tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post8792150296755176300..comments2024-03-26T11:33:59.219-06:00Comments on Religion in American History: The Crisis of Biblical Authority in Early AmericaPaul Harveyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13881964303772343114noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37589721331585843.post-17633405952371010042014-04-08T21:15:53.736-06:002014-04-08T21:15:53.736-06:00In Lee's telling, this tragedy is ironic. Like...<i>In Lee's telling, this tragedy is ironic. Like James Turner, Lee sees the problems for American Protestants as originating within their own tradition. By choosing to defend the Bible on a rationalistic basis, they opened themselves up for a sudden shift should external standards of rationality and history shift.</i><br /><br />Exactly, JDH.<br /><br />The role of "rationalism" has always struck me as problematic especially when regarded as symptomatic/synonymous with [the] Enlightenment.<br /><br />That which is commonly credited to modernity might indeed be merely the inevitable consequence of "Protestantism"--if by that we mean the rejection of the Catholic Church's claim to magisterium, to being Holy Spirit-guided and therefore infallible as the final word in interpreting the Scriptures.<br /><br />It's a structural thing--if you will, what happens when you break a barrel full of marbles. Look out below!<br /><br />For instance, Michael Servetus raises doubts about the Trinity in the mid-1500s [for which he is eventually executed]. The "co-founder" of Lutheranism Philip Melanchthon is unsurprised: The Reformation's rejection of magisterium opens the door to any and all [re-]interpretations of the Scriptures. A Servetus is inevitable, as was the "unitarianism" that was quite the fad at the time of the American Foundign.<br /><br />In America, before the Unitarian Church sheds the Bible as Holy Writ in the mid-1800s [in favor of "free-thinking"] you get fascinating documents such as 1825's<br /><br />http://www.biblicalunitarian.com/100-scriptural-arguments-for-the-unitarian-faith<br /><br />where the Bible was itself used as self-evident divine argument against the Trinity.<br /><br />Ah, for the good old days of Bibleism, back when the Bible was deployed as proof against itself, instead of so cynically rejected out of hand.<br /><br />(Cheers, Jonathan. Enjoyed you playing lukewarm water between the fire of Mark David Hall and the ice of Gregg Frazer over at Tony Gill's place. ;-)<br />Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com