Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 2:50 pm
I do not regard it as a
defect that early Christianity incorporated into itself different traditions.
You should -- if for no other purpose than to make your theory work.
A singular, monolythic "Christianity" would be possible to generalize about. One that's too diverse will thwart every effort at historical generalizations: for every theory you might wish to propose, there will be so many exceptions and such great variation that abundant examples disproving the theory will inevitably appear immediately.
That's why so many historians find it useful to fudge the whole idea. It's very, very hard to work with, and impossible to make generalizations about, unless you have a very precise idea about what it is.
In your case, because you attempt to define a *pure* Christian fundamentalism, you exclude, in my view nearly literally, everything that Christianity actually was...
Ha!
So the problem, for you, is not just the lack of a precise definition: it's that I don't blindly accept YOUR definition!
For you claim that I cannot say what Christianity actually is, and then you claim you know
"everything that Christianity actually was."
Classic. I am so amused.
When asked Who in history actually lived out of this perspective-interpretation? you offer a few references, but this has always seemed weak to me.
Well, that's fine. It's the truth, but you don't have to like it. There are actually lots of people who have lived this way. If you want to ignore them all, and expound about some mythical "Christendom," then you can. I just can't take that very seriously, because its faults are obvious.
From your position within your Fort you can, and you do, take on all comers.
Sound like a great "fort"! It's doing everything it should.
...this staked-out position enables you to judge all of Christian history, and all of Christian Europe, as essentially non-Christian or contaminated Christian.
Well, that's the real issue: how is Christianity to be "staked out." It's a
hermeneutical problem, really, a problem of how-to-define.
But it's similar to the other problems historians routinely encounter, such as "Who was a Roman, and who was a barbarian," or "Where does Algeria legitimately stop, and Libya rightly begin?" These are difficult questions, but simply cannot be dodged by the ethical historian. One has to know the entity about which one is making claims, and have a defensible definition that is not under constant assail. No theory can get going at all without that.
And the worldpicture that you seem to hold to is a very very strict and very circumscribed enthusiastic Christian religious posture.
What you mean is that my definition is more exact than anything you're happy with, because an exact definition would harm the theory. I get it.
What you say thus reduces to this: "Either you submit in an internal act to the concept-picture I have of Jesus Christ and as a result of this a) allow God to reconstruct you (this involves an odd manoeuvre of setting your self and your own conscious will aside to a large degree since Man cannot guide himself because Man is fundamentally corrupt) and b) allow God to bequeath the state of *being saved* that I refer to; or you do not."
Not quite. It's much simpler than that.
I just tell you what the Bible says. I quote it directly. And you either deal with the quotation -- assessing, criticizing, reinterpreting, whatever -- or you don't. It's that simple. And when you decide what the Bible is saying, you either take it seriously, or you don't. That's all up to you. I'm just the messenger here, and my "concept-pictures" have nothing to do with it. See what the Bible says, and deal with it. That's how to do the business.
Or don't. That's up to you. I can't make you do the right thing.
For those who do not, according to the logic of the zealous binary proposition, there can be no 'true rebuilding', no 'rebirth' in the spiritual sense referred to in the Gospels, and any who live outside of the realm you define are 'the lost' and the 'alienated'. You use a term like 'eternal alienation' as a type of substitute for the traditional image of Christian hell. But you hold to the view that once in that after-life state one will be there eternally.
Is that your reading of what the Bible says? That's the only important question for you to decide.
Then, you either listen, or you don't. But it has to be your reading, because it's your conscience, your soul, and your eternity. None of the above have anything at all to do with me personally.
And if we were to broach that conversation -- an examination of what appears to me to be right, in any case possible -- we would veer into territories that you could not go.
We've already been there, and if you want to go there, we can go again. I'm fine with that. But I don't think the relevant passages of Scripture will change, nor will "Christian" become a thing that fits your theory merely because you want it to.
You missed my point in my reference to Benny Hinn.
I don't think I did. I just find him totally irrelevant in any discussion of "Christianity."
I was making a reference to *enthusiastic religion*
Yeah, I'm not one of those. Nor are other Christians. You can't be saved by "enthusiasm."
...taking the most extreme example I could imagine -- a total evangelical Christian lunatic who runs an entire 'show' which is also a big business.
Heh.
No, what you were trying to do was "shoot fish in a barrel." You were taking the most graphic case of abuse of the name "Christian" you could think of, and hoping to use it to muddy the waters with real Christians. We're so used to seeing that.
And yet, we remain unimpressed.
So, I get that you see yourself as a 'chemically-pure' and 'original' Christian
Nothing so grand. I simply see myself as a Christian who knows what a Christian is. There are quite a lot of us around, acutally.
What I am trying to point out, and the area that I work in, has more to do with understanding the Pictures that we work with -- worldpicture, our Weltanschauung, out of which and from which we 'conceive of the world' in which we live.
I'm very familiar with that. I could, in fact, give you the whole history of "worldview analysis," and have lots of books on that, including the most important authors. This is an entirely familiar and unsurprising approach. I know it well.
It does have something to say for it. It can be incredibly useful. But it's always entirely dependent on good definitions. For "worldviews" are generalizations; and like all generalizations, they can only be justly stated about the particular field the historian or sociologist has precisely defined. So once again, the lack of a good definition will frustrate the entire project, in which case, worldview analysis will come to nothing. Its claims will quickly prove perfidious.
If you say "Well, that is all well and good, but where do you stand morally and ethically (as well as metaphysically)?", I can only answer by saying I have done the best that I can do, and I am doing the best that I can do, within the existing perceptual structures that perceptual life have provided me with. I am simply a man within my context.
Is that a lapse back to social determinism? That seems kind of irresponsible, if I can use that word precisely. That is, it refuses to "respond" to the challenge encountered, and retreats to a "there's nothing more I can do" position.
But you wouldn't do that: you have more courage, I think. And I also sense you have a view of personal ethical responsibility, which would be utterly impossible if "I am simply a man within my context" explained that you can only think certain things because your social "context" conditions you to think them.
And what good, then, would worldview analysis be for you? You'd be so predetermined to stay in your own lane, you couldn't possibly make sense of anything in anybody else's worldview. Ironically, that's what you seemed to be trying to accuse me of doing; and here you are, appealing to that strategy to avoid personal responsibility? That would not make sense. I must not be getting the thrust of what you're trying to communicate by "I am simply a man within my context." But I invite you to explain, if you wish.
Salvation? From what to what?
Did I not answer this both simply and immediately? Shame on me, then.
From sin, from self, from a lost eternity, to forgiveness, faith and hope. That's what a person is saved from and to. If that's not clear enough, I invite further question. I'm quite happy to answer.