Posted: Apr 13, 2019 10:35 pm
Rumraket wrote:willhud9 wrote:Quite simply he states that moderate Christians aren’t exactly Christians because they cherry pick their verses.
Oh and, isn't that essentially right? Is there no end or limit to what a Christian can be? What is a Christian then, what does the word refer to? If there is no limit to how far one can depart from Christian scripture and yet remain a Christian, then it is a word without meaning. A category that has the potential to encompass literally everything. One could be an ISIS muslim, or an atheist, or not exist at all, and still be a Christian.
A Christian is someone who identifies as Christian.
The difference of theological beliefs vary staggeringly between someone who identifies as Roman Catholic vs Southern Baptist vs Mormon vs. Presbyterian vs. Coptic vs. Unitarian.
Which is why when atheists try to throw their lack of knowledge about theology to score “rationality points” by saying Christians contradict each other, or Christian theology is full of contradictions, well no shit. There are so many view points, theological interpretations, etc. that you cannot possibly narrowly constrain or define Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, or many other major religions of the world.
Which then makes the quest for the “moderate” Christian that much more unreasonable. Moderate as compared to what? You have Christians who think the entire Bible is a book of wisdom but not God inspired. You have Christians who believe in sola scriptura as if it’s infallbile. Two opposite sides of the spectrum. Why is one considered non-Christian and the other a Christian? Wouldn’t a moderate Christian therefore then be (at least if our basis was scriptural authority, like I said we could do this with any theological position) a Christian with a blend of beliefs? Genesis is believed to be poetry. Moderates don’t believe God literally created the Earth the way described in the beautiful prose of Genesis. But they do believe in the authority the Gospels may have in recording Jesus’s words/teachings or Pauline theology. Therefore they take those passages, and verses with more seriousness.
That’s not cherry picking. There is no instruction manual for Biblical hermeneutics to say accept all of this or none of this.