

[dms1972]

How did christians move from the unmarried to married state in NT times? Ws there a ceremony of some sort, what was it like?

 

[nolidad]

If you ask me the Bible should be the central point of every Christians life for how do we know how to be a Christian without the Bible? How do we know what angers God and what pleases God? How do we know anything about creation or theology without reading and applying the Bible? I'm all for the fundamentalist movement but theres fundamentalism and there's fundamentalism taken WAY too far.

If theres one thing I cannot stand it's a fundamentalist that tries to push their views on another Christian, WITHOUT IT EVEN BEING IN THE BIBLE! An example? Fundamentalists who say in order to be married in the eyes of God you have to have a church wedding. Otherwise you're not married and are living in sin when you have relations together or just even spend time together.


Cool, only it's NOT in the Bible. There isn't a single verse in scripture that says only a church wedding is valid. The Bible has plenty to say on premarital sex, and divorce but it says NOTHING about what marriages are valid in the eyes of God. Instead the Binle says that ALL heterosexual marriage is a gift from God.

Or the fundamentalist church that says that in order to follow the Bible you must tithe. Bzzt! Wrong! Not ONE verse in the New Testament says that tithing (or giving of any kind) is technically required. You want to give your church? Do so. But don't give in to this fundamentalist hogwash that if you don't tithe than you arent following the Bible it just isnt true.

Or when they try to tell you what music to listen to. Honestly? Unless it isnt talking about death, sex, or cusses every 13 seconds there technically isnt anything wrong with it. The Bible says absolutely nothing about most kinds of music out there. Whether it be rock, rap, country music, or anything.

The fundamentalist movement is a fantastic movement. I'm a fundamentalist myself. But before you go out and declare what being a fundamentalist is actually about , make sure you actually have your facts straight. Please!

Hi neostarwcc: I also am a fundamnetalist and share your angst. Just remember, imperfect people attend and even pastor imperfect churches! The things you listed off are not fundamentalism, but legalism or just plain wackyism! Unfortunately, every church (fundamental or not) has flaws and unsound doctrine. We just pray it is small insignificant doctrines.

I love my church, we are a fundamental church but not a legalistic church! Love teh brethren, and if these subjects cpome up, in love be prepared t give a sound biblical defense of why you are convinced they are wrong! That is what we as individuals believers in Christ are called to do. We can disagree, even heatedly but we must always remember if they are believers they are family.

 

[K2K]

Its like saying "is it the Father or the Son that is fundamental to Christianity"

Did the Father make is about His Son?

We don't call it "Fatherism" do we?

And didn't the Father give all things of His to the Son?

The fact is that we call ourselves Christians, not Godtians, Fahtertian, Biblians, but Christians. And from what I read, that is because the Father choose to glorify His only begotten Son, by having everything made through Him, by putting Him on the throne, by giving Him all the things the Father has, and by ultimately setting all things at His feet. Then Jesus says that He will never leave us and that His sheep hear His voice, and the Spirit says that Jesus Christ is Lord. Or what did you read when you read the Bible?

Ps 2:6 But as for Me, I have instralled My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.
Ps 2:12 Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way
Is 11:2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him...
Jn 16:15 All things that the Father has are Mine
Jn18:36 Jesus answered, "My Kingdom is not of the world"
Rom 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord

So it is not like saying "is it the Father or the Son" It is like confessing with your mouth Jesus as Lord!

Are we Christians because we say we are Christians, or are we Christians by in fact Jesus Christ is our Lord?

That seems like a fundamental question - doesn't it? As for me, I have a Lord who I can hear from. He gives me instructions. The first instruction He gave me was "Read your Bible" but that didn't mean I follow the Bible but rather it meant I follow the One who first told me to read my Bible, and He speaks to me everyday call "Today" So I think as a Christian I am a fundamentalist but apparently not like others who are saying the same thing about themselves.

For example - If you ask me 'How do I know what angers God and what pleases God?'

My answer is that I ask Him!!

It is written that His sheep hear His voice, and so I do not find it so amazing that I get a response from Him. Of course I would, otherwise the Bible would be wrong. Yet the Bible is not wrong, so I hear answers. Love pleases Him. Listening to Him and obeying, pleases Him. Just being kind to others pleases Him. My friends - believing in Him - that He is there for you pleases Him.

So I read the Bible like He told me to and that pleased Him, and I continue to listen to Him (though I admit I am far from perfect at that) and listening to Him continues to please Him. So I call myself a Christian because I count Him as my Lord, meaning that I do listen to Him and do what He says, at least that is what I try to do however imperfect I am at doing it.

So I do not count myself as a fundamentalist because I read the Bible, I count myself as a fundamentalist because I listen to Him and try to do what He says - like reading my Bible because He told me. So I am a Christian in deed and fact, because I follow the Christ.

As a footnote: I was going through a divorce when He came into my life. Since He came into my life I got married again. He literally set me up with my second wife about 15 years ago. At that time He had me ask one Pastor if he would perform the marriage, but that pastor wouldn't. I had been married before. So I ask my Lord again what I should do, and He told me to ask this other pastor and he agreed. Both were pastors in the same church, but who was listening to the Lord? The marriage was actually done in a rose garden, because my wife loved roses. In fact My Lord often used "Rose" as a nick name for her even before we got married. That was 15 years ago and her and I are so very happy. She has planted roses all around my house and blessed it soo much. I recommend a fundamentalist, meaning making Jesus Christ the fundamental part of your life. He promised life and that more abundantly. Perhaps you read about that in the Bible?

 

[JackRT]

The Rise of Fundamentalism --- The Five Fundamentals


I remember well an experience I had as a young lad in the late 1930's in the South's Bible Belt when I first heard about evolution. A neighbor was visiting my mother and they were sharing "a dope" (the colloquial name for Coca-Cola in that day, a carry-over from the days when that soft drink contained both caffeine and cocaine). This lady said in her homespun, non-sophisticated way, "I am not descended from no monkey." This conversation took place just 79 years after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 masterpiece, "The Origin of Species through Natural Selection." So in the space of just 79 years his thought had trickled down to the rural, working class poor in North Carolina. In the intellectual community Darwin's thought was engaged much earlier. Less than a year after Darwin's book came out, Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce met Darwin defender T. H. Huxley in public debate in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on June 30th, 1860. Wilberforce, feeling that Darwin was attacking both the inerrant Bible and God, employed ridicule that night. He inquired of Mr. Huxley as to whether it was on his mother's side or his father's side that he was descended from an ape. Ridicule is, however, never an effective weapon against truth and the primary result of this debate was to give Darwin's thought a huge boost in the public arena, guaranteeing that his ideas would inevitably trickle down into the common mind. Trickle down they did.


By 1909 Protestant clergy associated with the ultra-conservative Princeton Theological Seminary had taken up the cudgel against Darwin in defense of what they called "traditional Christianity." To them Darwin was only the latest in a long line of challenges that these devout, but not deeply learned men, felt was eroding "Christian Truth." They also felt a need to refute the rising tide of biblical criticism about which I wrote last week, that had begun to infiltrate America from Europe. It included the New Testament work of David Frederick Strauss in 1834 that challenged the idea that all the details of the gospels were historical and the later Old Testament scholarship of Karl Graf and Julius Wellhausen that obliterated the traditional claim for the Mosaic authorship of the Torah. These Princeton clergy also felt the threat to the dominant Protestant faith in America from the rising tide of Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland and southern Europe, which began to temper the overwhelmingly Protestant nature of America's religious life. This newly arriving Catholic population also diminished the power of this nation's aristocracy as the labor movement placed a new emphasis on building a just society for working people. These clergy interpreted all of these changes as secular and humanistic and therefore anti-Christian. New religious groups were also arising in America like Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science movement and the Mormonism of Joseph Smith, which they viewed with great suspicion, calling them "cults," and regarding each with fear and even disgust.


Mainline Christian theologians, however, who taught in the great academic centers of this nation like Union Theological Seminary in New York, Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Yale Divinity School in New Haven and the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, busied themselves with the task of incorporating these new learnings into Christianity. In the process they gained for themselves the reputation of being "religious liberals who were no longer bound by core Christian principles." As a direct counter point these conservative leaders became even more aggressive in defending the literal truth of the Bible and especially those claims made for the literal accuracy of such biblical accounts as the Virgin Birth, the miracle stories and the physical resuscitation of Jesus' body as the only allowable understanding of the resurrection. In their minds they were engaged in a fight for God against the infidels. Dubbing themselves the defenders of "Orthodoxy," these self-appointed gendarmes for the Lord organized to fight this growing menace to "revealed truth." Their weapon employed in this war was the publication of a series of tracts designed to spell out in clear detail the irreducible core beliefs of "Orthodox Christianity." Their seemingly quixotic fight caught the attention of conservative, wealthy oil executives in California, who bankrolled this effort. For years 300,000 tracts were mailed each week to church workers in America and around the world. Later the company for which these oil executives worked, the Union Oil Company of California (or Unocal today) financed the further publication of these tracts into permanent books to maximize their impact. It worked.


During the 1920's with pressure arising from this huge public relations campaign, the decision-making bodies of America's main line churches were forced to deal with a growing tension between those supporting this tractarian movement, who came to be called "fundamentalists," and those opposed who came to be called "modernists." At the center of these debates was the issue of the inerrancy of scripture. Clergy scholars in the early 20th century like Harry Emerson Fosdick were vigorously attacked as heretics for denying scriptural inerrancy. Fundamentalist clergy, who at that time constituted the majority of the leadership of the Christian Church, also opposed such liberalizing political measures as giving the ballot to women and women's emancipation. They also, interestingly enough, defended segregation, capital punishment and "traditional morality" (which did not include "flappers" doing the "Charleston"). Their authority in each confrontation was the literal Bible, "the word of God."


Great battles were fought between these two perspectives in the major Christian denominations in the first three decades of the 20th century. Finally the 'modernists,' who dominated the faculties in the centers of Christian learning, slowly but surely were successful in wresting control from the fundamentalists in most of the mainline churches, but that victory would prove to be very costly. In my Church the battle ebbed and flowed. In 1924 the Rt. Rev. William M. Brown, retired Bishop of Arkansas, became the only Episcopal bishop ever to be tried and convicted for heresy. His crime was that he embraced evolution, but people whispered that he was also a communist. At the same time, the Episcopal Church led by such stalwart scholars as Walter Russell Bowie, who served as editor of an influential journal, "The Southern Churchman," defeated attempts to require belief in a literal interpretation of the creeds on pain of excommunication. Other churches experienced similar stress and made similar decisions.


Driven by these defeats, fundamentalism retreated from mainline churches into rural and small town America, especially but not exclusively in the South, and developed denominations that featured congregational control with little loyalty to a national headquarters. Building their own seminaries the more sophisticated of them sought to escape the image of fundamentalism, which was in some circles identified with closed-minded ignorance, by calling themselves 'evangelicals.' Evangelical Christianity thrived in this relatively unchallenged rural or Southern atmosphere and began to dominate those regions. They built seminaries committed to teaching "fundamental Christian truth" unencumbered by either the intellectual revolution of the last 500 years or the rise in critical biblical scholarship during the last 200 years. As the main line churches became more open to new interpretations and therefore, "fuzzier" on core doctrines, the fundamentalist movement grew more isolated, more strident in its proclamations and even more anti-intellectual. This division was hidden politically for years, in part because at least in the South the tensions over the civil war and issues of race had made the South staunchly Democratic. After all the Republican Party was identified with Abraham Lincoln, Civil War defeat and "carpet baggers." That, however, began to change when the Democrats nominated a northern Roman Catholic as its presidential candidate in 1928. Later Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces and defeated the southern wing of his party, led by Strom Thurmond, in the election of 1948. Next the Supreme Court, filled with appointees from the Democratic Roosevelt-Truman era, forced the desegregation of public schools in the 1950's, and then Democrat Lyndon Johnson cajoled Congress into passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Racism has always been an ally of fundamentalism. Yesterday's victims of the literal Bible were blacks, while today's victims are homosexuals. Fundamentalism always has a victim.


The foundation of this Southern-based right wing, fundamentalist Protestant religion had been laid out between 1909 and 1915 in those Unocal distributed tracts. In time these core principles were reduced to five in number and they came to be called "The Fundamentals."


1. The Bible is the literal, inerrant Word of God.

2. Jesus was literally born of a virgin.

3. Substitutionary atonement is the meaning of Jesus' death on the cross.

4. The miracles of the New Testament are real. They literally happened.

5. Jesus rose physically from the grave, ascended literally into the sky and would return someday in the "second coming."


The wording of these "fundamentals" varied slightly from document to document, but the battle lines were clear. The Northern Presbyterian Church adopted these fundamentals as defining what was required to call oneself a Christian at a national gathering as early as 1910. That vote did not end the debate, however, for this church had to reaffirm them again in 1916 and in 1923.


One cannot understand present day church tensions without being aware of these roots. Every major church dispute today rises out of a conflict created when new learning calls traditional religious convictions into question. Evolution vs. Intelligent Design; birth control, abortion and women's equality; homosexuality and the Bible, all finally come down to a battle in the churches between expanding knowledge and these five core principles. Critics of every new church initiative claim that in their opposition to "modernism" they are supporting "the clear teaching of the Word of God" or fighting a "godless humanism." It is time to expose those fundamentals for what they are.


--- John Shelby Spong

 

[pescador]

The Bible didn't even exist until three and a half centuries after the original Christian Church was founded by Jesus Christ. Yet, that Church taught the fullness of God's truth during those 350 years, just as Jesus promised it would. In the mid-4'th Century, the Pope instructed the bishops of the Catholic Church to meet together to study, pray about, discuss and discern the hundreds of ancient documents the Church had in its possession, to determine which of them could definitely be considered divinely inspired. After about 6 years of study, discussion and prayer, they presented a list of the 73 texts the Holy Spirit had guided them to. They bound these documents into a book for the first time. Because they were from many nations, and spoke many languages, they had communicated in Greek, the universal language of educated people of them time, so they called this book "Biblios", which means "the Book". However, having this book didn't change the slightest detail of what the Church taught, since it was already teaching the fullness of God's truth. The Bible gets its contents and its authority from God's Church. His Church does not get its authority or its teachings from the Bible.

There is so much wrong with this post! The "Old Testament", a.k.a., Torah, is the sacred writings of the Jewish people and existed for thousands of years before the Catholic church decided what was to be in their Bible. At the time of Jesus, even though some Hebrew scrolls were read in the synagogues, the Bible existed in the form of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible.

It really doesn't matter what the Catholic Church decided what "The Bible" was/is, except to Catholics. Others -- Orthdox, Ethiopic, and Protestant -- have decided that different books comprise the Bible, and their decision is just as valid for them as the Catholic version is for Catholics.

The Bible gets its contents and its authority from God, not from "God's Church". The Bible is the bedrock of unchangeable truth for all those who believe. It's not dependent on what a group of men decide is the dogma-de-jour regardless of their official status.

 

[pescador]

The Bible didn't even exist until three and a half centuries after the original Christian Church was founded by Jesus Christ. Yet, that Church taught the fullness of God's truth during those 350 years, just as Jesus promised it would. In the mid-4'th Century, the Pope instructed the bishops of the Catholic Church to meet together to study, pray about, discuss and discern the hundreds of ancient documents the Church had in its possession, to determine which of them could definitely be considered divinely inspired. After about 6 years of study, discussion and prayer, they presented a list of the 73 texts the Holy Spirit had guided them to. They bound these documents into a book for the first time. Because they were from many nations, and spoke many languages, they had communicated in Greek, the universal language of educated people of them time, so they called this book "Biblios", which means "the Book". However, having this book didn't change the slightest detail of what the Church taught, since it was already teaching the fullness of God's truth. The Bible gets its contents and its authority from God's Church. His Church does not get its authority or its teachings from the Bible.

"The Bible didn't even exist until three and a half centuries after the original Christian Church was founded by Jesus Christ" is an inaccurate statement. The Old Testament -- the majority of the Bible -- existed many, many years before the Bible that we have today. Even after the canon of the Bible was decided there were differences of opinion among the various churches about what constituted the canon. For example, the Apocrypha is not present in Protestant Bibles.

It is the Catholic position that the Church is the final authority on the interpretation of the Bible, but Protestants disagree. We believe that God's Word -- The Bible -- is the final authority. Sola Scriptura

 

[Tradidi]

It is the Catholic position that the Church is the final authority on the interpretation of the Bible, but Protestants disagree. We believe that God's Word -- The Bible -- is the final authority. Sola Scriptura

Sure, we know that this is the Protestant position, but that doesn't make it any less absurd.

 

[Dave B]

The New Testament did not do away with the Old Testament. Jews started the Christian Church. Jesus and the 12 Apostles were Jews. Tithing was started in the Old Testament so that the Jews would be reminded of where their wealth came from.

If you ask me the Bible should be the central point of every Christians life for how do we know how to be a Christian without the Bible? How do we know what angers God and what pleases God? How do we know anything about creation or theology without reading and applying the Bible? I'm all for the fundamentalist movement but theres fundamentalism and there's fundamentalism taken WAY too far.

If theres one thing I cannot stand it's a fundamentalist that tries to push their views on another Christian, WITHOUT IT EVEN BEING IN THE BIBLE! An example? Fundamentalists who say in order to be married in the eyes of God you have to have a church wedding. Otherwise you're not married and are living in sin when you have relations together or just even spend time together.


Cool, only it's NOT in the Bible. There isn't a single verse in scripture that says only a church wedding is valid. The Bible has plenty to say on premarital sex, and divorce but it says NOTHING about what marriages are valid in the eyes of God. Instead the Binle says that ALL heterosexual marriage is a gift from God.

Or the fundamentalist church that says that in order to follow the Bible you must tithe. Bzzt! Wrong! Not ONE verse in the New Testament says that tithing (or giving of any kind) is technically required. You want to give your church? Do so. But don't give in to this fundamentalist hogwash that if you don't tithe than you arent following the Bible it just isnt true.

Or when they try to tell you what music to listen to. Honestly? Unless it isnt talking about death, sex, or cusses every 13 seconds there technically isnt anything wrong with it. The Bible says absolutely nothing about most kinds of music out there. Whether it be rock, rap, country music, or anything.

The fundamentalist movement is a fantastic movement. I'm a fundamentalist myself. But before you go out and declare what being a fundamentalist is actually about , make sure you actually have your facts straight. Please!

 

[Dave B]

Sure, we know that this is the Protestant position, but that doesn't make it any less absurd.

Sure, we know that this is the Protestant position, but that doesn't make it any less absurd.

If Protestants believe in "Sola Scriptura", then how can they ignore 2 Thessalonians 2:15? That conflicts with "Sola Scriptura", doesn't it? Where do Protestants find the "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible?

 

[Tradidi]

There is so much wrong with this post! The "Old Testament", a.k.a., Torah, is the sacred writings of the Jewish people and existed for thousands of years before the Catholic church decided what was to be in their Bible. At the time of Jesus, even though some Hebrew scrolls were read in the synagogues, the Bible existed in the form of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Bible.

It's nice to see you got one thing right: it was the Catholic Church that "decided what was to be in their Bible." Your other statements are either ambiguous or incorrect.

It really doesn't matter what the Catholic Church decided what "The Bible" was/is, except to Catholics. Others -- Orthdox, Ethiopic, and Protestant -- have decided that different books comprise the Bible, and their decision is just as valid for them as the Catholic version is for Catholics.

It's like saying "it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you decided to believe it". I find that rather unbelievable

The Bible gets its contents and its authority from God, not from "God's Church". The Bible is the bedrock of unchangeable truth for all those who believe. It's not dependent on what a group of men decide is the dogma-de-jour regardless of their official status.

To be precise, the Bible gets its contents and authority from God through His Church. Those who reject the Church, reject the One who founded Her. Those who accept the Bible but reject the Church through Whom God gave us the Bible, are like a man who would accept the US constitution but reject the supreme court and the founding fathers. Or like the man who praises the surgeon but curses the surgeon's knife. Or the man who praises the King but despises His servant, .. and then proceeds to pick his own servant.