I actually address the Blind Pharisee of Sherwood Forest, Doug Wilson of Idaho fame, and his sycophants, his merry men like Toby Sumpter. They have all been busy this week trying to link American slavery to the inerrancy of scripture to the goodness of God.
Their entire argument is clothed in the sheer brilliance of their own intellectualism, and the vast moral superiority of their own egoism, but that is basically the essence of the argument. See how that works, if one doesn’t pledge allegiance to their version of Biblical innerancy and accept that slavery was good, one is now a heretic.
Methinks the Lord would much rather have a heretic out tripping the tulips and following conscience, then someone on the inside calling evil “good” and crediting it all to our Maker. I would literally rather die than represent our Lord in such a manner.
Wilson (and Sumpter and all the other Wilsonian clones from the Moscow factory) seem hellbent on declaring, “The Law is Holy, Righteous, and Good!” Let me strongly rebuke that. Actually, no it is not! The Lawmaker is Holy, righteous, and good. The law is what got Him crucified.
Do not ever confuse “the law” with the Lawmaker. They are not the same at all. The law is why people invented six inch cigarette holders, so no tobacco shall ever touch their lips. Mission accomplished, the requirements of the law have been met. Apparently God is as easily fooled as I was by a child who wasn’t supposed to set foot in the kitchen and so he set every possible part of his body except his feet in the kitchen, like some kind of cross between a contortionist and a tiny tarzan.
God will not be mocked. Apparently I will however, being a mom and a cheerful soul to boot. While my child was practicing acrobatics long ago in the kitchen, I was busy learning an important spiritual lesson about the nature of the law. My very young child was able to perfectly follow the letter of law while completely missing the spirit and intent of the law. I played this same game times four, for decades.
I fully empathize with God, He’s been doing it for eons times millions of people.
I believe in the Bible. I believe in the principle of Biblical inerrancy, as expressed in the Bible. “Let God be true and every man a liar.” The problem being, most men are liars. Yep, flat out liars. Deceived to the gills! Worst yet, they can’t even see it, they aren’t even aware of it. Blind as a bat. They do not even know their own selves and yet they feel amply qualified to proceed to define God for the rest of us? I would laugh outright at this travesty if it didn’t just make me want to sob uncontrollably.
So, I am casting pearls before these swine, because I feel obliged to intercede, to apologize for the poor manners and shallow intellect of so many of the movers and shakers of my faith, the social media influencers, the pop culture church planters and pastor trainers. Bloody appalling lot, I’m telling you.
I mean, Pastor Wilson’s reach is vast, and although he loves to present himself as an outcast, a rebel, he is invited to preach and teach, his books are read, and he is held up as an example of someone in Christiandom to follow. I feel quite sick when I say that, and sicker yet because of the dozens who argue, who are currently arguing, in his very “non racist” favor, as if there is nothing what so ever wrong with proclaiming that God Himself mandated and endorsed slavery, and it was good.
Because no matter how much cheese whiz you try to put on the cracker, that is what this whole argument is all about.
Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com
See, there's this thing called biology... 
Well said, IB. And, amen, we need to know the difference between the Law and the Lawmaker. We also need to understand the the Word of God is a Person—Jesus Christ. He explains the Bible to us.
I read Wilson’s article you linked. What utter nonsense! You got to love the convoluted logic though. Start with a HUMAN doctrine, something the Bible never actually claims about itself (“inerrency,” meaning we should read it with wooden literalism, as if it applies to all people in all cultures at all times), and then pigeonhole every misguided doctrine you want into your preconceived supposition. Voila! You can be as angry and judgmental as you want.
It was exactly this same logic that the Spanish explorers used to enslave and commit genocide on the Arawaks, to where they were virtually wiped out by 1515. These explorers (plunderers) used the Bible, calling the Arawaks the “Canaanites,” to justify the slaughter.
Besides the fact that the doctrine of inerrancy, as he apparently infers from it, is a 19th century invention, this is a perfect example of where reading the Bible indiscriminately gets you, as if God ordained every pointy-headed thing His people did, like slavery was His perfect will for humankind. Like Jesus never came and corrected our understanding of God for us (Matt.5; 11:27; John 1:18). The is the ugliest form of Christianity imaginable. It’s FALSE doctrine.
But I do agree with Wilson’s last point about atheists, but not for the same reason he gives. The atheist’s strongest argument against the veracity of the Bible is against this biblicist view of the Bible (and they make a LOT of money writing books about it!) And I would agree with atheists if that was how the Bible was written, but it wasn’t, which is why these people should do a little deeper study on how it was actually written and what it’s saying to us. If it isn’t like Jesus, it’s not like God.
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“The atheist’s strongest argument against the veracity of the Bible is against this biblicist view of the Bible…”
Bingo Mel, well said! Many atheists are actually forced to try to choose between what their own conscience tells them is true and what is often being taught by evangelical thought leaders, including Wilson.
A huge problem I see is that we aren’t letting the Author and Finisher of our faith read the Bible to us, we aren’t perceiving the Bible through the lens of Jesus. Jesus who came to set the captives free, who spoke to Samaritans, who started this church of Greek, Jew, circumcised and not, male, female, is not writing this love letter to us because He wishes to argue in favor of slavery. If we know Jesus, we know that, but if all we have are flat, two dimensional words on a page, we may not understand that at all, and than we will simply mold scripture into whatever confirmation bias we prefer.
Ironically during America slavery, the Bible was edited, parts were removed so slaves becoming Christians wouldn’t get any wild ideas. It didn’t really work, not in the long term. That’s my kind of Biblical inerrancy, the safety and security of knowing a God who really will not be silenced, who will make His voice known, in spite of what we try to do to make Him conform to what we want. 🙂
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Amen. What’s “inerrant” about the Word of God is that He’s living and active and knows more about the deepest motives of our hearts than we do (Heb.4:12). The problem anti-theists have is one of being in deceptive denial. For He’s put us in Himself, locked the door behind Him and threw away the key! There’s no way out because there is no “outside of Christ” (John 1:3; Col.1:16-17)! To deny Him is to deny your own existence. He knocks on the door of our heart FROM THE INSIDE. So, we can ignore Him, whistle past the graveyard all we want with our clever dismissals, there’s no way around Him, or past Him, because nothing exists apart from Him. That eventual realization has got be a bummer for godless deniers. 🙂
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Dear InsanityBytes, i didn’t know back then (westcott and hort) that people were playing jittery-pokery with Scripture, but yeah, it makes sense that game didn’t win out – there are just too many places in Scripture that call narcs wicked. Meanwhile, in our enlightened times, it’s like half the Bible is either glossed over or completely ignored by way too many preachers. No wonder so many people want no parts of church, or Scripture.
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“The problem being, most men are liars. Yep, flat out liars. Deceived to the gills! Worst yet, they can’t even see it, they aren’t even aware of it. Blind as a bat.”
What is a disgusting statement and untrue to say the least? No wonder you promote God being a woman (The Shack) and defend the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as female. You will be held accountable for deceiving your readers and leading them astray. I prayed for you this morning that you may repent of blaspheming the Holy Spirit which in Scripture (Matthew 12:30-32) is marked as the most dangerous thing to do. There is no bases to teach this doctrine as it is not found in God’s Word.
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I absolutely DO NOT promote “God as being female” nor do I “defend the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as female.” I did however enjoy “The Shack” very much and the literary devices and metaphors he used to describe the trinitarian nature of God. I whole heartedly approve of his work.
As to calling men liars being a disgusting statement, no actually that’s just Biblical. Not only are we liars, but we are also idolaters, adulterers, thieves, blasphemers, murderers, and assorted other unpleasantness. Sorry, “there are none righteous not one,” and “While we were yet sinners, He died for us.”
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The Shack promotes God as a woman?
Ugh. Not again… I’m sorry but this has always been the dumbest argument against The Shack of all of them. Besides the painful fact that people don’t seem to get analogies, symbolism, or dreams, taking everything with wooden literalism, NO, The Shack did not promote God as a female! It didn’t promote God as a male either.
The theological fact is, God has NO gender—male or female—period, unless you’re talking about the incarnated Christ, who was a male. God, in His essence, is not some cosmic old man with a beard up in the sky! The term “He” or “Father” is giving us language to be able to describe a particular way God relates to us (which is what The Shack was trying to show by having God appear to Mack as a woman first, and a man later, because that’s what he needed at the time). Just like women are considered “sons” RELATIONALLY to God as a “Father,” it has nothing to do with gender.
Btw, the Greek word for spirit (pneuma) is neuter; the Hebrew word for spirit (ruach) is feminine. Of the 89 times ruach is found in the Old Testament, 80 references are feminine, 44 of which (including Gen 1:2 and throughout Judges) accompany feminine verbs. The Holy Spirit is often described with motherly and feminine attributes. But, again, Holy Spirit is neither a female or male, gender-wise.
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I know we all fall short of the glory of God, but you are double speaking and make your point according to the direction the conversation is going.
By saying most men are liars who are trying to teach us about God, in your context, if you read your own paragraph, it logically excludes women.
If you meant all people then your context makes no sense.
But in regards to God and the Holy Spirit as female, there you are being untruthful. I have confronted you in the past about that erroneous belief which you supported and yesterday, you came over my corner to defend the Holy Spirit as a female. Please, do not act like a chameleon and be clear in what you actually believe in.
Your biblical understanding on certain issues that I have come across are very dangerous.
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“By saying most men are liars who are trying to teach us about God, in your context, if you read your own paragraph, it logically excludes women.”
Well, I use “mankind” in much the same way one might use “humankind.” It seems to me as if women are of the same kind, therefore it’s not necessary to create more “kinds.” Pretty sure that is the way the Bible is written, too.
As to God, I am fairly certain He is exists far above and beyond our silly gender paradigms. My little pea brain actually prefers to perceive Him as male, not because I am declaring Him to be male, but because He must be shrunk down to fit into my understanding so I have some way of relating to Him better. Jesus came as a man and I find that quite delightful.
I did indeed confront you and your good old boys of self righteous religiosity, all proud of yourself for persecuting and abusing a sister in Christ. That’s the wrong head and the wrong heart, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. That was just plain ugly and masquerading it as somehow representing Jesus was completely unacceptable.
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“I did indeed confront you and your good old boys of self righteous religiosity, all proud of yourself for persecuting and abusing a sister in Christ. That’s the wrong head and the wrong heart, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. That was just plain ugly and masquerading it as somehow representing Jesus was completely unacceptable.”
The times that I was at your place, you defended false teachers and preachers. Jesus said that if you love others more than Him, you are not worthy to be My disciple. I don’t hate people because I show them to be false, I’m loving the people who are listening to false doctrine and warning them. You on the other hand, promote and defend such wolf’s in sheep clothing. I have never attacked a person’s character, only there doctrine and them being a false teacher based on what they are teaching. Jesus called the false teachers of His time, brood of snakes and hypocrites because their teachings were sending people to hell.
I love the truth and like Scripture says, contend for it. You see it as ugly, but I see it as loving them enough to tell them, they are heading the wrong way and are causes others to abandon Jesus through their teachings. Those who love the truth will defend it and warn Christians of false teachers.
That conviction for the truth to love it is void in people who stand up for false teachers making them just like them.
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Anyways, we will never see eye to eye when it comes to the Word of God and the love of the Truth found in its pages. This will be my last reply.
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I wish you would just use half the commitment, just half the vigor you reserve for calling out women, and use it to address some of those false teachers actually promoting things like slavery and child abuse. One really doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but “contending for the faith” looks a whole lot like stepping right over the people selling God endorsed slavery and instead trying to slay the guy who wrote The Shack, the guy trying to sell the idea of God endorsed love. Like wow, false teacher discernment ministry is sure subjective and morally relative.
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Sounds like you have touched the tenderest sin wound in our countries history. This blindness continues to confound me. I honestly don’t know if it’s a sincere desire to escape the pain of it’s reality or something far more sinister. Either way, keep writing IB or you may just burst into uncontrollable sobs.
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Ha! Thank you for your kind words. I do have to keep writing, uncontrollable sobbing is just not a good look! 🙂
Some of this stuff is just so grievous, but I am also grateful there are others who understand and care.
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My ignorance is vast; the erudition of the cited gentleman may be vast; his cited evaluation of slavery seems rather more only half vast. Doesn’t the Good Book hold us responsible because our wills are free? And given free will, how can anything definable as slavery be ought but anathema?
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I read Wilson’s article you linked. What utter nonsense!
I also read the linked article. Seems to me that Wilson’s main point in the linked article was not slavery or any other issue. His main point was “christians” don’t believe many of the things said in the Bible any more than the athiests do.
How is that conclusion innacurate? (rhetorical question)
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“His main point was “christians” don’t believe many of the things said in the Bible any more than the athiests do.”
I think his point was that atheists are often more correct in their understanding of the Bible, since atheists are more willing to embrace this perception of God as wrathful, evil, violent, and condoning, even outright advocating in favor of slavery, rape, murder.
I think he is wrong. I think if that is your (false) perception of God, God Himself would probably prefer you just be an atheist.
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