Baptists Today and the souls of pickles...

[Tim Bonney]

[Tom Parker]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

Keith,

Thank you for your report on Princeton. Unfortunately Sandy has fallen into the fundamentalist trap of exaggerating what a more liberal/progressive view of the Bible means. It is the old saw "if you don't believe the Bible the way I do you don't believe the Bible."

As you have pointed out, often taking the Bible seriously means not taking all of what the Bible says as literal when the author never intended it to be taken literally. The parables of Jesus are good stories to illustrate a point. They aren't historical events and that makes them no less valuable or true. It does not really matter of Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale does it? The point of the book is the same even if it amounted to an Old Testament parable.

Progressive Christians do believe and follow the Bible. We just don't use the fundamentalist interpretive lens to do so.

[Dave Roberts]

[Haruo]

The Bible never says Jonah was swallowed by a whale. It consistently says it was a big fish. The word "whale" occurs twice in KJV (once in Job, once in Ezekiel) plus possibly once in the KJV Apocrypha (I'll check when next I'm at Fremont); it does not occur at all in the ESV or the NIV, and the NRSV has it only in the Deuterocanonicals (Azariah and the Three Jews 1:57). So any Biblical literalist who tells you the Bible says Jonah was swallowed by a whale is just plain ignorant of the literal facts. Since the Bible predates Linnaeus, it is quite possible that the big fish was a whale, but it is not stated to have been such.

[Tom Parker]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

The Princeton example gave Keith a chance to ignore the broader statement in my post, and that relates to Theological education and "academic freedom." What standard, or objective authority inserts the completely humanist definition of academic freedom into theological education? The New Testament writers lay out a very consistent perspective, defining both the objectives and the methods for teaching and preaching the gospel. The Bible is not just a single book, it is a collection of inspired works recognized by the church as authoritative. So contexts, interpreted by corroborating scripture, are pretty clear to find. "Academic freedom" is not a principle that the writers of scripture understood. They didn't operate under a principle that let them bring in other human perspectives, including their own.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tom Parker]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy you are misconstruing all kinds of things under the umbrella of "academic freedom." And you are making huge assumptions about the place of human reason in interpreting the scriptures. We all have to use the reasoning ability that God has given us any time we read the Bible. The interplay of the Holy Spirit and human reason are part of the interpretive lens through which we all read the Bible. If human reason has no part then please tell Al Mohler to toss aside all discussion of Calvinism as an obviously human created system. Why be Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian when none of those can be found in the text?

Conservative Christians, and in particular fundamentalists, do a lot of wishful thinking about how we read scripture and how we get answers out of the text of scripture. You and others claim inerrancy for a Bible we don't have. Then you find some way to claim clarity and near inerrancy of your own interpretation to go with it. So you eliminate the freedom of others to differ with your opinion because you want to sell the idea that you have THE right and true interpretation of scripture.

Well the rest of us understand that conservative Christians and fundamentalist Christians don't have some kind of hotline to God just because you claim you do.

[Haruo]

I don't see the Bible providing much if any real guidance concerning hermeneutics or exegesis. And the examples I do see don't appear to me to be either consistent or congruent with what any modern seminary from the GTU to the Golden Gate (or any Bible College for that matter) is teaching its ministerial students.

[Tim Bonney]

[Mike Stidham]

[Tim Bonney]

Mike one of the big differences is that I don't believe that the UCC owns any of its seminaries. There isn't some kind of denominational mandate that certain theologies have to be taught in a UCC related seminary. In the UMC there are schools that are known for a progressive orientation and others that are known for a conservative orientation and everything in between. None of them are controlled by the UMC. My best understanding is that this is true for UCC and other mainline related seminaries as well.

[Dave Roberts]

Union Presbyterian Seminary (Richmond) does belong to the denomination.

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

I've looked around the PCUSA website. I'm not an expert on Presbyterian polity. But it looks to me like the 10 PCUSA seminaries have an "affiliated" relationship. They do agree to certain standards of theological education but are very diverse theologically. I couldn't track down any official statement on ownership. But without the Presbyterian Book of Order (I think it is called) I don't know.

[KeithE]

[Mike Stidham]