A highly agitated performance by apostate Randal Rauser
1. Throughout the video, Rauser plays his dogeared hand about how conservative Christians collapse their interpretation of scripture into scripture itself. Yet his application of that distinction is totally one-sided inasmuch as he exempts his progressive interpretation from the distinction he urges on conservative Christians. The conservative understanding is just their interpretation whereas his progressive interpretation is true.
2. He says the OT prophets had a false understanding of God because they didn't believe in the Incarnation or the possibility of an Incarnation. But that fails to distinguish between lacking belief in something, due to ignorance, and denying something. For instance, they didn't know that Jesus would be the messiah. That doesn't mean they disaffirmed the messiahship of Jesus. They just had no idea who Jesus was. They didn't know who the messiah was going to be at that level of biographical detail. But that hardly implies that they'd be opposed to Jesus as the fulfillment of messianic prophecy.
Notice how radical Rauser's position is. The messiahship of Jesus requires OT validation. Yet Rauser says OT prophets had a false concept of the messiah. Evidently he interprets the OT in unitarian terms.
The question at issue isn't whether OT prophets were consciously Trinitarian but whether OT theism is consistent with or open to the revelation of the Trinity and Incarnation.
In addition, while the OT witness of the Trinity is oblique, the OT contains many passages that dovetail with the more explicit witness to the Trinity. This isn't a reversal of OT theism.
A fundamental purpose of the OT is to correct false views of God. Pagan views. Not to substitute a different false view of God.
In addition, while the OT witness of the Trinity is oblique, the OT contains many passages that dovetail with the more explicit witness to the Trinity. This isn't a reversal of OT theism.
A fundamental purpose of the OT is to correct false views of God. Pagan views. Not to substitute a different false view of God.
3. He also attacks the imprecatory psalms as expressing false views of God. That's another hobby horse of his.
He says we should use Jesus as our standard of comparison to correct the OT. But that's duplicitous because, as he's expressed elsewhere, he regards Jesus as a fallible, timebound, culturally-conditioned teacher, based on Rauser's Kenotic Christology. Rauser's yardstick isn't Jesus but Rauser's moral intuitions.
One thing I've thought about as I read some of the Energent folk, such as Brian McLaren, and which is relevant here, is on what true grounds do they think Israel worshipped God. If biblical history is false because evil or unhistorical, then why did they even worship God?
ReplyDeleteIf Noah's deluge is evil, if the plagues or invasion if Egypt, etc, how did they know "His loyal love endures forever" or form an even remotely correct conception of that loyal love, which Scriptyres teaches are presented in such acts?
Yeah, why pay lip service to the Bible and make appeals to it when you don't believe it's inspired, authoritative, or even reliably true?
ReplyDeleteThat's a super weird and incoherent worldview.
There is all sorts of room for honest questioning in the Evangelical world. But that doesn't mean someone struggling in his faith should be leading a congregation. Progressive "Christianity" doesn't have any irreformable convictions. Evangelicalism does.
ReplyDeleteI recall Randal claiming that he was granted tenure at Taylor Seminary. If so, and if Randal embraces any theological positions that are not in accord with their statement of beliefs, I wonder why he would be granted tenure?
ReplyDeleteAccording to their statement of faith: "The Bible is the only inspired, authoritative written word of God, true and trustworthy in all it affirms."
DeleteThanks for the reply, Steve. That appears to present a conundrum, as Randal certainly doesn't appear to believe portions of the OT re. God commanding Israelites to kill Canaanites etc.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, Randal has been relentless over the years re. his attacks upon conservative evangelicals. He seems to be determined in that respect. He also seems to have a peculiar fixation on U.S. politics, though he is not a U.S. citizen.