Godless Pastor
Welcome to Godless Pastor, a podcast dedicated to guiding those who feel lost in their walk with the church and the state back to a place of hope and purpose. Hosted by Billy Crocker, a former fundamentalist minister turned atheist then finding his walk of faith, this podcast provides a safe haven for individuals navigating the complexities of faith.
In Godless Pastor, we delve into the gray areas of spirituality, offering insights and perspectives on navigating them with grace and understanding. Our discussions center around embracing a "lead with love" attitude, emphasizing compassion, empathy, and acceptance as guiding principles on the spiritual journey.
Whether you're questioning your beliefs, your politics, struggling with doubt, or seeking a path forward in your relationship with God, Godless Pastor is here to offer encouragement, support, and inspiration. Join us as we discover the power of finding hope amid doubt.
Godless Pastor
Unraveling Infallibility: Faith, Salvation, and Diverse Beliefs
Is the Bible truly free of errors? Join me, Billy Crocker, on the Godless Pastor podcast as we tackle this provocative question and dissect the notion of biblical infallibility often upheld in fundamentalist Christian evangelical circles. We'll unravel key scripture passages such as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 2 Peter 1:19, traditionally cited to affirm the Bible's divine perfection. Through the metaphor of faith as a knitted sweater, we'll explore how tugging on one theological thread can challenge an entire belief system.
Our journey doesn't stop there. We'll navigate the murky waters of salvation and the varying interpretations across different denominations. From doctrinal debates to emotional conflicts, we'll highlight the complexities that arise when attempting to reconcile these differences within a framework claiming to be free of errors. Curious about the role of baptism in salvation? We'll dissect differing views, focusing particularly on the Baptist denomination’s stance with scriptural references like Mark 1:4, Acts 19:3-5, and Acts 22:16.
As we wrap up, the conversation shifts towards fostering a culture of coexistence and mutual respect. Drawing inspiration from figures like Mr. Rogers, I emphasize the importance of respecting diverse beliefs while maintaining personal faith. Whether you're a Christian or a non-believer, this episode encourages an open-minded approach to understanding and appreciating the rich tapestry of faith. Join me every Sunday for more thought-provoking discussions, and visit godlesspastor.buzzsprout.com for ways to support the show.
Welcome to the Godless Pastor. I'm your host, billy Crocker. A podcast dedicated to guiding those who feel lost in their walk with the church and the state back to a place of hope and purpose. Whether you're questioning your beliefs, your politics, struggling with doubt or seeking a path forward in your relationship with God, godless Pastor is here to offer encouragement, support and inspiration. Join us as we discover the power of finding hope amidst doubt. Well, hello, my name is Billy Crocker, I'm your host.
Speaker 1:This is the Godless Pastor podcast, and I'm so excited to have our third episode. There was a little bit of a break there between our second and our third, and so our goal is to have these being published every Sunday, and so we're trying to get on that schedule, and so hopefully we can get that on a regular schedule. So if you're, you know, listening to, if you're subscribed to us, you should see a regular publishing happening on Sundays, you know, depending on where you're at in the world. So I just want to say again, thank you. I do want to share just a quick plug. You can go to godlesspastorbuzzsproutcom. That's B-U-Z-Z-S-P-R-O-U-Tcom, godlesspastorbuzzsproutcom. There you can find a link to all of the different ways that you can listen to our podcast. You also can find ways to support the show on there, and I would encourage you to do that if you've enjoyed what you've listened to so far. The last thing that I want to mention before we get started on the episode today is that I would like for you to reach out to me if you would like to be a part of the podcast. So ideally, at some point, these episodes will not just be me rambling and talking about my own experiences. I would love to be able to have other people own and talk with them.
Speaker 1:I'm reaching out to various areas in the Reddit community, amongst others, trying to figure out some people that I can have on the podcast. I've reached out to some authors and the challenge is, with that is when you're just getting started with a podcast, if you've ever done this before, until you have a good listenership and you've got a good number, a solid number, and it's like in the thousands, then you struggle to get you know big named guest on your podcast, and there's reasons for that. Everybody wants those people on their podcast and so they can't, you know, answer yes to everybody that's asking, and so there's got to be a standard there. So yeah, so reach out to me. One of the ways that you can do that is if you're listening to me on Apple Podcasts I know for a fact on there as well as if you go to that link that I shared earlier. There is a text me link where you can send a text message that will get to me. I will receive the message and you can put in information there on how I can reach out to you, um and uh, and then we can get in touch, and so that's one of the ways that you can do that, um, and I'll try to make sure that I open up other options for you as well. You can even leave a voicemail message on there which I can share on the show if you'd like me to. So if you just have a question that you would like to ask, you can do that as well. Okay, enough stuff for you to do. Hopefully you caught all that and you're still listening.
Speaker 1:So today, what I would like to do is I would like to talk about a term. Well, there's a few terms, but kind of the overarching term is infallibility, and so that word was really big and still is really big in the fundamentalist Christian evangelical culture Essentially what the term infallibility means, and there's a couple other words, like I was saying, that tie into this as well. One of them is inerrancy. One of them is inerrancy. They have various meanings, but what all of them kind of come to the conclusion of in the message that an evangelical Christian pastor is going to be preaching, based on this, is that the entire word of God, from Genesis to Revelations of course they're talking about the Protestant Bible, but the entire word of God from Genesis to Revelations, all 66 Protestant books of the Bible, are completely true. There is no opportunity for there to be errors, because God was instrumental in the creation of the Bible, of the Word of God, that is, it is the Word of God and so it cannot have error, it cannot have inaccuracies. Everything in it is true, it has to be true. There are no other options.
Speaker 1:Ironically, whenever Christians talk about this and when they try to prove the infallibility and or the inerrancy of the Word of God, they use the Bible to prove that it is infallible and inerrant, which is a little challenging. One of the verses that they use and this is from the English Standard Version is 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 through 17, which says All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work. And so that first part, there all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that first verse, it is what they lean on, it is what the evangelical Christians lean on to say everything in this book is true, in 2 Peter 1, verses 19,. Well, I'll just do just verse 19, because in there it says and we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. So I mean that right, there is obviously, you know, pretty intense for believing that the Bible is in fact the words of God and to believe that it is inerrant and infallible.
Speaker 1:This thought that everything in Scripture, the Bible, the Christian Bible, is true and it has to be true, is a big reason why the whole thing kind of unraveled for me. I mentioned in the last episode that I saw my faith as a knitted sweater and that I felt like if I was to tug at a thread, that the whole thing would come unraveled. And I think a big reason for that feeling is because I was really under the impression from this idea of infallibility and inerrancy that if I doubted one aspect of Scripture, then there was no way to keep the whole sweater, even a part of the sweater, together. I couldn't stitch it with a different thread, I couldn't just, you know, repair it, I couldn't be okay with the hole there. You know, not knowing the answer to the question, no, everything had to stay together and if one thread started to get pulled, it was all intertwined and everything would start unraveling. It was all intertwined and everything would start unraveling of Scripture.
Speaker 1:Because what I was starting to see and what I was starting to notice and was causing me to have questions was not about the entirety of my faith as a matter of fact, and I think I've mentioned this before, but I was really intentional about trying to believe that there was no way that my entire faith needed to come unraveled to ask some simple questions about the infallibility and the inerrancy of the Word of God. And a big reason why I felt like I needed to question the infallibility and the inerrancy of the word of God was something that was near and dear to my heart at that time and that was salvation. If you're not familiar with that term and I don't mean to sound condescending because I feel like everyone is but I know that some people are not in that circle and in that world and it means different things to different people. But in fundamentalist Christianity, salvation is obtained by following Jesus Christ and doing that through specific means, and there's depending on the denomination determines how you see that, determines how you see that, but essentially all of them kind of align under a very specific set of rules in how you do that and pretty much all of them start with that you accept that you're a sinner and that you're in need of saving from Christ and that you believe that he was born of a virgin, that he lived a sinless life and then was crucified, was tortured and crucified and then rose again on the third day for the redemption of our sins, and that due to those facts, you know that you believe that you are now saved in choosing to follow Jesus Christ and that you are a servant to Him, that he is your master and that you are His servant and that you're going to follow along the rest of your life, seeking and searching what God would have you do with your life and reaching others for the gospel, for the kingdom of God. So it's that simple. Nothing to it really.
Speaker 1:The issue is not every, even within fundamentalist Christianity, like I was saying, it does not every denomination does not believe the same way. Really, past that, I mean most of them that I was familiar with growing up did at least believe that part. But then what you do after that belief, once you've accepted, like, oh okay, this is how I'm saved as far as the prayer part, then there's, like some denominations have additional steps, and so in a verse that I kind of started with was 1 Corinthians 14, verse 33. And for the sake of fundamentalist Christians, I'm going to use the King James Version here. I, even in my moderate Christian days, came to hate the King James Version, but again I want to use it for that purpose because a lot of people feel like this is the closest to the original. So 1 Corinthians 14, 33, king James Version says for God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
Speaker 1:And so really, what I was trying to figure out was. If we all believe that there's no errors in Scripture, we all believe that unless you're saved, your destination is hell, then how exactly do we all, within different denominations, within that fundamentalist, you know, organic belief of like, you know you have to be saved, why do we believe different things about how we're saved? And how do we just carry on saying, oh, that's just fine, you know that denomination believes that way, we believe this way, it's all fine. And I was very attached emotionally to the salvation of others. I felt it very, you know, it was very palpable to me to think of people burning in hell for eternity and it was very important to me that I reach the lost and that I bring them to Christ.
Speaker 1:And so, for me, I was really conflicted because I thought well, you know, there is this theory and it's called Pascal's Wager and kind of, the concept behind Pascal's Wager is to atheists concept behind paschal's wager is too atheist, it's a, it's a theory that is, that is proposed to atheists to say, um, that there is no benefit to not believing in god and that there is a hell of a lot of risk for lack of a better phrase and and essentially the way that paschal's wager goes is, uh, you know, kind of like well, what if you're wrong? So so, and to kind of flesh that theory out, it's that if I've chosen atheism and I say I do not believe in God, I do not believe in Jesus Christ, and then I die, but I was wrong and there is a God and there is a Jesus Christ and he did die for my sins and I have rejected His gift of salvation. And now the risk is I'm going to go to hell. And the fundamentalist Christian says for me, if I sacrifice my life to God, for the rest of my life I serve him, I serve his purpose, his kingdom, and I believe in him and I trust in him and that is what my entire life is about. And then at the end of that life I die and I was wrong, the Christian was wrong. And what the atheist is saying, that you just are nothing afterwards, you cease to exist. Then you have the Christian has lost nothing to exist. Then the Christian has lost nothing. But if the Christian is right, then they get to go to heaven because they got the right one. So they get to go to heaven.
Speaker 1:And my argument was at that time about things like salvation, was like why would we not propose the same thing to others on the issue of salvation? If I am confident, so in the American Baptist Association, the only thing required to be saved is to say the sinner's prayer, as it's called. You do not have to be baptized in the American Baptist Association to be saved, to secure your spot in heaven. You do not have to speak in tongues, you do not have to have any sort of prophetic gifts. You do not have to be able to heal by laying on of hands. You do not have to have any gifts at all. You do not have to be baptized. You don't have to be baptized a certain way. Nothing else matters, just the sinner's prayer. You say that prayer, kind of along the lines of what I was saying earlier, and then you are saved.
Speaker 1:As far as the American Baptist Association is concerned, and because I just believed that and that was really the only belief system that I was around constantly I had no reason to doubt that. I just thought, okay, I'm glad that I'm saved and I did get baptized, but that's a story for another day. But what I could not understand was once I started to dig into the reasons, because basically, where I started, the initial thought was okay, but don't these other denominations use their Bible? That is the same Bible as mine and, again, within the fundamentalist culture, probably the same translation. They're probably all using the King James Version as well, aren't they using the same Bible? And how exactly are they coming to a different conclusion?
Speaker 1:And so one of the verses is Mark, chapter 1, verse 4, which says John did not baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. So preach the baptism, and I'm sorry, john did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. That seems pretty direct Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. So some say, well, that was John's baptism, it's not the Lord's. But then Acts 19, verses 3 through 5, and this is the English Standard Version.
Speaker 1:I'm going to veer a little bit off of the fundamentalist path here by using a different translation. It says and he said into what then, were you baptized? They said into John's baptism. And Paul said John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Speaker 1:So it really seemed to me, as I was reading these scriptures and trying to understand why some people believe that you do need to be baptized in order to be saved, that, whether you're talking about John's baptism or Jesus's baptism, that baptism is in fact important. And then Act 22, verse 16 says and now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins? Calling on his name, that one is pretty straightforward. Not only is it commanding these people to be baptized, but it is specifically stating that the result of that baptism is the washing away of your sins.
Speaker 1:However, even with these verses and quite frankly, there's plenty more Baptists, specifically the American Baptist Association I can speak to directly in the Southern Baptist Convention do not see baptism as a requirement for salvation. However, they do have specific requirements about how you should be baptized, because and you might say, well, why do you need to be baptized if not for salvation? Well, the Baptists you know, they believe that in order to be a member of their church, you do need to be baptized. Now, there is really nothing in Scripture that would suggest that that is a requirement, scripture that would suggest that that is a requirement. There's also nothing in scripture that would really allow you to only solely believe that baptism can only be done in one very specific way. And so in the Baptist culture, they require that you be put completely under. So they fill up a bath and they dunk you completely under the water, or they'll do it in a creek or a or whatever. As long as they get into a body of water in some way, shape, form or fashion, and they put you completely under the water or otherwise, they call it full immersion, as it's said in the vernacular, and that is how they expect you to be baptized. And if you're not baptized that way, then you did not actually get baptized. So why would someone believe, with all of that evidence, that baptism is not required for salvation?
Speaker 1:Maybe you're sitting here listening to this and you think, okay, so it sounds to me like the Baptists are just wrong. What exactly is the issue? Well, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 14 through 15, says and I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. This is Paul talking to the church at Corinth, and clearly the issue that Paul seems to be addressing is that he was afraid that people would get caught up on the issue of who is doing the baptizing, kind of like what we were talking about with John's baptism versus Jesus' baptism. Now, I don't really think that this shows anything about baptism not being required for salvation, but Baptists use this verse as a way to read between the lines and draw that conclusion. 1 Corinthians 1.17,.
Speaker 1:Again, this would be Paul talking says For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. After all, if God cared about baptism being a requirement for salvation, why would he have used his most trusted preacher and not had him doing baptism? It is ironic to me that when this scripture is quoted as proof, there is a second part to that verse. They only quote the first part and the second part reads and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Now it seems to me that a popular reason for leaving the second part off is because people do preach with words of eloquent wisdom all the time. Now how would you even determine this? I can hear preachers saying back to me I do not preach the words of eloquent wisdom, I just preach the gospel.
Speaker 1:Well, while usually they say that we are our own worst critics. I fear that we are not good judges of ourselves at times either. After all, who would want to admit to emptying the cross of Christ of its power? Now, probably the most common offense is the thief on the cross for not having to be baptized to be saved. If God required baptism, how could Jesus assure the thief on the cross that he would be with Jesus in paradise? In Luke 23, 40 through 43, it says but the other rebuked him, saying Do you not fear God? This is the other person on the cross. Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation and we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he, jesus, said to the thief on the cross truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. Now this verse has played out in many debates on this topic in several different ways, and I have my own personal example of this.
Speaker 1:Even I accepted Christ when I was only nine years old, and I did that on my own. I was not in a church, it was kind of the influence of my grandmother and I went out into the woods beside my house and I had read a cowboy Bible. It was an in-memoriam Bible for a bull rider in East Texas and it had the plan of salvation in the beginning of it. It said nothing about baptism, it just had the sinner's prayer, the Roman road to salvation, which is a whole thing. And so I followed along that and I said, all right, I accept Christ as my Savior. Now it took me until I was 13 before I was actually baptized. From the age of 9 to 13, I was never told that I needed to be baptized to be saved.
Speaker 1:So if I would have died, the question to the fundamentalist Christian who thinks that you do have to be baptized in order to be saved would God have seriously said to a 10-year-old who is simply believing what he knows that he is going to go to hell because he did not get baptized, believing what he knows, that he is going to go to hell because he did not get baptized? Now, I've heard that if you're not aware of this requirement, that God would just simply be gracious, and I sure would hope so. However, what then about the person who does not know about baptism being a requirement. What if that individual simply chooses to believe the overwhelming majority in their circle of influence, who believe that baptism is not a requirement? Are they afraid of the water? And I realize that this is all a hypothetical, but I would be willing to bet that it happens that people are aware that some think that baptism is a requirement for salvation and they're just simply a part of a denomination. The American Baptist Association is an example where what is told to them is that they don't have to be baptized in order to be saved, and so they accept that. I find it hard to believe that God would send an individual to hell because, even though they believed and followed God, they did not get baptized.
Speaker 1:Now we're at the 22-minute mark here and all I can say is this is a confusing topic, and this is just one topic. We didn't really talk about what the correct baptism is, and that goes back to what I was talking about earlier about full immersion and all that. There's different types of baptisms and obviously a conclusion that all of us could just come to is like well, we just all have different beliefs, and if our differences were about the color of the carpet and the church. That would be one thing, and that was kind of how I saw it then when I was going through all this. But my issue, my beef, was that we're talking about salvation and going back to that Pascal's wager question to atheists. As a fundamentalist Baptist Christian, I just sat there and I thought, well, what if I'm wrong? And obviously, at the point that I'm asking these questions, I have both said the sinner's prayer and I am baptized, so I personally have. I don't have anything. I don't need to ask Pascal's wager but we'll get into some other topics in a later episode.
Speaker 1:But essentially, just because I didn't have a reason to worry about that specific issue of baptism, because I cared, because I was a Christian minister and I was preaching the gospel to others and trying to win people over to Christ, I was really conflicted that it seemed like there was not a clear answer in Scripture as to whether or not a person needed to be baptized in order to be saved, whether or not a person needed to be baptized in order to be saved. And what I was just talking about earlier, about saying, you know, what I just felt like I needed to at a minimum come to was accepting that we just all have different beliefs. I want to mention this quote from Mr Rogers and you will hear plenty of quotes from Mr Rogers, but he said we want to raise our children so that they can take a sense of pleasure in both their own heritage and the diversity of others. And so, as we're drawing to a close of this episode, what I want to ask you to do, no matter where you're at on this spectrum of belief perhaps you're listening to this today and you are already completely out of Christianity. You don't care anymore.
Speaker 1:I hope that you found it informative. I hope that this has been an interesting discussion and something that maybe you haven't thought about before. And you know, if you're challenged on your disbelief in God, I hope that you can use this to just say, like look, you know, you guys can't figure this out together. I mean, christians cannot figure out how a person is saved. So as far as the Paschal's wager goes, it kind of falls flat whenever they can't even seem to get together what exactly they should believe.
Speaker 1:But if you're a Christian listening to this and you have questions and you have doubts, what I want to encourage you is if you could look at this, as I suggested, as what I was attempting to do, to simply say, geez, at a minimum, I'm going to just choose to believe what I believe, and it seems like that if God is a reasonable God and I hope that he is then I'm not going to concern myself with these thoughts. Then I'm not going to concern myself with these thoughts, and what I hope that you do, though, as a person in society, is that you fall back on that Mr Rogers quote and you allow yourself to believe in the diversity of others that you may become around, to accepting that you, that your your belief system, your faith while it may be very personal and important to you, it does not have to be personal and important to you. It does not have to be personal and important to everyone else. I'm currently going through a boundary course that I'm very excited about, and I hope to talk about more in future episodes, but what is really really interesting to me, as I look back on some of the topics that I was digging through many years ago now in 2017, was the last 2016, 2017 when I was asking these questions is one of the things that I feel like I was starting to do was I was starting to realize, without knowing the term, that faith needs to be boundaried. Faith needs to be boundaried. An unboundaried faith is insulting and kind of negatively influential on other people's lives, and I did not think that you know. I looked at it like no, no, no, no. My mission is to reach others for Christ, and so this isn't insulting, this isn't harmful. What would be insulting and harmful would be for me to not say anything. Well, I hope that what this episode and future episodes will allow you to do.
Speaker 1:If you are that Christian, I don't want to ask you to leave your faith, and I say I don't want to. I'm not going to ask you to leave your faith. I think that if faith is important to you, you should hang on to whatever threads you can. And I'm going to say, you know, if you're a part of a fundamentalist Christian culture, that culture, that circle, is going to tell you what they told me that you cannot patch a new thread onto your faith, that the threads are all connected and that if you start to unravel a piece of it, the whole thing will come unraveled and you will need to walk away from your entire faith. Well, I'm going to encourage you to tell those people to well, to quote a recent buzz phrase that's going around Mind your own damn business. Allow your faith to be personal. Allow your walk with God to be personal. Do not get caught up in what other people believe, about how you should believe.
Speaker 1:But if you are, you know, scratching your head about the things that I brought up today and you want to continue to just listen and be open-minded about some of the things that we're talking about, I encourage you to continue to listen. And, again, my goal here is not to bring an atheist to Christianity. It's not to bring a Christian to atheism. My goal is to create a culture of being open-minded, dropping our labels and allowing us to coexist with each other, and I think that's a goal that I think has a lot to do with, again, the boundaries, and so I think that that's going to be a really important growth aspect for myself and for others, and I hope to share those lessons with you as best as I can, and I just really hope that we all can come around to accepting that we don't get to choose what other people believe. That's really the profound lesson that we need to hear we do not get to choose what other people believe and to judge other people for how they believe or what they believe. It is just not cool, and so we just really need to be able to let it go and move on.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate you listening Again. If you would like to follow us on Buzzsprout, that's godlesspastorbuzzsproutcom, and you can listen to us on anywhere that you get your podcasts. Thank you so much. It's been wonderful talking with you guys today and, again, leave me a message if you have any questions or if you'd like to share your questions on the show. I look forward to the next episode. Y'all take care. You've been listening to the Godless Pastor podcast with your host, billy Crocker. Be sure that you subscribe and like our podcast and you'll be getting all the updates on our future episodes.
