I'm an evangelical Christian - ask me anything

[Insieme]

I'm happy to answer questions, though I'm not interested if people just come on to be insulting.

I can only give my views and talk about what I believe - evangelicalism covers a broad spectrum of beliefs and I can only speak for myself.

Ask away!

Yes it does, thanks.
Interesting that you teach about what different religions or some people believe and not that your belief is general fact.
That would be the approach I wish she would take rather than stating her opinion as fact.
Going "too far" is one way to describe it and maybe something I will use next year (small school with same teacher again) if the stories and discussion does go too far.
I can't remember the bible stories in question. The prodigal son stood out as a sort of emotional blackmail that the son had to return and beg forgiveness from god. The other stories I remember involved fire and one about a man losing his eyes, or limbs or something. It was gruesome anyway, I remember that and thinking it didn't sound appropriate for 6 year old.
Is hell a word you ever use in the classroom? That really upset us both as he came home and was afraid to tell me that I was going to hell as I didn't believe in god. My answer, that I wasn't going to hell as I don't believe in hell either, didn't convince him. I wish I had the tools to arm him with the ability to question and reason with the teacher's statements rather than a innocent reverence.

The point of RE though is that children learn about religion, and from religion. Not that they learn one particular religion is true. As I've said, these are not my children, so that isn't my role. So of course I'm going to teach that some people believe this and some people don't.

I wouldn't expect your child to be able to argue an opposite point of view. Children just do tend to believe what a teacher tells them, and it doesn't sound as though your dc is old enough yet to see beyond that and take on other points of view so they can make up their own mind.

I think the main worry is the mentions of hell. That's not something I would talk to young children about, not even my own! It's a concept for mature minds only. That might be the thing that, in your shoes, I would want to tackle with the teacher.

I can't recognise a particular bible story from your descriptions of fire and blindness and all that. But the whole point of the prodigal son story is that the son doesn't have to beg forgiveness - the father comes running out to meet him and forgives him straight away. So something has gone astray there in the telling or interpreting of the story!

That's very helpful thank you.

Op, thinking about the news story that genetics have disproved the Canaanite genocide in the OT, how do you tally this with belief?

When science disapproves something in the bible do you then chalk that passage up to allegory? Or, are there already parts of the bible that haven't been disproved as such that you already see as allegory? Or do you reject the findings?

www.independent.co.uk/news/science/bible-canaanites-wiped-out-old-testament-israelites-lebanon-descendants-discovered-science-dna-a7862936.html

While the Bible suggests they were wiped out by the Israelites under Joshua in the land of Canaan, later passages appear to contradict this and state that there were survivors. Some Biblical scholars have argued the passages describing the Canaanites wholesale destruction are hyperbole and inconclusive

Ah so the there's a contradiction in the bible?

Some Biblical scholars have argued the passages describing the Canaanites wholesale destruction are hyperbole and inconclusive

To the op and other believers. If square the contradiction as a case of poetic licence do you extrapolate from this that other parts of the bible are over egged? Such as the virgin birth and so on?

I'm curious if you think there are any changes that the evangelical churches need to make or that you would want them to make, particularly in light of the growing number of abuse scandals worldwide and the increasing attention that evangelicals and ex-evangelicals are making both in person and in online spaces like the hashtags #SpiritualAbuseIs, #ChurchToo (taken from the #MeToo movement obviously, there are several religious and non-religious variants now), #ChristianAltFacts, #Exvagelicals, and so on trying to bring attention to the issues seen within the evangelical movements.

With history having been brought up, I'm also curious how you or your particular church deals with church history being as it is in terms of messing with Biblical texts and how to mesh together a divine text from the very man-made form it now has. Between the early European church's choices in which books would go in, their calling for and active destruction of the Judaic texts of oral tradition as heretical which many Torah then and now and some Bible scholars now view as meaning to be read with it (which is why many times we see "as you've been taught" within the early parts of the Bible about something not detailed elsewhere, the details are in the Oral tradition which started to be written when it was feared it would be lost), and the mistranslations to fit ideologies not previously there (the one where young woman was mistranslated to virgin being among the most well known as the Virgin Birth idea came quite late, I've long found that odd since the young woman isn't part of a messianic prophecy and the child appears in the next chapter) and well known misuse by missionaries of many Isaiah chapters about the suffering servant being selected to as evidence of Jesus's messiahship when most Biblical scholars point out isn't a messianic prophecy and that the section is about Israel (hence the long life and many children which obviously Jesus did not have). Different churches take different tactics from entirely brushing it aside to being open about the issues within the text and how they've been twisted at times (obviously something being misused by others doesn't make it bad), and having not been in an evangelical church for several years and one of the big complaints by the groups I previously mentioned is how the texts are still being misused within some evangelical churches (particularly in areas at the extremes of the political spectrum, I do think the misuse is more political at this point than religious), I wonder how your church is handling it with all that's going on.

Genetics / science have not disproved that there was a massacre at all.

What the genetics suggests is that some people of Canaan ethnicity survived to pass their genes on to modern times.

The genetics doesn't explain how this happened. Science doesn't explain, its up to people to interpret the results. There are a lot of different interpretations - everything from "this proves the Bible is a load of rubbish" to "the science must be wrong". It's a question of where we think the right interpretation lies.

I'd hope for more scientific evidence for a start - the article admits it was a surprise to get any material after 4000 years, so how good is that material? Perhaps further evidence on a larger sample will come to light in the future.

So, looking at the new scientific results, the question remains, what does that show, if anything? Did the massacre miss a few people? Pretty much every massacre does - people hide, run away, are hidden by others. What about people who were travelling elsewhere at the time? It doesn't take many people to rebuild a small group of families.

I can't tell you what the right interpretation is. At the moment I'm inclined to think a few people survived, unknown to the writer at the time, who wrote what appeared to be true - that everyone was wiped out.. By the time the second passage was written, perhaps it had become clear that there were survivors. It's hardly startling evidence of anything much.

DN4Geek, evangelical churches are not all one group or denomination. They come from all sorts of traditions and viewpoints, so I can't really say what I think they all should do, because many of them are already addressing these issues. In general churches should be more open about the measures they take to prevent abuse, and to try to make amends when it does.

Briefly, the church I belong to has a clear policy on prevention of abuse. Everyone who works with children, the elderly, or other vulnerable groups undergoes regular training. Only people who have been members for at least 12 months can work with those groups. They have to be police checked. No one works alone. There is a nominated person to deal with incidents and allegations, and a deputy. I have no idea if any allegations have ever been made - the process is of course confidential.

As for the wider church (where of course I have no influence at all!) I would like to see a greater willingness to apologise when things have gone wrong, and to co operate with investigations.

DN4Geek, to other matters!

The decisions as to which books form the Bible were made by committee, effectively. The early church debated and argued about this, and made the decision that some books clearly were not as reliable, or were inconsistent with accepted belief. That doesn't mean there hasn't been debate. Even as late as Martin Luther, he was unsure that the book of James should be in the Bible because he felt it leaned too far towards salvation by works.

My view is that it's fine to read whatever you want. If other texts are helpful to you, then that's fine, but if there's a contradiction between those texts and the Bible, I'm going to go with the books that have stood the test of time and that I believe God had a hand in.

On the issue of the virgin birth: there's a lot of focus on whether almah in the Hebrew text of Isaiah means young woman or virgin. Really, it can mean either, though it does seem that virgin is more common. The same applies to parthenos in the New Testament. It most commonly means virgin, but can mean young woman.

However, people use this as 'evidence' that Mary was not a virgin at Jesus' birth, which seems a big leap to me. Even if we assume parthenos means young woman, what are we to make of Mary saying to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin/young woman?" It's a question that only really makes sense if she's asking how this could happen to a virgin. If she meant she was a young woman (who was not a virgin), how would her getting pregnant be a problem?

Then later there's Joseph's dilemma. He knows he's not had sex with Mary, yet she's telling him she's pregnant by the Holy Spirit! He assumes, as I think any man would, that she's slept with someone else, and he resolves to divorce her quietly. Later he's convinced in a dream that Mary is telling the truth and is still a virgin, and that he should marry her, but not sleep with her until the baby is born.

Now, none of that would make any sense at all to anyone, unless the word parthenos was understood in its normal sense of virgin.

Whether that means that the passage is Isaiah is referring to a virgin or just a woman, well, you can interpret that how you wish. It makes little difference to the situation of Mary.

In one book I'm reading currently about the early church the author cites a scholar who claims that about 85% of the early Christian writings are lost to us for one reason or another. But new texts have emerged, like the Gnostic gospels of Mary and Thomas and new versions of existing books as you saw with the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think that all of these should be considered. I've just started reading a new translation of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene with commentary by a French scholar and it's fascinating.

By the time the second passage was written, perhaps it had become clear that there were survivors.

So it's possible that things were written that were not true. Does that cause any concern when reading the rest of the bible?

I've written a long post responding - and I could babble on it for ages as I've overstudied it and find it interesting from a historical / sociological perspective, but people have debated the church's role in abuse and biblical meaning for centuries & that gets tiresome and as you said much of it is out of your hands so I don't want you to feel I was expecting you to defend old stuff as I was more interested in your perspective of stuff now within your church so, I'll try to ask a more light question that's more fun that my meandering geeking out response - what is your favourite book of the Bible to read & why? (I lean towards Ecclesiastes, it can be depressing but I think it's very beautifully written and the push to find and choose a purpose is important however we do so. I also like Job a lot as an interesting story and a good starting point for a lot of discussions on ethics and life).

I'm aware evangelicals are not all one group - as I said, I previously was in one. I was in for quite some time, born and raised with a grandfather who helped build churches and train evangelical ministers and missionaries of multiple denominations. That's why I have way too much Bible knowledge and why I'm interested in how some are now handling the abuse scandals coming out worldwide - many churches among other places use the confidential closed door method and sometimes that works and sometimes that's used to hide things.

They're not all the same group and they're all making different choices which is why I asked for your experience particularly because it will be different than if I asked, say, someone in the American Nazerene movement or a member Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (I specifically used ones not big in the UK that I know of). With many evangelicals and many more ex-evangelicals calling out that there have been decades of many evangelical churches hiding and protecting abusers - particularly those who were or related to or otherwise close to those in positions of power - it's expected that those in both groups and beyond would want to know what any church under the evangelical umbrella is doing about it now that these are finally coming out. I find asking individuals involved tend to get more information than getting the official statements. Much like any other large group, corruption and nepotism happens and with it coming out as it is with fresh stories practically every week, many evangelicals and ex-evangelicals are trying to challenge the power systems that has made it so easy for it to happen. The evangelicals are no where near alone in this issue but having been raised among evangelicals but having no contact (having been shunned which I know few evangelical denominations still do), I was curious if the abuse scandals worldwide were having much impact in evangelical churches for those still in it.

Personally, with my experience and what we know about the abuse scandals so far, I think more evangelical denominations need to make clearer statements on the parts of the texts that we know have been commonly used to enable abusers and silence abuse victims, 'Honour your mother and father so that it may go well for you all the days of your life' and similar verses particularly comes to mind as a vague overabused text that could use stricter guidelines to prevent misuse and help people know they will be supported when abuse happens by their church. Not all the changes need to come from behind closed doors, some has to be how the texts are used and taught which I think some denominations will welcome and some with be against, sadly the latter likely being the ones that have had the most issues.

As for the Bible stuff, I don't think the part in Isaiah up to interpretation when we have pretty strong evidence with how the rest of the text is translated that they purposefully mischose the word there along with who Isaiah is talking about. Almah means young women regardless of whether or not she is a virgin just as Alem means young man (used multiple times particularly to describe young David). Betulah means virgin regardless of her age. These words are used repeatedly throughout the Bible (and in many cases with Almah it was very clear she wasn't a virgin like in Songs...) and translated as such so why change it in that one case?

If Isaiah had meant virgin - which he doesn't since he's talking about his own wife and the child she's about to have which happens in the chapter right after that as a sign to King Ahaz and Israel - he would have used Betulah just as it is used everywhere else in the text when referring so. Isaiah's prophecy wasn't about a messiah but is commonly used that way just as the Suffering Servant is even when the text about the suffering servant has many things that aren't part of Jesus's story and specifically says is about Israel. I'm reminded of a Bible scholar who said that within Christianity it all points to Jesus and within Judaism it all points to Israel and how these texts are used and changed over times is something many consider a concern to be aware of and openly discuss while others just ignore it - which is why I asked.

Personally, I found Joseph's reaction odd as a child - in an era when people were desperate for the messiah, surely if a virgin birth was a sign, then he would rejoice rather than freak out. But with the traditional position of Judaism that within every generation there will be potential moshiach but until one is devout enough and inspires the Jewish people back to Torah and rebuilds the Holy Temple those potentials won't become the moshiach and blood isn't required to cleanse sins (all blood sacrifices have a nonblood alternative) and dying with sins doesn't condemn a person so no one needs saved personally but the Jewish people wanted saved politically and collectively until the Christian texts - it makes more sense. He panicked about a virgin birth because it wasn't yet part of the story. How the texts have been changed in usage over time gives a history and look into how ideologies change and are challenged over time and in group debates. I think whether or not Mary should be considered a virgin will remain a debate topic for a long time to come even if Isaiah's young woman isn't part of the discussion (there are some that argue David's line becomes too tainted and that's why among other non-Isaiah related reasons).

I would say the oral tradition which had to be written because the teachers were dying in such numbers it feared it would be lost and then went through the Roman attacks, centuries of various churches burning and calling them heretical, lasting up to modern day 'stands the test of time' more than the written tradition but I don't expect many to take it up nor really recommend it as reading material beyond it's historical value. It fills in some gaps but I wouldn't say it makes any of it more ethical sounding. I mean, the discussion of what should be done to girls and young women who were captured as part of war (tradition is that they were given a month to mourn and after that they would be killed if they didn't turn from their prior ways and dead families) is never going to be a fun topic that encourages belief that this is a good system with a just deity even if one comes from the tradition that wrestling with god is more the purpose than worship. Some things, within all the texts, are really off putting even when in poetic format like bashing infants heads against rocks (Psalms has some messed up imagery in it). Honestly, I get the pull of community and meaning beyond ourselves and feeling connected spiritually, but as much as I've studied it and tried when I was younger I don't get the appeal of the texts as an ethical guide or to build a life on and if everyone can choose what of it to use, I'm not sure the purpose to the texts at all.

as much as I've studied it and tried when I was younger I don't get the appeal of the texts as an ethical guide or to build a life on and if everyone can choose what of it to use, I'm not sure the purpose to the texts at all.

For OT texts, I agree completely, but I don't think that was the purpose of most of them. I think the NT, for my anyway, is much easier to draw ethical principles from.

Headinhands if, for example, two people wrote an account of the same event, I would expect there to be differences between them. They have different viewpoints, but both witnesses are being truthful about the event, to the best of their ability.

Similarly, if I wrote about an event immediately afterwards, and then perhaps a year later, the accounts would differ. I would have had time to process events and gain perspective.

So I don't see a small difference between the accounts as having any great significance. It doesn't make one true and one false.

Gosh, DN4Geek, an impressive amount of knowledge there! Wish I had time and energy to go into it all, bit Insieme has been doing a great job.

Just to reiterate about the compilation of the biblical canon; it was a very robust process whereby each candidate for inclusion was very finely examined and measured against certain criteria, eg was the book in wide use in the Christian community? Did the book support the central tenets of faith as handed down from the start and practiced widely? That's why the gnostic gospels were not included. Some of the stuff in there is at odds with stuff in the Bible, and actually ludicrously so. Very interesting to read though, as MissConduct says. I love reading early christian writings and devour all I can!

Oh yes, as ever madhairday has explained that much better than me! It's ages since I read any of the early church writings outside the bible, I'm tempted to dip back in now! Some of it is wildly off-beam though.

This is the new translation and commentary on The Gospel of Mary that i'm reading if anyone is curious:

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

My curiosity was kindled by the discussion with @Skyejuly about the role of the women disciples.

My favourite book of the Bible? Hmm. Difficult one! I like Esther, and also Ruth, mostly because they are amazing stories of God using ordinary women to carry out his intentions, and in both cases, something good is brought out of something terrible.

But there's some great poetry in Psalms, and that tends to be where I go if I need a bit of encouragement. And Romans is where I look when I need to see how faith all fits together; there's a mysterious beauty in the way God saves and guides us, and Paul really really knew his theology!

I love Romans too. It's supposed to be the last letter Paul wrote, and a summary of his theology. Lots of Corinthians has more of a "Don't make me come down there!" tone to it.

I love Ruth too! And, in an odd way, Job. Psalms is a definite and I have a soft spot for much of Song of Songs (or Snog of Snogs as we call it chez MHD)

In the NT I love everything. My favourite book is Philippians because there is so much in there about striving through pain and struggle, about rejoicing in God, about peace beyond understanding and contentment as well as living in humility and servanthood. I love all the gospels and find Revelation crazy but wonderful :)

Comparing Christianity to Hinduism, I am struck by one difference in particular.

In the Bible there is a sense of there being one way to the truth, that being through Jesus. Other paths are seen as akin to devil worship. In contrast, in Hindu writings there is the concept of there being many paths to enlightenment.

It seems to me that Hinduism, with its inbuilt tolerance of different approaches, is a better fit for a multi-cultural society.

I wonder if you ever wished there was within the Bible the sentiment that other religions or ideologies are also of value, are also capable of fostering exemplary behaviour and bringing insights?

As an aside, I was startled to find within the extra-biblical Clementine literature (Jewish Christian writings), a few precious words of tolerance towards the religion of the Brahmans, a form of Hinduism.

There are likewise amongst the Bactrians, in the Indian countries, immense multitudes of Brahmans, who also themselves, from the tradition of their ancestors, and peaceful customs and laws, neither commit murder nor adultery, nor worship idols, nor have the practice of eating animal food, are never drunk, never do anything maliciously, but always fear God.

This one fleeting moment of generosity towards another religion, feels like an important, breakthrough moment to me – too bad, I think, that the groups who esteemed these writings died out.

It doesn't make one true and one false.

It means both are unreliable.

It seems to me that Hinduism, with its inbuilt tolerance of different approaches, is a better fit for a multi-cultural society.

Religious tolerance is more of a political question than a religious one. There are many societies that achieve this as a matter of law, as we have freedom of religious belief and separation of church and state in the American constitution.