Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • On Praying for My Country

    Some time ago I was teaching a Sunday School class and the topic of prayer at public events came up. Now I would have a serious problem offering prayer at a public event. Though I support the idea of separation of church and state, my major objection is not based on the constitutional principle. After all, courts have allowed prayers in congress.

    My opposition is simply that I believe public prayer is prayer offered for a group. If it is just a ritual, or if it cannot reasonably be expected that the group joining in the prayer actually does join, then to me it is empty. I could sit out in my car and pray for a blessing on the activities of government, but I could not stand up in the group and offer a prayer as though God and the governmental meeting were on the same program.

    In my private prayers for the government, I pray largely that God will give wisdom to political leaders. I do not make the assumption that those political leaders and the political system under which I live are somehow more on God’s program than any other.

    I think that prayers at government events are not designed to invoke God’s favor, nor are they designed to seek God’s will. They are designed to give the impression that those who are doing the government’s business are, in fact, blessed, and are somehow blessed. It’s the whitewash on the sepulcher.

    In any case, to get back to the story, my explanation of my own view didn’t get through. One gentleman raised his hand and said, “I think you just don’t have the courage of your convictions.”

    “No,” I told him, “I don’t have the courage of your convictions.”

    In the discussion that followed, it became clear that he simply could not conceive of a reason for not offering a public prayer, other than that I was afraid of offending people in the audience. He (and many in the room) were so certain that this was an appropriate activity that they simply couldn’t see any reason not to. To them, America is God’s country, a Christian nation, and there’s no problem with Christian prayers.

    I was reminded of this when reading this post by Arthur Sido (HT: Dave Black Online via Christian-Archy.com). This is a topic that will shock many, many American Christians. Why not wear a “God Bless America” T-Shirt? It’s not something they’ve ever considered. The conviction that God is on our side runs very deep. Often it erupts in the claim that American policy carries out God’s will, either knowingly or unknowingly. That claim in turn can lead us to give up the church’s mission and ministry to the world.

    If we truly believe that the Gospel is “God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes” then we ought to act that way. But over and over again our solutions for economic problems, crime, moral issues, and even family relations is to get the government to solve it for us. I don’t doubt that the government needs to have its eye on such things, but how much of our effort as Christians needs to be used in that way?

    Would we not change more people and make more of a difference in our world by living and proclaiming (and I believe proclaiming without living is no proclamation at all) the good news accomplish more than all the political activism we can do as a church?

    I don’t know this, but I think most of us simply don’t believe that the Gospel will transform people’s lives. I don’t think we really believe the Gospel will work. I suspect that, throughout Christian history, our resort to the sword of the state results from a lack of faith.

    The separation I’m most concerned about is the separation where the church says, “We cannot compromise the gospel with the state’s structures of power. We need to stay away to maintain the integrity of the gospel.” The theological separation is more important than the constitutional.

     

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  • On Putting God Before Country

    When my wife and I decided to get married we also made another decision: God would be first in our married life. That means that for me, God comes before my wife, and for her God comes before me. Some people hear that as a sort of sacrifice. We have less because we give more to God first. But in practice we both would say that putting God first actually makes our love for one another greater.

    I think this is a characteristic of loving God. In 1 John 4:20 love for one’s brothers and sisters is inextricably linked to love for God. Matthew 25:31-46 explicitly tests love for God by our actions of love towards others. Love for God is intended to bring us closer to one another, not to separate us. Like many things in Christian orthodoxy, 1 + 1 = 1, i.e. 100% devotion to God results in 100% devotion to others, without either detracting from the other.

    Now perhaps you think I’m going to say next that 100% devotion to God will result in 100% devotion to my country, and thus make me the most devoted of patriots. And with the proper perspective, that is partly true. I would say that devotion to God makes me a better patriot.

    But my love for God also limits and guides my patriotism. I think it makes me a better citizen, but to some it may make my devotion questionable, and others may even see me as disloyal. Many Christians over the centuries have been seen as disloyal because they put God first, and because there were things they could not offer their country. My father planted trees in Canada because he refused to bear arms in World War II. Many people saw that as disloyal. Even though I don’t share my father’s view completely, I honor his devotion to God.

    You see, for many patriotism means supporting whatever one’s country chooses to do, and being willing to carry out orders, no matter what those orders are. If they are the policy of one’s country, the patriot carries them out.

    I believe a country, any country, is best served by those who offer their integrity, their best judgment, and their commitment to the morals and ethics they have chosen and accepted. That means that they must, in some cases, say no. They may sometimes be wrong, yes, but they always act with integrity.

    So at the same time as I honor those who have fought for freedom in this country and in others, I want to also honor those who have stood against the tide and chosen to act with integrity, even that action cost them their social standing, their livelihood, their reputations, and even their lives.

    There are many times we, as a nation, would have done much better by listening to them.

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  • Yet Again on the Meaning of Inerrancy

    John Hobbins is again correcting the rest of us regarding the meaning of the word inerrancy. The interesting thing here is that I can affirm everything he says about inspiration in his post.

    He writes in opposition to the approach taken by by Michael Heiser and C. Michael Patton, each of whom have written posts regarding how to deal with errors in the Bible.

    Now I’m going to be brief (don’t laugh!). Michael Heiser and C. Michael Patton aren’t idiots. I don’t mean here to imply that John Hobbins says they are. But a point I have made previously about inerrancy in response to John is that the common usage of the word “inerrancy” does not agree with the way John uses it.

    That doesn’t make Heiser and Patton more right about the inerrancy of scripture, but my observation is that their view accords with the more common understanding of what inerrancy means. Maybe people ought to mean something different, but they don’t. But I’m of the school of thought that suggests the meaning of words is to be determined by their usage, and by that standard, calling Hobbins’ view “inerrancy” is misleading. Most readers, at least non-academic readers, will understanding him to believe something different than he does.

    People in the pews tend to believe someone who claims to accept biblical inerrancy would be concerned with discussing whether Jacob bought or conquered Shechem (as Heiser does), or the details of gospel stories (as Patton does).

    But Hobbins says:

    Now, if you believe that it is part of the Holy Spirit’s teaching office to reveal to us that Jesus (say) healed two blind men at Jericho, not one; that Jacob (say) bought Shechem and then conquered it at a later time, you are claiming that the Holy Spirit speaks, not through Scripture, but through harmonizing exegetes. I oppose such outlandish claims.

    But if I ignore the vocabulary, I find I can affirm, indeed that I really like many of the phrases that Hobbins uses in regard to scripture and inspiration. I like to say that when we discover the message God has for us in scripture (always through the power of the Spirit), it is always true. Recently I have had to add the affirmation that we can discover that message. We have no need to walk in darkness.

    So why not use another term, such as simply stating that one has a high view of scripture?

  • July Biblical Studies Carnival

    . . . posted at Targuman.

  • The Biblioblog Top 50 for June

    . . . finds me at #27, which is actually surprisingly good considering that I only wrote one blog post during June. My excuse is that I was working on half a dozen book releases for my company, two of which will actually take place in July.

    As for the great controversy about the library, I would note that if one puts complete posts in one’s RSS feed, as I do, one must expect to lose some page views. You can follow my blog via Good Reader and never actually look over here at all. At the same time, I’m glad the discussion resulted in direct links to posts, which is a requirement for collating content.

     

  • Early Internet (or not) Experiences

    Ed Brayton brought back memories talking about how he first got online. I first encountered Ed on the Compuserve Religion Forum, and since then I have enjoyed reading his blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars and The Panda’s Thumb, of which he was a founder. We have another connection, in that he is co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science, and I’m a founding member and board member of Florida Citizens for Science.

    I first got online using a Sharp PC-1500 with a Radio shack RS232 port attached, and I believe it was at 150 bpsbaud, though I don’t remember very clearly. That was in the early 80s. The experience was not all that exciting except for the fact that I did get logged in. I went on to get involved just a bit with FidoNet, and operated The Wind Dragon Inn in Bellevue, NE. I had a 20 MB hard drive, a 1200 baudbps modem and I thought I was pretty wonderful.

    It was a few years before I expanded to the Religion Forum which was where I first encountered Ed. But I think I’m dating myself. (Also corrected my misuse of baud and bps.)

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  • Losing the War on Drugs

    Various prescription and street drugs may caus...
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    There’s a stereotype of opponents of our current drug laws that suggests such people just want to light up a joint – legally. That’s not very accurate. I personally don’t even use alcohol, and I rarely use over-the-counter, completely non-addictive pain killers. I’m leery about legalization, but I certainly think we need substantial reforms in the direction of education and rehabilitation as opposed to the current criminal penalties, especially for use and for non-violent offenders.

    I’ve been sitting on this article by Jimmy Carter for some time. He comments on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, which itself includes some notable people. These aren’t folks who want to use drugs legally, and thus want to remove inconvenient laws. They are people who recognize the damage inflicted on people by the drug war itself.

    I have not studied this issue enough myself to make specific recommendations. I believe I have followed it enough to realize that we are not making real progress.

    When what we’re already doing isn’t working, it’s time to get serious about finding the alternatives. Aiming at reducing the demand seems a sensible general approach.

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  • Addicted to Arguing?

    Yes, that might be me! Peter Laarman at RD Magazine says many in American protestantism are addicted to arguing, and need to learn that arguments don’t win people over–contact with people and sharing of stories does it. He titles his piece Why Liberal Religious Arguments Fail, but while I’m well aware of many liberal examples, I think there are plenty on the conservative side of he spectrum as well.

    I must temper my support for his position by noting that I recall quite a number of my own positions that I changed due to listening to arguments against the position I held before. People differ from one another on this as well.

     

  • Error Overload

    Ken Schenck has published another find the errors audio. This is really an amazing piece of interpretation and is well worth listening to, just because you might not believe anyone would do it if you don’t hear it for yourself.

    It needs no comment beyond what Ken already posted. Note that errors can be committed more than once …

  • On Camping: Do Errors Result from Lack of Theological Education?

    Dr. W. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary California, says that it does, according to the Christian Post. Dr. Godfrey, who was in the youth group taught by Camping at Alameda Christian Reformed Church, says that Camping reads the Bible like an engineer, lacks knowledge of the original languages, and doesn’t know how to read literature, especially ancient literature.

    I would have to disagree–with the conclusion, not the facts. Indeed Camping does not read Greek and Hebrew, lacks formal training and theology, and to some extent reads the Bible like an engineer. On the last point it seems to me that a competent engineer should be able to discern when he is not reading an engineering text, i.e., the pieces just don’t fit together as and engineer would expect them to. There’s something else going on that causes him to force the Bible to fit a certain mold.

    I’d suggest it’s a combination of a belief in inspiration–a high view of scripture, in fact–combined with a 20th century modernism in which scientific, mathematically precise knowledge is the best kind of knowledge there is. The Bible is the best book, so it must produce the best kind of knowledge. With that mindset carried to its extreme, the Bible must produce the kind of information Camping extracts from it. If it didn’t, it couldn’t be inspired, an unthinkable result.

    As I noted earlier with regard to time setting, though Camping carries this to extremes, other interpreters are guilty of similar errors, such as trying to force biblical texts to produce advanced scientific knowledge they were never intended to convey. Dissatisfied with the spiritual message of the Bible–challenging enough in itself!–they search for “better” knowledge.

    But are Camping’s errors the result of a lack of formal education? Certainly he makes calculations that seem nonsensical to those who read the Bible in its original languages with knowledge of its historical and literary context. So yes, there are errors that result from a lack of knowledge. But one can find plenty of errors committed by people with doctoral degrees as well. Different errors, yes, but still errors.

    I think the headline (both mine and the one at the Christian Post) does a disservice to what Dr. Godfrey said. He comments later in the article that Camping “refused to learn from Bible scholars” and adopted a “proud individualism.” I’d say that a refusal to learn from others, not just from Bible scholars, would be the most basic problem.

    There are plenty of sources from which one can get historical and literary information about the Bible. Doubtless such information was available to Camping. Yet he did not submit his work to testing and critique by others and listen to what they had to say.

    In the participatory study method (described in my book Learning and Living Scripture, co-authored with Geoffrey Lentz), the final step in Bible study is sharing. By sharing, Geoffrey and I do not mean going out and letting everyone know what brilliant insights you have gained from your study. Rather,

    You do this both to give others the benefit of what you have learned and to benefit from their comments and perhaps corrections.

    As you study and question, find something to share. Remember that sharing can be in the form of a question. For example, one might ask others how they understand a particular word, such as “incarnation,” “poverty,” or “atonement.” Take notes on their answers, and bring that information back to your study.

    Then ask yourself what your neighbors will hear when you make particular statements, such as “I must be bold for Jesus!” or “Jesus is the only way to receive atonement.” Do those statements mean something to them? Do they mean the same thing to them as they do to you?

    This is part of contemplatio, as you try to be and do the text. We often think of sharing primarily as telling someone things that we have learned. But if what you learned is that God loves prisoners, for example, you might find that the best way of sharing that lesson is to become active in prison ministry.

    Sharing demonstrates that you don’t believe the text is your private possession. It is God’s gift to the Christian community (p. 14, emphasis added).

    Whether you lack a high school diploma or have multiple PhDs, humility, and teachability, is your best protection from getting stuck in error(s).

     

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