Square Peg” is an informative book edited by Al Trusdale and published by “Beacon Hill Press.” In Square Peg, each of the chapters are written by different Authors, who wrote about their different views of how differently Wesleyans and Fundamentalist view the Bible. The Authors all make a point that the Wesleyans and Fundamentalist have similar views in some subject matter, but fundamentally they different at their core. Which makes it not possible for an individual to believe in both prospectives of the Bible without creating something entirely new. This book makes an argument that saying that the Wesleyans prospective is more effective in in expressing the ideas and teachings of the Bible compared to Fundamentalist. This book coveys its argument by describing the difference of views in their theology, doctrine, and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.
Fundamentalist and Wesleyans both have smiliar and different views on what the Theology of the scripture should be. In other words they both in some cases agree and disagree on the true nature of God and their opinion concerning Him. For example one of the major contrasting opinions between Fundamentalist and Wesleyans is their understanding of faith. To Wesleyans, "faith is being viewed as a personal relation with God based on trust," (65) but to the Fundamentalist," it is seen as belief in or assent to the true statement or proposition about God." (65) Meaning that Fundamentalist have a need to constantly demonstrate all parts of the Bible in a literal sence, otherwise they will lose the favor of God. To the contary Wesleyans, they believe that the personal relationship with God is more important and through that, they will be able to gloryfy God and find salvation. This however does no...
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... that just learning about the Bible is not enough, but having a deepening understanding and personal relationship with it, so then there will be a transformation with the individual.
Wesleyans and Fundamentalist may have different views on different subject matter reguarding the doctrine and the theology because of their presupsitions. Although this book makes comparasionsleyans to between Wesleyans and Fundamentalists , the Authors of this book makes a clear message that although we may have differnt views on scripture tere is no way to be sure which one is correct however, "we recognize that Wesleyans and their sisters and brothers who are fundamentalists share a love for Jesus Christ and his inaugurated kingdom." (8) Meaning that we the readers should not discriminate between the two views because untimently they both love Jesus and it is for the glory of God.
Evangelicalism by its very nature is hard to define. In fact, Douglas Sweeney, Chair of the Church History and the History of Christian Thought Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School states, “precious little consensus exists among those who have tried to describe the evangelical movement.” Nevertheless, Sweeney does an excellent attempt by briefly explicating the diverse history of the evangelical movement in his book, The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement. Sweeney, a Lutheran and expert in American religion and culture not only introduces
Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, a book edited by Al Truesdale and published by Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, examines two significantly different ways of understanding the nature and role of the Bible that mark different parts of Christ’s church. The first is represented by fundamentalism; the second by Wesleyan theology. The goal of the book is to help persons in Wesleyan denominations clearly understand the differences between Wesleyan theology and fundamentalist theology, and that even though both are of the Christian faith, how the theology between the two are incompatible with one another. “Without becoming divisive or claiming perfection in Christian doctrine, the various denominations hold theological positions that reflect their Christian experience, history and understanding of the Scriptures.” (loc 124 Kindle, Truesdale) Wesleyans believe that the proof of the gospel reside primarily in how a person lives their life and “not in logic and argumentation.” (loc 160 Kindle, Truesdale) They support the policy of that to get a better understanding of their faith, is the result of all fields of human exploration and research, from scientific to historical.
In The Battle for the Beginning, MacArthur directs believers to recognize the scriptural claim that first three chapters of Genesis concerning creation are the record of a literal and historical event. MacArthur senses a growing shift amongst modern evangelical believers who seek to revise or interpret the events of creation in a non-literal or naturalistic way. Macarthur reasons that a non-literal or naturalistic interpretation discounts what the scriptures says, and ultimately undermines Christian theology. For MacArthur the Bibl...
beliefs of John Calvin, and one of the major ideals they focused on was the
In Walter B. Shurden’s The Baptist Identity, he looks at four of the core elements, or freedoms, that shape and mold Baptist theology and their identity. The four core concepts he explores in his book are Bible freedom, soul freedom, church freedom, and religious freedom. While looking at these four values, he examines how they mold and shape the Baptist identity and how they came to be. The origin to each of these values in the Baptist tradition is addressed as well as their benefits and draw backs. He explains their purpose and necessity in the Baptist denomination and how it effects the denomination as a whole.
While often people presume that Christian leaders have the same values and have the same thoughts regarding the definition of spirituality, the role of the church, and how the world affects our relationship with God, this assumption can be contradicted by the works of Eugene Peterson, John Van Sloten, Barbara Taylor, and Krista Tippet. Each has different views about these main topics, and these views generally reflect the different views of the church today.
Jenkins, Phillips. The Lost History of Christianity. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008. Print. Phillips, Jonathan.
This paper is written to discuss the many different ideas that have been discussed over the first half of Theology 104. This class went over many topics which gave me a much better understanding of Christianity, Jesus, and the Bible. I will be addressing two topics of which I feel are very important to Christianity. First, I will be focusing on the question did Jesus claim to be God? This is one of the biggest challenges of the Bibles that come up quite often. Secondly, I will focus on character development.
How do we stay Wesleyan if we don't heed the Notes and Sermons of John Wesley in some way
The term Wesleyan Quadrilateral is a theological method used to study scripture. It was believed that theologian John Wesley studied scriptures in the Bible using three lenses, hence where the Wesleyan Quadrilateral gets its name. These three lenses are tradition, reason, and experience. While quad means four and tradition, reason, and experience are only three terms, they each communicate a way that scripture can be studied, therefore the term scripture completes the quadrilateral. It is important to study scripture using the Wesleyan Quadrilateral because Wesley was known as being a relevant theologian and his views on scripture have lasted over two centuries. The Wesleyan quadrilateral is still relevant today as it provides a method for discovering the things of God, ourselves, and lets us know who God really is. For the purposes of this reflection paper I would like to summarize the four components of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral and then reflect personally upon each term as how it relates to the Christian theologian.
With this in mind, the objective of this essay is to focus on the main ideas of each theologian, and discuss how each theologian’s ideas are compensatory to the other. This is important because even though each theologian’s writings were inspired by the harsh realities of the societies, and also by the effect each writer experienced in their moment in history, their critiques specifically of Christian institutions remain a consistent amongst all three writings. Furthermore, not only are their critiques consistent, but their goals for providing new frameworks for the future of the Church and Christian discipleship are consistent as well.
Reese, William J., Emily Dykman, Michael Lopez-Kaley, and Laura Nettles. Christian Theology: Scripture, Tradition, and Practice. Kearney, Neb.: Morris Pub., 2012. Print.
Boyd, Gregory A., and Paul R. Eddy. Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009.
..., this paper will talk about the forms and structure of fundamentalism specifically in Christianity and Islam. To begin the inquiry of what fundamentalism is it’s pertinent to understand how it is structured, how it responds to mainstream religions and why it exists. To define fundamentalism, fundamentalism is a reaction, whether it be religious or political, against current societal mainstream dogma or ideology. With this reaction against any set of mainstream ideology politically and religiously, what makes a group fundamentalist are define through these characteristics as Richard T. Antoun of State University of New York at Binghamton. These Antoun defines fundamentalism as, “Fundamentalist movements are defined ideologically, by their opposition to and reaction against the ideology that suits the permissive secular society, the ideology of modernism” (Antoun, 3)
Lutzer, Erwin. The Doctrines That Divide: a Fresh Look at the Historic Doctrines That Separate Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1998.