Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Bible Application Suggestion – Make Yourself the Target

    I’m a strong advocate of Bible study by the laity, even when such study leads to errors.  In fact, I think making mistakes is an important part of Christian growth.  But there are a number of odd things that can happen when people apply the Bible.  One of the checks on “loony” Biblical application that I use is sharing, which I teach as part of my basic method of Bible study.  Sharing involves not just telling people what you think you have learned, but also listening to them for correction.  It’s OK to disagree, even with an expert.  But it’s a good idea to hear the expert first.

    In this post I’m talking specifically about application and how you hear scripture.  I discussed a related topic on my Threads blog today.

    My suggestion is simple:  Read the Bible for what corrects you, not for what corrects other people.

    There are two parts to this idea.  The first is to read and study the Bible looking for the best possible case that you are wrong.  This may seem perverse to some.  Why not just directly search for the truth?  The problem is that we are rarely able to search objectively for the truth.  Too often we “discover” that the Bible is telling us to believe what we already believed, or to do what we already wanted to do.  Consider how many conflicting answers people get to the question “What wouldJesus do?”

    In my very early days of online discussion, in the Compuserve Religion Forum, I once had a debate with someone over the translation and interpretation of Isaiah 45:7.  My set of arguments led to the idea that here God, through the prophet, claims to be the creator of everything.  There is nothing that does not find its source in God.  I still believe that, and hold that the pairs of opposites are intended to convey the whole spectrum.

    My opponent was very anxious to argue that God is in no way the author of evil.  Now there is a sense in which I would agree with that as well, while still maintaining that evil is a perversion, not a creation, but nonetheless even evil cannot exist without God.

    But the details are not important.  My opponent got the worst of the debate according to those on the sidelines, and one congratulated me on my fine arguments.  At that point pride got the better of me and I told him that it was no great mastery; I could present a better case against myself than my opponent was.

    I’m sure you guessed it.  He immediately told me to put up or shut up.  So I put up.  I formulated an argument challenging my own and in the process became much less certain of the low intelligence of those who would take the opposing view.  I didn’t convince myself to change positions, but I both strengthened my own arguments and provided myself a lesson in humility by having to provide possible counter-arguments to a number of my own points.

    If you set out to study your pet topic by looking for the best scriptural arguments against it, you may correct against your own biases.

    The other part of this is in practice.  Here I suggest this not just for the reasons I mention above, but also because it will help prevent a judgmental attitude.  It will also help you correct your practice according to what you learn.

    I would suggest as an example of how we don’t do this the issue of homosexuality in the church.  We live in an age with extra-marital sex is ubiquitous and is often swept under the rug or treated as of little importance.  At the same time we spend a disproportionate amount of time discussion homosexuality.  Perhaps those of us who are heterosexual should look more closely at the texts that apply to us.

    To those who might think this latter is a very liberal idea, I must mention that it is not original with me.  I first heard it from a Presbyterian Church in America pastor who was in all ways a conservative, Calvinist evangelical.  He preached it to his congregation.

    The problem I see is that while we look diligently for texts that apply to others, we can easily neglect those texts that apply to us personally.  Will you ever need to correct others?  Quite possibly.  But you will be in a much better position to do so if you have allowed yourself to be corrected–repeatedly.

    Bible study requires some sort of accountability at all levels.  We need to be willing to be corrected, and the starting point for that is letting God correct us through his word.

  • Which Way do you Listen?

    Recently Dave Black made a comment regarding the way in which we hold certain correct doctrines (HT: Dave Black Online. I’m just going to quote one sentence here, which was as much as I could quote in a tweet:

    … sometimes even biblically correct positions can be reduced to a dogmatic narrowness, formalism, and fundamentalism.

    Before you read on, go ahead and read the entire quote.

    Did you read it? Now ask yourself this: Just how did I hear that?

    The reason I ask that question is that the topic in the full quotation is patriarchy, something to which I am not particularly attracted. It is very easy for me to read the one sentence, which I believe tells us something very important about the way in which we hold our viewpoints even, and perhaps especially, our correct ones, as a particular attack on patriarchy or some other conservative position.

    Perhaps you think something like: “I sure hope those folks who advocate patriarchy are listening! They think they’re right and all the rest of us are lost!”

    If you like patriarchy, you might feel that Dave Black is coming after you, and thus reject the statement because you believe it’s directed against a viewpoint you favor. (For what it’s worth, I think patriarchy is actually incidental to the statement. You could substitute many terms for it in that paragraph and get the same result–but offend different people with it!)

    But neither of those reactions is all that helpful in my view. The reason I chose to tweet the particular selection that I did is that it addresses something to which we are all tempted–making our pet projects or ideas the center. Paul Tillich defined idolatry as treating something as ultimate that is not actually ultimate (I paraphrase).

    As Christians, the gospel should be ultimate, which in turns means that Jesus should be ultimate, because that is what the gospel says. But quite frequently we make our particular take on the details our ultimate. We turn to worshiping not God, but a mental idol that we have put in God’s place.

    What’s even more dangerous is that once we have made that “concept idol” we become less and less capable of hearing the very proper challenges to our idol and the pedestal on which we have placed it. We hear the challenges to the idols of others. Egalitarians, such as myself, can quite clearly see the dangers of patriarchy and hear clearly when its place on the pedestal is challenged. “Tear down that idol!” we shout!

    But have we made our own idols? Too often we have.

    I believe that we Christians trust the Holy Spirit very little. If we truly believed that the Holy Spirit would teach and empower people, I think we would be less concerned to force them into our mold and more concerned to encourage and enable them to study, meditate, pray, and hear from the Holy Spirit themselves.

    I could be wrong about just about everything. I very often have been, and assume I still am! God can teach me through my stupidity, my carelessness, or my stubbornness. But if I become convinced that I have nothing to learn, that I have nailed down all the details, learning will stop. What would then be an even greater tragedy would be if I tried to impose those final, absolute answers on others.

  • Scot McKnight: Is Low Church Evangelicalism Protestant?

    I find this an interesting question. But before I comment, let me summarize and quote Scot McKnight’s article.

    He first notes that from the early liturgies to the Westminster Confession there is a certain common pattern in worship, one which is dropped by what he calls “low church evangelicalism.” Amongst the elements he includes the multiple scripture readings (Psalm, OT, Epistle, Gospel) that would be familiar to those who follow the lectionary, sharing of the word, and some sort of conclusion, such as the creed.

    He concludes:

    … Low church evangelicalism is too often theologically shallow, frequently chaotic in its order of worship, nearly always lopsided in which parts of the Bible it preaches and teaches and knows, and inexcusably ignorant when it comes to the history of God’s people called the Church. These are marks that it has wandered from the gift of the Reformation. These are marks of groups that are not Protestant.

    Having come from a rather low church background, and then having experience even lower liturgy in charismatic circles, I come at this from the opposite end. My wife was raised Catholic, and I as a Seventh-day Adventist. We came together in a United Methodist congregation with a distinctly charismatic tilt. I tend to find much more value in the form of the liturgy, and particularly in the scripture readings. I’m disappointed that we do not read four full scriptures.

    The general complaint I hear in charismatic and other low church circles is that high church worship is just dead ritual. From my high church friends I hear that low church worship is shallow, and so are very many of the worshipers.

    There is some truth in both accusations. In many cases I have found that charismatic believers will not meet without the expectation of some manifestation of the presence of the Spirit, i.e. without an emotion-engaging spiritual experience. They will forgo any other element of worship in order to get there. So often a worship service can consist entirely of singing, with the expectation that there will be people around the altar or whatever one calls the area at the front of the church weeping, on the floor, or in some other way making it known that the Spirit is there.

    High church folks quite often don’t want to be interrupted in their liturgy by anything, and often I think this includes being interrupted by the Spirit. While they are likely to refer to the emotional manifestations as the kind of thing they wish to avoid, they may also wish to avoid discussion or testimony, or just about anything that makes the message current.

    Now both of my last two paragraphs paint an extreme, and I can point to any number of exceptions. For example, the ICON worship service at First United Methodist Church which I attend has the historical order of worship, but is quite lively. I feel the presence of God there each and every week. I would be delighted to hear more scripture read, but we do get three of the four scriptures worked into the service. I also know any number of free-wheeling charismatics who are quite serious about studying their Bibles.

    My hope would be to find a balance that connects us to history, roots us in scripture, and challenges us to Christian living all in one.

    Having said all of that, I really don’t know the answer to Dr. McKnight’s question. First, I have always used the term “protestant” for any movement that grew out of the protestant reformation, even though I’m aware that some groups and streams are very different. Second, I’m not sure what specifically the title “protestant” should prove. I have avoided calling myself “evangelical” because I’m not all that sure what it means and how precisely it differs from simply being “Christian.”

    One note I would add is this: Was liturgy a defining element of the protestant reformation? Is it not possible that the reformers stuck with the basic liturgy not because it was defining, but because it was not–it was simply an element of their tradition that they didn’t see any immediate need to reform. If that is the case, I would have a hard time seeing how the word “protestant” should be defined in part by liturgy.

  • A Survey

    My wife received a “survey” from the Republican party. Now let me make one thing clear up front. I have seen polls from Democrats that follow this same pattern. This isn’t an issue of one party or another.

    This survey purports to seek the opinions of the “Neufeld Household” (though of course it is not directed to me, the registered independent) regarding a number of political issues. The questions, however, are not written to elicit information, but to charge up supporters and to raise money. Nobody writing the survey thinks anything else, I’m sure.

    For example, the question on judges:

    Do you believe that Barack Obama’s nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestionably approved for their lifetime appointments by the U. S. Senate?

    Nobody (well, there may be an insane person or so) actually believes the nominees should be approved without any question. Many, however, disagree on how much scrutiny and the nature of the scrutiny. For what it’s worth, I personally think the senate is generally doing a poor job on judicial appointments. I don’t see any reason at all that ideology should not be considered when voting to confirm or not. But the arguments tend to change hands.

    The subtext here is that Republican readers of the poll are expected to be annoyed at the senate’s swift approval of judges they don’t like. A similar poll question could have been written regarding some of Bush’s appointees for a Democratic survey.

    But my purpose is not to discuss the various issues with regard to the senate’s responsibilities. Rather, I’d like to comment on why a “survey” such as this works at all.

    The answer there is simply that too few people seriously study out the issue and thus are vulnerable to being charged up by one-liners, even in the form of a fake survey. My wife glanced through this–it was, after all, addressed to her–and simply said, “This is insulting to my intelligence.” I happen to know she would agree with the intent of a number of the questions, to the extent that one can discover such intent. It’s the form and some of the specific wording of the questions that is annoying.

    Even I agree with some of the points, such as a question that asks if we have gone too far in bailing out banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry. Indeed I do. I think we went too far when we bailed out the first one. But that bailout was proposed by a Republican president. And no, Democrats should take no comfort from that fact, as they have carried this further than that Republican president proposed.

    But this isn’t a survey. It doesn’t detail any kind of proposed solutions. It doesn’t discuss. It doesn’t educate. On the other hand, it works. Why? Because there are many people who don’t keep up with what is going on themselves, and don’t seriously study the issues.

    I agree with my wife. The fake survey route for raising the cash is an insult to the intelligence of voters. The fact that many are not insulted simply encourages politicians to continue to play a shallow game.

  • Christian Carnival CCXCIV Posted

    … at Codex.  I encourage Christian bloggers to get involved by submitting their best work each week and volunteering to host.

  • Hearing 2 Corinthians

    When I wrote about 2 Corinthians and the importance of story, I had not read this wonderful post.  (HT: John Meunier.)

  • Dynamic and Cognitive Equivalence

    Paul Helm of Helm’s Deep tries to take a philosophers approach to a discussion of dynamic equivalence in translation, and does not do a good job.

    My primary complaint is that, in apparently trying to clarify definitions of different translation procedures he fails to define the term he uses most, cognitive equivalence, while seeming to oppose a very vague notion of dynamic equivalence in translation.  He then proceeds to use the term “paraphrase” in an undefined manner as well.

    He points out, for example, that the term “dynamic equivalence” is somewhat metaphorical, because it comes from the world of physical mechanics.  Then he proceeds to misapply the metaphor and claim that it is incoherent.  Perhaps it is incoherent in the way he uses it, but I have yet to encounter an actual Bible translator who uses it in that fashion.

    For example, he states:

    … And what I claim is that there is no such thing as ‘dynamic equivalence’ achievable other than cognitive equivalence, and certainly it is not achievable through paraphrase, however ingenious and skilled the paraphraser may be.

    But what can the word “paraphrase” mean in this case?  Does it mean reordering the English words one uses after one constructs a word by word glossing of the text, in the way one might do in a first year Greek or Hebrew class?  That would be paraphrasing within one language.  One has to guess here, and perhaps the most coherent guess is that he means deviating from the word order of the original in some way, though that hardly makes sense in the context of translating.

    He blames this on the difference between a precisely measurable physical effect and the impact of words or phrases on the human mind:

    … The impacton the human mind of single words, phrases, and complete sentences, is obviously not physically mechanical, but it comes through the meaning or the perceived meaning, of the words. And so we should stick to the original words, translating or transliterating them as best we can.

    My question here is just which translator fails to note this difference between a physical activity and the way in which meaning works?  At the same time I must note that it is not necessarily the words themselves that produce “the meaning or the perceived meaning.”  In fact, from one language to another the very definition of the word “word” can become somewhat confusing.

    When translated word by word, a sentence might have a completely different meaning even when one has gotten some sort of equivalence for each individual word.  That very lack of precision which Helm claims prevents dynamic equivalent translation bedevils literal translation.  Two words in two different contexts are rarely, if ever, cognitively equivalent.  (For “cognitive” I’m using definition #2 from Dictionary.com.)  But much less are they dynamically equivalent.

    Take, for example, the controversial statement made by Jesus to his mother in John 2:4 — loosely transliterated ti emoi kai soi.  I could translate this word for word as “what to me and to you” but even then would I be satisfying Dr. Helm’s goal?  After all, I have already departed from word-for-word translation.

    You may say that I’m using a reductio ad absurdam, but I want to use that as a challenge to advocates of strictly literal translation to discover just where the boundary is.  Just where does literal translation become absurd?  My own boundary would be when the target audience of the translation finds it excessively difficult to discover the meaning.  I would leave out the word “excessively” except that I wish to leave room for the translation of concepts that are difficult.

    But in John 2:4 we have an idiom which was not intended to be obscure to Jesus’ audience, nor was it intended as obscure to John’s audience.  So in what way is it appropriate to leave it obscure to a modern audience?

    Yet in an earlier paragraph Dr. Helm says:

    … If the result of translation which aims at keeping to the original as faithfully as can be results in some puzzlement and ignorance when the text is read, so be it. …

    It seems to me that Dr. Helm views cognitive equivalence as possible, and then having made that assumption discovers that dynamic equivalence is more difficult and thus shouldn’t be attempted.  In his further explanation of that approach it appears to me that he is looking for single word equivalences in most cases, thus he says:

    … What if there’s no word for ‘righteousness’ or ‘atonement’ or ‘resurrection’? Maybe the best translation strategy in such circumstances is the transliteration of the word with the addition of a marginal note, which is the practice of the Study Bibles of today, and of the Geneva Bible of the Puritans.

    But on what basis does he believe cognitive equivalence requires one word to fill in for certain Greek or Hebrew words, such as those that might be translated ‘righteousness’ or ‘atonement’ or ‘resurrection.’  One senses that perhaps he has not struggled with the number of different words in the source languages that might be translated with those terms, and the number of other words with which they must be translated.  On what basis one cognitive equivalence require a one to one correspondence?  But unless I read him wrong, to write a multiple-word explanation of “righteousness” in a translation would automatically be out of bounds.

    I would suggest instead that if I use “being in a right relationship with God” for “righteousness” in some contexts, I could properly be criticized for using an incorrect phrase as equivalent, but not for using a phrase rather than a word.  And that would appear to be some “paraphrasing.”  As one who reads the text in its original languages, I sense this sort of “paraphrasing,” if it can be called that, as soon as translation begins.  A translator uses different words by virtue of the fact that he renders his translation in a different language.

    But my greater concern here is with the separation of cognitive equivalence from other forms of equivalence.  Separating the intellectual meaning from emotional and volitional is, in my view, not only impossible, but undesirable.  I like to tell my Bible study classes that we come to the Bible looking for information while God comes to the Bible looking for conversation.  That generalization is untrue, just like every other generalization, including this one!  But it does point to some truth.

    The very nature of the literature itself belies the notion that cognitive equivalence is adequate.  Is cognitive equivalence even of any value in poetry?  How much of the Biblical text is not intended to evoke something at the volitional level?

    Dr. Helm says near the beginning of his piece that he is avoiding the theological questions.  But those questions that must be answered if one is to develop a theory of how one translates “God’s word.”  If it is, in fact, the word of God, theology must be involved somewhere.

    I do not intend here a defense of all translations that are labeled “dynamic equivalent” nor necessarily of the term itself, though I do like it.  (‘Functional equivalence’ is preferred by many translators.)  There are some “dynamic” translations that are simply “dynamically inaccurate.”  Dynamic equivalence is not about allowing oneself to say whatever one wants.  Rather, it is about looking at the text as more than a sequence of words and trying to communicate the meaning of the text as accurately as possible to the target audience.

    There are certainly cases in which one must leave the readers to go immerse themselves in the concepts of the Bible–they are different.  But there are many cases when such an approach is simply a theological elitism that assumes that because a particular term has been used once, it must be used for all time.  Let the ignorant beware!

  • Family Pride and Amateur Radio

    I just got the news that my mother and older sister have passed their Amateur Extra examinations with flying colors. My sister received a 100% grade, making a clean sweep of the exams for her.

    This makes five extra class amateur radio operators in my immediate family:

    Dad – Ray Neufeld – KT4B – silent key (I inherited his call sign)
    Brother – Bob Neufeld – N3AU
    Mother – Myrtle Neufeld – WB7OIU
    Sister – Betty Nick – KC2TZO
    … and little ole me – KT4B (recently changed from KE0OY)

    There’s one more very special thing about this. My mother is 92 years old. I sure hope to be that active and still of such a sound mind when I’m 92!

  • The Problem with Revenge

    It’s 9/11 and the events eight years ago are on most people’s minds. Many Christians will be praying today, as my wife wrote in her devotional. What will those prayers consist of? What is a Christian response?

    Shortly before the second gulf war began, I wrote an essay simply titled Revenge! I want to quote from it here:

    As a nation, we have been living in the role of Michael Palin’s character. We see the bad guys in our sights and we shout “Revenge!” in the hope that when revenge has taken place we will be safer, life will return to pre-9/11 normalcy, and we can forget all about this extra security. Most of us know this won’t be the case, but that doesn’t stop the wishful thinking.

    This was illustrated during the bombing of Afghanistan, and later during the ground war. Repeatedly the reporters would ask various military spokesmen whether they had caught or killed Osama bin Laden yet. The answer? Nobody knew. But why was that the question? Did we really think that a bombing campaign could be so targeted as to kill a single individual? Sure, he might die, but bombs are not weapons of assassination in the normal course of events. Did we think that if Osama were caught or killed that the terrorism would end? Surely we aren’t that naive!

    But there is that little program in our brains that wants to yell “Revenge!” and expects that life will be a little sweeter when it is accomplished.

    In some ways we face a similar situation with Iraq. I know there is a powerful motivation for revenge. I am a veteran of the 1991-1992 gulf war. It annoys me every time I see Saddam Hussein expressing himself on television. I confess I wouldn’t mind having the driver’s seat of a steam roller with Saddam’s feet stuck in setting cement. I’d yell “Revenge!” and “Take that!” and roll over him, and on the other side I’d feel good!

    But then would my family be any safer? Would my country be more secure? Would anything be more normal when all was said and done? Very likely not.

    I need to let that resentment go. I need to tone down the shout “Revenge!” I need to consider what will actually make things more secure.

    Now my point here is not to reiterate my opposition to the war in Iraq. My point is simply this. The command of Jesus to love our enemies extends even to terrorists. While I don’t think that denies that there should be consequences for evil actions that people take, nor do I believe it prevents justice and security measures, what it should prevent, amongst Christians, is the idea that revenge can get us anywhere.

    Vengeful attitudes and fear distort our judgment and prevent us from seeing the best approach. I am not a pacifist, but I strongly believe that we are much too inclined to resort to violence and often to apply violence in the wrong way, often because what we are really seeking is not reasonable security but revenge and a diversion from our fears.

    As a follower of Jesus I think it is my duty to let forgiveness clarify my thinking and to let love guide my actions. That’s not easy in the world today, but I think it’s the call.

    A Response: Elgin Hushbeck has written a short response, but the trackback somehow didn’t happen. I always find Elgin an interesting and challenging dialog partner. I should note (full disclosure and all) that my company, Energion Publications, publishes his book, Preserving Democracy.

  • Lord Save Us From Your Followers – The Movie

    I think there are two major errors we can make as Christians: We can fail to have a message, and we can fail to be the message. If I follow the stereotypes I would say that liberals tend to fail in the first, and conservatives in the second. But I’m afraid we all tend to fail at both.

    Tom Sims posted this trailer on his blog The Dream Factory. I think the trailer, and hopefully the movie, should make us think, then make us do.

    The gospel will offend, but make sure it’s the gospel that is doing the offending and not your attitudes or prejudices.