{"id":16066,"date":"2018-01-24T21:45:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T05:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=16066"},"modified":"2018-01-24T21:45:36","modified_gmt":"2018-01-25T05:45:36","slug":"doubters-unite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/doubters-unite\/","title":{"rendered":"Doubters Unite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dominic Erdozain\u2019s book, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>, was a fascinating and often times humorous read. The latter I did not expect from a book on this topic. A few things stood out to me as I read: \u00a0The fact that the Christian\u2019s conscience is highlighted as central yet somewhat ill-defined; Feuerbach\u2019s idea of the \u201cegoism of faith\u201d; the arrogance of negotiating with God; the selling of salvation; and Luther thinking the pope was the antichrist. Let us explore these\u2026<\/p>\n

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I found myself somewhat confused by the discussion of the conscience\u2019s role in our unbelief and individualism and felt this needed more defining for me. Then I discovered that Vincent Pecora agreed with me when he stated, \u201cBut because the meaning of the term \u201cconscience\u201d is never explored philosophically or psychologically\u2014after all, does the authentic Christian conscience really demand individualism, and would sixteenth-century Catholics and Protestants have agreed on how much individualism was needed?\u2014the normative force of Erdozain\u2019s preference always seems smuggled into the discussion. In fact, Luther\u2019s early rebellion was hardly the result of his private conscience alone.\u201d[1]<\/a> The psychological aspect of conscience is fascinating to me because it can be shaped by so many external forces, often traumatic ones. I also believe a person\u2019s individual personality and the significant influencers in their life can be driving forces for their level of individualism and skepticism as well.<\/p>\n

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The reality that humans want to create their own image of God goes all the way back to the Israelites\u2019 exodus from Egypt when they melted down gold to create an image of God to worship. This is why we have the first and second commandments folks. In fact, Feuerback feels that this \u201csprings from an essentially moral critique of the \u201cegoism\u201d of faith\u2026how this moral, even theological, critique lays the foundation of the Marxist analysis of religion as \u201cideology,\u201d oiling the wheels of power and privilege.\u201d[2]<\/a> This isn\u2019t the first time I have heard of Christians being criticized for their \u201csaved\u201d egos giving them permission to exercise power and privilege over their fellow neighbors. This has been an eyesore on Christianity for centuries and much damage has been done \u201cin the name of Christ\u201d. Jesus\u2019 example was the opposite, the last will be first and power over people never demanded.<\/p>\n

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The next item that caught my attention was this idea of negotiating with God in order to get to heaven. Erdozain states that \u201cLuther began to fear that the nominalist theologians, who trained him, were guilty of the same urge to negotiate terms with the deity, to build stairways to heaven. He sensed arrogance in the injunction to do your best and trust God for the rest.\u201d[3]<\/a> This idea that we can work our way or negotiate our way to heaven is not an uncommonly held belief. People often attempt to work out deals with God in order to get what they want from Him. For instance, if I come back to church, will you save my child. There is a type of arrogance in the notion that doing your best can be a negotiating tool with God. It is also interesting how common it is for variations of that phrase, \u201cdo your best and trust God for the rest\u201d, are used by Christians today.<\/p>\n

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Another area where Christians have gotten in trouble is with money. There is a reason why many non-church-going people are wary of the church asking for money. \u201cSelling salvation was not a new idea, but the latest scheme, designed to finance the building of St. Peter\u2019s Basilica in Rome, promote the interests of an unusually ambitious archbishop, and release souls from purgatory, by the simple mechanism of cash payment, was a reckless provocation. \u201cAs soon as a coin in the coffer rings,\u201d went the infamous marketing couplet, \u201cthe soul from purgatory springs.\u201d\u201d[4]<\/a> I read this and went\u2026Wow, the church has been manipulating people out of their money for a long time. The fact that people trusted the church and the church would play on their emotions and heartstrings in order to raise the money for a new cathedral is preposterous. It seems like the Catholic church still does this when they encourage their members to purchase beads, statues or candles, etc. in order to get right with God. Many people will point to the mishandling of the topic of money as the primary reason for their exit from the church.<\/p>\n

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I close with this humorous story of Luther and the pope, that obviously wasn\u2019t so humorous at the time. \u201cLuther may have been half-joking the first time he suggested the pope was an imposter, put in place by the devil. By the summer of 1520, he was coldly certain that the pope was indeed \u201cthe Antichrist,\u201d waging war on Christendom. The nervous monk had become a warrior of faith.\u201d[5]<\/a> Luther definitely became enraged by what the Catholic church was doing and decided to draw his battle lines. Some people share his sentiments today and feel convicted to come out against other churches that do not share their beliefs or methods. As Erdozain so beautifully outlines, if the religious and the secular can realize they are closer than they would like to admit, maybe we can build bridges to reach more who are doubting the faith.<\/p>\n

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___________________________________<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] Vincent P. Pecora, “Dominic Erdozain. The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx.”\u00a0The American Historical Review<\/em>\u00a0122, no. 4 (2017): 1300-301.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [2] Dominic Erdozain, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx<\/em>, Oxford University Press, Kindle Locations 295-297.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [3] Ibid., 357-359.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] Ibid., 432-435.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [5] Ibid., 444-446.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dominic Erdozain\u2019s book, The Soul of Doubt: The Religious Roots of Unbelief from Luther to Marx, was a fascinating and often times humorous read. The latter I did not expect from a book on this topic. A few things stood out to me as I read: \u00a0The fact that the Christian\u2019s conscience is highlighted as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,1111],"class_list":["post-16066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-erdozain","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16067,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16066\/revisions\/16067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}