Leaderboard

When I was a little kid, I went to Sunday school at The Brookside Missionary Baptist Church on Forestdale Ave. Like most kids, I suppose, I was somewhat baffled at the prospect of Noah cramming all those animals onto one boat, Jonah being swallowed by a whale (and living to tell about it), and so forth. But, I was kind of a shy kid so I kept my curiosity to my self. When I got a bit older and bolder, though, I asked the Sunday school teacher about my questions. She told me they were really just stories but that they had many great lessons we could apply to our own lives if we would be humble enough to accept what they were trying to teach us. I wish, now, that I had just left it at that and never heard of PFAL.

The boundary between that which is objective and that which is subjective is the human mind. That which is subjective depends on the mind of the subject. That which is objective exists independently of the subject's mind, and can be observed by any dispassionate observer. In classical thinking, the touchstone of the truth of a proposition is how well it accords with criteria that are objective. That is why science is as powerful as it is. Some people, like Plato, Hindus, Buddhists and Ralph Waldo Emerson, hold that what is objective is an illusion, and what is subjective is true. I don't agree with that, and I don't think the writers of the Bible would either. I believe that what is objective is real because it has the same integrity as its Creator, that is to say, that objective reality is whole and persistent, while my subjective experience of it is limited to the range of my senses, and is discontinuous. Deuteronomy 19:15b, Matthew 18:16b and II Corinthians 13:1b all say essentially the same thing in slightly different wording appropriate to the immediate context: in the mouth (singular) of two or three witnesses (plural) shall a matter be established. Where several witness agree, that is where we are to find the truth. I believe the Bible, the written Word of God, is an objective witness to the truth God wants us to know. But... I also believe that the leading of the Holy Spirit is a subjective witness to the truth God wants us to know. It's not where the Bible agrees with itself that we find the truth. That could simply be a tautology. It's where the objective witness of the Bible AND the subjective witness of the Holy Spirit AGREE that we find truth. If we focus on the Written Word and ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, we fall into Pharisaic legalism, as did TWI. If we magnify the Spirit and ignore the Written Word, we fall into emotionalistic spiritualism, as did CES. For the last couple of thousand years "official" Christianity has minimized the leading of the Holy Spirit and maximized our reliance on the Written Word alone, in order to solidify its control over us. That's why we have such objectively rediculous traditions as "the Bible contains no contraditions." All for now. The latest episode of The Closer is coming on! Love, Steve

I had the privilege to teach humane letters for five years at an interdenominational Christian classical academy (K-12). One of our express purposes was to teach the kids to think critically without treading on any denominational toes. We divided beliefs into primary and secondary beliefs. Primary beliefs were things about God and the Bible we could all agree on. Everything else was considered to be a secondary belief. We deferred instruction on secondary beliefs to the children's parents and religious leaders. For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity came up in my brother's seventh grade class, and we considered that doctrine to be secondary, not primary. So he had each of the students (there were twelve at the time) go home consult with their folks, and write a brief report about what their denominational position on the Trinity was. Then in class, each person read his or her report. Discussion in the form of probative questions and answers was allowed, but arguing one position versus another was not permitted. The kids learned some the multitudinous understandings of the Trinity without Magister Lortz or the school taking a position on any of them, and without fostering the idea that everybody has to believe exactly the same way about everything. We considered the idea that the Scriptures are God-breathed to be primary, but the subject of contradictions in the Bible secondary. We never tried to "resolve" the real contradictions students brought up, we would just say "I don't understand that one myself, though I believe the Bible makes sense when taken all together," which was the truth. I did teach the concept of "integrity," but in the context of objective reality as a standard for truth. So... I have some experience teaching interdenominational classes. In December of 2008, when I decided to return to college and finish a degree I started in 1967, by some strange twist of Fate, sappy plot device, quirk of synchronicity, ...what have you... I was (and am) living two blocks from the school where I started that degee, Anderson University, though it was only a college back then. By another strange twist of Fate, Anderson University is an interdenominational school founded and supported by a "denomination," The Church of God Reformation Movement, Anderson, Indiana. D.S. Warner, who founded the Church of God Reformation Movement in the 1880s had the epiphany that denominations and their man-made creeds are not Biblical. While it became apparent that leaders in the movement had "to see eye to eye" on certain features to be recognized as leaders, there has never been a list of creedal dogmas a person needs to subscribe to in order to be considered a Christian. The only thing a person needs to do is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and people of the Reformation Movement are not too restrictive about what that means. They know it doesn't lead to a lifestyle of unrepentant sin. I received my bachelor's degree in May of 2011. I was originally slated to graduate in 1971, so I literally spent forty years wandering in the wilderness. I finished the degree requirements last December, but didn't graduate till May, so I took 12 hours of courses just for funzies. Two of the classes were from the history department, but the other two were History and Literature of the Old Testament and History and Literature of the New Testament. ...more shortly...