Dad only gets the kids one weekend per month and alternate holidays, and is otherwise uninterested in being more a part of their lives than this. She cannot afford a home internet subscription, as she is low income, therefore, any internet use she makes requires that she take her laptop to a library or coffee shop or other place with free wi-fi, and since she can hardly afford a babysitter anyway, when she does have time to do this, the kids must go with her as they are underage and cannot be left by themselves. So far, a very typical life-situation.
The woman is your average non-religious non-Christian. At the grocery store, a fundamentalist Christian strikes up a conversation with her and remarks that Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead is a true fact of history, and therefore, Jesus really is Lord, therefore, his messages of doom are true and she will go to literal hell unless she "accepts Jesus as her savior".
How much time would a fundamentalist Christian say this woman should take in learning about and navigating the scholarly disagreements in Christianity concerning
---whether the bible asserts Jesus rising from the dead in ways other than physical, [/list][/code]
---why evangelical scholars sometimes cease believing Jesus' resurrection was physical,
---the criteria by which she can recognize when the excuse "god's ways are mysterious" is being abused, and when it isn't,
---The scholarly disagreements about what David Hume meant in his famous argument against miracles,
---How good or bad the fundamentalist arguments for traditional authorship of the gospels really are,
---The disagreement among Christian scholars on what Papias meant with his words concerning authorship of Matthew,
---The Muratorian Canon asserting that the data in John's gospel actually come from 11 apostles, to whom God "revealed" this ---history by divine means only after they fasted for three days (which makes it seem the data in John are not a simple case of
---one apostle's memories of real history, but the collective visions of several different people),
---Clement of Alexandria's claim that while the Synoptic gospels are "historical", John chose to write a "spiritual" gospel,
---How to weigh the historical evidence speaking to explanatory "scope",
---How to weigh the historical evidence speaking to explanatory "power",
---Whether and how the criteria of embarrassment can be safely used,
---Whether and when an argument from silence is valid,
---How to know whether similar testimony from other ancient Christian sources is truly "independent" corroboration, or if the
---source is simply blindly repeating a tradition they heard from an elder,
---To what degree the several absurd beliefs of the "church fathers" impeach their general credibility,
------etc, etc, etc...
....before this fundamentalist will agree that this woman from the grocery store she has done a sufficient amount of investigating to rationally warrant drawing a conclusion from all the data? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades?
If this woman is always one heartbeat away from roasting in hell forever, as fundamentalists always claim, then she has a further problem: Doing a good job investigating the sources while yet minimizing the amount of time needed for this since, of course, she could die at any moment, and if she dies before drawing a conclusion, she goes to hell.
If this woman's life is already as full as is portrayed above, what changes would the fundamentalist propose so that she can gain more free time so she can engage in more quantity/quality of study of this topic?
Maybe go to church with free daycare on Sunday? That wouldn't solve anything, how is she supposed to know which of the Christian churches will explain the bible to her correctly?. Roman Catholics? Baptists? Pentacostals? Calvinists? Jehovah's Witnesses? Mormons? Liberals? Inerrantists? Jesus is God? Jesus is not God? Calvary Chapel or non-denominational? Evidentialism or Presuppositionalism?
Maybe she needs to discern what theology the bible truly teaches, so she can then make a better-informed decision about which church will give her proper spiritual instruction? How much time should she take investigating the ceaseless theological disagreements among Christians before she can believe she's done enough to start drawing conclusions on what the bible "really" teaches?
Would the fundamentalist suggest she give her kids up to foster care so when she gets home from work, she can spend the rest of the day on her computer at a coffee shop surfing the internet as she investigates these complex issues of never-ending disagreement among Christian scholars?
The fundamentalist doesn't have room to disagree with this extreme solution to the time-problem...according to Jesus, obeying Jesus is far more important than the non-Christian's goal of raising kids in a religiously neutral environment, so why wouldn't the fundamentalist speak in a way that says this woman's salvation is more important than her kids?
Didn't Jesus also actually promise abundance to those who would give up their kids to follow him around?
It is my conclusion that if we take up the fundamentalist's challenge to do a properly thorough investigation of the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, the need to do a high-quality investigation will require us to take so much time that we will run a high risk that we will die before we get done with the analysis. In other words, if we really are, at all times, one heartbeat away from roasting in hell forever, then the more time we spend investigating, the more risk we take of being damned forever.27 Then Peter said to Him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?"
28 And Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
29 "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life.
30 "But many who are first will be last; and the last, first. (Matt. 19:27-30 NAU)
It seems to me that if the gospel message really is as urgent as the fundamentalist says, then according to their understanding of the bible, God thinks it is more important to accept Christ in hurried fashion, than it is to take the time necessary to figure out and investigate all of the complex issues surrounding the subject of Jesus' resurrection being an allegedly true literal historical event.
In other words, at the end of the day, the fundamentalist does NOT seriously believe you are doing the least bit of good for yourself if you take the time necessary to fully read and fully digest all that is offered in modern apologetics works concerning the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus. The more time you spend learning, the more risk you take that you'll die before having reached a conclusion on the matter. Therefore, the fundamentalist who tells us to investigate the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, is actually telling us to do things that will heighten the risk that we end up being lost forever. Does the fundamentalist seriously wish to say that average non-Christians "should" be able to quickly discern and digest all the complex issues raised in many conservative apologetics works on the resurrection? The urgency of the gospel message counsels that we eliminate the risk as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, nothing about a properly thorough investigation into the historicity of Jesus' resurrection can be "quick". The other problem is that if, in the name of ending the emergency regarding our salvation, we do a "quick" investigation, well, "quick" investigations place an arbitrary limit on the quality of our conclusions, a limitation not imposed if we are allowed to take as much time as needed to thoroughly research and digest all that goes into this subject.
Indeed, how long would it take the average non-believer to fully read/digest all that appears in Mike Licona's "The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach"? Isn't it true that the unbeliever could die when they are in the middle of reading that book or the bible? If the gospel message is as urgent as fundies claim, do we increase the risk that we will go to hell forever, if we take the time to read these complex and involved works? If so, then why do fundies want us to take the time that most average people would require in order to do a properly thorough analysis of said works?
By the way, the NT condemns the smart unbeliever who chooses to investigate Christian claims:
The unbeliever who is still investigating, has not yet arrived at faith. Therefore, anything an unbeliever does, would not be pleasing to God. If the unbeliever cannot please god in any way all because they lack faith, then the unbeliever's act of investigation of Christian claims, necessarily done logically prior to faith, constitutes an act that God is not pleased with.6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Heb. 11:6 NAU)
Since God is already fuming angry at us unbelievers (he killed two people in Acts 5 for merely lying about how much money they could afford to tithe, and this was apparently to cause the church to learn the literal "fear" of the Lord, and how the slightest bit of disagreement with God is deadly dangerous even to those who identify with Christanity (v. 11), why would we want to investigate Christian claims, as unbelievers, and thereby add one more item to the list of things we do, that God is not pleased with? We are already in enough trouble as it is...are we not?
If it makes sense to avoid increasing the risk that we'll go to hell, then doesn't it make sense to avoid attempting to research these complex things and simply "accept Jesus" immediately upon hearing the preaching, the way the "smart" unbelievers did in the gospels and in Acts?
If so, then how can the fundamentalist assert that the bible approves of employment of critical thinking skills? When somebody is screaming that you are in serious immediate danger and you simply don't recognize it yet, exactly how much time do you normally spend investigating their claims before rendering a decision? Several weeks, months, years? Or does the urgency require that you figure out the truth or falsity of their claims within seconds/minutes?
Sure, there are some "liberal" apologists who think hell is not literal conscious suffering, hence no need to hurry the investigation, but this post is directed at exposing absurdities of the fundamentalist view, not the liberal view.
How absurd is it for the average unbeliever, largely ignorant of issues of Christian scholarship/apologetics as they are, to think they could rightly discern, within minutes or even hours, whether Jesus really rose from the dead?
Barry
