Bill Dembski disillusioned with fundamentalism

[Kbertsche]

Bill Dembski just posted a very interesting blog entry on his webpage. There are some very insightful comments on fundamentalism and candid comments about his views. Here are some excerpts:

Source: Bill Dembski

There’s a mentality I see prevalent in conservative Christian circles that one can never be quite conservative enough. This got me thinking about fundamentalism and the bane it is. It’s one thing to hold views passionately. It’s another to hold one particular view so dogmatically that all others may not even be discussed, or their logical consequences considered. This worries me about the future of evangelicalism.
...
What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions. Life is messy and the Bible is not a book of systematic theology, but to the fundamentalist mentality, this is unacceptable.
...
I quickly found out that the young-earth theologians I was dealing with were far less concerned about how the Fall could be squared with an old earth than with simply preserving the most obvious interpretation of Genesis 1–3, namely, that the earth and universe are just a few thousand years old. Again, we’re talking the fundamentalist impulse to simple, neat, pat answers. Now I’ll readily grant that the appeal to complexity can be a way of evading the truth. But so can the appeal to simplicity, and fundamentalism loves keeping things simple.

© Copyright Original Source

These comments are insightful, but nothing new to those here on TWeb. What I found most interesting were his views on the Flood. Dembski now seems to take a view similar to Paul Seely:

Source: Bill Dembski

Without the threat of losing my job, I see Noah’s flood as a story with a theological purpose based on the historical occurrence of a local flood in the ancient Near East.

© Copyright Original Source

[rogue06]

Bill Dembski just posted a very interesting blog entry on his webpage. There are some very insightful comments on fundamentalism and candid comments about his views. Here are some excerpts:

Source: Bill Dembski

There’s a mentality I see prevalent in conservative Christian circles that one can never be quite conservative enough. This got me thinking about fundamentalism and the bane it is. It’s one thing to hold views passionately. It’s another to hold one particular view so dogmatically that all others may not even be discussed, or their logical consequences considered. This worries me about the future of evangelicalism.
...
What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions. Life is messy and the Bible is not a book of systematic theology, but to the fundamentalist mentality, this is unacceptable.
...
I quickly found out that the young-earth theologians I was dealing with were far less concerned about how the Fall could be squared with an old earth than with simply preserving the most obvious interpretation of Genesis 1–3, namely, that the earth and universe are just a few thousand years old. Again, we’re talking the fundamentalist impulse to simple, neat, pat answers. Now I’ll readily grant that the appeal to complexity can be a way of evading the truth. But so can the appeal to simplicity, and fundamentalism loves keeping things simple.

© Copyright Original Source

These comments are insightful, but nothing new to those here on TWeb. What I found most interesting were his views on the Flood. Dembski now seems to take a view similar to Paul Seely:

Source: Bill Dembski

Without the threat of losing my job, I see Noah’s flood as a story with a theological purpose based on the historical occurrence of a local flood in the ancient Near East.

© Copyright Original Source

Several years ago he wrote that he thought the Flood was local and that one could hold that the earth was billions of years old and still believe in a literal Adam and Eve but was forced to recant after being called to the carpet by Paige Patterson the president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he was employed despite being defended by that institute's dean of Theology.

That's right, one of the participants in the film "Expelled" was nearly expelled for not toeing the YEC line.

[Jedidiah]

Sounds like he is disillusioned with YEC not fundamentalism.

[Meh Gerbil]

He's on his way to realizing that fundamentalism is the world's system cast in religious terminology.

[Scrawly]

Sounds like he is disillusioned with YEC not fundamentalism.

Source: Bill Dembski

Fundamentalism, as I’m using it, is not concerned with any doctrinal position, however conservative or traditional. What’s at stake is a harsh, wooden-headed attitude that not only involves knowing one is right, but refuses to listen to, learn from, or understand other Christians, to say nothing of outsiders to the faith. Fundamentalism in this sense is a brain-dead, soul-stifling attitude. I see it as a huge danger for evangelicals.

© Copyright Original Source

[rwatts]

Several years ago he wrote that he thought the Flood was local and that one could hold that the earth was billions of years old and still believe in a literal Adam and Eve but was forced to recant after being called to the carpet by Paige Patterson the president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary where he was employed despite being defended by that institute's dean of Theology.

That's right, one of the participants in the film "Expelled" was nearly expelled for not toeing the YEC line.

I did like this bit from BD:-

"Ken Ham went ballistic on it, going around the country denouncing me as a heretic, and encouraging people to write to my theological employers to see to it that I get fired for the views I take in it."

[Wally]

Sounds more like he's describing conservatism.

[Meh Gerbil]

Source: Bill Dembski

Fundamentalism, as I’m using it, is not concerned with any doctrinal position, however conservative or traditional. What’s at stake is a harsh, wooden-headed attitude that not only involves knowing one is right, but refuses to listen to, learn from, or understand other Christians, to say nothing of outsiders to the faith. Fundamentalism in this sense is a brain-dead, soul-stifling attitude. I see it as a huge danger for evangelicals.

© Copyright Original Source

I'd add to this that fundamentalism allows no room for personal/spiritual growth.
You have to get all the answers correct right out of the gate (whether you understand them or not is immaterial).

[Carrikature]

Source: Bill Dembski

What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions.

© Copyright Original Source

There was a brief period where my wife and I were still attending small group yet were no longer convinced Christianity was true. My wife started noticing how often people we knew said something to the effect of "the world does X", often cast as something the 'world' was trying to do to them specifically. Certainly, this was the narrative I was raised with.

[Jedidiah]

Source: Bill Dembski

Fundamentalism, as I’m using it, is not concerned with any doctrinal position, however conservative or traditional. What’s at stake is a harsh, wooden-headed attitude that not only involves knowing one is right, but refuses to listen to, learn from, or understand other Christians, to say nothing of outsiders to the faith. Fundamentalism in this sense is a brain-dead, soul-stifling attitude. I see it as a huge danger for evangelicals.

© Copyright Original Source

That is a special definition of fundamentalism. Not what I consider fundamentalism at all.

[oxmixmudd]

Bill Dembski just posted a very interesting blog entry on his webpage. There are some very insightful comments on fundamentalism and candid comments about his views. Here are some excerpts:

Source: Bill Dembski

There’s a mentality I see prevalent in conservative Christian circles that one can never be quite conservative enough. This got me thinking about fundamentalism and the bane it is. It’s one thing to hold views passionately. It’s another to hold one particular view so dogmatically that all others may not even be discussed, or their logical consequences considered. This worries me about the future of evangelicalism.
...
What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions. Life is messy and the Bible is not a book of systematic theology, but to the fundamentalist mentality, this is unacceptable.
...
I quickly found out that the young-earth theologians I was dealing with were far less concerned about how the Fall could be squared with an old earth than with simply preserving the most obvious interpretation of Genesis 1–3, namely, that the earth and universe are just a few thousand years old. Again, we’re talking the fundamentalist impulse to simple, neat, pat answers. Now I’ll readily grant that the appeal to complexity can be a way of evading the truth. But so can the appeal to simplicity, and fundamentalism loves keeping things simple.

© Copyright Original Source

These comments are insightful, but nothing new to those here on TWeb. What I found most interesting were his views on the Flood. Dembski now seems to take a view similar to Paul Seely:

Source: Bill Dembski

Without the threat of losing my job, I see Noah’s flood as a story with a theological purpose based on the historical occurrence of a local flood in the ancient Near East.

© Copyright Original Source

To remain a fundamentalist in the sense Dembski is talking about requires one does not open the door to the possibility some other view is correct. One can't even consider the possibility without becoming a threat to the wider fundamentalist community. As Dembski's noted, his error was in assuming logic/and or reason had anything to do with the specific fundamentalist position with which he was interacting. In Christian circles it can be an easy trap to fall into. The sense of love and acceptance one feels while not a threat tends to be viewed as a more general commitment to love that transcends such potential differences. After all, that is what the scriptures and Jesus teach. The rude awakening then comes when one manages to walk outside the fundamentalist circle of thought - but by then it's too late. The fact you hold potentially unthinkable thoughts has already been revealed.


Jim

[oxmixmudd]

Bill Dembski just posted a very interesting blog entry on his webpage. There are some very insightful comments on fundamentalism and candid comments about his views. Here are some excerpts:

Source: Bill Dembski

There’s a mentality I see prevalent in conservative Christian circles that one can never be quite conservative enough. This got me thinking about fundamentalism and the bane it is. It’s one thing to hold views passionately. It’s another to hold one particular view so dogmatically that all others may not even be discussed, or their logical consequences considered. This worries me about the future of evangelicalism.
...
What’s behind this is a sense of beleaguerment by the wider culture and a desire for simple, neat, pat solutions. Life is messy and the Bible is not a book of systematic theology, but to the fundamentalist mentality, this is unacceptable.
...
I quickly found out that the young-earth theologians I was dealing with were far less concerned about how the Fall could be squared with an old earth than with simply preserving the most obvious interpretation of Genesis 1–3, namely, that the earth and universe are just a few thousand years old. Again, we’re talking the fundamentalist impulse to simple, neat, pat answers. Now I’ll readily grant that the appeal to complexity can be a way of evading the truth. But so can the appeal to simplicity, and fundamentalism loves keeping things simple.

© Copyright Original Source

These comments are insightful, but nothing new to those here on TWeb. What I found most interesting were his views on the Flood. Dembski now seems to take a view similar to Paul Seely:

Source: Bill Dembski

Without the threat of losing my job, I see Noah’s flood as a story with a theological purpose based on the historical occurrence of a local flood in the ancient Near East.

© Copyright Original Source

As a side note, I think the concept of retroactive causality is interesting at least. And it's not as if there is no evidence whatsoever for it, at least at the quantum level. Would make a good basis for a Christian themed sci-fi story a la C.S.Lewis' Space Trilogy.

Jim

[Meh Gerbil]

That is a special definition of fundamentalism. Not what I consider fundamentalism at all.

You might want to start using the term in the way it is being used in popular culture.
Most people who criticize fundamentalism has no idea that it was founded on a particular statement of faith.

I appreciate the technical definition but it is obsolete.

[NorrinRadd]

You might want to start using the term in the way it is being used in popular culture.
Most people who criticize fundamentalism has no idea that it was founded on a particular statement of faith.

I appreciate the technical definition but it is obsolete.

I don't know that it's obsolete, but more that it's one of multiple definitions, and not necessarily the dominant one. "Cult" has multiple usages, but that doesn't mean only the "popular" one is valid.

[rwatts]

To remain a fundamentalist in the sense Dembski is talking about requires one does not open the door to the possibility some other view is correct.

...

I think so too.

This notion of "true Christian" seems to apply to the individual and the group he/she belongs to. And any Christian outsider is a "Christian falsely called".

Yet all you need to do is Google something like "the heresy of X" - where "X" can be "calvinism", "pentecostalism", "lutheranism", "Protestantism", "Catholicism" and you easily see how everyone is each others heretic.

It was that kind of thinking which brought my faith undone all those decades ago - meeting folk whom I had been taught were on their way to hell as heretics, only to find that they thought the same thing about me.

Fundamentalism seems to be very blind that way.

On a lighter note, I saw this earlier, out on Facebook:-


Fundamentalist:
This generation is scornful, so they are very ignorant. Effeminate teachers cater to silly women, who prefer Bible studies over wifely submission and holy mothering (II Tim 3:1-7; I Cor 14:34-35). The average so-called Christian today has rejected soun...See More

Spiffy response:
Who put the bird droppings in your coffee this morning?