through the wardrobe

C. S. Lewis on the Resurrection of the Body

2012-01-24T12:08:00.004-06:00

Last summer I wrote a post on the often neglected but absolutely central Christian belief in the resurrection--not only the Easter Resurrection of Jesus, but the coming general resurrection of all of God's people (see, for instance, Is 26:19; Dan 12:1-3; 1 Cor 15:20-22; Heb 6:1-2; 11:35).

Recently, while reading through the gospel of John in The C. S. Lewis Bible, I was reminded of an important and powerful reflection of Lewis's on the resurrection, from his book Miracles:

The Resurrection was not regarded simply or chiefly as evidence for the immortality of the soul. It is, of course, often so regarded today: I have heard a man maintain that "the importance of the Resurrection is that it proves survival." Such a view cannot at any point be reconciled with the language of the New Testament. On such a view Christ would simply have done what all men do when they die: the only novelty would have been that in His case we were allowed to see it happening. But there is not in Scripture the faintest suggestion that the Resurrection was new evidence for something that had in fact been always happening. The New Testament writers speak as if Christ's achievement in rising from the dead was the first event of its kind in the whole history of the universe. He is the "first fruits," the "pioneer of life." He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.

Here the citation in the CSL Bible ends; in the book, Lewis goes on: "What the apostles thought they had seen was... the first movement of a great wheel beginning to turn in the direction opposite to that which all men hitherto had observed." The Resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the great work of reversal that is God's new creation: streams break forth in the desert, the hungry are filled with good things, the wolf and the lamb graze together, and the earth gives birth to the dead. Everything is different now.
This biblical picture of hope is not the gospel of souls floating up to heaven to be with God, but of God making things right in the creation that has been invaded by the powers of sin and death. This is a gospel about healing the world--including our human bodies--not abandoning it.

To me, this is a much richer and more compelling picture of God's saving work than you get with this idea of a disembodied eternity with God in heaven. Of course it also has the added advantage of being the biblical and traditional Christian vision of God's plans for his people and his world.

73% of Protestant pastors in America reject evolution

2012-01-14T16:34:00.000-06:00

73 percent.

This is a staggering and incredibly frustrating statistic for me. It comes from a survey carried out by LifeWay research, sampling 1,000 ministers "from randomly selected Protestant churches." A few other stats coming out of this phone survey can be found on CNN's Belief Blog here.

If you don't understand why such results would upset me, you probably have not read much on the wardrobe before. I just can't seem to get away from this topic. If you're interested in reading a bit on evolution, I'd point you towards two older posts on this blog (one of which will point, in turn, to the blog of Rachel Held Evans): happy birthday Charles Darwin! and another post on Evolution.

January is anti-trafficking month

2012-01-06T16:20:00.003-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone!

In case you hadn't heard (and I hadn't heard until looking at the article below), President Obama declared this month "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month." A presidential proclamation runs:

Human trafficking endangers the lives of millions of people around the world, and it is a crime that knows no borders. Trafficking networks operate both domestically and transnationally, and although abuses disproportionally affect women and girls, the victims of this ongoing global tragedy are men, women, and children of all ages.
Around the world, we are monitoring the progress of governments in combating trafficking while supporting programs aimed at its eradication. From forced labor and debt bondage to forced commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary domestic servitude, human trafficking leaves no country untouched.
With this knowledge, we rededicate ourselves to forging robust international partnerships that strengthen global anti-trafficking efforts, and to confronting traffickers here at home.

In tandem with this federal move, CNN's Freedom Project has been highlighting news related to modern slavery and human trafficking. I was surprised to find this piece on CNN's homepage focused on the recent 2012 Passion Conference in Atlanta.

If you want to stay on top of the news from the Freedom Project, you can follow it here. This is certainly an issue on which most of us Americans need more education (myself included) and that Christians simply cannot ignore.

Nigerian Christians and turning the other cheek

2011-12-29T10:46:00.000-06:00

Here is an interesting, short piece from Christianity Today about violence against Christians and their responses to it in Nigeria. Which side sounds more reasonable? Which sounds right? Take a look, and think on these things: "Church Leaders Debate Self-Defense."

Martin Luther on authority in the Church

2011-12-15T08:02:00.003-06:00

I grew up in the Southern Baptist church in Louisiana. One of the great strengths of that tradition is its emphasis on scripture: Baptists love the Bible, and they understand how fundamental it is to the Christian life. This, you'll sometimes hear, is a credit to the Reformation: Baptists are good Protestants--sola scriptura ('the Bible alone') people.

But is this really what the Reformation was all about? Did the reformers want to rid themselves of any authority other than scripture?

Well, let's see. In 1539, Martin Luther wrote a treatise entitled "On the Councils and the Church," where he spends a lot of time considering the issue of authority. Particularly, what authority should be granted to the Church Fathers and the councils of the ancient Church--specifically the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) that produced the Nicene Creed and the councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451)--and how such authority is related to the authority of scripture.

Luther admits up front that "the fathers were occasionally very human, and had not overcome what is written in the seventh chapter of Romans." As such, these men can't be entirely trusted--scripture must be our master and judge. Here he's actually echoing the great Church Father, Saint Augustine, who once wrote: "I have learned to hold the Scriptures alone inerrant. Therefore I read all the others, as holy and learned as they may be, with the reservation that I regard their teaching true only if they can prove their statements through Scripture or reason." Again, scripture is the judge, and by it the Christian must measure the words of the Fathers.

Luther turns next to the question of the councils. It's important to remember, he stresses, that the councils and their creeds do not present new articles of faith--they simply reiterate and defend traditional ones found in scripture. In this way, the authority of the ancient Church councils rests entirely on the authority of the Bible: “if there were no Holy Scripture of the prophets and apostles, the mere words of the council would be meaningless, and its decisions would accomplish nothing.”

So far, there's nothing for a Baptist to argue with here. Luther wants us to judge the Fathers by their faithfulness to scripture and to remember that Nicaea, Constantinople, and the other councils stand on no foundation save the Bible.

But as you read on, you might notice something curious.

While criticizing the canon laws of the Roman Catholic church, Luther remarks, "there is too much evil, so much that it crowds out the good, and... a greater measure of good is to be found in Scripture and also in the fathers." What's this? I thought the fathers had been set aside--they're too human to rely on. Is this just a slip of the tongue? Not likely, as that's the second time he makes such a remark in one paragraph. What then?

Martin Luther is making an assumption that someone raised among Southern Baptists would not make, and this is why his words may seem contradictory to us. Luther takes for granted the authority of the Church Fathers, as well as that of the councils. His treatise does not set out to establish their authority--this is a given--but only to show us how to understand that authority rightly. It's an authority that is ever subject to scripture. That is the position of the Protestant reformers (or at least Luther and Calvin, the two everyone is interested in claiming).

And even here, is there really anything for the Baptist to argue with? After all, truth is truth, and it has a claim on us, right? It doesn't matter if your pastor or Saint Augustine says it--if it proves true, according to scripture, then you need to pay attention.

But why is Luther so interested in these Church Fathers anyways? Why not just read the Bible, if it has the final say? This question might sound good at first, but I think it only really makes sense if you haven't read the Fathers. Luther was convinced that there was a great measure of good in their works because he knew them, and he knew from experience that there

are treasures stored therein. If you want to know why Martin Luther thought so much of these ancient Christian writers, then you should just go pick one of them up and see. Athanasius's little book, On the Incarnation, is a great place to start (and you can get it with an introduction by C. S. Lewis--always a plus!). If there is truth to be found here, then we Christians need to be looking for it (Phil 4:8). Martin Luther certainly thought that they could do us some good.

the China price and me

2011-11-25T09:01:00.007-06:00

"Everyone wants as much as possible for as little money as possible," he said.

This is the lament of a Chinese factory manager, a supplier of products for Timberland, in Alexandra Harney's The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage. I'll come back to his--Zhang Yisheng's--words in a moment. First, the book.

The China Price, as the title indicates, looks at the cost of our cheap outsourced Chinese manufacturing: the human cost, the environmental cost. Harney describes, mostly through accounts of individual factory workers in one Chinese province, the effects of U.S. multinationals' 'race to zero', the quest for ever-cheaper production of their goods. She gives you glimpses of the impact of poor working conditions on workers' health, the feebleness of western brands' attempts at enforcing compliance with codes of conduct for working conditions and salaries, and a system that leaves no room for extra spending on things like air conditioning or maternity benefits for workers.

One of the problems she describes is particularly telling. Falsification of factory records is rampant in this business, as factories struggle to maintain at least the semblance of compliance with western brands' codes of conduct.

At the heart of the falsification problem is a lack of law enforcement by Chinese officials. Although China's laws on wages and hours are good, they are poorly enforced, particularly in regions that want to attract and retain foreign investment... But the companies themselves, and to a certain extent their shareholders and customers, are also partly to blame. The expectation of simultaneous price declines and improvement in working conditions has put undue pressure on Chinese suppliers and compelled them to cheat.

Here's how that last sentence works out in practice: western brands are tough bargainers, and they constantly shift orders to different Chinese factories, going where the prices are lowest at the moment. Yet, compliance with their demands concerning workers' pay and hours and working conditions will cost the factories extra money, thus increasing the overhead for production at the factory. When it costs more to produce there, the brand takes their business elsewhere. In effect, the brand's insistence on cheap products disallows any improvement of workers' rights in a given factory.

As Zhang said, "everyone wants as much as possible for as little money as possible." It seems to me that this--more than any government corruption, unfamiliarity with talk of human rights, hypocrisy in western executives, or any other factor you could name--this is the real force driving the China price. This is a price that children pay who are working in factories, Chinese workers pay when they aren't given any compensation for overtime hours, domestic workers pay when their jobs are outsourced, and the planet pays, as China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, pollutants that have literally crossed the Pacific and been measured on the west coast of the U.S.

It's easy enough for Christians to condemn greed. "Everyone wants as much as possible" is an evil, and we can name it without too much trouble. "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal" (Matt 6:19).

But what about the other part? "For as little money as possible." Frugality probably does not strike you as much of a vice. Isn't that just good stewardship, effective use of our resources? Like John Wesley said, we are to make all we can and save all we can, so that we can give all we can. Right?
Maybe this is not always true. Maybe this is not always the most faithful route. Maybe at times following Jesus means paying a higher price so that others can pay a lower one. Today is Black Friday, a day all about savings, as retailers slash prices on everything to meet the American consumer's voracious demands. As the Christmas shopping season kicks off, perhaps this is the perfect time to start thinking about the effects of our spending, beyond the nearest effects on our own bank accounts. Perhaps this is the best time to start asking questions and investigating the ramifications of our savings for our neighbors and God's creation.

Prothero on America, the 'Christian nation'

2011-11-13T12:50:00.001-06:00

Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University and the author of some recent popular books on religion, like God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter and Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - and Doesn't has written an opinion piece for CNN on Americans' reactions to the recent events at Penn State and the allegations against Republican presidential-hopeful Herman Cain.
I have to give Prothero credit: for someone who self-identifies as "religiously confused," I think the man has a nose for what is and is not a biblical, Jesus-centered, Christian response to the goings on in the world. Check out his piece, and see what you think.

Mississippians are voting on "personhood."

2011-11-08T13:09:00.013-06:00

That's right. Today, the people of Mississippi get to cast ballots on a proposed state constitutional amendment that would

define personhood as "every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof."

Recent polling suggests that the amendment will pass. [UPDATE: the amendment was actually voted down on Tuesday.] Meanwhile people are (naturally) arguing over the issue, especially the reality that this is not legislation, but rather the spring board for future, unknown legislation--with this unknown-factor raising the suspicion of pro-choice voters and some calls for caution among politicians and some in the pro-life camp.

First, let me say up front that I am pro-life. I don't just mean 'anti-abortion' here: I'm against war, the death penalty, abortion, or anything else that amounts to government sanctioned killing. When I read the arguments of one pro-choice woman in MS, quoted throughout the CNN article, who advocates "the ability of families to make the choices they want with their doctors," I am almost entirely unmoved. Our American obsession with choices does not give us license to kill. Period. In my mind, the pro-life voice in the article has the much stronger position, countering that this is a human right issue and complaining of the contradictions in a state constitution that supports abortion but prosecutes for "fetal homicide" resulting from an assault on a pregnant woman.

Nevertheless, I see a couple of serious problems in this picture.

First, democracy, the voting public, does not have the authority to decide these questions. That's insanity. I've posted this quote from Cicero on the wardrobe before, but I think it bears repeating:

If it were possible to constitute right simply by the commands of the people... then all that would be necessary in order to make robbery, adultery, or the falsification of wills right and just would be a vote of the multitude.

This ancient Roman statesman saw the problem clearly enough. "The right" is not subject to a vote.

Cicero goes on to object further that the such a vote would subject truth to "the behest of the foolish." I don't intend to make any comment on how educated the voting public in the United States is, but I can say this: I have my high school diploma, a bachelor's degree, and am nearly done working on my master's, and I don't think that I personally have any right to vote on such an issue. There is no shared foundation of beliefs in our culture that can be drawn upon to answer the question the people of Mississippi are being asked. This is the second problem. Biologically, we know what a fetus is, and we know what a human being is, but there's absolutely nothing in biology to tell us whether a fetus ought to be called human. Philosophically and religiously the US certainly lacks the kind of coherence that you would need to answer this kind of existential question. Perhaps the question could have been settled a few centuries ago, when American thinkers could agree that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," but today the nation cannot agree on any 'self-evident truths' upon which to base these sorts of claims.

This is no less true for Christians. As a Christian, I can voice a strong opposition to abortion; I'm convinced that it conflicts with the teachings of Christ and the scriptures more broadly, as well as two thousand years of Christian thought and practice.* Yet even Christians share no consensus on the question of whether life begins at conception or not. This vote is leaving the issue at the mercy of individual whims and opinions, which is no way to handle such an important question.

So, while I am eager to broach the crucial human rights issue of abortion, I'm not comfortable with what's happening in Mississippi today. Even if the amendment passes--a clear victory for the pro-life movement there--I think we are looking at a defeat. This places a power in the hands of voters that isn't theirs to wield, and such a proposed amendment (proposed by a "nonprofit Christian ministry") assumes an easy answer is available to a question that I don't see how anyone, besides a Roman Catholic, can answer either easily or definitively.

There must be a better way to go about this.

----------------------
* For a powerful example from Christian tradition, consider the words of the early Church writer Tertullian (c. 160- c. 240):

With us, murder is forbidden once for all. We are not permitted to destroy even the fetus in the womb, as long as blood is still being drawn to form a human being. To prevent the birth of a child is a quicker way to murder. It makes no difference whether one destroys a soul already born or interferes with its coming to birth. It is a human being and one who is to be a man, for the whole fruit is already present in the seed.

Apology 9.8

busy times and old posts

2011-10-10T11:15:00.007-05:00

If you have checked wardrobe lately you will have noticed the distinct lack of blogging going on here. As usual, school has shown my summer free-time-for-blogging to the door, and most of the free time that's left and might have been so used has been devoted to being a husband. Apparently that takes time too!

So, just to provide those of you stopping by with something, I thought I'd offer a few links to past posts that I thought were good, interesting, or useful. Maybe you've seen them all; hopefully you haven't. Several of these have to do with the question of how we ought to read the Bible; one is about doctrine; one is particularly related to Christian living; one is just fun. Check them out.

Is our faith green? pt. 1

Is our faith green? pt. 2

The Resurrection of the Body

reflections on Richard Dawkins

reading the Bible with C. S. Lewis

the Church Fathers: confronting misconceptions

happy birthday Charles Darwin!

nourishing Christ in poverty here

Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Thank you, Dr. Atheist Professor, thank you.

2011-09-09T11:01:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week I came across this remark, and I found it downright refreshing. It's nice to hear someone else say this every now and then:

I don't want people like Richard Dawkins to be banned from arguing that Darwinism implies atheism, but I do wish that people like him would bother to learn some Christian theology before they presume to pontificate. Dawkins would be rightly pissed off if someone criticized Darwinism without knowing anything about, say, selfish gene theory.

- Michael Ruse, professor of history and philosophy and science at Florida State University and atheist, in an interview with American Scientist from 2005 [italics added]

the environment and justice

2011-08-14T19:59:00.000-05:00

Last month a friend of mine remarked in the blog comments that, by being environmentally conscious, "we not only care for the environment but we in turn care for people who depend on the environment, which of course is all of us." This point is so simple, and so important. If present human exploitation of the planet's resources is indeed eroding the earth's capacity to support its inhabitants--present inhabitants or those of future generations--then Christians already, without any further theological rationale, have reason to protest, to model a new way of living, over against the wasteful and neglectful practices rampant today.

David Bookless, co-founder of A Rocha UK and author of God Doesn't Do Waste, has written on the intertwining of issues of justice and ecology. The below paragraph, from an essay in Mission in the Twenty-First Century: Exploring the Five Marks of Global Mission, offers a startling diagnosis of one point in this convergence. Consider this well (italics added):

Transforming the unjust structures of society must mean addressing not only the global injustices which prevent the poor from accessing development, but also questioning our very aspirations of development towards lifestyles we now find to be unsustainable. At the launch of the Stern Review on 'The Economics of Climate Change' it was rightly commented, 'The impacts are inequitable: poor countries will be hit hardest and earliest, when it is the rich countries responsible for three-quarters of greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere'. Yet, the nettle that nobody will grasp is this - while we believe in justice and a better life for all and support the aspirations of developing nations, there is simply not enough to go around if all earth's citizens want to live at the levels the West considers 'normal'. Statistics vary from country to country, but if everyone wanted to live at the levels of the average UK citizen, we would need more than three planet earths to support the world's current population. Justice must look not only at increasing access for the majority, but at drastically reducing the living standards of the wealthy western minority.

"Come O Thou Traveler Unknown"

2011-08-10T21:07:00.000-05:00

I recently had the opportunity to preach on the story of Jacob wrestling God in Genesis 32, and I knew early on that I wanted this great Charles Wesley hymn to be a part of that Sunday service. The entire hymn is something like 16 verses, but we contented ourselves with the four in the United Methodist Hymnal. I think this is lovely, and I know that it's not very widely known today, so here it is--enjoy.

"Come O Thou Traveler Unknown"

Come, O thou Traveler unknown,
Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with Thee;
With Thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.

I need not tell Thee who I am,
My misery and sin declare;
Thyself hast called me by my name,
Look on Thy hands, and read it there;
But who, I ask Thee, who art Thou?
Tell me Thy name, and tell me now.

Yield to me now, for I am weak,

but confident in self despair!

Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,

be conquered by my instant prayer.

Speak, or thou never hence shalt move,

and tell me if thy name is Love.

'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me!
I hear Thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
Pure, universal love Thou art;
To me, to all, Thy bowels move;
Thy nature and Thy Name is Love.

Is our faith green? pt. 2

2011-07-27T20:15:00.002-05:00

In part 1 we surveyed the biblical picture of the creation. We saw that:

God is interested in the whole world--plants, animals, and all--not just the people, and God plans to redeem that world along with humanity.
The natural world, along with humanity and the angels, offers up praises to God in its own ways. It's the work of a praiseworthy Creator every bit as much as we are.
God gives care to his creation: "When you open your hand, they are filled with good things" (Ps 104:28).

I think that the great agrarian writer Wendell Berry was entirely correct when he remarked that the "conservationist indictment of Christianity is a problem... because, however just it may be, it does not come from an adequate understanding of the Bible." Christians may be culpable in some of humanity's destructive, historical attitudes towards the Earth, but they were not following scripture closely at these points. If the Church allows the scriptures to inform our understanding of the created world around us, then we will inevitably be called to a new, particular kind of holiness: an ecological holiness.

an old commission heard anew

As the first point from part 1 indicated, the bondage of creation in Romans 8, the groans, the decay, all speak to the devastation of sin's reign over this world. This contrasts starkly with the energy of Genesis 1, the explosions of new life, and a young planet lush with potential. It is only after the Fall that the soil of the Earth is placed under a curse (Gen 3:17-19). God's new creation work in Jesus Christ, witnessed to by the New Testament, looks to heal this wound. And humanity plays a crucial role in this new creation.

In Romans 8 we find creation, as N. T. Wright has put it so well, "waiting - on tiptoe with expectation, in fact - for the particular freedom it will enjoy when God gives to his children that glory, that wise rule and stewardship, which was always intended for those who bear God's glorious image." The healing of creation is tied to the redemption of human beings. The Christian is called to "put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires... and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" (Eph 4:22-24). As God makes us new, restores the image of God in humanity, we need to revisit that command of God in Genesis 1: "fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth" (Gen 1:28). Humanity was made the stewards of God's world--stewards in the old sense, someone left to care for another's property in his or her absence. As Wright says, it's our true fulfillment of this call that creation waits for--on tiptoe with expectation. It awaits the good dominion of the image of its good God.

This isn't a healing that we can complete of our own efforts and ingenuity, but a work of God that will finally come to pass with the revealing of his sons at the resurrection, at the words: "I am making all things new... It is finished!" (Rev 21:5-6). But the Christian life is nothing other than the living now of the life of the Kingdom coming. We have to strive after this renewed stewardship of the earth in the here and now. This is part of the reality of being new human creations in Christ, and it's especially important today, given the rapid decay the world suffers at human hands.

What would be the marks this renewed stewardship of God's planet? Let's consider the other two biblical points from part 1.

First, right stewardship of the world must keep in mind creation's song of praise to God.

I recently came across this prayer from Walter Rauschenbusch which comes straight to the point:

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals [and all creatures] to whom thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of humans with ruthless cruelty; so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to Thee in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that all creatures live not for us alone, but for themselves and for Thee, and that they love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve Thee in their place better than we in ours.

The question Rauschebusch forces us to ask is striking: is our use of this planet conducive to the praise of creation we see in the Psalms, or to the groans of travail of Romans 8? Are we treating the world around us as raw material and food, or as fellow creatures praising God together with us? Yes, God has given us provision out of the other creatures of the world, but our use of those creatures far exceeds our need. In the United States alone, 9 billion pounds of food ends up in the garbage every year. Is that a use of the created bounty around us that shows concern for the world's praise of God? What about our treatment of animals raised for food? Are commercial chicken farms places where creatures can flourish and offer jubilant praise to their God? Or do they offer up groans of travail?

Second, right stewardship of the Earth should reflect the image of God's own care for the world. Is the planet satisfied by the fruit of our work (Ps 104:13)? Or is the land poisoned by the chemicals we pump into it, and the water by toxic runoff from the land? Our growing landfills are certainly not filling the world with 'good things'. How can our methods of commercial fishing--not to mention the startling reality of overfishing the oceans--possibly align with God's particular and extravagant care for the world?

So: is our faith green? If by that we mean 'does the Christian faith have within it a mandate to care for God's creation?' the answer is yes. For Christians in the 21st century this mandate is particularly pressing, as we face unprecedented threats to the world, plant, animal, and mineral. Faithfulness in this day must mean, among other things, rethinking how we go about working and keeping the land, or how we indirectly participate in all manner of dominion over the earth that falls shockingly short of God's intentions.

What now?

What should we do? If creation care is inherent in Christianity, how should we live?

The first, absolutely crucial step for all of us (and this is really where I still am) is to be informed. 'Earth' sections can be found on numerous news websites--that might be an easy way to start. (See, for instance, The New York Times and The Telegraph.) Popular books on these issues abound, from Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals to Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded--you don't have to agree with every conclusion these folks draw to learn from their work. There are also documentary films covering the gamut of issues at play in all of this, like the recent film on dumpster diving and food waste, Dive! Because the factors contributing to contemporary ecological devastation are so numerous, this step can be daunting; nevertheless it is crucial.

Of course, we also need to take action. This can take any number of forms. Recycling your plastic bottles or purchasing some reusable grocery bags are among the simplest steps you can take towards a lifestyle that is less exploitative of our planet's resources. Earth911 is an informative and practical site for green concerns. Local Harvest is also a great website for finding out about opportunities in your community for supporting agricultural practices that are less environmentally harmful.

More than all that, some of us, in some congregations and communities, need to be vocal about this. Let fly in your Sunday school class that you're recycling plastic bottles--offer to take some off of other people's hands. This is not the time to labor silently, looking for God's rewards in secret; this is the time for prophetic declarations and demonstrations. The consumer practices of American society, practices in which we have all been entangled in some way or another, defy the Church's call to stewardship of God's world. This collusion must be named and rejected, and the Church must pursue a new way of living in the world. Because of the depth and reach of our failure here, our repentance, our turning, has to be loud and clear.

We must also pray. Perhaps we need to pray the psalms, and allow their understanding of the world sink down deep into us. We might pray for particular concerns we have, local, global, immediate or long term. A simple place to begin might be to allow these familiar words take on new meaning the next time you offer them to God: "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."

There is so much more to be said, and so many other courses of action before us, but my discussion will have to rest here. As I've said, I'm just beginning to understand and appreciate this issue myself, and my own steps towards a new life alongside God's creation have been small. Still, I'm convinced that the responsibility of 'dominion' laid on humanity is today calling affluent, Western Christians to account. We simply cannot go forward with the understandings, explicit or implicit, of the world that have guided us for so long. Scripture and the harsh realities of the day call us to something new. Our place is to answer, to join God in this aspect of his all-encompassing, new-creation work. It's a much bigger work than we thought.

Is our faith green? pt. 1

2011-07-20T20:18:00.013-05:00

I don't have to tell you how a rising 'green' conscience is changing--at least at a surface level--how our society thinks about the environment. Water bottles proudly advertise: "Smaller Cap = Less Plastic." Reusable grocery bags hang before your eyes at every turn, daring you to walk out of that store with disposable plastic bags in tow; recycle bins near the exits offer you an out, in case you snubbed the earlier green option. The owners of hybrid gas-electric and alternative fuel vehicles are routinely offered rebates as well as state and federal tax incentives. An Earth-consciousness is slowly seeping into the popular psyche.

This is also an impulse being embraced by many churches. Recycle bins are filled with worship programs at the end of many a Sunday service. Churches provide community gardens to foster closer ties between people and the land they walk on. (Read, for instance, the story of Anathoth Garden at Cedar Grove United Methodist Church in North Carolina.) We even have The Green Bible, including essays by Christians from across the spectrum--N. T. Wright to Brian McLaren to John Paul II--and printed on recycled paper with "soy-based ink, and water-based coating."

Yet for all the ardor of a green Bible, many Christians are skeptical of this trend, to say the least. This movement as it has been embraced by some Christians has been reviled by others as 'nature worship', cultural captivity, and, worse yet, a thinly veiled liberal political agenda.

Where should we stand on these matters? Is this a legitimately Christian concern, or has the church adopted some popular, secular interests?

Creation in the Bible

As usual, I want to start with the Bible, because I'm convinced that the Bible tells us who we truly are and gives us a story for understanding the world around us in truth.

Many readers are convinced that scripture's teaching on "the heavens and the earth," the plants, and the animals is pretty straightforward: these things will pass away. The Bible is really concerned with the story of humanity, and the redemption of humanity. The other works of God's hands are fleeting, and they ought to be on the periphery (at best) of our vision and aims.

This is simply not true. Humanity is at the heart of God's saving work as it's witnessed to in scripture--the Word became flesh--but God's plan is for all of his creation, not human beings alone. If we think our Lord is not interested in the non-human creation, that these things are simply going to pass away, we need to look at the Bible again.

Romans 8 is often cited in this discussion, and rightly so. Here Paul offers us a vision of God's redemptive work that is much wider in scope than we might expect. At the heart of the letter to the Romans, he writes:

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (8:19-23)

Just as we await the resurrection, the whole creation likewise awaits a redemption from its bondage to decay. As John Wesley commented here, creation is not going to be destroyed but delivered. The created order is awaiting the revealing of the sons of God, the people of God who will worship the Lord and exercise right stewardship over the world--the restoration of God's intentions for humanity in Genesis 1-2. This is the end that God's saving work is moving towards. Salvation is so much bigger than we have been giving it credit for.

We also see the picture of a restored creation in Isaiah, where we are given a striking image of the animal world at last at peace. "The wold shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat..." (11:1-9; see also 65:17-25). My favorite is the image of the bear and the cow grazing together. The prophet does not envision a great, climactic work of saving individual men and women, but a restoration for all of God's creatures, down to the animals. This is the reality of the new heavens and the new earth. This is the substance of God's words in Revelation: "See, I am making all things new... it is done!" (21:5-6)

The Bible's story of salvation is a story about all of creation, not just humankind. Maybe this truth will help us hear the Jesus' Great Commission in Mark with new ears: "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" (16:15). This is good news for the whole creation.

This shouldn't surprise us. After all, the biblical authors see plants and animals as gloriously more than simply the raw materials necessary for our well-being. The Psalms remind us again and again of the full, scriptural vision of creation.

Psalm 148 in a bright shining example of this: this poem pans across the whole of creation, showing the praise of God on all lips. The angels and heavenly hosts praise God, the sun and moon, fish, hills, the fruit trees, beasts and livestock, and, finally, humanity. Taken together, all of Gods works--not just human beings, not even just men and angels--all of God's works offer praise to their maker in a a great symphony of creation.

The world is not simply a resource at our disposal: it is the Lord's (Ps 24:1); it offers up praise to him; he rejoices in it (104:31), and he intends to redeem it. Anything less than this falls short of the scriptural portrait of our planet.

Psalm 104 provides a final, crucial element in our whirlwind survey of creation in the scriptures: God provides for his creation.

We see especially in vv. 10-30 God's unbridled attentiveness to the creatures he has made: giving water to wild donkeys and cedars alike, a home to the stork, food for man and beast, refuge to rock badgers, creatures to play in the seas. The psalmist is reveling in the vast menagerie the greets her eyes, and she insists that God gives care to every obscure corner of it. "The earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work" (104:13). Our Maker in hands-on in his continuing care for his world.

In part 2, we'll think about where to go from here--how should Christians live, in light of a biblical picture of the Earth?

what is a biblical prophet?

2011-07-12T11:07:00.009-05:00

I was reminded today of some interesting observations in Walter Brueggemann's classic book, The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann opens the first chapter with a description of the "tired misconceptions" that plague study of the Old Testament prophets.

The dominant conservative misconception, evident in manifold bumper stickers, is that the prophet is a fortune-teller, a predictor of things to come (mostly ominous), usually with specific reference to Jesus. While one would not want to deny totally those facets of the practice of prophecy, there tends to be a kind of reductionism that is mechanical and therefore untenable. While the prophets are in a way future-tellers, they are concerned with the future as it impinges upon the present.

'Conservative' readers of the Bible, Brueggemann suggests, think of a prophet exclusively in terms of prophesying about the future. This is the reductionism he's talking about, and he insists that this is a mischaracterization of the Old Testament prophets. After all, the prophetic words quoted by the New Testament authors make up just the tiniest bit of the enormous books of prophecy in the Old Testament. The prophets have other intentions.

Brueggemann continues:

Conversely, liberals who abdicated and turned all futuring over to conservatives have settled for a focus on the present. Thus prophecy is alternatively reduced to righteous indignation and, in circles where I move, prophecy is understood as social action...

'Liberals', on the other hand, reduce prophecy to a call to social justice. Yes, social action does loom large in the prophetic books (a fact some conservative readers may not be aware of--I know, because I remember the shock of learning it myself), but it is not the whole of biblical prophecy.

It's not surprising that this Old Testament scholar thinks both approaches fail to really grasp the ancient Israelite understanding of prophecy.

Do either of these camps sound familiar to you? While I know what he's talking about, I have never moved in the liberal circles Brueggemann did. My upbringing tended in the other direction.

In the church I grew up in, 'the prophets' were limited--unintentionally, of course--to Jonah and Daniel. They might also pop up around Christmas, heralding the coming of Christ through the words of Isaiah. This left me, and probably many others, with an odd picture of the prophet: he is one called to deliver the word of God, which is usually a cryptic word that can only be deciphered by a look to the future: the time of Jesus, or even to the present. And occasionally prophets are swallowed by big fish. Prophecy was "futuring," describing coming events in God's work, whether that's the incarnation or the crucifixion, or the international, political maneuvers that will trigger Jesus' return.

Unfortunately, this idea of a prophet sends you back to scripture with some odd reading glasses on. Daniel, Revelation, and some spots here and there in the other prophets fit your mold; the rest don't, and they usually get ignored because of it. In the end you're left with wrong-headed way of reading a few books, and the others you don't read at all. That was my experience, at least, and maybe it will sound familiar to you.

Brueggemann wrote these words over thirty years ago, but his descriptions still hold true in a lot of ways. Perhaps then we should pay some attention to the alternative he suggests:

The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.

The people of God are called to live as an "alternative community" in the midst of the world. At times that people loses sight of this vocation, though, and their faith, their distinctiveness, it domesticated. They cease to offer an alternative to the ways of the world. This is where the voice of the prophet is needed, reminding the people that the order of the present world is illegitimate and must be rejected. God has promised a newness that they are to live in anticipation of. Thus the word of the prophet is, as he said, about the future "as it impinges on the present." The prophet's words are meant to reorient us towards God's coming kingdom, so that we can live as God's people in the world now.

How does that image of the prophet sound to you? Does it seem to capture well what the ministries and Ezekiel and Isaiah are aiming at--not just Daniel? Does it give the prophets more of a word for the church today? After all, if they're only speaking about the end of the world, their word to us might not seem too important unless that end is very near.

How are you reading the prophets? What kind of preconceptions are you bringing to scripture here? How has it hindered (or helped) your hearing of God's word?

Christians and the environment

2011-07-05T14:47:00.000-05:00

Christianity Today recently interviewed Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris on a Christian approach to the environment. Peterson is probably best known for The Message, his popular paraphrase of the Bible, but I've found much of his other work to be really thoughtful and provocative.

Lately I've been considered writing a bit on Christians and the environment, as I feel that--while in some quarters this topic is probably over-emphasized--in many churches this question has yet to be raised, this challenge yet to be faced. With any luck, I'll get to this in the near future. Until then, enjoy this interesting interview.

The Resurrection of the Body

2011-06-10T03:37:00.012-05:00

I had a conversation last year that left me a little shocked and not a little frustrated.

"I believe in the separation of the body and spirit at death."

"But what about the resurrection of the body?"

"Is it the resurrection of the body?"

"That's what the creed says."

"... but what is 'the body'?"

At this point I, the second voice, was caught in something of a stunned silence. I was listening to a well-educated, intelligent, confessing Christian deny the bodily resurrection of the dead. I don't remember now what exactly I said next--only being dissatisfied with it and thinking of a hundred better responses later that day.

Of course, for all my talk about being 'shocked' or 'stunned' I realize that I might have had the same conversation with a hundred thousand different people across the US. There is some serious confusion here; which is why I'm blogging on it. This post won't reach a hundred thousand people, but it might reach a handful, and that's better than none.

So let's talk about the resurrection of the body.

"I believe in... the resurrection of the body"

This is a clause in one of the ancient creeds of the Church, the Apostles' Creed. This classical statement of faith concludes: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen." Christians have been confessing a future, bodily resurrection since the earliest centuries of the Church.

We see this not only in the creeds, but also in the early Church Fathers. As early as Polycarp (c. 69-c. 155) and Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 ), one who denied the resurrection of the body--even if they affirmed the immortality of a disembodied soul--was considered to be no Christian at all.

If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians, but who do not admit this [truth], and venture to blaspheme the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; who say there is no resurrection of the dead, and that their souls, when they die, are taken to heaven; do not imagine that they are Christians...

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 80

Saint Augustine later claimed that "all Christian doctrine perishes" if we take away faith in the resurrection of the dead.

These are strong claims. Where did the Fathers get such confidence? And what do we make of it? Clearly people have believed in a bodily resurrection for a long time, but is this a biblical idea?

The short answer is 'yes, absolutely.'

the Resurrection in scripture

The most powerful discussion of the resurrection in the Bible, I find, is in 1 Corinthians 15. Here Paul discusses, among other things, the centrality of Jesus' own resurrection to the gospel and the implications of Christ's resurrection for the eternal hope of believers. This long, detailed, and adamant discourse came after the apostle discovered that some in the church in Corinth had dispensed with a belief in the resurrection of the dead, the raising of corpses (15:12). Paul, anticipating Augustine's confession centuries later, reasoned that if the dead are not raised, inevitably "our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (14).

Paul says much in the chapter that is pertinent to our topic, and I encourage you to go and study 1 Cor 15 closely, but here I will highlight two claims the apostle makes:

Jesus is "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (20). The "firstfruits" are but the beginning of the season; just as Christ was raised, so the full resurrection harvest is yet to come. The death Adam brought into the world reaches out and touches all, and likewise the resurrection that came with Christ will come to all at His return (21-23). Easter was the beginning of the final resurrection of the dead.
In the resurrection of the dead, we will "bear the image of the man of heaven," Jesus (49). This is "a resurrection like His," as Paul writes elsewhere (Rom 6:5; see also Phil 3:20-21). This is, finally, Paul's answer to the question "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" (1 Cor 15:35ff). If you want to know, look at the body of Jesus.

Our expectation of resurrection and our very understanding of resurrection are rooted in the risen Lord Jesus.

Here, then, is the answer to my friend's question: "but what is 'the body'?"

'The body' is the thing that came out of the grave on Easter morning. This thing could enter a room through locked doors, but it could also be touched, and could ingest broiled fish. This is no disembodied spirit. The portrait of the future resurrection is a real body--different, made new and changed, but very real.

Richard Hays, who for my money may be the finest New Testament scholar alive today, summed up the early Church's belief (and 1 Cor 15) well:

The early Christians proclaimed that God had broken the power of death by raising Jesus bodily from the grave; therefore, the New Testament writers and the early Christian creeds looked forward to the resurrection of the body as the consummation of God's redemptive action in the world.

Belief in the bodily resurrection flows naturally out of our confession of the victory of God in the resurrection of Jesus.

a full, Christian hope

The gospel, then, is not about "this soul, stranded in some skin and bones" (sorry, Bono). That's the ancient pagan philosophers talking--an attitude that has quietly crept into the Church's popular theology. Paul's gospel was mocked by many of his hearers in Athens precisely because of his belief in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 17:32). The 2nd century Greek thinker Celsus ridiculed this hope, calling it "the hope of worms"--and he sure didn't say that because Christians believed in the eternal bliss of a disembodied spirit. Any notion today of a soul going off to heaven at death is the descendent of this ancient pagan thought, not the Christian teaching. The Church has always witnessed to God's healing, not discarding, of the body.

I realize that this will all sound pretty scandalous to a lot of people. We're so used to the comforting talk of escaping the sufferings and difficulties of our bodies. It's a message that you hear at many Christian funerals, from the pulpit and in the private consolations offered to the bereaved. The idea is that we can take hope--we who are left behind, or we who look forward to freedom from our own pain--in the knowledge that the troubles of life on earth will pass away for eternity. We just have to hang on.

There's a grain of truth in this, but it's taken the wrong way. Yes, there is freedom ahead, and a time when "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore" (Rev 21:4). These old things will pass away.

But this does not come with the abandoning of the body. We do not, in death, throw off the flesh like a husk that has served its purpose. The body is not abandoned but transformed. God is going to make all things new. That's the heart of the gospel and the hope of believers. Suffering, all enmity, and the poisoning of our bodies that came in Eden will be extinguished--all of Creation will be put right. "'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:54-56).

That is the hope of the resurrection of the body. As long as we feed each other a different message of another 'hope', we are missing out on the power of the truth of the gospel to heal and minister to the people of God.

Much of this post is indebted to the work of Richard B. Hays, "The Resurrection of the Body: Carnis resurrectionem" in Exploring and Proclaiming the Apostles' Creed and Brian E. Daley, "A Hope of Worms: Early Christian Hope" in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments.

"second meanings" in the text

2011-06-02T13:09:00.001-05:00

As my last post indicated, lately I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis’s Reflections on the Psalms, as I prepare to teach a Bible study on the Psalms for Spring Hill United Methodist Church this summer. It’s been some time (almost two years!) since I’ve been able to really read Lewis, and I’ve really enjoyed this visit with an old friend. He’s as interesting as ever.

In chapter 10 of the Reflections on the Psalms, Lewis is musing on the Church’s traditional claims that the Old Testament is often speaking of the New—that the ancient Israelite authors frequently speak about the events of Christ’s life or the doctrines of the Christian faith, though they probably do not know it. For instance, when St. Augustine read Psalm 18:9—“He bowed the heavens and came down”—he thought only of Jesus: the one who would “descend to men’s infirmity.” As Lewis puts it, “the full significance of what the writers are saying is, on this view, apparent only in the light of events which happened after they were dead.” This is one way the Church worked out the meaning of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 24:27 that “all the Scriptures” can be interpreted with reference to himself.

In the discussion that follows, the Inkling does not try to account for these “second meanings” in the Psalms themselves; that comes in a later chapter. Lewis does, however, consider this general idea of second meanings in texts, reading an author’s words “in light of that fuller truth and hearing it in them as an overtone or second meaning.” This, he suggests, is not “foisting on them something alien to his mind, an arbitrary addition,” but “prolonging his meaning in a direction congenial with it.”

Lewis sees this move as distinct from, on the one hand, claiming prophetic inspiration or, on the other hand, dismissing apparent similarities between an earlier word and a later reality as coincidence. Essentially, he’s looking for an agreeable rationale for the identification of, say, the Suffering Servant in Isaiah with Jesus Christ. The route he follows towards this rationale is, I think, brilliant and provocative—though I’m not ready to endorse what follows.

Two examples are crucial in his discussion. The first is a fiction. Suppose a biologist teaching on adaptation describes a hypothetical animal that has evolved in a particular, hypothetical environment. Some time later, such an animal is in fact discovered, and it is, of course, in just the sort of environment the biologist had described. “This resemblance,” Lewis claims, “is not in the least accidental. Insight and knowledge, not luck, led to his invention. The real nature of life explains both why there is such a creature in the universe and also why there was such a creature in his lectures.” The man’s intimate knowledge of the operations of the world refined and directed his imagination as he made an example for his students—refining and directing it towards truth.

The second example comes from the writings of Plato (c. 429- c.347 BC). In the Republic, the Greek philosopher suggests the righteousness may only be understood in its true nature if one imagines “a perfectly righteous man treated by all around him as a monster of wickedness. We must picture him, still perfect, while he is bound, scourged, and finally impaled (the Persian equivalent of crucifixion).” Is it a coincidence, Lewis asks, that Plato’s picture of righteousness evokes so clearly the death of Jesus some four hundred years later?

Plato is talking, and knows he is talking, about the fate of goodness in a wicked and misunderstanding world. But that is not something simply other than the Passion of Christ. It is the very same thing of which that Passion is the supreme illustration… If Plato, starting from [the example of Socrates, recently executed] and from his insight into the nature of goodness and the nature of the world, was lead on to see the possibility of a perfect example, and thus to depict something extremely life the Passion of Christ, this happened not because he was lucky but because he was wise. If a man who knew only England and had observed that, the higher a mountain was, the longer it retained the snow in early spring, were led on to suppose a mountain so high that it retained the snow all the year round, the similarity between his imaged mountain and the real Alps would not be merely a lucky accident. He might not know that there were any such mountains in reality; just as Plato probably did not know that the ideally perfect instance of crucified goodness which he had depicted would ever become actual and historical. But if that man ever saw the Alps he would not say “What a curious coincidence”. He would be more likely to say “There! What did I tell you?”

Because Christianity is true, the logic goes, Plato’s true insights centuries before Christ become entangled with that truth, and so can indeed be said to speak to the reality of Jesus. The Passion of Christ is a genuine second meaning of this passage in the Republic. It is not the meaning Plato had in mind, but it is "congenial with it."

(This is, I believe, how Lewis understood his own Narnian stories as well. What happens at the Stone Table in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is not supposed to be an allegory for the death of Christ. Instead, it’s the story of another world where truth is still true. Aslan had to die, just as Jesus had to die, because this is simply how things are, and how things are redeemed. Good Friday is thus a genuine second meaning to the story.)

Lewis is not trying to prove anything here. He doesn’t present this discussion as evidence that the psalmists of ancient Israel (or anyone else) did in fact somehow write of Jesus of Nazareth centuries before his birth. He simply offers this as an explanation for why reading the Old Testament in this way may not be such a bad thing. Truth, which is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ, will always look a certain way, no matter who says it or when it is said. Every now and then, the finest minds may just glimpse it, even if the revelation itself is still to come.

What do you think of this? Does this make Christian readings of the Old Testament any easier to swallow—if they were at all distasteful to begin with? What about Lewis’s assumptions about the nature of truth and revelation?

As I said, I think it’s a really brilliant discussion. Still, I’m quite sure where I stand on the question as a whole.

Lewis on the Psalms

2011-05-28T22:24:00.003-05:00

The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God which made David dance… I am comparing it with the merely dutiful “church-going” and laborious “saying our prayers” to which most of us are, thank God not always, but often, reduced. Against that it stands out as something astonishingly robust, virile, and spontaneous; something we may regard with an innocent envy and may hope to be infected by as we read.

- C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms chapter 4, "The Fair Beauty of the Lord"

the Lord's Prayer and practical Christian unity

2011-05-04T05:28:00.002-05:00

This week blogger Rachel Held Evans is hosting the Rally to Restore Unity. To join in, here is a short word on the topic that some people may need to hear.

The prayers of Jesus in the Gospels have a lot to say about Christian unity.

One might immediately about the 'High Priestly Prayer' of John 17, where our Lord utters words that ought to keep Christians up at night.

My prayer is not for [my disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23)

That's right folks, Jesus--whom we might expect to have other things on his mind just before his arrest--prayed for the unity of believers. He does not pray for right theology, strength amidst trials, that his followers keep themselves unstained by the world, or any number of other important things. The Son requests of his Father that "all of them may be one," and he implies that the proclamation of the Church--that Jesus was sent by the Father--hangs to some extent on the unity of the Church.

Unity is nice to talk about, but talking (even coming to some brilliant conclusions!) does not effect unity, bring together disparate communities, right?

Well, actually it can.

Blog posts about unity, books about unity, sermons, are meant to prod the flock towards action, but that may or may not bear any fruit. Those words don't effect anything in and of themselves.

But Jesus has given us some other words that do.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13)

Here Jesus doesn't pray for unity; he holds out words around which all his disciples may come together, unified in prayer.

Some Christians might chime in at this point that the Lord's Prayer is not meant to be prayed, but to provide a model for our own prayers. After all, Jesus says "pray like this" (6:19). Granted, this is what Christ says in the ESV--though other translations may shock you--in Matthew. In Luke, however, Jesus' teaching is a little different:

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." And he said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name..." (Luke 11:1-4)

This is not a model; it's a command. 'When you pray, say this.'

Rather than looking at this as some tired, barren ritual that needs to be discarded in favor of contemporaneous prayers 'from the heart', maybe we should trust Jesus. Trust that he knew the right words to give us, that there is fruitfulness in this prayer beyond measure. I have found this to be so.

If, then, we can agree to take up the prayer Jesus has taught us, we'll suddenly find that we're with company. We're shoulder to shoulder with persecuted believers in China and Iran; we're flanked by 1st century believers in Jerusalem and 4th century monks in Egypt; our voices join with the believers in Calvin's Geneva, as they pray these words twice in every Sunday morning service. This is and has been the prayer of the Church from the ministry of Jesus to the present day. This is and has been the prayer of the Church from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The Lord's Prayer gives Christ's followers one voice, even if just for a moment. We are united around our Father, his kingdom and his will, his gracious provision and forgiveness.

We may finish our prayers and go back to bickering about what these words mean today. I suppose there's no avoiding that. All we can do is trust Jesus yet again--trust that his Spirit will lead us in to truth. In the meantime, we are to love one another (John 13:34; 15:12, 17).

This is a small step towards Christian unity, but it is a practical one. This is a prayer the Southern Baptist and the Roman Catholic can say together; the gay Episcopalian priest and the Methodist with a traditional view of sexuality; the Anglican who recites the Creeds and the man who insists on 'sola scriptura!' The Lord's Prayer is Jesus' gift to all of us. Perhaps as we say it the world will see, even just for a tantalizing instant, "that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." It's a small step, but it is a step. Let's take it together.

a nice quote

2011-04-10T08:22:00.003-05:00

Science is not a sinister enterprise aimed at destroying faith. It’s an honest exploration of the wonderful world that God created.

That's from a recent opinion piece on CNN by the vice president of BioLogos, Karl Giberson, "Jesus would believe in evolution and so should you." It's a really nice statement I think, and it really speaks to the opinions that so many hold.

The article itself is not bad; read it if you like, but I'm not really recommending it. I agree with his conclusions, obviously, but he's not saying anything new, and won't convince anyone who is disinclined towards the beliefs of groups like BioLogos. But there's something to that quote.

For those of you eagerly awaiting real posts on wardrobe (so, so many of you...), the semester is wrapping up, and with any luck I'll be able to post some more substantial pieces in the near future!

Bono on Jesus (among other things)

2011-03-14T18:55:00.000-05:00

This is an excerpt from an interview with Bono in Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, and it's fantastic. It's hard to describe, so I'll leave it to you. But Bono's been reading his C. S. Lewis.

Check it out!

One more time: tanning is bad.

2011-03-02T12:24:00.000-06:00

I have featured articles on tanning beds on wardrobe numerous times over the years, and this is the crown jewel: the American Academy of Pediatrics is calling for laws to ban minors from tanning parlors. Amen to that. Check out the link.

If you're interested in older posts on tanning, look here and here.

Rowan Williams montage

2011-02-27T19:19:00.003-06:00

Today is the Feast of George Herbert, and it was 8 years ago today that Rowan Williams was enthroned as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury. I've recently been doing quite a bit of research on issues in the Anglican Communion, and I have learned one thing well that I did not expect to discover going into this: there are a lot of cool pictures of Rowan Williams out there. So, in commemoration of his assuming the See of Canterbury, I offer this, the first annual wardrobe Rowan Williams montage! Enjoy.

Kierkegaard on Love

2011-02-14T06:43:00.000-06:00

I love Kierkegaard. This is from his Journals:

Here Luther is again completely right. No one can see faith; it is unseen: therefore no one can decide whether or not a man has faith. But faith shall be known by love. Now men have indeed wanted to make love into an unseen something, but against this Luther, together with Scriptures, would protest, for love is Christianly the works of love. It is really an un-Christian conception of love to say that it is a feeling and the like. This is the esthetic definition of love and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But Christianly love is: the works of love. The love of Christ was not inner feeling, a full heart, etc.; It was rather the work of love, which is his life.

Rachel Held Evans wants to love God with her mind

2011-01-21T21:22:00.003-06:00

I thought this was--as usual--a thoughtful and very frank piece from Rachel Held Evans. She's not quite writing about evolution, though the topic does come up, but is really trying to draw attention to the difficulties of trying to love God with one's mind in American evangelicalism.

I'm reminded of the opening line from Mark Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, to which it sounds like (perhaps ironically, here) Al Mohler would object: "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind."

Check out the post over on RHE.

Baptists and social drinking

2011-01-04T16:15:00.006-06:00

The Associated Baptist Press reports that the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (SBC) has recently decided to 'study' the question of social drinking.

Good for you, North Carolina.

Though I have not been attending a South Baptist church for the last year, my membership is still with an SBC-affiliated body, and I have been heavily involved in SBC churches for the last decade. So you can take my opinion with a grain of salt, or however you like it. But I for one and glad to hear about this development--though I doubt that this will lead to any significant changes in the South Baptist stance on alcohol use (total abstinence) in North Carolina or anywhere else. The very fact that the question is being raised is good enough for me at this point.

As I have blogged before, I do not support drinking. I think alcohol abuse is too great an evil in the US for Christians to (and not all drinking Christians do this, I know) thoughtlessly engage in social drinking. This may not be the case in other countries, but here I find it to be so.

Nevertheless, I agree with C. S. Lewis that a crusade for 'biblical teetotalism' such as that you regularly find in the SBC is "tyrannic and unscriptural insolence." The scriptural support just isn't there (regardless of what Mr. Lumpkins might suggest in the ABP article), and I resent a vocal misrepresentation of the Bible's teachings. That is why I am glad to hear of Baptists raising such issues--of all places, in a denomination where scripture is given such emphasis and authority, the Biblical word on drinking ought to be faithfully taught and preached. Once this is taken care of, then I'll ask the SBC to consider supporting prohibition.

But in the meantime, good for you, North Carolina.

reflections on Richard Dawkins

2010-12-13T03:08:00.004-06:00

In October I had a the chance to see the popular atheist biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, give a talk at Duke University promoting his latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth. Now that my crazy semester is winding down, I have a chance to offer here some thoughts on Dawkins's lecture.

First let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed the talk. Dawkins--this is no surprise, as he is a professor--communicated clearly and held our attention well (though this wasn't hard given the audience, most of whom probably keep a copy of The God Delusion on their nightstands). One of my favorite quips came early in the talk: "Well of course there are gaps in the fossil record--we're lucky to have any fossils at all!"

But of course I wasn't their primarily to learn about evolution, though this is a subject about which I still have a lot to learn. I was itching--as was everyone else in the auditorium--to hear what Dawkins had to say about religion.

Much of this came in jokes about a 'designer' strewn throughout the lecture on evolution.

After describing in much and fascinating detail how well-designed the cheetah and the gazelle must be called, what a perfect hunter the one is and what perfect prey the other makes, he remarked with feigned exasperation 'whose side is the designer on??'

Another came after he described the recurrent laryngeal nerve, found in all mammals, that connects the larynx to the brain (only a few inches apart from one another), but which does not directly link the two--instead going first into the chest and wrapping around an artery in the heart for no apparent reason (a detour of about 15 feet in a giraffe, he noted). Dawkins rightly asked why the designer 'doesn't go back to the drawing board' like all good designers do? This poor design and wastefulness, he feels, speak against any such designer. (This oddity can be easily explained from an evolutionary standpoint.)

Most remarks about design took this sort of form. After a while I started to wonder why--why he only addressed a highly anthropomorphized designer, very active in creation?

But then Dawkins used the term 'intelligent design' a few times.

This is what he's responding to. He didn't actually speak a word to the traditional Christian understanding of the Creator, though his anecdotes and retorts were (to my mind) pretty damning for ID. It just doesn't work.

But by far the most interesting portion of Dawkins's talk came after the lecture, during the Q&A.

First off, the people asking questions--and Dr. Dawkins--don't seem to differentiate between "Creationists" and religious people in general. They didn't acknowledge that there could be any Christian who was not a textbook Creationist. This is of course simply absurd, though they don't seem to find such distinctions very important.

However, Dawkins did have a few surprises up his sleeve, both for me and for rest of the audience.

First, after a spiteful question about the place of a divinity school on a university campus, he had some kind things to say about the Bible as a piece of important and sometimes beautiful literature--literature that ought to be studied in the academy.

More surprising, however, was the final word. The last question in the Q&A came from a Christian--apparently the only such questioner--who wanted to know why Dawkins insisted on polemics, why he couldn't work with Christians on social issues they shared concerns over. The last words out of his mouth were: "Yes let's be friends, by all means." There wasn't much clapping after that.

In general, he just wasn't as hostile as his audience was hoping (or I was expecting), and this kind of took the wind out of their sails at the very last. To be sure, there were a few lines that were no doubt quickly immortalized as facebook quotes, like "Damn your preacher!" But as a rule, he wasn't as aggressive as you might suppose.

Something that was hard to miss in the talk was that Dawkins always comes back to evidence. He mentioned this to the last girl, that he didn't feel there was "evidence" for her opinions. It's absolutely key to his epistemology; everything hangs on it. Evidence, evidence, evidence. (There's an essay in his book The Devil's Chaplain to this effect, written as a letter to his young daughter.)

A few days after I saw Richard Dawkins, N. T. Wright gave a talk at the Divinity School. Afterwards I had a chance to talk to the bishop, and I asked about Dawkins and this demand for evidence: should Christians present historical arguments, for instance, about the Resurrection, as 'evidence'?

Wright said no. No, but what we can do, and what we must do, is present the history of the gospels plausibly, and we must show why the alternative readings simply do not hold water. In effect (and this isn't Wright, but my musing) we need to try our best to remove historical doubt. If what we proclaim is true, then this isn't impossible. Of course historical doubt is not the last obstacle to faith--it's just the only one Christians have the power to remove. Beyond this, the person coming to Jesus will have to respond to the gospel, however they will. Neither move will offer the 'evidence' they want.

Those are just a few thoughts I had in the days following Dawkins's visit to Duke. Take from them what you will. Hopefully in the coming weeks, after my last exam on Wednesday, I'll find time for some more real blogging. We'll see.

Barth on the New Testament miracles

2010-12-09T07:30:00.005-06:00

As fundamentally astonishing stories, they function first of all in a formal way as a sort of alarm signal, which is the reason the New Testament likes to term them "signs." Scattered at times thickly and at other times more sparsely throughout the history of Immanuel, they alert the hearer and reader to a central fact: this history is concerned with a fundamentally new event which, although undoubtedly occurring within time and space, is not to be identified with other events occurring within the limits of time and space...
But what is the new element signaled by these miracle stories? ... To what do the following phrases point? " 'Rise, take up your bed and go home.' " " 'Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!' " " 'Peace, Be still!' " as was called out to a stormy sea. " 'You give them to eat!' " as was said concerning the five thousand who were hungry in the wilderness. " 'Lazarus, come out!' " " 'He has risen, he is not here.' " According to the biblical testimony, what happened following such statements was always a change in the ordinary course of the world and nature which threatened and oppressed man. Though these changes were isolated and temporary, they were nevertheless radically helpful and saving. What took place were promises and intimations, anticipations of a redeemed nature, of a state of freedom, of a kind of life in which there will be no more sorrows, tears, and crying, and where death as the last enemy will be no more. What is communicated under the form of these little lights is always the reflected brightness of the great light which draws near to the men of the present in the form of hope. What is at stake is the summons, " 'Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near' " (Luke 21:28). This kindling of the light of hope is what is really new; it is the really surprising element in the biblical miracle stories.

Evangelical Theology: An Introduction, 67-69

T. F. Torrance on science and theology

2010-11-01T14:58:00.001-05:00

When the scientist inquires into the nature of the world, he does that not by looking at God but by looking away from him at the world, but when the theologian inquires into the nature of God as he has revealed himself he does that not by looking at the nature of the world, which God has created out of nothing, but by looking away from the world to its Creator. The scientist and the theologian thus move in opposite directions. The scientist is concerned with the created or contingent universe, so that he does not reckon God among the data with which natural science is concerned. And that is of course consonant with a proper theological understanding of the nature of the universe which God has created as a reality utterly different from himself but which he has endowed with a created rational order reflecting his own transcendent rationality.

Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking, 48-49

C. S. Lewis and Stephen Hawking

2010-10-22T19:01:00.002-05:00

... and this other fellow, Mlodinow. But no one knows his name, so I just put the other two in the title.

In case you hadn't heard, last month Stephen Hawking decided to expound the latest evidence against the existence of a Creator God. I didn't think much of Hawking's reasoning at the time (and still do not), but I would nevertheless love to point everyone towards the C. S. Lewis blog for a wonderful response, offered, oh, 50-60 years ago: How C. S. Lewis "prefutes" Stephen Hawking.

It's a fun and interesting read, so check it out.

The Feast of St. Francis

2010-10-04T00:00:00.004-05:00

Today is the Feast of St. Francis. To celebrate and recall this really incredible saint, here is his famous hymn, All Creatures of our God and King, or the Song of Brother Son:

All creatures of our God and King

Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rising moon, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice!

Thou flowing water, pure and clear,
Make music for thy Lord to hear,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou fire so masterful and bright,
That givest man both warmth and light.

Dear mother earth, who day by day
Unfoldest blessings on our way,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow,
Let them His glory also show.

And all ye men of tender heart,
Forgiving others, take your part,
O sing ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear,
Praise God and on Him cast your care!

And thou most kind and gentle Death,
Waiting to hush our latest breath,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God,
And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!

on Hauerwas and Karl Barth

2010-10-01T13:03:00.005-05:00

For those interested, I've just posted a piece, "Hauerwas and Barth, and the subsequent confusion", on another blog, Blarthing.

Blarthing was created recently by another Duke Divinity student to give those of us studying the theology of Karl Barth this semester a fun chance to stretch our intellectual legs with some reflections. Feel free to check it out.

Colbert's Christianity

2010-09-26T17:56:00.006-05:00

I have a lot of respect for Stephen Colbert. I've thought for a few years now that if Dick Staub's "culturally savvy Christian"--one who lives as an alien in their culture and yet transforms in by the power of the gospel--is out there in our world, his name is either Bono or Stephen Colbert.

And this video shows, perhaps better than anything I've heard from Colbert, what I mean.

In case you didn't know, the popular funny man gave testimony at a Congressional hearing last week concerning migrant workers in the United States--people who, he says, "suffer and have no rights." This is a snippet of that hearing.
The peak of this clip comes near the end, when Colbert is asked directly "why are you interested in this issue?"
His response? "'Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers'... and these seem like the least of our brothers." That's from Matthew 25, in case you were wondering.

Check it out. I for one am really thankful for Christians who have a voice in culture--especially when it's a voice that people actually enjoy listening to. And, at least this time, Colbert's Christianity isn't veiled by layers of sarcasm and character, but it's on a stand, giving light to all who are in the house.

a free plug

2010-08-30T21:32:00.003-05:00

This is the greatest advertisement I've ever seen. Bar none.
A special thanks to Emily Claire Ryder for the lovely photo.

RELEVANT: why twentysomethings are out of the gay marriage debate

2010-08-23T09:57:00.010-05:00

I just read this short article from RELEVANT, speculating as to why my generation--or, more specifically, the Evangelicals of my generation--by and large are not entering into the debates over gay marriage. The author points to four main causes for this silence: the number of openly gay friends and loved ones these young Evangelicals have; we are weary of the caustic rhetoric that these debates usually evoke; the hypocrisy of a condemnation of same-sex marriage that is mum on the divorce rates in churches; and "different categories." By this, the article refers to a growing view that an orthodox stance on sexuality doesn't necessitate an opposition to same-sex unions. Frederica Mathewes-Green, author of Gender: Men, Women, Sex and Feminism, is quoted from the book:

I can believe that my gay friends are engaging in something spiritually damaging, without asking the law to stop them. They can perceive that my convictions are grounded in an ancient spiritual consensus, not hate. We still won’t agree. But perhaps we can understand each other, and continue the conversation with mutual respect.

For Mathewes-Green, it seems, an attempt to forcibly prevent such unions through public policy goes beyond the Christian concern for spiritual well-being to an intolerant oppression of those we disagree with.

Here's my question: twentysomething, reading this (and most of you are twentysomethings), how do you fit into this picture? Is this debate one that you've spoken up on, or something that you shy away from? And why--do any of RELEVANT's reasons resonate with you?

I suppose I fall somewhere into the fourth group. I think that homosexual intercourse is plainly contrary to scripture; there's no way around that. And so I have to discourage other Christians from intimate homosexual relationships, and marriage would clearly stand under that umbrella. I have gay friends and relatives whom I care about, but I don't see that as any reason to excuse myself from the conversation. That's not a form I see concern taking. I rarely react to hypocrisy--it's far too prevalent and human a phenomenon to let that direct my course.
But I do find myself echoing Mathewes-Green often enough. I just don't see any excuse for an American legal repudiation of same-sex marriages. We live in a secular democracy, and the country's law is simply not bound by Christian moral teaching (much less a teaching that is hotly debated by the Christians themselves!). If that were how our legislation worked, then any extra-marital or pre-marital sexual relations should be outlawed, along with so many other things. At most, conservatives should hope to establish their 'one man, one woman' definition of "marriage," and then allow for a civil union institution that will grant totally equal rights and privileges to same-sex couples--though my thoroughly-untrained eye doesn't see any legal precedent or authoritative standard that could underpin such a move.

I understand that a lot of Christians, especially conservative Evangelicals, won't follow my thinking here. If you admit that it's a sin, they will say, then how can you support it? I don't. This is one issue (and not the only one that I have to face) where I find myself standing at a fork in the road, with the aims, hopes, and demands of democracy moving very clearly in one direction, while the aims, hopes, and demands of the Kingdom move full-force in another. This will happen sometimes; they are, after all, not the same thing. Democracy must pursue the rights and freedoms of the people, insofar as they do not disrupt the government. On the other hand, the Kingdom, regardless of what connections Christians have drawn for centuries, is not finally interested in rights and freedoms. The Kingdom of God is a matter of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). I don't support gay marriage... but I recognize that America ought to. This is just one of those issues where I cannot in good conscience be a good American.
I guess that means I'm out of the gay marriage debate.

Give me some thoughts. Again, what do you make of RELEVANT's observations? How have you been approaching this important and tender question? How has your church community? Why?

1 Samuel 13

2010-07-06T14:37:00.004-05:00

The concern of the storyteller is not with military operations as such, even though the passage is packed with fascinating detail on terrain and troop movements. The way the story is told guarantees that we will recognize that acts of faith take place in the so-called “real world”—a world of named towns, of strategic troop deployments, of military statistics, of probabilities and “odds.” This is the setting for understanding faith and obedience. Saul believes or disbelieves, is obedient or disobedient to God, trusts or mistrusts God in his daily work as a military leader, not abstracted from it. As it turns out, his is unbelievingly disobedient.

Eugene Peterson, First and Second Samuel, Westminster Bible Companion

reading the Bible with C. S. Lewis

2010-06-26T05:41:00.004-05:00

I joked recently that C. S. Lewis is a poor example for us to follow in reading scripture. After all, he does not adhere to a concept of sola scriptura. If you didn't notice, that post said a lot more about my opinion of sola scriptura than of Lewis.

I actually find Lewis quite an able guide for the faithful reader of scripture. Why?

Lewis never directly addressed the question of proper biblical interpretation in his published writings. The most direct word on the subject he offers us comes from a letter he wrote in 1959:

Whatever view we hold of the divine authority of Scripture must make room for the following facts.

1. The distinction which St. Paul makes in 1 Cor vii between "not I but the Lord" (v. 10) and "I speak, not the Lord" (v. 12). [My translation. Lewis only supplied the Greek.]
2. The apparent inconsistencies between the genealogies in Matt i and Luke iii; with the accounts of the death of Judas in Matt xxvii. 5 and Acts i. 18-19.
3. St. Luke's own account of how be obtained his matter (i. 1-4).
4. The universally admitted unhistoricity (I do not say, of course, falsity) of at least some narratives in Scripture (the parables), which may well extend also to Jonah and Job.
5. If every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights then all true and edifying writings, whether in Scripture or not, must be in some sense inspired.
6. John xi. 49-52 Inspiration may operate in a wicked man without his knowing it, and he can then utter the untruth he intends (propriety of making an innocent man a political scapegoat) as well as the truth he does not intend (the divine sacrifice).

It seems to me that 2 and 4 rule our the view that every statement in Scripture must be historical truth. And 1, 3, 5, and 6 rule our the view that inspiration is a single thing in the sense that, if present at all, it is always present in the same mode and the same degree. Therefore, I think, rule out the view that any one passage taken in isolation can be assumed to be inerrant in exactly the same sense as any other: e.g. that the numbers of O.T. armies (which in view of the size of the country, if true, involve continuous miracle) are statistically correct because the story of the Resurrection is historically correct. That the over-all operation of Scripture is to convey God's Word to the read (he also needs his inspiration) who reads it in the right spirit, I fully believe. That it also gives true answers to all the questions (often religiously irrelevant) which he might ask, I don't. The very kind of truth we are often demanding was, in my opinion, not even envisaged by the ancients.

Not exactly a post-card from the Grand Canyon. But I like it.

I like it primarily because Lewis is trying so hard to let the Bible be what the Bible is. Where there are difficulties presented in the text, he doesn't approach them as problems to be solved, but rather factors to take into account. His aim isn't to conform the scripture to any model of inspiration that he holds, but to read the Bible and form a model of inspiration that reflects the realities of the text. I like this very much.

His last remark hints of many of the problems in modern thought on inspiration and biblical authority. People often, especially when thinking about historicity, bring modern ideas to the table of biblical interpretation--ideas which the authors of scripture didn't share, hadn't even conceived of. We tend to think that an account is only true if it faithfully narrates what happened at a particular moment in history, and we reason further that the Bible, since it's true, does this in every instance. So when, for example, the gospel of John says that Christ is crucified on the Day of Preparation (John 19:14, 31), the first day of Passover when the Passover lambs were slaughtered, and Mark and Luke have the Day of Preparation on Thursday, before Christ's arrest (Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7ff), many readers are SOL. If truth is nothing other than historical accuracy, then the Bible falls short.

We also tend to think of true and false as straightforward opposites. If something is true, then whatever contradicts it is false. Then we read, say, Proverbs 26:4-5: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes." And we're in trouble again.

The biblical authors just aren't thinking in the same categories as we are, and we have to be OK with that.

Something similar happens with many of the ideas about inspiration that I've heard in church over the years. When the Bible uses descriptions like "God-breathed and useful..." (2 Tim 3:16), we somehow construe this to mean 'all scripture, that is every individual word, is inspired by God, totally without error in a modern, historical sense, without contradiction from within or without, and must be taken always only at face value.' Yikes. We try to incorporate all sorts of ideas in to the scripture, and we think this is a faithful reading of the word of God.

No. No, if we truly honor scripture, we need to let it speak for itself. We must not tell it what to say or how to say it. When we meet difficulties in the text, we need to make sure that our views can embrace them and proceed with whatever friction they produce. And, honestly, most of the teaching on biblical authority that I received growing up just couldn't do that. Doing this well won't be easy, but we have to give it the thought and effort. Doing this well also depends on our reading the Bible.

Which brings us back to C. S. Lewis.

Lewis's letter gives us a list of biblical curiosities that we have to take into account when undertaking a task like this. (The introduction to Scot McKnight's book Blue Parakeet offers a similar list of things he had to face while trying to figure out how to read the Bible.) Maybe we should begin here--we can, from here begin to search the scriptures for a clue to understanding them better, receiving gratefully everything we're given, refusing to ignore or downplay those problematic passages or words. That's the task.

And that's all Lewis hopes his reader will do. He doesn't set out a view for us to appropriate, but simply says, "whatever view we hold... must make room for the following facts." The task is still before us.

As we undertake it, I can only say, again, that I hope you will let the Bible to shape your hermeneutical commitments, and not the other way around. If we want to be people of the Word, if in faith we submit ourselves to scripture as indeed "God-breathed," then our obedience needs to be thorough. Our obedience has to begin with allowing the Bible to teach us how to read the Bible.

review: Toy Story 3

2010-06-19T09:04:00.007-05:00

This review contains all kinds of SPOILERS. Read on at your own risk.

"Death by monkeys."

This is a good start. Woody and Buzz struggle against the forces of evil under the hand of Andy once again. There's an attack-dog with force-field, a force-field-dog eating dinosaur. We hear Randy Newman singing: "... our friendship will never die."

And then sudden silence, with only the word die still ringing in our ears. So Toy Story 3 sets the tone for what will be a darker story, though, of course, not without its moments of light.

The darkness envelops us immediately as we see the toys again for the first time. We recall the droves of toys of the first film as we're faced here with the dozen or so who are left--a terrible fact that Woody acknowledges quickly. These characters have lived into a new and very different age than that we have seen in the previous films. Andy is going to college, and most of his toys, their friends and loves, are long gone. Molly has grown up into a typical pre-/early teen, with her iPod and silly magazines. This isn't a particularly dark world, but for a community of old, dusty toys, it is a lonely place.

Woody is a light in this dark, as faithful as ever to Andy. There was a moment of real jubilation when you saw that Woody was going to go to college. But, of course, that light was counterbalanced by the darkness of the attic for our other heros. It all serves to create some really interesting dynamics between the toys for the rest of the film.

The villains are an interesting bunch. I loved the monkey. Ken is... well, not surprisingly, very shallow. But dynamic, which was a surprised. Lotso adds to the darkness. He isn't merely a bad kid or a greedy collector; he's a toy who was hurt and then turned his back on all companionship, all goodness. He's so corrupt as to spurn all gratitude. His minions turn out to be not so bad, at the film's end, but Lotso is actually a character beyond redemption. This fact is only lightened by the fact that's he's a teddy bear who smells of strawberries.

All of these converge to tell an engaging, layered story. Old familiar characters only make you want to listen more. And it's funny. Monkeys are well-handled throughout the film, which is, of course, the mark of good comedy. It is also, as my roommate noted afterwards, simply not a kid's film. Pixar's strength is that they make adult films in the trappings of kids' entertainment. Just because the characters are Mr. Potato Heads and action figures doesn't mean that this isn't a dramatic and thoughtful tale.

But the movie does have some weaknesses.

I don't think the writers knew what to do with Buzz in this one. His best moments in the film are all moments where we gets an out-of-character Buzz: factory default Buzz, Spanish Buzz. It's all good fun, but the familiar character is too-often absent, and when he does finally return to the screen, he's nearly written out again by the romance with Jesse. We just don't see much of Woody's pal, the brave and devoted former Space Ranger.

The deus ex machina near the film's end is rather overblown, in my mind. Just in the knick of time, just as the fire was approaching. I was almost expected to be roused from a dream sequence at that point: they had just written themselves into the peril too deep for any satisfactory resolution.

That situation was the culmination of what I found to be another hole wearing through the films knees by the end: it just didn't stop. Like a lot of action-adventure movies these days, Toy Story 3 couldn't really afford to slow down for a moment. Perhaps the closest we came to a breather was the dawning realization on our heros that death was eminent, that there was nothing to do now but hold hands and face it together--but even this moment was colored by the fire pit before them, the long flight that had just deposited them here, a flight that Woody, only seconds before had finally given up on. This wasn't so much a reflective pause as the momentarily slower plunge to death and a chance to bait the audience before another daring escape.

Now, Toy Story 3 certainly does not suffer from this particular illness to the extent that other adventure films do. There isn't a clear need in this film to have a constant array for explosions and running and sex and explosions, with no rest for the weary. But there were hints. The film-makers capitulated a bit. No longer do we get Woody and Buzz, sitting through a long, painful night, awaiting Sid's violence in the morning, reflecting on their lives and characters, changing before our very eyes.

All of this, however, is finally but a slight blemish on the face of a excellent film.

The last moments are more heart-wrenching than anything in the beginning of Up, and without any sort of manipulation of the film's part. We are witness to one of the most unique of life's painful and natural transitions. Andy knows it and we know it with him. And Bonnie, our new child, is wonderful. Pixar has created a little girl as cute as any you will encounter in life... which is something between impressive and creepy. She's precious, though, and you leave the film hurt but so, so happy for this deserving little child.

All in all, Toy Story 3 is probably far and away the best thing in theaters right now. And it will probably win the Oscar for best animated film next year. It's fun, moving, and just good. But, for me at least, it wasn't Toy Story. The second film I've only seen a time or two, and it's pretty dimly felt. Enjoyable, but not something I know. Toy Story, however, I know, and this third installment is not quite as charming, not quite as touching, and not so fresh (unavoidably so) as its progenitor. That is not to say, however, that Toy Story 3 isn't a worthy entry into a wonderful franchise. I cannot say 'thank you' enough to Pixar for giving us another delightful film that upholds the good name of the Story. Whatever it was lacking, this final episode has a distinctive power, and it gives us, one more time, just a few more hours with some old friends, and of those I'll take all that I can get.

an ESPN columnist on homosexuality in the Bible for CNN... what?

2010-06-02T16:05:00.006-05:00

LZ Granderson, a columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com, has written an interesting little article for CNN Opinion: "Anti-gays hide their bias behind the Bible". My title, by the way, is meant to communicate my confusion at this whole picture, not to say anything about Granderson's credentials or opinion. I think this is actually a pretty good article: it's well written, honest, and behind both of those qualities stands a really clear passion. LZ himself is a gay Christian, and this is a question that's clearly and rightly important to him.

His argument isn't anything new. Like many, Granderson is discontent with the popular anti-gay arguments of (other) Christians that always seem to make the news and the sandwich boards. If Jesus set us free from the law, why are we so adamant about the prohibition of homosexual intercourse in Leviticus? Why don't we ever raise the banner against other sins mentioned in the law, "such as making love to your wife while she's menstruating." Why don't we lobby for legislation that would punish adultery with the death penalty? Wouldn't that be Biblical and consistent?

Some conservatives might attend church only twice a year, but ask their opinion about gays in the military. They can find Leviticus 18:22 blindfolded, handcuffed and sinking underwater: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is an abomination."

... like I said, this is a well written piece.

Granderson concludes by asserting unambiguously that he sees all of the 'conservative' protest as a thinly veiled attempt to use the Bible to buttress our own prejudices.

I think there is a lot of merit to Granderson's reading of scripture.

The Bible doesn't offer any distinction between 'ritual and moral laws' in Leviticus, as people like to imply. Why are people ignoring some and running with others?

The Bible also, as he suggests, doesn't give any justification for the all too common, supreme-demonizing of the GLBT crowd. Homosexual intercourse isn't elevated above other sins in scripture; instead it's frequently mentioned as one in a crowd: you find it right next to envy, thievery, etc. I don't see any sandwich boards about that special place in Hell for all the covetous.

If you want to argue with me on this point, go find me the scripture. This might involve reading the Bible, which you probably have not done before.

But what's wrong with Gradnerson's reading? Because there is something wrong.

I could offer several different points here, but let's highlight a simple one. These highly publicized debates all seem to center around Leviticus 18 and the sexual purity laws presented there, and everyone acts as if this is the only passage in the Bible that addresses the topic... when it's not.

In my opinion, the most important passage in relation to the question of homosexuality is not in the Old Testament at all: it's Romans 1. Despite popular construals, Romans 1 is not pronouncing some sort of extra measure of God's wrath upon gays and lesbians--this chapter isn't a prophetic word about AIDS or some such nonsense--nor is it, I think*, giving homosexual intercourse pride of place in the list of sins Paul mentions. But it is, nevertheless, absolutely condemning the practice, and Paul presents homosexual intercourse as a model indication of the fallenness of (all of) humanity away from the worship of the Creator.

The conversation around Leviticus isn't getting us anywhere, but it also simply isn't necessary. The Bible is, Old Testament and New, very consistent on this question, and it does come up multiple times.

The problem with offering a stance on the question of the Church's relation to gays and lesbians is that this has become a two-sided debate... and both sides are wrong. If I want to maintain any kind of interpretive integrity, I have to completely reject the 'progressive' view that would affirm homosexual partnered lifestyles as consistent with the faith of the Church. On the other hand, if I want to seek the kingdom of God with integrity, I cannot support the political maneuvering, the clear prejudices, the unquestioned hypocrisy, or the outright hatred of various parties on the other side.

People won't always recognize love beyond uncompromising condemnation of a lifestyle--and no, I don't mean to imply anything about 'lifestyle choices' by that--but that doesn't mean it's not there; this is just a difficult matter to address and to be addressed concerning. I do think LZ Granderson can be proud of his handling of it in his column. But I still have to dissent. I just pray that, as I do so, I still manage to look like Jesus.

Any post on this topic will be too short, and it won't give the kind of care, detail, and qualifications that I would in a longer discussion. There are so many more aspects of this that I could address here, and I do not line up with the typical conservative viewpoints on many of them--this just isn't the place to go into it all. I more than welcome whatever remarks you would make in the comments, though, and I'd be glad to continue the topic, if need be, there.

* I am here following Richard B. Hays's reading of Romans 1 in his The Moral Vision of the New Testament (pp 383-89--though the entire chapter is excellent). Hays concludes, in summary: "Paul singles out homosexual intercourse for special attention because he regards it as providing a particularly graphic image of the way in which human fallenness distorts God's created order... Homosexual acts are not, however, specially reprehensible sins; they are no worse than any of the other manifestations of human unrighteousness listed in the passage" (388).

but now you must rid yourselves...

2010-05-27T19:50:00.004-05:00

Lately I've been reading through N. T. Wright's commentary on Colossians--which has been chock-full of really brilliant insights--and I thought I'd share a bit.

Today I read his comments on Colossians 3:8. Here Paul is trying to show the Colossians what, practically, it means to take "off the old self with its practices and... put on the new self" (3:9-10), and so he exhorts the church: "Now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips." I think Wright's remarks on this verse, while simple, are powerful:

slander, speech which puts malice into practical effect... and filthy language, words which, either by their foul association or their abusive intent, contaminate both speaker and hearers. All such things are to be put away from your lips: one cannot always prevent angry or hateful thoughts from springing into one's head, but they should be dealt with firmly before they turn into words. It is not 'healthy', as is sometimes supposed, to allow such thoughts to find expression. It is certainly healthy to recognize and face up to one's own anger or frustration, and to search for proper and creative ways of dealing with it. But words do not merely convey information or let off steam. They change situations and relationships, often irrevocably. They can wound as well as heal. Like wild plants blown by the wind, hateful words can scatter their seeds far and wide, giving birth to more anger wherever they land.

the Church Fathers: confronting misconceptions

2010-05-20T08:23:00.014-05:00

The Church Fathers have come up several times in my recent posts on sola scriptura, and--though they've been popping up on this blog pretty consistently for over a year now--I feel like it's time to address some concerns that readers may have about them.

Before that, though, maybe a definition is in order. The Church Fathers are those men (yes, this group is basically entirely male) whose writings made up the bulk of Christian teaching and doctrine for the first several centuries of the Church's existence, from the early 100s and on. These are the ministers and theologians who represent the "Tradition" of the Church: their works have countered heresies, encouraged the Church in times of persecution, been subject to centuries of pious study, and guided God's people in interpreting the scripture throughout the history of the Church. Some of these were martyrs, some were monks, some bishops, others philosophers. Many were saints. Names like Augustine, Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Origen, and Jerome come to mind. These men have, to varying degrees, shaped the Church over the millennia, laying the foundation for the churches of today.

If you would like to know my take on the authority of the Fathers, I'll just point you to my earlier post, "why not sola scriptura?". That's not an issue I want to take up here. Instead, I want to offer some brief responses to what are common misgivings that many modern Protestants--like the Southern Baptists whom I grew up among--have about the Tradition and the Church Fathers. Most of what I have to say is adapted from the introduction to a nice little book by an Evangelical scholar, Bryan M. Litfin: Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction. Litfin addresses Evangelical distrust by going to the very issues that his students have struggled with over the years, and which he's had to confront.

So, let's jump right in.

The Fathers aren't "unbiblical." This idea, to me, suggests that someone hasn't read the Fathers. To be sure, 'many Protestants today associate the sayings of the church fathers with the nebulous concept of "tradition"... "the doctrines of men," as opposed to the divine revelation given in scripture,' and this is exactly where the Fathers go. But just because something is written by fallen human beings doesn't mean that it is therefore wholly wrong. These are Christian human beings, led by God the Holy Spirit... and they love the Bible. Scriptural quotations and themes echo throughout their writings. As Saint Athanasius put it so well, the scriptures are "the fountains of salvation, that they who thirst may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take [anything away] from these." These men do nothing other than apply themselves to scripture, in hopes of thereby proclaiming the truth of God in their own words.

The Fathers were not Roman Catholics. Before the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, there was no such thing as the "Roman Catholic Church." There was just the catholic Church (the word "catholic" just means "universal"), which included all Western Christians, and whose head was the Pope in Rome. Most of the Fathers were writing before the Pope really rose to power, and none of them would understand themselves to be anything other than catholic Christians. To try and dismiss the Fathers as Roman Catholics is just silly history.

The Church Fathers do not represent the "fall" of Christianity. And a great many Christians, especially evangelicals, if they had to plot the history of the Church on a graph, might offer something like this parabola:

The Church in Acts is on the left, then about 1400 years of dismal failure, then we see the effects of the Reformation on the right. This is probably a pretty natural assumption to make for Protestants--after all, the idea was that the Church had been corrupted through papal abuse and was in dire need of 'reforming'. But the Reformers did not include the Church Fathers in this estimation of Church history. The late-medieval Church of the 16th century was in need of reform; the Fathers, like Augustine or John Chrysostom, who lived and ministered after the Church arose to power in the Roman Empire in the 4th century, were revered and relied upon by Luther and Calvin. This is partly due to the above two points.

These three points were taken from Litfin, but they've also been confirmed for me through experience. I've found the Fathers to be an indispensable source of wisdom and guidance as I've seriously studied scripture and given thought to my faith over the last few years. I hope that others might give them a chance and find the same.

And of course, the best way to form an opinion about the Fathers is to just read them and see for yourself. To anyone thinking of dipping their toes into the writings of these brilliant and godly men, I highly recommend St. Athanasius's On the Incarnation, with an introduction by C. S. Lewis. This is a fantastic little volume, and really accessible... the Lewis introduction doesn't hurt my opinion of it, either.

If anyone would like to share your experience of getting to know the Church Fathers--good or ill--I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

confronting Professor Everyman

2010-05-13T15:53:00.004-05:00

From the BioLogos blog comes Would You Like Fries With That Theory? Karl Giberson, a "science-and-religion scholar" (whatever that means) has written this interesting and, I thought, entertaining post for BioLogos. Giberson apparently shares my healthy respect for experts. Any kind of experts.

Check it out--it's certainly worth the read.

why not sola scriptura?

2010-05-10T00:00:00.001-05:00

None of the Protestant Reformers ever used the phrase "sola scriptura"--which is Latin, by the way, and it usually means 'only the Bible is our authority'. None of the Reformers used this phrase, but it's an idea that's usually credited to them. I don't think that's fair, as you know if you saw my recent post on sola scriptura, but that's the popular perception. In the church environment I grew up in, this was the real legacy of the Reformation. We were sola scriptura people to the core.

And now I'm not.

So why not? Why don't I affirm this idea that 'only the Bible is our authority'?

Well, beyond the obvious point that scripture itself doesn't teach any such doctrine, I have several reasons, really, but I think that here I'm only going to go into two of them that have proven pretty central to me as I've given all of this thought over the last few years.

First, let's look at the Bible itself.

"What's the most important page in the Bible?"

My brother likes to ask it this way, and I think it's a pretty good approach. We'll scratch our heads over the question for a while. 'Well, John 3:16 is on page 760 in mine...' 'Oh, the Resurrection is on 712.' For some people, maybe it's page 1. That one gets a lot of press. Page 895 has the final "Amen", which is probably pretty important.

I find myself leaning another direction: I think the most important page in my Bible is page vii, the Table of Contents. After all, there are 66 different books in our Bibles--and how do we know which books? How do we know what is and what is not the canonical Word of God, affirmed by God's people for centuries? The simple fact is, there's nothing in the Bible that can answer that for us. Instead, to answer this all-important question, we have to look at the Table of Contents.

Why is this so important? Because if scripture is the only authority, then we finally don't know what we can even label as scripture.

Here's the natural question to ask next, which for many of us has never even crossed our minds before: well who the heck did decide what's in the Bible? Was it Jesus? Paul? Peter?

Well... no. It wasn't any of them.

In reality, for 300 years, the Table of Contents hadn't been written yet. The first list recording the 66-book canon that Protestants use today that has been preserved was written by St. Athanasius, around 367, more than 300 years after the Church was born.

There was certainly a kind of consensus in the Church before this over which books were to be treated as authoritative and which were not. Nevertheless, the formation of the canon--the clearly defined set of books that is the Bible--that we have today has a long backstory. Books like Revelation and James were in question for a few hundred years. Other gospels, like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas, tried to gain authority. Some early heretics even tried to throw out the whole Old Testament! The Table of Contents we have today wouldn't read the same if not for the efforts and influence of men like Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, or Athanasius.

Thus, every appeal to the authority of scripture is necessarily an appeal to the authority of the Church.

This suggestion will bother a lot of modern Protestants, especially those of the Baptist or Non-denom varieties. It shouldn't. The New Testament speaks very powerfully of the authority of the Church: 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the "church of the living God" "the pillar and foundation of the truth." There are actually no statements in the Bible that strong concerning the authority of scripture itself.

But I'm not simply appealing to the Church as my authority. The Church can only speak truth because of God the Holy Spirit. Here is my second reason: ultimately the Spirit must be the foundation of any claims to authority.

My trust in the Church's decisions regarding what is to be considered canonical scripture is a trust in the guidance of the Spirit. This is the Spirit of truth whom Christ promised to his disciples: "he will guide you into all truth" (John 16:13). This is a promise that I take seriously, and indeed we all must take it seriously if we are to trust in any Christian message. It is this Spirit who inspired the authors of the New Testament (as well as the Old--2 Peter 1:20-21). It is the same Spirit who guided the Church Fathers as they battled heresy and gradually affirmed the Table of Contents of our Bibles.

Now, I believe that scripture, as canonized by the Church, is the most perfect source of inspiration available to Christians in any and all times. But I also believe that the Spirit has spoken throughout history, and we ought to be vigilant for the voice of the Spirit. Returning to the Reformers for a minute, I think Calvin's understanding of the relation of scripture and the Holy Spirit is useful here: "the Spirit goes before the Church, to enlighten her in understanding the Word, while the Word itself... tests all doctrines." The scriptures cannot be read without the Spirit, nor can we make claims about the Spirit without reference to the scriptures.

In keeping with this, whereas the authority of the Church Councils and the Fathers had always been assumed up until Calvin's time, he grants to them a qualified authority: "although... Fathers and Councils are of authority only in so far as they accord with the rule of the Word, we still give to Councils and Fathers such rank and honor as it is [right] for them to hold under Christ."

I think this is the appropriate Christian stance towards the Church Tradition. To say that it has no authority at all is to confine the work of the Spirit to a couple of decades after the ascension of Christ and to ignore the realities of the formation of the Biblical canon. Yet the work of the Spirit in the Tradition must be in harmony with the inspiration of the scripture--so scripture can serve as a litmus test for the authority or inspiration of any teaching of the Fathers of the Church.

Now, frankly, I'm not really hoping to force the Tradition on all the good Christians I know who are living faithfully by earnestly and expectantly poring over the scriptures, applying themselves to the texts and applying the texts to themselves.

What bothers me is the disdain often poured on the Tradition in churches that I have come from. We aren't all going to read the Fathers, but we must all be ready to listen to them. The readiness to dismiss anything at all that is not the Bible as worthless, merely the thoughts of men, is to forget the the Holy Spirit was given to lead men into all truth, that the Church is indeed the pillar and foundation of the truth. When we refuse to listen to the wisdom and faith of the Church, we refuse to listen to the Spirit of God who has been at work through the Church. That is why I am not a sola scriptura person. That attitude forces us to ignore God-given counsel--given for the edification of the Body and for the establishment of right doctrine. It forces us to extinguish a light given for all of us as we read and hope to grasp and realize the truths of our faith that are found in the scriptures.

We are already trusting the Spirit and listening to the Church every time we acknowledge the canon of scripture in our Table of Contents. Why aren't we willing to do more?

Erasmus on gambling

2010-05-05T15:34:00.004-05:00

Growing up I was always told that the Bible forbade gambling. Now that I'm grown and I've read the Bible... I'm fairly certain that isn't actually true. The 'gambling verse' is just not in there.

Nevertheless, I don't support gambling, and I found a man who sees the issue in much the same way that I do. The following is a quotation from Erasmus of Rotterdam, a 16th century Christian writer. Erasmus actually remained Roman Catholic as the Protestant Reformation broke out, though he did sympathize greatly with many of the Reformers' concerns. He simply wasn't willing to sacrifice the unity of the Church. He's also pretty well know as a Christian humanist--he's sometimes called the "prince of the humanists", in fact--but keep in mind that this is a far cry from modern, secular humanism.

So, now that we're all close friends, here is Erasmus's rather strong stance on gambling:

Throwing dice cost you a thousand gold pieces in one night, and meanwhile some wretched girl, compelled by poverty, sold her modesty; and a soul is lost for which Christ gave his own. You say, what is that to me? I mind my own business, according to my lights. And yet you, holding such opinions, consider yourself a Christian, who are not even a man!

two posts on evolution

2010-05-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

Chaplain Mike, who has taken the reins of internetmonk.com, has recently posted twice on the topics of creationism and evolution:
To Be or Not To Be, or Why I'm Not a Young Earth Creationist
and
Update on the Creation Wars

The former is a much older piece by the late iMonk himself. Michael articulated well some of my own experiences with these questions:

If I came away with any suspicions that the young earth creationists might be wrong, it came from my developing an appreciation for Biblical interpretation, not from the Biology lab. Secular science didn’t turn my head. I learned that the people waving the Bible around weren’t necessarily treating it with the respect it deserved... many of my evangelical and fundamentalist brethren were not willing to let the scriptures be what they were or to let them speak their own language.

The latter piece is a bit less sensitive, but well said all the same. This piece was prompted by the recent happenings--that I was until now wholly unaware of--at Reformed Theological Seminary, where respected evangelical Old Testament professor Bruce Waltke was forced to resign after suggesting in an online video that the Church needs to take a new approach to the appraisal of scientific data concerning evolution.

I think these are both worth reading (though they're both relatively long) for those of you interested in or perhaps struggling with the issue. The top post by iMonk, especially, may be helpful to readers for whom this is still a very difficult topic.

If anyone by now is still unsure as to where I stand on these questions and is interested, I would point you to this post from about a year ago on wardrobe: Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin!

God actually is quite Great: Maria Skobtsova

2010-04-24T08:39:00.002-05:00

A year or two ago I tried to read Christopher Hitchens's bestseller God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. I wanted to read it, I really did. I like to hear people out. However after a while I threw in the towel. Hitchens's entire argument in the book is a classic logical fallacy: the ad hominem.
An ad hominem runs something like this: 'you have a big nose, therefore your argument is false'. Or, as the dictionary has it: "attacking an opponent's motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain." This is an appeal not to logic but to emotions, and this is precisely what Hitchens's book is--one big, yellow, bound, ad hominem argument, that actually has no logical weight (though it is quite popular). 'Religion has a big nose, therefore its argument is false'.
After he had viciously criticized the Dali Lama, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa, I had just had enough.

Now there are two major problems with this sort of attack on religion. The first, that I've already suggested, is that it's illogical.
The second, is that it's strength relies on a thoroughly one-sided account of things. Hitchens admits to admiring two Christians--Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He immediately proceeds to explain why they were 'really' Christians. After all, if they were, Hitchens's argument would implode.
While his effort, for example, to turn Bonhoeffer's faith into a "nebulous humanism" is ridiculous, it also must be pointed out that there have been thousands upon thousands of Christians over the millennia whom even Christopher Hitchens might give credit to, were they acknowledged and their stories told.

That's the point of this new series of posts on wardrobe. I want to tell the stories of some of these relatively unknown believers and--though I admit freely that this has no logical weight in the arguments for or against the existence of God, etc.--let their lights shine in the popularly perceived darkness of Christian history. These people, whatever an angry atheist might suggest to the contrary, hint in their lives that God might actually be quite Great.

-
Today I want to introduce an Orthodox missionary and nun named Maria Skobtsova.

Mother Maria began serving Russian refugees in Paris the in 1920s, opening a shelter and soup kitchen. Her efforts there inspired the idea of "Orthodox Action," that seeks to care for needy, displaced peoples.

Of course, Mother Maria's situation changed drastically with the Nazi take-over of Paris in 1940. As persecution of the Jews in Paris began, many Christians felt that this was not a Christian problem and none of their concern. Maria, in contrast contended that "there is no such thing as a Christian problem." During the Nazi occupation, she took part in providing Jews with falsied baptismal certificates so they might avoid registration. When thousands of Jews were arrested in 1942 and held prisoner in a sports stadium awaiting transport to Auschwitz, Maria spent days distributing food and clothing to them. She even managed to smuggle some Jewish children out of stadium by bribing trash-men to take them out in trash-cans and release them. Her hospitality shelter in Paris was overflowing with people, including many Jews, at this time.

In 1943, however, Maria, her son, and their Orthodox companions were arrested by the Nazis as well; all of them were sent to concentration camps, with Maria going to Ravensbrück. Survivors of the camp have spoken of the care that Mother Maria showed for her fellow prisoners and the impression she left on all those she interacted with. On Good Friday 1945 Maria Skobtsova died in the gas chamber after taking the place of a Jewish prisoner who was about to be executed.

5 poor models of sola scriptura

2010-04-17T10:19:00.001-05:00

5. C. S. Lewis (1898-1963). C. S. Lewis might seem harmless on the shelves of your local LifeWay, but you need to stay far away from this fellow. Not only is he willing to call parts of the Bible "truth, not fact," but he claims that we should listen to other voices of the world besides the Word of God. "If every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights then all true and edifying writings, whether in Scripture or not, must be in some sense inspired." You can keep your liberal reasoning, Lewis, and you can keep your unChristian propaganda, LifeWay. Those of us fighting for pure, Reformation Christianity are better off pretending that Lewis didn't exist.

4. John Calvin (1509-1564). Considering Calvin's popularity in all the right circles, one might expect him to be a fine model of the central Christian doctrine of sola scriptura. Better think again. Slippery John Calvin parades himself as a Reformer, but he obviously didn't understand Protestant Christianity. In his famous Institutes, Calvin goes so far as to appeal to the 'wisdom' of pagan philosophers, like Plato (Institutes III. XX. 34). The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, Mr. Calvin. Elsewhere, he openly professes his confused, Roman Catholic conviction: "we give to Councils and Fathers such rank and honor as it is meet for them to hold, under Christ." John Calvin clearly never learned that true Christians aren't going to give any heed to the thoughts and decisions of men.

3. Martin Luther (1483-1546). Martin Luther is supposed to have inaugurated the Protestant Reformation. He's usually even credited with the whole idea of sola scriptura (though of course we know it's much older than Luther, going all the way back to Jesus), but don't be fooled. Luther is hardly an example for the faithful Christian. For instance, in his 'famous treatise' On the Bondage of the Will, Luther appeals to "saints" like Augustine of Hippo and Hilary of Poitiers, and throughout he quotes pagan writers like Virgil, Horace, Cato, and Ovid. More like famous lies.

2. Jude (d. c. AD 65 ). Jude is thoroughly, thoroughly confused. He doesn't even know what's in the Bible. In Jude 9 he starts rambling about Michael and Moses's body. Think that's from the Old Testament? Wrong. It's from an ancient work called The Assumption of Moses. In verses 14-15 he goes at it again. Here he starts quoting Enoch... as if Enoch had any speaking lines in the Bible. No, this isn't from the Old Testament either, but from another ancient text called 1 Enoch. Yet our friend Jude treats this stuff as if it were actually authoritative. I knew there was a good reason that no one pays attention to his epistle.

1. the Apostle Paul (c. AD 2-67). Now you're thinking 'surely Paul, who wrote so much of the New Testament has a handle on proper Christian doctrine!' Not so. In 2 Timothy 3:8, he refers to "Jannes and Jambres," out of an ancient Jewish paraphrase of Exodus 7. Excuse me, Paul, but that's not in the Bible. It gets worse. In 1 Corinthians 15:33, he quotes "bad company corrupts good morals." Paul's quoting an ancient Greek playwright, Menander, here. You want to know something that corrupts good morals, Paul? Listening to words other than the word of God.

No matter what kinds of examples these sorts of men set, Christians, we must stick to true, Biblical teaching. Sola scriptura.

Wright on C. S. Lewis

2010-04-11T09:34:00.002-05:00

N. T. Wright has recently written a short piece for the C. S. Lewis Blog on 'virtue' and following in the footsteps of Lewis. It's all, I have to point out, tied to the Bishop's latest book, After You Believe.
This is, as I say, a short piece. If you'd like to read something more substantial by Wright on Lewis, he gave a talk about four years ago while promoting Simply Christian that's still available online: "Simply Lewis." Here you get a little more insight into the influence Lewis had on N. T. Wright, as well as some of Wright's criticisms of Lewis.

If your literary tastes are anything like mine, then you will enjoy these two pieces, so check them out.

Michael Spencer, 1956-2010

2010-04-09T08:59:00.003-05:00

The Internet Monk, Michael Spencer, passed away earlier this week. He had been battling cancer since December. Please be in prayer for his family in their time of mourning.

The Feast of the Annunciation

2010-03-25T18:26:00.004-05:00

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. In layman's terms, today we celebrate the angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary in Luke 1. "Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus..." (Luke 1:31).

Why today? Isn't this Lent--isn't Good Friday just next week? It does seem like an odd time for this suspiciously Christmasy celebration, but there is good reason: pregnancies take nine months. You can do the math.

In celebration of the Feast of the Annunciation, I'm again posting a poem by the great English poet John Donne (1572-1631), "Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day. 1608." Because Good Friday moves around from year to year, it happens on occasion that it will fall upon March 25th--this happened in 2005, and it's coming up again in 2016. Donne wrote this poem, as the title makes clear enough, on such an occasion. I think this piece is beautiful, and I've personally found it to be a great way to consider the weight and majesty of the Annunciation while nevertheless keeping an eye to Holy Week, fast approaching.

Upon the Annunciation and Passion Falling upon One Day. 1608

Tamely, frail body, abstain today; today
My soul eats twice, Christ hither and away.
She sees Him man, so like God made in this,
That of them both a circle emblem is,
Whose first and last concur; this doubtful day
Of feast or fast, Christ came and went away;
She sees Him nothing twice at once, who's all;
She sees a Cedar plant itself and fall
Her Maker put to making, and the head
Of life at once not yet alive yet dead;
She sees at once the virgin mother stay
Reclused at home, public at Golgotha;
Sad and rejoiced she's seen at once, and seen
At almost fifty and at scarce fifteen;
At once a Son is promised her, and gone;
Gabriel gives Christ to her, He her to John;
Not fully a mother, she's in orbity,
At once receiver and the legacy;
All this, and all between, this day hath shown,
The abridgment of Christ's story, which makes one
(As in plain maps, the furthest west is east)
Of the Angels' Ave and Consummatum est.
How well the Church, God's court of faculties,
Deals in some times and seldom joining these!
As by the self-fixed Pole we never do
Direct our course, but the next star thereto,
Which shows where the other is and which we say
(Because it strays not far) doth never stray,
So God by His Church, nearest to Him, we know
And stand firm, if we by her motion go;
His Spirit, as His fiery pillar doth
Lead, and His Church, as cloud, to one end both.
This Church, by letting these days join, hath shown
Death and conception in mankind is one:
Or 'twas in Him the same humility
That He would be a man and leave to be:
Or as creation He had made, as God,
With the last judgment but one period,
His imitating Spouse would join in one
Manhood's extremes: He shall come, He is gone:
Or as though one blood drop, which thence did fall,
Accepted, would have served, He yet shed all;
So though the least of His pains, deeds, or words,
Would busy a life, she all this day affords;
This treasure then, in gross, my soul uplay,
And in my life retail it every day.

speaking true identities

2010-03-20T12:46:00.017-05:00

Yesterday I sat through a fantastic lecture in my Old Testament course, where the professor lamented the Church's loss of a serious familiarity with the Psalms in the last century. At the heart of this lament was a respect for the power of a community's shared language.

What do I mean?

Nate: ... and that just didn't work at all. Oh well--now we know.
Joe: And knowing is half the battle.
both: [raising fists in the air] G.I.JOOOOE!

Sub-culture. Right there.
A culture or a sub-culture is bound together by shared experiences--experiences that were here articulated through and recognized by a shared language. These guys are both 80s kids, and now they know it. I could have used a hundred different examples, with talk of red-shirts, or "Who Dat?", or dropping Hennys--the point remains the same. Shared language can forge community.

The Church, too, is bound together by shared language. We have particular language of God, creation, sin, grace, membership, that expresses the particular beliefs and experiences of the Church. Of course the Church is also bound together in a more fundamental way than this--in Christ through the Holy Spirit. "Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12:27): in Christ we are made into something new and communal that we simply were not before. But socially, as the people who have different visions for the Church's budget, who have to work with each other's kids in the nursery, who have to make long car rides together, and who pray together, we need to be bound by language. Language of faith, hope and love; language of judge not, bear one another's burdens, and pure and undefiled religion.

How is this supposed to happen? Where do we get this language, and why is it common to us all?

It's the language of scripture.
This may sound simplistic, but the Church needs to know the language of scripture--we need to be reading and teaching the Bible. As we are immersed in the words of scripture, not only can we familiarize ourselves with them and be formed by them, but our communities have a foundation. We are the people called out of darkness into His marvelous light; we are the taking-up-cross people; we are the Body of Christ. This is our identity as the people of God, and we learn it and can articulate it from scripture. It is only as we do this that the distinctive culture that is the Church can be properly defined.

Of course, there's also the language of Tradition--the words that the Church has found, over two-thousand years, to best illuminate the scripture, speak where scripture does not, or describe new realities that we are forced to acknowledge. This is the language of Incarnation, Trinity, Fall, Eucharist, and so on. After we've learned the language of scripture--or, rather, as we continue to learn it, for this process won't ever be really concluded--we must begin to learn the language of the Tradition. Only then can we really appreciate the self-understanding of the Church that we've inherited from previous generations, and only then can we converse with the centuries of brothers and sisters who have gone before us, to learn from their insights and inspiration. This also is the language of the properly defined Church.

Why is this so important? Why am I writing about it now?
Though it may not seem so, this message is pressing. It's pressing because the members of the Church are also people in the world, and they are learning the language of the world. The language of The Bachelor or YouTube or SportsCenter. In this context, a subculture has to be purposeful about maintaining its particular identity.
The subculture that is the Church is going to be defined by something. If we are indeed not to be 'of the world' (John 15:19), then we do need to distinguish ourselves from it somehow, don't we?
We can start here. The language of the Church must be the language of the scripture. Therein will we find the perfect articulation of our identities--as a community and as individuals--and learn to articulate it for ourselves. Therein will we find an expression of the beliefs and experiences that bind us together as a particular people in the middle of the melting pot of the world.

fun with Martin Luther

2010-03-08T10:35:00.002-06:00

Occasionally the great Reformer will say something really entertaining, at least to me.
This is from Luther's commentary on the book of Genesis:

We all realize how much of the dominion which man received in Paradise was lost after our defilement by sin. And yet what a great blessing it still is that this dominion was turned over to man and not to the devil! For how could we withstand our invisible enemy if he had not only the determination to inflict harm but also the power to do so? In one hour, in one moment, we would all be annihilated if Satan stirred up merely the wild beasts against us.

A man of great insight.

I hope to have some proper posts up soon, but I'm making no guarantees there. This has been an insanely busy semester--Luther & friends have been taking up much of my time and energy. We'll see how the coming weeks treat me, though.

while you're praying for Haiti, say a prayer for Richard Dawkins

2010-01-29T22:09:00.005-06:00

Richard Dawkins simply doesn't understand Christianity.

This is sad for a number of reasons.

He is, after all, a man in need of Jesus--just like the rest of us. He's also--sadly, unlike many of us who know better--viewed as something of an authority on religion. Millions of people around the globe place great stock in his words and judgments.

All the while, he simply doesn't understand Christianity.

Earlier today Dr. Dawkins published a column for the Times Online on 'Christian hypocrisy.'

Certainly such a thing exists, and one does not need any kind of pedigree in Christian doctrine to identify it in many of its forms. Yet, I'm afraid what Dawkins has written reveals more about himself than it does about Christian teaching.

Ignoring his remarks about the doctrine of the Atonement (which, I have to point out, betray pretty clearly his ignorance of Christian teaching), let's take a look at some of his closing remarks. All of this is in the context of a reflection on the recent remarks of Pat Robertson concerning the carnage in Haiti, as well as the Christian reaction against Robertson.

You nice, middle-of-the-road theologians and clergymen, be-frocked and bleating in your pulpits, you disclaim Pat Robertson's suggestion that the Haitians are paying for a pact with the Devil. But you worship a god-man who — as you tell your congregations, even if you don’t believe it yourself — “cast out devils”. You even believe (or you don’t disabuse your flock when they believe) that Jesus cured a madman by causing the “devils” in him to fly into a herd of pigs and stampede them over a cliff. Charming story, well calculated to uplift and inspire the Sunday School and the Infant Bible Class.

Robertson may spout evil nonsense, but he is a mere amateur at that game. Just read your own New Testament. Pat Robertson is true to it. But you?

Dawkins, at the end, suggests that the New Testament is as sadistic (I don't think that's too strong a word) as Robertson himself seems to be; it is the compassionate Christian who has missed the most thoroughly Christian reading of both the ancient text and the contemporary disaster.

Dr. Dawkins, let us see if the New Testament itself might guide us towards the proper, Christian view of such horrors as the earthquake in Haiti.

In fact, let's look at the New Testament's final word on such things.

Revelation 21:1-4

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

I've read my New Testament. I'm not sure what grand theological point you draw from demons driving a herd of swine off of a cliff... but on the issues of pain, suffering, and death, the New Testament is quite straightforward. "Death is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor. 15:54).

If--and I believe this is the case--Richard Dawkins can really listen to Pat Robertson and then say 'ah, the true Christian voice', he really doesn't understand the first thing about Christianity.

And this man is viewed as something of an authority.

I mean this in all sincerity: pray for Richard Dawkins. Pray that he would come to understand the topics on which he speaks. More than that, pray that he might see something of the God who looks at the world and then says "Behold, I am making all things new."

The Feast of St. John Chrysostom

2010-01-27T19:09:00.006-06:00

Today is the feast day of Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) on the Church calendar. My brother Daniel has a short post on his blog Gloria Deo commemorating this wonderful man, one of the saints and Fathers who has meant the most to me personally.

Check it out, and take time to remember John.

Rachel Held Evans on the disaster in Haiti

2010-01-14T07:21:00.005-06:00

Rachel Held Evans is asking what Christians should have been doing for Haiti.

Last month, last year, whenever. (If you are not sure what's going on in Haiti, here is CNN's latest report on the recent earthquake.)

Perhaps some will plead ignorance in the face of her questions--you may not have known much about the Haitian 'standard of living' (if that term is not too grand) or even been aware of the little island nation. I for one can make no such plea; World Vision has made sure that I'm familiar with such places and such needs.

Check out Rachel's post, and take her questions seriously. Haiti is not the only scene of such poverty, and Haiti, along with the others, is not going anywhere. These issues will be important for Christians long after this earthquake is forgotten.

Also, here's an old post of mine dealing with the Christian response to poverty.

Wright on After You Believe

2010-01-09T09:06:00.001-06:00

Trevin Wax has recently interviewed

N. T. Wright concerning the bishop's forth-coming book, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters.

We modern westerners – and even more postmodern westerners – are trained by the media and public discourse to think that “letting it all out” and “doing what comes naturally” are the criteria for how to behave. There is a sense in which they are – but only when the character has been trained so that “what comes naturally” is the result of that habit-forming training.

The book’s main target is not the other major moral theories of deontology and consequentialism, but the ideas of “spontaneity” and “authenticity” which have a grain of truth (Christians really should act “from the heart”), but which screen out the reality of moral formation, of chosen and worked-at habit-forming prayer and moral reflection and action, which gradually over time form the Christian character in which “authentic” behavior is also truly Christian behavior, not simply “me living out my prejudices and random desires”.

Check out the entire interview at Kingdom People.

The title of the UK version of the book is Virtue Reborn, which may give you further indication of the direction Wright's moving in here. If that weren't enough, the book has been recommended by Stanley Hauerwas: "Bishop Wright, with his usual wisdom and erudition, shows how an account of the virtues is not only compatible but required by the New Testament understanding of what it means to be a Christian. This important book hopefully will be read by theologian and non-theologian alike."

This may prove a nice introduction to the contemporary Christian discussion of the virtues that you find in MacIntyre and Hauerwas, but I suppose those of us who don't receive advance copies of these things will just have to find out in March.

hermeneutical woes: problems with a hard 'faith alone' reading

2010-01-05T08:27:00.005-06:00

"Hermeneutics" is a big word. Or, at least, it's a funny looking word, which is just as threatening. "Hermeneutics" is also an important and prominent word in biblical studies, and it really has a simple meaning: hermeneutics deals with the way one interprets scripture.

Sunday I listened to a sermon by a pastor who is laboring under some hermeneutical woes. This burden, that probably weighs on his every sermon, this pastor would call 'the new covenant', but I think there's a little confusion here.

The sermon came from Colossians 1--they're doing a verse by verse study of the letter--particularly verses 19-23.

19 For in him [Jesus] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

I had few real complaints with the sermon, in fact it was quite good, until the last point. This point, as you might guess, dealt with the last verse, 23. The pastor had already given his hand away--he did not like verse 23. It was clear from the way he read the passage: he read slowly and with much emphasis the words of :19-22, and then paused a while to glory in the message of the text. Finally he continued, rushing through 23 without any of the previous care.

Why the disdain for Colossians 1:23?

Because, as he said, this verse suddenly makes it sound like 'it's all on us again', and this, apparently, will not do. In this pastor's mind, if it's 'all on us', then it's not all of Jesus, and it's not the gospel. He has a problem with the word 'work'. He feels that the New Testament has a problem with the word 'work'.

He's laboring under a hermeneutical woe.

What does this look like? When people try to read a strong doctrine of justification by grace through faith into every verse of the New Testament, as this man was doing, the woe often has a few consistent characteristics.

Inserting 'earn' language. I've taught studies on James 2 many times now, and I'm often met with opposition from the students when I affirm James 2:24--"You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." James is quite clear on this point, an yet students are quite resistant on this point, and they will ask me 'do you mean that we have to do works to earn our salvation?' This question comes up every time. And of course the answer is no. I don't teach anything about 'earning' salvation. James doesn't write anything about 'earning' salvation. Yet this is how many receive the teaching. This is a misunderstanding of the message. We will always be trapped by interpretive pitfalls if we cannot let the text speak for itself. If you make assumptions about a teaching, you won't be able to understand it or proclaim it for what it actually is. Paul says nothing in Colossians 1:23 about earning salvation, but so long as you force that idea onto his message, you force yourself to ignore entirely what he is actually teaching about the Christian life.

The interpretive contortionist. When one has decided to reject all talk of the necessity of works in the Christian life, they immediately find themselves face to face with quite an obstacle: the New Testament. Verses and passages like 1 Corinthians 9:27, James 2:14-26, 1 Peter 1:17, Revelation 20:12-13, and, apparently, Colossians 1:23 (among others) suddenly become very threatening. The only way to meet this threat is to do a bit a 'creative' interpreting, twisting the scripture into all sorts of shapes that it ought not to be in. "A person is justified by works" actually means 'if you are really saved then you are going to do some kind of work'. Whatever "disqualified" really means, it obviously does not mean what it seems to be communicating in 1 Cor. 9. Colossians 1:23, of course, doesn't actually mean to place any responsibility in our hands. Paul certainly would never suggest we must actually do something as followers of Christ. Such conclusions manage to contort the scripture into some really curious shapes and fit it into very odd, little boxes. Of course there is a prominent alternative to this feat: the disappearing act. Many teachers will rarely if ever address the passages that complicate their teaching. Problem solved.

The dichotomy. All of this is necessary because of the great marker of this particular woe: the faith-works dichotomy. This is the subjection of scripture to, what the pastor I listened to Sunday would call, 'manly wisdom'. Readers assume that faith and works present us with an either/or, and we must choose which option to embrace, which to reject. Unfortunately, this flies in the face of scripture. They will quote Romans 3:28, even though Paul is not talking about works in general but "works of the law", which makes obvious reference to particular works understood within a particular system of Hebrew thought. They will quote James 2:24, even though James is not talking about faith in general but "faith alone", a 'dead faith'. The closest scripture ever comes to supporting this dichotomy is Ephesians 2:8-9 ("For by grace you have been saved..."), but even this passage is suggesting something other than the works described by James as 'justifying'. The fundamental problem of the dichotomy is that interpreters here try to say more than scripture says. When scripture makes an affirmation, the interpreter tries to go even further and infer a negation as well, even though it is not stated in the text. Of course you'll have difficulty 'reconciling' Paul to James when in fact you're misstating both sides' arguments.

I hope that these observations may prove edifying to someone. This is not only a danger when reading passages about justification--all of us reading and teaching scripture must constantly be on guard against bringing artificial suppositions to a passage. More than anything else we have to be able to see what is there.

Also, as I've written recently, we have to be able to accept apparent frictions. When we begin subjecting the text to our own 'reasoning' in hopes of ironing out some of the more unnerving wrinkles in the Bible's message, what we usually accomplish is simply destroying the delicate and necessary balances that scripture tries to maintain between different currents. Most of the great heresies in Church history arose from the emphasis of one such Biblical current to the exclusion of the other. We need the balance. We simply have to take the Bible for what it is.

In the last point of his sermon Sunday, this pastor pointed out that 'a lot of people get mad at me when I tell them that what they do doesn't matter.' He thought this was some kind win for the good guys. They get mad, he feels, because they'd like to think that they can earn their salvation.

Well, I was mad. Not because I want to teach the falsehood that one can do works that merit salvation. I was mad because the New Testament teaches that what we do matters immensely. And his congregation is never going to learn that truth in church, because his teaching is entombed in interpretive confusion.

A member of the congregation later told me that she felt the pastor never taught on obedience.

It seems that Christ's commission to 'teach them to observe all that I have commanded you' has been suffocated by hermeneutical woes.

sex, membership, individual

2009-12-01T10:44:00.004-06:00

Being a Christian is not an alternative way--ethical, spiritual, religious, whatever--of being an individual. If you aren't going to read any further, I wanted you to read that.

Now, before I go on, let's talk about sex.

I've just begun reading real sex: the naked truth about chastity, by one of my professors, Lauren F. Winner. Dr. Winner wrote this book because the messages churches are offering about sex trouble her--they're "not that compelling"; "they seem theologically vacuous." That's not to say the message of the Church about sex is not compelling or is theologically lacking. Rather, the messages spoken today have been essentially reduced to finger wagging ("No you may not.") or catchy aphorisms... 'True Love Waits', anyone?

Statistics seem to indicate that she's right, and people really are not moved by the churches' teachings. If anything, "people are abstaining from sex not principally because they find the Christian story compelling, but because they find a popular tale about romance compelling--wait till you've really fallen in love." To me this is both sad and unsurprising.

It's sad, not just because I want to dog the world's message about 'true love'--though, that can be a deceptive and dangerous idea when not reflected on critically--but because the Christian message really is beautiful and captivating. All of this is, however, another topic for another post or (more likely) another author.

What I want to talk about is the meaning of 'membership' in the Body of Christ.

In her chapter 'Communal Sex: Or, Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night', Winner tries to argue that sex is 'communal, not private; personal, not public.' If that sounds odd to you, you're not alone. You can understand her best when you see what ideas she's trying to argue against:

"Sex is communal, not private" means that one's sex life is not just one's 'private concern'.
"Sex is personal, not public" means that the way sex is publicized in our society is inappropriate.

Dr. Winner asserts that sex involves you in communities: the community of husband and wife, the community of your household. Sexual behavior forms people, and formative powers--like entertainment or education--are the concern of the whole society (hence our concerns for educational standards and regulations on entertainment, like film ratings). Yet, there are right and wrong ways to bring up the 'communal' topic of sex. Half-naked women on billboards and couples making out in the park are not the right way to go about the communal discourse on sex.

Some of her arguments are more convincing than others. The one that is thoroughly convincing to me is what she has to say about sex for Christians--the relationship between sex and the Church.

As good Americans, we tend to think quite a bit about individual liberty. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", right?

Many people think that's the issue behind the abortion debates--'it's my body!' Christians take heat over condemning homosexual intercourse because 'they have a right to do whatever they want.' This is also one of the reasons accountability can be so awkward: 'I can't believe he tried to tell me to do that.'

But, Winner counters, "in the Christian universe, the individual is not the vital unit of ethical meaning." Christian ethics make reference not to the individual but to the Body, the community: "the People of God is a collective --not merely an aggregate of individual persons, each doing his or her own thing, but a body."

This is thoroughly convincing to me simply because it is thoroughly Biblical.

Recall Paul's famous discussion of the Body in 1 Corinthians 12:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit... Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. (12:12-13, 27)

If you're not familiar with that passage, go read it all. It's a really striking picture of the Church, and this Body image is one of Paul's favorites for describing us.

We get so used to talking about 'members of a club', 'band members', or whatever else, that we forget the weight of 'membership' in the Church.

Our word "member" comes from the Latin word membrum--it means "limb." Our word 'dismembered' still carries the right tones: somebody is being chopped up.

To be a member of the Church is to be a limb, a body part, of the Body of Christ. That's Paul's whole point here. Though we see each other as individuals--I'm Nance, there's Daniel, there's Lauren--if we are Christians, we are not primarily individuals anymore. Our identity is fundamentally rooted in our being a member, a limb on the Body of Christ, the Church. "God has so composed the body... that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together" (1 Cor. 12:24-26). We are called to live like that because that reflects what we are. Of course we're going to suffer together with others--we're members of the same Body! Of course we're going to rejoice together--a member of our Body has been honored.

Of course sex is communal.

That's why Paul can say, in 1 Cor. 6:15, when calling believers to flee from sexual immorality: "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!"

When a Christian commits sexual sin, they are involving the Body of Christ in sexual sin. He defiles his brothers and sisters; he defaces Jesus' Body. Paul doesn't call out believers for sexual sin just because he's a prude. Paul calls them out--and encourages others to do likewise--because he understands how the Body works. In sinning, the Christian involves the Body of Christ, the community, in sin. So... it's everyone's business.

This all goes against our sensibilities. Western culture rests firmly on individualistic philosophy. When you are baptized into the Body of Christ, you have to turn in the 'me' card. "Consider others more important than yourself"? "Bear one another's burdens"? Well... yes. Why? Because you are not your own (1 Cor. 6:19). It's disturbing, but simple.
Who knew what you were signing up for when you decided you wanted to be a member of a church?

No doubt, in many ways, Jesus calls to us as individuals. As Charles Williams once put it, "it is not merely a personal salvation, though naturally this great and universal thing can only be known through personal salvation".

We are called as individuals, but we are then transformed into members; we are incorporated into the Body.

And that last word--incorporation (related to the Latin word corpus, body!) is the last word. We read in the gospels that we are called to deny ourselves, and we get a sense of what Jesus means by it. In the Church we have the reality that Jesus was anticipating. The Church in Acts didn't share all of their possessions amongst each other because Socialism is the way to go. They did it because that is the nature of the Body. They did that because that is the reality of being a member of the Body.

This not only speaks to our financial ethics, but also, as we began with, our sexual ethics. The Church's teachings on sex aren't primarily supposed to be negative. 'Don't do this; don't cross that line; this is not allowed.' Instead, the Church's message about sex is meant to be a positive one: we are the Body of Christ and this is what the Body of Christ looks like. It's the place where sex is the wonderful thing that happens in marriage. It's the place where we sell our possessions to care for the needs of all. It's the place where we suffer and rejoice together, bear one another's burdens, consider others more important than ourselves.

This is the New Testament's beautiful affirmation. This is the reality of Christ's Church. It's also the story about our identities that we have to keep telling each other until we get it, we remember it, and we strive to live into it.

on reading scripture

2009-11-21T12:37:00.017-06:00

I've learned so much in the last year or two about reading scripture--about how the Church has done it for two thousand years, about how we do it today. I could say so many things about this, but there's one aspect of it all that has been on my mind a lot lately. I have concluded that one of the most important tasks for the Church when approaching the Bible is to be stubbornly realistic about what this book is and what it's saying.

Scot McKnight's book Blue Parakeet has been

a great conversation partner as I've been thinking about these issues. McKnight wants you to 'rethink how you read the Bible', and he excels at pointing out the cracks in popular methods of reading and interpreting scripture.

As I was reading this afternoon, he began to highlight some of the dangerous 'shortcuts' that he feels are often taken with the Bible. The shortcut that really caught my attention he calls "puzzling together the pieces to map God's mind". People taking this shortcut view the scripture as a puzzle: we're given all the pieces, and we have to put it together to match the picture on the puzzle box. The problem is "we don't really know what the picture looks like. We have to imagine what the original picture was" (p. 50). Basically, we decide before we come to the text what the message of the Bible is, and we force the scripture, as we read it, to fit that message.

One of the greatest pitfalls of this method--though there are many--is that "this approach nearly always ignores the parts of the puzzle that don't fit" (51).

Let's say that again: this method ignores the pieces that don't fit your idea of 'the Bible'.

In the 5th Century, Saint Augustine was involved in a debate with a monk named Pelagius. If you had to generalize, you could say that Augustine was arguing for a very strict idea of 'salvation by grace alone through faith alone', while Pelagius thought some sort of meaningful effort on our part was necessary.

C. S. Lewis commented on this controversy in his Letters to Malcolm, and I think his observation is profound:

You will notice that Scripture just sails over the problem. "Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling"--pure Pelagianism. But why? "For it is God who worketh in you"--pure Augustinianism.

Certainly Augustine and Pelagius had serious, doctrinal disagreements. But, on one level you could also say that both of them are simply appealing to different pieces of the puzzle--and ignoring different pieces.

Lewis concluded that "it is presumably only our presuppositions that make this appear nonsensical." There are a lot of frictions in scripture--this argument just highlights a popular one--and our tendency when faced with these frictions is to try and iron them out. We can't leave these apparently 'nonsensical' creases in the Bible! Scripture, however, doesn't iron these things out--it 'just sails over the problem'. For some reason, we do it anyways, and we have to decide for ourselves which verses and chapters (and whole books?) 'can't possibly mean' what they seem to say.

The 5-point Calvinist has to find away around the fact that "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world" (1 John 2:2). The Baptist looking to support their view of baptism has to creatively reinterpret 1 Peter, where 'baptism now saves you' (see 3:18-22). I have to find something to do with Romans 9.

We simply can't read the Bible through our prefabricated theological frameworks and read it faithfully. We have to be stubbornly realistic about what the Bible is and what it's saying.

Some Protestants tend to think that they're above this. By jettisoning the Tradition, we have somehow freed the text from any external influences. That's laughable. The only time the words "faith alone" appear in scripture, they are explicitly rejected--James 2:24. What do we do with that? What's the use in claiming 'sola scriptura' if you won't let the scripture speak for itself?

No, this is a dangerous shortcut that no one's above taking.

However uncomfortable this may be at times, we have to allow the Bible to be what it is.

As McKnight, again, points out:

After all, had he wanted to, God could have revealed a systematic theology chapter by chapter. But God didn't choose this way of revealing his truth. Maybe--this "maybe" is a little facetious--that way of telling the truth can't tell it the way God wants his truth told.

Most of the Bible is narrative--it's a story. To our minds, a story is not the most efficient way to outline a theological system. Maybe that's true; in that case, God obviously wasn't trying to outline a theological system, and maybe we shouldn't worry so much about it either.

Of course there are things that are true and things that are false; I'm not saying we can't pull that from scripture. I'm saying that it seems most of our efforts to systematize what we believe, to describe God without simply telling what God has done are problematic. The Bible is simply not systematic enough to allow for that.

We've been given a story about God, and we've been invited to participate in God's story through Christ. Instead of contorting this story into the shape of some kind of abstract philosophy, we ought to rejoice in it for what it is, and we ought to tell it.

Baptists and the Creeds

2009-11-11T22:24:00.000-06:00

A hymn I grew up singing said that “My faith has found a resting place, not in device or creed.” A frequent accusation made against Baptist conservatives during the conservative resurgence was that they were “imposing creedalism” on the Southern Baptist Convention.

A rule of thumb for denominational conflict: before making an accusation, make sure that the matter under discussion is actually a bad thing.

iMonk posted on Baptist churches and the Creeds about a month back. Go check it out it you have not; it's a great post.

One of my great hopes for a life in ministry is to see the re-appropriation of the creeds in the life of a Baptist church. Most people in the congregations simply aren't going to have an awareness of the formative history of Christianity and the key (and unthreatening) roles that these creeds played then and have held, universally, since then. I want them to know.

Check out the post!

another post on Evolution

2009-11-07T13:19:00.008-06:00

It's not me this time.

I recently discovered the blog of Rachel Held Evans (not to be confused with my wonderful younger sister Rachel Joy Evans), an author and speaker from the 'buckle of the Bible Belt', Dayton, Tennessee. I've really enjoyed Rachel's posts so far, and I'm looking forward to keeping up with the blog.

I thought I'd pass along a post she's recently written on Evolution, that favorite topic of mine that doesn't ever seem to leave the wardrobe front page for too long. Eight Reasons to Give Evolution a Second Chance. If you aren't tired of the topic, check it out. The picture accompanying her post is worth the visit by itself.

I, of course, don't get tired of the topic (for whatever reason). In fact, if anyone's feeling generous today, feel free to hop on Amazon and order me a copy of Richard Dawkins's latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. If you're looking for a sort of popular introduction to the topic yourself, you might want to take a look as well. It's a very nice, user-friendly book, from what I've seen so far.

But, again, I'm not really here to publicize Dawkins. Go check out Rachel Held Evans's blog.

Also, I'd like to leave everyone with Numbers 23:19. This comes from the middle of the story of Balaam, the unlikely oracle of God, that takes up Numbers 22-24. If you're a little fuzzy on the details of this account, go read it. If you like tales of war, comedy, and talking donkeys, this is the one for you. It's wonderful.

Numbers 23:19:

God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

What does this verse mean to you? What does it say about Evolution, if anything? What does it say about scripture, if anything? How would a compelling demonstration of a long, evolutionary development of life on Earth affect the way you understand this verse? Should it?

for students

2009-10-24T15:54:00.005-05:00

A recent conversation made me look back at one of the novels of Charles Williams. The Place of the Lion is one of his earlier works, and it's actually the novel that introduced C. S. Lewis to Williams and sparked the strong friendship the two would share. It is, not surprisingly, a very strange tale, and I'll spare you most of it. But, the scene that I was revisiting this week came alive to me with the second reading in a way that it could never have before.

One of the main characters in the novel is a girl named Damaris, a young scholar who is primarily studying the works of Peter Abelard, a Christian philosopher from the 12th Century. Damaris is driven and ambitious, and she knows her stuff. However, while she knows Abelard's writings, the reader quickly learns that Damaris has no sense of the truths behind his work. For her, Abelard is just a figure, his writings, a corpus--they're ideas that lack any point of reference in reality.

Then Damaris meets Peter Abelard.

It was--it was Peter Abelard himself, Abelard, mature, but still filled with youth because of the high intensity of his philosophical passion, and he was singing as he came: singing the words that he had himself composed, and which a voice of her own past had spoken to her but lately:

O quanta qualia
sunt illa Sabbata

Against that angry sky he came on, in that empty land his voice rang out in joy, and she tried to move; she ran a few steps forward and made an effort to speak. Her voice failed; she heard herself making grotesque noises in her throat, and suddenly over him there fell the ominous shadow... Only for a few seconds, then it passed on, and he emerged from it, and his face was towards her, but now it had changed. Now it was like a vile corpse, and yet still it was uttering things: it croaked at her in answer to her own croakings, strange and meaningless words. Individualiter, essentialiter, categoricorum, differentia, substantialis--croak, croak, croak.

The "ominous shadow" and the thing that cast it are way too confusing to go into here, but the image is striking, nevertheless. The Abelard of Truth, after the shadow falls, is replaced by the only Abelard that this academic has ever acknowledged. He is merely a dead man, though still capable of spewing out technical, Latin, philosophical prattle.

So, this is my word to those of you (us) who find yourself reading through some of the greats in school--Saint Augustine, Sir Philip Sidney, Wesley, or whoever it is (we're actually studying Abelard next week in Church History). Don't let studies drain these people of their reality, of Truth. They are more than their dates and their 'key concepts', and they certainly wanted to communicate more. Listen; engage. Let their voices 'ring out in joy.'

The threat is no where more dangerous than in Biblical studies. The Bible is, of course, the most important piece of literature in Western Civilization, and there's still much to be learned about it. But, that has little bearing on the reading of scripture as the Body of Christ. As Augustine himself once put it: "Whoever thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build up the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all."

Study is good; an education in Liberal Arts or in theology is good. As you pour over these great minds and holy Scriptures from over the millennia, just don't forget to let them speak.

wardrobe turns 4! and C. S. Lewis on formulaic worship

2009-10-12T15:10:00.004-05:00

Well, today marks the 4th anniversary of through the wardrobe. --confetti-- We've come a long way in four years... I'd standardized the color of the font, and my name is no longer at the end of each post. There have, hopefully, been other changes as well.

One thing that has not changed over the years has been Lewis's influence on me (and by extension, the blog... just look at the name) and his frequent presence here--check out the 'Lewis' tag at the bottom of this post if you want to see more of him. So I thought it would be appropriate to bring in year four with a word from C. S. Lewis.

First, a prefatory word.

Southern Baptists are not the most uniform bunch.

In fact, that's one of the hallmarks of the denomination: there's no centralized Southern Baptist authority on... well, almost anything. Even those statements

which are intended to cross congregational lines, such as the Baptist Faith and Message, are not imposed on any body. Indeed, sadly, with many Baptists, doing things the way you feel they ought to be done is *much* more important than any uniformity... or unity.

This is one gripe, however, that I have heard from many a Baptist over the years--perhaps something that can be tentatively said to be 'agreed upon.' The gripe goes like this: those denominations with formulaic worship have got it all wrong; how can you honestly praise God if you're just reading words out of a book, or just repeating things without ever thinking about them? You get the gist.

Lately I've been reading Lewis's Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, and this is a topic that Lewis broaches almost immediately in the letters.

Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value. And they don't go to church to be entertained. They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it. Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best--if you like, it "works" best--when, through long familiarity, we don't have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don't notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.
... every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshipping.

Most of those who engage in the afore-mentioned griping have probably not ever asked someone who truly enters into liturgical worship what they think the good of it is, or why they prefer it to something more spontaneous and amorphous. There are many answers that might be offered, but this would at least be a part of Lewis's. As is often the case, a perspective from the other side may force some serious reconsideration of the question on almost every level. After all, you don't want to seem to support a 'church service where our attention would not have been on God.'

Any responses? Agreement, staunch opposition, further questions?

James Dunn in Lafayette, LA

2009-10-06T09:18:00.002-05:00

James Dunn, author and theologian, is giving a talk at the Church of the Ascension in downtown Lafayette, Louisiana, on Thursday November 19th.

If you're in the Baton Rouge-Laffy area, you should seriously consider going to this. Dunn is, along with N. T. Wright and E. P. Sanders, one of the real pillars of the New Perspective on Paul movement in New Testament scholarship, and actually the fellow who coined the phrase 'new perspective.' He is easily one of the most important NT scholars in the English-speaking world today. I've not had time to read much of Dunn's work, but, in the little exposure that I've had, he has fundamentally changed the way I read Romans.

Again, I highly recommend this event to anyone and everyone who can make it (I wish I could). It's going to be in the evening--I'm not positive of the time--but more details should be forthcoming on Ascension Church's website.

Myth and Reality in the Old Testament pt. 1

2009-09-25T23:34:00.004-05:00

For the last few weeks we've been reading Peter Enns's Inspiration and Incarnation for my Old Testament class at DDS. I actually have really enjoyed Enns, and I think his work can be a great help to many people, but I'm not planning on spending much time on that here.

Instead, I thought I might blog through my reading of a book Enns recommends: Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, by Brevard S. Childs. Childs passed away in recent years, but he was in the 20th century an imminent Old Testament scholar. This little book is old (1960!), but Enns feels that it "may still be the best little book on the subject." The subject? Well, "myth and the Old Testament," as you might guess.

I decided to drag everyone reading wardrobe (so, so many of you...) along with me on this journey after I finished the short opening chapter of the book, which I found totally fascinating.

I also decided to drag the readership along because this is an important issue to think about. This is a time when it is not at all uncommon to hear much of our Old (and New) Testament described as 'myth'--and not just by skeptics or more harsh critics. Within the Church there are many people very comfortable with this terminology (myself included, to an extent). We need to be able to at least understand what they're saying, and how what they're saying may be useful and good, as well as how it misses the mark.

SO, if you can, unplug your ears, and let's listen to Brevard Childs a bit and see what he wants to tell us. We can obviously disagree, but let's give him a hearing.

Chapter 1 is about "The Problem of a Definition of Myth."

Childs lays out here what he feels the two most popular definitions of 'myth' on the market are, and why he feels neither will work when approaching the Old Testament texts.

First, is the "broad definition." Here, 'myth' is any kind of statement that concerns "miraculous or supernatural occurrences" and comes from a "pre-scientific and uncritical, naive" worldview. This extends to scripture or any other piece of writing with the right content.

This is, he argues, a philosophical definition. "It stems directly from the philosophical distinction between the supernatural and the natural", and this distinction "becomes the criterion for classifying all material."

This, Childs goes on, is precisely the problem with the definition.

"False categories, unsuitable to the subject, are forced upon it. It means approaching the myth through the eyes of the critical Western mind and restricting from the beginning the kind of reality which the myth can contain."

I added the italics... I love that part.

I think the problem he's describing is not unlike giving people numbers. This kind of designation might work well for the man running the concentration camp, but it is not at all adequate for really describing a person. A number doesn't begin to express anything about what people are or, even more, who the individual person bearing it is.

When modern, Western ideas about 'natural versus supernatural' are used to categorize Ancient texts that were written before these sorts of distinctions were ever made, we may be able to divide things up alright, but we do so at the expense of recognizing the meaning that the text had in its original environment. The meaning the authors intended, the meaning immediately recognized by the people who first received the text.

We can't really recognize and appreciate that meaning if the most important descriptions of the text in our mind are descriptions totally divorced from that meaning.

Second is the "narrow definition." This one originally came from, of all people, the Brothers Grimm. This basically calls 'myth' a "literary form concerning stories about gods", as opposed to other forms, like a fairy tale or a legend.

This isn't a philosophical definition, but, he suggests, just a practical one. It arose from the need to define different types of literature more precisely.

The problem with this definition, according to Childs, is that it is primarily "defining limits on the literary plane." Once we step outside the realm of literary studies, its usefulness is almost non-existent.

Again, even though it's a definition, it doesn't help us get to what a myth really is: "It is not helpful in understanding the function of the myth within the total thinking of a culture." This definition doesn't try to "penetrate to the essence of the myth." How myths operate, what they try to tell us.

He also complains that this second definition doesn't help us get at the big issue of 'myth and the Old Testament': "The problem of the basic understanding of reality contained in the myth and its relation to Biblical faith has not been adequately touched upon in this definition." Well said.

I'm hoping (and assuming) that this 'understanding of reality' and this 'relation' are exactly what Childs intends to touch on as the book gets rolling.

His next step, though, is to seek a third way of defining myth, one that is appropriate for using in Biblical studies.

Stop and consider what's already been said. Childs may have already rejected the definition of myth that you've always used. Do you think his criticisms are accurate? Important?

How are you going to proceed if they do seem consequential, and he just sunk your ship?

Another thing to notice and begin to think about: Childs obviously thinks that myths can speak about reality. For a lot of people on both sides of the question of myth in the Bible, that's going to be a red flag. It's interesting to see where 'conservatives' and 'liberals' line up. One side will say 'myth can't be true', and so 'the Bible is not true.' The other, 'myth can't be true' and so 'the Bible doesn't contain myth.' Here, again, Childs is taking a third way, already distinct because it begins with a totally different premise: myth can be true. I can't help pointing out that C. S. Lewis is in perfect agreement with Childs here (see his essay "Myth Became Fact").

These are issues you'll need to address as we go on, because they are already proving to be fundamental in what Childs wants to suggest.

The C. S. Lewis Bible

2009-09-21T10:25:00.003-05:00

UPDATE: Dr. Edwards chimed in briefly in the comments; the publication date for this Bible is set for November of 2010.

The C.S. Lewis Bible will offer C.S. Lewis as a companion to a reader’s daily meditation of scripture. As people read the Bible, they will also gain insight from his writings and spiritual journey as they invite Lewis into their spiritual discipline. This Bible will honor his material by showcasing his life-giving writings and classic works that define and explain key issues in the life of faith. This Bible will be more meditational than devotional, and would stay pure to his editorial voice to honor the material of this beloved writer and thinker.

Now... as a rule of thumb, I hate 'gimmick Bibles.' The Sailor's Bible, The Hunter's Bible, The Complete Personalized Promise Bible for Women, The Apologetics Study Bible, etc.

That being said: I... must... have... this Bible.

The Lewis Bible is going to be the NRSV. It first came to my attention when mentioned by Dr. Bruce L. Edwards (who is serving on the editorial team of Lewis scholars collaborating on the Bible ) on his blog.

It hasn't shown up on Amazon (or even Harper Collins's website, at this point), but I'll try to have more details as they've available.

New York Times article on nursing homes

2009-09-19T12:56:00.002-05:00

I thought this was a fascinating article, and I'm certain that the questions about human dignity and social/familial issues that surround nursing home residence are questions that Christians need to give more attention and thought to.

Check it out.

Baptists and the Lord's Supper

2009-09-10T16:19:00.001-05:00

In case you missed this over there, imonk recently published a response from Baptist scholar Dr. Timothy George to the question "How can Baptists respond to Catholic and Orthodox Christians who challenge our view of the Lord's Supper as having no deeper historical/Biblical roots than Zwingli?"
(Zwingli was a contemporary of Martin Luther, d. 1531.)

This is a pretty brief read, but definitely educational. Check it out.

My understanding is that Dr. George's answer to the question is basically: 'Baptists need to change their view... then they can worry about what others are saying.' He and I are absolutely on the same page here.

tanning beds in the news again

2009-09-03T10:50:00.000-05:00

I don't like tanning beds.
A lot of people know this, and some girls I've known for a long time know it very well.

So I'm always pleased (for lack of a better term) when tanning makes the news--because it's generally bad news--like it has recently.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I don't know much about the particular show--I've only seen about two reports from this dr.NANCY character. But I did do a little research on the doctor being interviewed, Dr. Jeanine Downie, and she seems to be legitimate.
The story unravels at the end of the video, as they descend into random tanning tips, but the facts discussed at the beginning are striking.

My question is this: in light of the apparent dangers of tanning beds, what sorts of restrictions ought to be placed on their use?

Review: Inglourious Basterds

2009-08-24T11:46:00.001-05:00

This weekend saw the release of the latest addition to Quentin Tarantino's corpus: Inglourious Basterds.

Much can be foregone in the review if you're familiar with Tarantino's work: Reservoir Dogs, the Kill Bill films, or perhaps his best known film, Pulp Fiction. (The latter is actually on the AFI's '100 Years... 100 Movies' list--it's low, but it's on there.) Probably the first association made when speaking of a Quentin Tarantino film will be "violence". I don't mean violence a la The Godfather... or even violence like that in Saving Private Ryan. Tarantino's violence is hard to describe. "Gratuitous" doesn't quite capture it. The violence in his films is very purposefully extravagent. You should expect going in to be immersed in this really mortifying world.
Inglourious Basterds is certainly no exception to this--in fact I have to say no that if you have any qualms about watching film violence, never see this movie. The violence enters is abruptly and unexpectedly with a man being scalped, and it is not really subdued in what follows.

The violence is so striking, in fact, that it has been able to shape all of my reflections coming out of the theater.
Why? What message is he trying to send? When you use violence the way that Tarantino does, you must be prepared to answer these questions.

The Basterds are a small group of Jewish-American soldiers who have been unleashed on the German forces in France, where they are striking terror in the Nazi military with their brutality and sadism. Early in the film Brad Pitt's character happily tells a Nazi prisoner (soon to be executed): "Quite frankly, watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies."
Tarantino certainly understands the depravity of much of modern cinema. One of the glories of Pulp Fiction is its portrayal of the senselessness of this... but I believe the message of Inglorious Basterds is more layered, and more particular than a simply critique of our current gore-drenched movie culture.

The movie's finale revolves around a film premiere in German-occupied France, where the latest piece of Nazi propaganda is being screened. This Nazi film showcases the exploits of a brave Nazi sniper who is single-handedly able to kill nearly 300 Allied troops in three days. This film is extremely violent itself, for the 1940s, and it is received with disturbing glee by the audience (especially by Hitler himself).
Minutes later we, the viewers, find ourselves presented with a similar spectacle, as Allied soldiers fire mercilessly into a crowd of Nazis from a sniper's 'bird's nest' of their own.
The question you are meant to ask yourself: how does your reception of this horror compare to the Nazis' reception of their own film? To Hitler's reception of it?

Once you begin to ask these question, you are only faced with more.
How do we think about the Nazis in our culture? Is that itself really humane? Is watching--and enjoying--a film about killing Nazis any less detestable than those atrocities we accuse them of?

These questions probe deeper than a critique of our film industry. They go to the heart of our existence as social creatures. Tarantino accuses the gleeful observer of, with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, carving a swastika into the foreheads our the Germans in our memories, refusing to let them remove that uniform, and then reveling in the punishment that they deserve... surely they deserve?

This movie is about more than the film industry, it is about revenge.
What are we doing when we take revenge--as the Basterds on the ground or as the viewers vicariously--to ourselves as humans or to our enemies as humans? When we wish to 'settle the score' with Nazis, with terrorists, with whomever, what, in that moment, do we have in common with Tarantino's sadistic Adolf Hitler?

Some of the performances in Basterds are really exceptional. Christoph Waltz is excellent as the Nazi "Jew Hunter" Col. Landa--really stealing the show from the opening scene. I thought, contra some other reviewers whom I've seen, that Brad Pitt did an excellent job as well. He's over-the-top American, and that's precisely what you need for that role. He also offers the funniest performance--unfortunately B. J. Novak isn't given much space to stretch his legs, otherwise perhaps Pitt would have had competition there.

On the whole, though, it's hard to call the film enjoyable. It's certainly disturbing. It's also though-provoking... but while I enjoy having my mind provoked, I appreciate it when the provocation is dealt by a lighter hand. And I'm being pretty liberal here: most people will not enjoy the film at all (I'd like to think, at any rate). I can't overstate the sheer gruesomeness of it. If you are already a fan of Tarantino, you will probably enjoy it thoroughly without a hitch. Most people, however, ought to sit this one out. If you'd like to think deeply about how we characterize Nazis, perhaps you'd be better off watching Tom Cruise's recent Valkyrie, the only other film in the last few years which I'm aware of that give a human face to the Nazi uniform, and this in a much more direct (and by means of a much less graphic) way.

Jesus in the work of Josephus

2009-08-20T08:53:00.001-05:00

When it comes to the history of 1st Century Judaism, one of the most important sources available to researchers is Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the second half of that century. The writings of Josephus notoriously contain a passage referring to Jesus--a passage which sounds a bit fishy and is commonly said to be 'corrupt', that is, it has been tampered with, edited, by scribes of century long past. This is an important topic because the mention in Josephus represents one of the earliest extra-Biblical references to the life of Jesus anywhere. For people interested in the historical life of Christ--proponents or nay-sayers--Josephus has to be taken into consideration.

Here's a good, short video on the topic. This should be a painless introduction for those of you who are interested, but totally unfamiliar with the issue.

Josephus and Jesus: a Christian forgery? from CPX on Vimeo.

what "works of the law"? pt. 2

2009-08-14T14:47:00.004-05:00

What then are 'works of the law'?
Works of the law in Romans are "those things which distinguish you as Jewish."

That is why, in Paul's logic, to say that we are justified by "works of the law" is the same as suggesting that "God is the God of Jews only" (:27-29).
Maybe a good paraphrase of 3:28 would be "people are justified by faith, not by simply being Jewish."

(from part 1)

This interpretation has some interesting and, I think, helpful, implications.

What I'm suggesting means that, as one theologian put it, "Paul was not against the law as such - far less against 'good works'! What he aimed his arguments against was the law understood and practiced in such a way as to limit the grace of God, to prevent Gentiles as Gentiles enjoying it in full measure."

This implication shines a lot of light on the book of Acts.

In Acts, Paul does many things that are hard to swallow held next to a traditional Protestant/Lutheran reading of Romans--one which (and I welcome any correction from within those traditions on this point; this has just been my understanding of the popular views) sees Paul as attacking the observance of the law in favor of 'salvation by grace through faith.'

As James remarks to Paul in Acts 21:24, "you yourself also live in observance of the law." This comes in the middle of James's sending Paul to purify himself in the Temple, in hopes of refuting claims in Jerusalem that Paul "teaches all the the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs." (21:21) This is a scandalous accusation that James and apparently Paul both want to discredit.

More striking, I think, is the conclusion of the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. This chapter is crucial for understanding the Biblical teachings on Jewish-Gentile relations in Christ.

The council is called to address the situation of Gentiles converting to "the Way". Some, Pharisees in particular, believe that these Gentiles ought to be circumcised (:5)--receive the sign of covenant membership. The apostles conclude that the Gentiles need not be circumcised, but, in their Apostolic Decree, they write that Gentiles ought to follow four commands: "abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood." (:20)

These commands might seem kind of random at first, but they are actually pulled from the book of Leviticus. These are commands given to foreigners 'sojourning in the midst' of Israel. They aren't required to become Jews, as Gentile converts traditionally were, but they remained Gentiles and adhered to these precepts.

The men carrying this letter then traveled with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch.

A Paul who was totally opposed to Old Testament law, whom many like to suppose wrote Romans, simply doesn't mesh with this Paul in Acts.

However, a Paul arguing against, not law observance, but an attitude of exclusivism--'God is for the Jews!'--does fit here.

In fact, the Council of Jerusalem decides precisely in favor of what Paul is arguing for in Romans: salvation is available to the Gentiles as Gentiles. There's no need for them to convert to 'outward' Judaism: "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter." (2:28-29)

In Romans 4, Paul goes on to draw out how it is that the promise to Abraham may apply to the uncircumcised. (Again, Paul is here arguing against an 'ethnocentric exclusivism': 'Abraham and the promise are not merely for the Jews!')

If we want to understand 'works of the law' in the sort of 'standard' way, where it refers merely to 'works that are supposed to earn salvation', this passage seems to be merely an interesting aside.

But if the 'works of the law' that Paul is attacking is instead 'that which distinguishes one as a Jew', his exposition of Genesis 15 makes perfect sense--indeed, it's critical--right where it is.

'You may have thought that justification comes through Jewishness,' he begins, 'but I'm telling you that justification comes through the promise, and the promise is realized through faith.' Abraham's faith, not his circumcision, is what marks him out as the forefather of the people of God, Jewish or otherwise.

This sort of reading of Romans can have some serious ramifications for our reading of the rest of the New Testament (not least of James). It's also got me convinced that "the fundamental problem with which Paul is wrestling in Romans is not how a person may find acceptance with God; the problem is to work out an understanding of the relationship in Christ between Jews and Gentiles." This is what much of the post-gospels New Testament is about, once we start understanding it in context.

This sort of reading of Romans is also exactly the sort of responsible, informed reading that I think Christians have to be doing of our scriptures. Paul wasn't writing in a vacuum--we need to get to know his context. Jesus wasn't a 21st century westerner--we need to know what environment he was in and speaking to, what his terminology meant to his audiences.

There are a lot of great resources out there to help us along the way. Heck, I can think of five theologians off the top of my head who have lead me by the hand in my (this) understanding of Paul. As much as you can, dig into these studies.

More than anything else, though, and before anything else all of us have here to face our call to read and know the scriptures, and to pray for God the Spirit's leadership and guidance. Study the word, and do it as often as you can. Allow God's Spirit--and whatever tools he has placed at your disposal--to direct you in your interpretation and understanding.

what "works of the law"? pt. 1

2009-08-11T12:53:00.003-05:00

Last summer I had a pretty intense (and, I thought, fun!) debate with a fellow whom I had heard preach on James chapter 2--the 'faith without works is dead' passage. I thought that his message totally misrepresented James's own, essentially contradicting the apostle's words.

The message came out this way, of course, because in the Protestant tradition we tend to hold up Paul and James as these two sort of opposing voices on the matter of justification. 'Paul says we're justified by faith, not works; James says we're justified by works, not faith.' This is a gross distortion of both views, but it's also a good summary of the popular take on it all. With this on the table, we're left no choice but to do some 'creative interpretations' of the view that we think is off, and that's usually James. 'He can't mean what he said; you have to read this in light of Paul...'

Romans is usually what they mean by 'Paul'. I had Romans 3:28 quoted at me more than once last summer: "For we know that a man is justified by faith and not by works of the law."

This response always left me unsatisfied. Not because I'm not willing to let scripture lead me--I hope that's not what this is all about. It's because I knew that "works of the law" in Romans and "works" in James are not the same thing. This is indisputable. Read the contexts for the two. Paul is talking about something specifically Jewish with a very particular meaning. James is talking about good works in general, like visiting orphans and widows in their distress or taming the tongue.

Lately I've found myself returning to this issue. Not by studying James this time, but by studying Romans. I wanted to read this wonderful letter one more time, slowly and thoroughly, before heading to seminary. Along with it I've been reading a lot of secondary literature: studies on the letter's context, suggestions of alternative translations at points, etc.

All of this has brought to my attention once again this really crucial phrase in the letter: 'works of the law.'

How are we to understand this phrase?

The traditional Protestant view (coming from Luther) of 'works of the law' can be best explained with an illustration: "works of the law" are akin to the things Roman Catholics do--going to mass, receiving the sacraments--to try and ensure their salvation. They are works meant to impart the saving grace of God to an individual. The Jews were doing works that they felt earned, merited salvation for them. These were works prescribed in the law.

This is the traditional Protestant/Lutheran view. For *many* reasons, I do not share it.

Before anything else, a misunderstanding of ancient Judaism has to be exposed here.

Ancient Jews did not understand themselves as doing works, say following the laws in the Pentateuch, to merit salvation from God. Instead, they hoped for salvation simply on the basis of their being Jews. They were the covenant people of God, and God would be faithful to them. Salvation didn't follow any particular actions, but it followed a state of being: being Jewish. This is why proselytes, converts to ancient Judaism, had to receive the mark of circumcision. Circumcision was a sign of your membership in God's covenant community, your place as a child of Abraham, a Jew.

This is also the reason behind the activities of different Jewish factions in the 1st century. Pharisees didn't meticulously follow the law to try and earn salvation. They meticulously followed the law to set themselves apart, to prove themselves to really be God's chosen nation, up and against all of those who didn't meet the standards.

The same is true of the Zealots and the Essenes, waging war with the pagans and living in isolation from a corrupt world (respectively) to set themselves apart as clearly as they could. The distinctions between themselves and the Gentiles--or between themselves and other Israelites not living up to their part of the covenant with God--proved that they were really the people of YHWH.

The difference is sometimes hard to keep clear, but it's important: salvation did not rest in the works of the people, following the law, but it rested instead in God's faithfulness to his covenant with Israel ... so make sure that you are Israel!

This attitude, that we're talking about Israel's God, the God of the Jews, is what Paul is setting out to attack in Romans.

"Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? But a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith." (Romans 3:27-30)

Right here Paul is drawing some connections and one grand dichotomy.

The opposition, however, is not between what you might expect. Paul's not putting 'works, Jews, and circumcision' against 'faith, Gentiles, and uncircumcision.'

Instead, Paul places 'justification by works of the law' and "the Jews only" up against 'justification by faith', "the Gentiles also", and "the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised by faith."

He is countering claims of exclusivism from the Jews with the vision of God justifying all peoples, Jewish or not, by faith.

What then are 'works of the law'?

Works of the law in Romans are "those things which distinguish you as Jewish."

That is why, in Paul's logic, to say that we are justified by "works of the law" is the same as suggesting that "God is the God of Jews only" (:27-29).

Maybe a good paraphrase of 3:28 would be "people are justified by faith, not by simply being Jewish."

Review: G.I.JOE: The Rise of Cobra

2009-08-07T02:21:00.007-05:00

G.I.JOE: The Rise of Cobra hits theaters today. No doubt it will bring in a lot of money. Unfortunately, it's probably not as good a film as the 1987 animated JOE movie... the one starring Don Johnson and Sgt. Slaughter.

Yes, G.I.JOE is pretty bad.

Maybe that's a bit harsh. "Silly" is a much better word.

The action is over-the-top and silly. The dialogue is stock and silly. Many of the characters turn out to be silly as well. Yes, that's a good word for it. Any enjoyment of the film is going to require quite a bit of 'suspension of belief'--which is fine. This is a G.I.JOE movie that we're talking about. The difficulty arises when you understand precisely how much suspension is asked of you: the action and technology in this movie are more outlandish than anything from the JOE cartoon series... and that was a cartoon. For whatever reasons, this translation was handled much better by the filmmakers behind Transformers.

The plot is hardly immune to the silliness. If you ask too many questions about characters' motives or their various histories (with each other), your head might explode. Avoid this; just don't ask questions. Sit back and let the action and the silliness take you for a ride.

A quick note on the characters.

I'm not yet sure why exactly this movie features the particular Joes that it does. This is especially true of Heavy Duty and Ripcord. Anyone with a background in ARAH will know what I mean. (If it's simply a matter of having proper diversity in the team, then, please, give us Roadblock and Stalker.)

I actually did like Channing Tatum's Duke, which is much more than I expected going in. Snake Eyes was well done, as was Stormshadow, I felt. Unfortunately, the Scarlett/Snake Eyes relation was totally removed from the story. Scarlett was too busy being noticed for apparently the first time by a male on the team. This is a great loss, though I have to admit that the Scarlett/Ripcord tension is great fun.

Baroness looked great... beyond that we have some troubles. Dennis Quaid was perfect.

I can only hope that, if and when a (totally unnecessary and creatively unwarranted) sequel is produced, we will see some of the great characters absent in this first outing: Flint and Lady Jaye, Stalker, Xamot and Tomax, Mercer. Time will tell.

I think that, in some respects, Rise of Cobra is a bit like the first Fantastic Four movie. You can have fun with it if you want to. And I wanted to.

What I don't want is to ever see this movie again... or at least probably not for a long time.

BW3 weighing in on sexuality issues in the church

2009-08-04T14:43:00.003-05:00

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III has made some remarks about the 'sexuality crisis' in the U.S. Episcopal Church--with reference to N. T. Wright's own thoughts on the situation--as well as on the issues in general. I tend to agree with everything Witherington's said here; check it out for yourself.

I'm not even kidding...

2009-07-20T21:28:00.003-05:00

I was cleaning up my apartment some this week in anticipation of a quickly-approaching move out, and I found myself going through some old books, long boxed-up. In one such box I discovered what was, if memory serves me, one of the first non-fiction books on Christianity that I ever purchased (almost a decade ago! Wow...): The Gospel According to the Simpsons, by Mark I. Pinsky.

I sat a moment remembering days long-gone and started to place the book aside in a pile (the pile that my books are hoping not to end up in, actually), when on a whim I decided to check out the blurbs on the back.

My eye was first drawn to the name "Will Willimon", which unexpectedly sat at the end of one such blurb. "What a fun book--with serious purpose... I didn't know that Bart Simpson had so much to teach us. Far out!"

Oh my.

Curious, my eyes proceeded to scan further, only to discover the crown jewel:

"The Simpsons is one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility, and virtue. Mark Pinsky manages to decipher the code without deadening the humor, which is quite an achievement."
- The Most Revered Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

I then decided to keep the book.

I'm not even kidding.

are miracles good news?

2009-07-07T10:13:00.001-05:00

Last week I had the opportunity to worship at a black United Methodist Church on Sunday morning. This was quite the switch for me, but I'm so glad to have been there. The Peace took about ten minutes, as everyone in the congregation--25-30 people--greeted everyone else individually. Quite the switch.

One of the most remarkable moments of the morning came with the gospel reading. A lovely young lady in a wheelchair read the text, from Mark 5, where Jesus heals the woman "who had a discharge of blood" and Jairus's daughter. Seeing her before the congregation and hearing those accounts, you could not help but think about miracles. Where have they gone? How is this good news to the girl in front of me? What are the miracles of Christ and the apostles but some carrot dangling before us, a tease of some 'better world' to come?

Thinking about these things, my mind turned to another miracle story in the gospels.
In John 9 Jesus heals a man who was born blind. The disciples look to base a good theological discussion on the man: "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Christ won't have this: No... "it was that the works of God might be displayed in him." The man was blind so that the works of God might be shown in his healing.
But the question remains: why is it 'good news', that the works of God are manifested through Jesus and this man?

I think we misunderstand miracles.

The good news of a miracle is not in the healing. That "I was blind, now I see" is not the good news. It seems like the good news. After all, we pray for healing that someone might be healed. The good news of a miracle is that Jesus of Nazareth can display the works of God.
The miracle stories are not teaching us to expect God to heal. He can, and sometimes He does. I heard a story just this week of God's healing a woman in Indonesia, where Christians are entering some dark areas for the very first and where some were asked to pray over a persisting ailment. But this is not the heart of the story in John 9--or in Mark 5.

At the heart of the story is the question Who is Jesus?

After Christ heals the man in John 9 there is a fuss. How did He do this? Why doesn't He keep the Sabbath? Who is this man? The (formerly) blind man says it best at the end of the chapter: "If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." (:33)

The good news of Jesus' miracles is that 'this man is from God.'

This is just what Christ said to John's followers when they came to Him while the Baptist was in prison. 'Are you the one who is to come?' (Matthew 11, Luke 7) Jesus doesn't offer an answer in words--the answer is given in His works, His ministry. "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to the." (Matt. 11:4-5) If John would know who Jesus is, he needs only to observe what Jesus is doing.

We could ask again: why is it good news that Jesus is from God? The answer to this is the heart of the gospel. "Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried, that we was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures." This, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, is the gospel. Not just that Jesus died and Jesus lives, but that Christ, the anointed one of Israel, the king, died and lives.
The miracles of Jesus tell us that this man is from God--that His ministry, His teachings are from God. The Resurrection--among other things!--offers one final, grand 'in Whom I am well pleased' to the life of Jesus. This Jesus who claimed to be the Christ, who proclaimed the Kingdom of God, who offers life to His listeners, this Jesus is from God. This message is from God.

The good news of Jesus' miracles is that the Kingdom of God is at hand, established by the work of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit--and all of this 'in accordance with the scriptures', in accordance with God's plans and promises from Abraham to Moses, from David to the prophets.

Jesus is not going to heal every paraplegic. But He has and will continue to, through every miracle and through every new life that He gives, proclaim and manifest the Kingdom of God.

Yes, miracles are good news. By his miracles we know that Jesus Christ is from God, that he is the one 'to come'; He is the one who died, was buried, and has raised, who is now offering that life, that victory over sin and death, to all the world. This is very good news.

texting while driving

2009-06-28T00:31:00.000-05:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

This is not the most scientific study that I've ever seen. BUT, I don't think many people will dispute the results. There's no doubt that texting while driving hinders one's driving ability... that usually comes with not looking at the road.
The other studies referenced in the video give a few staggering numbers, like 66% of 18-24 texting or emailing while driving.

I text while driving.
Yesterday on a drive across Baton Rouge I had a text conversation with a friend whom I was following. We didn't hit anyone--though we did take a wrong turn at one point. I've never hit anyone or anything because I was texting. I generally don't even look at the phone while texting, just when I feel like there's been a typo. Yet, I know other 'good drivers' and 'good texters' who have hit cars because of phone use. It comes with not looking at the road.

Why am I saying all of this? There's a woman interviewed in the video whose 17 year old daughter died in a wreck apparently caused by texting. "I wouldn't want to see another person have to go through such a senseless death." Senseless is right.
It seems to make sense at the time. I need to communicate. If I don't text and drive I'd have to wait and communicate later. This is (seems to me) pressing. I'll do it now.
Maybe some people recognize the risks and decide that the convenience is worth it. They're convinced that things will turn out OK.
However that is obviously not always the case.

Christians have been taught by our Lord to "love your neighbor as yourself." Again in Paul, James, John: love your neighbor. Or as Paul says it again: "count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Philippians 2:3-4) We do this because of the servanthood of Jesus.
If we follow this command we will not willfully endanger others for our own sake. We will not.

I exhort you, brothers and sisters, not to text and drive.

Our society treasures communication and speed. They are driving forces in American culture. Well, this is the sort of counter-culture Christians ought to model. Instead of buying our children Bible action figures in place of G.I.JOEs, we need to teach our children--and ourselves--to be followers of Jesus. That is real Christian counter-culture. And it means following His command to love--even and especially when that command forces us to re-prioritize and to place those things that we're taught to care about below the path of denying self and taking up the cross.

Texting and driving is already illegal in several states. Christians therein have absolutely no excuse for breaking those laws. But I'm calling on all of us. When the currents of society carry us toward evils, the Church must swim against the current. When we don't we are not the Church.

So I'm committing to not texting while driving.
That probably just sounds silly. 'Big commitment there, Nance...' No doubt it will seem less silly tomorrow when I'm on the road and I want to tell... someone... something. I bet it will actually be quite a temptation when the time comes. But Christ's call for us to love is more important than my convenience, or even my friend's, on the other side of the message.
We must love, against the culture, against the tug to there 'go and do likewise.'

answering their questions pt 1

2009-06-26T10:19:00.003-05:00

I've been reflecting lately on the opportunities that I've had at LSU to discuss Jesus and faith and scripture with non-Christians. The really good, thorough, long discussions. The voices of unbelief in college were, looking back, much more vocal than I expected. They're also (some of them at least) very intelligent voices. Some of them have struggled long and hard with the issues.

But I think a lot of these questions have good answers all the same. This is especially true of questions about history, science, and philosophy.

The questions that come up along life's way--when tragedies strike or prayers go unanswered or however it happens--these, more often than not, shouldn't be answered, at least not with words. The best we can do to answer the voices of pain, loss, and confusion is to show them God through our love and to show them God by pointing to Jesus.

Still, other questions I think can be answered well. So I've decided to echo and reflect here on a few of the questions and objections that I've heard over the years. Maybe you'll see something here that's always given you pause. Or maybe I can frighten someone with a question here, before somebody with very different intentions does out in the trenches. Hopefully we can come to some conclusions and see Truth incarnate Himself in the midst of these puzzles and doubts.

1. Did Jesus even really exist?

Every now and then I'll stumble onto something about this online: 'yet more evidence that there was no historical person Jesus of Nazareth'; 'we see here another clear sign that the Jesus in the gospels is really just a character based on Odysseus' (no joke); or whatever else they're saying.

This skepticism has trickled down--as you might expect--to the masses, particularly to those who already have doubts and frustrations. This is an easy out, after all: some 'scholar' said Jesus didn't exist, so I can now deride you and your beliefs as much as I like.

Honestly, this blows my mind.

I'm more familiar with so-called 'conservative' Jesus-scholars (conservative here basically meaning "their Jesus actually looks a good bit like the Jesus in the gospels"), like N. T. Wright and Ben Witherington III, than I am with the 'liberal' scholars, like John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Nevertheless, I'll proceed from here only with reference to Crossan and Borg, just to 'avoid a bias'... by speaking through a different bias that the skeptics are OK with.

Crossan and Borg have both written at length on the historical Jesus, and they are two of the most important authorities on this in the English-speaking world. They're associated with the 'Jesus Seminar' (Crossan helped found the group), a group a Jesus-scholars who boldly denounce the Resurrection and the empty tomb, the virgin birth, etc.

And neither of these scholars would say that there was no such person as Jesus.

In fact, they both go so far as to affirm at least some of the gospel accounts of Jesus' healing people.

Borg will not go so far as to say how or why they occurred: "I do not need to know the explanatory mechanism in order to affirm that paranormal healings happen. And Jesus seems to have been uncommonly good at them."

Crossan's take on the miracles of healing has been described as "some... Crossan takes to be definitely historical." Others--most, perhaps--he might call 'definitely unhistorical'. The point remains. Not only is Crossan (with Borg) affirming a historical person, but a historical 'wonder-worker', among other things.

Wright, Witherington, E. P. Sanders, and others also affirm Jesus, miracle-accounts, and much more. The fact is, their are very few serious Jesus scholars who doubt his having really lived and walked around 1st Century Palestine. Such individuals are to be found on the fringes of Jesus 'studies' and carry minimal authority on such issues. Theses guys may make the news, but that says very little. What is important to recognize is that they absolutely do not represent any kind of consensus in the world of historical Jesus studies.

One is always welcome to side with whatever explanation they like--and they'll do that. But the fact that the explanation is rejected by the vast majority of experts, themselves representing all points on the spectrum, and that it is rejected because it cannot withstand the briefest critical examination... this should make you think twice before following.

This answer may sound too short, too cut and dry. I can understand that. It sounds that way because there's not much room for debate on this issue. Even if some want to entirely discount the gospels as historical evidence--and few do--they still have to deal with Paul, pre-Pauline Christian traditions (for example, 1 Corinthians 15:1-7), Josephus*, and other early sources. It's pretty easy to see that there is good evidence for a historical Jesus of some kind. It's what we say from here--what anyone says from here--that will be the 'less certain' part.

* Josephus is a first century Jewish historian, who makes a brief reference to Jesus. I realize it's common to point to later Christian editorial work in Josephus; Borg, however, following John Meier, sees (at least some of) this as authentic.

-
The image up top was user submitted on My[confined]space. And awesome.

the future of the SBC

2009-06-24T09:06:00.002-05:00

imonk has posted some reflections on the SBC national meeting that's been going on in Kentucky. If you're interested in the future of this denomination and what that's starting to look like right now, go check it out.

My Thoughts on Today's Southern Baptist Convention Meeting 6:23:09

Screwtape on 'the historical Jesus'

2009-06-14T09:55:00.008-05:00

Recently imonk posted some 'guidelines for interpreting the gospels'. One tip that I appreciated, though I doubt his audience is really the group that needs to hear it, was "The study of the historical Jesus is important." Nice.

Chris Tilling said something similar a few weeks back: "Start to learn the habit of enjoying NT related books that are more informed about matters of exegesis, historical background, hermeneutical subtlety etc." I agree. I think these are important things, and for many they are totally unfamiliar.

Obviously not every layperson is going to be able to force themselves into this kind of reading, for one reason or another, but for those who can I think they should. I'm in the middle of Wright's Christian Origins series right now myself, and I'm teaching a class for my church on the Jewish roots and context of 1st Century Christianity.

This is important stuff.

And then Screwtape opens his mouth.

Lewis doesn't seem to have been wholly opposed to historical Jesus scholarship... just mostly. And it's understandable. Lewis was a good catholic Christian, faithful to the Tradition, and historical studies have often been conducted in a calculated opposition to that Tradition. He was also living in a time when various fads ruled Jesus-studies (maybe that's not over just yet), and when Bultmann was in the vanguard of the scholarship, arguing for a misguided separation of history and theology. Lewis knew better than that.

As always, Screwtape is incisive. In letter 23, he makes four claims about 'historical Jesus' studies:

The conclusions are unhistorical and have their way with the texts. "The documents say what they say and cannot be added to; each new 'historical Jesus' therefore has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another, and by that sort of guessing (brilliant is the adjective we teach humans to apply to it) on which no one would risk ten shillings in ordinary life..."
They distract from who Jesus is (i.e. the Word) and what He did by focusing on "some peculiar theory He is supposed to have promulgated."
They destroy the devotional life of prayer and the sacraments by substituting for the Christ worthy of all honor and praise an object that "cannot in fact be worshipped", "a distinguished character approved by a judicious historian."
The reconstructions of a 'historical Jesus' replace the knowledge of a risen Jesus who has redeemed His people--the truly saving 'facts', if you will, about Christ.

I certainly won't deny that any of these happen, and at times have happened frequently.

So how should the student of the New Testament, the junior-historian in the congregation, the follower of Jesus respond to these observations?

Of course, Christians have to be devoted to good scholarship. That's true in the study of the New Testament, in the biological sciences, and everywhere in between. After all, we're to put away all falsehoods, and this is just a part of that calling. And this means that we have to approach the experts with a critical eye, especially mindful of omissions and exaggerations, and evaluating their logic. Crossan and Borg have some great information, but what about their conclusions? What assumptions are they making at the start that need to be acknowledged?

These aren't always easy questions to answer, but it's critical that they're asked.

Unless you've decided to reject the Christ of the Creeds for another Jesus of historical reconstruction, then you must always cling to "the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father... he was crucified under Pontius Pilate." Even if this is in the back of your mind for a time, as you try to understand this or that facet of 1st Century Messianic beliefs being enacted by this man from Nazareth, it must be held in mind. These studies are meant to inform our reading of the texts and our understanding of Jesus' activities; let them do that much, but be aware of when they try to do more, separating things which the Creeds holds together.

This is all closely related to worship, the devotional life. Historical claims can be the death knells of worship for some. For others they might place an idol on the throne: any Christ other than He whom the Church has always proclaimed, dead, risen, and coming again. We must remember that Jesus has taught us to pray, and that Jesus--the Word who made all things--has called the bread and wine His body and blood. Perhaps one movement here ought to be the assimilation of historical study into the worshipping life of the Church. I'm not talking about holding seminars on 'St. Paul and the First Century Cynic Revival' in place of worship; I'm talking about recognized the role of historical study in our reading of the texts. I'm talking about understanding all that we do as worship, including critical thinking and engaging with Biblical scholarship. While this scholarship can be a treacherous road for the Church to walk, it may be best travelled under the stewardship of that Body transmitting the Creeds, administering the sacraments, whose Head is Christ.

Finally, do not let these studies become your text. The Bible is not scripture because it met various historical and literary criteria. The Bible is our scripture because the Spirit led the Church to the use of these texts and ultimately their canonization; because they were inspired in their compositions, and they can tell us about the Risen Jesus whose life, death, resurrection, and continuing life in the Church can reveal God to us. Again, let these studies inform your reading of scripture, not replace it.

These responses may sound simplistic, but they may be no less true.

And frankly, the 'dangers of scholarship', while they need to be acknowledged, also need to be gotten over. Especially in my tradition, what is needed is not more skepticism of the scholars; we have more than enough of that. What we need is critical reading and critical thinking. We need to learn about the texts, to understand the reading of the texts, and ask hard questions (without offering stock, worthless answers). Blissful ignorance is not a good way to survive the attacks of critics. Instead, we must be able to meet the questions and confusions out there in such a way that the unbelieving world is edified. Regardless of your biases, critical, historical, Biblical scholarship is a big part of this task.

makeup = EVIL

2009-06-03T09:06:00.016-05:00

Or does it?

I was recently reading Augustine's On Christian Doctrine, and at one point while offering examples of Christian writers using different rhetorical styles, he quotes (at length) some really interesting passages from St. Ambrose and St. Cyprian on women's use of makeup.

Now--disclaimer--I'm not saying that I agree with the Fathers on this topic. Honestly I don't have an opinion; this isn't an issue I've really considered.

But I like this because it's provocative in the best way: it provokes us to think about those things that we never supposed needed any second thoughts. The things that we do mechanically. Anything that we are that comfortable with and yet have never really considered simply must be evaluated. We need to stop and remember to ask questions like Why am I doing this? What are my motives and my aims? Am I loving God through this? My neighbor? What does this communicate about my beliefs about myself--or about my God?

Let's look at St. Cyprian.

I think that the saint is a little over-the-top at times (on purpose--which is precisely why Augustine quotes them). You'll see what I mean. But don't let that keep you from thinking about his words.

This is from his treatise De Habitu Virginum ('On the Dress of Virgins'):

If an artist had depicted the face and form of a man and indicated the quality of his body with colors rivaling those of the original, and when the likeness was complete and finished another set his hand to it, as if being more skillful he would reshape the picture already made, this would be seen as a grave injury to the first artist and a reason for just indignation. Do you think that you can with impunity commit such a rash and wrongful act offensive to God the artist? Even though you may not be shameless concerning men nor defiled in mind by alluring rouges, you make yourself worse than an adulteress by corrupting and defiling those things which are God's. What you think ornaments you, what you think makes you more beautiful, is an attack on the divine work, a corruption of the truth... Are sincerity and truth [a reference to 1 Cor. 5:7-8] preserved when those things which are sincere are polluted and truth is changed into falsehood by adulterating colors and the tricks of cosmetics?

I think this is a fascinating--even if not convincing--argument.

What strikes me about it, other than the way Cyprian uses the artist imagery (which is awesome), is how clearly the saint's worldview shines through a practical consideration like this:

God is the creator, the artist, who made us.
We are, just in the way we exist (made by God), somehow true and good--presumably because we reflect the image of God.
Any distortion of truth, any falsehood is a sin and an affront to God.
Sin is to be taken seriously and to be confronted.

How many considerations are behind our activities, our habits?

What am I saying about God and man when I send money on a movie ticket, maybe a movie rated R for violence?

What beliefs are evident when I'm willing to buy the homeless man some food, but I don't care to spend any time with him?

What is said when I don't speak at all, if I don't think to tell my parents that I love them?

I think that these kinds of considerations--really no more than a mindfulness of how our actions portray our beliefs--are crucial for following Jesus.

How can you love the Lord with all that you are if you are not even considering how your life depicts him? After all, as Paul told the church in Corinth (2 Cor. 3:1-3), the people of God are "a letter from Christ... written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."

Faith, in one sense, is an activity--it is a thing intimately intertwined with works. It is a taking up of the cross. With that being the case, we would do well to imitate the saints before us in how they 'girded up the loins of their minds,' how they earnestly pursued, in all areas of life--even the most mundane--a holiness that would reflect the faith which they received.

a change in the pro-life/pro-choice balance in US

2009-05-16T01:41:00.004-05:00

For the first time since Gallup began asking this question 15 years ago, more Americans call themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice".

Thanks be to God.

Continue to pray over this issue, that justice would be done, life pursued, and God glorified.

some reflections on Luther's On the Bondage of the Will

2009-05-06T08:58:00.004-05:00

I just finished reading Martin Luther's treatise On the Bondage of the Will, written against Erasmus of Rotterdam and an earlier treatise of his.
This has been a really interesting experience for two reasons: 1) I now see what kind of a ... prick ... Luther was. My goodness. 2) I feel like my understanding of this debate has advanced quite a bit.

It seems as if all of the conversations I've had in the past about this issue have arisen from questions about the omnipotence of God. 'If God is really all-powerful, then how can we say that humans can ___.' Or maybe it will be omniscience one day. 'If God is omniscient, then can people really do ___, since he knew before that they'd...'
Surprisingly--to me, at least--these issues are not at heart of Luther's argument at all.

Therefore [in Romans 9-10], nothing is lacking in the Jews that is attributed to free choice, and yet nothing comes of it, or rather, the opposite comes of it. In the Gentiles there is nothing to be found of what is attributed to free choice, and the righteousness of God results. What is this but a confirmation by the... clearest possible testimony of Paul that grace is given freely to those without merits and the most undeserving, and all is not obtained by any efforts, endeavors, or works, whether small or great, even of the best and most virtuous of men, though they seek and pursue righteousness with burning zeal?

A passage like this one helps you realize that the issue for Luther isn't about the freedom of the will at, it's about the efficacy of the will. More than once late in the treatise Luther admits that those 'in the flesh' have the freedom to 'strive' and 'endeavor'. Ultimately that is just a peripheral issue for him, though. Sola gratia is the real topic.

Don't get me wrong: the term 'freedom of choice' is important throughout the work. I think the language of 'freedom' here is primarily supposed to be a part of the contrast Luther wants to draw between claims that men are free (i.e. able) to seek after God and the claims that men are under a perfect 'bondage to sin.' Because of this bondage man can do nothing but sin, unless the grace of God intervenes.

There are of course deeper questions about freedom here as well. Luther definitely has a conception of men's only ever acting in accordance with God's will--but this has little to do with the image of a puppet master pulling strings, and much to do with God's having created all things and given all men individually the sorts of natures they have. Maybe the best description that he offers of how he understands God's 'compelling' people to act is at the end of his discussion of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

As things are... because [Pharaoh] is driven and carried along in his willing, though without any violence being done to his will, since it is not unwillingly compelled but is carried along by the natural operation of God to will naturally, in accordance with its character (which, however, is evil)--therefore it cannot help but fall foul of the word [of Moses] and be hardened.

This kind of 'willing' Luther will later describe as 'free', though he never does try to reconcile that description to the brief discussions of omnipotence and omniscience that he does have in the treatise. I'm okay with that... mainly because On the Bondage of the Will is already close to four-times the length of Erasmus's earlier work.

As I've been pondering all of this, the real disjuncts between the two main camps in the predestination-conversation and the integrations of these issues in their respective systems seem be becoming clearer and clearer.

The real disagreement between the Armenians and the Calvinists, I think, is over the way grace is offered to man. No orthodox Christian disagrees that "it's by grace you have been saved through faith", the question is over who is offered this grace and how.

The doctrine of limited atonement captures the spirit of the Calvinist response: only certain people are offered this grace and at particular times--these are the people for whom Jesus died.

The Armenian response in contrast revolves around that idea of prevenient grace, a grace that God ever pours on the world to check the passions of men and to prepare any and all men for the grace offered in Christ. Thus anyone, despite the bondage to sin, is able to seek God, though I believe even this seeking is only a response to the urgings of the Holy Spirit.

I agree with the Eastern Orthodox that limited atonement is a heresy and "completely contradicts scripture" (as David Bentley Hart put it in his brilliant little book on theodicy, The Doors of the Sea). Prevenient grace is still a difficult idea for me to get behind, as there seems to be no clear scriptural foundation for it--much like limited atonement in this sense--but instead it's just easily inferred from the whole tenor of scripture.

But there's still one other issue that Luther touches on and that must be addressed. This is issue of Creation: how God makes us, and, especially in light of evolutionary theory, what role does man play in his own creation?

Luther's suggestion that God puts in each man a nature that is capable of only one response to God, either receiving Him or scorning Him, while allowing for free will, still presents the same difficulties for those advocates of free choice that a more clearly-deterministic system would. In approaching this issue the realities behind Creation (again) must be addressed, as well as Romans 9, and this notion of prevenient grace.

I've only just begun to really consider all of this from this angle, so I'm not going to try and offer any answers here. Even if I had been pondering this for a long time, I have to wonder what good my 'answers' would be anyways.

What I can say is that Romans 9 is the most difficult chapter for me to understand in the whole of Scripture. It's not difficult to draw a meaning from it. It's difficult to place the apparent meaning in any kind of meaningful relation to the rest of the Bible. What Paul seems to be saying here simply does not seem to fit with everything else. How are we to reconcile this to the prophets, to the other NT authors, to the teachings of Christ in the synoptics?

I'm looking forward to spending much of my summer reflecting on all of this, as I spend some time really diving into Paul--especially Romans. On the one hand I feel as if I ought to expect answers to to these questions... but that may be asking too much. Luther's answer, I can say, is utterly unsatisfying. But beyond that sort of negative approach, I'm more and more inclined as the conversation goes on to say stop and just say with the Apostle: "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable are his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?' 'Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen."

Twitter in worship

2009-05-03T11:37:00.012-05:00

"If worship is about creating community, Twitter is an undeniably useful tool."

"He likes the way it helps him see what God is doing in other people's lives during the service."

These remarks come from an article in Time right now about a church integrating Twitter into their worship services... and the other churches hoping to follow suit. Read it.

The last line in the whole piece I think is telling. They are going over the sorts of emails this pastor has been receiving lately, and end with this: "Got any tips to persuade church leadership this is way cool?

...

That's a great question. How can we best pitch cool things to church leadership? If they can't be convinced, the whole congregation will miss out.

...

In all seriousness, while I think this desire to integrate 'cool' into worship is terrifying, there are other issues here which I find more frightening.

"Worship is about creating community"?

The dictionary seems to have missed the mark quite a bit on worship then: "the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity."

The scriptures, too. There, worship seems to be more about "ascribing to the Lord the glory due His name."

In a 'worship service' where the congregation is constantly looking at the comments of their neighbors in the pews and constantly looking to offer up their own comments, when will we say that we've crossed a line, and that the attention is no longer on God but on ourselves?

And what about this idea that Twitter builds community?

We who are one body because we partake of the one bread, participating in the body of Christ, are we to build community through micro-blogging. There are too many shallow relationships in a church already, without social networking removing us all yet another step from real people and real relationships. The development of a community in the early Church involved the selling of one's possessions and distribution amongst all, as there was need. I think that is quite the contrast.

Some questions have been raised lately about how the way the church presents to gospel shapes the message of the gospel (here Rob Bell interviews pastor Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, on this very topic). This is a situation where we need to consider these questions long and hard.

Again, here's the article. Go read it, and let's hear what you think.

if everyone would please remain calm

2009-05-01T13:28:00.002-05:00

"Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison.

We, the masses in a society of mass media, need to learn the art of gaining perspective. Especially when the media outlets are able to select what they will and will not really make the public aware of.

Here's a nice article from the LA Times on the current 'swine flu' which makes the people walking around wearing masks look just a little sillier.

World Malaria Day

2009-04-25T00:00:00.001-05:00

Today is World Malaria Day.

Malaria causes around one million deaths a year worldwide. This is staggering for a disease that is easily preventable--we eliminated malaria in the US in the early 50s. World Malaria Day is meant to raise awareness of this disease and of the ways that we can all be involved in its eradication. Organizations like malaria NO MORE and Nothing But Nets (one of whose major partners is the United Methodist Church, I'm happy to see) make it easy for anyone to help by donating the funds that are so vital to this sort of undertaking.

I hardly need to say that fighting evils like malaria, spending oneself on aiding neighbors in need, is a responsibility for all Christians, mandated by our Lord Jesus.
Today--now--while this reality has for a moment crept past the blinders and into our minds, take whatever steps you can towards relieving the peoples tormented by this killer. Pray, give, and communicate, spurring the Body of Christ on to prayer and gifts and communication.

N. T. Wright's Justification

2009-04-20T13:12:00.000-05:00

Wright's latest book, Justification: God's Plan & Paul's VIsion, is going to hit stores at the end of May. In case you weren't aware, this is Wright's answer to John Piper's A Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright.

Now, John Piper is certainly an intelligent fellow, and he seems to have a passion for drawing others into serious followship of Christ. I'm not incredibly familiar with all of Piper's work myself: I understand he's Reformed, which is a bad start in my mind, but he also has some nice things to say about St. Athanasius, which is a positive. I'm hoping to read one of Piper's books for myself this summer.

Regardless, though, of my general feelings towards John Piper, in this case--the Piper-Wright debate--I just feel sorry for the guy.

First, because he's picking a fight with N. T. Wright... over a topic related to the New Testament. 'Nuff said.

Second, because of the support I keep seeing for Wright.
Here are a couple of the reviews for Justification that I've read:

"For some time now, I have watched in puzzlement as some critics, imagining themselves as defenders of Paul's gospel, have derided Tom Wright as a dangerous betrayer of the Christian faith. In fact, Paul's gospel of God's reconciling, world-transforming grace has no more ardent and eloquent exponent in our time than Tom Wright. If his detractors read this book carefully, they will find themselves engaged in close exegesis of Paul's letters, and they will be challenged to join Wright in grappling with the deepest logic of Paul's message. Beyond slogans and caricatures of 'Lutheran readings' and 'the New Perspective,' the task we all face is to interpret these difficult, theologically generative letters afresh for our time. Wright's sweeping, incisive sketch of Paul's thought, set forward in this book, will help us all in that task." —Richard B. Hays, Duke University

"Tom Wright has out-Reformed America's newest religious zealots--the neo-Reformed--by taking them back to Scripture and to its meaning in its historical context. Wright reveals that the neo-Reformed are more committed to tradition than to the sacred text. This irony is palpable on every page of this judicious, hard-hitting, respectful study." —Scot McKnight, North Park University

On his blog, after offering a summary of Wright's views on justification, Ben Witherington III concluded: "I think Tom is 100% correct in this assessment."

N. T. Wright, Richard Hays, Scot McKnight, Ben Witherington III (among others)... this show of force on one side would elicit my pity for any opponent, frankly.

Perhaps I should go ahead and make A Future of Justification the first of Piper's works I pick up, if for no other reason than to prepare for Wright's rebuttal. Though, if those of you who have more experience with John Piper can make any suggestions, that would be most appreciated. I'm (of course) thinking about Desiring God, Don't Waste Your Life, and the other popular titles for a nice intro to the man.

interview with John Polkinghorne

2009-04-17T21:22:00.006-05:00

Religion News Service has posted a brief Q&A with Rev. John Polkinghorne that's worth checking out: 10 Minutes with ... the Rev. John Polkinghorne. The interview sounds like it's supposed to be tied to a new book of his, but the questions are actually pretty general, and, some of them, really interesting.

Polkinghorne made his mark as a physicist but has spent his later years as a priest and theologian in the Church of England.
I had to read some of his book Exploring Reality: The Intertwining of Science and Religion for a course at LSU, and I really appreciate the man's work. There's quite a bit about quantum physics--none of which I claim to understand--early on in that particular book, but once you're past that, this book is full of insight.

For the longest time I couldn't recall where I'd read a particular idea related to evolution, and it turns out it was in Polkinghorne. This is actually just his recounting what earlier theologians, contemporaries of Darwin himself, had suggested, but it's no less provocative for being second-hand.

A world in which species were stable, totally immune from change, might well have been capable of being thought of theologically as a creation that had sprung into being ready-made, its origin simply the result of the direct action of the God who was that world's Designer. On the other hand, a world of radical temporality, in which change is the engine driving the emergence of novelty, is one to which its Creator's relationship has to be understood in somewhat different terms. In words used by both Charles Kingsley and Frederick Temple in the aftermath of the publication of the Origin [of Species], an evolving world may appropriately be thought of theologically as a creation in which creatures are 'allowed to make themselves'. In other words, from a theological perspective, evolution is simply the way in which creatures are allowed to explore and bring to birth the fruitfulness with which the Creator has endowed creation.

Just something to chew on.

Go check out the interview!

The Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom

2009-04-12T02:00:00.000-05:00

If any be a devout lover of God,
  let him partake with gladness from this fair and radiant feast.
If any be a faithful servant,
  let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord.
If any have wearied himself with fasting,
  let him now enjoy his reward.
If any have laboured from the first hour,
  let him receive today his rightful due.
If any have come after the third,
  let him celebrate the feast with thankfulness.
If any have come after the sixth,
  let him not be in doubt, for he will suffer no loss.
If any have delayed until the ninth,
  let him not hesitate but draw near.
If any have arrived only at the eleventh,
  let him not be afraid because he comes so late.

For the Master is generous and accepts the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him who comes at the eleventh hour
  in the same was as him who has laboured from the first.
He accepts the deed, and commends the intention.

Enter then, all of you, into the joy of our Lord.
First and last, receive alike your reward.
Rich and poor, dance together.
You who fasted and you who have not fasted, rejoice together.
The table is fully laden: let all enjoy it.
The calf is fatted: let none go away hungry.

Let none lament his poverty;
  for the universal Kingdom is revealed.
Let none bewail his transgressions;
  for the light of forgiveness has risen from the tomb.
Let none fear death;
  for death of the Saviour has set us free.

He has destroyed death by undergoing death.
He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.
He vexed it even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah foretold this when he cried:
Hell was filled with bitterness when it met Thee face to face below;
  filled with bitterness, for it was brought to nothing;
  filled with bitterness, for it was mocked;
  filled with bitterness, for it was overthrown;
  filled with bitterness, for it was put in chains.
Hell received a body, and encountered God. It received earth, and confronted heaven.
O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen! And you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is risen! And the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is risen! And the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen! And life is liberated!
Christ is risen! And the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power, now and forever, and from all ages to all ages.
Amen!

Holy Saturday

2009-04-11T00:00:00.000-05:00

RFK was shot on June 5, 1968, and died the following day.
Kennedy delivered a powerful speech against the "menace of violence in America" shortly before he was shot. In the midst of a flourishing campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination, his light was suddenly extinguished, leaving many eyes for nothing but the darkness. "Now that Dr. King is gone, no one left but Bobby - no one."

And then, no one at all.

-
This morning some men woke up and prayed that yesterday was just a bad dream.

A man they loved, who called them 'friends', their mentor, their brother, had been suddenly taken from them.
Even more than these things, he was their hope: the man who would end the oppression in their world, who alone could bring justice and peace.
But now he's dead.

Not only dead, but executed. The man you always thought was invulnerable. Nothing would be able to touch him.
And maybe they would be next. This leader they had so devoted themselves to might now be only a death warrant for them.

And more than this, now they simply have nothing.
When the one center of life, of your labor, of your time, of your dreams, is violently ripped away... you have nothing. Maybe you should go back to life before? . . but where would you really go?

These men hoped waking that yesterday would just have been a bad dream. But yesterday, Friday, was very real, very true.
Today, they have no hope, no light, no life. All because this man they followed... well, it's Saturday, and he's still very dead.

Now there's nothing left but living, with all of its fear and tedium and shattered dreams.

"You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again."