Past Tense, Present Progressive

As a fundamentalist Christian, I was absolutely certain that the Bible was the inspired word of God, the only reliable source of truth.  I believed that the Old Testament existed to point ahead to Jesus, and that the New Testament revealed salvation through Jesus' sacrifice.  Obviously, with such an important message, the New Testament must have had a beautiful, miraculous, clear, and quick creation.....right?   I imagined it something like this: soon after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, some people who had followed Jesus felt compelled to write his biography (the four gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John).  They didn't consult with each other, so they each show a slightly different perspective of Jesus.  From consulting all four of them, we get a complete picture of Jesus.  Not very long after, I imagined, as Jesus' followers formed churches in various cities, they got letters of instruction of Paul and the other apostles.  Th...

When I look at my little toddler, I am so glad that I am no longer a fundamentalist Christian. First, I don't believe in total depravity anymore, so I don't feel compelled to interpret his actions with negative terminology.   The doctrine of total depravity is a common belief among fundamentalists.  It teaches that every person is born with a sin nature, separated from God, and capable of the worst kinds of evil.  It also says that proper parenting can mitigate the effects of the sin nature, but only a relationship with Jesus can make a person capable of true goodness. If I believed that my child had a sin nature that predisposed him to evil, that would certainly predispose me to interpret his actions very negatively.   When he insists on exploring the world and touching everything, I could see it as stubbornness .  Instead, I am free to see it as healthy curiosity and a drive to discover the world.  I see him examine everything very carefully by...