The Little Church of What O'Darby Believes

(Mrs. O'Darby and a local Southern Baptist pastor. At least that's what he said.) If you've read my testimony – and if not, what's the matter with you, anyway? – you know I entered a Baptist seminary shortly after graduating from college. Alas, I quickly dropped out for the reasons I explain in...

This blog entry was prompted by a thread started by @TonyChanYT at the Christianity Board forum. Tony asked what it means to "fall away." As he noted, to say someone has fallen away assumes he or she was a believer in the first place. This predictably led to a discussion of what it means to be a...

This blog entry is another thought exercise, an adjunct to my previous entry "A Possibly Useful Way of Thinking About the Nature of God." https://www.christianityboard.com/blogs/a-possibly-useful-way-of-thinking-about-the-nature-of-god.8134/ Some Christians resist these sorts of thought...

I recently discovered that Amazon Prime offers a $7.99 per month subscription to The Great Courses. My life has been transformed! No longer will I be a prisoner to the inanity and insanity of standard TV fare. Good-bye, Colin Cowherd! Adios, FOX News! I used to buy the CD versions of The Great...

(Central Park) In my extensive reading over six decades, I've been struck by how often intuition is mentioned. The Transcendentalist movement of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau emphasized intuition above all else. Hindu sages like Paramahansa Yogananda have emphasized the important...

I've previously mentioned Christian philosopher (epistemologist) Alvin Plantinga and his influential Reformed Epistemology. Just to refresh your memory, he argues that Christian belief can be epistemologically justified without any evidence at all, solely on the basis of an internal sensus...

What this entry describes has been the most helpful (to me) advance in my thinking in the past ten years. Perhaps it will be helpful to you. Or perhaps it will be more fuel for your grave doubts as to whether I'm a Christian at all. (I started a thread along these lines at the Christianity...

(The Badlands, SD) What springs to mind when you hear the word Pharisee? Uh-huh, I thought so. Because the Pharisees get so much negative publicity in the New Testament, we tend to think of them as the bad guys – Jesus' arch-foes and a bunch of legalistic nitpickers. Actually, the truth is...

(Devil's Tower, which somehow seems appropriate) "Are you a Christian?" Someone asked me this on the forums this very morning. It wasn't a friendly, good-natured inquiry. My profile identifies me as a Christian, I've accumulated some 400 posts and more than a dozen blog entries, including a...

Faith is, of course, at the very heart of all religious belief. We use the term "faith" as though it had a definite meaning we all shared and understood. Almost as though the meaning were self-evident. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the context of Christian theism, faith can have...

It should be obvious to anyone who skims my blog (pretty much no one does, but if someone did it should be obvious to them!) that I'm not too interested in the sorts of discussions that predominate on most forums. Debating Bible verses and Christian doctrines has limited appeal to me anyway and...

(Sand, not snow - White Sands, NM) In the previous blog entry, I described my Christianity as largely symbolic, meaning that I believe most Christian doctrines point toward deeper truths and are not to be taken literally (although you can certainly take them that way). This entry concerns the...

(Pastor O'Darby preaching to his little flock at the aptly named Devil's Golf Course in Death Valley) This entry will examine how an O'Darby sort of Christianity differs from the sort that predominates at all Christian forums. You'll understand why I'm in a near-constant state of bewilderment...

(In case you wondering, the photo is Mrs. O'Darby, a real stick in the mud.) A glib Christian apologist named Dr. Frank Turek insists atheists must "steal from God" in order to assert moral claims and rights. Is this true? Dr. Turek has a radio program, podcast, book and ministry called "I...

The New Atheists are famous for characterizing religious faith as mindless and silly. Richard Dawkins famously said, "Faith is belief without evidence and reason; coincidentally, that's also the definition of delusion." When I've challenged atheists as to how they explain the religious belief...

This is somewhat of a follow-up to my testimony as set forth in my first blog entry. It's how I’ve made my peace with all the various species of Christianity and the internecine fussing and feuding. First and foremost, I’m a theist. I have a very strong conviction, based on extensive study and...

Romans 3:23 is one of the key verses in all the New Testament. It was one of the first I memorized as a Christian newbie. Only recently, however, did I give it much thought. The literal translation is, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (NASB). There are apparently nuances...

I spent several years on a forum dominated by atheists. It was open to all religions as well as atheism, but the forum culture was very atheist-friendly. Atheists' posts were moderated much more leniently than those of Christians. Few believers waded into the section specifically for atheists...

This is a touchy subject, so let me be clear about a few things right up front: First, I don’t ridicule Young Earth Creationists. As I described in my blog entry on epistemology, I acknowledge the possibility that Hinduism or even atheism might be true. I hold Christian convictions, not...

I started a thread in the forums that was quickly locked because I had unwittingly strayed into forbidden territory (the T Doctrine :)). The thread made a point that has become central to my Christianity, however, so I am reviving it here in a new, improved and entirely non-T form. I've always...