Good Example Of Answers To Questions: Unit 9 And Unit 10 Case Study

1. Do you agree with Bultmann’s view about the necessity of demythologizing the New Testament? Why or why not?
I do not agree with Bultmann’s view on demythologizing the New Testament. Demythologizing is adjusting the interpretations of some of the New Testament stories to accommodate modern scientific facts. In other words, he wants the interpretations to be standardized. Jesus’s Christ’s resurrection for example should not be interpreted as the actual reunification of his flesh and spirit but that his ideals are relieved or realized through the efforts of his disciples to do and preach them. My reason for disagreeing with Bultmann is that we cannot conclusively define what a scientific fact or a fact is. In the example provided, how can we prove that the Disciples of Christ lived and preach the ideas of Christ? In my opinion, we can only add up to the myth but it is impossible to demythologize the stories in the New Testament. Our interpretations will always be subjective. Moreover, Bultmann suggests in his concept of “demythologizing the new testament” to make science the authority of everything – this is very dangerous. Not all scientists agree on the subjects and interpretations of science. His suggestion to demythologize the New Testament would cause more confusion and division to what there already is in this world. Moreover, concepts in science have never been fixed. In fact truth or facts are changeable in modern science. Facts in science are juts tools to explain something – it is like having a tool box of different tools and draws whichever you need to finish your work. Each tool accomplishes certain tasks but none can accomplish all tasks. For example, the Newtonian principles are correct and useful for launching a satellite into orbit, but they are erroneous to describe the planetary orbits or the orbits or electrons around a nucleus. There is no need to demythologize the New Testament simply because demythologizing it is not possible due to the absence of standard fact or authority to determine which is a fact and which is not. It is alright to believe both science and have faith in the mythological New Testament teachings at the same time.
2. Should the Christian Church accommodate itself to the modern world? If no, say why; if yes, give two examples where you believe accommodation should be made.
In order to survive, I do believe that the Christian Church must accommodate itself to the modern world. The survival of the church, in terms of its growth or increase in membership, lies on its ability to relate to people so that the people would join it. This was easily done before because it is mostly the church that dictates which is truth and which is not. At present, however, other religions, school of thoughts and science have their share in influencing the beliefs of people. In other words, every person has a certain level of familiarity and loyalty to each of the school of thoughts. In a more general sense, a person loves freedom – even religion tells about the importance of freedom “the truth will set [us] free”. A person would normally join an organization that could find a compromise among all the said factors because more factors means more choices and more choices means more freedom. A conservative church could be seen a dictatorial that it jeopardizes freedom. A liberal church, on the other hand, would be seen as an organization that embraces and upholds freedom. An example where the Christian Church should become more accommodating or liberal is in the issue of the LGBTs. There is an on-going movement all over the world, with its center in the United States, that wants to give equal rights to LGBT communities. The church has been condemning homosexuality for so long now. The LGBT community is currently becoming stronger in size and will soon have a strong voice to influence politics and economics. The Church, in order to maintain its popularity should strike a compromise between its doctrines on homosexuality and the LGBTs, just like how it initially taught that the only Christians are the Roman Catholics and then under Vatican II overturned such doctrine by stating that all churches that teach about Christ are considered Christians. The second example is the acceptance of science as a co-equal authority to determine the morality of the people. Religion is not the sole basis for moral acts, science could significantly contribute, too.

Works Cited

RLST Readings (Unit 9 – Unit 10)
Sankey, Howard (1997) "Kuhn's ontological relativism," inIssues and Images in the Philosophy of Science: Scientific and Philosophical Essays in Honour of Azarya Polikarov, edited by Dimitri Ginev and Robert S. Cohen. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1997. Boston studies in the philosophy of science, vol. 192, pp. 305-320.