01-15-2018, 12:23 PM
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.
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.
For every difficult and complicated question there is an answer that is simple, easily understood and wrong." H.L. Mencken