From: reedr@cgsvax.claremont.edu
Subject: Re: proof of resurection
Organization: The Claremont Graduate School
Lines: 51

In article <Apr.23.02.56.33.1993.3165@geneva.rutgers.edu>, andrew@srsune.shlrc.mq.edu.au (Andrew McVeigh) writes:

> The Bible's message is that we are to love all people, and
> that all people are redeemable.  It preaches a message of
> repentance, and of giving.  Unfortunately, all people have
> deceitful hearts, and are capable of turning this message
> around and contorting it in sometimes unbelievable ways.
> This is also a fundamental Christian doctrine.

Andrew,

   How I wish this were true, and how I long for the day in which it will
be true.  But alas, it is not true of history.  The Bible does not have a 
message -- it has messages.  And some of those are messages of repentance and
giving, to turn the other cheek, and do unto the least of these.  But some
of the messages are the complete opposite.  Like the isrealites order to 
wipe out other tribes including women and children down to cattle, and 
punished severely when they were less than complete about the job.  Like
jews who are said to have cried out in Matthew, "His blood be upon our heads
and our childrens heads" A verse quoted in every pogrom from the crusades to
the holocaust.  Have these been misunderstood?  I think not.  They have only
been understood too clearly.  It is essential that christians grasp firmly
the good the bible teaches, the meek carpenter from Nazareth is a potent 
symbol for how we should be, his teachings we must take to heart, but we
cannot ignore the other material in the bible which is not to our liking and
say those who live by that have misread it.  To say that is only to chose a
point of interpretation and declare it normative.  Such can be done with the
same legitmacy by anyone.  Instead we must let the text critique the text.
Understanding that there is both good and bad in our sacred corpus, we test
all things and hold fast to that which is good. 
> 
> 
> p.s. I believe that a line of questioning like you presented
> is, strangely enough, compatible with becoming a Christian.
> Certainly Christianity encourages one to question the behaviour
> of the world, and especially Christians.  I praise God for
> Jesus Christ, and the fact that we can doubt our beliefs
> and still come back to God and be forgiven, time and time
> again.
> 

At the risk of sounding heretical (well ok, more heretical) I don't think
that doubt is something which requires forgiveness, it is something which
requires introspection and reflection.  If that is a sin, then there can
be no salvation, for doubt is an inescapble part of being human.  Consider
Job.  His friends had no doubt. Whereas Job had no doubt in himself but
doubted the wisdom and justice of God.  When God finally did appear he 
rebuked the friends and had job make sacrifices for them.  To be a Christian
it to always have doubt, or not to have honesty.

Randy 
