Let’s say the author and editors of the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) were living in a largely mythic culture, with a mythic view of God as well as a mythic reality and world around them. We might legitimately ask the question, does a skin legion, per the book of Leviticus, actually render you unclean to attend “church?’ I mean literally, does that mean you can’t worship God and he no longer connects to you? Does contact with a corpse disqualify you from being able to worship? All the laws of Leviticus, for instance, come “from God” yes, but within a very particular sort of mythic culture, meaning they are coming from a very particular view of God that THEY had. Does inspiration make this view of God, and these laws “correct” because it is canonized in the inspired text?
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The two bucket theory has major problems we discovered last post. The first problem is stuff is jumping buckets. “Truths” formerly in the eternal and ever relevant bucket over time end up, due to societal evolution, in the cultural and no longer relevant bucket.
The second problem is this, who says we should read scripture this way? Why are we reading for eternal truth packaged in short, repeatable, memorizable propositions? Who convinced us this was the way to go?
The questions we ask always circumscribe the possible answers. Ask different questions, different answers become possible. Why do we read the bible looking for eternal truth that directly applies to my life? I have asked this question of over 1000 people (mostly pastors and staff), from publishing house executives (no houses will be named to protect the indicted) to bible school professors. The answer is almost verbatim the same. We read for eternal truth because the bible “is the inspired word of God!” (usually said with gusto and a fist pump of some sort.) And yes bible school profs have said this.
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“50% of pastors would leave the ministry tomorrow if they could. 70% are fighting depression and 90% can’t cope with the challenge of ministry…..
1,500 pastors walk away from ministry every month because of moral failure, burnout, conflict, discouragement or depression. He was also shocked to find that 80 percent of seminary and Bible school graduates will leave the ministry within their first five years”
Those are the stats Jonathan Falwell, son of the late Jerry Falwell said at their recent ReFuel conference a week ago.
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When original goodness and blessing gets displaced by original sin you can’t 
help but have anything but the traditional way of spiritual formation. It has been characterized as a three phase movement…
• Purgative, –holiness, purity, cleaness
• Illuminative –enlightenment, clarity, awareness,
• Unitive Way. – oneness with each other and world, judgments drop, unity with all of creation ensues.
I am not sure what your experience has been but the more I travel and the more I work with a wide variety of churches the more convinced I am that my experience is not unique. I have been schooled in the purgative way…almost exclusively! Unfortunately here is where the necrophila and the church intersect. If it is all about death, dying and cross you never get to life, living and resurrection. Of course the traditional way only has the purgative as movement one, but why then so little discussion and formation related to the other two?
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