I have posted about the Bible making Baptists HERE
and HERE.
We live in a time now when, increasingly, many of those who already claim to be
Baptists reject the simple message of the Bible. Some on the fundamentalist end
screw the cap on so tight that you can’t get it off, but today I write about
those on the liberal end of the spectrum – those who have left the cap off the
bottle and let all the contents spill out.
Chuck
Queen is a popular “go-to” opinion writer for the Baptist News (which
appears to be more representative than it actually is).[i]
His opinion writings at that medium give ample opportunity to illustrate my
point.
- Concerning “the Joseph story”,[ii] Chuck says, “The biblical writer sees God intervening and micromanaging the experiences and events in Joseph’s life, which I find to be totally unbelievable and unacceptable.”
- Concerning John 10:9, Chuck says, “I think it is important to note that it is very unlikely that the historical Jesus actually said this.”[iii]
- Concerning Matthew 18:34-35 and how to read a text critically,[iv] Chuck says, “I have no doubt Matthew added this to the original parable.”
- Concerning Joseph’s encounter with the angel,[v] Chuck says, “...the Bible doesn’t always give us a reliable picture of the true nature and character of God.”
Chuck’s opinions make it consistently clear that
he finds parts of the Bible unbelievable, that the Gospel accounts of Jesus
cannot be considered accurate, and that the Bible’s picture of God is unreliable.
Without a reliable view of God, Jesus, or the Bible, how shall we proceed? With
what are we left? That isn’t always made clear, but to strip it down to the
naked truth it is this – each individual becomes the plumb line of his or her
own truth. To quote a Baptist
acquaintance[vi] who believes the Bible is
full of contradictions, absurdities, and morally questionable advice (his words), “I have
found the reliance on the Spirit is superior to reliance on the Bible.” While
we all agree on relying upon the Holy Spirit of God to help us understand what
he has written (2
Peter 1:19-21; John
16:13; 1
Corinthians 2:10-16), the final extension of the theories of Chuck
Queen and my acquaintance is to remove the objective criterion of the Bible and
insert the subjective criterion of one’s own opinions in its place. A number of liberals loudly
proclaim that “the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus
Christ.” That sounds good and fools a lot of folks, yet the equivocation of
that cry reveals that they manifestly mean a “Jesus Christ” of their own
making!
The extremes of UMC
Bishop Karen Oliveto exhibit that, followed to its logical end, even the
“Jesus Christ” of their own making must be dethroned to no Christ at all – a weak
human like you and me, struggling to learn the truth, working through his bigotry
and prejudice to try to learn that God loves all people.[vii]
We really shouldn’t be surprised. In spite of all that is wrong with Oliveto’s
view, it demonstrates a bare honesty that is often otherwise concealed. It shows the end
of those who reject the inspiration, inerrancy and authority of the Bible – at least
the end for those who remain within nominal Christianity. There are, of course,
those who are bold enough to ditch any pretense of Christianity altogether.
[i] Baptist News Global is a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner. Chuck
is pastor of Immanuel
Baptist Church in Frankfort, Ky., which is affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship. Chuck blogs at A Fresh
Perspective and wants to help “Christians stuck in old paradigms
embrace a more inclusive, credible, compassionate, and transformative faith.” I’ll
keep my old paradigm of an inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Bible, thank
you very much.
[ii]
Joseph the son of Jacob
[iii]
He explains that John’s Gospel reflects what John’s church “had come to believe
about Jesus.”
[iv]
I.e., how to dismiss that with which you do not agree
[v]
Joseph the husband of Mary, mother of Jesus
[vi]
Also in a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church
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