Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Conservative Political Deception

    Ben Witherington has a good post today about political deception with a brief intro on parthenogenesis. On the latter, I would simply note that I see no particular benefit to Christianity in proving that a virgin birth is possible. The value of the doctrine stems at least in part from the fact that it is not possible, and thus, if it happened, it was a miracle.

    The other portion is certainly worth reading. His comments on his interview on the O’Reilly Factor are quite interesting. The only thing I have to add is that liberals are equally capable of such shenanigans, and that we should decry them wherever and by whomever they are perpetrated.

  • Value of the Historical-Critical Method

    I’ve written a number of posts on the historical-critical method previously on this blog (category, listing 28 posts). It is one of the areas on which I can properly be described as unabashedly liberal. I fully embraced the critical approach to Bible study as the starting point, and as the best approach to ascertaining the historical meaning of the text. This doesn’t prevent me, of course, from looking at other means when dealing with application or other community or personal meanings. In fact, the historical-critical method is solely aimed at getting at historical meanings, and quite properly so.

    There are a number of imbalances that are possible. Specialists in particular methodologies will often overemphasize one approach over another, such as when form critics find oral elements all over the place, even in places where an oral stage most likely never existed. Another imbalance occurs when one assumes that having studied the history of a text, one understands the meaning of the text itself. Some critical commentaries leave this impression; having sorted out the background, the foreground gets little attention. Enter canonical criticism, which places its focus squarely on the canonical form of the text, and even further on the way in which that text fits into the current canon of scripture. It is important to realize that this is also a historical stage of the text, complete with a sitz im leben (I abuse the term slightly) of its own and a reason for its existence.

    Brevard Childs was a great advocate of canonical criticism. I’m currently using his commentary on Isaiah in my own devotional reading of Isaiah, and I have found him quite enlightening. I’ve written considerable on Isaiah here and also on my Participatory Bible Study Blog.

    In his introduction to chapters 28-35 he makes a couple of comments on the historical study that are worth underlining:

    As I have indicated before, I find this method of simply juxtaposing three reconstructed layers from different ages inadequate as an interpretive solution because it does not address the effect of this shaping on the text as a whole. One is left only with fragments arranged in historical sequence. [emphasis mine] p. 199-200

    And again:

    While I do not question the legitimacy of attempting to recover the history of the growth of the Isaianic corpus as a whole, much of the recent research remains futile, in my judgment, when it assigns the key to the interpretation to various theoretical reconstructions. The crucial exegetical question remains, regardless of how deeply one probes behind the present text, whether one can in the end discern any element of coherence in the rendering of the chapters in their final form. [emphasis mine] p. 200

    I think these paragraphs make a key point: One has to be skeptical of one’s own reconstructions, and one needs to discover what it may have been that resulted in the text we have. It made sense to someone somewhere. For example, by identifying two sources in Genesis 1 & 2, have we resolved anything? It may explain some apparently contradictory elements, but then we have to ask just why it was that anyone thought the two went together.

    I must emphasize that I reject the approach as well of those who believe that skepticism of the critical work results necessarily in a return to the traditional default. If I am skeptical of some of the divisions of sources in the pentateuch, that doesn’t mean that I automatically accept unity of authorship. There are good reasons to be skeptical of that as well.

    In fact, I can summarize this by saying that there are good reasons to be skeptical, especially of one’s own work!

  • New Carnival: Christian Reconciliation

    Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength as announced a new blog carnival, Christian Reconciliation Carnival: Call for Submissions, to be published monthly. This month’s topic: setting the record straight for strawman arguments made against your group. Submissions by midnight on 1/30/2007.

  • Great Post on Gifting

    In preparing the Christian Carnival CLVIII, which I hosted this week on my Participatory Bible Study Blog, I found a real gem of a post on gifting. Dana, of Dana’s Avenue, wrote about Gifting, and the experience of discovering excitement in the gift of accounting.

    This really strikes a cord with me, because in my own classes on spiritual gifts I tell people that the church is filled with people who want exciting gifts like prophecy, miracles, or leadership, but very few want things like wisdom, hospitality, or helping. The church, on the other hand, needs those gifts in reverse order. We need lots and lots of helpers!

  • Christian Carnival CLVIII

    Welcome to the January 24, 2007 edition of christian carnival, #CLVIII. I’m your cyber-librarian for the week, and I’d like to welcome you to our cyber-library, temporarily located right here! In case you’re wondering about the numbers in parentheses you can find out more here. I used some of them rather loosely!

    Biblical Studies (220)

    Codex: Resources for Biblical Studies Blogspot presents And God said, “Let there be Limricks” (Genesis as a Limerick)–The chapters of Genesis summarized as an extended limerick.

    Chasing the Wind presents Rededicating Lives Read. Study. Mourn. Celebrate. Repent. Promise. God has a plan for you, and He wrote it down. If you read your bible, you’ll find out what it is. A study of Nehemiah chapter 8-10.

    Lingamish presents C.S. Lewis on Bible translation, part 3: Silk stockings or blue jeans. Description: Lingamish raps up a series on C.S. Lewis imagining men in tights and Bibles in blue jeans.

    Jeremy Pierce presents Exodus 22:1-4 in the NRSV posted at Parableman. He asks, “Why does the NRSV reorder the text in Exodus 22:1-4?”

    The Journey presents Jeffrey Archer writes his own gospel.
    Jeffrey Archer is taking aim at the traditional understanding of Judas Iscariot. He has co-written a book which paints Judas as someone who wanted Jesus to overthrow the politcal power of the Romans. He believes that Judas was someone who misunderstood what Jesus was trying to achieve on earth.

    Christian Living (248)

    Dana presents Gifting posted at Dana’s Avenue. She says that she and her husband are new missionaries with Wycliffe and preparing to leave for Tanzania this summer.

    Patricia presents Self-Fulfilling Prophecy posted at A Better You Blog. God tells us in Romans how to be transformed by renewing our mind. How are your thoughts steering you?

    Barbara presents Getting our house in order at Tidbits and Treasures. We often pay more attention to our literal house than that of our spiritual house. Our body, our spiritual house, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and we should never become complacent in our tending to it.

    This week at Light Along the Journey John is asking us Who are you listening to?

    All Things Bloggable presents Heroes on Earth, saints in Heaven, an exploration of our desire as Christians to become heroes in the real world, and how it is overshadowed by a false sense of heroics in the virtual world.

    Theology (230)

    Veracity-The Way presents Evangelical?, asking what does it mean when someone says they are an Evangelical? Not much, from what the Barna Group tells us.

    Romans 15:4 Project presents Fear and Doubt. I wonder if this is what Peter felt as he started walking on the water toward our King (Matthew 14:25-33 ). What if we never followed through on our dreams because of fear and doubt?

    Laurie Bluedorn presents Could I make my own heart soft, would I need the Lord to do it for me? posted at Trivium Pursuit.

    Elias presents Why I believe that Christ is God! posted at Ramblings of an Australian teacher.

    Mark Olson presents St. Maximus on the Consequences of Biological Hypostasis posted at Pseudo-Polymath. Cutting my egg teeth in theology or in which I consider alternatives to the duality of body and mind/soul in Christian notions of being following John Zizioulas and St. Maximus the Confessor.

    Philosophy (100)

    Sun and Shield presents Islamic Anti-science Philosophy?, reacting to an article by Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and author, who is, himself, criticizing the atheist attacks of Richard Dawkins on Christianity. Weinberg, an atheist himself, says that, to defend science, Dawkins should be attacking Islam, and goes on to explain that al-Ghazali, an important Muslim philosopher of about 1,000 years ago, undercut science in Muslims by claiming that there aren’t really laws of nature. I had never heard of this (it seems to be at least partially true) so I examined this claim. Weinberg also pokes at Christians, because, he says, they really don’t believe what they say they do. (He explains why he thinks so. Again, it is at least partially true.)

    Social Theology (261)

    Tantalizing if True presents The case against politeness, telling us why niceness isn’t a good test for truth

    Prayer (240)

    Attention Span presents The God Who Offends, thanking God after a football game seems to rub some the wrong way. At Attention Span, rev-ed muses about The God Who Offends.

    Youth (268)

    Life in Student Ministry presents World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians: Introduction. This is the first post in a two-week series that is currently running at Life in Student Ministry. What is World of Warcraft and how can we understand it in a Christian context?

    Psychology (150)

    Jake Danger presents Belief in God Declared a ‘Mental Illness’ by the American Psychological Association posted at Churchianity Today (copyrighted material).

    Religious Freedom (320)

    50 Days After presents Golden Statue in Madya Pradesh, about a law in an Indian state requiring all school children to pray to a Hindu god.

    Crossroads presents Has the Persecution Begun?. Many have predicted there will be persecution of Christians in the United States. Has the first stage begun already with the recent publication of three books?

    Eschatology (236)

    Nancy Geiger presents What I Learned Teaching Sunday School: The Promised Land – Heaven posted at What I Learned Teaching Sunday School.

    Frank Lordi presents Is Catholicism the Harlot (Rider of the Beast) in Revelation 17? posted at Revelations.

    Evangelism and Mission (266)

    Brian Russell at Real Meal ministries offers Living an Evangelistic/Missional Lifestyle. This essay explores practical ways to influence the world for the mission of God through Jesus Christ.

    Education (370)

    Home Where They Belong presents Mentor? Now knowing the importance of the role of mentor and remembering those that have helped to mentor me, am I ready to be mentor myself?

    Homiletics (251)

    Rev Bill presents The Art Of Preparing A Sermon. Rev Bill shares his conviction about the importance of sermon preparation, and shares some posts he has found on the mechanics of preparing a sermon.

    Music (780)

    Fish and Cans presents Importance of Song. Do you ever wonder about the songs that we sing? Do you ever wonder if they mean or teach anything?

    Chris Alexion at Welcome to the Fallout presents Oh! Gravity, a review of California rock group Switchfoot’s latest album.

    Ecology (574)

    Christians are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. Green up your closet with plant-based fabrics and get the latest on evangelicals and climate change over at The Evangelical Ecologist.

    An Announcement

    Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength posts Christian Reconciliation Carnival: Call for Submissions, an announcement for new monthly Christian Reconciliation Carnival. This month’s topic: setting the record straight for strawman arguments made against your group. Submissions by midnight on 1/30/2007.

    That concludes this edition of the Christian Carnival. We hope you enjoyed the virtual reading room. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Christian Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our
    blog carnival index page.

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  • The Problem with WWJD

    One of the primary objections that conservative Christians have to the work of historical Jesus scholars is that they often have a tendency to create Jesus in their own image, or at least in an image congenial to them. This is said particularly of the scholars of the third quest, and of the Jesus Seminar in particular. It’s not entirely a false charge, either. With the use of historical criteria one can quite easily tilt the results in just about any direction depending on what weight one gives to each historical criterion, not to mention the weight given to the various sources.

    Now this isn’t an essay on the historical Jesus quest, as interesting as that subject is. But what struck me recently was how easy it is for any of us to create a Jesus in our own image, whom we can piously follow. Conservatives can get in on the game, simply by placing more weight one one text than another. Do you need a more violent Jesus? Try the cleansing of the temple. More gentle? “Love your enemies.” If you’re dispensationalist, at least of the older variety, you can simply disregard whole swaths of the teaching of Jesus because they apply to a different dispensation.

    In the person of his followers, Jesus is both for and against the war in Iraq, both for and against capital punishment, eager to help every immigrant or determined to move them out as quickly as possible, interested in more or less government regulation (I’m really not sure where this comes from, but there are those who invoke “Christian principles” on the matter), and so forth.

    Recently I read an excellent blog post on the patriarchal movement, (Women Who Drive and the Men Who Let Them, which led me to this patriarchal article). There is much that one could comment on in an article such as this, but there were a couple of sentences that inspired this post:

    But at the same time, our culture is at war with this masculinity. This means that the men who are equipped to maintain peace in their homes will be men at war beyond the front door. A man who has what it takes to provide peace, stability and security in his home will be just the kind of man who is embattled outside. Our world system is hostile to the kind of masculinity which is capable of guiding and protecting the godly home. Centuries ago, in the great battle over the Trinity, Athanasius was told at one time that the whole world was against him. Then let it be known, he said, that Athanasius is contra mundum against the whole world. In the same way, the biblical man should know that his scriptural hardness, the necessary protective fence for his family, will always provoke a hostile response whenever he is out in the world.

    Jesus the controlling masculine he-man! This shows how far in one direction some people will adjust the image of Jesus in order to make him fit the way they want to view the world. Elsewhere in this patriarchal movement we have advocacy of harsh corporal punishment and an ungodly level of control, all practiced in the name of Jesus. (Hey, the guy ought to at least apologize to Athanasius!)

    And then there is the ultimate sign of the blessings of Jesus–opposition. Because Jesus was crucified for who he was, and because he said that his followers would be persectued, many see opposition, ridicule, and persecution as a sign of how right they are. But you can awaken opposition and persecution in two different ways: 1) Your life might be a rebuke to others because you are living so well, but much more likely, 2) You could just be a person who is obnoxious! Many, many Christians are rejoicing in opposition (persecution is too strong a word for what goes on in the U.S.) as a badge of their righteousness when it is really an indication of how little like Jesus they are.

    The problem with asking “What would Jesus do?” is that you have to be willing to look openly at the things that challenge your own way of living and of doing things. It has to be a sincere question that looks for a challenging answer, otherwise it’s just another form of excuse.

  • Doctrinal Statements and Bible Use

    A friend e-mailed me about a post which caught my attention. It seems that a blogger wanted to use the feed of the ESV Bible from the official web site, but found that the terms of service required him to accept a doctrinal statement first (relevant links are in his entry).

    Personally, I think that the blogger, Kevin Wilson, was pretty nice about the whole thing. He’s correct, of course, that they have the right to make any terms of service they wish. But the fact that they do have a doctrinal statement in their terms of service does lead me to ask something about the priority of doctrine over scripture–or the reverse.

    Personally, I’m convinced that getting people to read the Bible for themselves is a good thing. For one thing, there’s nothing like exposure to actual Bible passages in context to convince one that inerrancy isn’t a very viable approach. (Yes, I know that intelligent, educated people agree with me. They’ll say that I’m wrong, and I say that they’re wrong, which is as it should be.) Further, however, I do believe that the Holy Spirit works through the study of scripture in reaching individual minds. So I’m not even content with Wilson’s acceptance that one might not want the service used on a site that mocked the Bible.

    What better benefit could a site have than to have multiple links back to their own work from sites that opposed them? Who do they want to have reading their Bible? Perhaps this is the true confirmation of what I keep hearing from some defenders of the ESV–it was not really designed to be understood by unchurched people, so the doctrinal statement makes sure that readers will know the language into which the ESV is translated.

    But I suspect it’s more likely simply that this is an attack of random exclusivism. The site provides a translation for people who agree with them. Surely people who don’t believe in inerrancy and the several other doctrines they list will not even be able to comprehend the Bible anyhow, so what good would it be to them?

    Personally, I’m going to keep advocating easily read translations that are made as widely available as possible. It just seems like the Christ-like thing to do.

    This leads me to ask something about the priority of doctrine over scripture.

  • A New Baptist Covenant

    Former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are both tied to the formation of a new umbrella group of Baptist denominations in an article in the Washington Post. I should point out what could easily be missed–Clinton described himself as a cheerleader and refused to be interviewed. Carter is apparently more involved. This is not the formation of a new denomination, but more of an alliance of denominations that want to see a different definition of “Baptist” than is presented by the Southern Baptist convention.

    Though I’m Methodist and have no plans to become Baptist, I certainly would welcome such an organization simply because the voice of the large number of members represented by the individual denominations is often not heard. In addition, if successful, the organization will combine the voice of predominantly African-American denominations with that of predominantly white ones.

    One of the issues that is bound to catch the eye of the press at least, is the fact that two former Democratic presidents are involved. It certainly caught the attention of the Washington Post writer. These churches should be careful not to get tagged with a political label any more than they must. While having former Democratic presidents involved in any way increases the political visibility, I would certainly not suggest they reject such involvement. I believe in separation of church and state, not church and statesman, and certainly not church and ex-Presidents.

  • Ben Witherington on the Pentecostal Movement

    Ben Witherington has a very good piece on cessationism and the Pentecostal movement. He acknowledge both the good and the not so good. It’s worth taking a look.

  • A Welcome Alliance

    MSNBC.com has a good story on scientists and evangelical Christians working together on the environment. This is a very welcome alliance.

    This isn’t a matter of anyone compromising on their principles, but rather an alliance for action on issues on which both sides can agree.