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Randal Rauser

Home of progressively evangelical, generously orthodox, rigorously analytic, revolutionary Christian thinking (that's what I'm aiming for anyway)

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hermeneutics

My Monday Morning Rant Against Evangelicals Who Undermine the Bible

January 20, 2020 by Randal

This morning, a tweet from Fuz Rana got under my skin. I should begin by saying that he seems like a nice chap and Reasons to Believe is less bad than Answers in Genesis. However, being nice and less-bad cannot save one from the fundamental error of treating the Bible as a confirmatory textbook for […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: bibliology, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, Fuz Rana, hermeneutics, inspiration

Creating People and Universes: On reading premodern theologians in light of modern science

January 15, 2020 by Randal

If conservative Christian theologians think it makes sense to cite premodern theologians on the scientific creation of the universe, they should also cite premodern theologians on the scientific creation of the human fetus. So you better revise your “life begins at conception” nonsense. Rather, the male body is ensouled forty days after conception, the female […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: fundamentalism, hermeneutics, science, theology

How to Respond to Ken Ham in About a Minute

December 10, 2019 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: hermeneutics, Ken Ham, young earth creationism

How (Not) to Read Like a Christian Fundamentalist

November 27, 2019 by Randal

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: culture, fundamentalism, hermeneutics

What the Bible Says About Dogs (and why it matters)

November 21, 2019 by Randal

Many Christians think the Bible is a handbook for all of life. In this video, I test that idea by considering what the Bible says about dogs. (Spoiler: it ain’t good.) So, must we choose between the Bible and our dogs?

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, dogs, hermeneutics, interpretation, theology

Fundamentalist Biblical Interpretation: A Critique

October 30, 2019 by Randal

Millions of conservative Protestant Christians (fundamentalists and evangelicals) believe that the Bible should be interpreted “literally where possible”. But is this a defensible interpretive principle? Does it even make sense? In this short lecture, I offer four objections to the Literal Where Possible Principle.

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, hermeneutics

When conservative Christians confuse their interpretation of the Bible with the Bible

October 27, 2019 by Randal

Yesterday, I tweeted the following observation: Many Christian conservatives profess to defend the inerrancy of Scripture when, in fact, they are defending the inerrancy of their interpretation of Scripture. In order to appreciate the reasoning of the conservative Christian, we should begin by unpacking the assumption that there is a commonsense way to interpret a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: fundamentalism, hermeneutics, inerrancy, inspiration

The Imprecatory Pretzel: Why it doesn’t work to use the Psalms to curse your enemies

October 23, 2019 by Randal

Many Christians think that the imprecatory psalms provide models for how to curse one’s enemies. The hermeneutical assumption seems to be that the imprecatory psalmist’s declarations of hatred for his enemies and his desire that they be destroyed are sanctified and wholly correct statements and wishes. However, ask a person who takes that view when […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical inspiration, biblical violence, ethics, hermeneutics, imprecatory psalms

What’s Wrong with Young Earth Creationism?

October 22, 2019 by Randal

A few weeks I appeared on the Skeptics and Seekers Podcast to debate young earth creationism. In preparation for the debate, I was asked to provide a written statement in response to a statement by co-host David Johnson. I have decided to repost my statement here. I thank David for the invitation to discuss young […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, fundamentalism, hermeneutics, science, young earth creationism

Are young earth creationists the most faithful Bible readers?

October 12, 2019 by Randal

This is the question I debated with David Johnson of the Skeptics and Seekers Podcast. Johnson, an atheist, argued that young-earth creationists are most faithful to the biblical text. I argued quite to the contrary. Which of us is correct? You can find out by reading our two articles and listening to the podcast. It […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: debate, fundamentalism, hermeneutics, podcast, young earth creationism

A street apologist puts me in my place

July 17, 2019 by Randal

Here is a video by a self-described street apologist who critiques my critique of William Lane Craig on biblical atrocities. It was just uploaded in the last couple of days. I have viewed the first ten or so minutes to this point, and hope to listen to the rest later. Let me know what you […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical atrocity, biblical violence, critique, ethics, hermeneutics, Randal Rauser, street epistemology, theology, William Lane Craig

Four (or more) Steps to Making Sense of Biblical Violence

July 14, 2019 by Randal

I was recently asked on Twitter how I deal with the problem of biblical violence, that is, the problem of God appearing to command and commend violent actions that appear to be evil. I responded with four points and while regular readers of this blog will likely recognize all four in my past writing, I […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, biblical violence, ethics, hermeneutics, violence

Taking the Bible Seriously (But not Literally) Word for Word

June 23, 2019 by Randal

The Bible should be taken seriously word for word. That does not mean it should be taken literally word for word. In fact, not only are these two claims different from one another. They are fundamentally inconsistent with one another. In the Bible, we are dealing with a library of ancient texts written in three foreign […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: Bible, fundamentalism, hermeneutics, literal interpretation, literal sense

Why belief in divine inspiration commits the reader to wrestling with Scripture

June 14, 2019 by Randal

We begin with a tweet from Brian Zahnd: “Biblical inerrancy” is an empty signifier. Why? Because an inerrant text still has to be interpreted. Then you run into the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism (to borrow a phrase from Christian Smith). Plenty of people agree on inerrancy and disagree on everything else!” Next, we have a […]

Filed Under: The Tentative Apologist Tagged With: biblical inspiration, hermeneutics, inerrancy, inspiration

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