Sunday, February 19, 2012

Confessions of a Bible Thumper Book Summary

First some random thoughts. I liked Mike Morrell's Heresy Hunting piece on how to handle alternate views on theology and faith. He reminds us, despite accusations (or subtle implications) of heresy by some people directed towards us emergent, questioning, and universalist types, we should not tolerate the practice of demonizing people.

Second, I really liked this article by Richard Beck called The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity. He makes the point that much of Christianity has become a mechanism to replace being a loving human being with an endorsed "spiritual" list of ritualistic substitutes. The chapter in my book on the church--Save the Ales (from the Church)--is on this subject. I will blog something on this later.

Finally, as I said below, last week John and I made a video in a local microbrewery (Sound Brewing, Poulsbo, WA) that summarized my book. This will be the first of several videos I do on Confessions. Also visit confessionsofabiblethumper.com to read some new reactions to the book. As usual, I appreciate any comments!

2 comments:

Drummerken said...

Saw a poster for your book; sounded good, so started reading some of your blogs. "Progressive, not liberal;" I'm fine with that. What is liberal, however, if not advocating GLB lifestyles, Universalism, and all the other "liberal" ideas in your "31 reasons" essay? I long for a thoughtful reasoned analysis of relevant issues, not an unoriginal revoicing of 70's mainsteam mainstream seminary thought...

Michael Camp said...

Unknown, thanks for your comment via seeing a poster. I hope you can attend an event. I trust you will find in the book a thoughtful reasoned analysis and not stereotypical answers. To me the point is not to reflect a label (liberal or otherwise) but to go where the evidence leads in these issues. Cheers!