What is such a faith, such a belief and its response? It is a relationship of dependence. It is to say that there is in one collection of books a revelation of salvation faith, that in our time must be in contrast with a different general reality; thus it is a kind of gnosis - special knowledge.
Much as I might engage presently in some church tourism, and thus participate in some of what Tim Farron experiences, I cannot get away from the fact that the Bible is a human construction in particular places and times.
It is impossible to escape from the work of biblical critics and the limitations of doing history. It is impossible to reject the reality of science. So a number of things follow in relationship with evangelical (and other post-Nicea and post-Chalcedon forms of) Christianity.
This summarises like this, pushing history: that Jesus was an end-time rabbi, not particularly unique in his ethic, and did not preach his own divinity and probably was unsure (changed his mind?) on the matter of messiahship. He could have regarded himself as a conduit with God to bring about another Messiah after Jesus's own understanding of the suffering servant. Of course once he was dead, he either was something large or nothing at all for those energised with belief, as Paul put it in similar fashion.
Even saying this is to say more than history can provide. In pure terms he was a Galilean, who followed the Baptist's eschatology, widened out his appeal somewhat, went to Jerusalem, was arrested and was put to death by crucifixion.
The synoptic gospels are faith documents of early believers in his messiahship, a human man who was appointed by God. Pauline theology is all over these as part-interpretation. Many of Jesus's sayings are put on to him, but some might be his own words. John's Gospel has a resistance and pull regarding Gnosticism, and is a Greek-philosophical Gospel of pre-existence with all sorts of sayings put on to Jesus's lips. The Gospel of Thomas (excluded from the canon but must be included as serious) is a limited form of Gnostic Gospel with sayings and no biographical picture, some of which could be historical and many are not.
Indeed for someone like me, the Rabbi Jesus is an evolved human like anyone else, and nothing special, living in the Bronze Age (as we categorise it), and whose thought forms were within the supernaturalism mistaken age of rabbinical Judaism with a messianic expectation. So were the excited early followers, Jews and more, told that he had returned to the leaders and a symbolic congregation (500 or 120) and gone off again (so these followers would not see him) with a directing Spirit instead and a likely rapid return. He would come again, establish the close Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and would (unlike what the Creed says) give it back to the Father at the very end.
It's not how I think, or anyone else, who thinks of the universe as billions of light years in inner circumference and expanding, and of evolving life (a chaotic method of development by comparative death plus systemic interaction). It gets a bit daft to think of a God being interested in an edge of one galaxy planet to direct history. The thought forms do not meet. They only work if one of them is a mythology, and a mythology as true as doing art and working the imagination. The mythology explains nothing except, perhaps, as an illustration that sometimes we have to give something up in order to move on to something fresh. Dying and rising is a common theme in many a myth, and in nature's renewal.
But the committed Christian, the evangelical believer, seems to live inside that specific thought world with Reformation adjustment. It becomes a kind of fizzy reality. I do worry if a political leader shows that sort of dependency. What is missing that such emotional diversion needs such to block the plughole? Now I am well aware that life is shit, but I am not going to fill that gap with mythology and self-deception.
What then is it to have that imagining for yourself and friends, but then have this "liberal to my fingertips" stance that others should follow their own truths? Now, I know about Radical Orthodoxy, which hates Karl Barth because he accepted the opposite of atheism from being inside the inner circle. For a Radical Orthodox, there is the postmodern bubble, but you live within the bubble and it must be the interpreter of all else. Atheism is no more. One can understand this form of traditionalism, but it is rubbish because any research shows that the 'secular theology' of Sociology produces returns of the real whether you want them or not. Science does other. Life is not a novel to be made up however you want: thus my argument against the extent of non-realism in the Cupitt camp: and Cupitt then says he follows common narratives and not the Radical Orthodox imaginings. Why not? Why not, when all is imagined? Because, in the end, some things are true, however hard truth is to discover, and some are not. It is not just that some things 'work better' and others don't. Yes, great schemes of explanations change, and so can ours of General Relativity and the Quantum, but they will change because of research that supports or undermines the mathematics.
I don't understand Tim Farron. On the other hand, I have met many Christians who seem to have a remarkable ability to use the light switch method for one minute being in the Christian world of explaining and then in the ordinary world of technology and human enquiry, the 'common narratives' recognised by Don Cupitt.
For example, there is a binary aspect to Genesis in reproductive relationships. There is also a binary basis worked out (from many other forms) into the New Testament for marriage - marriage that becomes angelic in the Kingdom of Heaven when it comes. Eh? Divorce is thus not allowed. However, there is also rabbinic experience of foreskin removal that reveals eunuchs and something in between. We now know that intersex comes in many guises, and related and unrelated is the transexual, and desire for coupling (and more) on a same sex basis comes throughout evolved animals (including us) as well as across the sexes. Genesis and being a biblical Christian just won't do as an explanation. The sociology of social stability suggests recognition and doorway rituals for same sex as well as different sex coupling, and more in fact, anything indeed that involves pleasure and informed consent together.
Tim Farron as a 'biblical Christian' must feel constrained, as will his fellowship of Evangelical Christian co-worshippers, regarding anything beyond the limited biblical insights. Thanks to him for allowing others to pursue their own: but on what basis? Allowing others to sin, due to being liberal to his fingertips? Is that not participation in the sin of others, when surely they should be persuaded to get inside the bubble.
Very odd. It makes no sense to me. I am liberal to my fingertips too, but this is because I think knowledge is only darkly found in conditions of free enquiry. I am liberal in religion and liberal is sociology and liberal in politics, a liberal view that has plenty for the collective sense. After all, we evolve to be collective in many species.
I am sorry for the emotionally dependent, but the Bible is no longer a source of essential knowledge. We get it elsewhere. It is only one of the providers of mythology. It was created and collected by a Church institutional arrangement and helps maintain that arrangement in many breakout forms.
All religion is like this: Arabia in the seventh century is a mystery and took about century to write another mythic history. Scriptures are full of all sorts of errors. Ancient religions in the east were always about mythology and no one thought any worse for it (life was a story). But the grounds of 'being historical' have changed, and I worry about politicians dependent on an emotional fill-up every Sunday and perhaps more often.
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