by Richard on March 5, 2014
Morgan Guyton: Why English majors make lousy fundamentalists. Good stuff when you get past the Myers-Briggs introduction. Here’s a flavour:
To an English major, what makes a piece of writing rich and poetic are the metaphors it employs. Metaphors are scary things to fundamentalists because they seem like a ploy to undermine the Bible’s authority. [...]
by Richard on October 10, 2012
An amended reblog, partly prompted by some recent comments
I was talking to someone recently about the evolution ‘debate’. He got very troubled when I spoke of the first chapter of Genesis as a myth. “If Genesis 1 isn’t true, how can we trust anything the Bible says?” he asked.
Imagine yourself in one of those [...]
by Richard on February 13, 2011
Henry Neufeld: “My Dad Was a Fundamentalist” (via Allan Bevere)
More and more, “fundamentalist” is used in a pejorative sense. You can be an evangelical Christian, and you might be considered a reasonable person. A little over pious, perhaps, but reasonable. But fundamentalist now carries the connotation of Westboro Baptist protesting at funerals, suicide bombers, and [...]
by Richard on November 12, 2010
Some comments have been provoked on other posts about the use of the words ‘fundamentalist’ and ‘fundamentalism’. I’m a preacher, and I believe strongly that words should be used as precisely as possible, so I thought it might be helpful to clarify what I think these words mean. (Of course, I’m as guilty as the [...]
by Richard on November 12, 2010
At the heart of almost every controversy in the church lies a deceptively simple question: “How do we read the Bible?” It shouldn’t be surprising that different Christians (and parties of Christians) interpret the Bible differently. We’ve been doing that for a very long time. Where it becomes urgent is when one party “unchurches” another [...]
by Richard on October 7, 2009
Tim Chesterton has been looking again at C.S. Lewis on the inspiration of scripture. Here’s a morsel to whet your appetite
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it [...]
by Richard on October 6, 2009
No particular theme to this post…
I couldn’t help smiling last week when an old post titled The Truth of Genesis was resurrected from way back when at the very time when fresh and exciting new evidence of the story of human evolution was emerging. Not that I’ve anything against old posts rising again if folk [...]
by Richard on March 3, 2009
A very useful post from my favourite blogging bishop
In the same way as “original instruments” recordings are not, in fact, the only or even the best possible ways to get your Bach, we have to lay aside earnest Victorian literalism and come alive again to the riches of the Biblical texts as they are. Ancient [...]
by Richard on September 10, 2008
So says Halden
The problem today is not that we have too many fundamentalists, but that we have far too few. What passes for fundamentalism these days is nothing like true, authentic fundamentalism, the radical and passionate commitment to a particular cause, theology, or way of life. If we were true fundamentalists, the kind whose beliefs [...]
by Richard on December 1, 2007
A guest post by Craig L. Adams
This is a common question. But, what does it mean to take the Bible “literally”? I feel that this term has often been misused or used foolishly. I sometimes think people should stop using the term “literal” to describe our beliefs about the Bible.
What does the word “literal” mean? [...]
by Richard on November 7, 2007
At the heart of almost every controversy in the church lies a deceptively simple question: ‘How do we read the Bible?’ It shouldn’t be surprising that different Christians (and parties of Christians) interpret the Bible differently. We’ve been doing that for a very long time. Where it becomes urgent is when one party ‘unchurches’ another [...]
Kata sarka, I must admit to feeling a lot more comfortable around Christian liberals than fundamentalists. Perhaps it’s the fundamentalists’ cultural parnoia, or what Reinhold Bernhardt calls their “absolutist attitude”. Or perhaps it’s my impatience with the hermeneutical preposterousness of their “theology of facts”. Or perhaps it’s their association with the political [...]
by Richard on October 5, 2005
via bimbling along comes a report from The Times newspaper claiming — according to the headline — Catholic Church no longer swears by truth of the Bible.
THE hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has published a teaching document instructing the faithful that some parts of the Bible are not actually true.
The Catholic bishops of England, [...]