Honest To God: Heresy? Sorta? Almost? Maybe?
Jesus isn’t God? He didn’t take the cross to suffer the outpouring of God’s justice in our place? Mr. Robinson, you have my attention.
Yeah, this is one of those books that I would prefer to be able to read in much smaller pieces—dense philosophy/theology requires more deep thinking from me than I’m able to give to eighty well-loaded pages at once. Fortunately, the end of the reading (and thus the first thing I could take time to think about) was undoubtedly the most striking. Robinson is on a mission here to knock down Biblical misconceptions so old and persistent that they’ve taken root in denominational doctrine. My gut reaction, of course, is that this is heresy. My secondary reaction is that Robinson is providing Bible verses which back the idea of Jesus not being God (clarifying, of course, that Jesus is still divine, and avoiding Arianism as far as I can tell), and I can’t instantly recall Bible verses which say otherwise. There are problems here somewhere: either Robinson is blatantly heretical, I don’t know the Bible like I should, or maybe both. My tertiary reaction? I’d be doing some solid Biblical research this week if I didn’t have a certain paper to write. This process was repeated when the issue of why exactly Jesus had to be sacrificed came up, though I know that’s been a much more publicized point of contention in the past.
In all seriousness, this is the kind of book that encourages reexamining of doctrine. I’ve gone off on a rant about denominations in a blog once already this semester, so for now I’ll just say this: the one original group of people who witnessed the risen Jesus has spent the past two thousand years splitting apart into an untold number of groups with doctrine varying in wildly different degrees. Something is going to be wrong with everyone’s theology, whether it’s a minor and overlookable error or a colossal and damning error (and I do mean that in the most literal sense). Let’s get real, everyone needs to go Descartes on their faith at least once, ignoring everything humans say and re-examining their beliefs solely by the Bible. Questioning God is a good thing! That’s how you got to know all your earthly friends, right? Asking them about who they really were, figuring out whether certain rumors you’d heard were true? If God didn’t expect you to have questions, He wouldn’t have written a book full of answers.
And off-topic, I'm sorry, but how have I never heard that Julian Huxley quote before? "It will soon be as impossible for an intelligent, educated man or woman to believe in a god as it is now to believe ... that flies can be spontaneously generated." What again is the general consensus amongst God-rejecting scientists? Right, life originated from nothing. They literally believe flies came from spontaneously generated life. It's a good thing for Huxley this book focuses on religion, or I'm sure he'd be raked over the coals...
P.S. I commented on Zelda and Noah’s posts.
Yeah, this is one of those books that I would prefer to be able to read in much smaller pieces—dense philosophy/theology requires more deep thinking from me than I’m able to give to eighty well-loaded pages at once. Fortunately, the end of the reading (and thus the first thing I could take time to think about) was undoubtedly the most striking. Robinson is on a mission here to knock down Biblical misconceptions so old and persistent that they’ve taken root in denominational doctrine. My gut reaction, of course, is that this is heresy. My secondary reaction is that Robinson is providing Bible verses which back the idea of Jesus not being God (clarifying, of course, that Jesus is still divine, and avoiding Arianism as far as I can tell), and I can’t instantly recall Bible verses which say otherwise. There are problems here somewhere: either Robinson is blatantly heretical, I don’t know the Bible like I should, or maybe both. My tertiary reaction? I’d be doing some solid Biblical research this week if I didn’t have a certain paper to write. This process was repeated when the issue of why exactly Jesus had to be sacrificed came up, though I know that’s been a much more publicized point of contention in the past.
In all seriousness, this is the kind of book that encourages reexamining of doctrine. I’ve gone off on a rant about denominations in a blog once already this semester, so for now I’ll just say this: the one original group of people who witnessed the risen Jesus has spent the past two thousand years splitting apart into an untold number of groups with doctrine varying in wildly different degrees. Something is going to be wrong with everyone’s theology, whether it’s a minor and overlookable error or a colossal and damning error (and I do mean that in the most literal sense). Let’s get real, everyone needs to go Descartes on their faith at least once, ignoring everything humans say and re-examining their beliefs solely by the Bible. Questioning God is a good thing! That’s how you got to know all your earthly friends, right? Asking them about who they really were, figuring out whether certain rumors you’d heard were true? If God didn’t expect you to have questions, He wouldn’t have written a book full of answers.
And off-topic, I'm sorry, but how have I never heard that Julian Huxley quote before? "It will soon be as impossible for an intelligent, educated man or woman to believe in a god as it is now to believe ... that flies can be spontaneously generated." What again is the general consensus amongst God-rejecting scientists? Right, life originated from nothing. They literally believe flies came from spontaneously generated life. It's a good thing for Huxley this book focuses on religion, or I'm sure he'd be raked over the coals...
P.S. I commented on Zelda and Noah’s posts.
Well said! This book literally made me squirm in my seat a lot, but after forcing myself to look at it from an unbiased point of view, I could see some validity in some the points the author was making. I do not agree with most of what he says, but hey! this is what Honors is about: exploring new and sometimes infuriating ideas with an open and critical mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree! Everybody needs to at least once in their life question everything, as it is a necessary process that allows one to determine what one truly thinks. You are right though, that Huxley quote was a little weird...I think I understand what he is trying to say, however I don’t think he put his idea into quite the right words.
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate the fact he's making us question it! I find that the more I question something, the easier it is for me to remember it. At least with topics like this.
ReplyDeleteI do also agree that I wish we could've read this in shorter segments. All at once is just too much and I lose focus waayy too fast for my own liking.
One thing to keep in mind is that heretics use the bible to prove thier points as well. It's always interesting to read books like this, we need that uncomfortable feeling in my opinion at some point in our lives as believers, gives us some hard questions to ask and think about.
ReplyDeleteDenominations, cults, anything spawned by false doctrine can and will find scriptural basis for anything. The is a group called World Mission Society Church of God. I encountered them in Norfolk years ago. They believed that there was actually a whole family instead of just the Trinity. God the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit, and Mother God New Jerusalem. They gave great arguments. This book serious blows my mind. There does seem to be a tinge of Arianism in these pages.
ReplyDelete