Unfundamentalist

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No, We Are NOT Marcionites

by Matthew Distefano in Christian History, Christian Issues

The charge of Marcionism is often leveled toward anyone who says that “God is just like Jesus,” who rejects the violence depicted in the Old Testament, and who insists that Christianity is centered on the ideas of peace and reconciliation. This accusation is a form of the straw man logical fallacy, in which someone’s position is misrepresented in order to make it easier to attack and refute.

To understand why the charge of Marcionism is fallacious, let’s begin by taking a brief look at Marcion and his beliefs. Then, we will compare that system with what I, as a Girardian, believe, to see if the two belief systems are synonymous, or if the Marcionism accusation is grossly misguided.

Marcion of Sinope (c. 85 – c. 160 CE)

Though there are a number of reasons why Marcion was an important figure during the second century, he is now primarily remembered as the arch-heretic of the early Church because he rejected the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. Why would he do such a thing? Because Marcion could not reconcile the violence of the deity in the Jewish Bible with the nonviolence of Jesus Christ. Marcion asked the correct questions regarding divine violence, but he didn’t come to the correct conclusions. Instead, he arrived at dualism, where the Hebrew God was more like a demiurge, subservient to the New Testament Father of Christ.

As an unabashed Girardian, I completely reject this view. I don’t reject the God of the Hebrew Scriptures, only some… [Read more…] about No, We Are NOT Marcionites

I've Decided to Leave Church

by Alex Camire in Fundamentalism

I don’t know how else to tell everyone this, so I’ll just come out and say it: I’ve decided to leave church.

I should probably preface this by telling you a few things about me. For starters, I’m nearly twenty-eight-years-old and I’ve gone to the same church my entire life. I grew up in church–my parents met, married, and I, in turn, was born and raised going to church. Church, Christianity, the faith that I’ve learned since I was old enough to go to Sunday School–these are the things that have been central to me my whole life. They’re what everything else revolved around.

Church has been many things to me. It grounded me in a faith that will always be an essential part of who I am. It was a community of like-minded individuals who were like family to me. Many, in fact, are my actual family. It was the place I was socialized. I developed my closest friendships with other church people. It was also where I met and married my wife. And in between everything else, church was a haven, a home, and a place where, for a long time, I felt secure.

So why leave? There are several reasons, but, to put it plainly, my church is a fundamentalist church. Some might say that it’s your average conservative evangelical church, some prefer the term legalistic, and I’ve even heard the word cult or “cultish” thrown out by a few who chose to leave in past years. In laymen’s terms, what this means is that I grew up in a very conservative form of Christianity. It relied on strict codes of… [Read more…] about I've Decided to Leave Church

How Does Identifying with the Kingdom of God Affect Our Political Participation?

by Tim Chastain in Christian Issues, Current Events

This is not a partisan political article; it promotes no political party and no candidate at any level. Rather, it raises the question of how our being part of the kingdom of God influences our voting and political participation and whether being part of the kingdom of God should even matter in our positions on political issues.

It is about five weeks until the polls close on the the national, state, and local elections in the United States. We will be voting to place persons in important decision-making positions, and many of us will vote on state and local initiatives as well.

As we move toward this event, we all know our personal opinions on candidates and issues. The question is: do believers approach issues in the same way as other citizens do, or are there principles of the kingdom that cause us to be different in any way?

I believe there is a difference. However, I can only speak for myself; I cannot dictate to anyone else.

The Two Kingdoms

Believers are members of two kingdoms at the same time. Secondly (first comes later), we are citizens of the United States of America (or another country)—equal to all other citizens of our country. As such, I think we have a responsibility to be good citizens—no, we should be model citizens! We should do our part to help the nation to be successful and to become better in its responsibilities. Yet, as people of the kingdom of God, I don’t think we can give national concerns our first priority.

Our ultimate allegiance is to… [Read more…] about How Does Identifying with the Kingdom of God Affect Our Political Participation?

The Real Story Behind Genesis

by Zach Christensen in Christian History

The first chapters of Genesis were not written to communicate history or science. Creation stories had an entirely different purpose in the Ancient Near East. They were written to give people a vision of their place in the world, and to help them make sense of existence. In other words, they gave people a narrative in which they could live their lives. This is not an outdated idea, as people today still live within functional narratives that cause them to see the world in a certain way. Perhaps the most forceful element of all creation stories is that they explain the essence of what it means to be human.

One creation story that was written before Genesis is the Babylonian creation tale, known as the Enuma Elish. This story has its own way of explaining humanity. The god Marduk kills the goddess of primordial chaos, Tiamat, and forms the heavens and earth from her body. He then kills one of Tiamat’s sons, a rebellious god named Kingu, combines Kingu’s blood with clay, and fashions humans from this mixture. Marduk creates humans to be slaves, in order to do the dirty work so that the gods could be free to enjoy leisure. The picture of what it means to be a person in this story is that human beings are innately worthless and consigned to endure the evil curse of labor without any meaning. This is a story in which many people still live today.

The format used in the opening chapters of Genesis clearly resembles the Enuma Elish, but it tells a completely different story.… [Read more…] about The Real Story Behind Genesis

Of Cheerios and Trump

by Mia Tabib in Current Events

Trigger Warning: sexual assault and eating disorders.

Memory–a bewitching realm, magical and melancholy, real and imagined–absconds as soon as it is experienced. We do not know where The Past hides, but it is both heavenly and harrowing that we live in a reality cursed to fade as soon as it is felt.

When I first meet people, I often ask them about their first memory. Most people respond with a wistful sigh, furrowed brows, and a recollection of vague impressions composed of colors, nebulous sense-perceptions, and broad brushstrokes of consciousness inextricably linked with their emotional awareness.

My first memory is vivid; I was sitting in my wooden high chair. I recall some edible substance on the little table before me; I remember reaching my arm toward the food, grabbing it, and attempting to place it in my mouth. And I remember looking at my hands and my arms, and feeling an emotion that I now know to be wonder. I could move my fingers! I had control over this … this thing–this body; I could control my hands! What magic!

I often strain to remember that feeling I had when I was a toddler, when it was still such a magical thing that I had the ability to pick up my Cheerios, that I could wiggle my toes, or that I could raise my arms to play peek-a-boo with my father. And I always thought how interesting it was that my first memory was remarking on the oddity of me having a body. Physical awareness was not… [Read more…] about Of Cheerios and Trump

Politics Aside: Addressing the Dignity of Women

by Sarah Anderson in Current Events

Most nights growing up, we had the television on during dinner for the first part of the nightly news. It was turned off after the major stories were covered. But on most evenings for most of my childhood, the happenings in the country and the world were pretty consistently the background noise to our mealtime conversation.

That changed in 1998.

1998 was the year that the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton sex scandal broke and, given the content of the topics covered and the sexually explicit terms, the television was quickly turned off by my disgusted—and embarrassed—parents.

Nearly two decades later, and now I’m the parent. We don’t eat to the hum of the talking heads reporting the news, but you can bet I am extra careful these days to keep my 6-year old and 4-year old away from the television when it’s on. Like 1998, it’s a complicated time to be a parent, and a dangerous time to be a kid.

I think what was most disappointing to me in the hours and days that followed the breaking story of Donald Trump and his own explicit and degrading comments about women was how much this was all about politics. Still. 

How there was talk of Trump handing over the nomination due to his brazen and offensive language.

How there was mention of Bill Clinton’s own sordid past and Hillary’s complicit involvement.

How it was all, “Yeah, what he said was terrible, but let’s not forget how bad Bill was and Hillary’s own questionable actions!”

And, “Yeah, but Bill’s not running for… [Read more…] about Politics Aside: Addressing the Dignity of Women

Cracked Humanity

by Cherie Lee in Christian Spirituality

We’re sitting in a huge barn, an open kitchen to one side and a coffee service area to the other.

Running down the middle of the barn are three long, sturdy tables. Over to one of the walls, there’s a smattering of white handprints, reaching over each other to form a mountain.

My pastor stands in front of the group with a guitar.

We’re singing “Amazing Grace.” The group is 40% Iranian refugees, 40% reformed prisoners and 20% reformed-conservative-North-Shore-Christians (that’s my category, anyway).

Minutes earlier, we’d been sitting outside on picnic tables, eating fresh pineapple and watermelon, overlooking the 360 degree greenness of fields and flowers and vegetable patches and horses.

A baby sits on the ground watching a dog who’s watching a chicken.

The farm is a community organization, a place where the reformed prisoners come to learn how to farm, build furniture from recycled timber, rehabilitate race-horses at the end of their careers, as well as enjoy community with each other.

I’m sitting in this service, reflecting on a handful of frustrations in my personal life. Replaying conversations, events. Work run-ins. Sydney traffic.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound / that saved a wretch like me.

One of the guys who had been in prison gets up and tells that after praying every day, he had seen his two sons for the first time in three years the day before.

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free.

That morning I had read a meditation by Richard… [Read more…] about Cracked Humanity

Lost in Translation

by Christina Krost in Current Events

Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

“The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg–I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

“So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’

“‘Nine hundred gallons of olive oil,’ he replied.

“The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred and fifty.’

“Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’

“‘A thousand bushels of wheat,’ he replied.

“He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it eight hundred.’

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Luke 16:1-9

I was asked to prepare a children’s message on the above scripture recently. I realized it would be a tough and nuanced concept to try to explain to kids (and maybe even adults) in a 10-minute time slot. As I got down to business, I realized there was a major… [Read more…] about Lost in Translation

Dispensationalism: A Doctrine More Dangerous Than Hell Itself

by Matthew Distefano in Christian Issues

Theopedia defines dispensationalism as a “theological system that teaches biblical history is best understood in light of a number of successive administrations of God’s dealings with mankind, which it calls ‘dispensations.’” There are seven in all: the dispensation of innocence (Creation → Adam’s fall), of conscience (Adam → Noah), of government (Noah → Abraham), of patriarchal rule (Abraham → Moses), of Mosaic Law (Moses → Christ), of grace (the Church age), and of a millennial kingdom (yet to come). According to dispensational theology, we are currently in the dispensation of grace, also known as the Church age.

Essential to the worldview of dispensationalism is the “rapture” (when Christians are “caught up” into heaven), which will play a crucial role in ushering in the millennial kingdom of the seventh dispensation. Based on my dealings with folks who hold this view, it seems that the rapture will be taking place any day now. Of course, this time they’re certain, just like they were the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, nearly ad infinitum. Well, as ad infinitum as you can get from the year 1830 onward, which is roughly when John Nelson Darby came up with all this nonsensical dispensational hocus-pocus.

What is so scary about dispensationalism is that it is largely (but not entirely) based on a highly literal reading of the book of Revelation. If you are not familiar with John’s Revelation, it is intense and quite… [Read more…] about Dispensationalism: A Doctrine More Dangerous Than Hell Itself

Bearing Witness, Feeling Helpless, and Straining to Hear

by Davin Franklin-Hicks in Christian Issues

Trigger Warning: this article is about sexual assault and may be triggering to survivors.

 

In 1998, I lived in Willowvale, South Africa and taught seventh grade as a missionary for a fundamentalist church.  I was 19, away from home, and living with other American teachers, most of whom were around my age.

For one school break, many of my fellow teachers took trips to game parks and such, while I stayed behind with another teacher named Kendra. One night, Kendra and I were sitting in the living room area. It was very late. We were both night owls. We were reminiscing, telling stories from our lives. It was a quiet, beautiful night. We were enjoying each other’s company, when suddenly we heard a woman screaming, unsure if it was playful or harmful.

We gave our full attention to hear in the silence. The sound of my heartbeat was in my ears–I was on full alert. We heard her again, only this time it was louder and the woman was crying. Then we heard the man. Her screams and cries were even worse. She was being raped.

Kendra and I stared at each other, pleadingly. Helplessness overwhelmed us and we started crying. We began to rock, our knees to our chest, the closest we could come to a fetal position without the vulnerability of lying on the floor.

These two 19 year olds, alone in a land not their own with no access to any emergency services and no ability to intervene. We sobbed as we heard the woman sobbing. We held onto each other and prayed it… [Read more…] about Bearing Witness, Feeling Helpless, and Straining to Hear