| Author |
Message |
Jorgfe
Registered user
Username: Jorgfe
Post Number: 533
Registered: 11-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - 11:07 pm: |     |
Something I still can't figure out is how Brinsmead became an atheist. Colleen, do you have any insights?
His "Are the Gospel and 1844 Compatible" booklet is excellent. That was some of my early reading as I left Adventism. http://www.exadventist.com/Portals/0/Repository/Are%20the%20Gospel%20&%201844%20Theology%20Compatible%20by%20Brinsmead.pdf
Here are his articles from the '80s.
http://www.quango.net/brinsmead/
Other references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Brinsmead
Basically atheistic material:
http://www.quango.net/verdict/index.htm
http://www.quango.net/verdict/part1.htm
quote:The question has been debated among some scholars as to whether Jesus actually existed. Collaborative material outside the New Testament writings of second and third generation Christians is almost non-existent. So the inevitable question has arisen, Did Jesus exist or was he the product of religious imagination? The answer is "Yes" and "No".
Jesus ben Parthenos did not exist. He was the product of religious myth-making.
It is so sad to see brilliant minds like this self-destruct.
Gilbert Jorgensen |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 1246
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:35 am: | |
We can have a brilliant mind or a dull mind and still lack faith.
There are some people that give God mental assent for awhile but do not give him faith assent.
Faith is essential to all who would come to Christ; Christ gives his Spirit according to our faith.
Our seed of faith becomes a living faith, a projected faith, a sustaining faith, a saving faith.
Saving faith goes ahead, it does not follow up, it precedes us, and atheism is lack of faith.
Faith is a continuing must, an essential with no work around. Men give mental assent to God, but then raise their own mind above him, they exalt their own mental abilities and powers of logic and reasoning above him, in other words, themselves above him and that becomes their downfall.
They may look to religion for awhile but that will not sustain, it seems some are willing to believe anything but a saving faith in Jesus Christ, but God demands it.
To these men who look to the powers of their own mind, logic and reasoning abilities, the demand for faith frustrates them.
The IJ is frustrating to faith, Belief in Ellen White and her drivel is frustration to faith, it keeps people from laying hold on faith.
Faith is not an ideal, it is an essential, to the partakers of saving grace faith is constantly at our side, it is there when we lay ourselves down and it is there when we rise up. It is not faith we worship, we worship Jesus by faith.
Lack of faith will precede the destruction of a fool.
River |
Stevendi
Registered user
Username: Stevendi
Post Number: 200
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 6:09 am: | |
River,
I've been on that same crooked road so many times I don't care to count. I do think I tried to pass you once. I thought you looked familiar.
It's good to be alive at 55. Praise Him!
steve |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 1248
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 6:59 am: | |
Steve,
When you have to close one eye to see the white line I don't think one would be able to pass a sobriety test. Yes, I think that might have been you I seen out of one eye.
The reason you couldn't pass is because I was following the white line in order to keep it in the road.
River |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6492
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:15 pm: | |
River, you've gotten to the heart of the matter. I've wondered the same thing, Gilbert—how someone who did so much to begin to expose the gospel within a very dark Adventism could have moved ahead to total unbelief.
I don't actually know Brinsmead, and although I did speak to him about 10 years ago, I don't personally know his journey. I can only surmise that it was, as River suggested, an absence of continuing faith. I know the temptation of having doubts and questions pop into my mind unbidden, making me doubt what I know to be true.
I believe the seduction of scholarhsip can eclipse faith for some people because it is something they can "manage". Scholarship is about "evidence" and "facts" and logic. Faith is about believing what we cannot see. Faith also requires surrender of our logic and our ability to figure things out. it also requires a surrender of the unanswered questions in favor of resting in the finished work of Jesus—a fact we cannot see or prove scientifically.
Faith in Jesus yields results—changed lives and the fruit of the Spirit flow from submission to Him. At the same time, there is a continuing need to admit we can't grasp Truth by analysis. Truth is revealed. Yes, we must learn Biblical facts, and we must be willing to know them. But ultimately, we can explain away whatever doesn't make sense to us if we're not most committed to knowing Truth.
Being able to explain and state an "accurate" theology has to be secondary to knowing Jesus. The paradox is that knowing Jesus is grounded in Biblical knowledge—but Biblical knowledge divorced from true faith does not save.
Colleen |
Reb
Registered user
Username: Reb
Post Number: 521
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:45 pm: | |
For me Atheism would be even WORSE than Adventism.
I think it would be depressing to have the lack of hope that Atheists have. Wait a minute! Adventists don't really have any more hope than Athiests do, do they? |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 1252
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:55 pm: | |
Satan comes to me many times and says "but do you know these things beyond a shadow of a doubt" and over the years I have learned to recognize his sorry head. That shield of faith rises above his accusations and puts him to flight immediately.
Without faith is is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Then read on down from there, these men who make shipwreck of faith are not pleasing to God, they are clouds without water, nary a resting place for anyone who listens to them, they are doomed to destruction unless they repent and turn to God in faith, they take themselves down to hell with their foolishness and try to take as many as they can with them.
River |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 179
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 7:07 am: | |
Colleen and River,
I understand your points about Jesus is the whole of it all. The Destination, The Basis, The Rest, The Redemption.
I don't even want to interject a "but" here.
The strongest impression I have been getting all week is to be quite and listen.
I don't even have a message of input for others.
Kind of like that rule, if you have nothing positive to say, them keep it to yourself.
I have a stack of back issues of Proclamation I have begun reviewing. Plus the other books I am recapping, and I am reading the NT in context all over again.
I figure this will be a multi facet concept of:
Prayer, Study and Practice
All under the guidance an control of The Holy Spirit.
I figure, my brain can only absorb it so fast, part of this effort is time and doing the motions.
But also , unlearning and relearning, then remebering.
I know that Jesus and Realtionship is the main message. If I can unshakle from the traps, perhaps I can get to basics and simplicity.
Thank You both for your prayers. Everyone.
Please be patient with me. I am doing my level best. |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 4120
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 7:38 am: | |
Jim,
You are doing okay, going at the relearning and unshackling, slowly. It is not easy, especially coming from where we have come. God and the Holy Spirit are with you every step of the way 24/7. He will not drop you.
Continue praying for you.
Diana |
Jim02
Registered user
Username: Jim02
Post Number: 182
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 9:55 am: | |
Thank You Diana.
Jim |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 6502
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 09, 2007 - 11:46 am: | |
Jim, I totally relate to what you are saying. It takes time, ane one can't rush it. The relearning is startling—I didn't understand at first that I'd have to relearn everything and rebuild my worldview. It's tremendously rewarding, but it is slow, methodical, and when the Holy Spirit teaches us, He does it one step at a time. He lays careful foundations based on His Word, and He allows us to integrate those foundations into our lives before He lays the next big insights on us.
The anchor point in this whole process (and don't be surprised if it takes a couple years or even more!) is Jesus. The more you learn/relearn, the more real He becomes. The feeling of overwhelm diminishes bit by bit as the new insights become real to you. As you experience Jesus being your ground and center and your rest during this process, the new insights will seem more like "Ah-ha!" moments and less like deconstruction.
You're doing just fine, Jim—As Diana said, God will not drop you. And just think—you have this whole family of us who are praying for you!!
With prayers for you and your wife,
Colleen |
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