In traditional theology, people are being turned off in droves! The self-appointed “powers that be” have laid down their law and inspiration, joy and awe are out the window.
What in the $%^&^% is their problem? So, a person messes up badly, obviously misinformed or whatever. Finally like all of us, they die. And the religionistas want them – not to suffer for a million years – but to suffer FOREVER. What in the blazes is up with that???
Rjs

Any building whose structural integrity depends on everything remaining exactly as it’s always been, is not truly a structure, but merely an illusion. If the changing of a light switch plate here and there, or maintenance on a bathroom will cause the entire building to collapse, there is no actual structure to the building, it is merely illusory.

In the same way, a Christianity, or a belief system, whose structural integrity depends on beliefs always remaining exactly the same, without movement, growth, or development, is not a belief system, and certainly not Christianity, but merely an illusion. If one cannot question doctrines like biblical inerrancy, or eternal conscious torment, or even something as banal as the origins of “Satan,” without the entire structure collapsing, you have no structure.

To put it simply, all structures, all *true* structures, that is, ought to be able to handle deconstruction, without it resulting in a full collapse. Sadly, today’s brand of Christianity is not deconstructable, and the moving or changing of a single belief truly will result in the entire system’s fall. This is why we must allow certain old structures to fall, without attempting to reform them. Then, after their fall, we can sift through the rubble, and reclaim some of the artifacts the former, illusory structure had hijacked, but attempting to reform such structures can only result in you being buried by its fall.

It’s time to find a new and better way, and to allow the old to collapse.
Jeff Turner

JESUS NEVER:
Started the Christian RELIGION.
Saw human beings as SINNERS.
Died in order to RESCUE people from God.
Established a spiritual HIERARCHY of “clergy” and “laity”.
Created a theological ORTHODOXY about God.
Wrote or read the NEW TESTAMENT.
Advocated the hatred, DIMINISHMENT or maltreatment of another human being for any reason
Taught that WOMEN were subservient to men.
Denied the image of GOD in any human being
Believed that humankind was SEPARATED from God

See me, see the Father. Those were his words. Okay, so:

Healing the son of his birth nation’s enemy;
Freeing the captive, death row adulterous woman and Sabbath breaking man;
Breaking the Sabbath;
Breaking the Kosher table laws;
Breaking the laws about touching the unclean, after not sacrificing for his sin;
Turning water into wine and being blamed for being a drunk while drinking with sinners at their homes;
Telling off the Religious elite;
Messing up the Temple;
Denying the Temple as being God’s Temple;
Disagreeing with sacrifice;
Upsetting the religious elite and government officials;
Refusing to pledge allegiance to his birth nation and it’s king;
Refusing violence and retaliation;
Doing good, blessing and loving all, to include those who deemed him enemy, tortured and killed him, in doing so refusing a Holy, Religious or Just War;
Being Merciful;
Forgiving;
Dying;
Defeating Death, Hades and the Grave;
Emptying Hades;
Resurrecting.

That’s how Father does life, not like Cain, but more like Abel, with his own change in reaction: forgiveness, not vengeance.
Dominic Moes

UNDERSTANDING THE WHOLE BIBLE
Exegesis means approaching the Bible by pulling from what it says. We are trying to learn what it says and what it means, and we are trying to draw something out of the Bible that is actually there. By contrast, eisegesis is when we approach the Bible and insert what we think is there, what we think it means. For example, exegesis of Matthew 24 involves reading the preceding chapters. In these chapters we find Jesus declaring unfolding judgment against Jerusalem. With this backdrop, it is easy to understand what the disciples meant when they asked Him, in Matthew 24, when these things will happen. It is clear they were referencing the judgments Jesus talked about in the preceding chapters. This is what it means to draw meaning out of Scripture based on the actual content and context of the Scripture, not on our preconceived ideas. By contrast, many modern views of Revelation are a good example of eisegesis. For example, when people read about the eagle in Revelation that is flying and declaring woe (see Rev. 8: 13), they assume the eagle must refer to the United States of America, because the eagle is the national symbol. This is eisegesis, because it clearly is not what John meant. The United States did not exist in John’s day, so he could not have been referring to it. The root issue here is how we interpret Scripture.
Dr. Jonathan Welton, Ph.D.
Understanding the Whole Bible

The Baptist fought the Pentecostals, Pentecostal fought the charismatics, the charismatics fought the word of faith, the word faith fought the Grace guys, the grace guys fight the kingdom and present truth, and on and on it goes we always have to fight what’s above us rather than look into it and really study it. – Lynn Hiles

I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable with the idea of “false teaching.”

It’s just a mostly meaningless term that we slap on anything we disagree with, or haven’t been studious enough to actually look into for ourselves. When we use it, we defile, in both our own eyes, and those who respect our opinion, ideas and thoughts that may be true, but that we were either too lazy, complacent, or fearful to actually look into. The thing is, though, if you take the time to familiarize yourself with an idea, even if you continue to disagree with it, you at least come away with a respect for it when you understand how it works, where it came from, and how it emerged. Like a person whose story you take the time to learn, ideas can be respected, even while being fully rejected. Of course, this does not work across the board, and sometimes the history of an idea only adds to our disdain for it, but most things Christians carelessly slap the label “false teaching” on, do not fall into that category.

When you place a label like that on an idea that is central to a person’s identity, you not only defile the idea itself, but the person, in your mind, and open the door for you finding justification for mistreating and disrespecting that person. And that is never ok.
Jeff Turner

HOW CAN WE COME AS CLOSE AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE TO SCIENTIFICALLY “PROVING” ANYTHING, I.E., MAKING CLAIMS THAT ARE GENERALIZABLE ?
(a) Models must be testable
(b) Must generate predictions
(c) Predictions must be able to guide the discovery process.
(d) Must not be merely a default position.
(e) Must abolish counter-claim.
(f) Must extend beyond the intractable problems the opposing paradigm faced.
(g) Must deal with all legitimate scientific concerns.
(h) Must demonstrate all evidence supporting the model.
Dr. Robin Starbuck

HOW CAN WE STUDY OUT THE ISSUE OF HELL WITHOUT HAVING OUR RESEARCH AFFECTED BY ▪ OUR VIEW OF GOD ▪ OUR VIEW OF THE ATONEMENT ▪ OUR APPROACH TO SCRIPTURE OR ▪ OUR PERSONAL NEED ?
– – – – – – – – – – –
Herein Lies the Problem
The stubborn fact is that Scripture is richly polyphonic on the topic of hell and judgment—as if by design. Thus, if we become dogmatic about any one position, we reduce ourselves to reading selectively or doing interpretive violence to those verses that don’t fit our chosen view. Our theological prejudgments blind us to passages we may have read many times but never really seen. Even a tentative removal of traditionalist lenses leads to the question, “Why didn’t I ever see that verse before?”The complexity of the text is not a deficiency! If we can momentarily suspend our penchant for forcing the text to harmonize with our systems or even with itself, we’ll see some magnificent tensions between those old Moroccan leather covers. For example, the Bible repeatedly affirms that God has given humanity the real capacity for authentic choice. To choose between life and death, heaven and hell, and mercy and wrath implies the real possibility that some could choose the way that leads to destruction. The Bible testifies that some may opt for choices that result in permanent posthumous exclusion (the lake of fire, outer darkness, etc.). On the other hand, the Bible just as plainly teaches that God is also free: free to relent, free to forgive, free to restore even when judgment is promised (Hos 11; Jonah 1: 1; 3: 4, 10; 4: 2, 11), free to pursue lost sheep “until he finds them,”free to play out a cosmic history where, in the end, “every knee will bow,” “all things will be restored,”“everything will be reconciled,”and “all will be made alive,” a time when absolutely everything will be “summed up in Christ,”and when Christ will, in turn, hand a saved cosmos over to his Father so “that God may be all in all.” The Alpha purposes of God for the universe will come to their Omega point in Jesus Christ. Thus, before we plant our flag on any one version of hell, we must take all of the biblical texts on hell and judgment, mercy and restoration into account.
Her Gates Will Never Be Shut
Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem
Bradley Jersak

RESOLUTIONS TO PARADOXES IN THE BIBLE
When we who accept the authority of Christ and His Word encounter doctrinal disparity on a particular issue, such as spiritual gifts and the necessity of baptism, we can be assured of the need to delve into the deeper questions and paradoxes on which our conflict rests and work toward resolution at these deeper levels. If we will use our disagreements as opportunities to grow in oneness through doing research and seeking greater depths of wisdom and understanding, we may find more nonbelievers attracted to our faith and interested in our dialogue. (I tend to prefer dialogue over debate because it leads to contemplation more than to conquest.)
Dr. Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
Beyond the Cosmos

ONE GREAT IRONY MUST BE EXPOSED. Many who argue that the existence of evil and suffering proves the nonexistence of an all-powerful, all-loving Creator have no idea that it proves just the opposite. Naturalistic materialism, the notion that the natural world accounts for itself and needs no outside explanation, cannot account for the evil and cruelty we see among humans. Survival of the fittest does not result in the behavior humans exhibit all over the planet toward the land itself or, worse yet, toward plants, animals, and fellow humans.
Dr. Hugh Ross, Ph.D.
Beyond the Cosmos

O. M. G. !!! . Ten seconds ago I was thinking that I’m not sure that all this uncertainty, all this challenging of my former beliefs, all this taking a stand when almost everyone is against me …. maybe I’ve got to go back and … (please forgive me for the word I’m about to use) … compromise. Why don’t I just take the easy way out and go with the flow? Remember “integrity”, Robin? Most of all we need to remember that – G – O – D – is all-power, all-presence, all-knowing AND He is -w-i-t-h-i-n- us!
rjs

Many times in our understanding we would rather be certain, even if we are wrong, than we would to enter the cloud of not knowing and be expected to simply trust his love. Yet in order to ever grow beyond our present experience, we must be willing to grow through the seeming terror of letting go of one belief, and learn to trust His love to interpret everything! In that transition we learn we are not defined by a theological system, but happily governed by an unshakable relationship.

Chuck Crisco
July 15, 2014

You know, Kathleen and Chuck, people just want and need to have everything wrapped up for them so nice and tidy. They sometimes demand it and follow to the letter whoever will deliver this package. They don’t have an inkling of the fact that it cannot be all neatly wrapped up. For a more nearly accurate view of the immensity of God, try marrying quantum physics with Newtonian physics – just for starters!!!
rjs