Re: We have to go back, but not to square one

Andrew - this is becoming very tedious for you, but there was no insult intended, and despite the quotation, your proposal still does not provide for the people of God beyond the 1st century any way of defining the content of the Jesus they believe in or the activities they are to pursue. It’s not enough to say that Jesus reigns for them, or that they are given a mandate for creation. What exactly do these things mean?

You say that the NT is no longer normative for the people of God beyond the 1st century. In what sense is the OT normative - given that for most people, the Christian faith sees the OT as fulfilled and defined by the NT? If neither the NT or the OT are normative, then in what way are they meant to be used in the lives of the people of God? Do they provide optional advice?

I think my comments are perfectly valid - and could even be seen as a compliment. I am simply pursuing your proposals to their logical conclusions. Existential - which is not intended as an insult - seems to me to describe very well the situation in which you position both God and people of God, given that the historical approach has rigorously consigned the NT material and most of what Jesus said and did to the 1st century.

None of this is meant to be a defence of any alternative viewpoint. On the other hand, I am very grateful to you and other contributors to the site for helping me to engage much more seriously and critically with the viewpoints I hold. Thinking things through with the aid of debate on the site has immeasurably deepened and enriched those viewpoints, and given me no reason to reject them. I have no political interest in defending my viewpoints come what may. I am not part of any theological interest group. I am not part of any group which sees its own theological purity threatened by the least deviation from the party line. I find the dogmatic knee-jerk reactions which some contributors have encountered and which can be seen on some other websites as distasteful as any.

I am sometimes perhaps not as aware as I could be of the frequency of my contributions to the site. For me, it is really an exercise, which I have very much appreciated, in being forced to think theology through clearly and at greater depth than I am able to do anywhere else. And seriously, contributing to the site is often for me a means of mental refreshment as a diversion from other tasks which are less appealing! I do think you have a problem, which does not have a rational basis, with anything which can be labelled ‘evangelical modernism’. To me, this is caricature, and not a basis for serious argument. But not wishing to cause you greater problems, I will ration my in-put more robustly.

Mind, I did not say I will retire from the site entirely.