Thanks for the reply Kevbo.
Perhaps our ideas of what's meant by being led by the Spirit are colored by our personalities and personal experiences. I don't know. I think it can be tricky! I'm really not talking about believing things that contradict the Bible, I'm talking about trying to understand the Bible as a whole, through a deeper view of what it really says. Although there are things that the Bible does not address at all (although I admit that I'm finding these to be fewer and fewer), I do take new teachings back to the Bible to see what it says about them.

Also, the writers of the Bible, perhaps, simply did not have the knowledge or vocabulary to give a perfect description of what they were being shown. This, of course applies to things in the spiritual realm, but I've also wondered if there is a precise, scientific description of what the "wheel in a wheel" was, or if the power that killed the bearers of the ark of the covenant could be scientifically defined and measured today. And the creation account, especially the very beginning, is surely something that could be expanded upon. But maybe I just think too much.

I think also, that because of our limitations, we sometimes can't see the whole thing. Thinking of the truth as a mountain, a person on one side may see tall green trees and clover, while a person on the other side may see rocks, cliffs, and shrubs. It's the same mountain (it's all connected), but the two people each see different things.

You ask, "Anyways, I have a few questions left. What is faith to you? Do you believe in any of the historical value in the Bible? Do you believe in all the teachings of Christ?"

Faith to me, I guess, is *seeing* what's not yet manifest.

Yes, I do believe that the Bible has historical value, within the perceptions of the writers of it. For example, did Noah's flood really cover the *whole* world, or did it simply seem like that to Noah? Does indeed the word "world" necessarily even mean the whole planet in this case? Parts of the Bible can also be either supported or questioned by comparison with concurrent secular writings. (A friend of mine is really into that, but personally, I'm not.)

And yes, I believe in all of the teachings of Christ. A few of the things He said in the gospels are still incomprehesible to me though. (Some odd one-liners here and there I mean.)

I don't mean to make this a private discussion here - I too would like to hear from other people.

Zetra, I was quite astonished to read the part about the mustard seed and all. You are quite right, a mustard seed does not grow into a tree, but a plant:

"Most members of the mustard family are annual or perennial herbs; a few are shrubs or climbers."
-"Mustard," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia
2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.

Also, the orchid seed is most likely smaller (Unfortunately, that small research that I did do on this topic didn't draw up more concrete evidence).

"The seeds are small, with only an undifferentiated embryo. As many as 2 million seeds may be produced from a single orchid seedpod."
-"Orchid," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia
2001 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2001 Microsoft
Corporation. All rights reserved.

I started to panic about that little snippet for a bit. Then FINALLY (hehe) I turned to the bible and read the passages pertaining to the mustard seed parables.

"... 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all YOUR seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden PLANTS and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."
Matthew 13:31

"It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed YOU plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden PLANTS, with such big branches that the birds..."
Mark 4:31

The capitalized letters point out that Jesus knew what He was talking about. Jesus did say plants. And when He said "you", or "your", he was referring to the farmers to which he was preaching to.

I do agree with you though, in saying that:
"the truth can be found, not in the word, but in the message."
Depending on your definition of word. If you are referring to the "word" as the Bible, then I disagree. Word as in an actual word, then I do

Dtruth,
Thanks again! You are really helping me understand your view of things. I liked your analogy of the mountain. It is true that God may choose to let one person see a certain truth clearly, while another person, another truth. This by no means warrants that every truth you think you discover is a truth.

"Also, the writers of the Bible, perhaps, simply did not have the knowledge or vocabulary to give a perfect description of what they were being shown."

Yes indeed the words are limited to describing spiritual things. Why else would Moses go blind after catching a glimpse of God (He couldn't handle it! Mind overload) or why else would Jesus use parables to describe the "Kingdom of God". I've felt God's Spirit manifest in me to the point where I can't even describe the joy I had. But to me, this doesn't leave the Bible open to much interpretation. The facts are still facts in the Bible. In the beginning God created... The author does not go into describing exactly HOW God created things (Other than maybe God spoke and it was). Because that is incomprehensible and undescribable. So He stopped short before trying to confuse the author. God knows our limitations perfectly, don't you think He'd write His word perfectly, in compliment to that? He wouldn't have to give up certain descriptive details because He gave us ample communication to portray what He needed to tell us.

Oh man, it's getting late and I'm tired. I'm gonna re-read this tommorrow and find hundreds of mistakes. Oh well

Kevbo

PS - Sorry it's a little long!


[This message has been edited by -Kevbo- (edited 04-23-2001).]

Well, since Kevbo asked for other people to respond here, and because I am a liberal Christian, or so consider myself, I will try to elaborate a little bit by giving an example.

This week, my in-laws were visiting, and they are definitely cut from the fundy mold. My BIL saw some pictures of NOah's ark in my bathroom, and he said, "Very nice, except they are inaccurate. There are no dinosaurs in the picture."

To me, this experience kind of sums up his attitude towards the Bible versus mine. A literalist looks at the Bible, reads what it says, and then tries to find a scientific basis for it, i.e. shaping scientific findings to the Bible and discounting those that disagree with the Bible. Hence, my BIL is a young earth creationist, who believes the dinosaurs were contemporaries of NOah and Adam.

I don't. I read Noah's ark and here is what I glean. I think there likely was a very large flood in the Mediterranean (not a global flood, whch seems to me to be a scientific impossibility), and Noah, a wise and godly man, gathered his animals & family into a boat which God had commanded that he build, thus saving them. And, because Noah was godly, he gave the credit to God. Did Noah write his own story? Of course not. There is no Bible scholar out there who believes this. So, the story was retold verbally for many generations until it became what it is today on the pages of the Bible.

Different interpretation, no? However, what does the fundy glean from this story (what is the "TRUTH"):

God's providence and care for us...that when we obey God, he takes care of us. That is PRECISELY what I glean from this passage, as well...it is a representation (metaphoric or not) of how God's providence also requires obedience on our part. Am I misinterpreting the meaning? NO.

But, I do not believe in a literal, worldwide flood (I only give this as an example, not as an entree into debate about the flood).

Proving the "reliability" of scripture (in terms of advocating creation science (such an oxymoron in my opinion) is something I have ABSOLUTELY NO INTEREST IN. Yet, I am still able to glean the important message behind the story, even if I believe it is a metaphoric story and not an actual occurence.

I choose to believe that most of the stories in the Bible are, in fact, metaphor. But, I can still glean that God provided the divine spark of life....that life is sacred....the God provides for his people....that God honors and rewards obedience....that Christ showed how we could connect directly with the Divine. And, I'm as concerned about Christ's life and words as I am about his death, which seems to me to be a key difference.

THAT is what it means to be a non-literalist, liberal Christian. I may not believe that every word is inspired, but as a sum total, the Bible represents both man's efforts to connect with the Divine, and God's reaching down to us. And, that is enough for me.

So, I don't believe the Bible is literally true in every part. I also don't believe the Bible is equally important in every area. Many areas of the Bible are very cultural in nature, and are not terribly relevant to today's society. Some sections of the Bible strike me as cruel and inhumane. However, that I feel that way does not make the "faith" message contained in the Bible any less powerful to me in my life.

I also don't believe in the "evangelical interpretation" of Christianity (which seems to focus more on Christ's death than it does on his Life), but that does not make Christ any less of a symbol for me in my life. I am very interested in Christ's social justice message and the way he lived his life. These are powerful and inspiring to me, and I use Christ's life as a representation of how I want to live.

Fundamentalism focuses on dogma (believing the same thing). Liberal Christianity tends to be looser in terms of dogma, but more focused on using Christ as an example for living our lives. Thus, I find liberal Christianity to be more focused on actions (i.e., living like Christ would live, social justice, helping the poor and less fortunate, creating racial equity and harmony, etc.), whereas fundamentalism focuses more on espousing the correct dogma/doctrine (and that is where I grew up, so I understand fundy-ism pretty well, having been in it for more than 30 years).

Fundies often do not believe in the ultimate salvation of liberal Christians. We question too much, we think about things too much, we are too focused on "good works" for them, as well. They often characterize liberal Christians as "confusing," "relativists", and say that we don't trust the Bible. That's not true, we just interpret it differently.

From my focus, I think fundies are too caught up in imitating one another, disputing essentially meaningless things (does it really matter to us, today, whether there was a real flood as long as we get the message behind the story?), and SOMETIMES, villifying other believers who don't exactly believe in the "approved" fashion.

I think there are wrongs being perpetrated against the real "church", the group which follows christ, by the fanatics on either side.

Spirit Grrrl

Spiritgrrrl, I find your post a little offensive. You draw this massive line between "fundies" and Liberals. Then claim you are in the line.

Secondly, you came across as if I don't try to model my life after Christ. That isn't even close. I believe the LIFE of Christ, is as important as His death and Resurrection. I believe and aspire to be like Christ. Although, I fail miserably a lot.

You are correct about saying that we could sit here and debate about the flood, and what would that mean to our faith. Pretty much nothing. It is indeed the message of that historical event that is important.

I believe the Bible's message is far more important than it's fact. But I also believe that the Bible is factual as well.

What seems to be happening here is that both fundamentalists and liberalists have misinterpretations of eachother. Perhaps thats why I find so much confusing, when honestly, we're not far off the same page (When I'm trying to think we are totally off).

I never made any claims that liberals weren't Christian. I said I don't treat my brothers and sisters like I don't love them (Well, I try my best, sometimes it is indeed hard).

I'm not trying to change anyone here, I'm just trying to get a better understanding of different view points. This way, I can get along a lot better with the rest of the body of Christ.

May God's peace dwell in you.

Kevbo

PS - Zetra, The verse does indeed say, plant becomes a tree. I can't really dodge that fact. So if anyone could help me out on this, that'd be great. Cause now I'm really confused. Although, I do understand that the message behind that parable is far more important than the facts.

[This message has been edited by -Kevbo- (edited 04-23-2001).]

from my experience, it seems as though "fundies" tend to believe in absolute truth (that one moral and spiritual truth exists), and "liberal christians" tend to believe in relative truth (that moral and spiritual truth can be different for everyone, based on what you believe). does this seem to be accurate?

Kev, you've led me back to the center of my position here.

You say :

"...that is incomprehensible and undescribable. So He stopped short before trying to confuse the author. God knows our limitations perfectly, don't you think He'd write His word perfectly, in compliment to that? He wouldn't have to give up certain descriptive details because He gave us ample communication to portray what He needed to tell us."

Now consider this :

John 14:12 "Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and *greater* works than these he will do; because I go to the Father."

and :

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you *all* things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."

Jesus said that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, would teach us ALL things, not just as much as we need to know given our human limitations - ALL things. Am *I* taking this too literally? I feel that the textual Bible on its own cannot teach us ALL things. On this, I don't think we disagree, actually.

I think also that our grasp of science is one aspect of knowing "ALL" things - it's just a different form of knowledge than "spritual" knowledge. It's one of the blessings of Christ.

Now, to get to what I'm saying about understanding the Bible as a whole, and understanding more of the truth of Being. Continuing my analogy of the mountain, how about this : as I've quoted elsewhere from Jeremiah 23:23&24, God is *everything*, always near. I'll try to choose my words carefully here - it's difficult. If God is everything and is in everything, we can, instead of looking at the mountain, realize that in spirit, we are connected to God, and thus to that very mountain. The answers are within our spirits, as we line our spirits up with the Lord, the Holy Spirit. But we sometimes need to learn to unlock doors that have been constructed that bar our minds from receiving that deeper understanding from our spirits, as we go on with our earthly existance. Sorry if I'm getting too cosmic.

- Doug (I don't want to be so anonymous anymore...)

P.S. Hanna - I believe that there *is* relativity (at least sometimes) to truth. Refer to Romans 14:10-23. Paul basically says there that things such as eating certain foods can be good and fine for one person but not for another, and that although we shouldn't be concerned with such things, we should be careful not to create conflicts for others. These message boards may have a problem there(!) but the Bible also says that we should get knowledge (Proverbs) and not remain in ignorance, and bring the message of Christ to all. Again, I would say that it's about seeing the big picture.

Also - spiritgrrl, it's true that much of Christianity focuses more on Christ's death than on His life. I don't know if I really realized that so clearly before reading your post. The teaching I've gotten about that in the past is basically that it's through Jesus' death and resurrection that we have salvation. What I've come to feel is that perhaps there's something that happened through His death to set us free (I never really understood that), but perhaps His death was important because it showed that He gave up everything for the message that He brought during His years of ministry on this earth - it was *that* important.

Kevbo wrote:
>Spiritgrrrl, I find your post a little offensive. You draw this massive line between "fundies" and Liberals. Then claim you are in the line.<

Though you believe I claim to be in the line, what I tried to do was distinguish the difference between the two groups, from my perspective, making generalizations about both groups (which I've seen be done on this very thread in several cases).

Kevbo, I don't know how old you are, but during my short lifetime, my denomination has gone through a massive, traumatic splintering between the moderates/liberals and the fundamentalists. Since I attended a liberal denominational college 15 years ago, a concerted effort has been made since then by fundamentalists to bring every college into "doctrinal alignment." (i.e., to make them more fundamentalist. I find THAT incredibly offensive, as if liberals are somehow wrong or unchristian.

I was a fundamentalist for many years, but in recent years have become more of a liberal Christian. The fundamentalists in my denomination (S. Baptist) have literally drawn the rest of us into a corner as if we are not believers.

I have been humiliated at my church for having questions (not buying into the fundy dogma is my spin on this). I have been belittled, criticized, and been called "non-Christian" by people within my own faith.

How offensive is that? Everything I wrote speaks to the experience i have had as a liberal Christian in a progressively more fundamentalist denomination.

Two years ago, Page Patterson, the president of the denomination, lead a drive to essentially remove women from leadership roles as pastors and teachers. Thus, the Baptists have increasingly come between women and the Holy Spirit, denying that a woman could be called of God to serve in any leadership role. I've had a great deal of personal experience with this issue, and the Bible is far from clear on the role of women. Frankly, many denominations (including pentacostals like the 4-Square church) believe that women sponsored churches and served as deacons and leaders in the early church. However, the fundy branch of my denomination has refused to even consider this, and has drawn a hard line in the sand, dividing many of us. This is just one of many examples of the harm which I feel has been caused by the fundamentalist movement. Had Christ held to the same standard, would the women who discovered he had been resurrected have been allowed to speak? I don't know, but this is a hard issue for me. After all, the first sermon (the message of Christ's resurrection) was delivered by a lowly woman.

Another area is the lack of support by many fundamentalist churches of the Promise Keeper ministry because Bill McCartney challenged churches to develop closer ties with other denominations and other churches. The fundy movement in the U.S. is pretty uniformly white. McCartney was urging Christians to break down the racial divide which exists on Sunday (the most segregated day of the week in many communities). As a result, many fundy churches in the South withdrew their support of the ministry.

I could go on, but perhaps you can glean why I have strong feelings about this. And, I think there is a place for an open dialogue about these kinds of divisions between believers from both camps.

I am perfectly willing to accept my fundamentalist brothers and sisters as fellow believers. That, likely is not the issue. The issue to me is, are fundamentalist Christians willing to accept me as a fellow believer given that I don't accept the scriptures as literal? In my experience, they are not. But, if we could come to some understanding here, that might be valuable.

>>Secondly, you came across as if I don't try to model my life after Christ. That isn't even close. I believe the LIFE of Christ, is as important as His death and Resurrection. I believe and aspire to be like Christ. Although, I fail miserably a lot.>>

NOT AT ALL. I'm referencing fundamentalists in general (or at least, my experiences with fundies, and as I said, I have lots of experiences with this). My post was not directed to you personally AT ALL, but to distinguish (in my mind, at least) why I am liberal Christian instead of a fundamentalist. And, I am convinced there are darn good reasons for making this choice.

>>You are correct about saying that we could sit here and debate about the flood, and what would that mean to our faith. Pretty much nothing. It is indeed the message of that historical event that is important.>>

Something most people within Christianity could have consensus with, and consensus is something I believe is important for us to find, rather than focusing on our differences.

>>I believe the Bible's message is far more important than it's fact. But I also believe that the Bible is factual as well. >>

And that is the key difference. Another key difference is the focus on social activism/social welfare issues by the liberal church versus emphasis on evangelism by the fundies.

This is easily seen in almost any community. Which churches sponsor the food banks? Hospice? Habitat for Humanity? Job Training? child Care programs? Summer Day Camps for working parents? Works with impoverished or marginalized (including gay/lesbian) people? The liberal churches are the ones who do this in my community and most others. What did the fundies sponsor this year? Festival 2001, featuring Franklin Graham (an outreach/evangelism effort).

>>What seems to be happening here is that both fundamentalists and liberalists have misinterpretations of eachother. Perhaps thats why I find so much confusing, when honestly, we're not far off the same page (When I'm trying to think we are totally off).>>

I don't know, Kev. I've been in both camps, and i would like to believe I have a pretty clear perception of both, but admittedly, I have some anger at some of the treatment I've received at the hands of fundies.

I think a key issue for me was illustrated when I worked for a social service agency. We conducted a training on warning signs of drug use, suicide, and violence by teens (after Columbine) for religious leaders. The training was non-denominational, and didn't focus on ANY religious doctrine at all. Though there was ONE religious speaker, he was an evangelical Christian. However, in spite of the lack of tangible knowledge about these topics on the part of many church leaders, the vast majority of Fundies in our area opted not to participate. The reason? Non-Christian churches were involved. However, there were A HANDFUL of evangelical leaders that participated, and in fact, co-sponsored. All agreed after the training that it opened their eyes to issues in their own youth groups and risky behaviors they could be on the look-out for, and provided them with ideas which church leaders could use to intervene with kids in trouble in their own congregation. We all uniformly mourned the lack of participation by the fundies.

This is not an isolated incident, by far. It is the norm, in my experience of working in these types of efforts. If anyone else besides evangelicals (in this case, buddhists, Mormons, Catholics and liberal churches were involved), the fundies don't seem to want to play.

Harsh words, possibly. But definitely, I think this stuff needs to be discussed within the brotherhood/sisterhood of believers. Often, it is the fundies that i have found draw the hard, divisive lines between believers. And, I find this VERY sad. But, I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't happened over and over in my experience and my community.

>>I never made any claims that liberals weren't Christian. I said I don't treat my brothers and sisters like I don't love them (Well, I try my best, sometimes it is indeed hard).>>

Ditto, it is sometimes VERY HARD for me to deal with fundies because of the painful life experiences I've had at their hands. I think Christ expects more from us, frankly.

>>I'm not trying to change anyone here, I'm just trying to get a better understanding of different view points. This way, I can get along a lot better with the rest of the body of Christ.>>

Well, I am trying to change people. It is my goal for fundies here to seriously and critically examine themselves on the area of their perceptions about liberal believers and how Christ must view these divisions between us as believers.

>>May God's peace dwell in you.
>>

My prayer, as well, for both of us.

Spirit Grrrl

[This message has been edited by spiritgrrrl (edited 04-24-2001).]

[This message has been edited by spiritgrrrl (edited 04-24-2001).]

Spirit Grrrl,

I can kind of feel, in these posts, how you've been hurt by your experiences with fundamentalists. I've had other types of damaging experiences myself, and as I've mentioned before, I had to separate myself from the the whole thing for a while. This caused me further problems, but things have changed drastically for the better. I just want to encourage you to let go of your frustration over your past. I agree that you have an important message to bring, but allowing disturbences to remain in you can get in the way of your best. We must also understand that the Lord has not revealed the same things to all people at the current time.

- Doug

Doug,
Thanks for your kind and sensitive words. I have actually stopped attending church this year because I'd become so hurt and frustrated. My family would go off to church and I'd stay home and putter around the house, sit on my deck, sing and pray and read the word. It was just easier for me to deal with non-Christians than Christians. I have no expectations for how people who don't know Christ should act, however, believe that Christians can and should be held to a higher standard, particularly when they claim to have the truth.

I went to church on Sunday with my family this week, and it stirred up alot of feelings I have on this topic. I'm not sure that some fundies even realize how they have harmed others (and in my case, not sure that they even care, feeling so haughty and self-righteous in their own "truth"). This comment is not directed to ANYONE on this BB, but to people I am familiar with in my life.

I have cried out so much to the Lord, hoping for wisdom and understanding, and it has been a real struggle. I grew up in a church which was moderate when I was a child, but recently split over doctrinal issues (role of women, inerrancy of scripture, etc.). It had become more fundamentalist in recent years, and for many years, I bought into it, but finally came to see that there were just dogma issues I could not accept. All in all, a very painful experience to see people you've known all your life and loved fighting like heck over stuff like this instead of loving one another as we all should.

I have been very hurt by the war between fundies and liberals in my own denomination, and responding to this kinda brought it all out. I am all for forgiveness, but I am still very angry that this division has been allowed to continue and that people have not spoken out more. I am also hurt by the assumption on the part of many fundies I've encountered, here and elsewhere, that I cannot know Christ without believing in a literalist interpretation of the Bible.

After all, let's face facts. The Christians in the early church had only the Jewish Law to go by, the gospels and Paul's epistles weren't written until many years after Christ's death, and Paul never even knew Christ in the flesh, but only had a mystical experience with Him. So, the assumption that the Bible we have in it's present form is needed to know Christ is plain silly. I have also spent time recently reading the Apocrypha and gnostic gospels, which include books which were weeded out of our Bible in about 300 AD, and they present a very different picture of Jesus Christ. And, the Apocrypha was weeded out of our version of the Bible in the 1800s by fundamentalist reformers. I can only ask, who gave them the right to tamper with these holy books, choosing them based on their own opinions????

Perhaps it is that many young fundies have grown up in a fairly rigid belief system and have not been exposed to liberal Christians because we have mostly been driven out of the most fundamentalist denominations. I don't know. I do know that there are a lot of assumptions being made that I have dealt with recently, and it has gotten sort of old. I know we are not to grow weary in welldoing, or to be easily offended, but is it being offended to see truth denied, glossed over, or ignored?

I don't know, and these are real issues which I am grappling with in my life. Thanks for your kindness.

Spirit Grrrl