Fundi Vs. Liberal
Posted by Dan on 23 Mar 2006 at 10:55 am | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Read this(Steve sent this to me). What do you think? Do you basically agree with what he says? Does some of it make you angry? What’s your reaction?
Posted by Dan on 23 Mar 2006 at 10:55 am | Tagged as: Uncategorized
Read this(Steve sent this to me). What do you think? Do you basically agree with what he says? Does some of it make you angry? What’s your reaction?
I agree with everything after a first brief reading. Perhaps I would find points of contention if I looked a little more critically, but overall it was well written and good points.
as Mark Driscoll often says, “I don’t know why they’re called fundamentalists; they’re no fun at all”
:p
I was about to ask a similar question that some of the later commenters did; why does the author say the two terms aren’t much but insults anymore, and then proceed to work the rest of his post into the limitations of those two generally insulting stereotypes? It might have been better to talk about what he could value from the two perspectives or explain to us all what those two terms historically meant instead of re-enforcing their perjorative use.
For the most part I agree with what he wrote in his preliminary remarks, though. (I haven’t read any Rowan Williams, and I don’t know a lot about fundamentalist history.) On number 3, I’ve got a book by Grenz (that I didn’t finish because I became infatuated with Hauerwas) called Beyond Foundationalism that addresses exactly this issue. He doesn’t necessarily refer to the stances as reactions to modernity, but more as logical consequences of doing theology within such a mindset. The first section of the book tries to explain that these two lines of thought within the church - conservative and mainline - are largely due to the foundationalist way of thinking and determining truth. He also talks about how these two camps have begun to fragment greatly as postmodern thought enters the discussion, then proceeds to chart a path towards uniting these two sides.
This blogger also wrote, “As we enter into a Postmodern period the liberal versus fundamentalist controversy is no longer the defining issue for Western Christianity.” I wonder is what he thinks the defining issue is. Oh, and I like the goals listed in his profile - especially number 4.
“why does the author say the two terms aren’t much but insults anymore, and then proceed to work the rest of his post into the limitations of those two generally insulting stereotypes?
I was thinking the same thing when I read the article. I agree with most of his points.
As far as Foundationalist determination of truth etc… How do we view truth in the Bible considering what it says about itself, that is it God breathed? Basically it’s his words? Can we still apply deconstructionist thought to a supernatural book?
This has been on my mind a lot lately.
Interesting blog to post Dan. I tried to comment before, but it wouldn’t let me. I pretty much agree with him, though I do think it is odd that he would say the terms are meaningless and then describe them anyway. And I don’t think I have ever met anyone who would fall into that kind of liberal category.
You’re questions about the Bible are really good. I would love to talk to you about that stuff. Don’t really have answers, especially to type out here, but it would be a fun conversation. Sometime.