Fandom Snowflake Challenge Day 5

[kerravonsen]

(days 3 and 4 didn't involve making posts)

In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends.

I was going to post about crochet, since it's been so new and shiny and fun, but what cesy said in her post struck a chord with me:

But actually, a lot of those, I'm not passionate about - they're just fun hobbies. I guess the biggest non-fannish thing I'm passionate about is my faith, but I tend to avoid talking about religion on my journal. We've got a wide variety of views represented in my DWircle, and I know that for some people, anything I say is going to come across as preaching.

Perhaps one reason I don't talk about my faith a lot in my journal is that it would be like a fish talking about water: it's always there, at the back of everything.

So I invite y'all: ask me questions about what I believe, and I'll answer them as best I can. I know that religion can be an inflammatory topic, so I'm trusting y'all to be polite and respectful, and in that trust, I'm not f'locking this post. Please don't give me cause to regret that.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

before I can ask more detailed sensible question, would you mention what grouping of faith?

[kerravonsen]

Christianity.

[florentinescot]

I ♥ that icon, BTW. Have you read the book (by the same name)?

And I'm with you. I don't talk about it much -- but it's part and parcel of everything that I do -- as much as breathing is!

Baptist/Lutheran here

[kerravonsen]

No, I wasn't aware it was the title of a book.
8-)

[florentinescot]

It's a very interesting little book. Give it a whirl!

[watervole]

I suppose the thing I'm curious about is how much you take the bible to be word for word literally true.

We've just finished a jigsaw of a map of the world surrounded by pictures from the Bible, and three of the pictures were from the Apocrypha.

The mere existence of the Apocrypha always reminds me that the Bible hasn't always had a fixed canon - and that in turn emphasises the way that it developed from materials that were all written after Jesus's death.

I've never had problems believing that Jesus lived and was a great teacher, but it seems to me that a lot of material and stories accrued after his death, and thus it's safer to go with the spirit of what the Bible says rather than a word for word literal interpretation.

How do you feel about it? Do you feel the Biblical writers were divinely inspired, or were just writing the best knowledge they had of the past? Which books of the Bible do you consider to be critical and which ones are not core to your faith?

(I don't feel that the Bible being other than 100% accurate disproves the existence of God. Rather the contrary. Insisting that every word is true is about as crazy - in my eyes - as claiming that evolution proves God cannot exist.)

[kerravonsen]

Insisting that every word is true is about as crazy - in my eyes - as claiming that evolution proves God cannot exist.

Agreed.

IMHO "divinely inspired" does not mean that God took hold of the pen and controlled the fingers that wrote every word. He doesn't work that way. The Bible is a True Story, not a science textbook.

The mere existence of the Apocrypha always reminds me that the Bible hasn't always had a fixed canon

The existence of the Apocrypha indicates to me that folks were in the habit of writing fanfic even back then. (grin)

and that in turn emphasises the way that it developed from materials that were all written after Jesus's death.

I've never had problems believing that Jesus lived and was a great teacher, but it seems to me that a lot of material and stories accrued after his death, and thus it's safer to go with the spirit of what the Bible says rather than a word for word literal interpretation.

Well... in regard to the accuracy of the Gospels, a lot of scholarship has gone into proving their authenticity, so I won't repeat it here. It's not like the people involved were going to be writing accounts of Jesus's life while he was still alive! The fact that the four Gospels differ slightly in what incidents they report and in what order they report them is actually evidence in their favour, because if they were too similar then that would be evidence that they weren't independent accounts, but all based on the one account. The Gospels are indeed historical documents, based on eyewitness accounts.

How do you feel about it? Do you feel the Biblical writers were divinely inspired, or were just writing the best knowledge they had of the past?

Both!

Which books of the Bible do you consider to be critical and which ones are not core to your faith?

There are different types of books in the Bible, and treating them all the same is just silly. There are the Histories, which are historical accounts of events that actually happened. The Gospels, Kings, Chronicles, Exodus etc. There are the Prophets, which are records of what God said, as best that people could remember it - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea etc. The prophecies are full of poetry and thus metaphor. The Psalms are a songbook! Not to be taken literally. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are books of Wisdom. The fact that there are two accounts of Creation in the book of Genesis indicates to me that it was never intended to be taken literally. Was there a Flood? Yes, probably, considering that there are similar accounts in other cultures. Did it cover the entire world, literally? No. But just consider the recent floods in Queensland - I'm sure there were parts of Queensland where there was nothing but water everywhere as far as the eye could see. To someone in the middle of it, it would feel as if the entire world had been covered with water.

Which books are critical? Well, all Scripture is useful, but useful for different things. Obviously the Gospels are critical, because the central tenet of Christianity is "Christ, and him crucified". But that doesn't mean that I ignore the Old Testament (like some do, poor souls). It illuminates what God is like as a person, and that also is "critical", if you see what I mean. Did the events of Job actually happen? I don't think it matters whether they did or not, because it is just as powerful and enlightening if it is a parable as it would be if it were a historical account. It casts light on the nature of God.

[watervole]

Thanks. That's given me some helpful understanding.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

What writer/preacher/professor/whatever has had the most beneficial impact on how you view your faith (or hold or practice it)?

I'm always very curious about this with my fellow fannish Christians.

[kerravonsen]

I can't pick just one...

First, Lewis and Tolkien. They hold a special place because my father read the Narnia stories and The Hobbit and LOTR onto reel-to-reel tape even before I could read myself, so they've always been there.

The two most major influences on how I study the bible:
1) My father, the Old Testament scholar. Not only did I gain respect for the OT itself, but from him also came the attitude of "the text, the whole text and nothing but the text". Well, perhaps not "nothing but the text", since he's perfectly willing to discuss the context and history around the text, but he's not one of those scholars who dismiss what the text says because it's "only cultural".
From him also came the awareness of how much of translation is interpretation, and thus it is always wise to have more than one translation on hand, especially if one doesn't know the original language.

2) Fandom! Particularly Blake's 7 fandom. Yes, really. Years and years on the B7 mailing list honed my ability to analyse and debate about the contents of a "text", to argue "from canon". True, the canon in question was a television series, but the principles of analysis remain the same, when one is using the mantra "the text, the whole text and nothing but the text".

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I can totally understand fandom being a influential that way. In fandom, I found the concept of midrash, which forever changed the way I look at the text--with the same incisiveness of arguing from canon, but also with the openness to look for the whole story, or the bits of the story no one talks much about, and expand upon those.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

You mention faith but what flavour? Christian? Jewish? Islam? New Age?

I think from some of your posts that you are Christian but not what variety.

PS what are your views on reincarnation? Have you been here before? Or do you think we only get one shot?

[kerravonsen]

Christian. I consider myself non-denominational, but I lean towards the flavour of Evangelical that was in many of the churches I went to growing up. I don't want to just say "evangelical" because that means quite different things to different people (especially people in different countries). I was confirmed Anglican, and my father is ordained Anglican, but we tended to go to whatever church had good teaching, depending where we were living. Thus, when we lived in Berkley, we went to First Presbyterian, while when we lived in Epping (NSW) we went to an Anglican church which was a few suburbs away. Lots of different churches in many different places. I've been part of a Baptist fellowship, been to a Lutheran school... as I said, non-denominational. My most recent church is the local Presbyterian, and it has been a challenge in some ways because some of their core beliefs (such as Predestination) have been quite different to what I was brought up with, and I had to wrestle with what I actually believed rather than what I was told. But what unites us is stronger than what divides us.

Reincarnation? Nope. We only get one shot.
IMHO, the fact that "past lives" tend to get "revealed" through hypnosis renders it suspect because people are so suggestible when hypnotized.

[dreamflower]

But what unites us is stronger than what divides us.

Amen. And yet that simple truth is sadly often forgotten.

[kerravonsen]

(nods)

[temeres.livejournal.com]

Onw of the (many) problems I have with the various manifestations of Abrahamic monotheism is what I perceive to be its intrinsic anthropocentrism. As I understand it, souls and the consequent possibility of an eternal afterlife are the unique province of the human animal, denied to all other animals. Plants, fungi, protists, and everything else don't get the privilege either. Is that a correct reading, and if so are you comfortable with it?

[kerravonsen]

I'm certain that only humankind have souls, but I'm not certain that that excludes everything else from the Afterlife. After all, there is supposed to be "a new Heaven and a new Earth" and it would be a rum kind of Earth if it didn't have any life in it! Whether that means that particular plants and animals will be there, I have absolutely no idea. I know that some Christians sentimentally believe that their beloved pets will meet them in Heaven, but I don't think they have any actual evidence for that belief. But there isn't any evidence to the contrary, either.

So the short answer is "I don't know". But not-knowing doesn't bother me; it isn't an important question to me.

I don't deny that the Bible is anthropcentric, but that's because its audience is humans. If God wants to preach to the fishes, he would find a fishy way of doing it that fishes would understand.
Hmmm, I suspect I'm missing the point.

[dreamflower]

A devout Methodist here.

A few years ago there was a sort of detailed meme about one's faith/religion going around and I answered it in detail here: http://dreamflower02.livejournal.com/380248.html#comments

... it would be like a fish talking about water: it's always there, at the back of everything.

What a wonderful metaphor! I like that very much!

[kerravonsen]

Thank you!