You have to base your beliefs on something. Why is the religious left so opposed to the Bible?
This article is the precursor to my previous post....
Worshipping the Goddess of Tolerance
by Chuck Colson
What do you get when you hold a conference with 1,200 people who are all afraid of offending one another? I’ll tell you what you don’t get. You don’t get unity, and you don’t get agreement on anything.
That’s what happened when the Spiritual Activism Conference took place recently in Washington, D.C. According to the New York Times, this group of religious liberals came together to discuss “taking back religion from the conservative Christians.” But the conference members had trouble getting anything specific done.
The Times hit it right on the nose when it explained, “Turnout at the Spiritual Activism Conference was high, but if the gathering is any indication, the biggest barrier for liberals may be their regard for pluralism: for letting people say what they want, how they want to, and for trying to include everyone’s priorities rather than choosing two or three issues that could inspire a movement.” Never mind even setting policy goals; some conference members were afraid that singing hymns might be enough to upset some members. Instead of coming away with a clear set of objectives, the conference members mostly came away frustrated.
Ironically for a group that prides itself on tolerance, it seems the only thing the conference could agree on was its opposition to the “religious right.” But frustrating as it was for them, the group had to concede that the “religious right” is a lot better at getting things done. Beliefnet suggests this was because “religious conservatives are willing to argue there is one correct view on policy issues.”
You see, that’s the crux of the liberals’ problem. This conflict is not about political or social divisions. It’s about authority—specifically, whether or not Christians are willing to acknowledge that the Bible is our authority.
Tony Campolo certainly recognized this. Though Tony and I disagree on lots of things, I really like Tony. He’s honest, and he loves the Bible. He tried to explain at this conference the necessity of following Scripture. But one participant retorted, “I thought this was a spiritual progressives’ conference. I don’t want to play the game of ‘the Bible says this or that,’ or that we get validation from something other than ourselves.”
There you have it. Validation from ourselves simply means you make up your own god. We Christians may interpret the Bible differently; we may apply it to life differently; we may have arguments over exegesis. But the Bible has to be the ultimate authority. Otherwise we end up worshiping the goddess of tolerance and believing that tolerance takes precedence over truth.
Dorothy Sayers, the great English writer, said it best: “In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”
This kind of so-called “tolerance” can never bring people together, but only as we saw in Washington, pull them farther apart.
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---Katie
Friday, July 21, 2006
The Thrill of Orthodoxy
The liberals want to go for the religious vote by saying "me too!" on the issue of who is spiritual...yet they don't have anything to base their sprituality on because the reject the authority of scripture.
The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Truth That is Ageless and New
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ 7/19/2006 Chuck Colson
Yesterday I talked about the Spiritual Activism Conference in Washington, D.C., and the trouble its participants had coming up with any meaningful objectives. The problem, I suggested, was that the majority of the religious left cannot tolerate the idea of the authority of Scripture. In fact, in the effort to be “progressive,” they seem committed to putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bible.
Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for liberals. Some evangelicals these days are saying that truth is only knowable if you experience it. But if you believe that, it throws the Bible out, which is, after all, revealed propositional truth. Liberal or conservative, if you weaken the Bible as your authority, you give up more than just some ancient set of dogmas and rules. You give up joy, excitement, the very heart of the Christian faith. You lose what I call the thrill of orthodoxy—the exhilaration of experiencing and living out eternal truth that has been lived through the ages.
Let me give you a little example of what I mean by that. My wife, Patty, and I once visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most beautiful churches in England. We walked into the church, which today seems to be more like a massive museum than a church. People were milling about everywhere. Patty and I both felt impressed that we should go and sit in a pew and pray. We sat down and listened to the liturgy, which was then being broadcast on a loudspeaker.
We looked around and realized that, yes, this church had become a museum, and yes, the public was here just to see its beauty, but they were also hearing the liturgy and the Gospel. Then we were struck by the realization that the Gospel is always going to be preached and heard and lived—in tiny enclaves or vast churches.
Both Patty and I got goose bumps as we realized that we were sitting in a place where that same Gospel has been preached for hundreds of years (actually, fourteen hundred years if you count the churches that were on that spot before the present cathedral). It made us realize afresh that the Gospel provides a connection with all the Christians who have come before us, all the way back to the time of Jesus. And it is still transforming hearts and lives today every time it is preached or read. God and His Word are, as Augustine said, “beauty so ancient and so new.”
Watered-down “progressive” Christianity has nothing that can compare with this. Refusing to accept the authority of Scripture and cutting off all ties with our heritage leaves us rootless and drifting, ready to latch onto any fad. By contrast, as G. K. Chesterton explained about the timeless quality of God’s truth: “The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer.” He even wrote of the truth of the Gospel as “the heavenly chariot [that] flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
God’s truth has always shown that it can survive heresy, persecution, and any fad that the human mind can dream up. It will continue on, long after the last progressive has come up with the last resolution on tolerance.
-------------------
---Katie
The Thrill of Orthodoxy: Truth That is Ageless and New
Breakpoint with Chuck Colson ^ 7/19/2006 Chuck Colson
Yesterday I talked about the Spiritual Activism Conference in Washington, D.C., and the trouble its participants had coming up with any meaningful objectives. The problem, I suggested, was that the majority of the religious left cannot tolerate the idea of the authority of Scripture. In fact, in the effort to be “progressive,” they seem committed to putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the Bible.
Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for liberals. Some evangelicals these days are saying that truth is only knowable if you experience it. But if you believe that, it throws the Bible out, which is, after all, revealed propositional truth. Liberal or conservative, if you weaken the Bible as your authority, you give up more than just some ancient set of dogmas and rules. You give up joy, excitement, the very heart of the Christian faith. You lose what I call the thrill of orthodoxy—the exhilaration of experiencing and living out eternal truth that has been lived through the ages.
Let me give you a little example of what I mean by that. My wife, Patty, and I once visited St. Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most beautiful churches in England. We walked into the church, which today seems to be more like a massive museum than a church. People were milling about everywhere. Patty and I both felt impressed that we should go and sit in a pew and pray. We sat down and listened to the liturgy, which was then being broadcast on a loudspeaker.
We looked around and realized that, yes, this church had become a museum, and yes, the public was here just to see its beauty, but they were also hearing the liturgy and the Gospel. Then we were struck by the realization that the Gospel is always going to be preached and heard and lived—in tiny enclaves or vast churches.
Both Patty and I got goose bumps as we realized that we were sitting in a place where that same Gospel has been preached for hundreds of years (actually, fourteen hundred years if you count the churches that were on that spot before the present cathedral). It made us realize afresh that the Gospel provides a connection with all the Christians who have come before us, all the way back to the time of Jesus. And it is still transforming hearts and lives today every time it is preached or read. God and His Word are, as Augustine said, “beauty so ancient and so new.”
Watered-down “progressive” Christianity has nothing that can compare with this. Refusing to accept the authority of Scripture and cutting off all ties with our heritage leaves us rootless and drifting, ready to latch onto any fad. By contrast, as G. K. Chesterton explained about the timeless quality of God’s truth: “The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times; it is waiting till the last fad shall have seen its last summer.” He even wrote of the truth of the Gospel as “the heavenly chariot [that] flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect.”
God’s truth has always shown that it can survive heresy, persecution, and any fad that the human mind can dream up. It will continue on, long after the last progressive has come up with the last resolution on tolerance.
-------------------
---Katie
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