Tag: Fundamentalism

The reason I am posting a reply to the Cadre blog here is because Cadre has a history of deleting my posts from their blog. This is a backup.

Most recently, as a result of my blog posts attempting to share what I have found of interest in Richard Pervo’s works (see the Pervo link in the right hand column Categories list, look under Book Reviews and Notes), Layman has written at length “refuting” what he sees as as Richard Pervo’s arguments about the genre of Acts.

Having already defended my views and writings (see my my Comprehension and honesty post) I thought it time to allow Pervo “to speak” for himself in response to Layman’s (Chris Price’s) argument.

Chris Price states categorically that Richard Pervo’s “theory” is that the Book of “Acts is an ancient romance novel” (see the Comprehension and honesty link above).

Chris Price also claims to have read Richard Pervo’s book, Profit with Delight. I ask Layman/Chris Price to cite a single sentence or passage where Richard Pervo makes any claim that Acts is a romance or fictional novel.

Layman/Chris Price has referenced Marion Soard’s Journal of the American Academy of Religion’s review of Profit with Delight. I intend in the near future to write a post discussing Soard’s review in the light of my own reading of Pervo’s Profit with Delight, and will challenge a number of Soard’s apparent “observations” in the light of the actual words I read in Pervo’s book.

But back to Pervo’s “reply to Layman/Chris Price”:

On the front cover

Profit with Delight.

Is Richard Pervo actually suggesting by the title that the book of Acts is more than a delightful tale/fiction?

In the preface

[M]ost studies have concentrated upon the profit and ignored the delight. A major task of this book is to elucidate the entertaining nature of Acts. Since one customary means for rejecting popular literature has been to label it pure entertainment, I wish to make clear that there is no intent here to deny Luke’s serious theological program. . . .

Through comparison of Acts with ancient popular narratives I seek not only the identification of literary affinities but also clarification of the religious and social values of the milieu in which it emerged. . . .

In the middle (p.86):

Although clearly a theological book and a presentation of history, Acts also seeks to entertain.

In the conclusion:

By reference to novels in general and historical novels in particular I have attempted to provide detailed evidence for the ancient novel’s relevance to the understanding of Acts. My intent is that such comparison proceed alongside, as well as in competition with, investigations using historiographical models. . . . Reconsideration of the question of genre does not eliminate the possibility of sources.

On the back cover

The one who combines profit with delight, equally pleasing and admonishing the reader . . .

Challenge to Layman/Chris Price

Let him quote or cite pages and paragraphs in Profit with Delight where Pervo claims that Acts is a romance novel, and/or devoid of any historical content or value.

Next: Soard’s review

I intend in the near future to write a review of Marion Soard’s review of Profit with Delight.

Historical facts?

How much historical fact there is in Acts is a separate although inevitably related question entirely. But as we have seen Cadre even misleadingly selectively quotes Sherwin-White on that score.

 

Some time ago I began to engage a few fundamentalists with some critical questions about some of their claims. I know, many will think I was wasting my time and in some ways I was. But one charge these folk raised against me a number of times was revealing. They accused me of “attacking Christianity”. At the time I tended to brush aside the charge or at most offered a simple denial. It should have registered with me at the time that by raising this accusation against me they were in fact informing me why it would be a waste of time continuing any attempt at a critical discussion with them.

They were informing me that they consider any critical questioning from a nonbeliever who is attempting to engage them with the logical and factual fallacies in their dogmas as a form of warfare on the Truth of which they are the guardians. They did not consider it an attack on their particular interpretation of Christianity, but on Christianity itself. In other words, they were revealing that in their minds their fundamentalist view embraces the essence of Christianity — other Christian views must be labelled “so-called Christian” or “false” or something similar.

Their accusation demonstrated a mindset that sees itself under siege in a world of darkness. That they must be prepared to fight enemies who are out to persecute or destroy them.

This victim mentality is actually interpreted as a virtue in the Bible: “Blessed are the persecuted”.

There is no concept of open and honest intellectual exchange as equals. How can their be “equality” between Light and Darkness? And their very identity itself is the embodiment of Light — a concept I discussed more fully in my previous post: Authority and identity in the fundamentalist approach to biblical and scientific debates.

Their world is divided into white and black. Honest intellectual enquiries and debates between proponents of different hypotheses, especially if they result in one person deciding to modify or reject a hypothesis, are in many cases merely signs of a confused and benighted world. (“God is not the author of confusion”, their Bible says, and uncertainty, free enquiry, tentativeness, challenges, are interpreted by the black and white mindset as “confusion”.) As Vinny so aptly put it on a comment here, they know the truth so there is no need for further enquiry in that respect. Debates can have only one purpose for a person who “knows the truth” — to garner ammunition to attack “enemies” who they believe are “attacking Christianity”.

I am trying to recall how I thought when I was a fundamentalist Christian believer, but it’s a bit like a parent trying to recall how he felt when a child. Some things are clear, but so much is also forgotten or coloured by hindsight. But it’s important to understand, and there are luckily a lot of books by fellow-travellers to help jog memories.

The reason this time I was trying to recall was in order to understand why the apparent total incomprehension and/or dishonesty in the way they frame the arguments of their “opponents”. I can’t believe that they think they are being anything but honest and even more comprehending than the original authors — I’m sure I used to feel that way rather than admit to the opposite.

I recall reading and discussing with like-minds fundamentalist literature making a mockery of evolution. One topic that came up from time to time was how to handle school situations, whether as a fundamentalist teacher requiring to teach a biology curriculum or as a parent of a child taking biology in a non-church school. The assumption underpinning the whole conversation was that we were all too smart and knowledgable to know we did not need to study the teachings of evolution ourselves. We knew better than the scientists the fallacies of their arguments. As Jesus said, God reveals wisdom and understanding even to the babes. It was the anti-god arrogance and pride of the “wise” that blinded them from “the obvious” that even a child could see.

It is Authority, their submission to Authority, that has removed them from their past lives and the wider society and given them an identity of which they can feel “humbly proud”. That is as I recall it at the present. Their identification with this absolute authority gives them their own sense of higher wisdom, insight, knowledge, destiny. They are in God’s camp and the rest of the world is in darkness.

Without external authority they are nothing. This self-concept is inculcated as part of their daily prayers. They call it “humility” and “repentance” and “coming to God”.

So when it comes to ethical discussions, they fear that unless they have an Authority to tell them what to think or do, they will be victims of their own authority-less passions and murder, steal, commit adultery. They really believe so totally in their Authority that they think they — and everyone — needs someone to actually tell them it is wrong to rape or kill, how to live their lives. We know the cases of how many will even go so far as to seek guidance (in prayers if not to their cleric) to ask what job they should take, what clothes they should wear.

So consumed are they by Authority that they can no longer even conceive of any life apart from authority. Nonbelievers are therefore viewed as submitting to other authorities that oppose their “one true Authority”. They might include the “authority” of public opinion, of “false” philosophies, of — worst of all — their own passions and desires.

Of course in their submission to their Authority they do deny their own thoughts and feelings, suppressing and hiding them as much as possible. Inevitably, however, what is hidden and denied does cause trouble in other ways. They probably really would go a bit wild at first if they did suddenly somehow lose their Authority. Maybe they sense this, and as a result imagine that the worst passions they suppress really are the norm of anyone anytime without some externally sourced control.

But back to biblical debates. And evolution. Other opinions, those contrary to their Authoritative dogmas, cannot but be read from the perspective of their own personal identities with their Divine Authority. They must therefore “know” beforehand that evolution could not be true, that critical views of the Bible must be Satanic. Yet they must function in the world. It is important to make a few converts from time to time to prove their position. They need to find proof-texts to give them licence to speak to the world on its own terms, to address these “vain thoughts that exalt themselves against their God” in whom they find their own identities.

So they will read something by a critical scholar or evolutionary biologist from that perspective. They know they are grappling with the tools of their enemy.

It is almost inconceivable, or certainly a frightening and truly threatening thought, that they would seek to understand and learn from such “oppositions of science falsely so called” apart from the goal of being in a better position to refute them.

The goal must of necessity be refutation. To defend their Authority. It can be nothing else. Otherwise they will lose their very identities.

To read “the enemy” with a view to engaging with him in open discussion, debate, mutual learning, on his own terms, as equals, is anathema. It threatens their very sense of selves.

To themselves, they are not therefore uncomprehending (although they are) of the arguments of biblical scholars and evolutionists, but necessarily bring a higher — authoritative — comprehension unknown to others.

They are not dishonest in their representations of another’s arguments. They are honestly fighting to preserve their own identity and the source of their identity. As for logical fallacies. No matter.

Any slip is only apparent and can be justified by ad hoc appeals to “the larger picture” hidden from outsiders. “If only you humbly accept the whole package you will see that any contradictions or fallacies are only apparent.” Double binds and contradictions are always only “apparent” — or the faulty insight of the ungodly — when Authority is a higher value than honest reasoning. That, after all, was what the snake tempted the first parents into.

Ad hominem, ridicule and abuse are only fair play — it is the right of light to expose and condemn darkness, which after all, at bottom, is what their struggle (their Bible even tells them their life is a daily warfare) is really all about.

We know the images of primitive bloodthirsty peoples who thrill as they exalt with the highest honours a hapless child or woman or king they are about to sacrifice to their god.

Their victim is crowned and adorned with all the majestic trappings and their every sensual whim satisfied. Only by idolizing this morsel for God’s palette can these peoples make it fit and worthy for their deity.

The effect of bestowing all this devotion upon their victim is to hide from them the real nature, the simple human nature, of the one they plan to sacrifice. They are transformed from being no different from anyone else to being an object more worthy than anyone else.

Many Christians treat the Bible in the same way. Many cannot, dare not — many really do fear to treat the Bible seriously and study it to find out what its true nature really is. Their religious (narcissistic?) devotion will permit them to see it in no way other than as something sacred in its own right. They even call it “The Holy Bible”. Continue reading “Offering up the Bible as a Sacrifice”