Yeah, we see eye to eye on this. Which, as you point out, might not be indicative of all that much.
My quoted interlocutor was a fairly mainstream Christian who was to the right of me only by virtue of my being so radically theologically liberal. The context was a debate I and others were having with an atheist on whether evolving revelation rendered religion incoherent.
When I pointed out ways that religion could understand evolving revelation, they argued out that those understandings were based on undemonstrated claims they had no reason to accept. My response was a confused, "Well, yeah, that's why you're an atheist." Did they really think I was going to be sucked into an argument over whether Christianity was true? God forbid.
So what you have hear is the ensuing nitpicky hair-splitting between me and another, slightly more conservative Christian as to how exactly Christianity does/should make sense of evolving revelation.
Most of these thoughts aren't new to my flist; at the same time, the argument is structured somewhat differently than pieces written with the flist as intended audience have been, so I thought it would be useful to pull it out and post it.
Although, point of doctrine, didn't Paul excuse most of those rules just as he did with things like circumcision?
Yes. I don't pretend to really understand the difference between dispensationalism and supersessionism or replacement theology; I just know that dispensationalism is the doctrine that Evangelicals draw on to reconcile fundamentalism with not wanting to follow those annoying rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Now, if my memory serves (and admittedly my knowledge of the epistles is somewhat spotty), St. Paul is explicit about circumcision and dietary laws but vague as to where the Old and New Covenants begin and end otherwise. I frankly don't think he gives us enough information to be able to draw the line on a sola scriptura basis alone; we need the traditions of Mother Church to make clear exactly what Gentile Christians are and are not called upon to do. The reason I wear polyester (assuming I do; if I look at the label at all it's to see if it's going to shrink) isn't because a studied reading of the Bible has convinced me it's okay to do so; it's because not doing it just isn't a tradition amongst my religious community the way it is amongst some Jewish communities. For that matter, I don't really need St. Paul to tell me it's okay to eat shrimp, either, although if my Church avoided shrimp I might do so as well because that would be part of my religious tradition.
I'm just quoting this because I like it so much.
And you and I have discussed that element, the interdependence of ethics and theology, at length before. I was re-reading those conversations this morning after I hit "post"; I'm really glad you prompted me those many months ago to articulate my thoughts on meta/ethics and save them. It's a really valuable resource to me.
no subject
My quoted interlocutor was a fairly mainstream Christian who was to the right of me only by virtue of my being so radically theologically liberal. The context was a debate I and others were having with an atheist on whether evolving revelation rendered religion incoherent.
When I pointed out ways that religion could understand evolving revelation, they argued out that those understandings were based on undemonstrated claims they had no reason to accept. My response was a confused, "Well, yeah, that's why you're an atheist." Did they really think I was going to be sucked into an argument over whether Christianity was true? God forbid.
So what you have hear is the ensuing nitpicky hair-splitting between me and another, slightly more conservative Christian as to how exactly Christianity does/should make sense of evolving revelation.
Most of these thoughts aren't new to my flist; at the same time, the argument is structured somewhat differently than pieces written with the flist as intended audience have been, so I thought it would be useful to pull it out and post it.
Although, point of doctrine, didn't Paul excuse most of those rules just as he did with things like circumcision?
Yes. I don't pretend to really understand the difference between dispensationalism and supersessionism or replacement theology; I just know that dispensationalism is the doctrine that Evangelicals draw on to reconcile fundamentalism with not wanting to follow those annoying rules in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
Now, if my memory serves (and admittedly my knowledge of the epistles is somewhat spotty), St. Paul is explicit about circumcision and dietary laws but vague as to where the Old and New Covenants begin and end otherwise. I frankly don't think he gives us enough information to be able to draw the line on a sola scriptura basis alone; we need the traditions of Mother Church to make clear exactly what Gentile Christians are and are not called upon to do. The reason I wear polyester (assuming I do; if I look at the label at all it's to see if it's going to shrink) isn't because a studied reading of the Bible has convinced me it's okay to do so; it's because not doing it just isn't a tradition amongst my religious community the way it is amongst some Jewish communities. For that matter, I don't really need St. Paul to tell me it's okay to eat shrimp, either, although if my Church avoided shrimp I might do so as well because that would be part of my religious tradition.
I'm just quoting this because I like it so much.
And you and I have discussed that element, the interdependence of ethics and theology, at length before. I was re-reading those conversations this morning after I hit "post"; I'm really glad you prompted me those many months ago to articulate my thoughts on meta/ethics and save them. It's a really valuable resource to me.