This is an answer to an email that was sent to me by a lady that found Christian-history.org and sent me some brilliant questions before beginning to read my articles.
Those are interesting questions. My general intent is to simply report, but I allow myself to express my opinion, especially if I consider the subject important. A few articles are written polemically. For example, https://www.christian-history.org/orthodox-church-icons.html argues against the practice of venerating icons. As an interesting aside, my article addresses the primary argument from the Second Council of Nicea in 787, and I only found out afterward that even some Orthodox apologists don’t know that the council focused on the difference between the Greek words proskuneo and lutreia.
I have to address the term “without bias” as well. When I was first a Christian, I was in a city that was very active religiously. When I was on the streets witnessing I met Jehovah’s Witnesses and members of the Way International. At Bible studies and Christian music night at the skating rink, I met people from other denominations. I was only 2 months old in the Lord when my favorite person at the Assembly of God church, a deacon and Sunday school teacher, was converted to Independent Baptist and disappeared from the church without telling anyone. The issues were eternal security and speaking in tongues.
Nine months into my Christian life, the military sent me to a remote station in Alaska. I found 5 or 6 guys there who were excited about Jesus, but they were all from different denominational backgrounds. It was only about 6 weeks before our tiny Bible study split apart over doctrinal arguments.
At that point I determined to start over in my studies. I struggled to read the Bible “without bias,” and not choose Assembly of God doctrines over others. It was a difficult thing to do, but I was reading the Bible voraciously. Slowly, one idea became clear, then another, and finally I realized just how much modern Christians pit one verse against another. One would pitch their lose-your-salvation verses, and the other would pitch their eternal-security verses. It were as though they believed the Bible contradicted itself and whoever found the most or clearest verses could safely ignore the contradicting ones.
I found a different way. If there was even one verse that contradicted a doctrine, and I could not include it in a reasonable way, I took an “I don’t know” position on the doctrine. For example, I rejected eternal security because there are a lot of verses directly warning Christians that the doctrine is not true and even telling us not to be deceived by the idea (e.g., Eph. 5:5-7; Gal..6:7-9). However, any time I discussed this with people, I would point out that I had no good explanation for 1 John 2:19. It sounds like eternal security. Nonetheless, it was one verse, and questionable enough in context and interpretation, that I felt comfortable passing on the warnings of Scripture and heeding the warnings not to be deceived into thinking I would “go to heaven” (not a biblical term; the apostles use “inherit the kingdom”) apart from living righteously.
So here’s my question, if I write against eternal security, am I writing with a bias? I don’t think so. I think that if I teach that the sky is blue under most circumstances (unless you live in London or Seattle), I am writing without bias, and if anyone denies that the sky is generally blue, they are irrational; it is not bias to report the truth even if the ignorant deny it.
The result of this approach to the Bible was that for 6 years I told people I could not explain the seeming contradiction between Ephesians 2:8-9 and Ephesians 5:3-7. What happened, though, is that when I found out about the early church fathers and began reading them, I realized that I had drawn many of the same conclusions, just from the Bible, that they taught. Moreover, while they argued from the Scriptures for their doctrines, they did not claim to have learned them from the Scriptures, but to have received them and passed them down from the apostles.
I feel, then, that when I take a stand on something, I am not being biased, but instead reporting on something that has much support from Scripture, no reasonable contradiction in Scripture, and is supported by those who claimed to have learned it from the apostles (and lived before the Council of Nicea in 325, when the government got involved in Christian doctrine. If anything I write does not have that kind of support, I let it be known in the article.
That all may be more than what you wanted to know, but it is what I offer as a writer. In my experience, there are only a few willing to be that radical–that honest?–with their own beliefs. Saying that, though, I should add that the scholarly practice of writing in scholarly journals to be reviewed and accepted or rejected by other scholars … that practices forces the same kind of honesty, so a lot can be learned from the highest echelons of scholarship. The reverse of that is that I fear for the average person who attends seminary or Bible college. These often teach the kind of bias that allows a Christian to ignore contradicting verses or explain them away with unlikely, or even foolish, explanations. Not only that, but they reinforce the bias with a feeling of scholarship because they have a degree and their implausible explanations sound more plausible because they are trained in defending them.
Sorry this is so long, but here are two final example of scholarly but outrageous explaining away of verses: Acts 2:38 and 22:16. Greek scholars who hold to the unscriptural and non-historic teaching that baptism is a symbolic public expression of faith argue that Acts 2:38 can be translated as “be baptized because of the remission of sins.” What is true is that in rare circumstances, the Greek eis can be translated “because of,” but it is obviously not so in Acts 2:38, which is the reason no Bible version translates it that way. Then there is Acts 22:16 where some argue that when Paul arose and was baptized, washing away his sins, and calling on the name of the Lord, that he arose and was baptized, which had nothing to do with washing away his sins, but calling on the Lord did. Pastors aren’t embarrassed to say something that ludicrous because they have seminary support in saying it. Search the Scriptures, and see if there is even one verse that supports their teaching that baptism is purely symbolic. 1 Corinthians 1:18 is the only verse in the Bible that can be twisted into supporting that idea, yet it is the primary teaching in evangelical circles. So sad.
Finally (again, sorry) is the troublesome but true idea that God doesn’t seem to care much about doctrinal accuracy, but supports anyone who will love him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and love like Jesus loved. It is only troublesome because I think God gave me the gift of seeing these things and loving truth and accuracy, but part of the gift of honesty is to be honest about fruit, which Jesus said to judge by, as well as be honest with Scripture. I have to honor whom God honors but also stand for the truth of Scripture even with those who seem to be honored by God, people who are strong in love and good works yet maintain humility. That’s a delicate and difficult balance.
I pray all that was interesting and, even better, edifying.
The Rest of the Old, Old Story 