>My main gripe about those in the Christian apologetical business is that they
>do not put out the hard work to keep up with the fields they purport to study
>and thus they teach Christians things that are out of date and wrong. We
>should do better than that. Remember James 3:1.
>
>glenn
>
-------------
Amen, Glenn. I too have seen enough of attempts to "please God with a lie" as
Francis Bacon put it.
The Protestants, when they severed ties with Rome, did so because the Pope was
wrong about some things. But ironically, in doing so they lost the ability to
provide safeguards to protect their own message from becoming corrupted. As a
result, we now have a situation where:
a) anyone can publish materials for church people without passing any peer
review process;
b) the apologetic message of the Church is being co-opted and manipulated by
shrewd politicians and other salesmen;
c) innocent lay people in the churches are taught all kinds of nonsense --
anything will be accepted as long as it is made to appear consistent with the
Bible.
d) the Bible itself is being crowded out by the pretentious commentaries of
authors who load such verbose footnotes into the pages that they look -- and
function -- more like the Talmud.
If Christian apologists cannot be trusted on scientific matters, who will
believe their reports about the Gospel? This is a problem that Augustine wrote
about in the 5th century. After all this time, apologetics is still in such
sorry shape that I feel that it often does more harm than good.
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
W. B. Yeats
Do we need an "Evangelical Council of Scientific Accountability" to police
ourselves on scientific matters?
Paul Arveson, Research Physicist
Code 724, NSWC, Bethesda, MD 20084
73367.1236@compuserve.com arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil
(301) 227-3831 (W) (301) 227-1914 (FAX) (301) 816-9459 (H)