What they believe
Let’s find out what the Child Evangelism Fellowship believes and presumably teaches to very young children immediately after school, on school property.
That the whole entire bible ‘is given by inspiration of God’ and ‘that it is inerrant in the original writing and that its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme and final.’ So if something is in the bible (the translation of the bible into English, that is, though of course they don’t bother to say that) then it is absolute, supreme and final – so no matter what it is, no matter how harsh, no matter how unjust, cruel, tyrannical, interfering, none of anyone’s business, pointless, reactionary, stupid – it cannot be changed or rejected or refused. What a nice little recipe for the abdication of human reason and reflection and thought, and what a great system for anyone who wants to impose the morality of a few Mediterranean goatherds on people living 5 thousand years later. We’re not allowed to think, we’re not allowed to fashion our own laws on the basis of human needs and wants, we have to obey whatever is written down in a very old book, because a bunch of fools take it to be absolute, supreme and final.
And that’s only the first item. This doesn’t bode well.
They believe in
the infallible interpreter of the infallible Word, who indwells every true believer, and is ever present to testify of Christ, seeking to occupy us with Him and not with ourselves or our experiences.
That’s sick. Being occupied with someone who’s been dead for two thousand years and not with ourselves or our experiences is sick, it’s diseased. I can see being interested in someone who’s been dead for two thousand years; I’m interested in a lot of people who’ve been dead for a long time; but I’m not interested in them to the exclusion of my experiences. The hell with that.
I saw a hummingbird a couple of hours ago, close up. I was walking down the street thinking about something or other and I don’t remember what alerted me – I think I heard the high-pitched little vocalization that hummingbirds make, without really registering it (so now I don’t remember it), but it was enough to make me stop walking and look (for I didn’t know what, until I saw it) – and there it was, maybe six feet away, hovering in front of some flowers. That was my experience. It was a good experience. I find hummingbirds enchanting. Why the hell would I want to occupy myself with Jesus instead? Jesus can at least wait until a duller moment.
That no degree of reformation however great, no attainment in morality however high, no culture however attractive, no humanitarian and philanthropic schemes and societies however useful, no baptism or other ordinance however administered, can help the sinner take even one step toward Heaven…
Calvinist trash, devaluing everything good. A pox on it.
That He was made a curse for the sinner, dying for his sins according to the Scriptures, that no repentance, no feeling, no faith, no good resolutions, no sincere efforts, no submission to the rules and regulations of any church can add in the very least to the value of the precious blood…
Good stuff for very young children (or anyone else). Nothing good is good, it’s all crap crap crap, except Jeezis and his god damn blood.
That the souls of the lost remain after death in misery until the final judgment of the great white throne, when soul and body reunited at the resurrection shall be cast “Into the lake of fire” which is “the second death,” to be “punished with everlasting destruction”…In the reality and personality of Satan, “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world”…
Bad stuff. Bad, bad, bad stuff. Cruel, vindictive, frightening, punitive – ugly. The ugly product of the ugliest part of the human mind. And, fortunately, false. Just a bunch of nonsense that a surprising and depressing number of people take pleasure in believing – and trying to get other people to believe.
But whatever else it is, it’s not something that should be taught to young children on school property. (Or anywhere else, in a better world, but churches have rights.)
It’s quite an odd little statement, that the Bible “is inerrant in the original writing and that its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme and final.”
“Inerrant in the original writing” is an admission that there are errors in transcription and translation. Not exactly shocking, and rather to be expected in many thousands years old stories.
And then there’s that tosh about “its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme and final.” It keeps the punters quiet, unquestioning and submissive.
But if one does think about it one will realise that both statements taken together mean that no Bible, other than those original writings, can inform, with any level of trust or fidelity, the reader of anything! Unless one is a “true believer” with an indwelling interpreter. But how can any one accept the truth of that knowing that Satan is busying himself deceiving the whole world.
According to their own doctrine they can’t even trust their own doctrine!
The part of the first quote that grabbed my attention was the …in the original writing… part.
If, as they say, the whole entire bible ‘is given by inspiration of God’ and ‘that it is inerrant in the original writing and that its teaching and authority are absolute, supreme and final.’ Then I have to ask, which bible? Protestant, Catholic, and Greek orthodox bibles don’t even have the same number of books in them.
And are they claiming that each of the individual books (of whichever bible) was inerrant at the time it was originally written down from oral tradition? Or that the versions of each book available at the time that the bible of their preference was compiled were inerrant?
I get the feeling that for these people, the “original” bible is the KJ version. Cause, you know, people like, um, prayed for the people who were writing it.