kBOY --

Thanks for that excellent link. You (or someone here) referenced that blog before I believe. That blog post pretty much sums up exactly where I am at as well. I now have an uncle in-law (by my wife's aunt's recent marriage who is a scholar of ancient texts, has written a number of books and specializes in ancient Hebrew works. He was at one time a member of a group called "The Jesus Seminar". These guys aren't even convinced that Jesus really said many of the things that the gospels claim that he said.

This caused me to kick off some research on my own into how the NT came into being, how the specific documents were selected etc. Having read quit a bit of the available apologetics literature that I can find on the net, I am absolutely amazed at how shaky much of it is.

I find it amusing that the religious community expects us to believe (not just Christians, BTW, but Mormons and others) expect us to accept that a God that is "all seeing", "all knowing", "all powerful", "Omni-present" (and I probably forgot a couple) who loves us infinitely would expect us to base our relationship on a collection of documents with no provenance. I have actually begun to question this a lot.

Anyway, great link. Thanks. I liked FSLC's remarks as well.

Jewel

FCSLC:

Great post. It seems you violated early TLW admonitions and actually investigated Biblical scholarship and early church history, the same path I found myself on following my exit. A rude awakening if there ever was one.

It is difficult to convey to Biblical devotees that the inerrancy and infallibility doctrine goes back to Constantine, and any questioning of the doctrine in those days carried with it the death penalty. Nowadays, the penalty has been softened to simple expulsion from fellowship.

TheJewel:

I plead guilty in promoting John Pavlovitz. He is just one of many voices ‘within’ Christianity (being identified by fundamentalists with the pejorative term as a ‘progressive’) that is seeking to recapture the heart of the GOSPEL of LOVE that was unfortunately steamrolled by the religion of Christianity.

It is interesting you bring up the Jesus Seminar. My first exposure to it was studying the Gospel of Thomas shortly after my TLW departure. You may find it of interest to compare their take on the Gospel, along with another perspective, in the book, CLOSING THE CIRCLE, by Rogier Fentener van Vlissingen.

[www.amazon.com]

It may also be of interest to you that there is a significant subset of Christianity that attributes the obfuscation of the GOSPEL of LOVE, and the formation of Roman Christianity to Paul, and view him with a very unfavorable eye.

Great post and HAPPY hunting.

kBOY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> TheJewel:
>
> I plead guilty in promoting John Pavlovitz. He is
> just one of many voices ‘within’ Christianity
> (being identified by fundamentalists with the
> pejorative term as a ‘progressive’) that is
> seeking to recapture the heart of the GOSPEL of
> LOVE that was unfortunately steamrolled by the
> religion of Christianity.
>
> It is interesting you bring up the Jesus Seminar.
> My first exposure to it was studying the Gospel of
> Thomas shortly after my TLW departure. You may
> find it of interest to compare their take on the
> Gospel, along with another perspective, in the
> book, CLOSING THE CIRCLE, by Rogier Fentener van
> Vlissingen.
>
> [www.amazon.com]
> l-Miracles/dp/184694113X
>
> It may also be of interest to you that there is a
> significant subset of Christianity that attributes
> the obfuscation of the GOSPEL of LOVE, and the
> formation of Roman Christianity to Paul, and view
> him with a very unfavorable eye.
>
> Great post and HAPPY hunting.

KBOY,

Thanks for the reply. No issue with John Pavlovitz, it is good thinking. I enjoyed reading the comments after the blog as well. I particularly like his Rule #11.

As for the writings of Paul, I came to this conclusion myself quite some time ago while trying to understand the treatment that women get in Christianity (particularly in groups like TLW and the infamous Fort Lauderdale Five New Wine guys plus many others). This all stems from the writings of Paul. I began to come to the conclusion that there is either something the matter with my understanding or perhaps he was just expressing his opinion.

I have now come to the point that one simply cannot take that stuff literally. At absolute best, you have to look at all of this stuff within the context of the time it was written and what was going on then (and we probably really don’t know). This drives you to a more scholarly approach (assuming you want to take the time) which is orthogonal to what JRS and TLW taught us with the aversion to seminaries etc. It is refreshing to see that others are tumbling to this same conclusion.

In light of this, one thing I find amazing is the Marylyn thing where TLW seems to come 180 degrees from the original teaching in TLW of the woman submitting to the man, the man being her covering, etc. JRS must be rolling over in his grave ad a rate of about 30 RPM with that. Cronquist must be spinning at 1500 (in fact there must be occasional earthquakes near wherever he is planted). I remember this submission thing being cornerstone to the thinking (at least when I was around anyway). Ha… even the perversion seems to have been perverted.

I have been thinking about picking up a copy of Thomas and maybe the Jesus seminar 5 gospels, I just haven’t done it yet. Most of my research has been confined to the web.


FWIW: my uncle in-law is Loren Fisher; he has an amazon page here:

[www.amazon.com]

Jewel

JEWEL:

Thanks for the informative response. It's always good to have a relative who knows a few things, with an impressive body of work to boot.

As far as TLW male/female leadership leapfrogging is concerned, they have yet to meet a double-standard they have failed to uphold. The one that should concern them the most is the establishment of doctrine overriding LOVE.

This biblical scholarship stuff is driving me nuts. Could please get back into a discussion about country line dancing, or the McDougall diet?
Thanks in advance.

I was recently reading up on Apostolic 'affairs' and the silver mine debacle. Is that better?

TheJewel Wrote:
> In light of this, one thing I find amazing is the
> Marylyn thing where TLW seems to come 180 degrees
> from the original teaching in TLW of the woman
> submitting to the man, the man being her covering,
> etc. JRS must be rolling over in his grave ad a
> rate of about 30 RPM with that. Cronquist must be
> spinning at 1500 (in fact there must be occasional
> earthquakes near wherever he is planted). I
> remember this submission thing being cornerstone
> to the thinking (at least when I was around
> anyway). Ha… even the perversion seems to have
> been perverted.

The perversion has been perverted--ha

Can anyone please explain what went down with the Nevada silver mine thing? I know a number of LW members invested in it and lost significant chunks of money. Was this strickly a Coniah chapel deal? Was it mostly RD and a guy named Holder? Or was JRS involved too. I recall that the whole disaster was vealed in secrecy and sheep were told to not ask questions.

The sordid details can be found on pages 130-137 in the Woodrow Nichols expose, 'THE WALK of JOHN ROBERT STEVENS'. There is plenty of guilt to spread around, and much to be ashamed of. What is most surprising is that the promotion of fundraising for Shiloh followed shortly after many had just been fleeced by the mine debacle. Those who forget history are bound to repeat it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2016 12:59AM by kBOY.