Saturday, May 29, 2010

Why I am no longer a religious fundamentalist

5 comments:

Hot Sam said...

If one accepts the Christian interpretation of who does and does not earn the glory of the Kingdom of God, then that reward is not granted to groups but rather to individuals.

Any of those Jews could have gone to Hell for failure to atone for their sins while any of those Nazis could be playing a harp having realized the error of their ways.

Oskar Schindler was a Nazi. In which afterlife is he?

I'm not trying to convert you nor am I even asserting the existence of an afterlife. I'm merely addressing your question as a Christian theologian would answer.

I'm also not sure what a "fundamentalist" is. I've often heard it used as a pejorative or a proud expression of faith, but I don't think there are differing degrees of Christianity.

If your definition of "fundamentalist" is a "Bible literalist", then I think we can agree they are nut cases.

If a fundamentalist is someone who places their religion at the center of their life, that's not always a bad thing. I know families who live that way and they are very good people, very loving, rational, sane, and very happy.

Hot Sam said...

Pastor Mike Huckabee profiled a Lutheran minister named Dietrich Bonhoeffer who actively resisted the Nazis. He infiltrated the party as a spy and conspired to assassinate Hitler.

He left Germany and arrived in the United States, but he felt "called by God" to return and fight the Nazis.

He was arrested for assisting Jews and when the Gestapo learned he planned to kill Hitler, he was executed.

So a Christian ordained minister conspires to commit murder.

Is he in Heaven or Hell?

"How do you deal with true evil?" his biographer asked?

Should he have turned the other cheek and rendered unto Caesar what is Caesars?

That's a more interesting question.

Anonymous said...

Suppose you think the whole idea of god/gods a total crock? Why should people pay attention to an institution shrinking away to nothing before our eyes?

JT said...

Your visual aid came to mind just this morning in church. The pastor's example was that there is a difference between those who 'barely' get into heaven and those who are greeted with, "...well done, good and faithful servant.". That might be something, but I have always gotten hung up on the Christian model that portends that Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler may well be sharing the same afterlife - if he, in fact, gave his life to God at the end. I guess that I want to believe in a God that is a little more discerning than that.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Harper,
The traditional Baptist position is "once saved, always saved".

I go for "Not damned, never was damned."