Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • History of the Bible for 3rd Graders

    I was surprised to be invited to teach a session on the history of the Bible to the third grade class at my home church. So what does one do with about a half an hour to talk about the history of the Bible with about 20 lively 3rd graders?

    I chose to create some slides using generations to illustrate the time that has passed since various key points in the history of the Biblical text. Using 20 years as a generation I put little people icons on slides, starting with somewhere around my own age compared to theirs, and then multiplying until I got back to the time of the Exodus. I interspersed the time charts with images dealing with what happened during that time frame in the history of the Bible.

    I hadn’t tried to teach that age group in more than 30 years, so I was a bit nervous. How did it go?

    They were really engaged with the time element, counting my icons of people, multiplying and checking the math. They had intelligent questions throughout, especially about the nature of writing and how manuscripts were copied.

    While I didn’t overdo the big words, these kids didn’t need me to add a lot of fun–they regarded the topic as fun. I think our kids are ready to learn. We just need to be ready to let them.

  • The Multiple Personality Disorder of American Foreign Policy

    A number of bloggers have been expressing their solidarity with the Egyptian people today. On that subject I’m going to suggest the words of two friends of mine, Allan Bevere and Bob Cornwall. Yet while I sympathize with the Egyptian people, I am going to comment on something else.

    Why is it that our moral outrage and our moral urgings as a nation and as a church often have little impact on the world at large? This is a question I hear occasionally. But I also hear expressions of confidence that, if we’ll just give voice to our moral position, we can change the world.

    The reason the American church is often not heard, I believe, is that American Christians are too closely connected with American government and American policy. The reason America as a nation cannot speak with moral force in foreign policy is that our foreign policy is not a consistently moral one. I have a book on my shelves comparing diplomatic justifications for our invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and those of the USSR for the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The arguments sound eerily similar.

    We want our foreign policy to make other nations free and democratic, and at the same time we want those countries to support our foreign policy goals. Those are often contradictory goals, and our safety overrides our altruism and our crusade for democracy when those come into conflict. Yet often we try to pretend that our pursuit of self-interest in foreign affairs is actually an altruistic pursuit of the interest of others.

    One of the nicest things I can say about our attitude is that we really lack the intestinal fortitude to pursue and consistent policy of realism and self interest. But since we do try to pursue our self interest, even though we back off when things get difficult, we are not even viewed as a reliable ally in that pursuit.

    If we pursue democracy overseas, people will frequently choose governments we don’t like and pursue policies we oppose. We want them to be democratic, so long as they choose to do what we want them to do. We wanted a less corrupt government for Palestinians, for example, right up until they chose to elect Hamas.

    Now we have an Egyptian government we have supported for many, many years. We have known about the problems there for all those years. Now that the Egyptian people have put their lives on the line for their freedom, we urge reform. That’s better than not doing so, but don’t be surprised if people are not terribly impressed. Yes, it’s better that we urge reform and quit propping up the existing government. But …

    It would be nice, some time, to be ahead of the game, to support freedom before unarmed people are giving their lives for it, and to actually put our own interests on the line for the freedom we claim to value.

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  • How Liberal Christians Lose Credibility

    Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...
    Image via Wikipedia

    This article interested me, if for no other reason than my tag line: Thoughts on Religion in the World from a passionate, moderate, liberal charismatic Christian. Now I should point out again that “liberal charismatic” was a tag bestowed on me by someone who didn’t like me, and my preference is “passionate moderate” as a self-description. But many of my friends think “liberal charismatic” is fairly accurate.

    One of the problems with liberal Christianity, in my opinion, is that many American liberals have problems explaining why they are Christians, specifically Christian liberals. The appearance some present is of being culturally rooted in Christianity and using Christian language to some extent, but not really taking it all that seriously. In my experience, most liberal Christians really do take their theology and discipleship seriously. It’s the appearance. I think it may be that the constant explanations of why one isn’t conservative on doctrinal issues detracts from making a positive case for what one does believe.

    I found the post 10 ways “liberal” Christians lose credibility via John Meunier, and I think a number of these points are quite good. Reyes-Chow is clearly more comfortable with the liberal label than I am, but that gives him more credibility in talking about it as well. As John was, I was particularly interested in the point on Christology:

    We must be able to articulate a Christology that informs our liberalness.  Too often I have been in conversations where it seems that our positions inform our understanding of Jesus….

    In my view, however, that issue comes up for all Christians. I think modern American Christianity has a great deal of trouble with Christology, and with rooting discipleship in a robust Christology. As a self-proclaimed Christian moderate, I confess that it’s easy to let my “positions inform [my] understanding of Jesus” rather than having it the other way around.

    Wander on over to Bruce Reyes-Chow and read the whole post.

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  • Making It Hard to Read

    Learning and Living Scripture

    Joel Watts suggests that we might need to make laypeople learn some of the more difficult theological terms, and he quotes an Economist study to support his contention.

    I would relate his comment to my own suggestion about the different ways of reading scripture. I don’t think we always want to read slowly and in detail. There are those who don’t think rapid reading is valuable. It is, but it can be a problem if you only read fast.

    Informally evaluate your own results, and build up an array of approaches to reading and studying. An informal evaluation can involve simply sitting back, closing your eyes, and trying to remember key points of the material you just read. I often ask myself what the key points of each chapter were after reading scripture from one of the reading plans.

    Another technique I use is to read in one or another foreign language. I’m not talking about the original languages, which I also like to read, but I can slow my reading down progressively by moving from English to Spanish to French and finally to German. I’m slowest at the last. It’s hardest for me to read German, but having struggled through the text I’ll remember the key points of the chapter(s).

    But on the other hand I was discussing reading and understanding scripture with my wife just last night and she was commenting on how her study had progressed over the last few years. One of the elements we agreed on was the need to get acquainted with large portions of scripture–getting an overview. Her study is now bringing her more and more insights about the connections between various parts of scripture. That doesn’t come until you become thoroughly acquainted with many books, not just many verses.

    The book Learning and Living Scripture: An Introduction to the Participatory Study Method, which I co-authored with Geoffrey Lentz, devotes an entire chapter to these approaches to reading.

  • Worship Worthy of Your Understanding of God

    I started teaching a new Sunday School class today, or I should say it’s new to me. In our discussion one of the class members discussed who he understood God to be, and then commented that he couldn’t understand such a God requiring worship. His concept of God was rich and deep, so by this time I was wondering. Then he mentioned what he meant by “worship,” and what he was talking about was the very common things we do at our worship services.

    I think his question was very appropriate, even though the answer–as he acknowledged–was kind of built into the question. But it raises another question: Are our worship services worthy of God? Or perhaps I can make it a little easier: Are our worship services worthy of our best understanding of God?

    I spent some time writing about worship, and one of my key points was that worship should happen all week long. Worship is not something that just happens during a time of “worship” should help us to worship all week, and what we do all week should help us worship when we get together.

    So I ask: Is what we do on Sunday morning worthy of our God? Does it send people forth recharged to meet the world? If not, what can we do?

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  • Life Application Study Bible Giveaway

    For participation in a previous contest, Tyndale House has sent me a certificate for one free copy of the Life Application Study Bible (NLT), which they say is the #1-selling study Bible.

    I’m happy to be able to provide someone with a copy of an NLT. I’m going to do this a bit differently this time. I’m not going to just select a random commenter. Rather, I’m going to ask you to give me a maximum of 140 word application to life drawn from any portion of Genesis 11:10-32. I will randomly select one of every qualified entry.

    You can enter as many times as you want to, provided you provide a different life application. I’ll disqualify any entries that are more than 140 words. The word count will use the standard English concept of a word. For example, this paragraph contains 46 words.

    I’m going to give everyone tw0 weeks, so I’ll make my selection February 7, and mail you the certificate.

    Thanks to Tyndale House for providing this certificate, and for publishing the NLT in many fine editions.

  • Dave Black on Translations

    I was thinking of quoting this comment from Dave Black myself, but Rod Decker beat me to it. We should give translators more respect!

  • The Value (or not) of the Spiritual Warfare Metaphor

    My daily lectionary readings for the day included both Ephesians 6:10-24 and Mark 5:1-20. (I get my readings from The Voice.) It’s an interesting combination, because the Ephesians passage is the famous one about the armor of God and thus features in just about any discussion of spiritual warfare, while the passage in Mark, regarding the healing of the demoniac on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, is spiritual warfare.

    Now what interests me here is the demonstration of what is meant. In his just released study guide to Ephesians, Bob Cornwall notes:

    For Christians uncomfortable with military imagery, this passage can prove challenging. The ingenuity of it, however, needs to be recognized. The author took a picture that every one of his readers would immediately recognize, and used it to encourage them to become actively engaged in their faith, thereby helping to bring to an end the rule of the evil one. Such a calling would be difficult, which is why the word of encouragement is central to this message: Stand firm.

    There are several points here that I’d like to emphasize, because I believe spiritual warfare is often misunderstood and certainly misapplied.

    1. Spiritual warfare is a metaphor. It is not intended as an endorsement of violence. Notice how Jesus behaves in Mark. There is no violence or fighting, except on the part of the demonized man.
    2. Spiritual warfare is not a method. We’re not the ones who defeat evil by practicing some set of techniques. I know people who feel that they need to “pray on” the armor of God every morning or they might be susceptible to the attacks of the devil that day. Now as a spiritual exercise, I see no problem with praying through this passage, but this is not some magical ritual that protects you. It’s about belonging to Christ. Bob uses the excellent phrase “actively engaged in their faith.”
    3. A metaphor may be especially valuable to a particular time. I think spiritual warfare provides one way of understanding the conflict with evil. Unfortunately, when it gets into the hands of those who think violence solves everything, it just imports ungodly habits and behavior into our spiritual lives and the damage can be substantial.

    I really liked having these passages together, because the way Jesus is portrayed in the gospels is peaceful and confident. The evil spiritual realm falls, not to combat, but to a confident faith in God.

    Stand firm indeed!

  • Is Civility Our Greatest Need?

    In the wake of the shootings in Tucson, much of the conversation has been about civility. I was just watching CNN as Wolf Blitzer interviewed Sheriff Dupnik of Pima County, Arizona. The sheriff was asserting that the caustic atmosphere created by people making caustic political comments contributed to making Jared Loughner go out at shoot a congresswoman and a number of other people. Pressured by Blitzer, he admitted he had no hard evidence but said that’s his opinion as a veteran of law enforcement, I believe 43 years.

    Personally I get a bit nervous when someone can’t present any evidence or logic, and yet they cite their opinion based on experience. I think that if experience teaches you something you ought to be able to express it. Of course, it may be that Sheriff Dupnik is correct. The problem is that we don’t actually know that.

    Now considering that I regard civility as extremely important, why do I think this is important? Why don’t I just rejoice that people are focusing on civility as a result of this event? The reason is simple–accuracy.

    I recall listening to a hearing some years ago in which a candidate for Surgeon General was being questioned by a senate committe working on his confirmation. One of his claims to fame was a particular program to prevent teen pregnancy. One of the conservative senators asked the candidate whether the evidence showed that this program had actually prevented teen pregnancies and how many. When it came time for Senator Edward Kennedy to question the candidate he expressed dismay at that question. I was left to wonder just why it was wrong to ask for evidence of the success of a program.

    Now as I recall I liked the candidate in question, and I felt some of the questioning from conservative senators was less gracious that it should have been. Yet that was a question for which I would have liked an answer. Why? Again–accuracy. We need to know what government programs are actually accomplishing.

    And this remains my concern about the calls for civility. Yes, civility is necessary, but so is accuracy. Let’s say two candidates, A & B, produce negative ads. Given the state of political advertising, it’s highly likely that both sets of ads are inaccurate, but that’s another matter. Few people care about the accuracy of positive ads. There will be a certain amount of voter negative response because both candidates have
    “gone negative.” But evidence shows that some of the mud will stick, so candidates get value from negative ads.

    But are both candidates A & B wrong for going negative? Let’s suppose that candidate A knows something about candidate B that actually calls B’s suitability for office into question. Should A not let voters know about this? I would say that A should let people know, though he should do it accurately. Thus when candidates “go negative,” my first response is to ask two questions: 1) Is the negative information true? and 2) Is the negative information relevant? In a voting decision I’d also ask whether A has enough positives, but I ask that regarding any candidate.

    The problem, as I see it, is that we give equal weight to information being negative without first inquiring as to whether it is accurate. There are candidates who are unqualified for office. There are candidates who are morally unsuitable. If that is the case, we should be able to discuss it. I would prefer this be done by energetic and accurate media, but absent such journalism, I have no problem with the candidates doing so.

    Doubtless we will disagree as to what is a valid criticism and what is not, but again, that is the nature of political debate. In addition, I think we should do our best to present such accusations in the most civil, careful, and accurate manner possible.

    Yes, I think civility is important, but if we took more care with accuracy, I think much civility would be restored. Thus I think accuracy is a more important goal.

     

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  • The Bible and Abortion

    John Hobbins is off to a promising start discussing what the Bible says about abortion. I’ll be interested in seeing his take on Exodus 21:22-25, and may post some thoughts of my own when the time comes.