I hope your grandmother gets well, for sure. My religious experiences have, seemingly, been a little different than others here. I grew up in my early life in SW Wisconsin and my family was Catholic. Especially in that area, church is a pretty informal deal; blue jeans, t-shirts, sandals (not me, my Dad was a little stricter) and the Catholic services are short and sweet, if only a little rote. However, I move down South to Knoxville as a teen and, prodded by some friends (Knoxville has no shortage of people pushing you to attend their particular church, especially if you are "lost"), decide to visit First Baptist Concord in Farragut. Holy shit. First of all, I was the only one in blue jeans. Secondly, the service lasted forever and was mostly the preacher getting up and instructing people exactly how to live their lives, which was really weird for me. Catholic sermons were fairly succinct and more of a guide with some parables thrown in about love, forgiveness, etc., etc. This dude, (Sager, I think), was rolling through types of movies you shouldn't watch, political leaders to vote for and railing against the lack of "Christians" in our government. It was just odd and off-putting, so I never went back. I mean, hell, to be honest, I only went there because I wanted to play basketball in their gym. That's not to say the Catholics were wonderful, though. My Dad's childhood church refused to marry my parents because my Mom was divorced. In the end, through various contemplations, I had more and more skepticism about religion, especially Christianity and the Bible. Thus, I developed into my current state of religious rejection (the specter of guilt and fear is a powerful method of control, even subconsciously, and difficult to throw off in the face of social pressure). Of all religions, I feel most attuned with Buddhism, but I also think our religious identity is one we constantly revisit and challenge. It's hard to respect someone who doesn't contemplate that they may be wrong. As I've gotten older, I have a greater appreciation for those who can self-analyze even if they are reaffirming their devout Christianity.
I grew up in an indy missionary baptist church and indys got too liberal and the church went distinctively baptists with the slogan of what good baptists churches used to be, we still are.
Any church for that matter, admin is the overwhelming majority of a church budget. Where is lexvol when I need him
James is my favorite book. Also, Revelation as with all bible prophecy has a meaning in the biblical past, biblical present and then our present time/future. 666 For example referenced in the old testament (past), biblical present directly referenced Nero and the present future with the anti christ. The bible seems to follow this formula distinctly. Another example is the dragon coming out of the water. Again referenced in the old testament, biblical present was the Roman Legions landing from the Mediterranian in Israel and the apocalyptic present future.
I believe in a creator. I don't hold myself to any particular religion. Incredible amounts of hypocrisy in all of them, imo. I see it much more as a method of people putting spin jobs on the bible in order to control people rather than anything else. Does anyone's church discuss the Book of Thomas? Or, is that just ignored as if it wasn't written.
Ignore it? No. Preach/teach from it? No there as well. It's pretty much been determined 1,000 times over that it wasn't written at the same time of the other Gospels/Books of the NT and doesn't hold the same relevance as the NT books. Other than the fringe folks, Christian and non-Christian scholars alike have agreed on this. On the same token, even though the NT wasn't "official" until the third century, the books in the NT now were basically the ones used and taught from before this time.
I know my brother, who went to Vandy Divinity School, has told me multiple times to me that the school wasn't teaching that it wasn't relevant. It's not "relevant" to most because it would essentially be incompatible with most of their beliefs.
I have spoken/listened to many that have phds from places such as Munich, Harvard, Princeton that say it isn't relevant because it was never considered equal to the New Testament. The person who I would probably default to opinion wise, Wayne Grudem, holds his from Cambridge. But you are right, it is completely incompatible with what the NT says. Edit - Not trying to be a smart ass, just saying there are many well-educated men (and women) that hold to the Gospel of Thomas (and other Gnostic gospels) not being equal to the books that were canonized as Scripture.
Good stuff, Cardinal. I guess what I was getting at more was the fact that it's simply dismissed. I think that's because people simply don't want to think that it could possibly be true.
I'm actually started rereading a book last night called The Reason for God by Tim Keller. In the introduction, one of the things he points out is that a Christian should and must be able to defend questions such as this as well as their own doubts. Too many times, people just take it and dismiss it as you say, and it's a shame. Christians can (and if they are honest should) have doubts at times. It's perfectly ok. Too many don't want to dig into it and face it.
