Out of Style
The Bible is always out of style, yet it is the one thing that is eternally relevant.
As I read the attacks on the Bible by Victorian freethinkers, secularists and atheists, I’m repeatedly surprised by what disconcerted them. With typical Victorian prudery, atheists condemned the Bible for being too sexually explicit.
Here, for example, is an argument from a secularist who debated a Christian minister about the merits of the Bible in Philadelphia in 1854: “I cannot see what good it could do posterity, to be told that the first man and woman were both naked and were not ashamed. The thing might be perfectly true, and yet not necessary to be recorded, nor calculated to be of any use when recorded.” Many people today find aspects of the Adam and Eve story difficult to accept, but I imagine it’s been a long time since a spokesperson for any movement objected on the grounds that it could lead people into immodest fantasies. Victorian atheists also condemned the Bible for being soft on the dangers of alcohol and not championing teetotalism.
Today the Bible and doctrines like sin and the wrath of God are attacked as being out of place with our tolerant age, and liberal Christians suggest that maybe Christianity needs to be brought up-to-date. We need to respond the same way that faithful Christians responded in the past: by remaining faithful to the truth of God’s Word. Critics and intellectual fads will come and go; Truth is eternal.
[hat tip: ESV Bible blog]
Filed under: Uncategorized
Important article, Peter.
Christianity lives!!
Love, Grandpa
Good article. I like the alcohol mention.
Um… my purpose wasn’t to be edgy. I’m not personally a big fan of intoxicating beverages. The point is that the Bible tells us what’s really important, and infidels criticize it for not supporting every current fad. Even Christians find that they stray away from the Bible when they pursue fads. Self-help? That’s not in the Bible. The Bible says you’re helpless and you have to ignore a whole lot to get around that. Your best life now? Sorry. Being a Christian is about suffering. Wild at heart? Maybe so, but Christ gave up his self-identity to serve His bride.