The Old Testament is loaded with death penalty offenses, though Christ said the only ones who could carry a death sentence against one adulteress in particular were ones who were without sin. (They were executing ONE person after catching her in the very act of adultery. What's wrong with this picture?)
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The Mosaic Law is full of things that simply do not apply anymore. Classic example is what was said about divorce, which Jesus actually singled out as being no longer valid. And we no longer pay attention to the dietary laws (what Christian keeps Kosher?). There are prohibitions against using two kinds of fabrics in one cloth, yet no one bats an eye today about wearing a "cotton blend" shirt. The same goes for the death penalty. It may have once served a purpose, but after Christ's Crucifixion (capital punishment), it has no more place in society than does animal sacrifice.
There are, however, many things in the Law which we have abandoned but would do well to pay attention to, such as debt relief for the poor.
(They were executing ONE person after catching her in the very act of adultery. What's wrong with this picture?)
It takes 2 to tango as the saying goes.
There's been a lot of speculation about what Jesus was writing in the sand while the mob started to disperse. Maybe this wasn't her first act of adultery and maybe the first men to disperse were former participants with her. And maybe Jesus was writing the names of all those men.
I agree, it will remain forever (or, at least as long as this present world lasts) speculation. My own opinion is that whatever it was, it was something highly embarrassing to the men standing there.
I can only think of two Gospel passages that indicate Jesus was literate - this one and the one in Luke where He reads from the scroll of Isaiah. Am I missing one? Does anyone know of a third? Just how common was literacy in 1st Century Israel?
I assume all Jewish boys (at least) were taught to read the Torah just like today.
Modernism
Christian theology is based on philosophy and revelation. Philosophy is not exclusive to Christianity (pagan Greeks were very good at it). It is revelation that makes Christianity distinctive.
Modernism claims to know and preserve what is essential to the Christian faith. It follows then that Modernists cannot appeal to philosophy, but must appeal to revelation.
But that raises the question "what was revealed by Christ and the Apostles?". Maybe we can't answer all the questions, but we can certainly know that Modernists are blowing smoke if they teach novel doctrines or attempt to interpret old doctrines in novel ways. That is precisely what Modernism is all about.
They claim to want to preserve the essential Christian faith by changing it into something it never was.
bmiller,
Can you give an example of some apostolic teaching that has been altered by "modernists"? I was disappointed that the article you linked to did not list any. It just claimed they did, but gave no specifics.
The article specifically mentioned the Trinity and the Incarnation as examples:
"There simply isn’t much point in converting to Christianity if you’re told from the get-go that doctrines like the Trinity and the Incarnation are not really true, but just poetic ways of speaking."
The more the modernist argues for how Christianity got it wrong for 2 thousand years, the less reason people have for believing Christianity at all.
"Yet at the same time, and in the manner we’ve seen, modernism subverts any confidence we could have in a claim to know such a revelation. If you say “Such-and-such really was revealed two millennia ago, but the Church has misunderstood it for two millennia,” that inevitably raises the question “If you’ve been getting the content of the revelation wrong for that long, why suppose you’re right even about there having been any revelation in the first place?” Hence it is no surprise that it is only ever theologically conservative brands of Christianity that thrive, while liberal denominations shrink and die out."
Thanks, bmiller. I guess I was looking for something more along the lines of "thou shalt not" sorts of doctrines, as in there are many commands in the Mosaic Law which we today simply do not believe apply any more (such as stoning people, or animal sacrifice).
The article was about Christianity so the Mosaic Law is not relevant. However, Judism has also been affected by the Endarkenment.
Is this really happening?
Not the first time I've heard this, but I'd like to see some hard figures before getting really excited. When I lived in Germany, I'd occasionally see baptisms of Muslim immigrant families (never individuals, always whole families) in the Augsburg Cathedral. Not a lot, but more than zero for sure.
My younger daughter has spent a lot of time in the West African country of Togo, and she told me she saw new Catholic churches being constructed all the time in formerly majority Muslim areas of the country.
But this is anecdotal evidence. Is it a large scale phenomenon? I can't say.
Also, conversions to Islam are on the rise in the USA.
Also, conversions to Islam are on the rise in the USA.
I think that's hard to establish also.
Pew says it's a draw.
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