Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Peter Enns, Incarnational Inspiration, and Seminary Authority

    In 2005 Peter Enns, a professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, published a book titled Inspiration and Incarnation, and it is likely going to cost him his tenured position. I’m writing about this on this blog because of the implications of his incarnational view of inspiration for Biblical interpretation. I have not yet read this little book. I found out about it through this controversy. Let me comment to you the Christianity Today news article, and this review in JETS by G. K. Beale. The review is not particularly favorable, but it follows the kind of standards for writing and citation that would suggest it’s fair. (HT: Everyday Liturgy)

    What am I writing about, if I haven’t even read the book? Primarily I’m writing because of the impact on good education of seminary policies such as this one. Secondly, I know of other cases in which discussion of inspiration leads to this kind of reaction, to the detriment of serious consideration of the issues. Often the people in the pews are left without any sort of answers, or better any sort of structure in which to discuss answers because the theologians are avoiding them. Thirdly, I publish a book that uses the incarnational metaphor, Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, by Dr. Alden Thompson, who has also elicited some controversy due to his view of inspiration. Finally, I hold an incarnational view of inspiration myself, as espoused in my book When People Speak for God.

    If you were to take the quotes and summaries by G. K. Beale in his review, not do any contortions to try to put a good face on them, i.e. take the more liberal interpretation, then you would have something like my own position. I will have to see when I get a copy of the book myself whether I think these things are fair with reference to Dr. Enns. I would simply note at this point that none of the material quoted appeared at all shocking to me, but then I’m not an evangelical.

    The problem I have here is with the seminary. First, let me say that I fully accept that a seminary belonging to or sponsored by a confessional body, has every right to control what is taught there. At the same time, the rest of us have every right to criticize their choices. The value of that criticism has nothing to do with changing the seminary. They’re not going to listen to me, and I wouldn’t even argue that they should. I’m not evangelical, I’m not Calvinist, and I don’t like the Westminster Confession.

    I criticize nonetheless because I believe we need to be aware of the problem of education that is constrained by a specific confession and that won’t allow anyone to question or work around the boundaries. The area of inspiration is one that has many lay members confused, and it is one where our young people who go to secular universities find themselves generally unequipped. When we constrain the playing field so thoroughly that we can’t discuss the type of issues that Dr. Enns raises, then I question the quality of the education that results.

    There is here a great gulf fixed between a secular, academic education, and an education at a confessional institution. I’m not sure how one should draw the boundaries if one belongs to a confessional church, but if one’s convictions are to be sound I think one has to have honestly explored alternate possibilities without the fear that stepping across the line will ruin one’s life.

    The combination of those elements is very difficult, and perhaps even impossible for a very confessional church, which is why I avoid such a thing. I am jealous of the ability to explore, to be wrong, and perhaps later to correct my course.

    In the final analysis, however, those who want to explore real answers to questions of inspiration will probably have to break the bonds in a more serious way, finding a less constrictive environment. The problem for many is that they have a firm faith and a strong commitment to their faith community, so it is hard to just move on. Such is the tragedy of the right of the seminary to manage itself, versus the need for thinking people to explore.

    While I found it necessary to step out of the community in which I grew up, I understand those who find that difficult, and who then spend years or decades in conflict with a community that they love.

    One final note–these are the folks who want to “teach the controversy” in public universities and in our high schools. The real goal is to put science within confessional boundaries, a straightjacket that will certainly not fit it.

  • Book: Evolution and Christian Faith

    I’m constantly on the lookout for books on evolutionary theory aimed at the general public rather than specialized audiences, so when I saw this little book on the shelf of the local university library, I took it home to check out.

    My response to it is a bit mixed. There are a number of good things about it. It’s simple, it presents most of the basics of evolutionary theory at the most basic level, and it deals with intelligence design briefly and vigorously. On the other hand, its approach to Biblical interpretation is vague, its theology is a bit soft, and its assumption that these arguments have any hope of reaching fundamentalists or even conservative evangelicals is frankly just a bit naive.

    The author, Dr. Joan Roughgarden, is an evolutionary biologist who is also a Christian and a member of the Episcopal church. She begins by discussing the relationship between science and religion. She suggests that the conflict between religion and science is fostered by the fact that we don’t discuss the two together. Her favorite topic of research is lizards, and she laments that evolutionists rarely discuss God and anti-evolutionists discuss God and rarely discuss lizards (p. 6).

    Unfortunately she really doesn’t do very much of discussing the two together. She does draw a few lines of connection between the Bible and science, but these can be divided between the naive and the distantly metaphorical. I don’t mean to be too cruel here, because there are a number of wonderful passages in this book, especially in describing the basics of evolutionary theory in non-specialists terms.

    In this early chapter she also intends to draw a distinction between what is solid and what is still questionable or “squishy” in evolutionary theory. That promise is very interesting, as is her distinction between the “real” controversies, which are in the details and in the leading edge of evolutionary theory, as opposed to the fake controversy created by intelligent design.

    In the second chapter, Dr. Roughgarden discuss the first “solid” element of evolutionary theory which she rightly calls a fact, common descent. She argues that there is nothing in a literal reading of Genesis that would deny this. The then continues in the third chapter with variation, which again she says does not contradict a literal reading of Genesis. I happen to agree with her on this point, as I state in my earlier blog post An Evolutionary Understanding of Kinds. The problem, as most people who have discussed this issue will see, is that with these two elements we’re pretty much out of literal readings of Genesis 1 and 2 that will support evolutionary theory, and most conservative Christians will not even agree to those.

    Thus it is no surprise that chapter 4 deals with reading the Bible literally, and suggests essentially that Jesus came to change a rule-based approach to one based on principles and relationships. Most interpreters would have some trouble using that point to suggest that we now have permission to read certain things literally or not literally based on whether they agree with our scientific understanding. The connection there is a bit vague. Further the dividing line is also a bit vague. How do you decide?

    Dr. Roughgarden doesn’t tell us. She leaves us with the literal reconciliation of common descent and variation without a “kinds” boundary in living things, while suddenly rejecting such a literal reading of the days of creation based on the changed approach brought by Jesus. I don’t think this will provide a consistent approach to hermeneutics, and I don’t think it will impress the fundamentalists.

    In the fifth chapter she carries this point to the other extreme, using the vine and the branches (John 15:1-6) as an illustration connecting natural breeding (which she prefers to natural selection) in the Bible. This is such a metaphorical connection that it strains my reading a bit, and I’m quite an advocate of metaphorical readings. But she goes on in chapter 6 using Mark 13 and the parable of the sower as a connection to random mutation (p. 45). The explanation of random mutation is pretty good, however.

    Chapter 7 is a discussion of direction in evolution which, in my opinion, doesn’t deal adequately with the challenge presented by the theory of evolution to the older Christian understanding of the way in which the universe works. This is followed by chapter 8 which is occupied by a discussion of Roman Catholic theology. In it, Dr. Roughgarden acknowledges that the challenge to evolutionary theory and the impetus to teach intelligent design in the science classroom are not largely driven by Catholics. Those who are pushing it are, to a large extent, not going to be moved by statements by the Pope, however good those statements are.

    Following this is a chapter on the things that evolution has not accomplished yet which is largely dedicated to discussing the definition of an individual, and where natural selection operates, individual or group.

    The chapter on intelligent design was quite good. I was surprised that after a call largely for peace, this chapter is a pretty vigorous attack. On page 94 Dr. Roughgarden provides four things that intelligent design proponents need to do in order to get their views examined scientifically (p. 94). These are good criteria that would require the ID folks to do some actual science, an unlikely prospect. She further describes the controversy proposed by ID (as in “teach the controversy”) as “concocted” (p. 95), and finally calls ID “junk religion” (p. 101). She says it should be discussed in religion classes in order to point out just how bad it is as theology. She doesn’t think it has any place in science classrooms. On this, of course, I agree!

    Chapter 11 is given to sexual selection, and I have a hard time seeing why it is in the book. It makes little sense to me, but I’m not an evolutionary biologist. If it does have a purpose, that would seem to be to suggest that we shouldn’t present natural selection in such a competitive fashion. I’m not sure just how this works. Natural selection does involve a fairly heavy competitive element.

    The last chapter points to new directions. These could be summarized by saying that scientists should present themselves less like Richard Dawkins, and theologians should avoid referring to a wrathful God so much. I’m pretty much in agreement with that, but I don’t think either Dawkins or Falwell and Roberts (who she uses to illustrate what’s wrong in religion) will follow the suggestions.

    My overall impression is that Dr. Roughgarden is a good scientist who has a liberal view of religion, but has a limited understanding of the type of theological ideas that drive evangelicals and fundamentalists. She expresses a peaceful and experiential faith that I can truly appreciate. If my review sounds rough, it’s because I don’t think that she has engaged the controversy that is actually going on. She’s hoping for peace.

    I enjoyed this book, but I don’t feel I can add it to my list of recommended reading for those who are trying to get acquainted with the creation-evolution controversy.

  • The Value (and not so much) of the Anchor Bible

    At this point I’m nearly half way through my study through 2 Corinthians with Victor Paul Furnish’s Anchor Bible Commentary, on which I made introductory comments earlier.

    This note is not so much about 2 Corinthians as about the series in general, and especially some of the newer volumes. I absolutely don’t recommend this series to preachers. They are good and detailed, though often involving leading edge rather than well established scholarship, but they are so detailed that it is very hard to get to the point. A scholar preparing for a lecture to a seminary class on a passage wants this kind of detail. Few preachers that I know would like it.

    Note that “half way through” means page 252 of 588, and I’m just into chapter 4. I find it necessary to have my Greek testament open to the passage throughout because it’s hard to remember what word or phrase I was reading about last by the time I get to the next comment.

    At the same time, the level of thoroughness is something I welcome, that linguistic and textual issues are covered in great detail, and that the commentary on critical theories regarding the book is good. If you are willing to wade through the extensive other content, there are some useful theological applications as well. It’s just that if you want to really get the value, you have to dedicated hours to a few verses, and that’s rarely possible for sermon or Sunday School lesson preparation.

    This volume, and the whole series are extremely useful, but you need to keep your purpose in mind.

  • Persecution for Christians who Accept Evolution

    When Troy Brittain started blogging, I knew we’d get some good stuff, and his post More Irony from the ID Creationist Crowd is a good example. It seems unlikely that the real interest of the ID crowd is academic freedom.

  • Church and Healthcare: Fear

    Let me remind everyone that I’m really thinking on my blog, rather than providing answers that I have really thought out in discussing health care issues and the church. I have lots of pieces, but I don’t feel that I have anything like an assembled puzzle. My comments will also necessarily derive from personal experience. And as always, I tend to ramble a bit!

    One direction from which we can come at this issue is from the question of need. What is it that a person needs from their church community when facing either illness or death? Since Mark brought up especially end of life issues, I’m focusing on this, including life-threatening illnesses.

    Several times when we’ve gone into the children’s wing of the hospital where our son received chemotherapy, my wife has commented that the real enemy is not cancer, but fear. I confess that the first time she said that, my reaction was a bit bewildered. Yes, I know that we have to fight fear, but we’re putting all of these chemicals into a child’s body for the purpose of killing the cancer, hopefully before they kill him. That’s surely fighting the cancer!

    But she has a point. The real difficult thing about illness and eventually facing death is the number of decisions that have to be made. Now my wife and I obviously were not facing our own deaths, but rather the death of a child. At first I was less involved. I was the step-father, but then James had to face the death of a loved one during his own struggle–his father died of a heart attack. After this I got a new perspective, because I was the one to go with him to doctor’s consultations. I remember his response vividly. He had only known about his father’s death for perhaps 15 minutes when he walked up to me and said, “Well, I guess it’s all up to you now.” Thought it wasn’t “all up to me,” he had a point.

    The thought of death does something to us, even as Christians, that I think makes us irrational. I say (and confess) “us” even though I believe our family managed to step back. The first thing is to realize that death isn’t your worst enemy. I say that not merely as a Christian who believes that there is more for us after this life. Leaving that aside, the process of medical care can be much more terrifying than the thought of dying.

    To be honest, I don’t know how most people do it. I grew up in a medically oriented family. We discussed health issues around the dinner table. We talked about dying as a pretty ordinary topic. We talked about the choices in medicine constantly. My wife is an R. N. and has 12 years experience as a hospice educator. With all that background available, we would get into a doctor’s office for a consultation and become hopelessly confused.

    I remember one consultation after the first recurrence of the cancer. The oncologist was outlining treatment options. I could look at James and see him tuning out. I told the doctor that I had the role of being the idiot and started asking him detailed questions, making him explain the treatment options, their impact both in terms of effectiveness and side effects. By being the complete idiot and making him go into ABC mode, I got the information. I’m wondering how many people would push that hard, or know when to push. He was a good doctor, with an excellent reputation, and we liked him. We ended up taking “none of the above” and going with a plan cooked up by a surgeon at another hospital.

    Now our church family was a bit of a mixed bag throughout all of this. Because I’m going to point out some real failures of support, I want to note that I believe everyone sincerely wanted to be “the body of Christ” for us. Most of them also did reasonably well. But there were people who were not at all helpful. In most cases, I think this was because of fear, either their own, or their assumption that we would be running scared. (Please don’t imagine us as some kind of fearless heroes. We just tried to remain rational under pressure!)

    Let me just list some things:

    1. You don’t have to be down all the time just because you or a family member is ill. A number of people took me aside because they felt they needed to let me know that Jody (my wife) was in denial, and didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. She was much too cheerful. All things considered, I suspect the hospice educator was adequately informed. I was happy that there were times when she could be cheerful.
    2. Repeat that point for James. I don’t know how many times I was told he didn’t understand his condition and the fact that he could die. When he first went into treatment he wasn’t all that clear, but by the time it was all over he could educate most adults on cancer, death, and dying. Again, any time he could be cheerful was good. Before his father died, he and I had an agreement that we would just have fun, so I never brought up the illness when we were together unless absolutely necessary. Of course later that had to change. Church members (or any friends and relatives) need to be aware that you don’t need someone to be miserable with you. Often it’s nice just to have someone be normal and do normal things.
    3. It is impossible to follow every diet, special remedy, or treatment plan found on the internet. We were frequently presented with complete solutions discovered via the internet, ranging from eating lots of brussels sprouts to buying a several thousand dollar water filtration system. It was OK for people to suggest, but when they followed up to see if we were following their suggestions it was a bit much.
    4. Similarly, you can’t go to every faith healer, preacher, prayer team, special revival, or healing service that is offered. We had people who were desperate because they thought if we didn’t go to a particular place, James would not be healed, but if we did, healing was certain.
    5. People don’t necessarily hear what you teach and preach. Since both Jody and I teach and offer seminars, including on the topic of prayer, it was often expected that we should be able to pray for our son’s healing and that would be it. Apparently very few people had ever listened and realized that we had very explicitly said that there was no such guarantee or expectation. (Cue the folks who say that it was because we didn’t believe enough or in the correct faction that there was no healing.)

    One Sunday near the time that James went home we all skipped church and met in the living room. Some of our family members had been hurt by things they had heard. I pointed out that the people who did the hurting were not intending to, but that they were very likely operating from fear. If you can find a reason why someone else is suffering, then you can feel that you won’t be targeted. On the other hand if they could be convinced that the right prayer would result in certain healing, they could feel confident that if that nasty diagnosis came in, they could handle it.

    The idea of losing a child to cancer is so horrifying that we’d like to find a reason, and specifically a reason that doesn’t apply to you. Good luck! I wish anyone who does this the best in making yourself feel confident. But bad things do happen to generally good people, and whatever comes up as your lot, whether you look at is as God’s plan, or just the way things work in this world, you’re going to have to deal with it.

    So what does a church do as a community about this fear? I found that there is one key, and that is staying together and sharing. James had friends who drew closer, and he had friends who couldn’t handle being with him in the fire of affliction. We have been so amazed and thankful for those friends who stuck with him. The majority of those were a few years older than he was, and that difference got more marked as time went on. He simply no longer talked about the things that the boys his own age were interested in. But there were a number of close friends his own age who walked the walk with him. There are others I know who have regretted it.

    Simply staying friends, remaining part of the community, and allowing the portions of life that can go on normally to do so is extremely important. There’s such a thing as dying while you’re still alive. James made an early decision not to do that. His final summer he started out in marching band for his high school. He made a difficult decision to step out because he realized he wasn’t going to be strong enough to march that season and indeed would probably not live through it, but he continued to join them on the field, and help with those things he was physically capable of doing.

    He made a conscious decision that death wasn’t going to stop him. The rest of us had to go along with that! And it was the right decision. The fear can destroy you long before the disease does, and make your remaining days a living death.

    There is a value here in education, but that needs to be supplemented by active support. “Support” as I’ve said, isn’t a matter of having the right thing to say all the time. It’s a matter of simply continuing to be connected even when you don’t know what to say. I already knew all the words. The problem wasn’t to know what I ought to think. The problem was to get the encouragement and strength that comes from community. The ones who showed up and felt foolish, or so they tell me, didn’t hurt us in any way. Generally we had no idea they were as clueless as they claimed. We were just glad they were there. The folks who melted away–those hurt.

    Most churches need to really reorient their thinking to truly be a community. The response to every problem is to have a program, and designate people. And of course we do need designated leaders and programs can help. But it’s not the designated people who showed up that helped. It was the close friends who remained and got closer.

  • Property May Stay with Breakaway Churches

    According to a story on MSNBC.com, some breakaway Episcopal churches in Virginia may be able to keep their property rather than having it go to the denomination.

    This is a ruling on only one point, and it is based on a law from just after the civil war when there were many issues of this type in the southern states. It will only be applicable in Virginia. It is nonetheless good news for those congregations.

    While I do not sympathize with all the reasons why these congregations are separating from their denomination, I do think it is foolish and not very Christlike for the denomination to try to keep the property. In many jurisdictions, the property will legally belong to the denomination, but when a congregation separates, the denomination is likely to end up with empty property. They can, of course, sell it for cash, which provides them with some resources, but they do so at the cost of such good will as may remain. They also provide a spectacle of bad behavior for the world.

    As I did when I wrote about this type of issue before, I will quote Paul to the Corinthians: “Wouldn’t it be better to be wronged” (1 Corinthians 6:7)?

  • Reason is all over Bible Study

    In a post on Complegalitarian, Molly Alley discusses how reasonable it is to hold a doctrine that assumes that women will never mature, as in men where once boys who needed the guidance of a parent, but eventually they become mature and are considered ready for leadership. But what about women?

    Of course, as an egalitarian, I think the idea that women can’t be in leadership is nonsense, and I want to focus on that word, nonsense, and the phrase good common sense in Molly’s concluding question that I quote below, along with the related term reasonable.

    Molly says:

    In other words, why does female subjection not seem to make good common sense (to me, anyways) when so many of the other commands do?

    Now there’s a lively discussion of Molly’s actual point on that blog, and it’s one I’m not going to get into. What I’m going to discuss here takes off at a sharp angle from the topic, but it may explain why I find it next to impossible to get into these debates.

    For many people that I encounter the idea that one uses reason or what is reasonable as part of one’s interpretation of scripture is somewhere between irritating and blasphemous, and it’s weighted toward blasphemous. Obviously God is wiser than we are, and he could ask us to do things that don’t seem reasonable to us, but that are reasonable from his perspective. Of course the question remains (and I discuss it in my book When People Speak for God), of just one decides whether one is doing something that is really stupid, or whether one is using divine wisdom.

    The fact is that we all use reason when we read, interpret, and apply the scriptures. There’s no way out. Our reason is what we use to process information. We can hope it’s reason guided by the Holy Spirit, but that doesn’t make it any less a matter of reason. So the question is not whether reason will be involved. The question is just how well one’s reason will function when it is involved.

    Let’s consider Molly’s question. There are several perspectives from which I can ask the question whether a command, such as the command not to let women speak in church, is reasonable.

    1. I can look from my own perspective. Does this look reasonable in my context? If I am as objective about this as possible, I will look at the potential harm and benefit to see whether a specific command works where I live. A good question is this: Does the command have the effect in my environment that it would have had when it was first given? The only reason I use the original context here is that it is helpful to have some anchor point when discussing the impact of a particular policy. This is largely a question of application and applicability.
    2. You can ask about the perspective of the original author. Does this command look reasonable as you interpret it in the world of that author? Does it appear reasonable that the command would have the effect that is clearly intended? What is that effect? (You can then check that effect with point #1.)
    3. What about God’s perspective? Since none of us have even a prayer of a God’s eye view, what I mean here is to ask just how universally the command could reasonably be expected to be in application. Does it look like the sort of thing that should be universal? As an example, “you shall not commit murder” is uttered and presented in a way that looks like it is intended universally. “Hide yourself by the Wadi Cherith” looks like it’s intended very specifically. But there will likely be a whole range of commands and statements between that will not be nearly so obvious.
    4. Does the command make sense theologically? Most of us have theological baggage. Some consider it an ideal to jettison all of that and come at the text anew. For exegesis, I think that can be helpful, but when it comes down to application, it has to fit into a system. Many of the Biblical commands that we no longer follow are regarded as inapplicable because of our existing theology. For example, the command to bring an animal to the tabernacle and sacrifice it instantly registers as “no applicable to me” because my theology says that one has passed away.
    5. Is there another reasonable way to understand the text? Many people struggle with texts believing they have to accept a certain interpretation when the solution might lie in rechecking the exegesis and application.

    Reason is not merely useful, it’s essential in applying the Bible to our lives. Molly has asked a good question. Even when we do something that appears weird because we believe God has commanded it, some combination of revelation, reason, and experience has brought us to the conclusion that, despite popular opinion, our course of action is reasonable. Thus I think Molly’s question is a good one, and could be applied to many aspects of this situation.

    As a sort of postscript, let me note that I do not find a modern application of the various texts that indicate that women shouldn’t preach or enjoy leadership roles to be reasonable at all. There are a number of reasons for this, certainly including the evidence that women carried out those roles in the earliest stages of the church. One of the best indications that a command is not universal is that you find exceptions in the very literature in which the command is contained.

    Thus I tire of detailed exegetical arguments about these texts on both sides, even though I understand my more conservative brothers and sisters feel the need to go that way. Paul speaks pastorally to his situation. It should be no shock that he doesn’t overturn every aspect of the culture–he’s overturning enough already. But my situation in the modern world is so much different, that I find it extremely unreasonable to try to apply Paul’s pastoral advice in unadjusted form to the modern church. Thus when Paul says “husband of one wife” in my application I think “monogamous.” When Paul argues based on Adam being created first, I think, “I bet that made sense to Paul and that audience and got them on board, but it doesn’t make any sense to me.

    But then I guess I’m a dangerous liberal (per my accusers) or passionate moderate (by my own confession) and I’m just intent on ignoring the Bible. Well, no, not actually. I think the Bible is a gold mine of principles, and more importantly it guides me in hearing God speak to my situation today. I’m glad that God continues to speak, and today he does so both through women and men.

  • Health Care: My Visit to the Emergency Room

    I take this detour from discussing the church and medical care to talk a bit about why it is so difficult even to discuss medical care in this country, based on a recent personal experience.

    I’m 50 years old, and a few weeks ago I made my first visit to the emergency room. (Just for interest, I have never been admitted to a hospital in my life for any reason.) I had pain in my upper abdomen, quite severe, and it just wouldn’t go away. I arrived there between 9:00 and 9:30 pm, and eventually left around 5:00 am. While there I underwent three scans, numerous lab tests, and a few discussions with the doctor.

    I should note that it took some time to get any attention, but not really that bad as such things go. While I haven’t been to the emergency room for myself, I’ve been there with others, and I’m from a very medical family. It’s very useful to have things like an insurance card and a checkbook along on such a visit. Questions about money come up very quickly.

    After all this testing, they still have no idea what was wrong with me. We’re eagerly awaiting transfer of the records to my family doctor so that he can follow up.

    I got a call from my brother the cardiologist the next day, and he was very upset that they hadn’t done an EKG. He thinks that should be automatic when a 50 year old guy shows up with pain in his upper abdomen, and would like to inform the E. R. doctor that he was negligent, or something along those lines.

    The bottom line is this: After the rather strong medication they gave me for pain wore off, the pain was gone and hasn’t returned. But nobody has any idea where it came from or where it went.

    A couple of days ago I got the bill for all this. The initial bill for that incident was over $13,000. With the amount that is generally disallowed by the insurance company, the amount that will actually be paid to the hospital is over $10,000. My portion appears annoyingly large, but is actually blessedly small, all things considered. I have good health insurance.

    Now as the son of a doctor and nurse, brother of another nurse and another doctor, and husband of a nurse, not to mention cousins and uncles and such who have pursued careers in the medical field, I have a fairly good idea what costs what. I knew the scans were expensive when I took a look at the machine they were putting me through. I also knew how annoying some of the older machines would have been, and how much better of a picture of my innards the radiologist would have to study. I had talked to my brother, and knew that he would suggest more, not less tests.

    So supposing I’m an average citizen and I’ve been to the emergency room for pain that went away pretty much, I might suppose, on its own. Supposing I’m still waiting for my medical records, and haven’t been able to take care of the follow-up. What do you suppose my reaction would be to the bill? The hospital is receiving something like $1500 an hour to keep me on an uncomfortable hospital (stretcher? not-bed?), and for a couple of very short breaks, take me out to get tests.

    If I’m this average person do I:

    a) Say, “That’s the cost of good medical care and I’m glad to pay it?
    b) Yell, “$10,000 for that?”
    c) Call my lawyer
    d) Vote for a politician who will provide single-payer health care
    e) Get more and more frustrated with the health care system, but not know what to do

    I don’t know which of those I’d do. Actually, I think a large portion of that is what we pay for some pretty good health care. Some items weren’t working perfectly in my case, but I know how much the machines cost, and I know the hospital in question isn’t rolling in money. My family and I have been very satisfied with them over all for many, many years.

    The problem is that as soon as a politician starts talking about “controlling health care costs” two things happen. First, people assume that what is going to get cut out is unquestionably waste. Second, many people, especially politicians, assume they’re going to be able to cut out more than they realistically can.

    There’s a constant refrain about unnecessary tests. Someone might well call my scans unnecessary. They didn’t find anything. Maybe I’m just a wimp and I can’t stand pain. As a matter of fact, I’m really not sure. I’ve never felt anything like that before in my life. The most pain I’ve undergone for any period of time was a sprain. But the difference between a necessary and unnecessary test in the eyes of the person who isn’t there is simply whether it found something. In my case, it didn’t. My guts look reasonably good when properly enhanced by computer. But the doctor didn’t know that.

    On the other hand, it’s probably impossible to convince someone who hasn’t researched the various machines and their costs that the cost of that visit is at all reasonable. To be honest, I’m not certain myself whether all the tests were needed. My brother the cardiologist seems to think they were a good idea.

    I guess I’m kind of beating around the bush, but it seems to me that we have a long way to go in understanding health care such as to get to the point of discussing it intelligently. I determined several months ago to study out all these health care plans, and I’ve found it pretty tough going. But the more I look the more I think that the plans are being sold optimistically. They are optimistic in terms of how much can be saved and they are optimistic in terms of the quality of health care that will result.

    Perhaps the media should take up some of the time they spend trying to figure out just what Richardson said to the Clintons and when, and spend some time educating the public on the intricacies of health care. Perhaps the public should demand it. Of course, back in the real world, we’d be lucky if anyone watched it, much less demanded it!

  • Another Quick Look at the NISB

    I blogged a bit before about the New Interpreter’s Study Bible [NISB], in which I noted that it was somewhat more technical than The Learning Bible and less critical than the Oxford Study Bible.

    Since then I have been using it quite a bit in my personal devotions and study, and I’d like to add a couple of points.

    First, the NISB is less involved with textual and grammatical issues, and more involved with interpretation and theological application. If you’re a preacher, its notes will lead much more quickly and directly to points you can make in a sermon. It shares this characteristic with The Learning Bible, but since its notes are a bit more in depth it will generally be more useful in sermon preparation.

    Second, I have noticed a careful balance in the notes. On page 1959, for example, commenting on Acts 2:23 and the accusation there made against “the Jews” that they had crucified Jesus. The problem with this accusation, of course, is that it has been carried forward by some to just about any group of Jews, and thus has been used extensively by anti-Semites. The Excursus, titled “Responsibility for the Death of Jesus” discusses the meaning of this type of statement within the early Christian church and for modern Christians:

    When Jewish Christians spoke of Jews who put Jesus to death, the intra-Jewish nature of the conflict was clear. But when Christians who are no longer Jews speak of “the Jews” as being responsible for the death of Jesus, there is a whole other nuance that fuels anti-Judaism. Luke’s narratives must be understood in both their historical and theological contexts; at the same time, they must not be used to foment anti-Semitism.

    Well put, in my opinion. I continue to become more impressed with the notes as I read.

  • 2 Corinthians 3:17-18: Freedom to do What?

    2 Corinthians 3:12-18 (CEV) (from BibleGateway.com).

    This post is less about the exegesis, which I’m only covering briefly, and more about application. I have frequently heard this passage (verses 17 and 18) cited in support of a free and unscripted style of worship. In particular, the phrase “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (NRSV) is often repeated on its own in response to any complaints about order in worship. The intended meaning is that if the Holy Spirit is present in a worship service, then restrictions on how people act in worship and what they do for worship will be removed.

    Now I suspect nobody intends it to mean anything quite so radical, but since it is used in response to questions about order, it is hard to tell where people draw the line. I want to make clear that I consider unscripted worship to be valuable as one approach to worship. My point here is not to challenge the idea of unscripted worship and call for a more liturgical style, but rather to put this text in context. Unscripted worship should be supported in a different way.

    Note also that the terms “charismatic,” “contemporary,” and “free or unscripted” are often used with reference to worship nearly synonymously, but that usage produces a dangerous confusion. A charismatic worship service is most frequently one in which you can expect a manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit (at least as understood by that congregation), such as prophecy or words of knowledge, and sometimes tongues. A contemporary worship service is usually less structured and involves contemporary music, but the structure may simply be different. In one local church, a worship service is planned that uses contemporary praise and worship music, but does so in the context of a very liturgical service that might even be called high church. It will be interesting to see how that develops.

    But 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 has only a very tangential relationship to all of this. If we look for the context, in broad terms Paul is defending his ministry. In this case he has come to a more specific point about the glory of the new covenant ministry. He compares this to his own description of Moses and the way in which the glory of the Lord shone from his face after he had been in God’s presence on the mountain. This is loosely based on Exodus 34, but Paul’s focus is different. First, he describes the purpose of the veil as being to cover not the glory itself, but its fading. Second, Paul switches the location of the veil and its function. It is now placed over the heart of contemporary readers. Paul is alluding to Exodus 34, but not interpreting that story.

    This veil on the heart prevents readers from understanding when they read the law. You could connect this to the way in which it concealed the fading of the glory according to Paul, and understand the readers to still see the old covenant as carrying the glory, while Paul wishes to attribute that glory to the new covenant. In any case, it is necessary for the reader to have that veil removed, otherwise they will not see or understand the new covenant and its glory when they read.

    When someone turns to the Lord, that veil is removed, and they can see that true glory. It is debated whether this is Christ or God the Father, but I tend to prefer Christ. This is not my primary subject. Furnish, whose commentary I am currently working through, maintains that this is God the Father. I think there is a substantial theme in the New Testament that suggests that seeing the scriptures through Christ is the key to new understanding. This is reflected in the Emmaus experience (Luke 24:13-35) and also in the book of Hebrews. Perhaps I’ll expand on this in a later post. (Then again, I’ll probably forget!)

    In any case, when the reader turns to the Lord, the veil is removed (16). Then we are reminded that the Lord is Spirit (skipping a bit of linguistic argument on that phrase), and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. I like the CEV’s rephrasing, “17The Lord and the Spirit are one and the same, and the Lord’s Spirit sets us free. 18So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).

    There is a specific type of freedom here, the freedom to see God’s glory as displayed in the new covenant. When we can do that, then we are able to look there, and this results in our transformation. There is nothing here said about styles of worship directly.

    I do, however, think there is a slight implication about worship. There is a point here to experiencing the presence of God, and in worship, we can hope this happens. But it happens in different ways for different people. I am led into God’s presence through Bach, Handel, and sometimes Haydn, for example. My wife truly enters worship through contemporary music. I like a good order of worship; she prefers freedom and flexibility. This passage provides us a direction to look as a result of our time of worship, whether of hearing the word of the Lord spoken, reading it, or anything else. We long to look upon God’s glory, to the extent that we can, and allow him to transform us. That is not Paul’s point, however.

    It is important to see commonly used passages such as this in context, because they often get a quite heavy weight of baggage all their own in the context of the church community, sometimes ending up used for something that would be quite foreign to the one who originally wrote them. New ideas may be valid, but they need to be supported in other ways.