A letter from my mom/dad

(this is a letter my mom sent to me in response to the letter I sent to her. the former letter can be found on this blog. my wife and I believe this letter not to be written by my mother but her husband who I sometimes call dad. enjoy.)

Josh,

Give my love to Rachael and Lorelei!  Know that we pray for you all daily.  Here is my response to what you shared.

Dear Josh,

I appreciate you sharing your views with me and have read it several times.  Dad and I are pleased that you want to communicate with us and cherish that very much. Before I address specifics, I do want to bring up that part of the difficulty in researching "history" in today's world is that so much of the past has been commented on that many times "opinions" of the past are repeated and repeated on the internet and print media until they start to appear as fact - and people believe them as truth.  We both need to be careful to glean the real truth and that can be difficult in this information age, because as you stated, we are told what others want us to hear and I agree.

After discussing your letter with Dad, here are some thoughts:

First:  Survival of the fittest is merely an adaptation of traits within a species and is observable in nature. But this is not “evolution” which touts the creation of new and different species from entirely different forms of life.  It is not a simple “Man came from Monkeys” argument that we disagree with. It is the “Man came from the goo in the primordial swamp” which is not only objectionable Biblically, but impossible biologically and statistically. However, your point about “adapting to the environment” is understood.  Just don’t confuse it with “evolution”.

In regards to socio-political changes, of course we agree in part.  Human institutions are all corrupt in some degree because they are designed by humans who are innately sinful and prone to error. But don’t brand your Dad and I as conformists or puppets because we don’t propose radical changes just for the sake of change. Even going back to your analogy of adaptation, every generation doesn’t necessarily adapt because it doesn’t need to adapt. Change for the sake of change is illogical and unnecessary.  Change when corrupt practices are in place (e.g. the Reformation) was warranted.  Josh, we love you very much so it is with that information that I hope you accept this comment: although it is an admirable trait to speak up for what you believe and stand against injustice, you have seemed to welcome confrontation and taken the radical viewpoint on whatever issue is out there. If the government says we landed on the moon, you say it was a hoax. If the majority of the medical field says fluoride has beneficial effects, you say it is a conspiracy to control the masses. You have endorsed so many conspiracy “theories” that we just expect that whatever the mainstream says (right or wrong) you are going to oppose it for the sake of being argumentative and confrontational. You have lost all respect for and trust in the “establishment”.  But we still love you!

Now, a crucial point of your letter and the point we will disagree is the canon of the Scripture. You vastly oversimplified a process that was done carefully (and prayerfully) and made it sound like a simple disagreement between people of differing views and in the end, the strong won out. This is a grossly inadequate reconstruction of history.  First, you must draw a distinction between the OT canon and the NT canon because they were two separate and unique processes occurring 400-600 years apart and the “orthodox church” (as you call it) didn’t have anything to do with the first. The NT canon took place between about 140 AD and 397 AD so it wasn’t just one group of “priests” from one camp arguing with another group.

JI Packer had an interesting quote concerning those who say the canon was simply man’s
“collection” of the scriptures they wanted to include as God’s word. “The church no more gave us the New Testament canon than Sir Isaac Newton gave us the force of gravity. God gave us gravity, by his work of creation, and similarly he gave us the New Testament canon, by inspiring the individual books that make it up.”

As to the difference between the “orthodox” and “Gnostics”, I think that is something to leave for another time. Although John wrote 3 epistles to counter the 1^st century Gnostics, they obviously didn’t go away but their writings over the next few centuries were discussed and dismissed by the Early Church Fathers over the next few hundred years.

You ask whether or not worldviews should be defined by “man”. My answer is “NO”. But most are, however (communism, socialism, humanism, scientology and on and on). A Biblical worldview is not defined by man but by God and that is why we camp there. But you say, “The Bible promotes sexism and genocide”. I think that is very shortsighted for several reasons. First, you are defining “sexism” based on a humanistic world view. The Bible teaches man to love his wife as Christ loved the church and be willing to die for her. You call that “sexism”?  Where Christianity has sprouted across different cultures around the earth, women have been freed from oppression, men have been taught to love and respect them, and stability in cultures has ensued.

The last point is your charge against the Bible “promoting” genocide. Let me remind you that God destroyed the entire human race save 8 people early on as a judgment against sin and He will one day judge the entire world and restore it. Call it what you want, but it is obvious that God hates sin and will deal with it in His way and His time. Recall that he even sent unholy kings to conquer His chosen people and enslave them for their violations of the law. Yet He has ultimately set up His son as the greatest sacrifice to make all things right. But saying the Bible promotes genocide because God judged Canaan is far from what the whole counsel of God’s Word commands Christians to do and far from what they do in practice concerning going into all the world with the gospel of peace and loving your neighbors. Christians aren’t perfect, but they aren’t running around wiping out entire ethnic groups. But recall the recent mass murders and examine their worldviews (Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc.)

Finally, about your claim that men just made this all up: If that were the case, why wouldn’t they selectively have left out things like the conquering of Canaan and the promise that those that follow Christ will undergo persecution and death? Why would they have said you must become a slave? These aren’t very good “recruiting” slogans for sure. To me, it only further underscores the truthfulness of what we have in our possession called the Holy Bible.

Thank you for reading this response – it was written with love and much prayer for you all.

Mom