The Relevance and Authority of Scripture Essay

Christianity & Liberalism Book Review The main message in Christianity & Liberalism is what the only object of faith is Christ. Machen composes his book into doctrine, God and man, the Bible, Christ, Salvation, and the Church; he shows all of this doctrine should be directly connected with the faith in

RUNNING HEAD: RESISTANCE TO LIBERALISM The Justification of Resisting Liberalism Liberalism, in general, was an ideological movement that emerged out of the ideas of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th century. It embraced the ideas of individualism which were established in the Renaissance and Reformation era. The Renaissance period sparked a belief in the importance of the individual in society. It helped promote the beliefs of classical liberalism which gradually formed into the liberal ideology of the 19th century. Individuals that were waiting to get their individual rights and freedoms were allowed to finally gain liberty and power through this period of time. Classical liberalism developed

Conservatism Ideology As liberalism ideology evolved and championed by the economic leaders, it pose a threat to the existing social settings such as the presence of the nobility, and the church. The attempt to defend existing social arrangement is what brought about conservatism. Conservatives stood against the ideas of liberals in a rational for maintaining existing traditional political structures and the centralization of power. They stood against transferring political responsibility to the common people under the disguise of equality (Shively, 2014).

The Fundamentalist-Modernist dispute was a religious dispute that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s within the confines of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that ended up creating separation in most of the American Christian movements also. In fact, convinced that the literal truth of the Bible formed the basis of Christian belief, fundamentalists initiated a campaign to eradicate Protestant denominations of modernism and to fight the new individual freedoms that seemed to contradict traditional morality (Foner 788). What is more, the press portrayed fundamentalism as a movement of backwoods bigots. Yet, it was a national phenomenon. Fundamentalism continued to be an important strain of 1920s politics and culture (Foner

The rise of modern American liberalism throughout the history Having been born in Europe in the epoch of Renaissance and Reformation, the liberalism has become an inevitable part of the United States. When someone and somewhere talks about the liberal movement, everybody will mention the American liberalism, which has undergone several stages of its development and transformed into modern liberalism. This liberalism allows the United States to be one of the most powerful states in the world.

In sharp contrast, both Progressive Evangelicals and Liberal Protestants do not hold to the idea of biblical inerrancy, recognizing that human authors were capable of error. However, Progressive Evangelicals still highly esteem Scriptures, unlike Liberal Protestants. Progressive Evangelicals follow closely the teachings of Jesus while reading the Bible in light of general themes found in the Scriptures. According to Sparks (n.d.), Progressive Evangelicals would argue that “one cannot simply read theology off of the Bible’s pages; one must understand the text and then reflect theologically on what is said in light of other biblical texts, and in light of God’s voice as it speaks to us through tradition, cosmos, experience and Spirit” ( p. 8). While the Bible has authority, it is not the only way God speaks and thus must be put into dialogue with other sources of

civil and political liberties, and protection under the law. In the 19th Century, liberalism was centered on a transfer of power from the church to the state. They favored individual rights, state control on eduction, an end to slavery, and on

The Sermon on the Mount is a sermon given by Jesus Christ found in the book of Matthew in the Holy Bible. The beginning of this sermon includes a list of blessings called the Beatitudes. Jesus uses these to explain God’s favor towards those who are striving for righteousness. For those who had come to believe and follow Jesus as the son of God, every word that he spoke in the Sermon on the Mount was intended as words of encouragement for Jesus’s disciples and were taken as such. For those who were skeptical, the crowd, that Jesus was truly the son of God, Jesus’s words took on a totally different meaning. The Beatitudes, simple words that promote the humility of man, were explicit words of encouragement for Jesus’s disciples. Yet at the same time, to the crowd listening, the Beatitudes were an implicit invitation to become men of God by believing that this man is God in the flesh, God in spirit, God almighty, God omniscient, God omnipresent, and God omnipotent.

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time, and with good reason. For the stories written in it have changed the way many think and even believe when it comes to the power greater than this world. The Bible holds very specific opinions on things such as slavery, who humans should treat each other, and ultimately social justice. It has been one of the most important foundations for allowing social reform to occur in modern day history as well as the history of the whole world. However, it is forgotten in history class how prominent the ancient texts have changed the people. When looking at the history, it is discovered to be the strength of great people who have used its wisdom to bring about a change for those who could not do it on

The Liberals believe that the writers of the Bible accommodated their recipients and hence the Bible is not binding on us. Non propositional theology is often favoured by liberal theologians because it places the emphasis on human experience and rationality.

During the Industrial revolution many people started to believe in the idea of Liberalism. At times it was difficult. People were imprisoned or persecuted because of their ideas. Riots even occurred because the government and some of the upper class would not stand for the Liberalists’ new ways to improve society. Aristocrats refused to change their ways. But through it all, liberalists persevered and brought about one of the largest changes in society that we are still experiencing even today.

The Rise of Fundamentalism Church history reveals that a number of serious biblical doctrinal controversies occurred during the late 1800s and early 1900s that gave occasion for the formulation of certain fundamentalist principals to be implemented as a clarification and remedy against unbiblical manifestations. The authority of the Bible was brought into serious question.

Gnostics One fact that must remain in consideration by any student of textual criticism is that there were many other religious and philosophical writings produced simultaneously with the Scriptures of the New Testament era. Robert J. Sargent states, “As the Bible was being written down, numerous other religious

LIBERTY UNIVERSITY THE EMERGING CHURCH: TRUTH OR DARE? A RESEARCH PAPER SUBMITTED TO DR. JAMES WOODDELL IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE THEO 510 ONLINE LIBERTY BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BY MILTON T. MOHR (STUDENT ID#24580889) LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA August 18, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 The Whos and What of the Emerging Church Movement-------------------------------------3 Six Major Viewpoints of the Emerging Church Movement-------------------------------4-11 1. The

Most Christians do not think about the canon of scripture or know what it is or means in theology. Most take for granted the Bible they have and never question how it came into being. Today, we have 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament. There was a time, however, that we did not have a canon. Bruce defines canon as books of the Bible that were recognized to be considered scripture (p. 17). The importance of the canon and how it was developed was intriguing to professor and author F.F. Bruce. He dedicated his book The Canon of Scripture to explore and explain the formulation of the canon we have today. Bruce taught in universities, including the University of Manchester, where he began to lecture students on the