Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • If Your Spouse is Abusing You, Get Out of There

    A video from John Piper is making the rounds (HT: Tim Ricchuiti).

    I’m not going to comment directly on the video. Rather, I think it is worthwhile to give my answer to the question asked. What does a woman who is abused do? (Note also that I’m aware there are men who are abused, but the question was not framed in that way.)

    My answer is simple: Get out of there and report it. But especially get out of there. Don’t give a physical abuser the opportunity to do more damage.

    I am an egalitarian as I have stated on this blog any number of times, yet I won’t criticize complementarian philosophy as natural leading to abuse, as some have done. I treat this issue as a non-essential. Complementarianism is not abuse.

    Violent abuse, on the other hand, is a crime and not just something to be dealt with in connection with the church. It remains a crime irrespective of the theological positions of the abuser. I think we’ve had enough cases of church cover-ups. I also cannot see any way in which abusing one’s spouse or one’s children can be justified, or that one ought to endure it. It should be reported.

    Many women in such a situation would not feel comfortable taking their case before the church, especially with a husband who might be in a position of authority, or where the church leadership is all male. In such cases again, I would always emphasize getting out of reach of the abuser first, then reporting it either to the authorities or to someone trustworthy who will, in turn, report it to the authorities.

    For me the key theological issue here is that abuse violates the divine mandate for marriage. For some it seems to be easy to hear “wives submit to your husbands” (Eph. 5:22) without also hearing “be subject one to another” (Eph. 5:21) and “love your wives as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). How was that again? “As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

    That’s the New Testament idea of having authority.

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  • If We Were Doing Our Job in the Church

    … then perhaps nobody could say this:

    But if four years of college undo 18 years of parenting and religious affiliation, perhaps the faith community’s tenuous hold is the problem, not the particular place outside its bubble where that hold evaporates. Consider the believers we’ve seen in history. With all the persecution that Judaism and Christianity have survived over the centuries, an argument that sites America’s Top 310 Colleges as a first order adversary is hard to credit…. (Source: The Atlantic: Why College Students and Losing Their Religion)

    I agree. We tend to blame society for the fact that our young people tend to leave the church around college age. I suspect we’d like to believe that because it means we’re not to blame. We’ve done our best, but it’s just the society. What can we do?

    Well, we could try living our faith and inviting our kids to live it with us, rather than trying to work in just the right amount of indoctrination. We could try examining the kinds of ideas they’ll hear about in college, rather than repeating cliches and working our way through bland, unchallenging curriculum. (Can anyone say, “Bring your Bibles?”)

     

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  • A Misuse of the Word LITERAL

    One of my pet peeves is the way “literal” is used in discussing biblical interpretation.  The problem is not just that the word has changed meaning; rather, it is now scattered all over the map. “Literal” comes to mean anything from “seriously” to “severely out of context” much more often than it means “literal as opposed to figurative.” Even “literal as opposed to figurative” leaves something to be desired since without a knowledge of just which way something is to be taken, either literally or figuratively, one often can’t tell what is meant.

    For example, if I say I don’t take Genesis 1 literally, just what do I mean? For me, Genesis is not narrative history. Having said that, there are many things it could be, and it happens that I take Genesis 1:1-2:4a to be liturgy. There are figurative elements in liturgy, but it is a more specific label.

    In any case, in studying Philippians, I came across this note in the Orthodox Study Bible regarding the Greek word leitourgia in 2:17: “Service is literally ‘liturgy.’ …” I hate to beat up on the Orthodox Study Bible so much, especially considering that at the same time as I use it, I’m becoming more and more delighted with the eastern church fathers.

    But “service” is not literally “liturgy” nor is leitougia literally “liturgy.” “Liturgy” is merely one gloss one might use, expressing a certain portion of the semantic range of the Greek word. One might say the the word translated “service” is the one from which we derive the English word “liturgy,” though that doesn’t really mean much regarding the meaning of this passage.

    So again I will maintain that “literal” is one of the most misused words in biblical interpretation. I’ve suggested before that if I could take one phrase away from conservatives it would be “the Bible clearly teaches.” If I could take one phrase away from liberals it would be “we don’t take that literally.” Neither one advances the discussion.

     

  • Clergy in Philippians 1:1

    It’s been awhile since I made a comment regarding the Orthodox Study Bible. In preparing for my study of Philippians with my Sunday School class, I read the OSB notes on the book. Regarding the phrase episkopois kai diakonois in verse 1, it has the following note:

    This is the only epistle in which St. Paul includes the clergy, the bishops and deacons, in his address. St. John Chrysostom says this is because it was the clergy in Philippi who collected the funds Paul so badly needed and sent them to him by Epaphroditus. Bishops are the leading presbyters. By the time this letter was written, around AD 63, not only were bishops present in Philippi, but James was presiding over the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13) and tradition reveals that Peter was bishop in Antioch–and later in Rome. … (emphasis in original)

    I question whether this isn’t a bit anachronistic for the time period in question, whether one sees Philippians as written in the 55-56 range (with an assumed imprisonment in Ephesus) or in the 61 range.

    I note with interest (and some approbation) the New Jerusalem Bible’s rendering: “presiding elders and deacons,” though I think “deacons” sounds more churchy than necessary. The NRSV textual note, “overseers and helpers” has much to commend it as well.

  • Philippians Study

    I’m going to have the privilege over the next eight weeks of teaching from the book of Philippians using advance copies of a new study guide. The study guide was written by Dr. Bruce Epperly, and will be released by my company, Energion Publications, in July. This will be the next release in the Participatory Study Series, from which this blog derives its name. I’m going to blog about it as I work through it with my class and present a few extracts and comments.

    For the record, I still have a number of things to write from my ongoing blogging about James (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary) and Chronicles (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary). I have a number of notes, but haven’t had time to write any of them up.

    I must confess that Philippians is one of my three favorites from the Pauline corpus, the other two being 1 & 2 Corinthians. Yes, I prefer what I regard as the more practical and less theological letters. It’s really a close call, because I really do appreciate the others as well, but I think I have to give those three the edge, and I think that they are often neglected in favor of Pauline theologies developed largely from Galatians and Romans. But that’s another topic!

    The Letter to the Philippians is an example of practical theology, in which the church is called to live the faith it affirms. Paul has a strong sense of divine providence. While God does not control or determine every event, nevertheless, “in all things God is working for good.” (Romans 8:28) God is working in the Philippian church and will, through their fidelity, bring God’s good work to fulfillment, a harvest of righteousness. God rules the world through loving affirmation and humility rather than power and violence. Unlike Caesar, Jesus Christ does not seek to “lord it over” creation, but seeks to heal and save broken humanity. Christ’s path of humble service serves as a model for Christian living. Rather than rugged individualism and self-interest, Christians are called to serve one another, willingly sacrificing so that others might flourish.

    I think that’s a good description–“practical theology.” Indeed it is! Now “practical” doesn’t mean “shallow.” Nor do I mean that Galatians, for example, isn’t practical. But Philippians is directed to application.

    I’m going to give one more short quote from the first lesson:

    In proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord, Paul is implicitly placing Jesus ahead of Caesar. Imperial rulers will come and go, but God’s Living Word endures forever.

    Just so!

  • On Missions and Priorities

    Three days ago I wrote a post on our priorities and the purpose of the church. Today over at Energion.net (belonging to my company, Energion Publications) we publish a post by D. Kevin Brown titled Missions – What about It?. He’s asking some of the same questions along with a few more.

  • Voter Ignorance and the Budget

    Some comments from Dispatches.

  • No, Burning Books Is NOT Worthy of Respect

    Book burning
    Image by pcorreia via Flickr

    The Fifth Column has a post titled On Burning Books (HT: Divine Ripples), referring specifically to the recent burning of a Qur’an. He concludes that:

    It may not be prudent, it may not be useful, but it is a stand worthy of respect.

    I disagree. Book burning is either the petulant reaction of fearful people looking for control, but lacking convincing arguments, or a way to gain undeserved attention.

    The article cites a really bad reason why one might respect book burning: Church councils did it through the years. Wow! Lots of church people gathering together and doing something stupid! Who would have ever imagined it? It just proves that Christians are no more immune from stupidity and control issues than any other group of people.

    Here’s a quote:

    And it wasn’t just the Koran that burned. During the Middle Ages, the Talmud was frequently targeted for the fire by Church authorities precisely because of the numerous blasphemies concerning Christ and the Blessed Virgin that it contains. Throughout Europe, the book was formally put on trial and censored or burnt, in much the same way Terry Jones tried and burnt the Koran.

    And this is somehow an example of a good idea?

    I want to make clear her that I’m talking about we should do, what’s a good idea, and not what should be legal. I would never burn the American flag, even in protest, but I firmly believe it should be legal to do so. I would never burn a copy of the Qur’an, but I believe the action should be legal. Lots of stupid things are and should be legal. I do not believe the burning of the Qur’an justifies violent actions in response, just as I do not believe that any insult to Christianity, such as burning a Bible, would justify a violent response from Christians.

    Now to be fair, the article does question both the prudence and effectiveness of the tactic. But nonetheless the author concludes that there is something here to be respected.

    Our problem with Islam is not that we don’t get to say enough nasty things about Muslims, or that we can’t respond to Islam. We can and do respond respectfully on many occasions. But when someone burns a copy of the Qur’an it sends another message, not one of respectful disagreement, but one of hatred. It does nothing to stop even one act of terrorism. It does nothing to convince any radical Muslim that he is wrong, nor any Muslim, of course. It is the adult equivalent of a child’s temper tantrum.

    I’m reminded of a time many years ago when I was in a group of young men. One person got angry at another and started swinging his arms in a sort of suggestion he was going to punch the other one out. He kept saying, “Hold me back! Hold me back!” But he never actually approached the other guy, who would doubtless have won any fight between them. Nobody tried to hold him back either, because we knew he was going to be ineffective. The one difference between this event and that one is that the purported target exercised restraint.

    We don’t need to take our cues from the radicals. We don’t need to become like them. They are not concerned about who they kill. We should be. They are not making distinctions between one American and another. We should recognize distinctions in their camp. We should not let terrorism make us less than we are.

    I fear, however, that it has already happened to some extent.

     

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  • No Preaching and Leave Your Bible at Home?

    Via Dispatches I found this story about a lawsuit against the Grossmont Union High School District. The suit alleges that the school forbade the student to bring his Bible to school or to preach. The district tells a different story, claiming the student was very disruptive.

    I mention this story for a couple of reasons. The first is our tendency to jump to conclusions. My first response, I must confess, is to think the school is in the wrong, not because of freedom of religion (though I think that’s applicable) but because of freedom of speech. I understand that there are limits–substantial limits–to speech as a student in school, but I tend to think administrators overdo that point. Nonetheless, the more I think about this case, the less certain that becomes. It will be interesting to see what comes out in court, and just who is jumping to conclusions. If the facts were completely as alleged by the plaintiff it would be a slam dunk for them–which makes me wonder.

    My second point is that we should, at the same time we teach our children their faith, teach them good behavior and courteous, open, and friendly ways of sharing it. This both provides a witness in their lives as they treat other people with respect, including not forcing religion on them, and it is also just more effective witnessing. We gain nothing through rudeness. I don’t know the facts of this case, just the allegations. But there are genuine cases in which Christians young and old diminish or even pervert their witness through the means they use to carry it out.

    Please remember that I do not say this as a way of claiming that this young man did wrong. We don’t yet know precisely what happened. That is what a trial is for.

    For this I refer back to my 2006 post, Witness without Being a Pest.

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  • N. T. Wright on Hell and Universalism

    (HT: Through a Glass Darkly)