This is what happens when you invite the town drunk to leave his gutter and come and address the local tabernacle…
That’s John Crowder, one of the leaders of the Sons Of Thunder movement – basic fundy stuff; biblical inerrancy, blessings of the Holy Ghost, YEC, all that jazz. Amusingly, though, Crowder has a lot of Christians in the States up in arms about what they perceive to be his “non-biblical” message. The main focus of Crowder’s ministry is a sort of Dionysian ecstacy, of the same sort which has been used by fringe religious sects such as the Sufi for centuries. His USP is to add a modern drink-and-drugs metaphor, similar to the “Get high on Jesus” message of the late ’80s, but a lot of conservative (read: “mainstream”) Christian sects see his work as misguided at best.
John’s own testimony carries with it all the hallmarks of LSD-induced psychosis. One of the tragedies of a faith-based worldview is that this sort of lunacy can be perfectly validated – John may be mad, but he can back up all of his inebriated wibble with Scripture quite happily, and as recent posts and comment threads here have discussed, if you accept the validity of the Bible then you have to give his particular brand of mental illness at least cursory credence. You may argue that John’s interpretation of Scripture is dodgy – but then, what makes yours any more correct?
Nyoinyoinyoin, indeed.
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January 13, 2009 at 3:55 pm
PhillyChief
LOL! Well as long as, you know, blah blah, then good on him.
Aside from the nyoinyoinyoi, he’s not advocating any nasty crap, is he?
January 13, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Phil C
“You may argue that John’s interpretation of Scripture is dodgy – but then, what makes yours any more correct?”
Doesn’t this assume that the meaning of language is as subjective and relative as our perception of, say, colour or flavour?
You wouldn’t say this, surely: “You read a law that says armed robbery is wrong. But who is to say your interpretation is correct?”
(No idea what to make of this guy, never heard of him. Could well be a bit mad.)
January 13, 2009 at 5:22 pm
yunshui
Phil:
Please correct me if I’ve gotten the wrong impression, but you seem to have the idea that the Bible is a clear and precise document with regard to morality (or anything else). It’s anything but. Being a collection of disparate writings composed, collated, edited and revised over a period of several thousand years, it naturally contains a veritable slew of inconsitent, contradictory and confusing ideas. That’s why much of Christian theology is devoted to interpreting the Scriptures (so that other religions don’t feel left out, I could say exactly the same about the Qu’ran, the Bhagavad Gita or the Book of Mormon).
The law against armed robbery was written onto the British (or American) statute books in language designed to be as unambiguous as possible. One of the reasons legalese seems so indecipherable is because it is designed to admit only one possible interpretation. Holy books are open to myriad interpretations – the Ten Commandments say “Thous shalt not kill”, but as Philly has pointed out elsewhere, God seems to approve of baby-dashing, so is that then an exception to the rule? What about the passages which speak of capital punishment? For a Bronze Age nomadic tribe, this might have been suitable guidance, but nowadays we have modern and unambiguous laws which don’t require a philosphy degree to interpret.
January 13, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Phil C
yunshui:
I think your comment raises a different question from your post.
Whatever we read we need a consistent, coherent interpretive framework, with epistemological assumptions. The argument of your original post is that a moral system based on “faith” (or the Bible) necessarily implies a relativistic framework in which it is impossible to judge who is right: and I’m saying that’s not true.
I think the point in your last comment, that the Bible is difficult to interpret, is different…
January 13, 2009 at 7:16 pm
yunshui
Sorry, that comment was more a direct response to your statement:
“You wouldn’t say this, surely: “You read a law that says armed robbery is wrong. But who is to say your interpretation is correct?””
with which I agree – I wouldn’t say that, for the reasons outlined above. To clarify: our legal code is a (relatively) straightforward and consistent document, so multiple interpretations aren’t possible. Faith positions rely on one’s personal interpretation of a text which is open to myriad different readings, so are only valid if one adopts a highly relativist morality.
January 14, 2009 at 1:25 pm
John Morales
Phil C addresses yunshui:
You misrepresent the argument, whether through misunderstanding, obtuseness or disingenuity.
Compare
If your basis for morality is the Bible, then you must accept as valid the basis of others who also base their morality on the Bible.
with
If your basis for morality is the Bible, then it must be relativistic making it impossible to judge who is right [between different people who base their morality in the Bible].
Clearly, two different contentions.
January 14, 2009 at 5:53 pm
yunshui
That quote is actually from this post (I know, I’m getting them muddled up now too…), but in the above OP I did state:
which amounts to much the same argument, so John’s point still stands.
January 14, 2009 at 6:01 pm
PhillyChief
If everyone’s foundation is logic, then one can point to another’s errors in logic or argue, logically, why those errors are errors.
If everyone’s foundation is faith, what can you do, say, “I believe you’re wrong”? No wonder there’s so much violence in religious history. How can two sides reconcile when each position is based on faith? There’s nowhere to go from there but bonking each other on the head, or nowadays launching missile’s into each other’s neighborhoods.
January 14, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Phil C
Thanks John. I don’t know whether this comment will be another instance of misunderstanding, obtuseness or disingenuity. I hope not.
John’s summary of yunshui’s argument:
“If your basis for morality is the Bible, then you must accept as valid the basis of others who also base their morality on the Bible.”
There are too many “basis/bases” in there. So to clarify, is this what you (John/yunshui)actually mean to ask?
“If your basis for morality is the Bible, then you must accept as valid the *interpretation* of others who also base their morality on the Bible.”
But that is clearly wrong. If two people base their morality on any set standard, say the law, one can still interpret it badly. Does that mean their morality is still “valid”? Presumably not.
So is your question: how does anyone decide how to interpret the Bible?
That is why I phrased my earlier comment the way I did.
PS. I think another discussion to be had is what “faith” is. I think we are talking about it with different concepts in mind.
January 14, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Phil C
PS. How do we put things in bold? The usual Ctrl-B shortcut doesn’t seem to work.
January 14, 2009 at 7:42 pm
PhillyChief
Bold: (shift comma) then (b) then (shift period), (text), then (shift comma) then (/b) then (shift period)
Your comparison of law disputes to Biblical disputes is interesting but I see some problems:
1) Laws can be amended or stricken altogether
2) You can’t have laws at odds with one another
3) You can’t pick which laws to abide by and which to ignore
As far as different interpretations of a passage, sure, that’s comparable to different interpretations of any text, be it law, literature, or what have you.
January 14, 2009 at 10:51 pm
John Morales
Phil C,
To clarify, I got it right the first time (there’re not too many bases). I said what I meant, and meant what I said.
It’s about the basis (justification) for your respective beliefs being the same, not about the relative merits of the beliefs themselves, which clearly are different (as evidenced by the tens of thousands of Christian denominations).
January 16, 2009 at 9:52 pm
vamp
I loved this…I vant to “suck your blog”, and I did…I have to share the hilarity.