Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • 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.

  • Healthcare and the Church: But What is the Church?

    [Since I have readers from a variety of viewpoints, let me note that the following is written from within the Christian tradition and to those in that tradition. It’s OK to read, of course, but it’s unlikely to be of great interest to non-Christians.]

    Mark at Pseudo-Polymath has started a discussion on health care and the church and I have become involved. His latest post is here, which responds to some of my personal reflections as I begin posting. I have some further personal reflections, based on the five year battle with our son’s cancer. But those personal reflections are intended to lead to some thinking about the broader role of the church. My posts on this subject are in no way intended to be thoughts of an expert. I am far from an expert on this topic. But they are reflections from the consumer’s point of view on the health care system, and from the church perspective from one deeply involved in church activity.

    I want to post just a few thoughts and questions here. My problem in thinking about this discussion has been that it is very easy to shift the discussion from the role of the government to the role of the church without changing the actual content. In other words, I can make this a debate over how much is the role of the government, and how much the role of the church. I can prepare a list of programs, and ask whether the church or the government (or some other private group) should carry them out.

    That might result in a list of church programs: Education on death and dying, end of life care, support for individuals undergoing treatment and for their families, prayer, economic assistance (I know very well how demanding illness can be on one’s pocketbook even with good insurance), good lifestyle and health education and training, and so forth. I intentionally left out most of the spiritual things from that list (except prayer) because we often simply tack those on.

    It seems to me that the church has become more of an adjunct to our secular lives, a club to which we belong, rather than our spiritual center. I’ve been reading Acts 2 as part of my lectionary readings lately, and it strikes me that the church that was breaking bread together and worshiping together constantly, sharing all their good, and so forth, was much more than an adjunct to the lives of those early disciples. I think they believed they were living at least a part of the kingdom of God. That fellowship was the central part of their lives.

    Any health care related program of the church may be helpful, but it cannot be most helpful unless the church feels and acts like a body, the body of Christ in service to the world. Only in that case do we really have the ability to respond full to those within and without. In general, when a family in the church has a problem, it’s their problem with which we (the rest of the church members) may help them. It’s not our problem.

    Should healing be an adjunct to our other activities, something we do as a program, or should it perhaps be an essential part of living as the body of Jesus Christ in the world? This is the question that’s been hitting me as I have been thinking about this. My father’s church, the Seventh-day Adventists, established health care facilities all over the world as a means of evangelism. Perhaps there is another step here, where the church in general establishes (or becomes) such facilities in order to be Jesus in the world. We’d then operate them in such a way as to look as much like Jesus in action as possible.

    I don’t know precisely what this would look like, but I think it would look much different than what we have. The problem with resolving end of life care issues is not so much in knowledge, though knowledge is necessary, but in support.

    Let me illustrate. The hardest moment in my son’s illness was not the day he died, but several months earlier. My wife was on a mission trip in eastern Europe. I had no means to contact her by e-mail. I was here alone with James. I had to call the doctor and get the results of a scan. Those results said that the cancer had returned in four places. Now theres knowledge, and then there’s the ability to apply the knowledge, to take the steps one has to take.

    My knowledge was not adequate. I needed the support of my family and my church in order to work through the situation and take care of it. It seems to me that this is the most important consideration. No amount of training is going to help if we’re not there at the time of need. Being the church in some sense means that we are there at the right time.

  • Curriculum Chaos Bill in Florida

    The Florida legislature is considering an Academic Freedom bill. This one has been done to death, and you can find a great deal of information about it on the Florida Citizens for Science Blog, with the most recent update here. I’ll let you get the details via the many posts there.

    I want to add a point about this bill, however. It’s simply very stupid legislating. Now we are not at all shocked to see stupidity in the Florida legislature, or anywhere else, for that matter. As my wife commented when I mentioned this to her: “Why should Florida be different?” It’s not merely that this is creation vs. evolution, an issue on which I have some pretty strong convictions. The bill itself is wrong. It misunderstands academic freedom and it leaves almost everything open to interpretation, inviting litigation. In fact, it’s pretty much the sort of bill you write when you know you can’t get what you want, but you want to create some legislative language that will tangle the issue and let you try for it.

    The fundamental problem is that the legislature is choosing to write legislation on one portion of a subject through a specific bill. They had a framer’s committee to write the curriculum standards, they have a Board of Education to check those standards politically, but what they want to do is tinker with them by passing a bill.

    In most areas, we’d recognize this for what it is–bad micromanagement. If you think your management system for the state’s education system is that badly off, then you need to look at a better fix than this. But of course these legislators know that the experts are going to come to the same conclusion as they did before, and so they’re going to make political points at the expense of the children of Florida.

    This is bad legislation, badly written, hopelessly misguided, and there is no good outcome that would result from its passage. There is simply no excuse for it. The legislature should reject it.

  • UC Admissions Case Update

    Since it’s my day to link to Ed (not really, but he has some good posts, here’s an update on the UC admissions case.

  • Freedom from (not of) Expression

    Ed Brayton notes that the UN Human Rights Council has endorsed an anti-religious speech code proposed by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. I could write about this with the anger and disgust I feel, but Ed already said it so well:

    Now I am one of those people who is careful to distinguish between Islamic radicals and Islamic moderates. I strongly believe that most Muslims around the world, probably a significant majority, just want to live their lives as people of any large group do. Bin Laden certainly does not speak for them, nor should we lump all Muslims together under him. But there is at least a sizable minority of Muslims around the world who really do embrace what I regard as the most reactionary and barbaric ideology in the world today.

    While you’re expressing your deep concern about those who identify Islam with terrorism and human rights violations, how about at least expressing equal concern about those many millions of Islamic reactionaries who themselves openly identify Islam with terrorism, violence and who routinely violate the human rights of those around them? While you’re complaining about Muslims being stereotyped, how about at least pretending that you care as much about school textbooks in madrassahs in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere that call Jews pigs and devils? At least keep up some pretense of being objective about this.

    Precisely!

    Ed also notes the irony of having Saudi Arabia of all places trying to lecture the west on freedom of expression. Quoth Daffy, “it is to laugh,” except that these folks aren’t funny; they’re dangerous.

  • MyBibleVersion.com – Comparison against a Base Version (Alpha)

    In response to a comment, I have added a page that will allow you to choose a base Bible version (whatever you prefer) and get a list of all other available versions based on how much they differ from that. The page is http://www.mybibleversion.com/compare.php. The default version is the NRSV if you don’t specify. There is a drop down box listing all available versions after the list of characteristics.

    I can’t emphasize enough that this is ALPHA software. Please watch for bugs, large and small, and report them via comments to this post. Requests for features are welcome, though time to implementation may vary wildly.