. . . over at my Jevlir blog.
|
|||||
|
I’ve written two posts that might interest readers of Threads. The first is on how we listen and read, and the second is on capitalization in translation of the Hebrew scriptures. (And no, the Hebrew doesn’t have capitalization, so what gives?) … has been posted at Lo-Fi Tribe. As usual, I want to highlight some posts from the carnival. Since I’m an egalitarian, I read this post from Pseudo-Polymath with interest. The discussion that follows is also substantial and interesting. I hope I can find time to respond in a post. I hate making comments [...] . . . at Thinking Christian. Here a just a few things I think my readers might find interesting, but that I won’t get much time to comment on: Human events has an article on intelligent design by a conservative who doesn’t think much of it. In fact, he thinks the main stream media cover it because it’s embarrassing to conservatives. “The Left believes, correctly, that Intelligent Design is a political loser, and so they gleefully attempt to hang it around the neck of every right-of-center movement from libertarian neo-conservatism to isolationist populism — shouting all the while ‘See, the American Taliban has come for your children! Elect a Democrat before it’s too late!’” — It’s an interesting perspective! (HT: Panda’s Thumb) There are very few things that haven’t been moved to the new computer, imported, or otherwise sorted out. For those who my have missed the post I switched not only to a new CPU but to a new operating system. I’m now using Ubuntu Linux, after trying it on a separate machine for a few months. I’m thus far very happy with the results. Having the old machine on the same network has made moving stuff pretty easy. I am doing some reading before I respond to a couple of posts, but I did want to link to some interesting stuff. Both Mark Olson (Pseudo-polymath) and Anne (Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength) have written posts discussing justification from a perspective other than the judicial/penal substitution approach. Their posts simply confirm to me that there are many, many valid ways to talk about the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf, and that penal substitution is just one of those. Unlike some, I do not wish to discard it, but I also will not make it the one and only metaphor. Adrian Warnock has posted twice, first Legalism, Racism, and the First Century Jew, to which I will respond later at some length. I find much to object to in that short post, but I’m also working through Piper’s comments in their context before I blow off steam. The second one is 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 5 – Two Critical Passages on Justification in which he links an article that I had linked earlier, and says: If you are interested in seeing an example of this, there is an article by Wright on 2 Corinthians 5:21 [PDF-HN] that I must say I found wholly unconvincing. I see a great deal of “finding unconvincing” but I see remarkably little actual exegetical argument. The primary form of argument appears to be theological. If the question is whether the new perspectives on Paul differ from prior theological statements, then we can cheerfully answer yes, and go on. But for me the question is whether the new perspective gets us closer to correctly understanding Paul and what he has to say. One of the keys here is to understand the paradigm shift that several interpreters have taken. If you do not accept that paradigm shift, you are likely not to accept Wright’s specific exegesis of 2 Corinthians 5:21. That is not surprising, since he is dealing with that verse in the context of that new paradigm. (I am not overly fond of “paradigm shift,” as a term, or at least I don’t think I am, but it seems to me that the new perspectives on Paul do justify that term.) Peter Kirk blogged on this same topic, and brings up a number of points. I have to say that anyone who implies that Augustine was a theological pygmy is likely to get my favorable attention! But more importantly, Peter points to one side issue, and that is the way in which (some?) reformed theology can make God look like he is a bit veracity-challenged, and can’t truly tell whether people are righteous or not. Meanwhile, the view that I am working towards is a rejection of the “Reformed” idea that Christians remain sinners in actual fact but are nevertheless, by a legal fiction, counted as righteous in Christ. Instead of this, the picture I have, based on various biblical passages such as Ephesians 4:22-24, is that the Christian consists of two separate persons or personalities: the “old self” (in some versions “old man”, but to be understood of course in a gender generic sense) born by natural birth who is a sinner, guilty, condemned to death and destined to die; and the “new self” born of the Spirit and into Christ, who is righteous, holy, free from condemnation, will not die, and indeed is already living eternal life in God’s kingdom. . . . Just so. Like Peter, I continue to be in flux on some of these issues. There are boundary lines that I’m fairly certain of, but others I’m studying a great deal, but Peter’s paragraph is one of those that strikes me as promising. When I read it, I feel that he is “with” Paul in a significant way. Perhaps he’ll have to adjust some, as he says, but he’s going the right direction. I will be blogging a bit more on 2 Corinthians 5 from an exegetical point of view, hopefully in the next few days. Update: Edited to correct the date in the header from 10/12/07 to 11/12/07. I truly have not invented a time machine! Here’s some things that caught my attention: Richard Rice Discusses Open Theism20 years ago I read his book The Openness of God when it was first released. I was intrigued by its ideas of open theism then, and I continue to be intrigued now. I appreciated the summary of key issues provided in this post by David Larson. (From the Spectrum Magazine blog/Association of Adventist Forums). Such are the varied topics of which I read with interest! I’ve found a way to make short comments on some of the blog posts I read, but either don’t have time to comment on, or have only a very little bit to say. The result: these link posts. I think I’m supposed to leave more time between agreements with Joe Carter but even though [...] I like to highlight three or four posts from the Christian Carnival when I have the time. I usually do so in the post linking to it (if I remember to do so at all), but I forgot today, so here comes another “link” post. My first highlight is host Diane R’s Yes, We Can, in which she is saying yes to the possibility of putting the social gospel together with proclaiming the atoning work of Jesus. It’s a good challenge. Second, I noticed this post on discipleship, in which I read: “A true relationship with the Living and Holy God is not a one-time event or prayer, it’s a lifetime commitment.” Yep, that’s it! Finally, Kevin at Everyday Liturgy talks about what it is like to experiencing the world after a reutrn from a monastery. I have a friend who is pastor at a local church who visited a Benedictine monastery, and he couldn’t stop talking about it. Some of what he said is much like this post. I wonder what the needs of our lifestyles do to our spiritual growth? Well, there are others, but those caught my eye. I read a large number of blog entries each day, and I never have time to comment on everything I’d like to. Considering how many posts I do write, this may be a good thing. One way to comment without having to write is by linking to extremely good posts, and this morning provided me with some excellent material. Responding to Torture First, I have been trying to get a handle on writing a post on torture, with the Mukasey hearings, but I haven’t gotten beyond “torture is evil.” After that it feels odd to be explaining that torture is bad. It’s so much a part of me, that I have a hard time taking it seriously as a debate, but there it is, being debated by presumably serious people. But Joe Carter has saved me on this point, by writing a 100% on target, excellent post, Our Tortured Silence: The Shameful Response of Christians to Waterboarding. All I would add is that our fear sometimes makes us waffle on our moral convictions. We must fight terrorism, but we must be sure to maintain our integrity while we do it, or the terrorists win even if we physically defeat them. Let’s be sure we like who we are when we’re done. Dividing the Denominations Through an unrelated comment, I found a post on the division of the church, Happy Reformation Day/Hallowe’en. This relates to my own previous post, Setting Doctrinal Priorities. I’m not concerned about their being denominations, or at least accountability organizations that bring congregations together, but we very often do not see the unifying factors, and thus splinter further and further. What is the Gospel? Again, relating to two earlier posts, Adrian Warnock has posted on justification again, and after quoting a description of forensic justification, and details of imputed righteousness, he says: That, my dear reader, is the Gospel. What better explanation of it have you ever read? Now I don’t have a problem with Adrian seeing the gospel there, but that is simply one way of expressing it; it is not the only one. When we divide along such detailed lines, I see many problems ahead for Christian unity. |
|
||||
Copyright © 2012 Henry E. Neufeld - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa 
|
|||||
Recent Comments