Featured The Domino Theory of Scripture

So typical! You can't deliver the apologetic goods on this issues in question! So you presumptuously slander someone you don't even know. It is precisely the Baptist penchant for ad hominems and projection of hate and other unworthy motives when they lack the knowledge to discuss the most crucial issues for biblical authority that prompt my tone! Frankly I don't care who responds. There is a message button and I know I'm having a significant impact on the legion nameless "guests." Stay tuned for my detailed responses to earlier posts in this thread,. I'm trying to determine if an outsider can have a friendly conversation with chronically hostile Baptists. I'm also here to defend my Catholic brothers who must endure unfair slander in defense of their faith.

 

So typical! You can't deliver the apologetic goods on the thread's issue! So you presumptuously slander someone you don't even know. It is precisely the Baptist penchant for ad hominems and projection of hate and other unworthy motives when they lack the knowledge to discuss the most crucial issues for biblical authority that prompt my tone! Frankly I don't care who responds. There is a message button and I know I'm having a significant impact on the legion nameless "guests." Stay tuned for my detailed responses to earlier posts in this thread,. As a Methodist, I'm trying to determine if an outsider can have a friendly conversation with chronically hostile Baptists. I'm also here to defend my Catholic brothers who must endure unfair slander in defense of their faith.

 

As expected, most Baptist posters have ducked the OP's 5 basic questions arising from the Domino theory of Scripture and none have engaged them in any depth. So it is time for me to elaborate on the importance of each question one by one:

(1) Is the insistence on an inerrantist view of Scripture essential enough to thereby unwittingly encourage honest dissenters to renounce their faith in biblical revelation and its Gospel?

The most tragic example of this is Chuck Templeton, the most promising evangelist in Canadian history and the co-founder of Youth for Christ. Chuck and Billy Graham were close friends, but Chuck was considered by many to have the better potential to become the most eminent evangelist in the world. His meetings drew thousands and he would get invited to be a college commencement speaker. A group of Canadian seminarians at Princeton (including myself) got permission to hear a tape of his preaching from the late 1940s. He preached the Gospel with great passion, sincerity, and power. We were so saddened to recognize that this great man of God lost his faith largely because of the Domino theory of Scripture that he had embraced. When he could no longer accept a literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3, for example, he could not simply adjust his theological convictions, but citing the slippery slope argument, he renounced his faith and later became a prominent Canadian political pundit and the editor of the most prestigious national Canadian magazine.

It never seems to have occurred to most Fundamentalists that it is better to embrace the authority of [a somewhat errant] Scripture for faith and life than to renounce Christ's Gospel. They would rather feel right in their rigid doctrinal belief system than get people saved!

 

John of Japan: "Well, frankly, why would I think that you could be convinced? Your mind is closed. So then, it is pointless to engage your OP in any depth."
F


John of Japan: "Well, lemme see. I'm a fundamentalist who spent 33 years in Japan and saw God save many there,...So, I guess your blanket condemnation of all fundamentalists as not wanting to get people saved is flat out wrong."

John of Japan: "Maybe we fundamental Baptists are just not interested in your OP. Maybe you should read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Just sayin'."
Your comment is disengenous: ny post makes it clear that I'm talking about honest intelligent seekers like C

 

John of Japan: "Well, frankly, why would I think that you could be convinced? Your mind is closed. So then, it is pointless to engage your OP in any depth."

So judgmental towards a believer you don't even know! In fact, my rejection of biblical inerrancy resulted from a passionate open-mindedness to know why I believed in my evangelical doctrines, so that I might become a more effective witness to honest seekers whom I urged to be as honest considering the claims of Christ as I was striving be in my own faith quest. My honest quest created great existential pain as I was forced to confront the disconnect between unwanted biblical errors and my passion to deepen my application of God's Word to my life. As a young man, I occasionally spent hours fasting and praying for lost souls and spent many days witnessing to the Gospel in the streets and door to door.

John of Japan: "Maybe we fundamental Baptists are just not interested in your OP. Maybe you should read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Just sayin'."

Yes, I have read that book and my doubts arose from my effort to apply such principles and be as honest with friends targeted by my witnessing as I expected them to be in hearing my defense of the Gospel. My OP expresses key reasons why honest seekers reject the Gospel. So to allege that "fundamental Baptists are just not interested in [my] OP" is to admit that they are just not interested in empathizing with the skepticism and faith crises of honest seekers who need the Lord.

John of Japan: "Well, lemme see. I'm a fundamentalist who spent 33 years in Japan and saw God save many there,...So, I guess your blanket condemnation of all fundamentalists as not wanting to get people saved is flat out wrong."

Your comment is evasively disingenuous: my post makes it clear that I'm talking about honest intelligent seekers like Charles Templeton (a far more successful soul winner than you and me), whose Fundamentalist background made them feel compelled to reject the Gospel simply because they (1) fell victim to the Domino theory of Scripture with which they were indoctrinated and (2) felt that honestly perceived biblical errors challenged their spiritual integrity to the point where they must reject Christ and His Gospel due to t he validity of the slippery slope created by finding such errors.

Stay tuned as I elaborate and defend other questions posed in my OP.

 

John of Japan: "My comment about the friendship book was not disingenuous, but sarcastic. Please learn to tell the difference."
On the contrary, I take your status as a Fundamentalist literalist seriously and therefore don't read sarcasm into your words.

John of Japan: "Well, since you accused us fundamentalists, in a blanket condemnation, of not being interested in souls getting saved...."
So typical that you would deliberately distort telling points to set up a straw man that serves your fundamentalist agenda.
Charles Templeton was a great Canadian soul winner, considered by many to show more promise as a mass evangelist than my idol, Billy Graham. He lost his faith for the same reasons that many honest intelligent seekers lose their faith: his faith was destroyed by the Fundamentalist Domino Theory of Scripture. He should have been encouraged to separate his valid qualms about biblical errors from the claims of the Gospel and His intimate personal relationship with Christ. Yes, the slipper slope argument expresses a valid concern. But millions of Christians accept the Bible as a holy book with errors that is nevertheless our authoritative guide for faith and life and Templeton should have been encouraged to accept that option. Many Fundamentalists are so obsessed with feeling right about their misguided views on biblical inerrancy that they are indifferent to the spiritual peril that an honest inability to embrace their views creates for the honest seeker who has the courage to doubt. I'm still haunted by the late Jerry Falwell's horrid remark, "If you don't believe God created the universe in 6 literal days, you might as well not be a Christian."