Faceplant of the DaY: Debunking Christianity: Maybe It’s Not the Worst Book in the Bible…

Well, I thought that because it took so long for David Madison to do a follow-up post on Paul's letter to the Church at Rome that maybe he wised up about his critique of the book. I was wrong. But on the other hand, I think that such posts that objectively evaluate Paul's letter to the Romans would be useful. I found Madison's evaluation really poor and fails to support his claims that the book of Romans is flawed. His words will be in black while my comments will be in red.

Maybe It’s Not the Worst Book in the Bible…

By
David Madison


at
1/26/2017

0 Comments

…But It’s a Contender

It would be such a relief—such a gift to the cause of compassionate religion—if Christians (especially of the paid-apologist variety, e.g., theologians, priests, ministers) could get over Paul’s Letter to the Romans..

I wonder if Madison thinks that all Christian clergy and apologists get paid for their work? If he does then he needs to meet more Christians. Also why should we chuck Romans under the bus? The only reason we should is if it is false and cannot hold up to scrutiny and does nothing to help us. Let's see if Madison can prove that the book of Romans is indeed false and unnecessary. 

In my post on this blog 14 October 2016, I characterized this 16-chapter patch of scripture as a ‘toxic brew of bad theology,’ and stated my reasons for doing so. I also announced my plan to write analyses of each the 16 chapters, my atheist critique to be wrapped by January. I fell short of that goal: here I am starting in January. So, here goes, my take on Romans 1.

This post is not a faceplant because Madison failed to finish his chapter-by-chapter commentary by the end of  January. It's a faceplant because it fails to demonstrate that Romans is a ‘toxic brew of bad theology,’ I am willing to agree that if he could have shown that Romans chapter one was as bad as he says it is we should throw out the whole letter and everything else Paul wrote. However, Madision is unsuccessful in making a single meaningful comment toward his thesis.

Scholars suspect that Paul’s opening paragraph was based on a liturgical formula current at the time (1:2-5), more or less summing up basic Christian thought, one key point being that Jesus Christ was a
descendant of King David. So I begin with a digression: There is little doubt that Paul belonged to the school of thought that Jesus had been conceived/born the same way everyone else is. We search in vain throughout his letters for any mention of the virgin birth (which would have canceled “descended from David”). Matthew’s famous proof text, Isaiah 7:14, “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” was the furthest thing from his mind. He would have laughed it off.

Paul is not writing his letter in a vacuum. We know he got a lot of his interpretations from what Christians believed at the time. He was not making stuff up so vs 2-5 in chapter one is of couse something that would be definitional of Christianity. 

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, ^[a]called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ² which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, ³ concerning His Son, who was born of a ^[b]descendant of David according to the flesh, ⁴ who was declared the Son of God with power ^[c]by the resurrection from the dead, according to the ^[d]Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, ⁵ through whom we have received grace and apostleship ^[e]to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, - Romans 1:1-5 (NASB)

It is of course not a given conclusion that Paul did not believe in the Virgin birth. Just because he did not talk about it directly, does not mean that he assumed or taught that Jesus was conceived through sexual intercourse just like everyone else. Instead Paul focused on Jesus pre-existing his own birth in his letters - just like the Apostle John also said in John 1:1.  For example, look at  Colossians 1:16-20

¹⁶ For ^[x]by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ He ^[y]is before all things, and in Him all things ^[z]hold together. ¹⁸ He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ For ^[aa]it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the ^[ab]fullness to dwell in Him, ²⁰ and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in ^[ac]heaven.

Paul is saying that Jesus is everything that Jesus says He is in the Gospels. I find it impossible to assume that Paul did not believe Jesus had a miraculous birth given that he believed that everything that makes the Father God dwelled in Jesus Christ. This isn't a question of if Paul was right or wrong when it comes to what Madison wrote. He seems to imply that it's a unanimous conclusion that Paul would have rejected the thought of a virgin birth, but Paul himself never says anything of the sort. Faceplant number one. (I might keep a running count of his faceplants, but I have not decided yet).

Also look at the NASB translation of  Romans 1:3. Paul does not in any way claim that Jesus is Joseph's son. However "born of a descendant of David" could refer to Mary. Faceplant number 2.

Notice how explicit he is in 1:4: Jesus was declared son of God by his resurrection. That is Paul’s obsession; virgin birth would have diluted resurrection as the only credential that mattered. The birth narratives in Matthew and Luke (representing the minority school of thought in the New Testament)
indulged this fantasy that seeped into Christian thought decades after Paul wrote; some of the pious assumed it would be cool to graft the pagan his-mother-was-a-virgin idea onto the Jesus story. Those who want to adore Mary will not find an ally in Paul—who never so much as mentions her.

A lot of front-loaded assumptions here. Paul taught that Jesus was the Messiah that the Jews have been waiting centuries for. For him the Resurrection was proof, but there is no reason that the virgin birth would have taken anything away from the message. Madison only asserts without proof that the virgin birth belief was added to Christian belief decades after Paul wrote Romans. Where is the proof of that? Sure a lot of people today are teaching that  but that does not mean it's true. I'm not going to get very far into the fallacy that Jesus' birth story was stolen from pagan myths because Madison does not bother to prove it so I'm gonna just ignore this fourth faceplant and just count this assertion that the virgin birth is a fantasy and the failure in asserting that the virgin birth detracts from the Resurrection as one faceplant - faceplant number three.

Matthew, by the way, insults our intelligence in the first chapter of his gospel. He begins by tediously listing Jesus’ ancestors back to King David (gotta have that pedigree!) then drops the story of the virgin birth on us: Nope, Jesus didn’t have a father. How come the original readers didn’t catch this glaring non sequitur? And how come this is not the point that Christians today realize that Matthew was a fraud and toss the New Testament into the trash?

Matthew was writing to a primarily Jewish audience and wanted to show that Jesus was the Messiah whom had to be a descendant of  King David.Who said that Jesus had to be that descendant by a father? Mary was (from what I understand) his biological mother and a descendant of David. Also recall that Matthew's genealogical chapter is rather interesting in that it lists some women in the record and does not list every single individual in every single generation. This points to the face that one can't just ignore the women who played the part in bringing our Lord and Savior to earth. Faceplant number four.

End of digression.

Good maybe we will finally get a good argument. 

If I ever get around to writing a secular commentary on this dreadful epistle, I have the title ready: Paul’s Letter to the Romans: God Is Wrath. After his unctuous flattery of the Roman congregation (1:8-15), he gets down to business, to his flawed, ugly theology.

I want to mention four points.


No, God is not obvious by looking around at nature


In verse 20, Paul lays the groundwork for condemning unbelievers: “Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse.” So God’s power and nature can be “understood” through what he has made? Actually, precisely because God’s nature and power are invisible, they are not understood. Presumably Paul had the natural world in mind, but theologians with a couple thousand years of practice know that this is feeble: indifferent nature shows no mercy to humans. I suspect Paul didn’t give enough thought to this, because in his letters he explains endlessly what God expects and demands. So rules of conduct to convictsinners aren’t at all so obvious from the “things that God has made.”

Faceplant number 5: Just because something is invisible does not mean it can't be understood. We know something of God's character and power from what God has made just like we can look at a piece of art, not matter the medium, and know quite a bit about the artist's skill, abilities, tastes, and personality. All of the earth, the stars, and everything we can see, count, and measure is in the best possible place for us to not just be sustained in our existence but to also be observed. Science, by it's very nature, depends on the assumption that the universe is intelligible and something that we can figure out. Atoms are invisible to use but we can not only detect them but use them to do amazing things technologically. We can find black holes by observing how they affect visible stars around them. Mathematics is not made up by us but discovered.This is why we can use it to describe nature to the point that we can make accurate predictions. We can tell what stars are made of and what kind of atmospheres distant planets have by studying the light coming from them. All of this points to the kind of God we have. No, it does not tells us about his expectations and commands  or rules of conduct - that is what the rest of Romans is about. Paul never tells us it is enough to stop at the first chapter and you know everything about God  What we are without excuse about is the fact that there is a God.

God can’t wait to get even



Because people resorted to other gods, especially idol worship, God kicks them to the curb. In verses 24, 26 and 28 Paul states explicitly that God “gave them up”—and we get insights into Paul’s tormented personality by his list of things that God gave people up to: (1) the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies; (2) to degrading passions; (3) to a debased mind and things that should not be done. Hmmmm…obsessed about sex much? More about that on the next
point. Suffice it to say here that Paul’s concept of God is weighted heavily toward revenge and punishment: God himself gives people up to sin. All this because people did not see fit to “acknowledge God.” No slack given here to folks who didn’t see eye-to-eye with Paul on
religion, those who—and this was the big no-no for Paul—cheerfully embraced lust (we’d all be better off if Paul had given it a try). Paul doesn’t seem to have heard the stories about Jesus
hanging out with sinners.

Faceplant number six: God has every right to give people over to themselves. Do not forget. Paul just argued that we have no excuse for not acknowledging God. Also those are thing that God keeps people from. Paul is not pretending that he is some saint who deserves God's mercy. He is building the case that that if you deny God, God has every right to turn you over to yourself. All the lusts and degradation that Madison seems to think that Paul is wrong in casting in a negative light are things that will destroy you if you are caught up in them. They are what is wrong with our society and they are why Donald J Trump is President of the United States. These things are the consequences of God allowing us to have what Madison says he wants - God gone out of the public sphere. It's not a punshment but consequences of what the unregenerate and unrepentant want. Makes me wonder if Madison has ever bothered to read the rest of the letter.

Knee-jerk disgust about women loving women, men loving me


Now, full disclosure before I get into this one: I am gay, so it’s no surprise that I have no patience with Paul’s rant against same-sex love. Sure, we can cut him some slack since his thinking was influenced by severe teaching in the Old Testament—and he lived centuries before human
sexuality had been studied. What would we expect? But the folks who want to point to these verses in Romans 1 (vv. 26-27) as binding “word of God”—because “saint” Paul said them—are blind to their own hypocrisy: they don’t notice that Paul shuddered at heterosexuality as well!
Everything in his writings about sexuality screams dysfunction! And we have the impulse to scream at Paul, “Get a life!”

I disagree. Paul did not hate sex and the Bible in no way - anywhere - casts sex as evil. It does put limitations and commandments on how sex should be practiced. Because God has given humanity the gift of sex he has every right to tell us how to use it properly so we don't destroy ourselves. We know that there are right ways and wrong ways to have sex.  For example God says don't have sex with your close family members. Is that because it's icky and disgusting or is it because it will destroy your family? Would not an omnipotent and omniscient deity know better than you do about what to do with your genitalia? I would think so. The point is that God does want you to have a life. Your best life.

Paul disdained men loving women: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.
But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:1-2) You read that right: marriage is okay because liability to immortality should drive you to it. Or how about this gem: “And those who belong to Christ
Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). And this: To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am” (I Corinthians 7:8). True enough, Paul’s delusions about Jesus returning soon warped his thinking: “…the
appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none” (I Corinthians. 7:29).

Madison has made this flawed argument before and it's just wrong. Faceplant number 6. Paul said that if you can remain unmarried and not be tempted by sexual immorality (sex outside of marriage) stay unmarried.  He did not say that you are less saved or immoral or angering God because you want to get married. Paul had nothing against marriage.

Outside of the most pathetic cults, you will never find a marriage counselor who urges couples to follow Paul’s advice. So please don’t quote him as an expert on love, marriage or
sexuality—hetero or homo. And since he was so wrong about so many things (see my 14 October 2016 post), don’t credit him with being tuned into God’s thoughts—about anything. Yet Paul remains the default authority on homosexuality for so many today. No doubt with Romans 1 in mind, the
Catholic Church cannot budge from its official position that gay people are “disordered.”

Paul's point is entirely missed. Madison again fails to point a single thing Paul got wrong. Of course, Madison can disagree with Paul, but it sure would be nice if he could explain how Paul is wrong. Paul is building up to chapter 3 demonstrating that all of us - gay and straight - are sinners and disordered. 

Paul’s long list of those who “deserve to die”

Full stop, Christians. How can anyone read the ending of Romans 1 and say, with a straight face, that Paul should be called a saint? Or that this text merits inclusion in “the good book”? Here he shows us his full venom: “… they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish,faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die…”

I wanna ask Madison: "Do you wanna be around people who are "gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish,faithless, heartless, ruthless"? Honestly? I do not. Yet we are. At some point, you, me, Madison, and everyone you know has  been guilty of at least one of these. It's not that all of them deserve to die - we are all guilty.

It’s a common Christian dodge that the nasty god of the Old Testament gave way to the loving God of the New Testament. But Paul does his best to keep the wrathful god alive and hovering over hapless humans. He includes gossips and rebellious children among those who deserve todie—according to God’s own decree. I guess it’s actually a good thing that—apart from obsessive scholars—the Letter to the Romans is pretty much ignored by the faithful, for whom The Man Upstairs is a benevolent
figure, a cosmic buddy. Hildegard of Bingen is a saint with far moreappeal than Paul: “”God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.”

I agree that many Christians do try to dodge the force of  Madison's argument but thst unnecessary because Paul is not arguing that people who do evil things deserve to die for their sins and people who believe in his teaching do not deserve to did because they are better people. Paul's argument is that every person is a sinner in need of a savior.. He is building a case starting wit the simple fact that you should at least recognize that you have a creator to whom you are accountable.

One of those obsessive scholars was C. H. Dodd, who wrote in 1939 that The
Letter to the Romans is “the first great work of Christian theology.” Please, say it ain’t so.

Dodd makes a valid point that Madion has failed to disprove.

David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years. He has a
PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. His book, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, was published last year by Tellectual Press.

Keep praying for him

Debunking Christianity: Maybe It’s Not the Worst Book in the Bible…

FacePlant of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Toxic Brew of Bad Theology

With the title of this particular article recently posted on Debunking Christianity I was expecting a thorough explanation and proof of Apostle Paul's "toxic" and "bad" theology. I am very underwhelmed. I think it's easy to see a very to see this as a true faceplant of epic proportions. I want the article to speak for itself and will annotate the article in red.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Toxic Brew of Bad Theology


A number of years ago, in conversation with a Christian friend, I mentioned Paul’s Letter to the Romans. “I don’t know it,” she responded. I suppose I shouldn’t have been all that surprised, since the Letter to the Romans is not an easy part of the Bible to get through and understand—which is why very few Christians even give it a try.

I do not need to rebut or even try to refute this. I was raised in a Christian household and been in church all my life and I have been hearing, reading, studying and digesting the Epistle to the Romans my whole life. I do recognize that this isn't the same for all Christians, but it still amazes me that some people have not read it. It is sad. We, as Christians, need to do better.

The gospels have far more appeal and get a lot more traffic. But still, such ignorance of basic Bible material surely isn’t a good thing for believers who aspire to be—or even assume they are—Bible-based Christians.

Agreed. But this isn't true of all Christians that I know. If this is true about all the Christians that you know I would have to suggest you should get out more and meet more people.

No  matter the indifference of laypeople to the Letter to the Romans, it is a source of bewilderment to secular thinkers that Christian theologians have been obsessed—and I do mean utterly obsessed—with the Letter to the Romans, for centuries. Those of the Protectant [sic] persuasion might be aware that Martin Luther urged Christians to memorize it, but I suspect that ordinary folks in the pews would be dumbfounded to learn that every syllable, word and verse of Romans—every jot and title—has been scrutinized and analyzed, over-analyzed, super-analyzed, painstakingly, exhaustively, by Christian theologians. They tease out, squeeze out the tiniest bits of revelation that might have sparked from Paul’s mind onto the scroll…as if the fate of the Cosmos were hanging in the balance. But I guess, of course, for those in the Christian cult, that’s what Romans is about.

I think that this is where the faceplant starts.  I don't think its weird at all to scrutinize Romans or any of the Bible. If it is truly the word of God it would be stupid not to look at it carefully. If you don't look at it carefully, how would you be able to determine if it is God's word or not? That is why I'm interested in going through Romans with the proverbial fine-toothed comb. The fate of the universe does "hang in the balance".  If Paul was a liar or insane then he and the other Apostles were wrong. Jesus was wrong and Christianity is a waste of time. It would be sheer stupidity to be sure. This is not a matter of faith (as defined by John Loftus and many other wrong Atheist as being "believing despite and instead of evidence). The point here: Is the Bible true in general and Romans in particular? The writer of this article and Atheists in general would argue that the Bible is not true. It falls to them to demonstrate something the Bible is wrong about. David Madison in this case has to show Paul got something wrong is some way and not merely just assert that Paul was wrong. He has to show the toxicity and badness of  Paul's theology.  Let's examine the article to see how he does. Spoiler: a major faceplant.

 Do I exaggerate about the ‘utter obsession’? Well, Ben Witherington’s 400-page analysis of Romans (Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, 2004) includes an 18-page bibliography of scholarly works on Paul and Romans, a list he says that “could go on for miles.” In 1996, evangelical scholar Douglas Moo published a 1,000-page commentary on Romans (The Epistle to the Romans), one of a series, the New International Commentary on the New Testament, “loyal to the Scriptures as the infallible Word of God.” A thousand pages on the sixteen chapters of Romans? The legions of Christian scholars, who can’t get enough of this dense patch of scripture, assume that scholar and theologian C. H. Dodd, got it right when he declared in 1939 that Romans is “the first great work of Christian theology.”

Another great paragraph full of nothing to disagree with.  

But, of course, it’s not. Because Paul was a crank. In my book I argue that he was a ‘delusional cult fanatic’—but ‘crank’ is good shorthand. He was the prototype for Christian crazies who have shown up repeatedly in the centuries of the Christian era.

Almost every great thinker throughout history was considered a "crank" at best by his or her detractors. Do you know what separates a "crank" from a "genius"? The genius is right about the thing(s) so many others thinks they are wrong about, Can Madison prove the theology that Paul wrote down in Romans was wrong?

 How so? I mean, really, how can anyone take this guy seriously? 

So...Madison thinks that Paul's ideas should not be taken seriously. Why not?

 (1) Paul assured one of his congregations that, when the Lord came back, their dead relatives would pop out of their graves to meet Jesus in the clouds—with musical accompaniment, no less (I Thess. 4:16-18).

Just because Madison considers  the rapture ridiculous does not mean that it's not going to happen. Where's the evidence and argument that Paul is wrong. This is just an assertion.

(2) Paul scolded Christians for taking one another to court; didn’t they know they were qualified to settle their disputes? Why? Because one day soon they would be judging angels—after Jesus’ return (I Corinthians 6:3).

Use context much?will be judging angels.  Also because we should be treating one another with love and esteeming each other higher than ourselves (Philippians 2:3) we should be able to settle our disputes without going to court. True that most Christians have not lived up to this but it is what we are supposed to do. Unbelievers should not not hold the failure of Christians against the Bible. If you think you can do better, come show us how to do it.

 (3) He advised married Christian men to act as if they no longer had wives, because “the appointed time has grown short”—i.e., Jesus would arrive soon (I Corinthians 7:29); this matches his advice in Romans 13:14: “…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”

 That's not really true. Why did Madison fail to refer to the whole passage. Read the whole Chapter and you will see the Paul never said to married men to live like they no longer had wives. This contradicts verses 10 and 11.

¹To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

If you are going to bad-mouth Paul I expect something way more factual.

(4) Paul had no interest in good government (or in art, culture or education, or that matter).He assured his readers—this is in Romans 13—that all leaders are in power because God put them there.

No Paul told his readers to obey the laws of the land because God put the leaders in charge. How is this crazy. Is Madison and anarchist? Paul most definitely was not. Paul was reminding believers that our trust - our faith - is in God and not any particular government. Go back and read Romans 13. 

 (5) He embraced a magic formula for eternal life that sounds straight out of Hogwarts: “…if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). This is just a start, but I rest my case: Paul was a Jesus groupie and nothing else.

If putting all my egg into Jesus' basket, like Paul did, makes me a  "Jesus groupie" I'll gladly represent that remark. If Jesus, Paul, and all the believers from Adam to today are right, there is no other sane response. It's not magic. If one thinks Paul just made up Romans 10:9 out of no where then one has misunderstood the whole book of Romans. Go back ans start with Chapter one. You will not understand Romans 10 if you did not understand Chapters 1-9

 Randel Helms (Gospels Fictions, The Bible Against Itself) has said that the Bible is self-destructive artifact, and the Letter to the Romans is Exhibit A in making the case that this is so. It has land mines in almost every chapter. Christians can see theology exploding in their faces if they venture to step through these chapters, unaccompanied by apologists.

More assumptions. The thing about the book of Romans is that it is not a simple picture book. It has deep theology and philosophy and requires much study. It's not a Twilight novel.

 During the coming weeks—spilling over into January, I suspect—I will offer a few reflections on each of the sixteen chapters in Romans. I will make the case that this over-adored epistle is indeed a
toxic brew of bad theology.

Oh goody - more entertaining faceplants to read!

Ben Witherington, by the way, undermines any confidence that Romans is revelation, when he warns his readers on page one of his 400-page work, “…the goal of understanding this formidable discourse is not reached for a considerable period of time.” So God planned it that way?

How does the fact that it took a lot of time to understand Romans (and still learning from it) undermines the letter as being revelation from God. Everyone is growing in different rates and I know I am still learning from Romans and I have read it multiple times.God did plan it that way. Recall that Christianity is a relationship with God. Relationships grow and we learn more and more. God does not grow because he does not have to. We do.

Why would we have to work so hard to grasp revealed information? Did you get my hint of ridicule when I mentioned Douglas Moo’s huge tome above? Yes, I am baffled by his efforts. Lest I be accused of anti-intellectualism, however, in scoffing at a 1,000-page book on Romans, let me say that, of course, academicians who specialize in antiquities are justified in pursuing their passions. Our heritage is enriched because there are countless weighty tomes about the works of Solon and Homer, about the hieroglyphed walls in Egypt and the pornographic murals in Pompeii. The authors were motivated to understand human genius and creativity, to increase our quotient of enlightenment. But the motivation for obsessive study of Paul is to figure out a god. The scholars who do this are on a holy mission.

It makes sense that God tells us to study. Why would it be easy? We can only do it with God's help.Why would we think our finite minds could easily and quickly comprehend the infinitude of God? I'd say it is like putting the pacific ocean into a thimble. Not going to happen.

Sadly—can’t they admit it?—Paul was not channeling a god in his hallucinations. He was an obsessive-compulsive mediocre thinker and bad theologian.

I'd like to see Madison prove that.

 He churned out reams of theobabble, which, by an accident of history, were elevated to the status of scripture. The academicians who study Paul are determined to distill the essence of God’s will, to discover the divine mind. They are on fool’s errand.

Where's the beef? Madison at this points makes a lot of assumptions without no evidence to prove them.

Their pursuit is as worthwhile as studying the minutia of old letters written by medieval astrologers or alchemists. I am not anti-intellectual; I just have so little patience with the faith-blinded assumption that digging through this ancient text will yield data about a god. When scholars also happen to be ordained ministers, it’s hard to overcome the faith-blindness.

I'd agree with Madison if the book of Romans did not tell us anything about God and his reconciliation  of humanity from sin and death but it does.

No, we don’t have to believe C.H. Dodd’s glowing assessment: “…this great epistle, into which [Paul] has packed the ripe fruits of many years of thought and work, of preaching, controversy, and the cure of souls, of trial, suffering, and spiritual experience.” The Letter to the Romans deserves to be at the bottom of the scrapheap of history. Paul is an embarrassment.

Madison indeed does not need to agree with Dodd but if he cannot demonstrate that Paul was wrong then this series is just a faceplant and an embarrassment.

David Madison was in the Methodist ministry in Massachusetts for nine years. He has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University, and is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith (Tellectual Press).


Debunking Christianity

FacePlant of the Day - Debunking Christianity: Paul Tells Us in His Last Letter (Romans) That God Has Alzheimer’s Disease

Just when I think that Harry McCall can't make a more dumber argument, he ups and surprises me. In this article he tries to make are ally dumb argument he cannot even begin to substantiate.

Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that "Jesus is at the right hand of God interceding for us" (ἐντυγχάνει ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν = Present Indicative or to keep doing intercession for us) in Heaven. (Romans 8:34, NIV) 

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died —more than that, who was raised to life —is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”^[j]

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:31-39

It's interesting how McCall feels the need to rip verse 34 out of its context.  Notice how Paul is talking about believers on earth now being interceded by Jesus. McCall is going to try to make it seem that Paul is talking about judgement day and not the here and now.

Yet, even with all this pleading by Jesus, Romans 14:12 tells us that each person is going to have to step up and “will give account to God” (δώσει τῷ Θεῷ = Future Indicative Active) or we must tell God exactly what sins we did.

¹⁰ You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister^[a]? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. ¹¹ It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
    every tongue will acknowledge God.’”^[b]

¹² So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

¹³ Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. - Romans 14:10-13

Nowhere does the text say we will be telling God exactly what sins we did. Besides we don't even know all the sins we have done. Giving "an account of ourselves" before God does not mean confessing our sins. God already knows what they are.

If we take the Bible seriously; we have an image of "Jesus being presently at the right hand of God interceding for us" in Heaven with the following scenario on how this action is playing out. 

Intercession does not mean God needs to be reminded about his mercy and kindness. 

So according to St. Paul, as each Christians commits a sin (based on both the Jewish Torah as well as the New Testament) we have this scene in Heaven: 

God: "Sinner, you stand condemned!"
Jesus: "You must forgive him father for I died and shed my blood for him!" 
God: "Oh, yeah, I remember now. O.K. But what about that other sinning Christian right there?”
Jesus: "Forgive her father. I died and shed my blood for her too!" 
God: "Oh, yeah, I remember now. O.K." 

God: “But what about that person right over there?”
And again, God try’s to condemn a sinner and yet again, Jesus intercedes for them by pleading his blood as shed on the cross. 

Jesus, now after 2,000 years and for the googolplex time: "Forgive him father. I died for him / her!" 
And God for the googolplex time: "Oh yeah! Now I remember . . . O.K: Forgiven!" 

Ironically, it’s little wonder neither God nor Jesus has time to answer prayers since both are in an eternal Catch-22 Situation; one of eternal condemning and interceding. 

Shows how much McCall does not understand anything bout the Father's relationship to Jesus. Jesus' sacrifice wasn't for those like him who reject Jesus but only for those who put their trust in Jesus. If Jesus did not die for you and raised for your justification (see Romans 8) you will be judged according to your own righteousness. Jesus did not die for everyone.  Jesus died for those who were given him by the Father. 

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷ All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰ For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

⁴¹ At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” ⁴² They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁴³ “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’^[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. ⁴⁶ No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. ⁴⁷ Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. ⁵⁰ But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” - John 6:35-51
Finally, here’s how salvation sounds in Heaven (at least to the angles). 
God: "Baugh, Baugh, Baugh; Condemed!"
Jesus: "Baugh, Baugh, Baugh." 
God: "Baugh, Baugh, Baugh: O.K. Forgiven!" 

I think that the angels are definitely more understanding of salvation than McCall is. 

F-O-R-E-V-E-R!
{As for as Romans14: 12 is concerned (with God being as forgetful as he is), I plan to lie and march myself right on into Heaven!}

Harry McCall

McCall attempts to debunk what the Bible says about Salvation but fails to accurately understand what it says about salvation. A God who knows the number of hairs on your head surely knows how many sins you have committed.

Jesus said:

²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.^{[a] 30} And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  - Matthew 10:29-31

Given that there are sins of ignorance that we are all guilty of we don't even know all the sins we have done - but God does.

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things
    and beyond cure.
    Who can understand it?

¹⁰ “I the Lord search the heart
    and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
    according to what their deeds deserve.”- Jeremiah 17:9-10
Debunking Christianity: Paul Tells Us in His Last Letter (Romans) That God Has Alzheimer’s Disease

ID.Plus: British Humanists (Toynbee, Dawkins, Grayling) Run from William Lane Craig

Dr Peter S. Williams posted the following video on his blog. It's interesting given that Dr Williams is not an American, but I think he's from the UK. The YouTube description is:

Dawkins is not the only culprit in shying away from Craig's October 2011 UK Tour. He is but one of a Humanist Trinity who have all, in their own way, run away from William Lane Craig's willingness for open dialogue. Based on the press release from BeThinking.org. The example these BHA leaders are setting is disappointing, to say the least.

In case anyone is confused about why I am posting this, let me be clear: I think that most of these atheists are refusing to debate Dr William Lane Craig out of cowardice because they know they don't really have good arguments to stand on. In order to win, you'd have to really attack what Christianity is about: Jesus and Inerrancy of Scripture. Dr Craig wins because he really argues in favor of theism in his debates and then points to the God of Christianity. This makes it nearly impossible for Atheists because essentially, Dr Craig stays in Romans 1 and 2 and I think they unassailable. Romans 3 continues the argument but it's even more unassailable, but due to the limitations of an unregenerate heart, most atheists can't go farther in the discussion nor understand Dr. Craig's theological weaknesses.

ID.Plus: British Humanists (Toynbee, Dawkins, Grayling) Run from William Lane Craig

Related articles

• Atheists On The Run (1godfather.wordpress.com)
• William Lane Craig scaring off debate opponents (4simpsons.wordpress.com)
• Christian Philosopher Finds Few Debate Challengers (foxnews.com)
• Rebutting Reasonable Faith: The Evangelical Conspiracy Theory (daylightatheism.org)

Dave Hunt on Romans 9: Tradition-Driven Eisegesis Once Again

Romans 9 exegesis has shown up on my blog before. IT confounds me how so many people can agree with how I read most of scripture except in this case! I'm also amazed by the attacks on James White's person and scholarship because I don't see how he is wrong in how he exegetes this text and most of scripture that I have followed him as he read and expounded on them. I'd be interested in hearing why the following text that White posted on his blog is incorrect.

The Berean Call put out their monthly newsletter a few days ago, and I could not help but noticing the following paragraph. If you are not intimately familiar with the argument of Romans 9, and especially its insistence that the choice of Jacob and the rejection of Esau was not in any way, shape, or form, based upon the actions of Jacob or Esau, foreseen or otherwise, but was instead based solely upon God's "purpose in election," you might wish to review the text before reading this tradition-laden means of getting around the text:

Regarding Romans 9:19, we know that it is not wise to single out one verse apart from full context. The issue of Jacob and Esau and their being loved or hated by God before their birth has occupied more than one discussion throughout history. If one confines the argument to portions of Romans 9, it does sound like God arbitrarily selects some for salvation and others for damnation, but Romans 9 does not occur in a vacuum, and the rest of Scripture furnishes the balance. God's foreknowledge enters into the equation at this point. Some theologians have stated that it would be accurate to translate the passage, "Jacob have I chosen, but Esau have I rejected." Specifically, in the case of Esau, the implication of "rejected" is a judgment based upon knowledge of his actions. God, who declares "the end from the beginning," (Isaiah 46:10) knew, before they were born, the course each child would take.


1) How many times people have rebelled against this truth over the course of church history is, of course, irrelevant to the biblical teaching itself.
2) Whenever you find someone (and Dave Hunt has made a living off of this) going to the "rest of Scripture" argument before exegeting the text in context, you know you have found someone's tradition.
3) Notice that in essence this paragraph admits that, contextually speaking, if you just let Romans 9 speak for Romans 9, it teaches God's sovereignty (misidentified as "arbitrary" when, in fact, it is based upon the good pleasure of God's will, His eternal purpose, which is anything but arbitrary).
4) Whenever you find anyone from the Berean Call citing un-named "scholars," beware. Remember, these are the same folks who drew from a Yahwist cult to try to get around Acts 13:48, suggesting that the first fifteen chapters of Acts were written in Hebrew!
5) There is no doubt that "chosen/rejected" is part of the meaning of the text, but there are plain, easily chosen words that have those meanings, and Paul did not use them. Loved and hated are words with meanings. People may not like what they mean, but that does not change their meaning.
So compare, then, the words of Scripture with the words of the Berean Call and remember, once again, the grave error enunciated by Dave Hunt nearly a decade ago now, "James, I have no traditions."

Scripture states: though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad---in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls---(Romans 9:11)


But the Berean Call says,

Specifically, in the case of Esau, the implication of "rejected" is a judgment based upon knowledge of his actions. God, who declares "the end from the beginning," (Isaiah 46:10) knew, before they were born, the course each child would take.


The result? Paul's entire argument is turned on its head. How much more plainly can the Apostle state "and had not yet done anything good or bad"? But, when wedded to a tradition that you refuse to see, even the plain words on the page cannot dissuade you from pursuing your goals. Another great example provided by the folks up at the Berean Call.

Dave Hunt on Romans 9: Tradition-Driven Eisegesis Once Again

Responding to True Paradigm: Corporate versus individual election

Image by Brent Nelson via Flickr

Now this is what I'm talking about. Brennon posted an exegesis on Romans 9 and I posted a response, and now bethyada has posted a response. bethyada and I have gone back and forth a little bit in comment, but I thought that it would help to respond to his latest response giving it the space and time it deserves. My words are in red. Please read the above links with comments to follow what has been said already. The issues I have been discussing with bethyada and Brennon are important and will affect how one sees God, witness, and live but neither position make one more pleasing to God or  less saved.

Hi Marcus. What we mean by freewill is not complete absolute freedom to do absolutely anything, it means the ability to make choices that are ours.

I agree that free will means that we are able to make choices that ours that we are responsible for. MY argument is that left to ourselves the only choices we can make are disobedient to God.

We are best to make them in line with God's will and God may aid us in this, but we can make decisions, at least some of the time, against what God wills for us. That is we can choose to disobey God even while God wills us to obey him. And that choice is ours, it is not some second will of God's. Essentially freewill says that exhaustive determinism is not true.

I also agree that God holds us accountable for our acts of disobedience and evil because we are responsible we disobey because we want to disobey not because God makes us disobey. The question is - is the opposite true - can we obey God without God helping us and prompting us? Since no one does good and all sin and no one measures up - I have to answer "no". Romans 3:23

This does not mean we act completely without God. For Christians much of what we do is with God's help, he strengthens our spirit to do what we know is right, even while our flesh entices us otherwise. But we still have the choice to align our behaviour with what the Spirit is doing in us, or not.

Where does the Bible say we have the choice to obey or not to obey. The Bible tells us its a choice to obey and we do choose. If there is such thing as free will as Brennon and bethyada have defined it, then we can choose to go to Christ without God doing anything but on our own. John 6:44 disagrees.

Next, the inability to do good does not mean we are determined by God. If we were determined by God then we will be doing good. Rather one is choosing various wrongs. Hebrews 11? Are you referring to verse 6? I don't know how you are reading this. I don't see pleasing God as exactly the same as doing good. And claims about no one doing good I read as doing everything good. Of course people do some good. And all good done by everyone is with God's help. Unbelievers do some good things which we can trace to God's workings in this world.

Not everyone is determined by God to do good. It's a gift. Not everyone gets it. I was referring to Hebrews 11:6...it's impossible to please God without faith.  If an unbeliever does good...it is inadvertent. They aren't trying to please God  and don't even realize that God gets the credit. God even uses the evil that people do to bless His people and carry on his purpose.  Think of Joseph's brothers...what they meant for evil God intended for good!

Acts 17 does say that God does a lot. But freewill does not say God does nothing. God does heaps! But identifying many things God does is not proving we have no will and I am an automaton. Romans 1 shows we make choices.

I surely would not argue that any born-again Christian, as I know Brennon and bethyada are, could be described as an automaton. Romans 1 does say we make choices, Romans 9 shows that aside from the power of God there is no other choice a sinner can make.

God does work on the corporate level and the individual level. But these are categorically distinct.

God doesn't leave man to himself. He works on men's hearts but still lets them make the choice whether or not they wish to join his kingdom.

How can we say that God works on our heart and then say that we can choose to join the kingdom. Jesus told his disciples "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." John 15:16  Do we really think the same is not true for us?  bethyada must be saying that if a person can choose to join the kingdom then we can get choose to leave it if we decide, right? I don't know if that is what bethyada is saying but it seems the  logical conclusion.

You are pushing freewill to far. It seems that you see the 2 options as

1. God controlling absolutely everything including our thoughts and actions (exhaustive determinism)

2. God doing nothing and humans being able to make any decision and do anything.

But a denial of 1 does not entail 2.

I admit being told that I push free will too far is funny to me, given that I am arguing that God has true completely free will and we as humans don't. A synergistic gospel seems to deny Ephesian 2:8-10

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We have several scriptural examples of how God sent one nation to judge and punish Israel and then God judge and punished the nations whom God sicced on Israel in the first place. God judged the nations because of their heart. In our churches we don't talk about Habbakuk much be we should because it covers this very issue.

True Paradigm: Corporate versus individual election