“Recovering” – The Price of a Book from KJV Churches
It likely seems unfair to the dedicated reader that this author would promise a series of posts dealing with the “Recovering Fundamentalists”, yet after two long articles (read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here), nothing has been said against that movement. We probably won’t get to them in this post, either, just to give the reader fair warning. My approach to dealing with problems has always been holistic: it makes no sense to have a gastric bypass if the individual has no intention of changing his eating habits afterwards. We cannot prescribe aspirin for a sprained ankle (the “Recovering Fundamentalist” movement) when the rest of the body is suffering from leprosy. It does no good to pick at splinters while the carotid artery has been severed and death, figuratively speaking, is imminent. Or, in Christ’s words, take care of the beam in your eye before you address the mote in someone else’s.
Decisive or Divisive?
So now we come to what I believe to be one of the most destructive issues in modern church history. On the one hand, the importance of this issue cannot be overstated, and I believe that the current condition of the body of Christ can largely be attributed to it. Yet, on the other hand, it is the issue that has caused the most unnecessary division, rotten attitudes, personal attacks, and loss of love for one another, more so than any other issue. And yes, that issue is the King James Bible.
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Take a quick look around the site and you’ll notice that we take the KJV seriously. After all, the site is called KJV Churches, not just “IFB” Churches or “Baptist” Churches. As stated on our Doctrine page, we not only believe that the King James Bible is the “best” Bible in the English language, but that it is the only God-blessed and God-inspired Bible in the English language (and we’ll limit the issue to English, since that’s the language that we’re dealing with). Not only is another “updated” version unnecessary and superfluous, but it would never have the blessing of God on it like the KJV has had, regardless of its textual basis.
Moreover, the present condition of the body of Christ can largely be traced back to the publication of the Revised Version in 1881 and the Westcott and Hort Critical Greek Text. This author assumes that as an a priori truth, a non-negotiable reality that the abdication of the church’s charge to “keep” God’s words (Revelation 3:8, 10) to scholarship’s “scientific” approach to textual criticism is directly and unequivocally responsible for the decline of the church and the resulting decline in the culture around her. Far from the praise and recognition that the church in Philadelphia received, the “church of the Laodiceans” is much more representative of today’s church atmosphere: poor, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked, all the while boasting about her wealth (bank accounts), increased goods (building programs, bus routes, etc.) and that she is in need of nothing (including, apparently, the Holy Spirit’s presence).
