Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Progressive Orthodoxy

    C. Michael Patton has an interesting post today taken from his introduction to theology students.

    I would particularly like any number of the folks in the various Sunday School classes I teach to absorb some of the material. This is not because I generally agree. I perceive myself to be both to the left and well to the Arminian side of his theology. Yet there are a number of point there that especially many of my Methodist brethren do not understand about either Reformed theology or in general of evangelical theology.

    The first of those items is the definition of sola scriptura. Use that phase in most Methodist churches, in my experience, and people think of a complete rejection of tradition even in terms of the method in which we approach and understand scripture. Thus most of these same Methodists reject sola scriptura.

    Patton describes it thus:

    2. Scriptural Orthodoxy. This is the belief that Scripture alone sets the bounds of orthodoxy without any (or minimal) aid from the historic body of Christ. This should not be mistaken for sola Scriptura—the belief that the Scripture is our final and only infallible authority in matters of faith and practice—but as a radical rejection of any other sources of authority such as the church, tradition, natural revelation, etc. It is often referred to as solo Scriptura or nuda Scriptura. Here, there would not be minimal (if any) authority derived from the body of Christ, historic or contemporary, as an interpretive community that either fallibly or infallibly has the ability to define orthodoxy. Adherents would often be found saying, “No creed but the Bible.”

    The second would be the idea of progressive understanding, or “illumination” as illustrated in the various graphics. He describes that as follows:

    6. Progressive Orthodoxy. This is the belief that the ultimate authority for the Christian faith is found only in the Scriptures (sola Scriptura) and that orthodoxy is a progressive development of the Church’s understanding of the Scriptures. …

    Patton is an advocate of progressive orthodoxy.

    I believe I fall a bit to the left of that position, because I fail to see the clear line between “revelation” and “illumination” that comes at the end of the canon. I accept that we can, and indeed have, developed doctrine past the revelation of the canon, but I don’t see the hard and fast line. In a sense, the “nuda scriptura” folks (to borrow from Patton’s definition) have a point in that if the canon is complete, why would it not define such doctrines as the trinity if, in fact, the trinity is an essential. It’s interesting to me that many who claim the Bible alone in this narrower sense do accept the doctrine of the trinity, even though it seems to me that it requires some Christian tradition to get to what I would call the orthodox doctrine at least.

    I appreciate also the essentials/non-essentials distinction, which many folks have a hard time making. It’s too easy to make the essentials be totally coterminous with their personal belief system. I wrote about this in a post Unity, Diversity, and Confusion, in which I argue that you must have some core of common belief, but you can also have way to much required common belief.

    I continued this theme in several posts, notably Excessively Large Tent = Crash, and Christian Essentials – Incarnation at the Center, in which I discuss where I start in defining essential doctrines. Each of those posts provides links to my own further discussion.

  • Paul not Lucid

    I must confess that quite frequently when I read J. K. Gayle’s writing, I’m quite mystified.  But today I was able to interact with what he wrote more effectively in his post Exactly what Paul Meant by “Sarx”.  Somewhere around the middle of that post he quotes C. S. Lewis from Reflections on the Psalms (p. 113 in his edition):

    Descending lower, we find a somewhat similar difficulty with St. Paul. I cannot be the only reader who has wondered why God, having given him so many gifts, withheld from him (what would to us seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian [albeit a formidable Jew]) that of lucidity and orderly exposition. (Reflections on the Psalms, page 113)

    He quotes more, and all of it is worthwhile.  I think there is a balance here in that it is easy either to start to ignore precision in translation and simply be sloppy, while at the same time it is easy to get arrogant.  I’m generally concerned when I hear pastors, especially those whose expertise in Greek is questionable, use the phrase “what the Greek really means here is …”  This generally means that we’re going to hear the preacher’s translation substituted for that of the committee that produced whatever version their reading as though somehow the individual preacher in the minimum time required for translation has earned the right to claim a translation that is “what the Greek really means.”

    I certainly feel free to disagree with translation committees or other translators or interpreters.  But this usage in sermons tends to suggest that one has the inside track on what a Bible writer was saying and that others, often much more qualified, have simply missed the boat.

    My impression on reading The Message was that Peterson very frequently manages very good translations of metaphors and imagery, yet when I read the teachings of Jesus, I thought he made them clearer than they were, so to speak.  Sometimes he took the sharp edges off and made them more friendly.  There is a point to leaving a difficult passage difficult.  At the same time it is much too easy to call a passage difficult because one is struggling to find an expression, and thus make the passage more difficult in translation than in the original.

  • On Translating to be Understood

    One of the experiences that shaped my approach to Biblical languages and Biblical studies occurred late in my first year of Greek.  The teacher was Lucille Knapp at Walla Walla College (now Walla Walla University), and she really enjoyed Greek and was quite expressive.  She kept us on our toes.  I was translating a verse for the class and used the word “propitiation.”

    “Henry!” she exclaimed.  “I am not teaching you to translate Greek into Latin!”

    An argument amongst the students ensued regarding how we should translate that word.  Some students, myself included, felt that people could just learn what propitiation meant, since we couldn’t think of a good single word in English to replace it.  The problem was, to our shame, that we really couldn’t do a good job of defining it either.  For us, the word “propitiation” was a black box.  It filled a space, but we didn’t really have it integrated into our theology enough to explain it rather than just repeating it.

    I thought about that a great deal after that class and it changed my whole idea of what “translation” means as well as what it means to express theology clearly and effectively.  C. S. Lewis once suggested that all ministerial candidates be required to pass a test involving translating a substantial work of theology (I’d suggest a nice passage from Karl Barth!) into language that their congregation would be able to grasp.  I think both ideas are related.  You haven’t translated if you haven’t managed to make the text comprehensible in the target language.  You haven’t preached or proclaimed the gospel unless you have made it understood.

    I was launched into this little note by reading the following today from Dave Black’s blog:

    In the course of teaching Greek (both classical and Koine) the past 34 years I’ve found that translating Greek into English is a very different enterprise from understanding what the text means. A translation may at times sound very erudite, but to be relevant and beneficial the text must be understood — and then applied. One of my greatest challenges as a teacher has been to get my students to see the need to give up theological jargon when translating from Greek into English. If we can use simpler and clearer words to express the truths of Scripture, then by all means let’s do so. Why, for example, should we render Rom. 12:11 “distribute to the needs of the saints” when “share what you have with God’s people who are in need” will do the job and is much clearer? Or why should we insist that the purpose of pastor-teachers is “to equip the saints for the work of the ministry” when we can say “to prepare God’s people for works of service”? If all we do is parrot the standard English versions while translating from English to Greek, I’m afraid we’ll end up with nothing but another secret religious society. If insisting on the use of theological jargon actually helped people to become more obedient to the Word of God, I’d say do it at all costs. But is there any evidence that it does?

    To admit this inadequacy honestly can be very intimidating to the teacher. It means, in fact, that we can no longer be content to offer courses in Greek exegesis that fail to include serious self-examination. Somehow we need to move our students from a mere grammatical approach to the text to one that involves them deeply in the Christian pilgrimage. What is the purpose of exegeting Paul’s Christ-hymn in Phil. 2:5-11 if we, the translators, are not willing to model the upside-down kingdom of God in our own lives? Strangely, I am discovering that more and more of my students are asking the “so what” question of everything they are learning. And I am more and more convinced that the joy of living the Gospel in our lives is what should drive the exegetical process in the first place. I may be wrong, but when we talk about “seminary education,” I think we are talking about training students for the adventure of living the Christian life in the real world by doing what is important in God’s eyes. I have found, to my horror, that it is far easier to simply talk about the text than to seek to live it out. Look at the New Testament writers like Paul or John who wrote and taught in the crucible of actual missionary experience. They were willing to follow the Lord Jesus even at the risk of death. They didn’t just talk about the truth, they lived it.

    Just so!

    If Paul says I am to share what I have with God’s people who are in need, I’d better be doing just that. This pedagogical insight may belong in a fortune cookie, but it’s the best I can do.

  • The Age of the Earth – Not a Minor Difference

    In the good old days when I used to have a seminar on this topic that I used in churches, I had an overhead transparency that showed the age of the earth (along with some of the various geological time periods). This was represented by a line that went the length of the slide. Beside it was the young age, represented by a dot.

    The BioLogos Foundation Science and the Sacred blog has something about this today. It’s not a minor difference, explainable by slightly different interpretations. It’s a massive. fundamental difference.

  • NLT Interlinear Beta Available Online

    Tyndale House has made the NLT interlinear available in beta form online.  It looks interesting.  One of the great values of this tool, I think, will be having a dynamic equivalence translation presented in interlinear form.

    I do want to remind folks of some of the notes I’ve made before on the use and misuse of such tools.

    HT:  The Church of Jesus Christ.

  • On Inerrancy

    I respond to some discussion of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy on my Participatory Bible Study blog.

  • Why Democracy Fails

    In Preserving Democracy, Elgin Hushbeck quotes Alexander Fraser Tytler:

    A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. (quoted on pp. 26-27)

    I thought about that quote today when I read the somewhat deceptively titled story Current Mood Toward Congress: Throw The Incumbents Out. I don’t mean that CQ Politics intentionally wrote a deceptive title. Headlines always miss part of the article. The title refers to the part of their survey results that indicates that 53% of voters do not want to see the majority of members of congress reelected next year.

    The next paragraph has the really interesting result, and I knew it was coming, because I’ve seen this before. A statistically similar number, 52%, do like their own representative.

    Now unlike poll results that indicate that people hold contradictory views, and there are some of those, I think this points to a different problem. Let me use my own congressional district as an example. Here in the Florida’s 1st congressional district there is one issue on which any candidate who wishes to be elected must take a particular stand–keeping “our” military bases here.

    Further, this favors the incumbent absolutely, because he will undoubtedly be able to argue that his seniority makes him better able to protect those bases from any closure. Now I’m not necessarily saying that the bases here are not well placed. But that wouldn’t matter to the voters. The bases are well placed because they are a substantial part of the economy of this area. If our congressman were to become completely convinced that some substantial base or even a facility on a base should be closed, he would be committing political suicide by advocating it.

    When somebody else’s congressman makes that argument for the bases in his district, of course, the voters in this district are not so happy.

    It’s less obvious sometimes in other areas, because the projects and the money are spread over a wider variety of locations and types of activity. But a congressman must produce stuff for the voters or he’ll get voted out. That’s why we hear a great deal about reform out of congress, but we aren’t likely to get reform that prevents members of congress from doing nice things for their districts.

    The same problem continues more broadly. Rather than admitting that smaller government will have to provide less services, many people on both sides of the aisle like to argue that somehow increasing the efficiency of government and reducing waste will let us keep the services, reduce (or not increase) taxes, and still receive more.

    Unfortunately, we always count chickens before they’re hatched in this case. A current good example is health care. Now I think we do have a problem, and that we are not a nation that can actually refuse basic care to our citizens, whatever the economic problems. Currently, we require emergency rooms to provide stabilizing care, for example, which spreads the cost to those who pay. But in writing health care plans, everyone counts savings that they believe they will get.

    Those deficit projections about health care? They are guesses. They’re making assumptions about what various options will do to prices, and how much they can save.

    I could do this with my family budget. Let’s say I want to buy a car today, but I lack $100 of the monthly payment. In order to justify my deficit spending to my wife, I tell her that we’ll get $100 out of the grocery budget. (Since I do the grocery shopping, I might get by with that–or not!) I would say that by saving $25 per week on our grocery shopping we can afford the new car.

    Now there’s two ways to go about this. First, I could find and test ways of saving the money and then test them for a month or so. Can I reduce our grocery bill enough by buying bulk, making better use of the freezer, and so forth? If I go out and test this, and only buy the new car after I know it will work, I’m being responsible. On the other hand, I could simply guess that I can manage the savings, go buy the car, and then find out.

    In the case of health care, we guess certain savings can be achieved. Bluntly, the current proposals are so complex, I really can’t tear them apart on that point because I would have to give up my income producing work (and see what that would do to my budget!) in order to have time to follow it all. I do know, however, that advocates of the public option tend to assume that it will force the general price of insurance down, using the very capitalist argument that the public option will involve an increase in competition.

    Whether you buy that argument or not (and I don’t), the fact is that we haven’t actually seen it work. Advocates of health care reform something like what we have proposed are probably annoyed to have this sort of thing pointed out. After all, we need reform, so we all need to be as positive as possible. Opponents will crow by saying that this shows that the plan won’t work. The bottom line is that the voters are being promised something, but are not truly being told the cost. Would they support it if they truly knew the cost? I don’t know, but we’re not going to get to find out.

    I don’t regard this as a partisan issue. Republicans tend to take a similar approach on defense. We can plan strategy and buy equipment because we need whatever it is, but talking about cost-benefit is often regarded as anti-military and anti-defense. But we need to have good cost-benefit analysis, testing, and most importantly, we need to change our strategy, whether on domestic or foreign policy based on actually observing the results.

    Such a thing will only happen if voters demand it. I think that’s unlikely, because I think voters would rather hope that one or another politician can manage to come through and produce something from nothing.

  • Review – The Second Confession

    In this mystery, Nero Wolfe finds himself under attack through one of his dearest things–his orchids. He also finds himself working outside his home, another unusual situation for him. Since much of the action takes place outside of New York City, we don’t have staples such as Detective Cramer, but we do hear about him and some of his police colleagues in the city.

    My wife’s comment on reading this book was simply that this was “a good one.” Since we both like Nero Wolfe, that elevates it about the average of really good books to a place that’s much more fun. Archie Goodwin gets into quite a bit of (potential) trouble. When doesn’t he? But the ending remained somewhat of a surprise, even though in retrospect I thought I should have suspected much, much sooner than I did.

    This is another good book in the Nero Wolfe series of stories.

  • Review – Storm from the Shadows

    Storm from the Shadows is a sequel to The Shadow of Saganami, and as such advances the general history in the Honorverse only a little bit beyond the end of At All Costs.

    I had read some reviews that said that this book ended on a cliffhanger, but I had generally dismissed those. David Weber always leaves lots of interesting things to wonder about, which makes one wait eagerly for the next book. But I was wrong. This is, even compared to a normal Weber ending, a cliffhanger.

    Many times as I read a series I get less and less enchanted with the books as I go along. It seems that authors are so anxious to keep things exciting that later books often look like science fiction as it might have been written in their science fiction universe.

    In the David Weber’s case, and particularly in the Honorverse, while I think the situation has been escalating, it is not out of hand. I like the characterization, but even more importantly the development of cultures and backgrounds. If I were to have my choice in details, I probably would have had less conversations amongst the Manpower folks (or their even more secret higher-ups), but even that is well done provided one wants to really get involved in the universe as opposed to simply following a few characters for a story.

    This book remains five out of five starts for me. There were a couple of earlier books in the series that weren’t quite fives in my book, but they were still very good books, and there is no doubt that I will read every book in this series, some more than once.

    Storm from the Shadows follows Michelle Henke for the most part, and she is an interesting character herself. We do see some additional pieces of Aivars Terekhov, who is definitely a character worth watching, and Admiral Khumalo has a substantial role to play. We get passing glances at Abigail Hearns and several other interesting folks we have met in previous books.

    There is somewhat less fleet action and a bit more politics, but in my view, that balance can shift quite a bit through the series and I’ll still be happy. I disagree with reviewers I have read who don’t like the way Weber does politics. I do think he follows some improbable tracks, given his characters and background, but he doesn’t go out of the realm of possibility and do things that look ridiculous within the universe he has created.

    All in all, I think this is an exceptionally good continuation of an exceptionally good series.

  • The Real War on Christmas

    I received an e-mail from the AFA giving me the wonderful news that the governor of Kentucky has backed down on calling the Christmas tree in the state capitol a “holiday tree” and will call it a Christmas tree. In order to help this happen elsewhere, I’m told to buy packets of buttons, wear them, and get all my friends to wear them. There are even church packs and a display pack of 250 buttons.

    At the same time I am already seeing Christmas advertising on TV and hearing it on the radio. I understand the reasoning behind it. After all, I’m a businessman too, and there will be lots of Christmas buying. I can’t help but hope that some people will choose various books offered by my company as Christmas presents. But that is a commercial desire related to a commercial holiday.

    Some Christians feel that there is a war on Christmas, and that this war involves rules requiring store clerks or government officials to wish people happy holidays rather than merry Christmas or the removal of creche displays from public parks. If I could steal an idea from C. S. Lews (Screwtape Letters) and think like a demon for a moment, I would regard this as an excellent diversionary attack.

    Before D-Day in World War II the Germans were convinced that the allied landings would come somewhere around the Pas de Calais. The distance was shorter, the logistics would be easier, and it made a great deal of strategic sense. The allies went to some trouble to foster this impression, even creating a fake army that consisted merely of tents and communications gear that simulated an invasion in preparation. Because the Germans were convinced that the real attack would come somewhat to the north of where it did, they delayed in committing their mobile reserve (panzers), much to the benefit of the allied forces.

    While we’re worried about losing the external trappings of Christmas, such as public trees and manger displays, the real war on Christmas is practically won already. Christmas has almost nothing at all to do with Jesus. This has been my opinion for many years. Christmas as celebrated in America, even in most of our churches, is about us and our economic prosperity, not about Jesus and his good news.

    Studying the liturgical year has just emphasized this to me more, and now that I’m teaching a series on the gospel of Luke for a Sunday School class, I find it rubbed in my face. The advent comes at a time of great trouble and need. There is long expectation, hope kept alive through times of hardship, and recognition of need. When God’s gift comes it does not look like what the world sees as success or greatness. The birth of Jesus is not a commercial success. God gives himself to us at the time of our greatest need. Receiving the gospel message is like a reenactment of this in miniature. The wise men come and give gifts to the king in the manger, though he hasn’t asked. Shepherds worship him. The babe in the manger is the center of God’s activity, even though the world around hardly notices.

    This is almost totally unlike our Christmas celebrations in the church or in our homes. Oh, we certainly do give something to others. There will be gifts sent to children who will not otherwise have a Christmas and food packages passed to people in need. But let’s face it. Most of our money will be spent on us. Christmas will not look largely like a spiritual experience. We’ll start celebrating it weeks early even in church. We’ll skip over the advent expectation and go straight to the Christmas celebration.

    And that celebration will mostly be about us. It will largely be a commercial holiday for us. The emphasis on Christmas, such as it is, will not be a witness to Jesus, but rather to “Christianity – the Brand.”

    The war on Christmas is going rather badly for us. Perhaps we should quit bothering about the wrong war, and save whatever money we were going to spend on “Merry Christmas” buttons to use to help others. If you don’t have any idea where to give it, I’d be happy to make some suggestions.