lessfundamentalism.com
When I was a Fundamentalist Christian, I repeatedly told myself that I believed what I needed to believe to be saved. There are many ways to find relief from this exhausting practice. I eventually became an atheist. Some people become Progressive Christians. Some people hold onto the Nicene creed while admitting that the Bible is not a history book.
It's OK if it turns out that you are a mess of confusion, questions, and contradictory beliefs. Human beings perform highly illogical thinking. We form beliefs through emotion before we justify them with reasons.
Take care,
David Liao
Draft: 2016 May 20 (lists of references/further reading are updated without changing draft date)
PUBLIC DOMAIN
I used to be a Fundamentalist Christian, and I need to share some thoughts with you that I wish someone had shared with me sooner.
I want you to know that I am coming to this conversation aware of the Biblical account of creation, of the origin of sin, and of salvation by grace through the sacrifice of Jesus. The most convincing way I know to demonstrate this is to summarize key points from the Bible.
God created the angels, the heavens, the Earth, the plants, and the animals. Each member of creation was good at its moment of creation, but some members of creation, such as the angels, had free will and the potential to perform sinful behaviors. A sin is any wrong act that misses perfection. Sinful agents cannot enjoy eternal life, which is remaining forever in the presence of God. For example, the Archangel Lucifer committed the sin of pride by thinking so highly of himself as to aspire to elevate himself to be like God. Lucifer was cast out from heaven, along with that third of the angels who followed him. Lucifer became the Devil, known as Satan, and his fallen angels became the host of demons.
After God created the heavens and the Earth, God also then created Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were human beings, created with free will. Initially, this man and wife were free from sin. They had not yet done anything to lose the everlasting life of remaining forever with God. God provided a home for Adam and Eve, which was the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were allowed to enjoy the fruits of the garden, with one exception. God prohibited Adam and Eve from eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The serpent (commonly identified as Satan) tempted Eve to eat the fruit, promising that it would open her eyes so that she would become knowledgeable, like God. Eve committed the sin of pride by thinking so highly of herself that she thought that she should have God's knowledge. She ate the fruit and shared the fruit with Adam. Thus, man and woman committed the first sins of humankind.
Now that they were stained with imperfection, neither Adam nor Eve could remain in the presence of God. They were cast out of the Garden of Eden and lost eternal life, eternal life again meaning being forever in the presence of God. Adam and Eve's descendants, including you and me, inherit sin. Because all humans have sinned, all humans are separated from God, all humans are mortal, and all humans start out their lives on the way to eternal death in hell. We all start out already separated from God, already in a state of spiritual death.
I will describe how God provided salvation from eternal death, but before I do this, I need to explain one of His most important features. God is triune. God is one single God and, at the same time, three distinct persons. Jesus (the Son), the Father, and the Holy Ghost are three persons distinct from each other. They are not the same, and yet, at once, Jesus (the Son) is God, and the Father is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And, again, there is only one God.
The mystery of this trinity is beyond human understanding. Attempts at describing the trinity using simple analogies tend to create heresy.
For example, claiming that we can understand Jesus, the Father, the Holy Ghost, and God in the same way that we understand the phase of water called ice, the phase of water called liquid water, the phase water called steam, and the substance of water commits the heresy of modalism. This heresy treats Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost as alternative forms (like avatars) of the same God, denying that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost are distinct persons. Another example of a poor analogy compares Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost to the leaves of a three-leaf clover, with God being the entire clover. Since each leaf is a subpart of the whole, no one leaf can be identified as the whole. Using this analogy to describe Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost is heretical because it denies that each of Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Ghost is, at once, the one same God.
I needed to introduce Jesus because He is crucial to how God provides salvation from eternal death.
The Virgin Mary became pregnant with a child because the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Highest overshadowed her. Mary gave birth to Jesus (the Son, God in human person). Jesus would have been born with sin if he had been conceived by a human father and a human mother, but he was not a child of a human father and a human mother, and He was born free from sin.
Jesus and his disciples performed miracles that provided evidence that Jesus was the Son of God.
Jesus was crucified and died. He took on humankind's sins. In our place, Jesus served the sentence for humankind's sins by being dead for three days. Jesus was resurrected after three days. He revealed himself to witnesses and eventually ascended to heaven.
Only Jesus could serve as a sacrifice to receive punishment (that punishment being death) for humankind's sin. No other human person could be a sacrifice for anyone else's sins because any other human being's death would only have served as fair punishment for that person's own sins.
Jesus saves (from eternal death, which is eternal separation from God) anyone who repents from his or her sinful ways and believes in Jesus as his or her Lord and savior. There is no other way to obtain salvation. Salvation cannot be earned through work. It comes only by God's grace.
At a time known beforehand to no one, Christians will be quickly lifted from the surface of the Earth to meet Jesus in the clouds.
People left on the Earth will then suffer a seven-year period of worldwide social and natural disasters. These seven years are called the tribulation. The latter half of the tribulation will be particularly severe. During these seven years, the nations of the world will be united in an alliance led by the Antichrist, an exceptionally evil false savior. Anyone living under the rule of this worldwide alliance will be required to worship the Antichrist and will be required to receive his identifying mark, the numeral sequence 666.
The Antichrist will lead the armies of the world in battle at Armageddon, where Jesus will defeat them. Jesus will reign for a thousand years of peace. During this millennium, Satan will be locked up. At the end of the millennium, Satan will be released for a short season to deceive whomever he can. Then, God will make His final judgment. According to whether they have been saved, people will either have eternal life or be thrown into the lake of fire to suffer an eternal conscious death.
The Bible is our source for understanding sin, death, our opportunity to receive salvation, and the upcoming events of the end times.
The preceding account differs from popular misconceptions about sin and the afterlife. Some people think that our place in heaven or hell is determined when we die by weighing the good deeds that we have done against the evil deeds we have done and by sending us to heaven if the good deeds outweigh the evil deeds and sending us to hell if the evil deeds outweigh the good deeds. It is important to know that no one would go to heaven following such an examination. Salvation cannot be earned. Everyone is born with sin that requires eternal separation from God, which is to say, eternal death. Salvation can only come from Jesus, who served as a blameless sacrifice.
I have shown you that I understand the basic tenets of your faith. I also want to show you that I understand ways in which you believe your faith is important for life today.
I will describe some views that Fundamentalist Christians hold regarding the ongoing role of spirituality in the world. The views go like this:
The agents and principles we learn about in the Bible continue to be relevant in the present day. Satan and his demons continue to engage in spiritual warfare to entice people to commit sins and to misdirect people away from salvation.
One way that the Devil promotes sin is by encouraging people to legalize evil.
For example, the Devil encourages legalization of abortion. Satan worshippers participate in ritualistic abortions at abortion clinics. Abortion is a sin because it is murder and because it is an expression of the ultimate sin, pride. Mother and father exercise arrogance when they believe that their convenience is more important than the life of the human person in the mother's womb.
As another example, the Devil encourages legalization of homosexual marriage. A homosexual man or woman commits the crime of arrogance and pride by thinking that he or she knows better than God when pursuing perverted desires outside of God's design for marriage and sex, both of which are reserved for pairings until death of only one man and one woman.
Remarrying following divorce is also an example of legal sin. Marriage is permanent. Anyone who divorces a spouse and sleeps with a new spouse while the ex-spouse is stll living commits adultery.
Another way that the Devil engages in spiritual warfare is by promoting the spread of religions that are close enough to Christianity that they can confuse and mislead potential believers to prevent them from receiving salvation. Examples of religions that are dangerously similar to Christianity include Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and some forms of Catholicism.
Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are heretics because they do not believe in a literal trinity. Mormons are also heretics because they do not believe in the Virgin birth. Instead, they believe that Mary became pregnant with Jesus through sex with God.
Some Catholics perform idol worship by worshipping the saints. They say that they "venerate" the saints and "worship" God, but this is merely a superficial distinction. It is difficult to "venerate" the saints and to "worship" God without these two actions being, during practical experience, the same. Thus, some Catholics actually worship the saints, which means that they commit the sin of idolatry.
While I have not described all of your beliefs, I think that I have described enough of them to make clear that my challenge to your form of faith does not originate merely from my being ignorant of what you believe.
One of the claims important to many Fundamentalist Christians is the assertion that the Bible is a literal record of historical facts. This assertion cannot be successfully defended. It is not possible to literally believe each word of the Bible without running into logical contradictions. I will illustrate this with an example from the story of creation and with an example from the account of Jesus' life.
Genesis chapters 1 and 2 present two different creation stories.
In chapter 1, God created the animals, and then He created man. In Genesis 1:21 we read, "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good." Then, in verses 25-27 we read, "And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created he him; male and female created he them." In the creation story I have just read to you, God created the animals and then created man to have dominion over the animals.
This contradicts the story of creation in Genesis chapter 2, in which God created man, and then created animals.
In Genesis 2:7, we read, "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Then, in verses 18-20, we read, "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him." In the verses I have just read for you from Genesis chapter 2, God first created man and then created animals in hope of creating an assistant for man.
Genesis chapters 1 and 2 contradict each other on a matter of chronological fact because Genesis 1 presents a story in which God created animals and then created man while Genesis 2 presents a story in which, instead, God created man and then created animals.
The gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke are said to be "synoptic" because they closely parallel each other. However, even these gospels give inconsistent accounts of what Jesus said. Each of these gospels describes the testimony Jesus gave when He was confronted by the priests and asked to say whether He was the Son of God.
In Matthew 26:63-64, we read, "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said." In Luke 22:70, we read, "Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am." Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus provided the high priest an indirect answer. Rather than immediately confirming that He is the Son of God, Jesus merely confirms that the claim that He is the Son of God has been voiced by someone else, either the single high priest who interrogated Him in the passage I read from Matthew or the host of priests who interrogated him in the passage I read from Luke.
However, in Mark 14:62, we read a contradictory account. The Bible reads, "Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, I am." In Mark, unlike in Matthew and Luke, Jesus responds to the priest's question by affirming that He is the Son of God. In Mark, Jesus does not merely confirm that someone else has claimed that He is the Son of God. Jesus directly confirms that He is the Son of God.
There are other examples of internal inconsistencies in the Bible. However, these two examples already more than sufficiently demonstrate that the Bible cannot be regarded as a flawless, literal record of historical fact.
I want to make sure that you noticed the specific way that I called the accuracy of the Bible into question. I was not trying to point out inconsistencies between parts of the Bible and modern cultural beliefs or scientific understanding. Instead, I pointed out that parts of the Bible are inconsistent with each other. You can dismiss an inconvenient scientific finding by describing it as merely a theory, but if you attempt, in the same way, to dismiss a part of the Bible that contradicts another part, then you end up dismissing Scripture itself. The Bible itself provides evidence that it cannot be regarded as a literal record of historical fact.
Fundamentalist Christians sometimes believe that Biblical principles are evident to non-believers, and this means that non-believers are dishonest when they claim that they deny Biblical principles. It is not helpful to bring such an attitude to a conversation with a non-believer or with a non-Fundamentalist Christian.
"Common sense" observations and perspectives that some Fundamentalist Christians consider as incontrovertible and obvious evidence for their positions are not always regarded by non-believers and non-Fundamentalist Christians in the same way. When so-called evidence that allegedly makes Biblical principles obvious turns out, in the non-believer's eyes, to be evidence that does not actually prove Biblical principles, the non-believer can end up thinking that Fundamentalist Christians are naïve and ignorant.
Central to Fundamentalist Christian belief is a belief in a world of unseen spirits. Some people hold that these beliefs are undeniably justified by eyewitness accounts of alleged communication with spirits. I will mention two common examples. I will then make the point that explanation of these kinds of examples does not require supposing the existence of a spirit world.
An example familiar in Western cultures is the Oujia board. In this activity, multiple participants place their hands on a cursor that moves, despite the lack of obvious central command from any particular participant, across a sequence of symbols printed on a board. The Chinese equivalent of this device and activity is the die xian 碟仙.
Another example of alleged communication with unseen spirits is automatic writing. A planchette is a small piece of wood with a hole that holds a pen or pencil against, for example, a piece of paper. A planchette is touched by a participant or by participants. When multiple participants hold onto the planchette, handwriting is generated, again, without any obvious central command from any particular participant. A Chinese variation is called fu ji 扶箕. In the Chinese variant, multiple participants are involved in supporting a stylus and moving the underlying writing medium (for example, a tray of sand).
It is possible to explain these forms of alleged communication in terms of muscle movements that participants execute outside of their conscious awareness. This effect is referred to by the phrase, "ideomotor effect." One observation used to argue that Oujia boards and related activities rely on the ideomotor effect is the observation that the Oujia board spits out nonsensical strings of gibberish when participants are blindfolded. One can formally suppose that this observation demonstrates that the spirit world requires use of participant eyes to guide the cursor. However, it seems less absurd, at least for me, to conclude that participants, without being aware of it, look at the board to guide the cursor. If you are predisposed to believe in a spirit world, then you might find it less absurd to believe in a supernatural explanation for the Ouija board. Because this is a matter of philosophy, it might not be possible for us to arrive at a consensus through reasoned persuasion. Philosophy is subjective.
The point is that there are natural explanations consistent with observations that you might think require supernatural explanation. Common experiences and observations that are used to argue for the existence of a spirit world do not actually logically require such a spirit world to exist.
Fundamentalist Christians sometimes believe that all people have some sense of good and evil. Following from this belief, even non-believers should be aware that behaviors that Fundamentalist Christians consider immoral are, in fact, immoral. Universal prevalence of a sense of good and evil means that people can be expected to believe in God because having a sense of good and evil suffices to inspire someone to suspect a source of such a moral sense, and this source should obviously be God.
In Romans 2:14-15 we read, "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;" In this passage, even people who have not been converted have the "work of the law written in their hearts" and have "conscience."
You need to know that there are people who behave in an enduring manner that is consistent with the absence of empathy and with the absence of a conscience. Many people believe that such "sociopaths," as they are called, actually have no conscience. Being a sociopath is formerly described as having "antisocial personality disorder" in the DSM-IV. During a given year, antisocial personality disorder occurs in 1% of adults in the United States population. Because sociopaths are known to exist, a non-believer might not be persuaded by a Fundamentalist Christian who argues, "You should believe in God because everyone knows right and wrong, and, thus, everyone must be at least subconsciously aware that there is a source of morals."
Many Fundamentalist Christians take it for granted that there simply is just male and female and that these genders are obvious at birth. We have already read a verse that is consistent with this perspective. In Genesis 1:27 we read, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female created he them."
You need to know that there are individuals with anatomy and/or chromosomes differing from what many Fundamentalist Christians consider as male or female. The incidence of atypical genitalia has been estimated in the 1 per 4500 births range. Approximately 1 in 650 newborn males have sex chromosomes XXY, rather than XY. This chromosomal variation corresponds to classic Klinefelter syndrome. When a non-believer or non-Fundamentalist Christian possesses this knowledge, it becomes unproductive for a Fundamentalist Christian to assert that God has obviously made people male or female.
Proponents of so-called bathroom bills, which have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, have peddled them by spuriously portraying transgender women as potential rapists.
That threat exists only in the imagination of bigots. Supporters of the measures have been unable to point to a single case that justifies the need to legislate where people should be allowed to use the toilet. North Carolina is the first state to pass such a provision.
In this last section, I discuss the possibility that the passionate devotion that many Fundamentalist Christians display might actually be a sign of insecurity or idolatry.
Believing in God and believing that you believe in God are distinct practices. Believing in Jesus is an action that is essential for salvation according to Fundamentalist Christianity, but this is not the same action as believing that you believe in Jesus. How much of your mental concentration and anxious concern is devoted to reassuring yourself that you believe in God?
I think that a lot of Fundamentalist Christians know, at a subconscious level, that they have a shaky faith. They do not like to confront the uncomfortable possibility of being unsure about their beliefs. As a result, they loudly profess their alleged beliefs and vote for public policies and policymakers to provide evidence to others and to themselves, that they truly believe what they think they need to believe to have salvation. "I wouldn't have voted that way unless I really believed—so the fact that I voted that way must mean that I really believe. Phew."
I suspect that for those Fundamentalist Christians who are particularly insecure, no amount of such profession and civic engagement can satisfy the need to feel confident that they believe what they think they need to believe. I think they end up with an obsessive, compulsive disorder in which they repeatedly and futilely try to remind themselves that they are Christians. You need to ask yourself whether your attempt to impose your beliefs into public policy originate from insecurity in your own faith. If it does, maybe you should address that insecurity directly rather than hoping that you can silence your doubts by being a missionary or by imposing the beliefs you think you believe on others through political involvement.
In addition to the possibility that overbearing application of beliefs during civic engagement could be a sign of insecurity, as I just mentioned, I think that overbearing application of beliefs during civic engagement can also be a practice of idolatry.
You need to think about how often you notice yourself directing mental effort to believing that you believe in Jesus vs. how often you notice yourself believing in Jesus. If you notice that the amount of time that you devote to consciously believing that you believe in Jesus is greater than the amount of time you spend consciously believing in Jesus, then much of the time, you are not worshipping Jesus. Instead, much of the time, you are worshipping your own faith. This is idolatry. When you publicly profess your faith and vote for public policies and policymakers consistent with Fundamentalist Christian views, are you really doing so as an act of belief in God, or, instead, as an act in which you call attention to, praise, and, thus, worship your own faith? "Look at how much I believe. I believe so much that I am voting for Christian policies and policymakers." This way of thinking sounds a lot like the kind of thinking I used to characterize insecurity, but when spoken with sincere confidence it sounds like the self-aggrandizing words of a Pharisee. If you are worshipping your own faith, then you need to ask yourself how close you are to becoming like Lucifer and worshipping yourself.
I used to be a Fundamentalist Christian, and I wish someone had shared with me sooner the thoughts that I just shared with you.