shaky foundations leads to hypocrisy

thank goodness for other blogs and cut-n-paste, which allows me to respond, then post my responses here.

on a discussion about what submission in marriage means to contemporary American popular culture, one participant posted: "I think Paul's point in 1 Cor. and throughout the NT is very like Jesus' point: live your life without blame in the culture in which you live."

in a different post, same topic, the same participant argues that "We can hold onto the ideas of modesty from two thousand years ago, but really, what's the point?"

eventually, my response, modified to make more sense here:

there is a conflict between freezeframe (living your life without blame within your culture) and cultural adaptation. you can't (honestly) have it both ways: if one claims the common interpretation of Paul's admonition, the answer is no cultural adaptation allowed--because it's going to offend someone. you see this in churches all the time as a way of preserving the status quo.

those same churches don't really hold to this except where it is convenient. Therefore, some Mennonites wear 2000-model clothes, some wear 1940's Mennonite-model. some Churches of Christ accept contemporary hymns, some don't. some Christian women don pretty head coverings, other Christians disdain them as 'doilies.' the heart of the issue is this particular interpretation of Paul's words.

i say that to invoke both concepts—cultural adaptation and don't-rock-the-boat—is trying to have it both ways, and that's where christians are (fairly) called hypocrits.

a lot of christian-types today a big on "The Case for..." arguments which purport to logically prove (which means 'prove by human standards') the existence of God, Jesus and the foundations of Christianity.

This intense focus on logic where faith is called for leads to two huge marketing/PR failures. the first is the fallacy of using logic to prove faith.

the second is the fallacy of building faith doctrine on assumed and unexamined principles, where you claim your argument is logically sound but never stop to realize that no argument is sound where its foundation is flawed.

i'm working on it

honest, fans, i'm working on a new post, HONEST! In fact, tonight when I saved a draft I'm working on, I discovered ANOTHER POST IN MY DRAFT FILE!!!!

I can hear your sighs of relief. Hang in there, ladies and gentleman, more is coming!