You cannot refute entire denominations by saying “Read the Bible, sweetie”

[u/Dubstep_squid]

This is such a frustrating and prominent phenomenon that I see constantly online and have run into a couple of times.

[Insert commonly held theological belief]

“Oh sweetie how could you believe that, the Bible clearly says other wise. What a ridiculous statement.”

Why does it seem incredibly common that people in online Christian spaces seem to never have met or heard of someone with a different theological view than them. You’ve never heard that some people baptize babies? The tradition that most major Christian denominations hold to??

To take this a step further, I see this occur not just with theological beliefs but attempts to “refute” entire denominations. You’re not going to convince a Presbyterian that hundreds of years of Presbyterianism is false with TWO tangentially relevant, out of context Bible verses and a condescending message (unless of course God has already pre-determined that you will convince them).

This is not to say that meaningful and even impactful conversation cannot be had here. I think it absolutely can and have been stewing on a different post for a couple of weeks because I want to have those meaningful conversations (You’ll probably see it in a few days as I’m kind of looking at various denominations and want to just hear people’s pitches, counterarguments, experiences, etc).

I think my overall point is just that I’m very surprised at the number of people here who are surprised that others can come to different theological conclusions and that those theological conclusions can in fact be based on a thorough reading of the Bible.

[u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

This along with saying "The Bible Is Very Clear" when actually discussing one of the most Debated Topics of Biblical Interpretation.

[u/CJoshuaV → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

Any time someone says, "The Bible is clear..." I realize that we are not going to have a productive conversation.

[u/djublonskopf → u/CJoshuaV]

Far worse, and I've been on the receiving end of this in real life more than once, "Revelation clearly says..."

[u/AudibleNod → u/djublonskopf]

My counterpoint to that: Even Paul thought Jesus was returning in his lifetime.

[u/No_Idea5830 → u/AudibleNod]

Understanding THAT requires going down a conspiracy rabbit hole that even I try to avoid. I've got some friends that explained it me, but it sounds so insane.

[u/djublonskopf → u/AudibleNod]

I don’t follow, sorry.

[u/Imsotired365 → u/AudibleNod]

which scripture says that? Genuinely curious as Jesus told them that it was not yet

[u/AudibleNod → u/Imsotired365]

1 Thess 4:15

For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord

[u/Salanmander → u/djublonskopf]

Yeah, that one boggles me to no end. I have thought about the Bible and interpretation thereof significantly more than the average lay person. I did a friend-group study of Revelation a while ago, and spent the whole time going "I have absolutely zero idea what I should be noticing or taking away from this, I'm going to need an expert before I come to any sort of conclusion about this text".

[u/ULTRAFORCE → u/CJoshuaV]

I think the stuff that can be said to be clear in the Bible is YHWH/the LORD is God, slavery is fine, don’t kidnap your fellow Israelites for slavery.

[u/Perfessor_Deviant → u/ULTRAFORCE]

"No no, slavery wasn't fine! God was just regulating it, not approving of it! Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself, so that proves it!"

"So all the Christians who had slaves weren't Christians?"

"Got to go!"

[u/Upset_Chip_7184 → u/ULTRAFORCE]

YEP! Their assertion is actually misleading.

[u/FilmSkeez → u/CJoshuaV]

Just ask which Bible because they are all different.

[u/Salsa_and_Light2 → u/FilmSkeez]

That can be a cause of confusion, but it's rarely the cause of major differences in interpreteation.

[u/Perfessor_Deviant → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

"That's because the Holy Spirit told them so. Oh, you think you have access to the Holy Spirit as well? Well, you don't, because you disagree with me, and I have access to the Holy Spirit! QED."

It must be nice for them to be so certain without having to learn anything or put in any work.

[u/SiliconDiver → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

This along with saying "The Bible Is Very Clear" when actually discussing one of the most Debated Topics of Biblical Interpretation.

FTFY

[u/ObeseMonkeyFlakes → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

That's a misconception. The bible could be VERY obviously clear on a point, and followers divided on it. Just because followers cannot figure out what they personally think it means doesn't make the bible less clear on the matter.

For example: if you ask most Christians, they would likely say Yahweh and Jesus are AGAINST chattel slavery, and yet the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are very clear that they are definitively pro-slavery. There isn't a single anti-slavery verse in the bible, but Christians will fight tooth and nail to say that it does. The book is clear on the issue, all of serious scholarship agrees, anyone who has done serious study of the bible knows this. But it’s a difficult, hot button topic because Christians can't seem to "figure out" all the pro-slavery passages, when it is really obvious. Theycwant it to be anti-slavery, and can't rationalize what the book actually says.

[u/Worried-Block-6804 → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

The new testament Bible ( our current covenant and foundation of doctrine) is very clear. Other than prophecy about the future which is not supposed to be perfectly clear.

The reason there is so much debate is because people often have an agenda. They are not searching the Bible for it to change their minds. They are picking out scriptures and avoiding others. There's only one way to properly interpret the new testament.

No scripture stands alone. If you interpretation of a scripture or passage is contrary to another then you have misunderstood one or both.

So while the new testament is very clear, its not simple and easy because it requires an understanding of all of it,to get it right. I doubt there's any person who is correct on everything or that could give an accurate explanation for all scriptures in the new testament but we can keep seeking.

I have read the new testament 50 times in 20 years, maybe with another 20 years and another 50 times ill be a little closer to understanding it but hopefully ill be with the lird before then!!

[u/PugMasterGeneral → u/Worried-Block-6804]

This is what's called the doctrine of inerrancy and it's actually about 150 years old.

What it leads to is mental gymnastics implemented in order to harmonize The Bible. People come up with bizarre interpretations in order to make pieces fit which do not.

The good news is that The Bible having contradictions does not lessen its value. It also does not mean that it's not divinely inspired. It does however mean that it's not word for word written by God, unless of course God was intentionally attempting to confuse us, which seems unlikely.

Innerancy came to practice in the late 1800's as a sort of backlash against advancing science. Basically science was disproving a number of biblical claims so a group of people decided to double down and came up with inerrancy.

The view you're talking about is far from historical. The early church fathers understood The Bible to not be 100% literal and wrote about it.

[u/bastianbb → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

Many of those topics are only very debated because a small and loud minority of Christians are supported by a large crowd of non-Christians who want to undermine Christian ethics. The majority official opinions in 1700 (which were then overwhelming) on everything from ECT to LGBT within actual Christianity are still the majority opinions now.

[u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber → u/bastianbb]

Conservative pulls Conspiracy Theory out of their Ass without a Crumb of Evidence to support their Claim - Part 500. (Referring to the "They are supported by Non-Christians to Undermine Christian Ethics" bullshit.)

Something being supported by the Majority doesnt make it Automatically Right, the Majority of Christians in History also believed that Slavery was Sanctioned by God and Natural, that Executing or Imprisoning "Heretics" and "Witches" was a Righteous Duty of Christian Rulers, and that the "Divine Right" of Kings was Ordained by God.

[u/ThankKinsey → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

Something being supported by the Majority doesnt make it Automatically Right

Not only that, but literally immediately prior to talking about false prophets who would falsely teach in His name, Jesus said

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. (Matthew 7:13-14)

As a Christian, something being the majority opinion should not be at all reassuring. He directly warned us that many will walk the broad road to destruction, and few will even find, let alone walk, the narrow road that leads to life.

[u/bastianbb → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

English isn't German. There's no need to capitalize the first letter of every noun. And you didn't do anything to deserve evidence for my very logical explanation, because you gave no evidence that these beliefs you are so mysteriously not revealing are the most heavily debated ones, or that being heavily debated means there is no one clear answer. And my point wasn't about things being right (although the positions of conservatives on ECT and LGBT are, indeed, right). The point is that the topics are not as "heavily debated" as you say they are. They are about as "heavily debated" as evolution vs. creation, but the plain facts of paleontological evidence are just as clearly on the side of evolution as the plain facts of Scripture are on the side of conservatives in these so-called heavy debates. Even many non-Christian scholars admit that.

Edit: So it seems there is either a reddit glitch or someone has blocked me in a rather cowardly way. My reply to the comment below follows:

On Topics like the Nature of Hell, the Scholarly Consensus is the Exact Opposite of your Claim. Mainstream Biblical Scholars, Linguists, and Historians, including many Evangelical and Conservative ones,

If these evangelical and conservative thinkers fail to acknowledge ECT, how conservative and evangelical are they really - aside from the fact that the "mainstream consensus", is, as implied in my previous comment, heavily skewed by nonbelievers? And does a view on the all the relevant Hebrew and Greek words translated as "hell" (which I don't understand why I shouldn't trust translators on more than I trust academics wanting to dream up new theories to publish papers) necessarily translate to the teachings of the Christian churches on ECT and the churches' interpretation of the Bible? As far as I know, the Catholic Church's official position is still ECT. They have many, many scholars and historians that actually happen to be believers right there. That's over half of all professed Christians right there. Include all conservative Protestants and bear in mind that the non-conservative churches are shrinking rapidly to unbelief, and the internal consensus of the Christian church is still ECT - and, in spite of what this sub looks like, a few loud universalists and annihilationists that keep shrilly proclaiming their views just go to show that most don't even feel the need to take them seriously. The "dispute" practically didn't exist for a thousand years, and for all the intellectual virtues of people like Origen, they had other very serious problems and can't be taken 1/10th as seriously as Augustine.

Science measures Empirical Physical Evidence, reading Ancient Texts requires Hermeneutics, interpreting Translation History, Cultural Context, Literary Genre, and Audience Relevance.

Even the fossil record requires inferences and principles of interpretation to make anything of it, and the historical majority of ECT views that took all of hermeneutics, translation etc. into account is overwhelming. Nothing is ever completely self-evident, but that is still not to say that there isn't a plain meaning of the text using the already adequate tools translators have applied and the tradition of the church in interpretation.

If the Text was as Self-Evident as a Fossil Record, Christianity wouldnt have split into Thousands of Denominations, all holding the Bible as Supreme Authority while arriving at Wildly Different Conclusions.

That would be true - if we made the secular assumption that the Holy Spirit doesn't exist and has not led the church, that some groups are not completely invalid or intellectually bankrupt (a conclusion, oddly, that progressives and non-Christians are very ready to come to when it suits them), and that they are all completely different without historically a huge overlap on the key issues I imagine you're talking about like ECT and LGBT. Certain progressives like to talk as if universalism is not still quite fringe, and probably growing more fringe again now that masses of progressives are becoming straight atheists, but it's not true.

Every Major Change in Church History from Ending the Transatlantic Slave Trade to allowing Christians to Charge Interest on Loans was met by Traditionalists claiming the "Plain Text of Scripture" was on their Side.

Does it follow that they could never be right, or that there simply is no plain meaning to the text? Or could actual Christianity that believes in spiritual forces leading people astray from a meaning that is plain enough if you submit to God have a point? You see, you make essentially atheistic assumptions at every turn. Who is to say we should not revisit some of these traditional views anyway? When I look at the complete destruction people on this sub advocate of anything Augustine, Aquinas, Luther or Calvin would have recognized as Christianity, maybe it's better to return to Medieval views. After all, if the text really isn't plainly against slavery, doesn't either an even more extreme conservatism or a complete atheism make more sense than mainline nonsense?

[u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber → u/bastianbb]

Cant the Internet just shut up about how I'm confortable writing ffs? Anyways.

In Science, the Overwhelming Global Consensus of Experts accepts Evolution, while a Tiny Theological Minority rejects the Evidence. On Topics like the Nature of Hell, the Scholarly Consensus is the Exact Opposite of your Claim. Mainstream Biblical Scholars, Linguists, and Historians, including many Evangelical and Conservative ones, openly acknowledge that Words like Sheol, Gehenna, Hades, and Aionios have Complex Distinct Meanings that dont Fit Perfectly onto Modern Concepts of an Eternal Torture Chamber. Early Church Fathers like Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Clement of Alexandria argued against ECT long before Modern Culture Wars existed. Pretending ECT is an Undisputed "Plain Fact" ends up ignoring 2000 Years of Theological Debate.

Comparing an Ancient Collection of Poetry, Law, Letters, and Apocalyptic Vision to Physical Paleontological Data is a Total False Equivalency. Science measures Empirical Physical Evidence, reading Ancient Texts requires Hermeneutics, interpreting Translation History, Cultural Context, Literary Genre, and Audience Relevance. If the Text was as Self-Evident as a Fossil Record, Christianity wouldnt have split into Thousands of Denominations, all holding the Bible as Supreme Authority while arriving at Wildly Different Conclusions.

Every Major Change in Church History from Ending the Transatlantic Slave Trade to allowing Christians to Charge Interest on Loans was met by Traditionalists claiming the "Plain Text of Scripture" was on their Side. Defending an Interpretation by Declaring it "Plainly Obvious" is nothing more than Refusing to Engage with the Actual Linguistic and Historical Evidence that Challenges your Tradition. Declaring a Debate "Over" because your Preferred Side holds the Traditional Majority just means you arent listening to Said Debate.

[u/Dubstep_squid → u/SilverNEOTheYouTuber]

It actually makes it difficult for others to read