I accept the fact that there is a great moral and cultural divide in our country that may never be healed or reconciled. What often disturbs me about this divide is when a so-called intellectual expert uses false information to explain the Spiritual persons core beliefs.
Such disertations are disappointing and disrespectful. I could give such critics the benefit of the doubt and assume their words were written out of ignorance and not malice but I expect more out of an academic in terms of research and information. They make basic erroneous theological assumptions about the core beliefs of Spiritual people and attempt to build a case against the social conscience of the Spiritual community based on this faulty premise.
Statements such as "The ultimate authority for their views is to be found in the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They might insist on the priority of the Gospels over other scriptures, especially the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament - except for the stories of the creation and fall of man and the Ten Commandments."
Their assumptions are that we Spiritual people do not take the whole of Scripture as Scripture, only those parts that promote our social agenda. For example:
1. Spiritual people use the first three chapters of the book of Genesis to preach and to impose Biblical creationism into our public schools. 2. The creation account of Genesis 1-3 serves the social purposes so they use it contextually. The implication is that Spiritual people do not consider the rest of Genesis as the Word of God.
Sadly, this is a flawed premise used by liberal critics in academia to intimidate and scorn Spiritual young people in the college classrooms. From this premise he proceeded to attack our social agenda on Creationism, prayer in schools, abortion, and homosexuality with a plethora of falsehoods and prejudice.
What is this source for this nonsense? I know of no Spiritual confession of faith or standard of any Spiritual church or denomination. I know of no Spiritual pastor worth his weight as a spokesman for God's Word that would hold to any other belief concerning the authority of Scripture than its verbal and plenary inspiration. I am a Beleiver and I believe the Bible to be one book made up of 66 chapters all of which are equally the inerrant, inspired, and infallible Word of the Living God from Genesis to Revelation, Old and New Testaments inclusive. In fact, that is a core belief that defines all Beleivers.
For these intellectual experts to miss that point makes for a critical flaw in the rest of their arguments. Beleivers do not insist on imposing a Christianized society. Nowhere do we preach or teach a Spiritual demagoguery. But because we insist on the inerrancy of Scripture, we take our citizenship very seriously. We take the Great Commission to preach the good news to all men very seriously. We hold to the Scriptural belief that we must be a Redemptive Presence in a fallen world.
Yes, the world is fallen. This is a core teaching throughout the Bible, not merely in the Genesis account of the fall. Yet, it is in the Genesis account we find the first inklings of the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and the all-encompassing love of a God Who would initiate His plan of Redemption in grace and mercy. It is there we find a thorough discussion of the origins of man, the presence of evil and the evil one, and the covenantal promises God made to His people.
It has always intrigued me that the pseudo-intellectuals take great pains to attack the Bible's message - more specifically the Book of Genesis, and even more specifically the first three chapters of Genesis. It stands to reason if those pages can be ripped out of the Bible the scoffing cynics will be able to escape the issues of sin, the fallen nature of man, and man's need for a Savior.
Beleivers do not adhere to a mythical Big Bang theory. The only Big Bang was when God said and it was! I have listened ad nauseum to the emotional arguments used against Creationism. This is not the purpose of this message. That can be done another time. I did, however, actually debate this matter before with an extreme intellectual who posited the theory on the origins of life (only when pressed by me to do so) that the first life forms arrived here on a spaceship. And this is academia at its best? Hardly! It takes more faith to believe these theories or a scientifically flawed Darwinism than it does to believe in the creation account of Genesis.
It appears the biblical values are also core values of mainstream America. We are opposed to abortion because it is Biblical to do so. But we minister in love to those who choose death over life because that, too, is Biblical. It is not the local abortion mill or Planned Parenthood that is there to pick up the pieces of a shattered life caused by the horrors of abortion. It is the Beleivers that spends countless hours weeping with and reaching out to that young girl because it is Biblical to do so. We are opposed to the gay agenda because it is Biblical to do so.
But we have reached out in love to anyone who wants help because that, too, is Biblical. We are opposed to the ban on prayer in school because it is Biblical to do so. Yet we encourage our kids to keep on praying for and loving those who mock because it is Biblical to do so. We preach against sex before marriage because it is Biblical to do so. Yet we have loved and ministered to sexually active teenagers in youth groups, Sunday School classes, campus outreaches, and we have spent millions of dollars to embrace them because it is Biblical to do so. We preach against cruel name-calling if we disagree with someone. We do not need to do so. Truth is truth, regardless of whether or not you decide that it is. We are all God’s children, and we all deserve His unconditional love equally. For we all fall short of the glory of God. Period.
So I encourage academic dialogue. But make the dialogue fair. Do not assign false core beliefs to the Spriritual People. Understand that the starting point for the Beleiver is the inerrancy of all of God's Word. We adhere to the verbal and plenary inspiration of Scripture, that every Word is God-breathed and is true. We contend for the faith and do so with vigor and determination to be that Redemptive Presence in a fallen world. For we are all beloved children of God!
Amen... Mrs. P
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