Mystery Church Hopper

I have started a new blog where I anonymously visit churches and other houses of worship, and write a review of my experience.

Please go and subscribe!  http://mysterychurchhopper.blogspot.com/

Thanks!

Doug

The Role of Doubt

I was taken by a quote from Rene Descartes recently...

   "The seeker after truth must, once in the course of his life, doubt everything, as far as is possible."

I consider myself a seeker after truth and can identify with a couple of periods in my life when I wiped away all that I thought I knew and questioned it all. It's a scarey thing to do, but I do believe is necessary if you are going to seriously go after the truth without presuppositions or bias.

What do you think? What role has doubt played in your quest for truth?

Wanted: Near Death Experience

Apparently, 8 million Americans have had some kind of Near Death Experience where they went through a tunnel, saw lights, etc.

I would like to interview someone who has had this experience, so if you know of anybody please have them write or call me to discuss.

Thanks!

douglasrdoan at gmail.com
904-735-3432

Billy Graham and the Bible

Last month I visited the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC with my dad and my two daughters. We took the multi-media tour, which was an interesting overview of his life and career.

In one of the presentations Billy talked about a struggle he had early in his ministry about the truth and authority of the Bible. Was it really God's inspired Word?? Apparently he had a couple theologian buddies who were questioning the Bible's veracity and he needed to settle the issue for himself.

I was very interested to hear how Reverend Graham would solve this dilemma and come to some kind of resolution. There are lots of things about the Bible that I struggle with, and it would be nice to know how he came to believe in it and teach it with such conviction. What arguments persuaded him? How did he deal with the seeming contradictions and errors and atrocities and unscientific stuff? I was all ears.

To paraphrase what he said, it went something like this...

"God, I've got all kinds of questions about this Bible. There are a lot of things I don't understand. But I came to believe in you by faith, and I'm also going to decide by faith to accept this book as your inspired Word."

From then on he never looked back.

I was disappointed by this. The most significant evangelical of the 20th century solved his struggles over the Bible just by "deciding" to believe it? That left me so empty. I could not help but think of the millions of Mormons who have accepted the Book of Mormon by faith as the Word of God. And, fundamentally, every religion has holy books that at some level are accepted by faith. So what makes the Bible different? Any time you decide to accept teachings based on faith and not on reason or evidence, you lose the authority to pronounce those teachings as true, right? You can't say, "These writings and teachings are true because I decided to believe they're true. So you must believe them too!" But this, to my way of thinking, is what Billy Graham did. And he did it with a tremendous amount of conviction.

So, what about you? Do you believe the Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God? If so, why? I'd like to hear your story. Leave a comment, and share this post with others please. Thanks!

The Latest from Harold Camping

This is from their web site.

The question constantly arises, where do we go from here? Many of us expected the Lord’s return a few months ago, and obviously we are still here. Family Radio is still operating. What should be our thinking now? What is God teaching us? In our Bible study over the past few years, we came to the conclusion that May 21 and October 21 were very important dates in the Biblical calendar. We now believe God led us to those dates, but did not give us complete understanding. In fact, we did not understand at all the correct significance of those two dates. We are waiting upon the Lord, and in His mercy He may give us understanding in the future regarding the significance of those two dates.

There were also a couple of audio messages from Mr. Camping. Here are the highlights: 1) Jonah preached the destruction of Nineveh and then God spared the Ninevites. 2) God told Abraham to sacrifice his son and then spared him at the last minute. 3) If Family Radio hadn't been "wrong," then the whole world would not have found out about the Bible and God's judgment, so God used the apparent mishap for his purposes.

My prediction is that this organization will evolve in ways similar to Jehovah's Witness history. The dates will stand, but the meaning behind the dates will be reinterpreted. I will be surprised if Harold comes up with a whole new date scheme; there were too many complicated mathematical interveavings leading to these two dates. It would be difficult to unravel them all. Although, to be fair, he did in once already! (1994)

I find it odd that Family Radio is no longer broadcasting any of Mr. Camping's in-depth Bible teaching series, or the notorious evening call-in show. In the past, even when he was sick for weeks at a time, they would play recordings of his teaching many hours a day.

I would love to find out what happened to some of his die-hard followers who sold all to spread the message. I am sure there is a remnant who is still hanging on, waiting for the next proclamation.