Comment to Congregation

A few weeks ago a local Pastor (here in Clearwater, FL) made the following comment to his congregation during a Sunday morning worship service: “The ministry is the only profession where we send our brightest young men and women off to study at the Masters and Doctorial level, and when they come back to us we don’t allow them to tell us what they learned.”

Most of you—I believe—will understand what the good Pastor was inferring. For those who may be puzzled by the Pastors comment, let me explain; The Christian doctrine seminary students learn is NOT the Christian doctrine that you and I have been taught since childhood. The doctrine taught in most seminaries today is an academic understanding of the Christian religion that has developed over the past 250-300 years. It reflects our current knowledge of the cosmos, the human mind and the natural laws of the world in which we live. In my book, GIVING VOICE TO THE SILENT PULPIT, I refer to this as Academic Christianity. In many ways it is diametrically opposed to the doctrine you and I were taught as children and what we hear on a weekly basis from the pulpit of our local church. This I refer to as Popular Christianity.

The differences between these two adaptations of the Christian faith are so divergent that a young Pastor, fresh out of seminary, would likely never reveal his/her new knowledge to a pastoral search committee for fear of being immediately rejected for any potential ministerial position. Why? Because most Christians—the people in the pews—expect to hear nothing from the pulpit but the doctrine they grew up with. The same doctrine our forefathers (and foremothers) believed and taught them in their younger years. They are devoted to those basic ancient beliefs. They have invested too much of their mental security in those values to allow new knowledge to invade their ‘cocoon of religious comfort.’

And so . . . our newly educated Pastor, in order to secure a job, must acquiesce to the presumed desires of the multitudes and preach only the ancient, outdated, obsolete and basically irrelevant Popular doctrine of the past.

The victims in this charade: -

· The people in the pews—who are denied an intellectually honest understanding of their faith.

· The Pastors—who must, daily, perjure themselves in pastoral contact with their parishioners.

· Society at large—which is deprived of intellectual growth and maturity.

The winners: -

· Those who would use religion to impose their particular brand of social ethics on others.

· Those, around the world who, today, use the ‘word’ or ‘will’ of God to terrorize, murder and oppress others in the name of religion.

If the church is to survive this duality in doctrine, honesty must prevail.

Learn more about this struggle between Popular and Academic Christianity (including ten side-by-side examples) in my new book—GIVING VOICE TO THE SILENT PULPIT.

More information at http://www.barryblood.com/

Shalom,
Barry e

Giving Voice to the Silent Pulpit

I was not a religious fanatic by any means, but the church and all that it represented, was very important to me in my formative years—as it was, I believe, for most young people of that era. As I grew into adulthood, I began to take on, what I considered to be, my share of responsibilities in the church. I served as an usher, sang in the choir, and served on various boards and committees. At one point I became trained as a Lay Minister and served as a substitute preacher from time to time. I guess I would be called an active Christian.

However, in 1993, at age fifty-eight, my understanding of the Christian belief system began to change. This change was prompted by a life altering experience, which is reveled in chapter 1 of this book. The change was not something that happened overnight; rather, it took several years of study and investigation. Years during which I found myself hoping I was wrong about what I was discovering. But in the end I realized I was not wrong. Today I am still a Christian, but a Christian with a much deeper and more honest and mature understanding of what Christianity is about. A great deal of what I mean by “a much more honest and mature understanding “ will be dealt with, in detail, in the book.

I anticipate that this book will, to a degree, cause you, the reader, some of the same pain and stress that I felt in the early stages of my investigation and discovery. Do not despair. In the end, I am convinced you will become aware of a much richer and far more rewarding understanding of the Christian faith, than you have ever before experienced.

In my opinion, if the Christian church is to live on, as a force for good in human society, the greater depth of knowledge that is exposed herein, will of necessity, become the norm in Christian education among the laity.

Please remember as you read . . . this is not a book in which I make known my opinion on religious teachings. Rather it is a book in which I report, with straightforward honesty, information about Christianity and Christian doctrine that is unknown to a vast majority of the laymen and laywomen of the faith.

I will be reporting the results of many years of study. Some of my findings will certainly invade the reader’s comfort zone. For this, I make no apology. Knowledge can sometimes be painful, but ignorance also has a price. I will not maliciously tear down sacred beliefs. I will merely report what the past two and one half centuries of Biblical scholarship has reveled and how it has changed the church’s understanding of Christian doctrine.

The church has a responsibility to keep the laity informed of new knowledge, but has chosen not to do so. Instead, the church has, more often than not, chosen to deny, rebuff, or simply remain silent about new knowledge that would counter ancient beliefs. Today the gap between what is preached from the pulpit and what the clergy and hierarchy of the church know has become problematical.
This problem can only be solved by exposing the church’s hidden secrets. To my way of thinking, there is no choice—the church must turn to a more honest doctrine or perish. Perhaps together you and I can start to solve this problem. This book is my attempt to get that ball rolling.

More information at,  http://barryblood.com/

Available from publisher: Wipf and Stock, Eugene, OR

barry e

Why We Believe

I have just finished the book SUPERSENSE - Why We Believe in the Unbelievable by Bruce M. Hood. Thought you might enjoy the following excerpt regarding belief in the supernatural . . .

     Psychologists have come to the conclusion that there are at least two different systems operating when it comes to thinking and reasoning. One system is believed to be evolutionarily more ancient in terms of human development; it has been called intuitive, natural, automatic, heuristic, and implicit. It is the system we think is operating in young children before they reach school age. The second system is one that is believed to be more recent in human evolution; it permits logical reasoning but is limited by executive functions . . . This second reasoning system has been called conceptual-logical, analytical-rational, deliberative-effortful-intentional-systematic, and explicit. It emerges much later in development and underpins the capacity of the child to perform logical, rational problem-solving. When we reason about the world using these two systems, they may sometimes work in competition with each other.
     One might assume that those prone to the supersense and belief in the paranormal (or supernatural) are lacking in rational thought processes, but that would be too simplistic. Studies reveal that the two systems of thinking, the intuitive and the rational, coexist in the same individuals. There are, in effect, two different ways of interpreting the world. In fact, when we measure reliance on intuition, no relationship has been found with intelligence. Intuitive people are not more stupid. They are, however, more prone to supernatural belief . . . The supersense lingers in the back of our minds, influencing our behaviors and thoughts, and our mood may play a triggering role. This explains why perfectly rational, highly educated individuals can still hold supernatural beliefs.

barry e