Archives for “evangelism”
Polycarp at The Church of Jesus Christ and I seem to be travelling the same paths lately (does this indicate that I’m finally a part of the Church of Jesus Christ? The U.S. branch, anyway?). He recently wrote a series of posts, some in depth and some quite short, regarding hell and universalism in Scripture and in the ECF, appropriately leaving the question open-ended.
Now he’s gone and dredged up another topic left conveniently buried by most modern Protestants who champion orthodoxy and good theology (so long as it comports with their already composed beliefs): baptism.
I was thinking yesterday during Sunday School that I should write a post on “unapproved” answers to Evangelism Explosion question number 2, in which God asks the recently departed who appear on His doorstep, “Why should I let you in to my heaven?”
- Inerrantists who ignore Scripture: who killed biblical synergism? One of Calvinists’ staple arguments in favor of monergism is the inference that positing God as relying, in some sense, upon our decision to participate in salvation is actually a...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
- Not historic, orthodox Christianity Today Joel Watts posted a quote from one of the Early Church Fathers on the subject of the Eucharist (a.k.a. the Lord’s Supper or Communion): For not as common bread and...
The poll in my sidebar asking Christians how important they considered the faith/science debate to be ran for four months as of yesterday. In that time, 99 votes were cast. Today as I close it out, I add my own as the last vote.
I voted Critical. No surprise there.
What I do find surprising is that one of two choices that received almost no attention early on, Worse than unimportant, finished just a few votes behind one of the early contenders, Important, but not critical. Sure, it received a clear minority of votes, but given my blog’s audience, most of whom are at least vaguely aware of the debate’s importance, this is disturbing to me.
These people are asking why I should be wasting my time distracting Christians from what they really should be doing; none of them came on to the blog as requested to explain what exactly they thought I should be focusing on. Was it just a matter of, “Please, I’m uncomfortable with this topic — can we move on to something else already?” Perhaps, but I’m guessing that the evangelicals who would vote “Worse than unimportant” would genuinely feel that the debate is a distraction from what they consider to be one of the most important things on the evangelical’s to-do list: evangelism.
Related posts:- Would he be having a happy birthday? Two days shy of four months ago I posted a poll that asked Christians how important the faith/science debate is. I was going to wait until there were 100 results...
- Mohler on theistic evolution In a recent post on his popular blog, Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presented a predictable take on the origins debate. He states, I have...
- You can’t just ignore the evolution debate I generally like World magazine. Oh, there’s plenty I disagree with in every issue, but one thing editor Marvin Olasky and his team just seem to get that so many...
In a discussion involving my rejection of inerrancy, a frequent commenter mentioned the inerrantist objection, ”Without [our Bible] can we confidently walk up to a non-believer and ask him to believe our own personal faith in God without showing him something that he can see that points to that God?”
The first thing I’d like to note is that we can confidently show our non-inerrant (can anyone think of a better term than “errant”?) Bible as something that points to God. The Bible, if nothing else, points to God, but this obviously stops well shy of “proving” Him or anything about Him. But what the commenter is getting at is the inerrantist’s uneasiness with the fact that we have no official “last word” source text whose very existence will elicit compulsory belief from the doubter to whom it is presented. This is, in effect, what the inerrantist holds the Bible to be: you must believe because the Bible says so.
Related posts:- Brief question about inerrancy The question that must be asked of inerrantists is this: Is it Scripture or man’s wisdom that is the ultimate basis for Christians’ belief system? If you answer that Scripture...
- When Christianity undervalues truth Using an analogy especially interesting to me as an historical linguist, Sabio Lantz at Triangulations reminds us of the power of understanding that the Christian faith isn’t quite as unique...
- Clash of Titans: Christianity vs. Dr. Mohler’s theology The fireworks continue between BioLogos and the esteemed Joseph Emerson Brown Professor of Christian Theology and President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, God’s chosen Arbiter of Faithful Readings of...