Just a few metablogging notes here.
There seems to be a problem either with Blogger or with Feedburner; I keep getting the most recent 25 posts appearing as though they were new in my own subscription. I don't know if other subscribers are getting the same thing or not; it's not me, and I can't find any documentation for it on either Blogger or Feedburner, except that I see in November Blogger ran a fix for a problem they had that they said would result in a one-time reposting of everyone's most recent 25. So I don't know if it's that or something else; for all I know, it's just a problem with my own ISP's server. If anyone has any insight, I'd like to know about it.
For my own part, I do from time to time make minor updates on old posts, usually just to fix the collapsible posts code or some such thing. I've learned, thanks to Hans how to insert a note into the feed that won't show up on the page itself, to let subscribers know whether there's actually any new material in the post or not. So I'll be doing that whenever I tweak a post.
I've been blogging less frequently, as my schedule has changed and I have less time to myself to write (this translates into more time for family, so it's a good thing). I'll keep it up as I can; I appreciate those of you who take the time to read.
As a part of this new schedule, I've cautiously decided to allow comments without moderation. This will give those of you who comment the ability to have them posted without waiting for me to approve them, since it may now be the better part of a day before I can check them. But the policy of this blog is still that all comments are moderated; I'm just doing it after the fact now, and may change back at any time. Moderation hasn't been a problem so far; I think there's only been a couple of times I haven't approved comments (obvious trolls). I just want to reserve that right, because I've seen too many web forums, newsgroups, and mailing lists become ugly and unhelpful places; I don't want that to happen here.
Anyway, I think that's it for now. God bless.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Groundhog Day is Today
Republished without picture, since ImageShack decided to yank my access. No new content.
I've long enjoyed the movie; it's Murray at his best, both funny and poignant. The central idea is irresistible, and much of the fun of the movie is watching the same scene setup play itself out in a myriad of different ways, based on Murray's character Phil Connors trying out all sorts of different responses to the situations that repeatedly confront him. Once the movie has established the basic setup, we often see the same scene repeated a number of times in a row, as when Connors uses information gleaned from a previous day--say, a woman's high school or favorite drink--to his advantage on a subsequent day. Or sometimes, the same type of thing happens in different settings (the slapping montage is the most priceless example).
But the movie makes its turn when Connors sees the needs of the people around him. A child falls out of a tree; a group of women are stranded with a flat tire; a man in a restaurant chokes on some steak; a homeless man dies. Connors begins setting for himself a set of "chores"; things that he does for people every day, despite the fact that when he wakes up again, the same needs will exist again, and the people he's helped won't even remember that he has done so. Besides this, he also does things, like taking piano lessons, to better himself in a personal way. As he does so, he earns what he could not gain by manipulation: the admiration--and the beginnings of love--from MacDowell's character.
What struck me the last time I saw this movie was how it really played as a parable of our own lives. To be sure, we are not caught in a time loop during which we are literally repeating the same day over and over. But for most of us, life settles into a routine. We go to work, we come home, we frequent various places for amusement, we travel the same routes, we see the same people. The real question for each one of us as human beings is, what are we doing with that routine? How aware are we of the people that cross our paths every day? What kind of people are we making ourselves into? What influence are we having on others?
It's all-too-easy to find ourselves mindlessly repeating the same pattern, hoping for some Big Thing to get us out of our rut and make a change in our lives. It's tempting to think of ministry as something that we will do if the right opportunity comes along. Some of us, frankly, are stuck--in jobs we didn't expect to have, in places we didn't intend to be, in situations we didn't plan on. The real question is, What do we do with the place we're stuck in and the people we're stuck with? Because how we answer that question determines the kind of person we are. Jesus, to be quite frank, didn't say, "Repeat this prayer after me, and if you really believe it in your heart, then you can live forever in heaven." He did say, "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my brothers, you have done it unto me. Enter into your rest."
Technorati Tags: Movies, Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Comedy
So put your little hand in mineIf you haven't ever seen Bill Murray's movie, Groundhog Day, you really should check it out. The movie is based on a simple premise: a self-centered, shallow weatherman (Murray) finds himself repeating the same day over and over. It recounts how he first disbelieves and resists his situation, then decides to exploit it, tries repeatedly to kill himself (only to wake up the following morning), falls in love with his producer (Andie MacDowell) and tries to exploit the situation to win her, and finally becomes aware of the needs of the people around him, choosing to use this eternally-recurring day to serve others and improve himself.
There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb
-- Sonny and Cher
I've long enjoyed the movie; it's Murray at his best, both funny and poignant. The central idea is irresistible, and much of the fun of the movie is watching the same scene setup play itself out in a myriad of different ways, based on Murray's character Phil Connors trying out all sorts of different responses to the situations that repeatedly confront him. Once the movie has established the basic setup, we often see the same scene repeated a number of times in a row, as when Connors uses information gleaned from a previous day--say, a woman's high school or favorite drink--to his advantage on a subsequent day. Or sometimes, the same type of thing happens in different settings (the slapping montage is the most priceless example).
But the movie makes its turn when Connors sees the needs of the people around him. A child falls out of a tree; a group of women are stranded with a flat tire; a man in a restaurant chokes on some steak; a homeless man dies. Connors begins setting for himself a set of "chores"; things that he does for people every day, despite the fact that when he wakes up again, the same needs will exist again, and the people he's helped won't even remember that he has done so. Besides this, he also does things, like taking piano lessons, to better himself in a personal way. As he does so, he earns what he could not gain by manipulation: the admiration--and the beginnings of love--from MacDowell's character.
What struck me the last time I saw this movie was how it really played as a parable of our own lives. To be sure, we are not caught in a time loop during which we are literally repeating the same day over and over. But for most of us, life settles into a routine. We go to work, we come home, we frequent various places for amusement, we travel the same routes, we see the same people. The real question for each one of us as human beings is, what are we doing with that routine? How aware are we of the people that cross our paths every day? What kind of people are we making ourselves into? What influence are we having on others?
It's all-too-easy to find ourselves mindlessly repeating the same pattern, hoping for some Big Thing to get us out of our rut and make a change in our lives. It's tempting to think of ministry as something that we will do if the right opportunity comes along. Some of us, frankly, are stuck--in jobs we didn't expect to have, in places we didn't intend to be, in situations we didn't plan on. The real question is, What do we do with the place we're stuck in and the people we're stuck with? Because how we answer that question determines the kind of person we are. Jesus, to be quite frank, didn't say, "Repeat this prayer after me, and if you really believe it in your heart, then you can live forever in heaven." He did say, "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my brothers, you have done it unto me. Enter into your rest."
Technorati Tags: Movies, Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Comedy
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Ben Witherington on the Authorship of the Fourth Gospel
Ben Witherington's post, "Was Lazarus the Beloved Disciple?" is an interesting essay, although I must say I remain unconvinced. Dr. Witherington argues, largely from internal evidence, that Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha whom Jesus raised from the dead, was the "beloved disciple" in the Fourth Gospel and was responsible for writing what would amount to the "first draft" of the book. Unfortunately, there's a bit too much "Oxford wrote Shakespeare" here for me.
Dr. Witherington's argument involves first questioning the external evidence of authorship--the attribution of the Gospel of John to the Apostle John, son of Zebedee. According to Dr. Witherington, the first person to attribute the gospel unambiguously to John the Apostle was Irenaus, around AD 180 (although he refers to "various church fathers in the second century" who thought the same thing). He brings up the argument that Papias, the first to attribute the gospel to a "John" in the early second century calls this "John" an "elder," not an apostle. He ignores, however, the arguments of those who hold to the traditional ascription that identify this "elder" with the Apostle. Moreover, Dr. Witherington continues by identifying this "John the elder" with the John who wrote Revelation from the island of Patmos (whom he continues to distinguish from the Apostle John), based on nothing more than Papias's millennial theology. So essentially, Dr. Witherington brushes aside all of the external evidence, in order to secure a hearing for his argument from internal evidence.
The Internal Evidence
Dr. Witherington makes much of the fact that none of the "Zebedee" stories and few of the Galilean ministry narratives from the Synoptics are found in John. However, if John knew the Synoptics and wrote his gospel consciously to supplement them (which is the historic view), it wouldn't be surprising that he leaves out stories that had already been told and retold by the Synoptic authors. It is true that John focuses much more on Jesus' Judean ministry, largely ignored by the Synoptic authors, and Lazarus was a Judean (Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem, and Jesus went back and forth from Jerusalem to Bethany each day during Passion week). But this is hardly conclusive, and some events to which Dr. Witherington draws attention (e.g., the night visit by Nicodemus) wouldn't have been observed by Lazarus in any event.
The "disciple whom Jesus loved" is first mentioned by that title in John 13:23. Dr. Witherington draws attention to Lazarus being described by his sisters as "the one you love" in John 11:3; then when referring to 13:23, Dr. Witherington makes a series of linked hypothoses: first, that the meal was not necessarily a Passover meal or the Last Supper; then, that it may have not been eaten in Jerusalem; then, that it may have been eaten in Bethany; then, that Jesus would have been seated by the host; and then, that since Lazarus had a home at which Jesus often stayed, he was the host and would have reclined by Jesus. Let's assume that each of these hypotheses have an 80% probability of being true (which I think improbable of some of them); the entire string has less than a 1/3 chance of being correct. But Dr. Witherington argues that someone who heard John being read would have remembered Lazarus being described as being "loved" by Jesus, and assumed that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" would necessarily have been Lazarus, despite the fact that two chapters have intervened, a different word for "loved" is used, John 13:1 makes a point of Jesus demonstrating his love to all his followers who were there at the time, and to my knowledge there is no external evidence of an ancient interpreter recognizing the "beloved disciple" in this manner.
Further Evidence?
Having thus identified the beloved disciple, Dr. Witherington continues by demonstrating how nicely such an identification would fit into John's narrative. (Once again, this reminds me of how well the Earl of Oxford's domestic situation is thought by some to mirror the narrative of Hamlet.) His first example, surprisingly, is the fact that the beloved disciple has access to the High Priest's house. Dr. Witherington speculates that Lazarus was a "high status person" who may have had a relationship to people in Caiaphas's house; this despite the fact that Lasarus's resurrection had caused consternation in the Sanhedrin and had even provoked Caiaphas to suggest that Jesus be killed (John 11:47-53). During this same time frame, the chief priests were making plans to kill Lazarus as well, since people were coming over to Jesus as a result of his resurrection. Yet he was supposedly well-connected and had unrestricted access to Caiaphas's house?
Dr. Witherington makes a number of other such speculations, either through linked hypotheses or simply fitting Lazarus into situations that he thinks would make more sense if Lazarus were the author of the narrative. He discusses the tradition that the beloved disciple would not die as depending on Jesus having raised him from the dead, even though John 21:23 clearly relates the tradition to Jesus' response to Peter and makes no mention of the resurrection of Lazarus. Dr. Witherington also thinks that the high Christology of the fourth gospel derives from its author's having been resurrected; this does not explain why Paul, for example, has an equally high Christology, at probably as early or earlier a date.
Dr. Witherington finally ascribes the final version of John (he sees at least chapter 21 as an editorial addition) to the John of Patmos who wrote Revelation and who is Papias's "John the elder," thus explaining how the Fourth Gospel got associated with the name John. What he is arguing for is the proposition that Lazarus wrote most of John as an eyewitness, John the elder (of whom we know nothing else) finished the manuscript, Lazarus's contribution was completely forgotten, and John's contribution was not only attributed to the whole but also misattributed to the Apostle. (Incidentally, there is also a problem in that Dr. Witherington thinks that John of Patmos wrote 2 and 3 John as well as Revelation; however, 1 John has many affinities with the gospel of John--presumably, this would have been written by Lazarus as well, whose authorship would once again have been completely forgotten and misattributed to John the Apostle.)
I have great respect for Dr. Witherington, but here I fear that he falls prey to the speculation that is all-but-endemic to gospel studies. If he wanted to argue that we can't know for sure who the beloved disciple is, who wrote the Fourth Gospel, or even if the two are the same, I could be persuaded. I am not wedded to the idea that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, since the scripture itself doesn't say so. But putting another person in that position, on such speculative evidence, I find entirely unpersuasive.
Technorati Tags: Ben Witherington, John, author, Bible, Lazarus
Dr. Witherington's argument involves first questioning the external evidence of authorship--the attribution of the Gospel of John to the Apostle John, son of Zebedee. According to Dr. Witherington, the first person to attribute the gospel unambiguously to John the Apostle was Irenaus, around AD 180 (although he refers to "various church fathers in the second century" who thought the same thing). He brings up the argument that Papias, the first to attribute the gospel to a "John" in the early second century calls this "John" an "elder," not an apostle. He ignores, however, the arguments of those who hold to the traditional ascription that identify this "elder" with the Apostle. Moreover, Dr. Witherington continues by identifying this "John the elder" with the John who wrote Revelation from the island of Patmos (whom he continues to distinguish from the Apostle John), based on nothing more than Papias's millennial theology. So essentially, Dr. Witherington brushes aside all of the external evidence, in order to secure a hearing for his argument from internal evidence.
The Internal Evidence
Dr. Witherington makes much of the fact that none of the "Zebedee" stories and few of the Galilean ministry narratives from the Synoptics are found in John. However, if John knew the Synoptics and wrote his gospel consciously to supplement them (which is the historic view), it wouldn't be surprising that he leaves out stories that had already been told and retold by the Synoptic authors. It is true that John focuses much more on Jesus' Judean ministry, largely ignored by the Synoptic authors, and Lazarus was a Judean (Bethany is about two miles from Jerusalem, and Jesus went back and forth from Jerusalem to Bethany each day during Passion week). But this is hardly conclusive, and some events to which Dr. Witherington draws attention (e.g., the night visit by Nicodemus) wouldn't have been observed by Lazarus in any event.
The "disciple whom Jesus loved" is first mentioned by that title in John 13:23. Dr. Witherington draws attention to Lazarus being described by his sisters as "the one you love" in John 11:3; then when referring to 13:23, Dr. Witherington makes a series of linked hypothoses: first, that the meal was not necessarily a Passover meal or the Last Supper; then, that it may have not been eaten in Jerusalem; then, that it may have been eaten in Bethany; then, that Jesus would have been seated by the host; and then, that since Lazarus had a home at which Jesus often stayed, he was the host and would have reclined by Jesus. Let's assume that each of these hypotheses have an 80% probability of being true (which I think improbable of some of them); the entire string has less than a 1/3 chance of being correct. But Dr. Witherington argues that someone who heard John being read would have remembered Lazarus being described as being "loved" by Jesus, and assumed that the "disciple whom Jesus loved" would necessarily have been Lazarus, despite the fact that two chapters have intervened, a different word for "loved" is used, John 13:1 makes a point of Jesus demonstrating his love to all his followers who were there at the time, and to my knowledge there is no external evidence of an ancient interpreter recognizing the "beloved disciple" in this manner.
Further Evidence?
Having thus identified the beloved disciple, Dr. Witherington continues by demonstrating how nicely such an identification would fit into John's narrative. (Once again, this reminds me of how well the Earl of Oxford's domestic situation is thought by some to mirror the narrative of Hamlet.) His first example, surprisingly, is the fact that the beloved disciple has access to the High Priest's house. Dr. Witherington speculates that Lazarus was a "high status person" who may have had a relationship to people in Caiaphas's house; this despite the fact that Lasarus's resurrection had caused consternation in the Sanhedrin and had even provoked Caiaphas to suggest that Jesus be killed (John 11:47-53). During this same time frame, the chief priests were making plans to kill Lazarus as well, since people were coming over to Jesus as a result of his resurrection. Yet he was supposedly well-connected and had unrestricted access to Caiaphas's house?
Dr. Witherington makes a number of other such speculations, either through linked hypotheses or simply fitting Lazarus into situations that he thinks would make more sense if Lazarus were the author of the narrative. He discusses the tradition that the beloved disciple would not die as depending on Jesus having raised him from the dead, even though John 21:23 clearly relates the tradition to Jesus' response to Peter and makes no mention of the resurrection of Lazarus. Dr. Witherington also thinks that the high Christology of the fourth gospel derives from its author's having been resurrected; this does not explain why Paul, for example, has an equally high Christology, at probably as early or earlier a date.
Dr. Witherington finally ascribes the final version of John (he sees at least chapter 21 as an editorial addition) to the John of Patmos who wrote Revelation and who is Papias's "John the elder," thus explaining how the Fourth Gospel got associated with the name John. What he is arguing for is the proposition that Lazarus wrote most of John as an eyewitness, John the elder (of whom we know nothing else) finished the manuscript, Lazarus's contribution was completely forgotten, and John's contribution was not only attributed to the whole but also misattributed to the Apostle. (Incidentally, there is also a problem in that Dr. Witherington thinks that John of Patmos wrote 2 and 3 John as well as Revelation; however, 1 John has many affinities with the gospel of John--presumably, this would have been written by Lazarus as well, whose authorship would once again have been completely forgotten and misattributed to John the Apostle.)
I have great respect for Dr. Witherington, but here I fear that he falls prey to the speculation that is all-but-endemic to gospel studies. If he wanted to argue that we can't know for sure who the beloved disciple is, who wrote the Fourth Gospel, or even if the two are the same, I could be persuaded. I am not wedded to the idea that John wrote the Fourth Gospel, since the scripture itself doesn't say so. But putting another person in that position, on such speculative evidence, I find entirely unpersuasive.
Technorati Tags: Ben Witherington, John, author, Bible, Lazarus
Monday, January 22, 2007
Cheap Gas and Eschatology
The Ecotality blog has a piece on "The High Price of Cheap Gas," basically saying that for both environmental and geopolitical reasons, it's a good idea to keep on the path of reducing gasoline usage and finding alternative fuels. Unfortunately, the lowering of gas prices (in inflation-adjusted dollars) over the course of the 1990s had the opposite tendency of fueling the public's appetite for V-8 SUVs and reducing investment in alternative-fueled vehicles.
I haven't dealt with the topic of environmentalism in this forum, partly because I'm not in the slightest qualified to opine on the various charges and counter-charges made on that subject. But both this piece and Ben Witherington's (continued here) have caught my interest and gotten me thinking of these subjects in a way I haven't seen elsewhere. In order to get at it, I have to turn to a seemingly unrelated subject: eschatology.
There seem to be two dominant strains of eschatology floating around these days: a "Left Behind" dispensationalist version, which focuses us on being ready for the Rapture and regards the judgments that happen afterward as generally miraculous in origin; and a preterist version popular in the emerging church, which basically says that the NT writers dealing with the subject (primarily John) were talking about stuff happening within the first century. The "Left Behind" version is often criticized for encouraging a "use it up while we can" mentality: if we expect Christ's return at some point in the near future, then environmental concerns are misplaced, since trends that may have a catastrophic outcome at some point in the not-too-soon future are not expected to reach termination. Most people favoring this approach don't put it in such stark terms, however. Rather, they tend to be skeptical with regard to concerns regarding the environment. This is partly because those politically allied with radical environmentalists tend to be hostile to the concerns of traditional Christians on such issues as abortion. But it would also appear that a variant of Pascal's wager is going on here. If one assumes that we're all going to be outta here soon, then the cost of being wrong on environmental topics is insignificant.
In general, those who favor a more preterist eschatology also happen to be more progressive on the environmental front, but there is no eschatalogical reason for them to do so. If eschatology is really just about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and opposition to the power and paganism of the Roman Empire, then there is little left to inform the Christian about environmental concerns. The issue of stewardship over the Earth God placed in our care is often appealed to, but once mentioned, there is little left to say, other than to associate generally "green-friendly" ideas with the Genesis command to rule over the earth. And if there is truth to the claims of environmentalists, then a bit of recycling here and there and a change in one's vehicle of preference aren't going to change the course on which we're headed. The way of life among people in the developed world would have to change drastically, and human nature being what it is, that kind of change won't be accepted unless it's imposed against our will. I don't think even members of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace are prepared to deal with it.
Although I'm not dispensational in my eschatology, I'm also not a preterist. I do believe that most of the eschatological portions of scripture do refer to the time period more-or-less immediately prior to Jesus' second coming. And if we look at the scriptures dealing with developments during the end times, some of them correspond rather frighteningly with things that are happening now--for instance, the mass destruction of vegetation and fish (Rev. 8:7-9). Am I saying that these prophecies are in fact being fulfilled now? No, I'm not making any such grandiose claim--the truth of the matter is, I don't know. What I do know is that prophecies in the past that would have appeared to require miraculous divine intervention (e.g., Ezek. 26) came to pass through human means.
What if the judgments that God rains down on the earth in the book of Revelation are not miraculously caused at all, but are the natural consequences of human actions--our failure to take care of this Earth as God commanded us to do? What if the "wars and rumors of wars" that Jesus predicted (Matt. 24:6) are at least partly a result of the developed nations taking advantage of less-developed ones in a relentless, consumer-driven thirst for more and cheaper goods and sources of energy? In that case, it appears that we won't reverse the trend, at least not in the long term. What God has prophesied will inevitably come to pass. But each of us bears a responsibility regarding whether we are a part of the problem or stand against the tide. I don't think most Western Christians are prepared to think seriously about whether our very way of life is sinful and destructive, even if we as individuals are not committing overt sins. If we have a "Let them eat cake" attitude toward the underdeveloped world, will we not be held to account?
I'm not pontificating. I'm just asking questions. All my life I've been politically, as well as theologically, conservative. My theology hasn't changed. But I'm beginning to wonder about the rest.
HT: SmartChristian.com
Technorati Tags: Ben Witherington, Left Behind, dispensationalism, prophecy, judgment
I haven't dealt with the topic of environmentalism in this forum, partly because I'm not in the slightest qualified to opine on the various charges and counter-charges made on that subject. But both this piece and Ben Witherington's (continued here) have caught my interest and gotten me thinking of these subjects in a way I haven't seen elsewhere. In order to get at it, I have to turn to a seemingly unrelated subject: eschatology.
There seem to be two dominant strains of eschatology floating around these days: a "Left Behind" dispensationalist version, which focuses us on being ready for the Rapture and regards the judgments that happen afterward as generally miraculous in origin; and a preterist version popular in the emerging church, which basically says that the NT writers dealing with the subject (primarily John) were talking about stuff happening within the first century. The "Left Behind" version is often criticized for encouraging a "use it up while we can" mentality: if we expect Christ's return at some point in the near future, then environmental concerns are misplaced, since trends that may have a catastrophic outcome at some point in the not-too-soon future are not expected to reach termination. Most people favoring this approach don't put it in such stark terms, however. Rather, they tend to be skeptical with regard to concerns regarding the environment. This is partly because those politically allied with radical environmentalists tend to be hostile to the concerns of traditional Christians on such issues as abortion. But it would also appear that a variant of Pascal's wager is going on here. If one assumes that we're all going to be outta here soon, then the cost of being wrong on environmental topics is insignificant.
In general, those who favor a more preterist eschatology also happen to be more progressive on the environmental front, but there is no eschatalogical reason for them to do so. If eschatology is really just about the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 and opposition to the power and paganism of the Roman Empire, then there is little left to inform the Christian about environmental concerns. The issue of stewardship over the Earth God placed in our care is often appealed to, but once mentioned, there is little left to say, other than to associate generally "green-friendly" ideas with the Genesis command to rule over the earth. And if there is truth to the claims of environmentalists, then a bit of recycling here and there and a change in one's vehicle of preference aren't going to change the course on which we're headed. The way of life among people in the developed world would have to change drastically, and human nature being what it is, that kind of change won't be accepted unless it's imposed against our will. I don't think even members of the Sierra Club or Greenpeace are prepared to deal with it.
Although I'm not dispensational in my eschatology, I'm also not a preterist. I do believe that most of the eschatological portions of scripture do refer to the time period more-or-less immediately prior to Jesus' second coming. And if we look at the scriptures dealing with developments during the end times, some of them correspond rather frighteningly with things that are happening now--for instance, the mass destruction of vegetation and fish (Rev. 8:7-9). Am I saying that these prophecies are in fact being fulfilled now? No, I'm not making any such grandiose claim--the truth of the matter is, I don't know. What I do know is that prophecies in the past that would have appeared to require miraculous divine intervention (e.g., Ezek. 26) came to pass through human means.
What if the judgments that God rains down on the earth in the book of Revelation are not miraculously caused at all, but are the natural consequences of human actions--our failure to take care of this Earth as God commanded us to do? What if the "wars and rumors of wars" that Jesus predicted (Matt. 24:6) are at least partly a result of the developed nations taking advantage of less-developed ones in a relentless, consumer-driven thirst for more and cheaper goods and sources of energy? In that case, it appears that we won't reverse the trend, at least not in the long term. What God has prophesied will inevitably come to pass. But each of us bears a responsibility regarding whether we are a part of the problem or stand against the tide. I don't think most Western Christians are prepared to think seriously about whether our very way of life is sinful and destructive, even if we as individuals are not committing overt sins. If we have a "Let them eat cake" attitude toward the underdeveloped world, will we not be held to account?
I'm not pontificating. I'm just asking questions. All my life I've been politically, as well as theologically, conservative. My theology hasn't changed. But I'm beginning to wonder about the rest.
HT: SmartChristian.com
Technorati Tags: Ben Witherington, Left Behind, dispensationalism, prophecy, judgment
Monday, January 15, 2007
The Concept of a "Redemptive Trend"
Scot McKnight has been posting on the concept of a "redemptive trend," specifically as it relates to the idea of women in ministry. In today's post, he asks the following question:
My understanding of the basic concept of a redemptive trend is this: God inspired human beings to write the Scriptures from a position within their own cultural norms and understandings. This was necessary for the scriptures to have been written and to have been comprehensible to human beings at all. Therefore, some of what was written is culturally conditioned, and therefore application of the principles involved may vary from one cultural circumstance to another. Any reasonably developed hermeneutic will acknowledge this. The "redemptive trend" idea takes this a step further, suggesting that we may move from the culturally-conditioned commands of scripture through other passages that appear to modify or ameliorate these commands, and press this "trend" forward to a conclusion that may not be found explicitly in the Bible and may even contradict the culturally-conditioned commands.
What I understand Scot to be saying in the questions he asks is that if we acknowledge the existence of culturally-conditioned commands, obedience to the letter of which is not necessary (or applicable) today, then we have already implicitly acknowledged the concept of a redemptive trend, and therefore resistance to the concept is likely resistance to a particular application of that concept--such as women in ministry. I think that a more modest hermeneutic will suffice to deal with the cultural aspects of Scripture, and avoid some of the more problematic implications of the redemptive trend idea.
The problem of the "redemptive trend" idea is its open-endedness. How are we to distinguish between a "redemptive trend" that is to be pursued to its ultimate, logical conclusion, and a cultural situation that God may have wanted to change but not necessarily to curtail completely? For example, in the Old Testament, polygamy is tolerated; in the New, monogamy is insisted upon, and we are told that in the resurrection, there will be no marriage at all. Should we follow a "redemptive trend" and eliminate marriage altogether? (You could quote me passages in the New Testament that affirm marriage; I could dismiss these as merely culturally conditioned.)
The classic "poster child" example of a redemptive trend is that of slavery. The Bible nowhere prohibits slavery, yet throughout, God ameliorates the effects of slavery, and 19th century Christians came to the conclusion that slavery ought to be eliminated on Biblical grounds. Isn't this an obvious example of a redemptive trend?
I don't think so. What the Bible allows in the Old Testament is a form of indentured servitude which is either temporary (7 years) or voluntary, and in which the treatment of the servant is circumscribed by law. What we consider slavery--the outright ownership of one human being by another--is not permitted at all. In the New Testament, believers are to live out their Christian lives in the social and economic situations in which they find themselves. The morality of the institution itself is not dealt with.
But that's just the point, redemptive trend advocates would tell us. The Bible accommodates itself to the cultural circumstances of the day, tolerating slavery but not condoning it and ameliorating its cruelty. It was left for later generations of Christians to follow this trend out and finally to condemn slavery in all forms and to outlaw it forever. It seems to me that this position misses two points. First, taking Scripture seriously means not only dealing with the presumed terminus of the trend--in this case, the elimination of slavery--but also dealing with the accommodation itself: apparently, in some cultural circumstances, slavery was not the ultimate evil. Temporary or voluntary servitude could be preferable to being an economic outcast with no means of support. This leads to the second point: focus on the elimination of slavery can blind us to social and economic injustices that may be equally oppressive but don't bear the name, "slavery." Is it better to be a voluntary servant in the household of a fair-minded Old Testament Israelite, or to be entrapped in an Asian sweatshop today?
With regard to Scot's examples above, I take the Lev 19:19 passage as an Old Covenant proscription not binding in the New; the command to sell our possessions as just as binding on us as on Jesus' original audience (i.e., probably not an absolute command even then, but probably more binding on us than most of us would like to admit); and the head covering command as, yes, cultural, but telling us in principle that we are to dress and conduct ourselves in a manner that would be recognized as modest and humble in whatever cultural circumstances we find ourselves. Similarly, I may not greet my brothers in Christ with a "holy kiss," but I do think that I should greet them warmly and affectionately in the Lord.
In other words, a serious hermeneutic must recognize the differences between different covenants; must recognize hyperbolic language where it exists; and must recognize that there are sometimes underlying principles that are expressed in culturally specific forms in Scripture. None of these recognitions implies our right to follow a "redemptive trend" that is not only beyond Scriptural warrant but actually opposed to certain things Scripture actually says.
Technorati Tags: Biblical Interpretation, Redemptive Trend, Scot McKnight, Hermeneutics, Bible, Culture
Does the redemptive trend take the Bible from the lay person’s hands or does it make explicit what we (and the Church) have been doing all along? How many of us think it is wrong to wear clothing of two different kinds of material (Lev 19:19)? How many of us think Jesus’ statement to sell our possessions and give to poor (Luke 12:33) is permanent? How many of us think women need to cover their heads (1 Cor 11:6-7)? Now I don’t want to debate specifics, but I do want us to grapple with how we treat such statements and why we treat them the way we do and to ask if we don’t already have a redemptive trend hermeneutic at work but are just uncomfortable with applying it to women in the Church?I have been in the odd (but not unfamiliar) position of agreeing with the implied point of the discussion (that there is no Biblical warrant for excluding women from ministry) while disputing the reasoning being used to come to that conclusion.
My understanding of the basic concept of a redemptive trend is this: God inspired human beings to write the Scriptures from a position within their own cultural norms and understandings. This was necessary for the scriptures to have been written and to have been comprehensible to human beings at all. Therefore, some of what was written is culturally conditioned, and therefore application of the principles involved may vary from one cultural circumstance to another. Any reasonably developed hermeneutic will acknowledge this. The "redemptive trend" idea takes this a step further, suggesting that we may move from the culturally-conditioned commands of scripture through other passages that appear to modify or ameliorate these commands, and press this "trend" forward to a conclusion that may not be found explicitly in the Bible and may even contradict the culturally-conditioned commands.
What I understand Scot to be saying in the questions he asks is that if we acknowledge the existence of culturally-conditioned commands, obedience to the letter of which is not necessary (or applicable) today, then we have already implicitly acknowledged the concept of a redemptive trend, and therefore resistance to the concept is likely resistance to a particular application of that concept--such as women in ministry. I think that a more modest hermeneutic will suffice to deal with the cultural aspects of Scripture, and avoid some of the more problematic implications of the redemptive trend idea.
The problem of the "redemptive trend" idea is its open-endedness. How are we to distinguish between a "redemptive trend" that is to be pursued to its ultimate, logical conclusion, and a cultural situation that God may have wanted to change but not necessarily to curtail completely? For example, in the Old Testament, polygamy is tolerated; in the New, monogamy is insisted upon, and we are told that in the resurrection, there will be no marriage at all. Should we follow a "redemptive trend" and eliminate marriage altogether? (You could quote me passages in the New Testament that affirm marriage; I could dismiss these as merely culturally conditioned.)
The classic "poster child" example of a redemptive trend is that of slavery. The Bible nowhere prohibits slavery, yet throughout, God ameliorates the effects of slavery, and 19th century Christians came to the conclusion that slavery ought to be eliminated on Biblical grounds. Isn't this an obvious example of a redemptive trend?
I don't think so. What the Bible allows in the Old Testament is a form of indentured servitude which is either temporary (7 years) or voluntary, and in which the treatment of the servant is circumscribed by law. What we consider slavery--the outright ownership of one human being by another--is not permitted at all. In the New Testament, believers are to live out their Christian lives in the social and economic situations in which they find themselves. The morality of the institution itself is not dealt with.
But that's just the point, redemptive trend advocates would tell us. The Bible accommodates itself to the cultural circumstances of the day, tolerating slavery but not condoning it and ameliorating its cruelty. It was left for later generations of Christians to follow this trend out and finally to condemn slavery in all forms and to outlaw it forever. It seems to me that this position misses two points. First, taking Scripture seriously means not only dealing with the presumed terminus of the trend--in this case, the elimination of slavery--but also dealing with the accommodation itself: apparently, in some cultural circumstances, slavery was not the ultimate evil. Temporary or voluntary servitude could be preferable to being an economic outcast with no means of support. This leads to the second point: focus on the elimination of slavery can blind us to social and economic injustices that may be equally oppressive but don't bear the name, "slavery." Is it better to be a voluntary servant in the household of a fair-minded Old Testament Israelite, or to be entrapped in an Asian sweatshop today?
With regard to Scot's examples above, I take the Lev 19:19 passage as an Old Covenant proscription not binding in the New; the command to sell our possessions as just as binding on us as on Jesus' original audience (i.e., probably not an absolute command even then, but probably more binding on us than most of us would like to admit); and the head covering command as, yes, cultural, but telling us in principle that we are to dress and conduct ourselves in a manner that would be recognized as modest and humble in whatever cultural circumstances we find ourselves. Similarly, I may not greet my brothers in Christ with a "holy kiss," but I do think that I should greet them warmly and affectionately in the Lord.
In other words, a serious hermeneutic must recognize the differences between different covenants; must recognize hyperbolic language where it exists; and must recognize that there are sometimes underlying principles that are expressed in culturally specific forms in Scripture. None of these recognitions implies our right to follow a "redemptive trend" that is not only beyond Scriptural warrant but actually opposed to certain things Scripture actually says.
Technorati Tags: Biblical Interpretation, Redemptive Trend, Scot McKnight, Hermeneutics, Bible, Culture
Friday, January 12, 2007
Finding the Right Husband or Wife
Joe Carter has a great post on finding the right husband or wife. It's a review of a book by Alex and Marni Chediak entitled With One Voice: Singleness, Dating and Marriage to the Glory of God.
The basic point of the post (and apparently, the book) is that it is more important to work toward becoming the right person for someone else, rather than to try to find "Mr. or Miss Right." During the period of time in my life that I call, "Single and Not Very Happy About That Fact," I figured this out: everyone seemed to be trying to find the right person for them (i.e., the person who will accommodate all of their whims and fulfill all their dreams and not require them to change at all) and not at all trying to become the kind of person who could be a good husband or wife for someone else.
The pattern that I saw was repeated relationships and break-ups, over and over again (well, except for those of us who had a difficult time getting anything going to begin with), until finally the person became more fearful of being left alone than of marrying The Wrong Person--at which point the next dating relationship magically became The One.
Another mistake singles make when dating and looking for a marriage partner is assuming that marriage is supposed to be the panacea that makes all of life a state of joy. The Chediaks write, "Women have been duped by the media into thinking that marriage must be
a state of perpetual bliss and that, if it is not, something must be
wrong with their partner" (p. 47). There are two things going wrong here: unrealistic expectations regarding what marriage should be like, and the assumption that anything that goes wrong must be the fault of one's "partner"--i.e., never oneself (or just the reality of living in a fallen world).
Much marital unhappiness comes from failing to recognize that putting marriage on such a pedestal is a form of idolatry, and marriage can never live up to these expectations. It can be wonderful--the very best relationship one can ever have with another human being--but only when both people are willing to adjust to one another's flaws and foibles, and are willing to try their best to be the best husband or wife they can be.
For more on marriage, check out my book, Marriage, Family, and the Image of God .
The basic point of the post (and apparently, the book) is that it is more important to work toward becoming the right person for someone else, rather than to try to find "Mr. or Miss Right." During the period of time in my life that I call, "Single and Not Very Happy About That Fact," I figured this out: everyone seemed to be trying to find the right person for them (i.e., the person who will accommodate all of their whims and fulfill all their dreams and not require them to change at all) and not at all trying to become the kind of person who could be a good husband or wife for someone else.
The pattern that I saw was repeated relationships and break-ups, over and over again (well, except for those of us who had a difficult time getting anything going to begin with), until finally the person became more fearful of being left alone than of marrying The Wrong Person--at which point the next dating relationship magically became The One.
Another mistake singles make when dating and looking for a marriage partner is assuming that marriage is supposed to be the panacea that makes all of life a state of joy. The Chediaks write, "Women have been duped by the media into thinking that marriage must be
a state of perpetual bliss and that, if it is not, something must be
wrong with their partner" (p. 47). There are two things going wrong here: unrealistic expectations regarding what marriage should be like, and the assumption that anything that goes wrong must be the fault of one's "partner"--i.e., never oneself (or just the reality of living in a fallen world).
Much marital unhappiness comes from failing to recognize that putting marriage on such a pedestal is a form of idolatry, and marriage can never live up to these expectations. It can be wonderful--the very best relationship one can ever have with another human being--but only when both people are willing to adjust to one another's flaws and foibles, and are willing to try their best to be the best husband or wife they can be.
For more on marriage, check out my book, Marriage, Family, and the Image of God .
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Praying for Parking Spaces
My Pastor approvingly cited this article on praying for parking spaces. I tried to comment there, but first CoComments wouldn't work, and then the picture that contains letters I'm supposed to copy to prevent robots wouldn't load. So I'm writing here. Sorry, Bob.
Hmmm. Read the article. Not sure how much I agree. The author writes,
I probably have prayed for parking spaces, now and again, when I'm in a serious time crunch and the course of my life has forced me into an inescapable position of having to go into a store and buy something at that particular moment <shudder>. I've also been known deliberately to take a parking space further from the entrance than necessary because there are those who may have more trouble than I do taking a few extra steps.
If our prayers reflect simple greed or selfishness ("Lord, let me get that space ahead of the other guy who obviously wants it"), well then, yeah, that's not good. But should we avoid praying for things because we think they are not worthy of God's attention? Perish the thought! I say pray for everything, and let God sort out what He wants to pay attention to.
Hmmm. Read the article. Not sure how much I agree. The author writes,
[P]raying for parking is poor theology. In Philip Yancey’s new book on prayer, he quotes a philosophy professor on the subject: "If God can influence the course of events, then a God who is willing to cure colds and provide parking spaces but is not willing to prevent Auschwitz and Hiroshima is morally repugnant." The point is not what kind of god God is, but what kind of God we believe him to be, and what our prayers say about our vision of him.This appears to imply that, in order for God not to be "morally repugnant," there must be some hierarchy of importance, comprehensible to us, that God follows in choosing what situations to intervene in and what situations not to. But that is not the pattern of Scripture. The same God that sprung Peter from prison had already allowed the Apostle James to be executed, and would later let Paul rot in jail for over four years. He has reasons that are beyond us. He doesn't have to conform to our idea of dignity, or importance.
I probably have prayed for parking spaces, now and again, when I'm in a serious time crunch and the course of my life has forced me into an inescapable position of having to go into a store and buy something at that particular moment <shudder>. I've also been known deliberately to take a parking space further from the entrance than necessary because there are those who may have more trouble than I do taking a few extra steps.
If our prayers reflect simple greed or selfishness ("Lord, let me get that space ahead of the other guy who obviously wants it"), well then, yeah, that's not good. But should we avoid praying for things because we think they are not worthy of God's attention? Perish the thought! I say pray for everything, and let God sort out what He wants to pay attention to.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
All You Need Is Love
The Beatles said "All you need is love," and then they broke up.There is a very interesting paradox in the New Testament. One one hand, you see rapid growth of the church and the dogged evangelistic determination of the Apostle Paul. On the other, there is virtually no practical instruction on how to do evangelism. What are we to make of the clear imperative, articulated in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), to win the lost, combined with the lack of direction within the Epistles on ways in which to accomplish this?
--Larry Norman
It is sometimes suggested that in the early church, this wasn't a problem--that the early Christian believers were filled with a fervor that most of us no longer have, that if we could just regain this excitement and enthusiasm, we would spontaneously share our faith with others as well. There was no instruction because no instruction was needed. It seems incomprehensible to me, however, that out of all the problems and heresies that the New Testament epistles were written to combat, nobody seems to have had a problem with a failure to share their faith. Whatever the reason is that the New Testament doesn't really address how to evangelize in a practical way, it isn't that all the New Testament believers were already doing it too well to need any assistance.
What the epistles do give us is clear instruction on how to live and how to relate to one another. The Apostle Paul discusses his own missionary endeavors quite freely, but what he encourages his readers in is the living of life in a godly manner. He deals with various churches on social and economic divisions, as well as those based on competing claims to follow different teachers, marriage and family relationships, slavery, differing convictions regarding disputable matters, lawsuits, sexual immorality, deceit, and many other practical matters. Paul's primary concern for the believers in the churches he writes to is that they live godly lives that reflect Jesus' command to love God and to love others--that their lives will bring glory, and not shame, to God. When he writes, "Do the work of an evangelist" (2 Tim. 4:5) he is writing specifically to Timothy, not to believers in general.
What I am suggesting here is a difference between evangelism and being a witness. "Being a witness" is much larger and much more life-encompassing than what we generally term "witnessing."The command to "go and make disciples" was given not generally, but to the eleven disciples remaining after Jesus' resurrection (Matt. 28:16-20). Interestingly, even the Apostle Paul stated that he was called to "preach the gospel" (εὐαγγελίζεσθαι, related to the English "evangelize," 1 Cor 1:14-17) rather than to baptize, even though baptism had been part of the Great Commission. But Paul's primary concern for the people of God was that they would show the love of God to one another and to outsiders (e.g. Rom 13:10), and that they would conduct themselves in a manner that would bring credit and not shame to the name of Christ (e.g., 1 Cor 6:5-6). In this, he is giving practical content to Jesus' command to "be my witnesses" (Acts 1:8). "Being a witness" is much larger and much more life-encompassing than what we generally term "witnessing." It is living a life that itself witnesses to the reality of God's presence within us. It is only by doing so that we gain a hearing for the gospel among those who haven't followed Jesus yet.
I think that is what our brothers who advocate "missional living" are trying to tell us. Rather than alienating people with a premature imperative to "turn or burn," we need to live out God's love for us in practical ways, both toward one another and toward the world at large. Certain people have a specific gift of evangelism--the ability to reach people, often people they don't know, with the Gospel. The rest of us have often been made to feel guilty because we're not that type of person. "If I can do it, anyone can do it," the extrovert on the platform tells us. But what God tells us is to be a witness for Him.
We are all called to live lives of love and godliness; that in itself should provoke curiosity about the difference in our lives. The world likes to talk and sing about love; but it rings hollow--it's an emotion with little commitment. A real expression of love will be a real difference, and we all need to "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15). So we all need to be ready to speak when called upon. But it begins with living lives of love, because Love Himself has given us life.
If you like this post, you may be interested in my book, What's Wrong with Outreach?
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Daring To Be a Sinner
David Wayne has a great post on daring to be a sinner. I'm firmly convinced that the major problem with the Church today is that we've lost our sense of being forgiven sinners. Either we don't think sin is any big deal, so neither is forgiveness, or we define sin as those things that only apply to outsiders, so then forgiveness isn't something that applies to us. It's the amazing power of knowing yourself to be deeply in need of God's grace, and the wonder of having received it, that gives us the power to be authentic with one another and to carry the light to others.
Friday, December 29, 2006
The Constructive Curmudgeon on "Fifteen Refusals for 2007"
I don't make New Year's Resolutions, and I've been wondering what to blog on during this week. Douglas Groothuis appears to have beaten me to the punch. This post, "Fifteen Refusals for 2007," is very thought-provoking. I'm pretty sure I can subscribe to at least 13 of them. Check it out.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas and the Search for Significance
You've got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying. With sweat. --Fame
In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.--Andy Warhol
Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... no one will be. --The Incredibles
You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody. --On the Waterfront
I read recently that over half of bloggers say they blog for themselves, not for an audience. I have a really hard time believing that. You don't need online web space to have a journal; all you need is a blank book and a pen. Or if you'd rather type, a Word file will do. I think that even if we don't care about having a large readership, most of us posting into cyberspace are trying, at some level, to etch our own "Kilroy was here" into the ether. We hope that there is at least one kindred soul out there somewhere who "gets us." We want to "be somebody." Our whole culture is saturated with an irrational fascination with celebrity. Why else would anyone care about the verbal slugfest going on between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump?
Some years ago, a friend recommended the book The Search for Significance to me. It discusses the ubiquitous need we have to be recognized in the eyes of others, and the solution to the dilemma in recognizing God's investing us with worth by creating us in His image and by giving His Son to redeem us. I liked it in many ways, although frankly that insight, by itself, doesn't seem to remove the appetite to "be special" in the eyes of other people.
And it is in this context that I reflect on the birth of our Savior. We tend to discuss the "humble" birth of Jesus in a sort of sweet and sentimental way. We use quaint and obsolete words like "manger" to avoid saying that Jesus was laid in an animals' feeding trough. We talk about Mary and Joseph being "poor," and conceive of that as being modest working class, without dealing with the reality of the struggle for survival that poverty entails. More to the point, we forget about the total obscurity that someone like Jesus would have lived in. The details of "One Solitary Life" are very true: Jesus never wrote a book, never led an army, never traveled more than 300 miles from where he was born. He was, at most, a working-class laborer, the (apparent) son of a working-class laborer, and an itinerant preacher, among an oppressed, conquered people at the outskirts of the Roman Empire. By the standards of the intellectuals of the day, the Jews would have been considered an uncouth, barbaric people. Jesus had a brief popular ministry among them, which ended up getting him into a conflict with some of their religious authorities over some obscure points of their religious dogma. So they trumped up some charges and handed him over to the Governor, who had him executed in order to avoid a riot. He died the death of a criminal, in a humiliating fashion, the Romans' favorite object lesson on What Happens to Those Who Dare Oppose the Empire.
And other than some odd stories his followers began telling a few days after the execution, that was it. God could have sent his Son to the political capital, Rome, or the intellectual centers of Athens or Alexandria. Jesus could have been somebody. He could have been world-famous. Satan offered him just that at one point. But he lived his whole life in virtual obscurity, and if his followers hadn't written about him, no one would know that he had ever existed. It wasn't necessary for him to be known, or liked, or admired, or any of the other things that most of us crave. He came to die for us, and he also set an example for us. "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus," Paul writes to the Philippians (2:5),and goes on to outline Jesus' humility to the point of death and his subsequent exaltation by the Father.
So as we celebrate Jesus' birth and recall the events surrounding the Incarnation, let's recall Jesus' willingness to be one of us--even to the point of being a nobody. Let's take note of all the "nobodies" that cross our paths, and remember that "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matt. 25:40).
Friday, December 22, 2006
Baptism in the Didache
As a response to my post, "Faith Validates Baptism," I received an email from someone interested in the history of believer's baptism. One of the strongest arguments for paedobaptism is that it came early in the history of the church. I'm not sure it came as early as the Catholic and Orthodox churches would claim; evidence in the first few centuries is thin and ambiguous. Delaying baptism until one was on one's deathbed (e.g. Constantine) so that one could not sin after being baptized was also practiced in early years.
So far as I know, the earliest extra-biblical reference to baptism is in the Didache ("The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles," Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 7 section 6), generally dated around AD 120. The whole passage reads as follows:
So far as I know, the earliest extra-biblical reference to baptism is in the Didache ("The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles," Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 7 section 6), generally dated around AD 120. The whole passage reads as follows:
And concerning baptism, thus baptize ye: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if thou have not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but thou shalt order the baptized to fast one or two days before.Not that the Didache is authoritative, but it does give us some light on baptismal practices in the early post-Biblical era. What can we learn from it?
- Baptism was conducted using the formula Jesus gave in the Great Commission, not (as some churches hold, based on statements in the book of Acts) merely in the name of Jesus;
- Baptism was normally done by immersion; pouring is suggested as an alternate method if water (evidently meaning a sufficient quantity of water) is unavailable;
- Running water and cold water were to be preferred over still and warm water, perhaps for health reasons;
- There was some flexibility in the administration: it was considered better to be baptized in less-than-optimal conditions than to delay baptism;
- Baptism was evidently understood to be for believers, since the one being baptized is instructed to fast for one or two days prior.
Adrian and David Square Off on Baptism--In Adrian's Mind
This is one of the funniest things I've read in a long while. Trying to figure out what to disagree with David Wayne about, Adrian Warnock imagines debating with him about infant vs. believer's baptism, and plays out the whole scenario. I won't ruin it by quoting the whole thing in full, but here's how it ends: "I would go away thinking I have won and he would go away thinking I had missed the point." Check it out.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Faith Validates Baptism: A Note on Wayne Grudem's Change of Mind
Justin Taylor discusses Wayne Grudem's second thoughts about churches allowing individual pastors and families to make the decision regarding believers vs. infant baptism for themselves, a la the Evangelical Free Church of America. Grudem recognizes that the differing administrations of baptism do imply differing theological convictions about baptism and what it means, and appears to be moving toward a more traditional Baptist position.
Although my convictions are also strongly in favor of believer's baptism, in seminary I did have to grapple with the issue of solid Christian brothers whom I knew to be serving the Lord with all their hearts who had been baptized as infants and were satisfied that their baptism was legitimate. Since I recognized from Colossians 2:11-12 the important parallel between circumcision and baptism--essentially, baptism functions like circumcision in the Old Testament: it is the entrance and sign of being among the covenant people--I therefore couldn't regard it as a simple doctrinal difference. If infant baptism has no legitimacy whatever, then an infant-baptized Christian is an unbaptized Christian, which is sort of analogous to an uncircumcised Jew!
Baptism was essentially the New Testament altar call.The position I eventually came to is this: faith is what validates baptism. This may seem a little obvious, but there are large implications once it is fleshed out a little. Faith validates baptism regardless of whether that faith comes prior to or subsequent to baptism. I'm still convinced that the biblical model is that one enters into baptism as a profession of the faith that one has already entered into--i.e., baptism was essentially the New Testament altar call. So it's really appropriate only to believers. But I also believe that if a person were baptized before coming into faith (e.g., as an infant), and that person subsequently did come into faith in Christ, that person's faith in Christ would validate the baptism that he or she had already undergone. Such a person would, in fact, be a baptized believer. I would have no objection if a person who had been baptized as an infant and later came to faith chose to be rebaptised--once again, as a profession of faith and as a sign of having come into the covenant community--but if that person chose to accept his or her infant baptism as now legitimate, having been validated by their faith, I would have no objection to that either.
So as a pastor, I would only baptize those who had come to faith. As a father, I have only allowed my children to be baptized when I felt that they were able to make a credible profession of faith. This, as I said before, is because it is faith that validates baptism; there is no reason to baptize someone who has not come into faith in Christ. The great danger of infant baptism is that it gives a false sense of security; people believe that their status with God is acceptable because they have been baptized as infants. (It also has the tendency to "lock" a person into a particular denomination before they have the ability to choose.) Nonetheless, as a believer, I will look on a person who trusts in Christ for salvation and has been baptized as an infant as a fellow baptized believer, because I believe that that person's faith in Christ has validated the baptism they had as a child.
Although my convictions are also strongly in favor of believer's baptism, in seminary I did have to grapple with the issue of solid Christian brothers whom I knew to be serving the Lord with all their hearts who had been baptized as infants and were satisfied that their baptism was legitimate. Since I recognized from Colossians 2:11-12 the important parallel between circumcision and baptism--essentially, baptism functions like circumcision in the Old Testament: it is the entrance and sign of being among the covenant people--I therefore couldn't regard it as a simple doctrinal difference. If infant baptism has no legitimacy whatever, then an infant-baptized Christian is an unbaptized Christian, which is sort of analogous to an uncircumcised Jew!
Baptism was essentially the New Testament altar call.The position I eventually came to is this: faith is what validates baptism. This may seem a little obvious, but there are large implications once it is fleshed out a little. Faith validates baptism regardless of whether that faith comes prior to or subsequent to baptism. I'm still convinced that the biblical model is that one enters into baptism as a profession of the faith that one has already entered into--i.e., baptism was essentially the New Testament altar call. So it's really appropriate only to believers. But I also believe that if a person were baptized before coming into faith (e.g., as an infant), and that person subsequently did come into faith in Christ, that person's faith in Christ would validate the baptism that he or she had already undergone. Such a person would, in fact, be a baptized believer. I would have no objection if a person who had been baptized as an infant and later came to faith chose to be rebaptised--once again, as a profession of faith and as a sign of having come into the covenant community--but if that person chose to accept his or her infant baptism as now legitimate, having been validated by their faith, I would have no objection to that either.
So as a pastor, I would only baptize those who had come to faith. As a father, I have only allowed my children to be baptized when I felt that they were able to make a credible profession of faith. This, as I said before, is because it is faith that validates baptism; there is no reason to baptize someone who has not come into faith in Christ. The great danger of infant baptism is that it gives a false sense of security; people believe that their status with God is acceptable because they have been baptized as infants. (It also has the tendency to "lock" a person into a particular denomination before they have the ability to choose.) Nonetheless, as a believer, I will look on a person who trusts in Christ for salvation and has been baptized as an infant as a fellow baptized believer, because I believe that that person's faith in Christ has validated the baptism they had as a child.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The Nativity According to Luke
The versions of the nativity given by Matthew and Luke are strikingly different in their details, and we can gain insight from looking at each separately, rather than collapsing them together as we so often do. While Matthew largely gives us the story of Joseph, Luke largely gives us the story of Mary, and if Matthew stresses the regal and prophetic elements of Jesus' birth, Luke stresses the humble and human elements.
Luke starts with a parallel story: the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. John is Jesus' forerunner from his very conception, and each element in John's story is recapitulated and heightened in Jesus' story. John's birth is foretold by an angel to Zechariah, and the angel tells him of the importance of the child's life and ministry. Six months later, Jesus' birth is foretold by the angel Gabriel to Mary, a virgin in the rather low-class town of Nazareth. The angel tells her that she will have a child who will "be called the Son of the Most High" and will be given "the throne of his father David," and his "kingdom will never end" (1:32-33). We have here a stark contrast between what is now and what is prophesied to be in the future.
Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who acknowledges the greater importance of Mary's child. Mary, for her part, gives voice to what we now call the Magnificat: essentially, a psalm of praise to God and a recognition of the great things God will do through her son, in large measure conceived as overturning social and economic inequalities. She voices the longing in the hearts of a downtrodden people, looked down upon by their countrymen in Judea and treated as captives by the Romans.
Luke narrates the birth of John the Baptist, and then turns to the circumstances of Jesus' birth. While Matthew relates the conflict with Herod after the child's birth, Luke relates the unwitting involvement of the Roman Emperor himself in the circumstances of the birth. A census is taken, in which all are required to return to their home towns to register; Joseph, being descended from King David, returns to David's home town of Bethlehem, and Mary comes with him. It is here in Luke that we find that Jesus was born, apparently, in a stable, because a feeding trough was improvised as a crib. Although from a royal line, Joseph and Mary are reduced to giving birth in the lowest possible circumstances.
Luke's Witnesses
In Luke, Jesus' birth is witnessed, not by foreign dignitaries, but by shepherds, who are socially outcast and ritually unclean by virtue of their work, and yet reminiscent of David. The birth is announced to them by angels, the shepherds come to Bethlehem, and there is no doubt that they in fact were there on the night of Jesus' birth, because they saw him in the feeding trough. Unlike the visit from the Magi, these witnesses draw no attention from the earthly authorities, although the shepherds do spread the word of what they have seen and heard.
Joseph and Mary fulfill the Law of Moses by having Jesus dedicated at the Temple and by offering the sacrifice appropriate to the poor. His destiny as savior of his people is attested to by Simeon and Anna--not the priests or temple officials, but elderly righteous people who were there at that time. Luke doesn't relate the flight to Egypt, simply collapsing the narrative down into "they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth" (2:39).
So by contrast to Matthew's narrative of Jesus' birth breaking into and threatening the earthly powers, Luke relates the humble, even humiliating circumstances of Jesus' birth. An underclass of people, waiting at the brink of hopelessness for a savior. The news of his birth, far from having to remain a secret, is spread indiscriminately--because the class of people who know are irrelevant to the powers that be. But there is hope: echoes of David the shepherd-king, raised from obscurity to power, a man after God's own heart.
Luke starts with a parallel story: the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. John is Jesus' forerunner from his very conception, and each element in John's story is recapitulated and heightened in Jesus' story. John's birth is foretold by an angel to Zechariah, and the angel tells him of the importance of the child's life and ministry. Six months later, Jesus' birth is foretold by the angel Gabriel to Mary, a virgin in the rather low-class town of Nazareth. The angel tells her that she will have a child who will "be called the Son of the Most High" and will be given "the throne of his father David," and his "kingdom will never end" (1:32-33). We have here a stark contrast between what is now and what is prophesied to be in the future.
Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, who acknowledges the greater importance of Mary's child. Mary, for her part, gives voice to what we now call the Magnificat: essentially, a psalm of praise to God and a recognition of the great things God will do through her son, in large measure conceived as overturning social and economic inequalities. She voices the longing in the hearts of a downtrodden people, looked down upon by their countrymen in Judea and treated as captives by the Romans.
Luke narrates the birth of John the Baptist, and then turns to the circumstances of Jesus' birth. While Matthew relates the conflict with Herod after the child's birth, Luke relates the unwitting involvement of the Roman Emperor himself in the circumstances of the birth. A census is taken, in which all are required to return to their home towns to register; Joseph, being descended from King David, returns to David's home town of Bethlehem, and Mary comes with him. It is here in Luke that we find that Jesus was born, apparently, in a stable, because a feeding trough was improvised as a crib. Although from a royal line, Joseph and Mary are reduced to giving birth in the lowest possible circumstances.
Luke's Witnesses
In Luke, Jesus' birth is witnessed, not by foreign dignitaries, but by shepherds, who are socially outcast and ritually unclean by virtue of their work, and yet reminiscent of David. The birth is announced to them by angels, the shepherds come to Bethlehem, and there is no doubt that they in fact were there on the night of Jesus' birth, because they saw him in the feeding trough. Unlike the visit from the Magi, these witnesses draw no attention from the earthly authorities, although the shepherds do spread the word of what they have seen and heard.
Joseph and Mary fulfill the Law of Moses by having Jesus dedicated at the Temple and by offering the sacrifice appropriate to the poor. His destiny as savior of his people is attested to by Simeon and Anna--not the priests or temple officials, but elderly righteous people who were there at that time. Luke doesn't relate the flight to Egypt, simply collapsing the narrative down into "they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth" (2:39).
So by contrast to Matthew's narrative of Jesus' birth breaking into and threatening the earthly powers, Luke relates the humble, even humiliating circumstances of Jesus' birth. An underclass of people, waiting at the brink of hopelessness for a savior. The news of his birth, far from having to remain a secret, is spread indiscriminately--because the class of people who know are irrelevant to the powers that be. But there is hope: echoes of David the shepherd-king, raised from obscurity to power, a man after God's own heart.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Friday, December 08, 2006
The Nativity According to Matthew
I began arguing, at the end of When Did the Wise Men Get There, Anyway?, that it might be instructive to reread the separate accounts of the Nativity as the Holy Spirit inspired them--that is, as separate stories, each complete in itself. By suggesting this, I do not mean that the Evangelists invented or altered details in order to fit each one's own version of the events, but they did clearly select events that fit with the portrayal of Jesus that each one was being inspired to write.
In looking at the events of the Nativity in Matthew and Luke, it is startling how little overlap there is, and yet how the stories have so many parallel elements. Both stress the virgin birth. Each one portrays a visitation by an angel announcing the event, but not to the same person. Each one involves visitors to the child, but not the same ones. Each one relates some governmental interference, but not the same level of government. Each one mentions both Nazareth and Bethlehem, but in Matthew the movement is from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and in Luke it is from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We can add up all the details of both stories to get a picture of What Really Happened, but by doing so, we miss the thrust of each individual story.
Matthew's gospel was probably the first one written that presents the story of Jesus' birth. It is startling, when read on its own, how much of our traditional Christmas story does not appear in this narrative. Matthew's focus is on the birth of a King. He begins by presenting the royal lineage of Jesus, tracing His descent through David back to Abraham. We see nothing of the Annunciation to Mary; she is simply "found to be with child by the Holy Spirit" (1:18). Matthew's narrative is largely Joseph's story; it is about how he reacts to Mary's pregnancy, how he is led to marry her, preserve her virginity until Jesus' birth, and protect his family from Herod. Although Joseph was doubtless devastated by the appearance of infidelity on Mary's part, he was still concerned not to disgrace her: his plan to quietly divorce her would have been an act of mercy, not judgment.
But here, God intervenes. An angel comes to Joseph in a dream, and tells him not to "be afraid" to complete the betrothal process and take Mary home as his wife. This would have been a hard command for him to obey, because it would amount to a tacit admission of infidelity: in the eyes of the community, Joseph would be acknowledging that Mary's child was his, and he would share in her disgrace. Nonetheless, he does take her home, in obedience to what the angel has said, trusting that the child is conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that his name is to be Joshua (Hebrew, Yeshua; Greek, Iesous, anglicized as Jesus) because he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves.This is a child of destiny, an important child, which Matthew underscores by pointing out that the birth of this King is a fulfillment of prophecy, another of Matthew's important themes. Joseph obeys the angel's command to the letter, preserves Mary's virginity until after the birth, and gives the child the name that the angel had decreed.
Matthew places Jesus' birth in "Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod" (2:1). One would not know from Matthew's account that Joseph and Mary had come from some uncouth town in the hills up north; that would not fit with the portrayal that Matthew is giving. Just as in Luke, there are visitors to the child, but what visitors! Magi - exotic wise men "from the east" (probably Media-Persia), who first come to Jerusalem, because where else would one expect to find the heir to the Jewish throne than in the capital city? And they came because the heavens themselves have borne witness to his birth--he has his own star! And these distinguished visitors have come to worship (they themselves probably only mean to pay proper homage and respect to) him.
And so Herod enters into the picture. He is "disturbed," and when Herod is disturbed, the whole city is disturbed (2:3). He was a paranoid tyrant, a puppet of Caesar who had appealed to Rome for the title of "King" and killed anyone whom he imagined threatened his continued rule, including several members of his own family. He finds out from the priests and teachers of the law that Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem (more fulfillment of prophecy) and learns from the Magi when the star had appeared, then sends them on their way, asking them to report to him when they found the child. Although just born, Jesus is already a threat to the established powers of the world.
The star leads the Magi to "the child with his mother Mary" (2:11), and they worship him and give strange and wonderful gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Various symbolic meanings have been attached to these gifts; at the very least, they are costly gifts befitting a royah heir. God sovereignly intervenes again through dreams--to the Magi, letting them know not to return to Herod; and to Joseph, warning him to flee to Egypt, which he does, taking Mary and Jesus by night (and fulfilling more prophecy). Herod has all the boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger killed (yet again fulfilling prophecy).
Once again, an angel appears to Joseph in Egypt, this time telling him to return to "the land of Israel" because Herod has died (2:20). Israel is not usually denoted by that name at this time: it has been carved up into the Roman districts of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee; but Jesus, the King, is returning to his rightful land, and so it is called by its rightful name. In Matthew, it is because Joseph learns that Herod's son is on the throne in Judea that he withdraws to a small town in the relative obscurity of Galilee, the north country of Israel. The place that he chooses (we are not told that he came from there in the first place) once again fulfills prophecy: "He will be called a Nazarene" (2:23).
Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves. No sweet, sentimental, humble birth here! This Christmas, let's celebrate the inbreaking of the heavenly powers into the vain rulers of this world.
In looking at the events of the Nativity in Matthew and Luke, it is startling how little overlap there is, and yet how the stories have so many parallel elements. Both stress the virgin birth. Each one portrays a visitation by an angel announcing the event, but not to the same person. Each one involves visitors to the child, but not the same ones. Each one relates some governmental interference, but not the same level of government. Each one mentions both Nazareth and Bethlehem, but in Matthew the movement is from Bethlehem to Nazareth, and in Luke it is from Nazareth to Bethlehem. We can add up all the details of both stories to get a picture of What Really Happened, but by doing so, we miss the thrust of each individual story.
Matthew's gospel was probably the first one written that presents the story of Jesus' birth. It is startling, when read on its own, how much of our traditional Christmas story does not appear in this narrative. Matthew's focus is on the birth of a King. He begins by presenting the royal lineage of Jesus, tracing His descent through David back to Abraham. We see nothing of the Annunciation to Mary; she is simply "found to be with child by the Holy Spirit" (1:18). Matthew's narrative is largely Joseph's story; it is about how he reacts to Mary's pregnancy, how he is led to marry her, preserve her virginity until Jesus' birth, and protect his family from Herod. Although Joseph was doubtless devastated by the appearance of infidelity on Mary's part, he was still concerned not to disgrace her: his plan to quietly divorce her would have been an act of mercy, not judgment.
But here, God intervenes. An angel comes to Joseph in a dream, and tells him not to "be afraid" to complete the betrothal process and take Mary home as his wife. This would have been a hard command for him to obey, because it would amount to a tacit admission of infidelity: in the eyes of the community, Joseph would be acknowledging that Mary's child was his, and he would share in her disgrace. Nonetheless, he does take her home, in obedience to what the angel has said, trusting that the child is conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that his name is to be Joshua (Hebrew, Yeshua; Greek, Iesous, anglicized as Jesus) because he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves.This is a child of destiny, an important child, which Matthew underscores by pointing out that the birth of this King is a fulfillment of prophecy, another of Matthew's important themes. Joseph obeys the angel's command to the letter, preserves Mary's virginity until after the birth, and gives the child the name that the angel had decreed.
Matthew places Jesus' birth in "Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod" (2:1). One would not know from Matthew's account that Joseph and Mary had come from some uncouth town in the hills up north; that would not fit with the portrayal that Matthew is giving. Just as in Luke, there are visitors to the child, but what visitors! Magi - exotic wise men "from the east" (probably Media-Persia), who first come to Jerusalem, because where else would one expect to find the heir to the Jewish throne than in the capital city? And they came because the heavens themselves have borne witness to his birth--he has his own star! And these distinguished visitors have come to worship (they themselves probably only mean to pay proper homage and respect to) him.
And so Herod enters into the picture. He is "disturbed," and when Herod is disturbed, the whole city is disturbed (2:3). He was a paranoid tyrant, a puppet of Caesar who had appealed to Rome for the title of "King" and killed anyone whom he imagined threatened his continued rule, including several members of his own family. He finds out from the priests and teachers of the law that Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem (more fulfillment of prophecy) and learns from the Magi when the star had appeared, then sends them on their way, asking them to report to him when they found the child. Although just born, Jesus is already a threat to the established powers of the world.
The star leads the Magi to "the child with his mother Mary" (2:11), and they worship him and give strange and wonderful gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Various symbolic meanings have been attached to these gifts; at the very least, they are costly gifts befitting a royah heir. God sovereignly intervenes again through dreams--to the Magi, letting them know not to return to Herod; and to Joseph, warning him to flee to Egypt, which he does, taking Mary and Jesus by night (and fulfilling more prophecy). Herod has all the boys in Bethlehem two years old and younger killed (yet again fulfilling prophecy).
Once again, an angel appears to Joseph in Egypt, this time telling him to return to "the land of Israel" because Herod has died (2:20). Israel is not usually denoted by that name at this time: it has been carved up into the Roman districts of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee; but Jesus, the King, is returning to his rightful land, and so it is called by its rightful name. In Matthew, it is because Joseph learns that Herod's son is on the throne in Judea that he withdraws to a small town in the relative obscurity of Galilee, the north country of Israel. The place that he chooses (we are not told that he came from there in the first place) once again fulfills prophecy: "He will be called a Nazarene" (2:23).
Matthew presents the birth of Jesus as the prophesied entrance of the Son of David into history, threatening the powers of this world, gaining the attention of foreign dignitaries, and attested to by the very heavens themselves. No sweet, sentimental, humble birth here! This Christmas, let's celebrate the inbreaking of the heavenly powers into the vain rulers of this world.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
So When Did the Wise Men Get There, Anyway?
We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts, we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star.
I was told, growing up, that this carol was completely wrong in all its details. We all-too-often make assumptions based on what the Bible does say, and come to conclusions that may be plausible but are not necessarily warranted by the text.There were not (at least, not necessarily) three of them, they were not kings, and they were not, in the modern sense, Oriental (that is, Asian). We get three from the number of gifts that were given; they are called "Magi" in scripture, which to the best of our knowledge were a class of "wise men" from Media-Persia (i.e., northwestern Iran). And although nativity scenes, Christmas pageants, and the movie The Nativity Story place them at the stable on the night of Jesus' birth, they most probably were not there.
I say "most probably," although many would dogmatically proclaim that they definitely weren't there, and that they arrived two full years later. It is that dogmatism that is the subject of my post. Old certainties that prove to be incorrect are often supplanted by new certainties that are also most likely incorrect. We all-too-often make assumptions based on what the Bible does say, and come to conclusions that may be plausible but are not necessarily warranted by the text. One such is the statement that "It took 120 years for Noah to build the Ark." This is nowhere stated in the Genesis account. What is stated is as follows:
This is literally all the information we have. So if one assumes that the "120 years" in 6:3 refers to the time period between the judgment and the flood (it has also been thought to refer to a maximum life span, aside from extraordinary exceptions, of people born after the flood), and if one assumes that God immediately came to Noah and gave him the instructions, and if one assumes that Noah immediately began working on the ark as soon as he received the instructions, then yes, it took 120 years to build the ark. But that's a lot of assumptions. The most that is really warranted to say is, "It may have taken as much as 120 years for Noah to build the ark." We really don't know anything more than that.
So it is with the Magi's visit to Bethlehem. Here is what we are told in Scripture:
It is generally argued, based on the age of the children killed by Herod being linked to when the Magi saw the star, and also based on the fact that Jesus is described as a "child" (i.e., not a baby) and that they appear to be in a "house" by this point, that Jesus was two years old when the Magi arrived.
Once age again, this is based on a series of assumptions. The major one is assuming that the star appeared to the Magi at the same time that Jesus was born; we don't know that. God may well have placed the star ahead of time. The argument also assumes that Herod didn't add in a "cushion" of time when deciding the age of the children to be killed; that the "house" was Joseph's and Mary's house (rather than, for example, the inn, with the stable nearby); and that the word "child" is intended to be distinct from "baby." In fact, Matthew wants to stress the royalty of Jesus, so he minimizes the humble circumstances of Jesus' birth--he would naturally describe Jesus as a "child" rather than as a "baby," and refer to the "house" rather than to the "manger" (i.e., feeding trough) that Luke mentions.
Am I trying to argue that the Magi were at the scene of Jesus' birth after all? No. If we're getting stymied in trying to figure out something, we're probably heading off on a rabbit trail, and missing the main point of what the author wanted us to see.I think it's likely that Joseph and Mary settled in Bethlehem after Jesus' birth, to get away from the stigma of illegitimacy that they would have had in Nazareth. I think that the Magi arrived some time later, although not necessarily two years later. But the key words here are, "I think." I don't know. And whether they want to admit it or not, neither does anyone else.
A little humility is a very good thing when we're about the business of interpreting Scripture. We need to recognize that Scripture doesn't tell us everything we might be curious about, and so there are things that we simply can't know for sure. One thing we can be reasonably sure of, though, is that if the Bible doesn't give us full information on something, it probably isn't crucial for us to know it. If we're getting stymied in trying to figure out something, we're probably heading off on a rabbit trail, and missing the main point of what the author wanted us to see. It might be a good idea, this Christmas season, to forget about what we know of the whole Christmas story, and to read the individual Christmas stories once again, and see the different angles that the Holy Spirit inspired Matthew and Luke to tell us about. Come to think of it, it might not be a bad thing to blog on....
Friday, December 01, 2006
The Growing Split between Evangelicals and Republicans
Ben Witherington passes along an article from www.stratfor.com (accessing the original will require registration with the site) that discusses the growing divide between Evangelicals and the Republican party. The main thesis is that the Republican coalition was largely between libertarian conservatives who wanted limited government for its own sake and Evangelical conservatives who wanted limited government because they were opposed to the secularism of government social programs. In my own point of view, this portrayal is too reductionistic, but is a useful vantage point in looking at the developing split.
Some quotes from the article:
If nothing else, reexamining the reasons why we support the candidates and parties that we do is a healthy thing. I, for one, have for a long time expected American Christians to be squeezed out of the political process, between an increasingly libertarian Republican party and an increasingly socialistic Democratic party. I don't relish this development, but I don't think that being taken for granted in the back pocket of one party is a viable alternative.
Some quotes from the article:
The sense among the evangelical grassroots is that the Republican Party has used them, but only paid lip service to their goals, aspirations and values. [... Former White House aide David Kuo] alleged that the nonreligious White House staff scoffed at the evangelicals, referring to them as "crazies" and treating them like a captive political group; on this last point akin to how Democrats treat African-American voters.A friend of mine and I were recently talking about politics, and he made the statement that, because of Democratic hostility toward biblically-based positions on such issues as abortion and homosexuality, Christians essentially had nowhere else to go but the Republican party. It seems to me that this is only true if one narrows the field of issues on which there is a discernable "Christian" point of view to those particular issues--and that's what we have wrongly done. If one broadens the field to include such issues as poverty and social justice, then one may have to choose between two candidates, neither of whom supports all the issues one may hope he would, based on which one supports more of one's issues, and also based on which of these issues that particular office will have an impact on.
[...]
At the core of this new political outlook [recently advocated by Evangelical leaders] is a growing sense that the libertarian battle is lost, but the Christian mission of helping the poor remains. Evangelicals argue that by shunning aggressively secular government involvement in issues relating to poverty and other things, libertarian approaches were preferable, but they now add that failing in the libertarian mission is not an excuse to stop helping the poor or working toward other Christian missions such as environmental stewardship.
[Emphasis mine]
If nothing else, reexamining the reasons why we support the candidates and parties that we do is a healthy thing. I, for one, have for a long time expected American Christians to be squeezed out of the political process, between an increasingly libertarian Republican party and an increasingly socialistic Democratic party. I don't relish this development, but I don't think that being taken for granted in the back pocket of one party is a viable alternative.
The Pope Prays Toward Mecca
Pope Benedict XVI made what Al-Jazeera called "something beautiful, a gesture ... even more meaningful than an apology" (quoting Mustafa Cagrici, the mufti of Istanbul). He "assumed an attitude of Muslim prayer while facing Mecca in Istanbul's Blue Mosque."
I am willing to grant that the Pope wasn't praying to Allah, and that he did not consider himself to be participating in a Muslim rite. Nonetheless, I find this move completely astonishing.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians regarding participation in the worship of other religions:
(HT: Smart Christian)
I am willing to grant that the Pope wasn't praying to Allah, and that he did not consider himself to be participating in a Muslim rite. Nonetheless, I find this move completely astonishing.
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians regarding participation in the worship of other religions:
Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy? Are we stronger than he?It is one thing to exhibit kindness, generosity, and mercy toward people from other religions. It is quite another to validate them by participating in their worship.
--1 Cor. 10:18-22.
(HT: Smart Christian)
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