Posts by Justin

20

Seminary education

by Justin in

as has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety).

an in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive.

yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today.

Justin

Well, it looks like this subject is winding down.

Deputy Dog, I understand that Templeton, in that interview, seemed to finally express some remorse over a lost faith but couldn't quite verbalize it. If you have a point you wish to emphasize, why not let us know what it is?

Narkissos, Tillich was very philosophical and perhaps would not be intelligible to those not trained in philosophy. I believe he introduced the term "Ground of Being" as a designation for the divine. This is perhaps helpful to get away from an anthropomorphic view of God. Some will hold that there is a metaphysical Ground of Being which in some sense is like the traditional Deity, whereas others will see this as an abstraction for being or existence in itself. I don't think such an approach will produce the certitude of the fundamentalist or JW who can say, "I know what I believe, and I know why." But then, perhaps as fundamentalism is left behind, this very certitude needs to be abandoned and such abandonment goes with the territory. I see you are disappointed with some liberal clergy because they are not honest with their people. This is a fascinating area for discussion, but is one that is seldom discussed in this forum as most JWs either opt for another form of certitude or else abandon religion altogether.

20

Seminary education

by Justin in

as has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety).

an in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive.

yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today.

Justin

Thank's for sharing your own experience, Narkissos. In a way, the churches are tacitly altering their paradigm by providing the kind of theological education that they do, while formally continuing to recite the old creeds. And for many years the liberal pastor found him/herself in a position of having to appear to be more conservative than he/she really was in order to satisfy the parishioners, but now I believe the gap between the two is closing. Also, it is not a matter of providing some influence to enable the seminarian to be a fundamentalist despite the deconstructive influences. Yet, there must be some faith dimension remaining for a person to pursue a ministerial career (whether that "faith" is in an anthropomorphic God or not). It would appear that those who complete the process and yet still "believe" are doing so for subjective reasons - that there is nothing in the liberal seminary which corresponds to the evangelical or even JW apologetics which convinces the individual that faith is intellectually respectible. I suspect also that there are some whose "faith" survives the seminary because they go into denial about what they have learned, only to have a crisis of faith emerge later during their ministerial career. So the modern liberal seminary is supplying people with the tools of the Enlightenment, and then leaving them to their own personal resources to maintain the motivation necessary to pursue their calling.

1

Universal Priesthood

by lonelysheep in

[i don't know if this was talked about before or not.].

as i was reading my lesson in the humanities course i'm taking, i read a paragraph that made me think back to my wanna-be dub days.

it was about martin luther and john calvin....humanist vs. reformists.

Justin

The JW religion at first may appear to be a "Bible only" religion and thus an heir to the Reformation. But the student will eventually be told that everything one has learned about the Bible is through the organization. Then the concept of the F&DS is introduced, and this is comparable to the magisterium (teaching authority) of the Roman Catholic Church. So, it is a bait-and-switch type of situation - the individual has really come under a hierarchical authority similar to that of the old Church and is not really practicing sola Scriptura (Scripture alone).

20

Seminary education

by Justin in

as has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety).

an in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive.

yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today.

Justin

That a few individuals might attend a seminary with no plans to be ordained does not change the main purpose of the seminary.

20

Seminary education

by Justin in

as has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety).

an in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive.

yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today.

Justin

Notice, what I said was that fundamentalism and skepticism are the only logical alternatives. I myself am in the middle, an in-between Christian, but I cannot defend my position logically. That being said, seminary students are exposed to much of the same information that has led others to become atheists. There are some who, after being exposed to this "deconstruction" as they call it, seem to go out on the spiritual supermarket on their own to reinforce a floundering faith. There are ordained people with so-called New Age beliefs, students in the "Course in Miracles" (if you know what that is), people walking labyrinths to have mystical experiences.

I recently learned of Charles Templeton who died in 2001 at the age of 85, and was an early associate of Billy Graham who decided to attend Princeton Theological Seminary and then lost his faith. His last book was entitled Farewell to God.

So don't get me wrong. Either extreme - fundamentalism or atheism - are unthinkable for me personally. But the seminaries are supposed to be turning out a product - ordained ministers and priests. I wonder what they do to support faith rather than tear it down.

20

Seminary education

by Justin in

as has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety).

an in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive.

yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today.

Justin

As has been demonstrated on this forum, the only two positions regarding religion which are logically consistent are fundamentalism and unbelief (whether of the atheist or agnostic variety). An in-between position, though some of us would like to hold it, is not logically persuasive. Yet, that is exactly the situation which is produced in mainline (or "liberal") seminaries today. After being exposed to the Biblical texts as being the results of various sources and historically conditioned, students are still expected to be ordained and pastor churches. My question is, What are they told which would still enable them to have any faith? Why does such seminary education not lead to total unbelief, rather than to a lifetime of service in a church?

35

"Watchtower" - Why did Russell REALLY choose that name?

by Sirona in

why did ct russell name his magazine zions watchtower, herald of christs presence (now the watchtower)?

i cant find reference to that anywhere.

it is interesting that the witnesses legal corporation is also watchtower bible and tract society.

Justin

The few Scriptural references to watchtowers also tied in with other themes which Russell wished to stress. According to Isaiah 21:12, "The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night." (KJV) Russell believed that the Millennial morning had already dawned - that the morning had come but the night of Armageddon was still on its way. This belief has since been discarded. Another reference is in Habakkuk: "I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me." (2:1, KVJ) Then the prophet states: "And the LORD anwered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it." (verse 2) Russell thought this was a prediction of the Chart of the Ages which he published with his book, The Divine Plan of the Ages. (Some refer to this as the Pyramid Chart because it contains a large pyramid.) Several Adventists had experimented with these sorts of prophetic charts, but either Russell or one of his associates had come up with the chart par excellence. This was supposed to the "tables" that Habakkuk had foreseen in connection with standing upon the watchtower.

Also of significance was Ezekiel's being commissioned as a watchman (Ezek. 33:1-7), but I don't think Russell put the emphasis upon this that it later came to hold.

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

Justin

In the Gospel of John, the idea of preexistence is in regard to the Logos. This Logos is not simply a human Jesus who preexists in the mind of God, for John assumes that the Logos existed when God spoke everything into existence in Genesis. The Logos became personified as Wisdom in the book of Proverbs (8:22-31). John states that "the Word was made flesh," but he doesn't say exactly how this happened. Is the Word identical with Jesus Christ? Or is this a poetical expression to indicate that the Word is expressed in the human life of Jesus? Certainly John thought that in some sense, because the Word was preexistent, Jesus himself had preexisted - for he has Jesus ask the Father: "glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (17:4, emphasis mine) It would not seem that the human Jesus would simply ask to go back to being an idea in the mind of God. Or is this more a statement of the Logos coming through the man Jesus? The solution which the Church finally adopted is that the same Person, Jesus Christ, is both God and man simultaneously ever since the Logos assumed flesh. JWs have a different solution - that the Logos existed in spirit form, then gave up that existence to become the human Jesus, and at the resurrection went back to being spirit with the added quality of deathlessness (immortality). In the early Church, before the decisions of the ecumenical councils, there were some theologians who thought that the Logos and Jesus were two distinct entitites, and that the man Jesus was possessed by the Logos - perhaps starting, not with his birth, but at his baptism.

So a question that can legitimately arise from John's gospel is not whether the Logos preexisted, but whether Jesus of Nazareth as such preexisted his own conception and birth.

70

And the Word was with God

by Narkissos in

no this is not meant to be another trinity thread.

rather another shamelessly speculative / philosophical one.

one good thing with the latter: they are usually much shorter.. so we often discuss how the logos was or wasn't "god/god/divine" etc.

Justin

The expression usually translated the Word was "with God" is pros ton theon, and literally means the Word was "toward the God." It is, of course, based on the Hebrew concept of the word of God. In Genesis, God speaks everything into existence. The psalmist wrote, "By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." (33:6) Much like Wisdom, the Word in the Johannine writings becomes personified, and it is asserted that the same Word through whom God created the world has become incarnate (enfleshed) as Jesus Christ. But the peculiarity which you mention is that the literal Greek depicts the relationship of the Word to God the Father as a being "toward" that One, rather than simply as an existence alongside the Father.

In examining the sourcebook of Hebrew Scriptures we discover that God's word returns to him when its mission has been accomplished. In Isaiah we read: "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (55:10-11, italics mine)

In John's gospel, the Word through whom God created all things has returned to the Father, has come toward the Father because the creative mission has been accomplished. Similarly, in that gospel, the Word incarnated in human flesh as Jesus Christ gives a report to the Father on his last night with the disciples, saying: "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (17:4-5, italics mine) Just as the Word could report back to the Father successfully after creation, so the Word could also render a good account to the Father after the redemption.

(As an aside, for those interested in the original languages, the Hebrew devar (word) is usually translated by the Greek h'rema in the Septuagint, but John follows the usage of Philo who uses the term logos with its philosophical associations. Thus, logos and h'rema are synonyms and they can both refer to the original devar.)

35

From Jw to born again .................

by vitty in

jw
friends

when i was "in" the borg ( i love that word) i really , really believed that when ppl left it, they became like the undead.

with no direction in life and no religion, i felt sorry for them.. i never thought that they became ............born again or heaven forbid catholic !!!!!!.

when i first started looking at sites on the internet i came across www.jwinfoline.com what an eye opener !

Justin

It's relatively easy to go from one totalist system to another. If JWs become disillusioned, they're ripe to become "born agains." But the reason that more evangelical ("born again") Christians don't become JWs is due to the evangelical establishment's labeling certain groups as "cults." For them, a cult is not necessarily a high-control group, but simply one that claims to be Christian and yet disagrees with certain basic beliefs (such as the Trinity, etc.). So not only JWs, but others such as Christian Scientists, Mormons, Unitarians, etc. have been labeled cults in this way. Once a "born again" comes in contact with these groups or their members, the bells go off. The evangelicals claim to be evangelizing the "cults," but in reality they are insulating their own people.

The original appeal of C.T. Russell was to "consecrated Christians" of his day - people who today would be considered "born again." But when Rutherford decided to have an earthly class that would be less spiritual, this appeal stopped. Then the evangelicals began fighting back with their cult ministries. While the WTS has also tried to insulate its people by calling everyone else Babylon the Great, once people see that the organization is also Babylonish they become ripe for the plucking. So there is a reason why people seem to be going in one direction and not in the other.