The Ghettoization of American Evangelicalism

Just adding collapsible post functionality and a pull quote. No new content. First line is a pull quote.
We've identified the gospel with a political and social perspective that few people can identify with who haven't been raised in it. Scot McKnight passes on a letter he's received in his most recent Letters to Emerging Christians segment. The complaint of the letter-writer essentially involves the fact that being an "evangelical" has become too identified with a particular brand of conservative American politics. A few quotes:

• Conservative Christians [frequently] conflate Christianity with American patriotism and/or the Republican party. One commentator says Jim Wallis can’t call himself an Evangelical because he’s a “left- leaning socialist” who made a speech on the Democrats’ weekly radio address!
• Dobson & company, attacking a member of the NAE for daring to suggest that global warming might actually be a problem.
• I read the quote from D. James Kennedy, a pastor and seminary leader in Florida: “The publication and promulgation of the 1599 Geneva Bible will help restore America’s rich Christian heritage and reclaim the culture for Christ.” What!? A 1599 Bible which, incidentally, comes with a middle-English glossary to help you understand what the heck they were saying, is the answer that will reclaim the culture for Christ???

Now, I've long been conservative in terms of my politics, although I am beginning to wonder... But regardless of one's political stripe, it should be deeply troubling that the Christian faith is so identified with a particular political position, especially on issues regarding which the Bible either doesn't speak or quite arguably speaks in the opposite direction. It should be disturbing that the mandate of the Church seems not to be to make disciples of all nations, but rather to "restore America’s rich Christian heritage."

And then I read Dan Kimball's excellent post, "Hope, depression, hope." He cites a sociologist and student of church growth and leadership:

He shared that the reason church statistics regarding attendance may be staying around the same level is because those in the churches are living longer. There are now a ton of old churches with elderly folks living longer which keeps that statistic up. He also shared how the already Christians in churches who have babies also keeps the percentage leveled out.

What isn't happening however, is the growth of the church from people outside the church coming in. We aren't keeping up on the population growth at large. I was reading that the church has leveled out in attendance over the past 15 years but at the same time our national population has grown by around 50 million people. So we can celebrate that churches are remaining relatively the same attendance-wise, but now there are more than 50 million people who aren't part of the church.

I don't think it's a great leap of logic to see these two issues as being related. We've identified the gospel with a political and social perspective that few people can identify with who haven't been raised in it. We've essentially said, "You can't join our club unless you're willing to subscribe to all twenty-six points of our worldview." And then we wonder why our churches stagnate, growing, if at all, through transfers from other churches. We are relevant only to one another. Welcome to the Christian ghetto.

Can't we see the wisdom of the Apostle Paul, who "resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2)? Paul wasn't a "culture warrior" in the modern sense. His aim was not to "take a stand" and then have his already-convinced buddies pat him on the back for not backing down. His aim was to reach as many people as possible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Period.

The tension between the standards of the already-converted and the imperative of reaching the larger culture is nothing new. Jesus was accused of being "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and 'sinners'" (Luke 7:34; cf. Matt. 11:19). Peter became the first to take the gospel to a Gentile audience. What was the response from the Christian community? "So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him and said, 'You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them'" (Acts 11:2-3). Peter himself compromised his own principles and broke off fellowship with Gentile believers in order to satisfy "the circumcision group"; he had to be publicly rebuked by Paul because his "hypocrisy" had infected even Barnabas (Gal. 2:12-13). The pressure to conform to so-called "higher standards"--even at the cost of ostracizing some for whom Christ died--is intense.

Kimball continues with words that should be of particular interest to some who regularly read this blog, "It will be horribly sad if in 30 years or 40 years the church of America is a tiny thing, and we are still fighting each other about whether one is a Calvinist or Arminian or whether you preach verse by verse or preach topically etc." Obviously, I think divine election is a worthwhile thing to discuss, but it must be kept in its proper place. There's a lost and dying world out there. We have answers, but we're fading into irrelevance. We're squabbling with one another instead of trying to reach that world. We're telling people that they must oppose abortion and homosexuality, that they must support Israel and capitalism and lower taxes, that we must win the War on Terror and support our president, oppose the environmentalist wackos, and stand up for God and Country. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that these are all noble and worthy goals. I just have one question.

Where did the gospel go?



If you like this post, you may be interested in my book, What's Wrong with Outreach?

Brian LePort on Pentecostalism as a Middle Way

Brian LePort offers a nice summary of arguments against both cessationism and Word-Faith theology. His arguments are cogent and sound, although I would offer a bit of a different view of "that which is perfect," along the lines of those that Rich Tatum suggests in his comment on the post. I also think the question, "Why don't we see miracles like those that happened in Biblical times?" is a loaded question. The miracles that people experienced were written down precisely because they were unusual. Most people who lived at that time had never seen one. Hence the popular interest in Jesus. Check out Brian's article. Good stuff.



HT: my cup of coffee





Technorati Tags: Pentecostal, Pentecostalism, Charismatic, Word of Faith, Word-Faith, Brian LePort

Dangerous Thoughts on Holy Saturday

I can't even imagine what Jesus' disciples were feeling the day after his crucifixion. Their greatest hopes had died with him the day before, and the new hope beyond all their dreams was yet to be realized. They must have felt completely desperate. So it's not such a bad day to indulge some dangerous ideas.

It's in that mood that I came across John Frye's "The People Formerly Known as 'The Pastor'." It's more strongly worded than I would ever dare, but seriously, it reflects a lot of how I sometimes feel as a refugee from formal ministry. It's a response to another piece by Bill Kinnon, called "The People Formerly Known as the Congregation," which seems to me more strident and more typical in its complaints against the established church. This one is more the view from a disillusioned insider. But another piece, "Underlying Issues," kind of unpacks it and deals with the issues raised in more measured tones.

And they're issues that need to be dealt with. There may be much inchoate anger in some of the emerging movement; there may be youthful idealism and unrealistic expectations; there may be too much throwing out of the baby with the bathwater. But there are reasons--real, justified, even biblical reasons--why people engaging in the emerging conversation are rejecting the institutionalized church. We need to listen to these voices. We need to ask if what we are doing is what Jesus intended, what he wants from us now. We need to fight the perennial temptation to substitute the traditions of men for the glories of the life God wants to give us.


Technorati Tags: John Frye, Bill Kinnon, Emerging Church

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 4. Final Considerations and Conclusion

This is the last in a series on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion. We've listed the relevant scriptures, dealt with some logical considerations, and interpreted the relevant texts. Here we deal with some final considerations and wrap it up.

Further Considerations

The foregoing analysis has been restricted to the comparison of various scriptures indicating the time period between Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection. A few notes may be made on the internal difficulties of a Wednesday crucifixion as well.

A. The Hypotheses of Calendrical Disputes

The supposition of a Wednesday crucifixion is usually related to the argument that Jesus used a sectarian calendar of some sort, and thus ate Passover (i.e., the Last Supper) earlier than most of Jerusalem. There is in fact no evidence that Jesus used such a sectarian calendar, and the contemporary evidence we have of the use of such calendars is late and thin. Moreover, eating the Passover required eating a lamb properly sacrificed, and it is impossible that within Jerusalem the temple priests would accommodate a sectarian calendar (Carson, Matthew, 529-30; John, 457; Foster, 599).

B. "Preparation Day"

Several verses, relating to the Last Supper and to Jesus' trial before Pilate and crucifixion, refer to that day as παρασκευήν (Preparation [Day]"), i.e., Matthew 27:62, Mark 15:42, Luke 23:54, and John 19:14, 31, and 42. As Carson argues, this term seems to have become a term synonymous with "Friday," and it is not used in first century literature for the day before any other festival, even though that festival may be observed as a "Sabbath." Moreover, reconciling the various references to Preparation Day with one another seems to require it to be used of Friday within Passover Week, as opposed to the day before Passover itself (Matthew, 531-32; John, 603-04, 622; Foster, 599); if this is true, then it follows that Scripture flatly indicates that Jesus died on Friday.

Conclusion

While the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion is an honest attempt to accept literally Jesus' passion prediction in Matthew 12:40, it would seem to be precluded by all of the other statements in the New Testament that have bearing on the time period between the crucifixion and the resurrection, both before and after the Passion. Understood in its cultural context, "three days and three nights" could refer to any portion of three days and nights; thus it is unnecessary to insist on a 72-hour entombment. Matthew and Luke give us the correct understanding of Mark's phrase, "after three days," and the weight of the evidence seems to rest on the understanding of the resurrection "on the third day." Most fatal to the theory is the statement by the disciples on the road to Emmaus that "this is the third day since all this took place" (Luke 24:21); clearly spoken on a Sunday, it requires that Jesus died on a Friday.

_______________

Works Cited

The Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. (All scripture references unless otherwise noted.)

------. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: Collins-World, 1973.

Carson, D.A. "Matthew." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 1-599.

------. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Foster, Lewis A. "The Chronology of the New Testament." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 593-607.

Stein, Robert H. The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Wednesday, Friday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 3. Interpretation

This is the third in a series on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion. We've reviewed the relevant scriptures and some logical considerations. Here we come to the interpretation of the scriptures dealt with in the first part.

A. μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, "after three days."

Aside from the reference to the "sign of Jonah" in Matthew 12:40, there are only three scriptures that seem clearly to imply a literal three days in the tomb. These "after three days" passages are all in the Gospel of Mark, and reflect the "three major passion predictions" found in all three Synoptic Gospels. What is notable about each of these passages in Mark is that they all find parallels in Matthew and Luke, and in these parallel passages the expressions found in Matthew and Luke never retain the meaning "after three days." In all five cases where the time factor is mentioned (Luke omits the temporal reference entirely from the third prediction), the expression is uniformly, "on the third day" (Matt. 16:21, 17:23, 20:19; Luke 9:22, 18:32-33).



On the theory of the priority of Mark (Stein, 45-88; Carson, Matthew, 11-17) Matthew and Luke each "cleaned up" Mark's rather erratic Greek, and this would account for the misleading "after three days" to be altered to "on the third day." On the theory of Matthean priority, Mark altered Matthew's expression while Luke chose to retain it. In any case, the evangelists themselves evidently saw "after three days" and "on the third day" as equivalent expressions. Since Jewish reckoning was inclusive, something happening "on the third day" after something else (the day after the day after the original event) would have been counted as three days later, or "after three days" (Foster, 599; Carson, Matthew, 296).

B. Ambiguous or oblique references

 

1. Jesus' prediction to raise the temple "in three days"

John 2:19 records Jesus' prediction that he would raise the temple "in three days." Verse 21 goes on to explain that "the temple he had spoken of was his body." The phrase "in three days" would seem to be ambiguous, potentially referring either to the "temple" being raised on the third day after it was destroyed, or after three full days; again, Jewish inclusive reckoning would seem to favor the first understanding. But in light of the potential ambiguity, it would be unwise to base a decision on this verse, and still more unwise to base it on the verses which report hostile witnesses repeating Jesus' words (v. 20; Mk. 14:58; Matt. 26:61; 27:40).

2. The guarding of the tomb

One particular case of such "hostile repetition" merits additional note: in Matthew 27:62-64, the chief priests and Pharisees ask for "the tomb to be made secure until the third day," because they remember his claim that "after three days I will rise again." Although we have here a fourth example, and in a different Gospel, of the formulation "after three days," it occurs immediately in context with the formulation "until the third day"; i.e., we seem to have here an explicit equating of the two expressions, "after three days" and "until the third day," which would reconfirm the idea that according to Jewish inclusive reckoning, "after three days" would mean "until the third day," and not "until the fourth day," as it would naturally mean in modern English.



It is possible to argue that "until the third day" would mean the third day from the time they were speaking--i.e., the day "after Preparation," or after the crucifixion. Granted a Wednesday crucifixion and Jewish inclusive reckoning, they would only be asking for a guard until Saturday; one would further have to postulate that by "until the third day," they meant for the guard to remain at the tomb throughout Saturday night (technically, the beginning of Sunday). It would be much more natural to suppose that "after three days" and "until the third day" are intended to be synonymous expressions (as the Matthew-Mark parallels make clear that they are), so that "until the third day" contextually refers to the third day from the crucifixion, not the third day from their conversation. Again, it would be unwise to base a teaching on an ambiguous reference, and especially one that comes from the mouths of Jesus' enemies.

3. Jesus' response to Herod's threats

The ambiguity of the final reference is largely due to the fact that the passage itself is a veiled reference to Christ's passion, and some could argue that it is not a reference at all. In Luke 13:32, included in a response to a threat from Herod, Jesus refers to "today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal." Although there is no explicit mention of the passion, Jesus refers to his death in the following verse, after mentioning again "today and tomorrow and the next day." If anything, this passage would tend to support a Friday crucifixion, but again, no dogmatic conclusions should be drawn.

C. τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, "on the third day."

If the above analyses are correct, only one scripture seems clearly to indicate a full three-day entombment: the "sign of the prophet Jonah" in Matthew 12:40. Against this lone verse must be weighed the preponderance of scriptures that unambiguously indicate that Jesus rose "on the third day." These include at least ten separate scriptures, representing the pens of Matthew and Luke (writing both in Luke and in Acts) and Paul.



Five of the ten--parallels with Mark's passion predictions--have already been discussed. Their value lies in calling into question the implication that could be drawn from Mark that Jesus lay entombed for three full days. Two other references--Acts 10:40 and 1 Corinthians 15:4--also clearly state that Jesus rose on the third day. It is important to note that in every one of these predictions and recollections (except, arguably, 1 Corinthians 15:4), Jesus is represented as rising on the third day after his crucifixion and death, not after his burial. The Thursday-to-Saturday scheme mentioned in section II, even if plausible on its face, would only account for Jesus rising on the third day from his burial, not from his crucifixion and death. Moreover, the three remaining references, all from Luke's post-resurrection account, make it clearly impossible that the Crucifixion occurred on Wednesday.

Luke 24:6-7 and 24:46 assert (from the mouths of an angel and from the resurrected Christ, respectively), that Jesus would rise on the third day. In itself, this is no greater proof than the pre-resurrection predictions. But Luke 24:21 records the disciples on the road to Emmaus telling Jesus (whom they do not yet recognize), "This is the third day [τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν] since all this took place." This conversation is clearly located after the morning visits to the empty tomb (vv. 22-24), which undisputedly took place "on the first day of the week" (v. 1). Since "all this" cannot refer to Jesus' entombment, but rather refers to his sentencing to death and crucifixion (v. 20), it is impossible to suppose, on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion, that Sunday is the "third day since all this took place"; by Jewish reckoning, it would in fact be the fifth. It is simply impossible to construe events clearly taking place on Sunday--the conversation of the disciples with Jesus on the road to Emmaus--as being on "the third day" from events--Jesus being sentenced to death and being crucified--supposed to have occurred on a Wednesday.

D. "Three days and three nights"

In light of the preponderance of scriptures indicating that Jesus rose on the third day, it would seem more reasonable to search for an alternative interpretation of the sole verse that states that Jesus was in the tomb for "three days and three nights" than it would be to insist on literalism for this verse at the expense of having to reinterpret all the others.



In fact, the context of Matthew 12:40 rather clearly indicates the possibility that the time period is not to be taken strictly literally. Jesus is responding to the religious leaders' unbelieving demand for a "sign" by referring to Jonah as a type of his own passion. Quoting Jonah 1:17, Jesus draws the analogy by applying the "three days and three nights" terminology to his own passion, knowing that "in rabbinical thought a day and a night make an õnâh, and a part of an õnâh is as the whole" (Carson, Matthew, 296); i.e., his audience (the Jews) would not have been confused; and we may suppose that Matthew's audience was more familiar with this time reckoning than was Luke's, which may be why Luke chooses another rendering in the parallel passage of Luke 11:29-32. The Old Testament records examples of such reckoning, notably in 2 Chronicles 10:5, 12:

And he said to them, "Return to me again in three days." So the people departed. . . . So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day as the king had directed, saying, "Return to me on the third day." (NASB; similarly RSV KJV NKJV)

Here, not only do Jeroboam and all the people understand Rehoboam to intend for them to return on the third day, when he had said, "in three days," but they even repeat his words back to him, paraphrased as "on the third day." Other similar examples include 1 Sam. 30:12-13 and Esther 4:16, 5:1.



In light of the precedent of such language, it is reasonable to suppose that Jesus' resurrection "on the third day" was close enough for those familiar with Jewish time reckoning to be regarded as a fulfillment of the Jonah typology.



The final installment of this series will deal with a few ancillary issues and wrap it up with a final conclusion.

_______________



Works Cited



The Bible. New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984. (All scripture references unless otherwise noted.)



------. New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: Collins-World, 1973.



Carson, D.A. "Matthew." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 8. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 1-599.



------. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.



Foster, Lewis A. "The Chronology of the New Testament." The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Vol. 1. Ed. Frank E. Gaebelein. Grand Rapids: Regency-Zondervan, 1984. 593-607.



Stein, Robert H. The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987.

Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Friday, Wednesday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 2. Logical Considerations

This is the second in a series of posts discussing the theory that Jesus died on a Wednesday, instead of Friday, as has traditionally been held. The first post simply catalogued the various scriptures that have a bearing on the question.



The four expressions used in Scripture to refer to the time period between Jesus' death and his resurrection are "on the third day," "after three days," "in three days," and "three days and three nights." (There are a few more Greek constructions, but they boil down to these four meanings.) It seems clear that (at least on the surface) there is a conflict between these four expressions. If indeed Jesus rose from the dead "on the third day" after his crucifixion, it is impossible that he spent "three days and three nights" in the tomb; conversely, if he did spend "three days and three nights" in the tomb, it would seem necessary that he rose on the fourth day, not the third. While "in three days" could be reasonably accommodated to either scheme, "after three days" would seem to support the idea of three full days and nights in the tomb.



As all parties in this debate are committed to the infallibility of the Word of God,¹ all see the need to reconcile these disparate expressions with one another. The theory of a Wednesday crucifixion is an attempt to deal seriously with the expression, "Three days and three nights" in Matthew 12:40. Those who hold to that theory would tend to take the observance of "Good Friday" as a piece of church tradition that does not adequately reflect the Gospel record, and would generally tend to take defenses of a Friday crucifixion as resulting primarily from a desire to retain that tradition.



The weakness of a Wednesday crucifixion theory would be those scriptures that indicate that Jesus rose "on the third day." It may be argued that Jesus wasn't actually in the tomb until sundown Wednesday--i.e., Thursday, according to Jewish reckoning--and that he could have risen at any point Saturday night, so that from Thursday, Saturday is the "third day." However, this reconstruction involves using two separate calendars--a Jewish one for Wednesday evening, so Jesus can be regarded as being entombed on "Thursday," and a Roman/modern one for Saturday night, so he can be regarded as rising on "Saturday." Without further exegetical proof, this reconstruction is highly suspect on its face: time periods should be measured consistently. Moreover, such a reconstruction, even if tenable, wouldn't allow for the resurrection to be on the third day from Jesus' crucifixion, but rather from his burial; similarly, a "Saturday night" resurrection might be conceivable as on the third day from the burial, but later events on Easter Sunday would inescapably be on the fourth day, no matter how the time periods were reconstructed.



Those who hold to a Friday crucifixion must find some way to reconcile the expressions "after three days" and "three days and three nights" with their conviction that Jesus died on Friday and rose Sunday morning; such a scheme does not allow for a literal "three days and three nights" entombment of Jesus. The strong point in their argument is that a Friday crucifixion seems to make the best sense of the statement that Jesus rose "on the third day."

_______________



Note

¹ For those who do not hold to the verbal, plenary inspiration of scripture, there is no point to harmonizing disparate accounts. They would probably say that different streams of tradition held to different crucifixion dates, or that the originators of those traditions had no interest in the question, and thus were not careful to keep their writings consistent. Therefore, the question only rises to importance for those who do believe in inerrancy (at least on this point).



Next up: Interpretation of the various passages discussed in part 1.



Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Friday, Wednesday Crucifixion, Crucifixion, Crucified, Jesus, Jesus Christ

On the Theory of a Wednesday Crucifixion: 1. Relevant Scriptures

Just adding a hyperlink to the next post. No new content.

I'm going to begin a series on the theory that Jesus was crucified on a Wednesday, rather than on a Friday. We'll start out surveying the various scriptures that refer in various ways to "three days" or "the third day."



A. One passage that stipulates Jesus' entombment as "Three days and three nights"

Matthew 12:40 "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

B. Passages that state that Jesus will rise μετὰ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, "after three days."

Mark 8:31 "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man . . . must be killed and after three days rise again."

Mark 9:31 "The Son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."

Mark 10:34 "[The Gentiles] will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

C. Ambiguous or oblique references

John 2:19 "Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.'" (Cf. v. 20; Mk. 14:58; Matt. 26:61; 27:40; all repetitions from hostile witnesses of Jesus' words; a few various Greek constructions, but all meaning "in three days.")

Matthew 27:62-64 "The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 'Sir,' they said, 'We remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day."

Luke13:32-33 "He replied, 'Go tell that fox [Herod], "I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal." In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day--for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!'"

D. Passages that state that Jesus will rise τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ, "on the third day."

Matthew 16:21 "From that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples . . . that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Luke 9:22 "And he said, 'The Son of Man . . . must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Matthew 17:23 "[Men] will kill [the Son of Man], and on the third day he will be raised to life."

Luke 18:32-33 "[The Gentiles] will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day [τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ] he will rise again."

Matthew 20:19 "On the third day he will be raised to life."

Luke 24:6-7 "He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'"

Luke 24:21 "This is the third day [τρίτην ταύτην ἡμέραν] since all this took place."

Luke 24:46 "He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day . . . .'"

Acts 10:40 "God raised him from the dead on the third day . . . ."

1 Corinthians 15:4 " . . . he was raised on the third day [τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ] according to the scriptures."

Next up: the logical issues involved in interpreting these scriptures.



Technorati Tags: Easter, Good Friday, Crucifixion, Crucified, Wednesday, Friday, Jesus, Jesus Christ

Does Your Theology Honor God?

Does your theology honor God? By asking this question, I do not mean, do you have The Right Theology, the one that objectively honors God by having all its "i"s dotted and its "t"s crossed and will at the Judgment be decreed The Final Truth about God. What I mean is, do you honor God by your interest in theology? Is your desire to read and write about it motivated by a love for God and a desire to honor Him?



This question has been prompted by my on-again, off-again conversations with Timotheos, a Reformed brother. He and I have gotten into some comment discussions on Peter Lumpkins's blog, as well as on this one and via email. During one of these discussions, I was quite moved by recognizing that Timotheos deeply cared about what he was writing about--that his theology was motivated, more than anything else, by his desire to honor God. I felt at that moment that even if I could have served up a definitive rebuttal to his position, I would not have desired to do so: it would have been robbing Timotheos of something that was precious to him and contributed to his appreciation for God. Timotheos was just as concerned to honor God by defending God's thorough and unasked-for transformation of His elect, as I was to honor God by defending His mercy and genuine offer of forgiveness to all of humanity. At that moment, the specifics that we were debating paled into insignificance compared with the desire we both had to honor God by what we believe about Him.



It is not always this way with theological debate. We are all too often motivated by the desire simply to Be Right--to be proven right, to show our superiority over the other person's argument, to defeat our opponent in verbal battle. Do we hold to a theological system because we truly believe that it honors God, or do we hold to it because it's the most logical, or the most experiential, or the most contemporary, or the most rooted in history and tradition, or the most evangelistic, or the most strongly opposed to the theological tradition we like the least? We can hold any theological position--even the correct one--for all kinds of wrong motivations. Ultimately, I think God cares more about why we believe what we believe than He does about the precise specifics of what we believe. It seems to me rather obvious that all of us are going to have some of our positions, er, adjusted in eternity. Probably much of what we squabble about will prove to be a false framing of the question. Meanwhile, the real issue will have been, were we honoring God with our theology?



It would be reasonable to wonder, at this point, why I bother taking theological positions at all. What does it matter exactly what we believe, as long as we have a heart that desires to honor God? Well, in a broad sense, content does matter: we can't be honoring God if we're honoring the wrong god. And in a narrower sense, Jesus did say that the Great Commandment was to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Especially for those of us who have that bent, loving God with our minds involves pondering these things, trying to make sense of what the Bible tells us about God. And it's inevitable that we should come to some conclusions, even if they're tentative, and end up in discussions with others who have come to differing conclusions.



But ultimately, the specifics of our conclusions matter less than our desire to honor God through them. One thing I know about my brother Timotheos: he loves God with all his heart, and his conception of God contributes to that love. My conception of God contributes to my love for Him. Maybe the real challenge is to love God, and to love one another, more than we love our conceptions.



Technorati Tags: Calvinism, Arminianism, Calvinist, Arminian, Theology, Theological, Debate, Reformed

Are Charismatics New Testament Believers?

Mark from Ephesians 4:14 kindly commented on a post of mine, and wrote a post himself questioning whether charismatics are New Testament believers. His essential thesis is that with their commitment to the gift of prophecy, charismatics revert back to the Old Testament hierarchy in which only some are allowed to be prophets. I responded to his post, but decided I may as well crib from myself and rework the response into a blog post here.

Mark has an interesting thesis, but the only passages he cites in support of it are from the Old Testament. The New Testament does not support his view of what a "New Testament Church" ought to be.

We are all familiar with Paul telling the Corinthians that there is indeed a gift of prophecy, one that some, but not all, exercise (1 Cor. 12:10, 29). There is also Agabus the prophet, who foretold a great famine, precipitating Barnabas and Saul's famine-relief visit to Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-28) and also foretold Paul's arrest (Acts 21:10-11). Philip the Evangelist also had four daughters, of whom it is written that they prophesied (Acts 21:9). And in the church at Antioch, named among the "prophets and teachers" were Barnabas and Saul. It seems clear to me that the New Testament itself bears witness to many instances of a practice that Mark writes, "deserves no place in a New Testament church."

The usual cessationist response is that until the Canon was complete, there was a need for continued prophecy. However, that argument undercuts Mark's position. It makes of the actual New Testament church--the one in the New Testament--a sub-New Testament church. A practice that Mark writes "reverses Pentecost" is being carried out and cited approvingly in Scripture.

Also, in my view, Mark seriously misunderstands how prophecy is viewed and used in pentecostal and charismatic circles, and it is worthwhile for all of us to recognize that this misunderstanding exists and why it does. It is simply not true, as Mark asserts, that "those who are not prophets must go to those who are to find out what God’s will is for them." What we do believe is that

1. God can speak personally to any believer who is open to hearing His Voice;
2. Anything we think we hear from God must be tested against Scripture--anything that is contrary to Scripture is automatically invalidated;
3. God may use some people more often than others in this gift of prophecy, but what they say never has the authority of Scripture, and God speaks through them what He wants to say: we don't get "prophecy on demand."

Admittedly, there are some fringe groups that may operate more like Mark describes, but these are the fringe, not the mainstream; nonetheless, when non-charismatics think of us, that is what they think.

Overall, it seems to me that the main criticism cessationists have against those of us who believe in the continuation of miraculous spiritual gifts is that miraculous spiritual gifts are messy. They doesn't fit neatly into a logical system. A God who can still speak to people and work miracles--why, He could do anything! We want so badly to have the loose ends tied up, to be able to say, "Thus says the Lord--and no more." But Aslan is not a tame lion, and our God is not a tame God. Those who most strongly assert His sovereignty should know better.

Technorati Tags: charismatic, cessationist, continuationist, cessationism, continuationism, New Testament, Old Testament, Christian

Interesting New Directions with Earl Creps

I'd gotten away from reading Earl Creps on a regular basis, and decided to check him out again today. Turns out he's starting a church plant in Berkeley, California. (Yeah, the one with the legendary 60s college campus.) He also has some interesting posts on contrarian explanations of the emerging church movement and what he calls the X factor, the factor that differentiates a growing, dynamic church from a stagnating, lifeless one. The scary thing is that even he doesn't know what this X factor is: "Consulting with faith communities has left me in some ways feeling like I now know less than I ever have."



Anyway, stuff well worth reading. Check it out.

Hearing God's Voice John Piper and the role of present-day divine revelation

Update: Added a pull quote and a note at the bottom regarding Piper's affirmation of a present-day gift of prophecy.

John Piper wrote an interesting piece entitled "The Morning I Heard the Voice of God." He describes a majestic experience of hearing God's voice, intensely and personally. The "reveal," of course, is that the words he "heard" were from a Psalm.

This would be unobjectionable, except that Piper contrasts his experience with that of an anonymous professor contributing to Christianity Today in a piece called, "My Conversation with God." Piper appears not to dispute the validity of the experience shared by the professor, but writes that

What’s sad is that it really does give the impression that extra-biblical communication with God is surpassingly wonderful and faith-deepening. All the while, the supremely-glorious communication of the living God which personally and powerfully and transformingly explodes in the receptive heart through the Bible everyday is passed over in silence.

Which is a little unfair, since that was not the point of the professor's article at all. Piper appears to think that describing extrabiblical divine communication is somehow threatening to the truth that God communicates also, and primarily, through His written Word.

The very Scriptures that cessationists are so desperate to guard are the witness of God's communication to human beings through means other than ScriptureThe roots of this issue stem from the Reformation. Since the Reformers had concluded from their reading of Scripture that the medieval Church's position on important doctrines was incorrect, they had to reject the authority of the Church and substituted for it the absolute authority of the Bible. Sola Scriptura. All well and good. But then a further corollary of this position developed: that there can be no longer any direct communication between God and human beings, because that (in the eyes of those who hold this position) directly undercuts the supremacy of Scripture. This is the root of cessationism: the idea that any present-day communication (or, for some, even experience) of God will undermine the authority of Scripture in determining faith, practice, and doctrine.

As I argued in "The Logical Quandary of Cessationism," this is a self-refuting position, because the very Scriptures that cessationists are so desperate to guard are the witness of God's communication to human beings through means other than Scripture. To be plain: Scripture records numerous instances of God talking directly to people. Not capriciously, not on-demand, but He does speak to people. And apart from some pitiful instances of eisegesis (think 1 Corinthians 13:8-12), there is no biblical witness to the idea that this communication will ever stop. Why should it?

Well, because that would set up a rival authority, says the cessationist. Nonsense. That's like saying that Job sets up a rival authority to Moses, or like saying that Paul sets up a rival authority to Jesus. All we have to do is be clear on the fact that God doesn't speak with forked tongue. And in fact, those of us who do believe that God continues to speak--apart from Scripture--make clear that God's voice in Scripture is authoritative in a way that any direct divine communication today is not. I might be mistaken about hearing God's voice; I'm not mistaken about the truth of John 3:16.

But direct divine communication may be personal, in a way that Scripture cannot be. I don't mean that one can't personally experience the message, as Piper writes that he experienced Psalm 66:5-7. But Piper's experience was simply that: an experience, an emotional response to reading the words on the page. It didn't, to be blunt, tell him to do anything specific. The professor, by contrast, was given the idea and outline of a book to write, and told to give the royalties to a struggling student. This should not be threatening from a doctrinal standpoint--he's not saying that all writers should give their royalties to struggling students--but it applied scriptures about generosity and about all wealth ultimately belonging to the Lord specifically to the professor's situation.

That's what present-day divine revelation does: it applies the truths of Scripture to personal circumstances that don't apply to everyone else. Denying even the possibility that God can and does communicate directly and personally with people cuts off personal guidance from the Christian life, and that's a very sad thing indeed.

Update: Dr. Piper's blog has put up a post entitled, "Does God Speak Outside the Bible? in order to clarify that he is not a strict cessationist. While I am very glad to hear that, a quick perusal of the material that that page links to suggests that Piper acknowledges present-day revelation in only a very limited way. My issue was not so much discerning an implied cessatioinism in Piper's former post, as it was his apparent distaste for someone to describe a moving experience of extra-biblical revelation without finding a way to make sure everyone knew that revelation through Scripture was somehow superior.

Technorati Tags: John Piper, Cessationism, Cessationist, Bible, Hearing God's Voice, Doctrine

I'm Not Dead Yet!*

Just a quick note to let anyone who cares know that I haven't been abducted by aliens and I haven't discarded this blog. Just been busy. I'm trying to get a post on John 10 rolling, I've got an old paper on the theory of a Wednesday crucifixion that I need to put into bloggable form, and I've also been doing some thinking about contextualization.



It seems to me that "traditional" church (whatever that means) has been deemed irrelevant to our culture (I guess I'm talking USA specifically, and perhaps Western culture as a whole), and that both the "seeker sensitive" and some aspects of the "emerging" movements are intended to make church more relevant. In most cases, the attempt is to make church (and by extension, our view of Jesus) more similar to the lives of the people we're trying to reach. In essence, put Jesus into a polo shirt, or give him some funky tattoos. But is that what is really going to reach people? Maybe people don't want more of the same; maybe they want something different. Or maybe that's what God wants for them. It doesn't seem to me that most revival movements have occurred because people have been given a more palatable Jesus; rather, people have been challenged and responded in a life-changing manner.



So anyway, that's as far as I've gotten. Maybe I need to think more like a blogger (as Joe Carter recently wrote) in order to keep things going. Or maybe if I toss out my half-baked ideas, some of you will come along to fully-bake them. Any takers?



*For anyone who recognizes my Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference in the title, this is one of those famous movie sayings that never happened, like "Play it again, Sam" from Casablanca. Just thought I'd share. For no particular reason.

Two Types of Apologetics

Stephen from Y Safle wrote a kind response to my post on the Jesus Family Tomb. Based on his and others' responses, however, I get the feeling that many people may not have understood where I was coming from. If I link to and approvingly cite others' reasoned objections to the Jesus Family Tomb television program and book, why do I on the other hand appear to dismiss their contentions and wave the whole thing away as irrelevant?

My post was primarily a reaction to the piling-on that was being done by Christian bloggers, which appeared 1) to want to preemptively snuff out any consideration of the program before it ever aired, and 2) to deal with the issue without any mention of what Stephen correctly termed the elephant in the room: namely, the Resurrection, believed in by all those who were vociferously challenging the program's stats.

Stephen wrote that while I might be right that the special would be irrelevant to a convinced Christian, there would still be value in trying to convince a nonbeliever that the claims of the special were false. In order to discuss this, I need to examine two types of apologetics. The usual type is evidential: gather the evidence that supports Christian claims and present it to the intellect for a verdict. The problem is that our intellect is fallen; a confirmed nonbeliever can always find more reasons to remain a nonbeliever. Nobody ever gets argued into saving faith.

The other type of apologetics is presuppositional: make the assumption that people really do know the existence of God but are suppressing it in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18-21). From this point of view, arguments over whether God exists or not are quite beside the point, and actually shift the argument onto the nonbeliever's ground. He can continue debating a point that the Bible indicates he already knows the truth of, while not having to deal with the claims that that truth make on his life. A presuppositional apologetic approach is two-pronged: on one hand, the apologist attempts to expose the contradictions inherent in the nonbeliever's worldview--contradictions that are necessary to maintain this suppression of the truth--and on the other hand, simply proclaims the gospel, regardless of the hearer's protests that he does not believe it.

An example of the presuppositional approach would be as follows: an unbeliever maintains that she cannot believe in God, since there is so much evil in the world. The apologist maintains that the unbeliever's recognition of evil is an implicit recognition of a transcendent moral authority--she does not mean by "evil" simply things that she personally dislikes--and thus the unbeliever's very contention demonstrates her knowledge that God exists. If she is really concerned about evil, she should place herself under God's moral authority and trust in Jesus as the solution to the moral issues in her own life.

In the end, I think both types of apologetic have value; but the value of the evidential variety does not lie in the ability simply to argue another person into becoming a Christian. That will not happen. The value, rather, lies in correcting the misgivings of those who may want to believe but feel that Christian faith is intellectually indefensible. C.S. Lewis was once called the "best persuader of the half-convinced." But the real battle is in getting people to the point of being "half-convinced," and that is not to be done by a merely logical approach. It's no use trying to overcome a person's every objection in order to get him to believe; get him to believe, and you'll find that most of the objections evaporate. (The ones that don't become real questions with hope of an answer, not just obfuscations.)

Conversion doesn't happen merely in the mind; it happens in what the Bible calls the "heart," the center of our personality, of who we are. The heart is influenced quite a bit more by the examples it sees from the people around it than by logical argumentation. A Christian who sews up his airtight logical argument with an exultant "Gotcha!" probably alienates the person he is attempting to persuade; the one who says, "I don't have all the answers," but demonstrates the love of Christ is likely to be far more persuasive.


Technorati Tags: Jesus Tomb, Jesus Family Tomb, Lost Tomb of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Resurrection, Logic, Presuppositional Apologetics, Evidential Apologetics

Brouhaha Over the Jesus Family Tomb

If you read Christian blogs at all, it would be hard to miss this year's version of the Lenten tradition of debunking some radical new theory or "discovery" that purports to invalidate the historic claims of Christianity. The current entry is a Discovery Channel special on the Talpiot tomb in Jerusalem, which the special argues is the "lost tomb of Jesus." There will also be a book by Simcha Jacobovici and Charles Pellegrino entitled The Jesus Family Tomb: The Discovery, the Investigation, and the Evidence That Could Change History. So the usual suspects are giving us the typical full-court publicity press timed to exploit the Christian practice of reflecting on Jesus' crucifixion and celebration of his resurrection.

Articles opposing the special and the book have been written by many; some of the most helpful have been those by Ben Witherington (including an interesting and detailed comment on statistical analysis) and Nathan Busenitz at Pulpit Magazine. The basic argument that these and other Christians are making is that the names on the ossuaries in the tomb are common, and therefore should not necessarily be identified with the figures in the New Testament who bear those names, and also that the statistical analysis used by Cameron, Jacobovici, and Pellegrino--to the effect that the cluster of names is highly unlikely to refer to anyone other than the family of Jesus--is flawed and skewed to produce a predetermined outcome. I think that this type of evidential apologetic has its value, but I also think that in a significant sense it misses the point.

Dr. Witherington and Mr. Busenitz do not oppose the identification of the Talpiot tomb as Jesus' tomb because they've conducted a dispassionate statistical analysis and found the idea without merit. Rather they believe, as do I, that Jesus was physically raised from the dead, and therefore his body is not to be found in any tomb. That belief means that we have an a priori commitment to reject any purported evidence to the contrary, and we may as well admit it. This doesn't mean that critical assessment of these annual theories, always timed to exploit the season just prior to Easter, is incorrect or without value. But in responding point-by-point to the charges and slogging it out in the world of statistics, we end up lending credence to the charge and actually helping to publicize it. There must be something to it if we're this worked up about it, right?

Like I said, I'm divided on the issue. Of course, someone does need to respond to these theories, for the sake of those who may be led astray by them. It's worthwhile to demonstrate that even if you don't assume Jesus' resurrection, the claims being made are without merit. Amos Kloner, the archaeologist who oversaw the excavation of the tomb in 1980, told the Jerusalem Post, "It’s impossible. It’s nonsense.” At the same time, I think that scurrying to preemptively answer charges sends the wrong signal. Alongside the evidential apologetic, I think we need a bit of a presuppositional mindset as well. God's truth hasn't been suppressed for two millenia. It's not going to happen now. There's something to be said about standing above the fray and simply being the witness that the world needs to see. 

Technorati Tags: Jesus Tomb, Jesus Family Tomb, Lost Tomb of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christianity, Resurrection, Discovery Channel Special, Talpiot Tomb, James Cameron, Simcha Jacobovici, Charles Pellegrino, Ben Witherington, Pulpit Magazine, Nathan Busenitz, Amos Kloner

Franz Kafka's "At the Law"

Republished without picture, since ImageShack decided to drop me. No new content.

Franz Kafka's "At the Law" is a profound expression of the human condition. It was one of the few literary pieces that Kafka published during his lifetime, and was incorporated into what is usually considered his most profound novel, The Trial. Like much of Kafka's best work, its enigmatic nature seems to demand interpretation, but defies any single exhaustive explanation. At its core, however, lies the human tension between wanting to be justified by the law and yet feeling excluded from it.

One of the things that Christians often do is fail to really listen to where the people in our world are coming from. We tend to offer answers to questions that haven't been asked, and not listen to questions that are being asked. Kafka asks questions we need to be listening to. If we are to reach the world, we need to understand where it's coming from. "At the Law" appears to me to be a wonderful parable of the person who wants to live a moral life, but doesn't know the grace of Christ. I offer it to you, for your consideration, and I invite your thoughts in the comments section.

In front of the law there is a doorkeeper. A man from the countryside comes up to the door and asks for entry. But the doorkeeper says he can't let him in to the law right now. The man thinks about this, and then he asks if he'll be able to go in later on. 'That's possible,' says the doorkeeper, 'but not now'. The gateway to the law is open as it always is, and the doorkeeper has stepped to one side, so the man bends over to try and see in. When the doorkeeper notices this he laughs and says, 'If you're tempted give it a try, try and go in even though I say you can't. Careful though: I'm powerful. And I'm only the lowliest of all the doormen. But there's a doorkeeper for each of the rooms and each of them is more powerful than the last. It's more than I can stand just to look at the third one.' The man from the country had not expected difficulties like this, the law was supposed to be accessible for anyone at any time, he thinks, but now he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, sees his big hooked nose, his long thin tartar-beard, and he decides it's better to wait until he has permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down to one side of the gate. He sits there for days and years. He tries to be allowed in time and again and tires the doorkeeper with his requests. The doorkeeper often questions him, asking about where he's from and many other things, but these are disinterested questions such as great men ask, and he always ends up by telling him he still can't let him in. The man had come well equipped for his journey, and uses everything, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. He accepts everything, but as he does so he says, 'I'll only accept this so that you don't think there's anything you've failed to do'. Over many years, the man watches the doorkeeper almost without a break. He forgets about the other doormen, and begins to think this one is the only thing stopping him from gaining access to the law. Over the first few years he curses his unhappy condition out loud, but later, as he becomes old, he just grumbles to himself. He becomes senile, and as he has come to know even the fleas in the doorkeeper's fur collar over the years that he has been studying him he even asks them to help him and change the doorkeeper's mind. Finally his eyes grow dim, and he no longer knows whether it's really getting darker or just his eyes that are deceiving him. But he seems now to see an inextinguishable light begin to shine from the darkness behind the door. He doesn't have long to live now. Just before he dies, he brings together all his experience from all this time into one question which he has still never put to the doorkeeper. He beckons to him, as he's no longer able to raise his stiff body. The doorkeeper has to bend over deeply as the difference in their sizes has changed very much to the disadvantage of the man. 'What is it you want to know now?' asks the doorkeeper, 'You're insatiable.' 'Everyone wants access to the law,' says the man, 'how come, over all these years, no-one but me has asked to be let in?' The doorkeeper can see the man's come to his end, his hearing has faded, and so, so that he can be heard, he shouts to him: 'Nobody else could have got in this way, as this entrance was meant only for you. Now I'll go and close it'.

Excerpted from the translation by David Wyllie, © 2003 David Wyllie, available for free download from Project Gutenberg.

How Similar Is the Emerging Movement to the Jesus Movement?

Scot McKnight asks a very interesting question on Jesus Creed: "Is Emergence the 60s all over again?" Here's a sampling of the variety of responses that he's received:


Brad Boydston writes:

“Is Emergence the 60s all over again?” The answer is YES — but with more tattoos. I suppose that’s why some boomer types get annoyed with the whole thing. In hindsight they know how full of crap they were in the 60’s and then along comes a bunch of guys (mostly) who think they’ve just discovered the key to real Christianity — genuine community and “question authority.” And the growing-greyhair (or in the case of some, no-longer-growing-hair) realizes that the emerging crowd is as full of crap as they were. That realization is compounded by the fact that they know deep inside that they’re still processing all the pain they went through when their own 60’s style house church disbanded in 1976 — if it lasted that long. It’s all mostly the same old, same old stuff.

But that’s okay. Each generation in its youth seems to have to reinvent things. Then when they reach middle age they’re embarrassed by how arrogant they were back then. And it’s at that point that they have a fresh epiphany of the vastness of God’s grace and mercy. And they realize that all of the things which we hash and re-hash, while important, pale in significance to the generosity and forbearance of God.

So, my advice to the emerging generation (which is very very soon the post-emerging generation) is truck on with Jesus! You’re doing fine — and who knows, perhaps God will use you as he unfolds his kingdom. If nothing else you’ll be in a great position to extend grace to the next arrogant and crap-filled generation.

Julie Clawson writes:

My cynical response…



So what if it’s like the 60’s (or any other reform/visionary period)? If it makes some people feel okay about selling out to consumerism instead of trying to transform the world with God’s love by labeling (read dismissing) others that’s their issue. One of my biggest pet peeves is being told by some baby boomer that I’ll grow out of my idealistic passion. That I’ll live real life and be forced to return to self-centered conservative American evangelicalism I grew up in. They think that by telling me that others in history have tried to passionately pursue Christ but rightly let the love of comfort and money dissuade them of that passion will dissuade me as well. They tell me that I’m the one who needs to grow up and give up my passion for Christ because it just isn’t normal/mainstream. And I’m expected to accept the wisdom of their years and revert to whatever box they want to shove me into. That’s called growing up and being responsible…

And finally, Matthew Wilcoxen writes:

There are quite a few substantial differences that I see between the Jesus People movement of the 70’s and the Emergent movement of now. First of all, the Jesus People movement was, if I understand it correctly, largely “anti-intellectual.” Seminary became a Cemetery to these hippies. The Bible was all you needed and anything else was dead, putrefying “religion” or “tradition.” The Emergents on the other hand, while perhaps loathing systematic theology and the seminaries of what they see as a bygone era, are anything but anti-intellectual. They load up blogs and discuss scholarly works in their free time. Rather than dismiss everything from the past as “tradition” that kills, these emerging Christians welcome anything from the past as long as it isn’t in any way connected with the movements and institutions which spawned them.



The second difference I see is that the Jesus People Movement did not really push the envelope doctrinally at all. The one exception being, perhaps, that some of them loosened up and actually believed the parts about the Bible that talk about the Holy Spirit. For the most part, they took the doctrines that had been handed down to them, and took them to the streets and preached them with vigour. On the other hand, the Emergents are, some more than others, shoving the envelope quite radically. McLaren says that “..our interpretations reveal less about God or the Bible than they do about ourselves…” (A New Kind of Christian, p. 50). The Emergent movement seems to be questioning, largely, whether or not understanding theology in any definitive way is even possible. For this reason, we are seeing much in the theological realm that is more reactionary than it is revolutionary. (I hope this doesn’t seem vitriolic, please correct me if I’m wrong.) In sum on this point, the Jesus People turned out to be fundamentalists in hippie garb; the Emergents are willfully shaking any fundamentalism out of themselves as quickly as possible.



For my last point (I think that I could go on forever!), I will say that the Jesus People were proclamational and definitely “missional.” Their strong emphasis was preaching the gospel. If you meant someone who was part of this movement, chances are, you had been confronted with the truth of the gospel of their Jesus. They were strongly committed to being “witnesses” in the sense that they verbally told and retold the story of how God, in Jesus, had reconciled sinners to himself through the cross and “commands all men everywhere to repent.” What they wanted was a conversion of the heart and of the priorities and they would ask you to accept that converting work of God. Conversion was, to them, a sharp break with one’s past life. They were all about being “born again.” The Emergents, while committed to being “missional”, are not committed to evangelism, at least not in the same way. Since orthopraxy has taken over for orthodoxy, most Emergents are not as concerned wtih proclamational evangelism. Instead, they seek to model inclusion before conversion (something many Jesus People undoubtedly did as well). Conversion in the sense of a radical godward reorientation, a “born again” experience, is not the aim of Emergent missions. I could continue, but I think most will further recognize the contrast betweent the Jesus People Movement’s strong proclamation (understand: verbal) of Christ and the Emergent’s aversion to such proclamation.



In sum, I think the Emergent movement is a whole different type of movement when we compare the beliefs, convictions, and practices of it with the Jesus People movement of the 70’s.

I could find points of commonality with both Brad and Matthew. And I remember thinking like Julie. What do you think?

Housekeeping

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.

Groundhog Day is Today

Republished without picture, since ImageShack decided to yank my access. No new content.

So put your little hand in mine
There ain't no hill or mountain we can't climb
     -- Sonny and Cher

If 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.

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

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