WAH Criticisms, Part Deux

Madame M,

Run out of things to say? Funny!

A bit of retro from a previous post concerning the male “answers” to the three questions females nonverbally ask. In fairness to my fellow males who well deserve, as I said, the brunt of the blame, there are some things they would probably want me to say: “When you no longer tried to impress me, care about your appearance for me, uplift me, desire me, listen to me, or think I was great, but instead took me for granted, having got the commitment that you wanted, well, you got my reduced valuing in return!”

Expound more, if you would: What did Jesus sacrifice (or God sacrifice his Son) to achieve? Why? What would be the result if this had not been?

Permit me to enjoy well your words: “Love without insecurity.” What you have related there is more valuable than heaven-dust!

Yes, some of the greatest offenses and noblest sacrifices have been in the name of love. But I think you are right: the flaws come from our flawed carrying out and imperfect (and occasional twisted) understanding of the Divine’s flawless example.

Ah, where were we? Oh yes, Criticisms Part Two:

Another critique about Eldredge: In my view, he projects things onto God that seem to me to be human aspirations, desires, emotions, limitations, risk. And his description of the Bible’s depiction of God and men--“No question about it; there is something fierce,”--well, it was written by middle eastern men with certain views and certain proclivities.

And his assertion that God doesn’t do things the same way twice, because of his readings in the Bible showing that not very much was repeated: Fallacious reasoning. More probably little methodology was recorded as repeated because authors did not repeat things. Written histories derived from oral histories are like that. Before modern copiers, and certainly before the printing press, each page had to be valuable and stand apart from others. Very few “dittoes.”

Eldredge comes from a Judeo-Christian centric focus. Every passage of the Bible (even disregarding its many varieties) is interpreted to have meaning, and especially a certain meaning. And nothing beneficial is assumed even possible without Jesus Christ, which is presumptive, exclusionary, and co-dependent. Eldredge presumes a weird sort of psychic co-dependence of God, sort of “They won’t make it without me.” How is that free will? That would be like saying, “Take the car, have your independence,” but then controlling all the gasoline.

“God fought for Moses and for Israel.” Eldredge is understandably trying to make sense of every accepted passage from the Christian Old Testament, a pretty hard thing to do. Yet I have a hard time with even a William James God smiting down humans over other humans. Unless perhaps if it doesn’t really matter, and mortal life is just an adventure solely, and potentially a not very meaningful blip in our eternal existence. In that case, maybe they sit around with the Big Guy over heavenly beers and He says, “You were such a dimwit, and on the wrong side (chuckle); had to put the smackdown on you.” “Yeah Pops, I didn’t last long on that go around, did I? (wink).”

I found his “We know
Know
Know
Know,” tedious. Whenever mortals assert that they KNOW something, it is both an exercise in absurdity to me, and a rage and pleading about their mortality. We think, we believe, we even have faith, but our senses, our intelligence, our awareness, our powers, are so ridiculously limited and primitive, we can know very little, maybe nothing, for sure. Our perceptions, thoughts, and emotions are so malleable, so psycho-chemical-stimulus driven from such a wide array of possibilities, that we can only think or believe or have faith we know. Your whole will or psyche or emotional makeup can be changed by chemicals or deprivation of one sort or another; only God can know you, whatever real you, there is (that’s what I think anyway, lol).

Eldredge in his book is presumptive in general. Everything is to be accepted face value at his interpretation, when it is a very Western, and very Christian, interpretation. If I was a man of another culture, and especially of another faith, I would be turned off, and probably unable to relate to much.

Eldredge likes this quote from Oswald Chambers (one of whose books I possess): “Never make a principle of your experience; let God be as original with other people as he is with you.” Eldredge does not seem to take the advice from the quote he highlights.

The standard response of many Christian writers, when they are criticized, is to say to their critics:
“I will pray for you.” While prayers are welcome (at least by me), one has to be careful that that statement does not have a dismissive ring to it, a la, “I will pray for you because you are a poor, misguided soul, lost in the land of confusion sown by the devil, and incapable of seeing truth when it is laid out for you by God.” I am uncertain where Eldredge would stand on this one, so he gets the benefit of the doubt there from me!

Oh, well, that’s enough persnickety critique from me. I found much valuable in his book, and it is worth the read, despite the multiple points outlined above and before.