In a scientific age we continue seeking truth, and we seem to do better with the issue than did the ancients. They had neither the tools we now have, nor the ease of language forms now available. What they did have they appear to have moved along, even if slowly, in their emerging generations, finding how to formulate ideas. Their cultivation of language was strong in meaning. Studies of ancient languages show us how rich those languages were even with paucity of some words. We now use a number of words to express the meanings they held in one word or phrase, and even then we may miss the meaning. The problem becomes greater because we use language in so many ways that one is hard put to achieve clarity for truth without lengthy explanations of meaning. Words have now more multiple denotations and connotations than did history. I have never heard an interpretation of the above text except as a political joke by a friend of mine, that it proves one should be a conservative (right) and not a liberal (left). No, that is not the meaning.
The word fundamental is a case in point. Everyone holds some things fundamental to their nature. That is to say, there is an irreducible something in this and that for each of us. I have fundamental ideas about what constitutes a marriage and family. If any factor is taken from that irreducible concept, I would say that the amendment is fundamentally skewed or in error. Currently, the change in marriage from the characters of a male and female contract of intimate relationship, to the proposal of a contractual relationship between two persons of the same sex is a fundamental difference. The loss of the word fundamental as referring to the lowest common denominator in a context means that some truths are changed. In a sense, the unchangeable truth is changed, but not really – only in the assertion and mind. A new referent is laid on an old reality. The referent now becomes the idea not the thing as originally identified. The new entity ought to have its own terminology so to maintain clarity and objectivity.
During late July, 2011, a man in Norway went on a rampage that created terror affecting that nation. As many as 100 persons were killed in a vicious gun attack. At first the suspicion was that the event was related to terrorists Muslims, who had generated numerous attacks on land and sea during the previous twenty years, becoming world concern in the attack on the towers in New York in 2001. Although relieved that the attack was not Muslim design in Norway, moderate Muslims were disappointed in that the first assumption was that it likely was from their numbers. Media noted: The killer was identified as a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian. That is not likely. (In later reporting, reference to religion was dropped and reference to right wing was that there was a more conservative party in Norway than the one in which the attacker was a member. The man was highly influenced by a secular book.) The true Christian is, according to Scripture, identified as a person of a particular faith to spiritual redemption through Jesus Christ, a person whose redemption is demonstrated in a conduct context related to righteousness – topped by a love for all persons of all contexts. World terror and the murder of a hundred persons is not Christian conduct. The reports need to define what is meant by the identification so as not to tar the fundamental context of a Christian’s faith – or that of another. Christianity, like legal tender (or nearly anything else), can be counterfeited. Does the counterfeit become money? Is a claim of a perpetrator of random killings a Christian?’ There must be some modifier if the truth be told. If the person is mentally ill, the issue is something other than the Christian faith. If he/she is presumed normal (able to decide between right and wrong), then the person has likely reverted from the normal self to commit horrendous crime. When the word fundamentalist was made to refer to mean-spirited, closed minded, even prejudiced or ignorant in any reference, a word relating to clarity was lost. Christians tried to differentiate among those who claim to be Christians so that those who lived by unedited Scripture became known as evangelicals, and those who tended to adapt Scripture to more humanistic contexts were presumed to be liberals. In ancient Israel, those holding Old Testament tenets were Pharisees, and those editing biblical meaning were Sadducees. The Apostle Paul announced that he was a Pharisee. He carefully followed the biblical text. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020