ExFundie

We have followed the History That Mattered, as Christian fundamentalists see it, in which God engineered the fates of middle eastern nations and peoples to bring about the birth of the promised Redeemer, Jesus.

We should mention, just to wrap up that history, why we seem to know so much about it, especially since some of the tales go back so far (all the way to the first human couple). All through the years, prophets and other leaders were inspired by God to write down this history and preserve it (and frequently explain the moral of the object lesson). It was the History That Mattered, after all, so it needed to be recorded. The fundamentalists believe that the writers were inspired word-for-word, and that the words that were preserved were the actual words of God himself, expressed through the personality of the writer.

But it wasn't just for the sake of keeping an accurate record that these things were written.

Remember that Man was now separated from God, and no longer had direct communication with him. Remember also that with the Fall of physical nature, Man's body became subject to frailties, and his mind and reasoning became darkened.

Therefore, as the years accumulated, the remembrance of the most important events in the world would fade and either be forgotten altogether, or corrupted into mere legend and probably embroidered with false details. And as to Man remembering or rediscovering the truths about God himself - forget it.

Therefore, what was needed was Revelation. The only way to keep human beings from sinking entirely into intellectual darkness was if God occasionally interjected the One Truth back into their awareness. They would never, ever be capable of learning the One Truth with their own intellect. So God had to tell them, and once he had told them and it had been recorded, he had to preserve the records so that they remained accurate.

This is a common thread in most fundamentalisms: that humans with their own minds are not capable of discovering anything about God. This is why Ganesha wrote the Vedas with his tusk, why Allah visited Mohammed and gave him the Qur'an, and why God inspired so many writers through the ages. It's even why the Mormon God sent the angel to show Joseph Smith the golden plates that he translated into the Book of Mormon.

For Christian fundamentalists, Revelation is where the books of the Bible came from, and this is why the Bible is so important to them. It contains the One Truth that they would never have known without it. And because it was essentially dictated by God, and God is the one who knows the One Truth, and is not a liar - every single word of the Bible is absolute truth. In fact, his Spirit is within the words and the stories. Read them, and you are in literal contact with God.

This, for them, is why you don't tamper with the Bible. Nor do you pick and choose which parts of it you "like" and which you "don't agree with." It's all literally true, and it is also terribly precious. Humanity would not have known why they were in such a mess, nor would they have known what God had done to get them out of the mess, if he hadn't revealed the Bible to them, gradually through history.

It is the one, final Authority. On EVERYTHING. Since it was given by God for the salvation of humanity, it explains the basic way to live in any era of human history. It teaches the underlying principles by which you can judge anything that comes up in human history - everything from whether or not it's a good idea to switch from a short bow to a long bow in battle, to whether or not video games are acceptable.

So that was another purpose of the long history leading up to the Redeemer, and at least part of the history that came after him: to provide the Revelation humans needed so that they would understand the Big Problem, and know about the Promised Solution. The History That Mattered, then, was designed to do the following:

1) Set up the right conditions to produce the Redeemer
2) Provide a graphic object lesson about having the right relationship to God
3) Provide all the Revelation necessary for men to be saved by the Redeemer

But an awful lot of stuff happened elsewhere in the world, while this narrowly-focussed history was going on. What about all those other people and the things they were doing in the meantime? Let's go on now to look at their history, and its significance.

Next: History - Oh, Those Other People

Back to: History - The Part God is Interested In