“For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship,
I even found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing,
Him I proclaim to you.”
(Acts 17:23, NKJV)
In the latest publication of New Reformation-theologist John Selpby Spong, Jesus for the non-religious, one finds a few chapters acting as contra-readings to a literal interpretation of the Bible. He alleges that Jesus was not really born in Bethlehem or of a virgin, and that none of the miracles took place. Very little of the retelling of the crucifixion is accurate, and none of the events concerning the resurrection literally and historically took place, he alledges. Spong clearly affronts all forms of fundamentalism. In an interview with Johannes de Villiers (in the By-supplement of Afrikaans daily Beeld, 12/01/08) he states that “The (fundamental) religion of Christianity is busy dying, the victim of a decaying worldview.”
It is interesting to note that the term fundamentalist, today considered as an insult, can be traced back less than a hundred years to the publication of a series of small books published under the title The Fundamentals. In these books one finds the fundamental premises on which Christianity is built, all of which are questioned and eventually discarded in the New Reformation-movement.
The “decaying worldview” is primarily the result of postmodern mythologizing, where no absolute Truth and consistent Rationale, thus no Logos, is accepted. What Spong does not grasp is that he, with the help of clever arguments, philosophy and theology erects a golden postmodern calf which he worships and calls “God”. It is an unknown God that he honours without knowing Him in “the power of His resurrection” (Phil 3:10).
Paul presented himself as intellectual and thinker to the philosophers of his day, trumping their interpretation of this “decaying worldview” – “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.”
The virginal birth as human improbability is a fundamental premise of the Christian faith. Without it Christianity has no right of existence.
In the previous teaching we systematically examined how the virginal birth is absolutely authentic. But despite all its marks of authenticity it still requires faith (proof of things not seen – Heb 11:1) to render this a reality for the individual. It is often the pledging of “spirit and power” that lends legitimacy to the fundamentals! I have often found myself in conversations with educated individuals, unconvinced by religious dogma, but who found the living God through his Spirit and power, free of the golden calves. This is the only Way “God gives assurance of this” to us all (Acts 17:31).
- Sela: Why is spirit and truth missing from our world, our lives?
- Read: 2 Chr 6; Job 4; Rev 8
- Memorise: Rev 8:3
