[Ricardo]

Fundamentalism has been mentioned as relying on five “fundamentals:”

1. The inspiration of scripture as the literal, revealed word of God.
2. The virgin birth as the means by which the divine nature of Christ has been guaranteed.
3. Atonement for the rest of us accomplished by the death of Jesus.
4. The certainty of the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
5. The truth of the second coming of Jesus, the reality of the Day of Judgment, which would be based on the record of one’s life, and the certainty of heaven and hell as eternal places of reward and punishment.

While those of us in the process of leaving fundamentalist churches are leaving mostly because of legalism and abuse of power on the part of our pastors, sooner or later we will have to review these five fundamentals.

I've got news: Just as it is possible to thrive as a Christian outside of the fundamentalist churches, it is also possible to grow as a Christian by discarding the five fundamentals.


With the above, I had thought of starting a thread on each one of the fundamentals. I lost steam after the third one. This intro is here: http://www.sflforums.com/showthread.php?tid=2805

If you click on my name and click on my threads you will find several threads from over 5 years ago on the fundamentals and on Inerrancy.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of full-fledged Christians who do not believe in one or even ANY of the five fundamentals.

How is that possible?

It has taken me a lifetime to find some answers for myself to that question.

[myotch]

How does one grow as a Christian, yet deny and refuse the concept of Christ’s atonement?

[steve95054]

(09-19-2017, 12:04 AM)Workin Wrote: The Law was supposed to represent God's perfect standard of righteousness. It's not about what humans did wrong, it's about what humans are supposed to do, and how humans are supposed to treat each other.

This is the crux of the matter, and I have good news for you: the Law is not God's perfect standard of righteousness.  It is not about how humans generally are supposed to treat each other (although it does have some of that in it).

It is, more specifically, the standard of behavior (not righteousness, but legal code) God set for those humans at that time and in that place.  It was not to completion of His revelation, nor was it the highest possible Law He could give.  It was the Law of slaves, not of sons; of children, not of mature adults.  It was, precisely, a schoolmaster designed to bring the Jews (and all humanity through them) to Christ -- that is, to create the conditions in which the Virgin Mary might be produced, so that God could join Himself to mankind, manifesting in Him His actual perfect standard of righteousness -- overflowing love, even through death.

This is not the keeping of the Law in the sense of "following all the rules", but rather the perfect union of the human and the divine, raising mankind to the level of perfect Love by Himself descending as far as we had fallen, even into death and Hades itself, in order to retrieve us, the sheep lost in the wilderness.  If you are united with Him, and learn this meekness and love from Him, then you do end up keeping the Law, because the Law does command the love of God and neighbor, and this is its highest command. So if you have love for God and neighbor, you have kept the Law by extension.  But in Christ you don't just obey the Law, you transcend it.  You don't just keep it, you fulfill it: that is, you fill it full to overflowing. Then, like an old garment, you fold it up. You don't tear it, nor burn it, or anything like that, but simply lay it aside because you no longer need it: you're clothed in Christ.

Now, since God is eminently and infinitely powerful and wise, the Law is excellent and complete, and meditation therein is highly profitable.  But it's not a shallow thing.  It's "very deep", with many levels of perfection.  "Purified seven times" can be understood to refer to this ... steps of ascent, from the base and gross level of strict and fearful regulation of human conduct, a basic constraint on the basest passions, all the way through the most refined and spiritual understanding in which the essence of each created thing can begin to be contemplated and comprehended.  And each level, in some way -- some more perfectly, some less; some more clearly, some less -- "speaks of me [Jesus]", in whom are all the hidden treasures of knowledge and wisdom.  (Note: They are hidden in Him; they aren't just laying about on the surface of the Law, or history, for any old anybody to stumble over. Although they did stumble over it... :/ )

This is the key to interpretation that allows one to believe in God, and "accept" the Law and the Psalms and the Prophets for what they are, and not for what they are not. The word of truth must be rightly divided.

But the real question is one of theodicy: If God is the same all the time, and God is love, and God is righteous, how then could He at any time command such actions as we find in the Law and the Prophets (and even some of the Psalms)?


Is there unrighteousness with God because He commanded them to act in the ways that He did then?  Could He, or would He, command such destruction in our time?

Well, yes, He could.  In fact, He will, if the Book of Revelation is to be taken at all literally.

And in the End He Himself will consign many to the eternal fire.  Does this make Him unrighteous?

I think that however you answer the question of evil (How could an omnipotent and loving God allow bad things to happen?), then you will have found the answer to your troubles about the Law as well.

For me, it's a matter of choosing to believe, and to believe in a certain epistemological and ontological order, starting with the revelation of God in Christ and working out/down from there.