Archive for the ‘Modernism’ Category:
God in Your Story
In my last post, The Truth of the Gospel, I shared my story of being saved from suicide and subsequently coming to faith. I also talked about how when I became a Christian, I realized that God was with me even in those horrible circumstances. I realize that many people share stories similar to my own, and many have stories of far worse things happening to them. It is very tempting to ask, either during or after, where God was in those times. While it may seem as though God abandoned you to be raped, beaten, neglected, depressed, empty, etc and chose to love others by blessing them with talent, good looks, money, opportunity, intelligence, friends etc, there is another question that my personal experience has lent me to ask:
Why wasn’t it worse?
Why wasn’t I molested?
Why wasn’t I cut on?
Left in a ditch for my parents to discover?
I said before that my still being alive is evidence of God’s work in my life, and it is, but all the evil things that didn’t happen to me are further evidence. Read more »
John Gresham Machen, Doubt, and Liberalism
1913-1915 were three of the most important years in the life of John Gresham Machen. He had been on the verge of de-converting from Christianity for eight years previous to this, yet here he finally realized the truthfulness of historic Biblical Christianity, and completed his ordination. Interestingly enough, his struggle with Christianity was not with atheism (as is common today), but with liberalism, which was becoming popular among intellectual circles in the United States at that time.
Liberal Christianity (also called modern liberalism) assumed science discounted the supernatural claims of the Bible, but attempted to sustain religion by separating science and religion. Liberalism also employed the high-critical method of interpreting the Bible (which assumes the Bible as the work merely of men with no aid by the Holy Spirit). Liberalism passed off historical records of supernatural events as pseudo-historical, or at best metaphorical.
How Ironic
This Red vs Blue clip emphasizes how sometimes we use words that carry different meanings to different people. When we discuss heavy topics, we are often doing so with some very loaded terms. What are some terms that you have frequently seen misunderstood?
Epistemology and the Nature of Scripture
I once read in a book by a Christian author that he had no use for the “red letter Bible” (the ones that have all of Jesus’ words in red) because “every word in the Bible is from God!” I used to think along these lines. I thought God had dictated the Bible to the authors, making God the real author. But is this view is really necessary for the Bible to be considered true, and does it really matter?
Certainly the Bible is of vital importance. After all, through it we come to know God made the world and everything in it. We come to know that mankind blundered and became corrupt, and thus also corrupted creation. We also come to know that Jesus came into the world to redeem it and will in the end be victorious. The Bible is certainly important, but is every word in it literally a word from the mouth of God?
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