Posted on 01/23/2022 6:33:32 AM PST by daniel1212
Goodwin was one of the co-founders of the influential Christian rap group The Cross Movement,..“I sent a letter to my church withdrawing my membership and saying that I am denouncing the Christian faith that I have believed, professed, proclaimed, and defended for the last 30 years,”...“I literally told God, ‘If I find one more thing in the scriptures that doesn’t have a good explanation without resorting to having to bend over backwards and hop over barrels to explain it—I might lose my faith,”...“It got to the point where the liberal dudes were the ones bringing the most comfort because they were the ones being the most honest about the issues,” he noted.
In the video, Goodwin confirmed the rumors that he had walked away from the faith after spending the last 30 years “traveling the world, preaching to others, preaching to others about what I wholeheartedly believed.” “In those five or six years since seminary when I wasn’t living in the text, all my presuppositions had fallen off,” he added.
Throughout 2021, Goodwin brought his issues to professors who knew the scriptures and the original languages. To his surprise, the professors looking at him were like, “you finally got here.”
Among those he met, one person told Goodwin, “If you can learn to deal with these issues, then you’ll be a mature Christian. To have wrestled with this and found a way to still believe—that’s when you know you’ve made it.”.
At the same time, however, Goodwin felt that adopting liberal Christianity would be uncomfortable and dishonest. As such, Goodwin decided to renounce Christianity altogether. He said in the video that he no longer believes in the gospel or the scriptures despite his understanding of it.
“I literally told God, ‘If I find one more thing in the scriptures that doesn’t have a good explanation ..”
THERE’S a real “Christian” for ya…. Making demands; treating God like his personal valet..
This poor dude never MET the Lord.
“...it was not a prayer in Jesus name, but in his own...”
Yes, that’s essentially how I see it, but also more as a threat or demand. Thus, my comment, “Whatever. Bye, Felicia.”
In my experience, the Lord rarely responds to our threats or demands, but when He does the results are usually not favorable .
The odd thing to me is that American Protestants -- whom I have no ill will toward and cherish as friends and fellow Christians -- seem unable to intellectually elucidate the basis for or to qualify their claims of Biblical inerrancy but are quick to instead take shots at Catholics who point out its problems. Yet Biblical inerrancy is such a relatively recent innovation in Christian thinking that it seems to merit a thoughtful evaluation by its advocates before they furiously and blindly take up cudgels in its defense.
Yes. However in its essence the Gospel is pretty much put on the bottomest shelf possible where all of us crumb gabbers can get at it.
Two related thoughts….
You will recall where Paul says that not many who are considered great received the Gospel (1 Corinthians, IIRC) to which I’ve suggested that had the Lord wanted to first save the great and the good as the world considers such all He would have had to have done is give some other “gospel” that only the great and the good could understand and they would have flooded into the Kingdom in droves patting themselves on the back for being so very clever.
But we are told that the Gospel is an offense to the world and its wisdom.
Secondly all those hard things — like propitiation or substitutionary atonement — and how we respond to them can help reflect on the sort of faith we have.
Have you ever heard people talk about the fall as if our parents had been somehow set up to fall, that they didn’t have anything to resist temptation? I sure have. And I’m here to plainly state that they were very well equipped to resist for they had relationship with the Lord and with that the ability to trust Him. If I was gonna distill down the whole temptation it was the serpent getting her to trust it rather than the Lord.
Scripture tells about the mess that comes from being out of a right relationship with the Lord in often gory details and ultimately prevails through the Gospel.
Recall that Christ said that you had to have the faith of a child to enter the kingdom … one of those hard things for many I believe … and I want to suggest that whatever small children do they trust their parents, even to a fault when talking about human parents.
So the blood bought saint could find himself in a proverbial conversation with the Lord where they talk about how much just doesn’t make sense and the Lord, literally perchance and not just proverbially, could reply “Yes, but I say that My Son bore it all on the cross and it has been dealt with and even though hard for you to understand it actually does work … do you trust me?”
To whatever we don’t understand He can always reply something like that and always follow it up with “Do you trust Me?”
His children — even the spiritual teenagers (because a lot of us are those at some point) — will trust Him.
… and the others will not.
The guy this thread is about MAY be going through a teenage phase … or he may be really apostate.
… and then after having become disillusioned about a bearded man that gives away free stuff, a bunny that gives away free stuff, a rich fairy that has a weird fetish for teeth … all of which doesn’t make us look very trustworthy for when we tell them about Christ … they may eventually latch on to Karl Marx … a strange bearded 19th century troll of a man who promises them that they deserve free stuff, lets believers treat others like animals to take their stuff and indulges whatever weird fetishes they may have should they get power … because materialistic atheism with most all philosophy scooped out like it was a full frontal lobotomy.
Mercy Me
Even If: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6fA35Ved-Y
Say I Won’t: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhTHgaCjTJs
In practice, most American Protestant believers in Biblical inerrancy are eager to pull out a copy of their denomination's preferred American Standard version and read from it like prosecutors reading from the federal criminal code. And I have had well-meaning Protestant evangelicals ask if, as a Catholic, I had ever considered becoming a Christian -- and then dispute me sharply when I say that we are both Christians.
“Christian Rapper” ?
Is that anything like a Christian abortionist?
“...seem unable to intellectually elucidate the basis for or to qualify their claims of Biblical inerrancy but are quick to instead take shots at Catholics who point out its problems.”
You miss my point. Protestants and Catholics each have an ultimate authority. Yours is a church composed of error prone people. Mine is a manuscript vetted over the centuries.
I don’t know why you are hung up on Bible inerrancy. I like the King James, and there are certainly mistakes in it. The apostles used the Septuagint and scholars today say it is a sloppy translation.
Jesus established his messiahship based on the Old Testament scriptures. The apostles all based their teachings on the Old Testament in their composition of the New.
Act. 17:11 - The Bereans searched the scripture daily to to check up and see if what Paul said was true. They weren’t checking up on Bible inerrancy. So, since they were praised for doing that, then that is a model for us.
Actually many Catholics themselves have said "I am Catholic, not Christian," while most think they became a Christian when they were baptized as an infant. However, as a former never-missed-mass altar boy, CCD teacher and lector, but who actually became born of the Spirit while still a Catholic, I do know the difference. And while I do not hold that any one organic church is the one true one (as the body of Christ is), distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels). After thousands of debates here on FR most of the regulars kow that.
The redeemed are those who come to God as sinners knowing their desperate need of salvation - not as a souls saved by their works or church affiliation, but as destitute of any means or merit whereby they may find salvation - and with a humble and penitent heart (that wants a new life following Christ) believe on the crucified and risen Lord Jesus who alone can save them on His account, by His sinless shed blood and righteousness. And who thus are baptized and follow Him. Thanks be to God!
As an additional thought, God wants us to love Him...not just fear Him or obey Him because he is great.
Loving Him requires us to know him and that means digging into Scripture and even asking ourselves questions as to what we actually "know" about Him versus what we "think" we "know."
That can lead to some uncomfortable places while we correct our understanding of Him.
Reading The Old Testament to me was such an experience. It was disconcerting but powerful. Many questions arose for which I had to go in search of answers. In the end, my faith, knowledge, and love of Him was increased...but it was an eye-opening voyage.
I saw this post this morning and thought, with sadness, Yes, again, as Paul prophesied of the Last Days, men’s hearts will grow cold and they will leave the faith. This sounds like another case of someone who is trying to read the Bible as some literary text, rather than a Living Document - equivalent to the bodily form of the Word - Jesus Christ. It focuses on the reasoning without the relationship. Once you have spent time in God’s Presence, and feel His Holy Spirit and are daily ‘be being filled’ with His Spirit - and spend time on your knees - then He speaks through His Word. Jesus said ‘But when He comes (the Holy Spirit), He will guide you into all manners of Truth (singular).’
Too many get puffed up in their own ‘theology training’ and read and learn ABOUT Jesus and His written Word, but ignore or get away from the daily intimate time walking with Him. Abraham, Moses, Enoch, David, Peter, Paul, Philip, John, Stephen, Elijah, Samuel - they relied on the RELATIONSHIP with God. Even Jesus Himself while on Earth (hard for ‘Christians’ or moral/pious people to get this) would step away from ‘doing good works of healing and ministering to the lost and sick’ - and would go spend time alone with His Father.
It’s such a shame when we step away from the relationship and focus on the ‘story about’. Which is more real? The Knowing. NOT the Knowing OF.
John 10:25-29
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 2 6but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all c ; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Then we teach them about Jesus...
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They don’t teach the Jesus of the bible. The discovery and study of quantum physics is revealing exactly what the bible is saying. Unless the word quantum can be found in the KJV it’s the work of Satan dontcha know?
Could you expand on that or point me to some stuff I can read on it.
Thx much.
When pressed, Protestants tend to get defensive and obscure as to how they adopt authoritative explanations of problematic passages. Thus a view of Christianity that began as a critique and a challenge to the waywardness and corruption of the Roman church in turn fissured into numerous denominations and sects of Protestant belief. If every man has the same authority to read and interpret the Bible, then how are differences to be resolved?
Christianity today is in crisis in the developed world, with the Roman Church suffering severe doctrinal issues stemming from Vatican II, while most Protestant divinity schools and theologians have fallen into agnosticism and apostacy of one form or another.
Christianity though, Protestant and Catholic alike, retains immense appeal in the Third World. Doctrinal differences remain, but the essential message of Christ continues to have extraordinary transformative power.
I think that evangelicals give inadequate credit to the value of being raised in, understanding, and believing in the Catholic faith. I do not need to be saved by the Spirit though a conversion experience to become a Christian. It is who I am, utterly and thoroughly, as a sinner who is by Grace and choice a believing and practicing Catholic.
In saying that, I have no sense of pride, nor do I mean in any way to deride the Christian faith of others. We are all invited to Christ by our separate paths and according to our understanding. I trust in the generous love of Christ as redeeming me and other believers in spite of our sins, follies, and inadequacies. Just as Christ welcomed to Heaven the Good Thief on the Cross next to him, I hope that I too may be admitted to Glory.
“I think that evangelicals give inadequate credit to the value of being raised in, understanding, and believing in the Catholic faith.”
LOL!
“I hope that I too may be admitted to Glory.”
You don’t have to “hope”; you can know.
Hope is what faith is about. Those who know do not need faith.
Actually it seems hard for ‘Christians’ to be doing good works and ministering to the lost and sick as well as prayer, and I should do more of both.
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