Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Jesus as Human and Divine Priest

    There are three passages in Hebrews that are critical to the concept of Jesus as a priest who combines divine and human attributes.

    17For this reason it was necessary for him to be like his brethren in all ways, so that he could become a merciful and faithful high priest concerning divine matters {matters dealing with God} in order to cleanse the sins of the people. 18Because he was tested by the things he suffered, he is able to sympathize with those who are tested. — Hebrews 2:17-18 (TFBV project)

    14Since we have such a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the son of God, let us grasp our confession. 15For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, since he has been tested in all things in the same way we have, but without sin. 16Let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we might receive mercy and we might find grace in time of need. — Hebrews 4:14-16 (TFBV project)

    These two talk mostly about the human attributes, though they hint also at the divine. The next one purely describes the divine attributes:

    26We now have just such a suitable high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners and come to the highest places of the heavens. 27He has no need to offer sacrifices each day first for his own sins, like the other high priests and then for those of the people, because he has offered himself once and for all. 28For the law appointed high priests who had weaknesses, but the word confirmed with an oath, which came after the law, appointed a Son, perfected forever. — Hebrews 7:26-28 (TFBV project)

    Recall that this is all being written well before the formulation of the doctrinal creeds in which the Christian community declared Jesus fully God and yet fully human. Without such a doctrinal explanation, however, we have here both elements of that doctrine. In the first passage, Jesus is our brother, one of us, having suffered temptation and faced death as we must do so, but always with the emphasis on the fact that he did not sin. Our second passage (Hebrews 4:14-16) introduces the heavenly side of the priest, but is still primarily concerned with sympathy for our weaknesses. The emphasis is on what he shares with us.

    In Hebrews 7:26-28, the emphasis has shifted completely. Jesus is able to sacrifice properly for us because he does not need to sacrifice for himself, being without sin. He is set apart from us, holy, so he can approach God. But then there is that other aspect; because he is our brother, he can also invite us to approach God with equal boldness. The approach to the throne of grace is made possible by the divine-human combination in the new high priest.

    Let’s tie this in as well to the interpretation of Hebrews 6:4-6. There we have a dire warning of destruction for anyone who falls away. But that warning can only be heard in the light of this encouragement. God, presented to us in the person of Jesus, is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, because he has seen them in action and suffered their testing. The intended message is one of great hope but yet serious warning. The author of Hebrews believes we will never get a better invitation than this.

  • Bible Translation and Literary Style

    One thing second or third year Greek students notice, at least those who manage to start actually reading the Greek New Testament, is that various books have different levels of Greek grammar and vocabulary, and different literary styles. There’s a reason why most early reading exercises from the New Testament are from John or Mark. When I first started to read Luke/Acts I wondered what happened, and the first time I plowed through the first four verses of the book of Hebrews I wondered if I’d actually skipped all those Greek classes and just dreamed I’d been there learning.

    I think we can appropriately ask just what a translator needs to convey in terms of literary style, particularly the complexity of the language does a translator need to convey. Surely these elements convey something to somebody, and they are very easy to lose in translation. For example, if Matthew or Mark use a simple and common term for something but Luke uses a rarer or more sophisticated term for the same thing, should the translator reflect this by using a simpler English term for Matthew or Mark, and a more complext term for Luke?

    Translators often give different answers, at least based on their practice in their translations. For example, in my blog entry on translation issues in the passage, I examined how various translations dealt with this issue and some reasons why one might try those various options. Recently I gave a preliminary review of a new translation, The Scriptures, and found that they actually translate the full Greek sentence as a single long English sentence. Some good questions to ask their translation team would be: “Does that long English sentence convey the same idea to English readers as the long Greek sentence would to Greek readers?” and “Is the long English sentence similar in comprehension level to the long Greek sentence?”

    Let me give my answer first this time, and then try to justify it. I think that almost any variety of translation is acceptable and sometimes useful, provided that translators and readers understand the method and purpose. Bible translators need to be more careful on this point because people often naively expect to get “the Bible” no matter what translation they use, while the fact is that each translation will convey some, but not all of the meaning of the text in the source language. This is why I offer a seminar for churches, especially lay members, about Bible translation.

    If you believe that the message of the Bible is worth communicating, then translations to meet the needs of particular audiences are of value. I would especially mention children’s Bibles. The NCV offers easy to read, short sentences and simple vocabulary to children or to those with more limited reading skill. Personally, I find that version hard to read because of those short sentences. But there are people for whom this is the best way to receive the gospel message. My personal preference is the REB, but many people turn up their noses at the loftier language it uses. It communicates to me, but not to those people. And that is the key.

    There are those who ask me why I don’t condemn The Message. After all my own charts show that is extremely low on the formal equivalence scale. (Frequently people just assume that I would accept that having a low score in formal equivalence means a translation is inaccurate. But that is not my position at all, as I have stated repeatedly. The assumption that more literal is the equivalent of more accurate is simply false.) They can point out to me how hard it is to find verses, how word studies would be impossible using that version, and how many liberties Peterson has taken with the text. But what they miss is that Peterson has also wonderfully conveyed other portions of the meaning by his method. Like every translation, regardless of translation approach, The Message conveys some of the meaning of the source and fails to convey other elements.

    In order to determine how a translation “should” be done, you need to know the audience, and what are the critical elements to be conveyed to that audience. Don’t assume that you can get everything, or that you can get everything that’s important, because you can’t get everything, and what is important varies with the audience and the purpose. This is a question I fight regularly. “What Bible version do you use?” someone will ask. Or alternatively, “What Bible version is best?” They are very impatient when I say that I use many Bible versions in answer to the first, and to the second, that I have to know the audience and purpose before I can give an answer. But those answers are correct.

    Advocates of translations that are strongly formal equivalent often use the argument that word studies are much easier to do and that one can better see the relationship between various texts on the same topic when words are translated consistently. But if I may be blunt, these people are talking to a dwindling group of Bible students who actually do that kind of work, and many of those who do use word studies based on English translations do such a lousy job that they are more of a danger than a help. The pressing need is for an acquaintance with the Bible story and the Bible message. If you spend time teaching as I do, I imagine you’ve experienced the fading of Biblical knowledge. Literary references such as to the stories of Daniel and the “law of the Medes and Persians” (for those who miss it, that law can’t be changed), the books of Ruth, Esther, and Jonah, or major episodes in the history of Israel are no longer safe. All we do by limiting the range of meaning we translate to the desires of a small group of people, for example those who wish to dig into concordances and do word studies, is to limit Biblical knowledge to people who do those sorts of things.

    Translating literary style could be an excellent goal. But the translator needs to ask a question when translating Luke, for example. Is it more important for me to convey the fact that Luke writes in a more sophisticated style of Greek than Mark does, or should I focus on conveying the story? I would suggest that in most (but not all) cases you’ll want to convey the story.

  • Dealing with White Collar Crime

    I’m glad to see that people who have committed fraud are convicted. Such things should happen for free. Newsweek (via MSNBC) interviews Allan Sloan, editor of the Wall Street Journal on why the government succeeded in this case. I think he has some good points. Some of the accounting material in this case, and the rules and methods of investment are so complex that it is doubtful you could find a jury that would understand. (I would note, a bit off-topic, that I think this brings up a 21st century problem with the concept of “jury of one’s peers.” Peers of whom? Could we get a jury of accountants or business managers to hear a case like this? I think the idea of either an expert or “qualified” jury might have some merit.)

    But my concern is with the penalties for white collar crime. We’re likely to send these guys to jail, probably at some low to medium security facility, and not only will we have the expense of what they did to the country, we’re going to have to care for them for a long time. I think we should examine the penalties for non-violent crime in general. Technology is such that people can be monitored inside society. Prison was, at one time, a more humane option for punishment than certain corporal punishments. I think we need to ask just what it is accomplishing at this point.

    I’m not talking about letting white collar criminals off. I would suggest that there might be a way to monitor them in society, allow them to make an income at a job that is monitored, and require some additional financial penalty, proportionate to what they did. If they can’t pay that off in their lifetime, so be it.

    This is just an embryo of an idea, but I think it should be considered. Along with finding a way to get out of the failed drug war, this would be an excellent way to reduce the prison population, thus reducing expenditure, and at the same time find a profitable way to harness this class of criminals. Perhaps the time has come to seriously reconsider the prison system.

  • Boycotts and Chinese Voodoo Dolls

    Every few days I get an e-mail from one or another Christian group that wants me to boycott something or try to get someone else to boycott. Though most of the e-mails I get are from conservatives, liberals are by no means immune to the urge to boycott. I’m not a boycotter. I don’t even think official “boycotts,” as in economic sanctions, generally work all that well, and they don’t have the publicity and “forbidden fruit” effects.

    So here we have the Chinese government, upset that people are sticking pins into dolls, and thus creating a black market, raising the price, and increasing the popularity. They have the force of law, but the force of culture just may be stronger. (Newsweek story Curse of the Bureaucrats.)

    Boycotts create publicity. It’s a simple fact. If you say, “boycott Walmart,” and then explain that even though their prices are lower, one should avoid shopping there because of higher moral values, what you have done is given Walmart priceless publicity for their lower prices. My wife recently worked for a short period of time at a grocery chain that competes with Walmart in our area. Of course the employees would all hear the talk about bad Walmart, and the much better service at their store. But when we bought groceries at Walmart we would frequently encounter other employees of this chain. Bluntly, we, and they, bought groceries where we could most afford them.

    One conservative boycott I was invited to join was against the NBC show The Book of Daniel. I was supposed to urge my affiliate not to carry the program because it was so bad. Instead, I blogged about it, told people they should watch the initial episode (assuming they were even vaguely interested) and decide for themselves. I e-mailed my local affiliate and suggested they should air the show and let us, the viewers, decide. Well, The Book of Daniel was not a good enough show for even the publicity effect of a national boycott to help. I suspect they had many more viewers of that first episode, but most of us decided we didn’t really care that much. On the other hand there was the show NYPD Blue, which also was the target of boycott calls, and which succeeded and prospered, substantially due to the publicity generated.

    Boycotts make a show “forbidden fruit.” Face it, ever since the Garden of Eden, people have an attraction for things that are forbidden. I don’t think just permitting everything is necessarily the answer, but we do need to consider the attraction of forbidden things when we are trying to make rules. This is likely what China is running into with the voodoo dolls. A craze like that would probably pass on its own, but you make it illegal and see how hard it is to root out, even under a repressive regime.

    There may be occasional, rare times when such action is actually profitable. I’m not certain of the figures, but I think that South Africa under apartheid was one such case. The government’s activities were so universally condemned, and people could easily enough find alternative sources, so boycotts did likely help bring the government down. But I think such things work rarely and irregularly, whether privately or government sponsored.

    Besides these political boycott campaigns, I hope we’ll think about sanctions and how they are likely to work in international relations. We just came off of some 10 years of economic sanctions prior to the invasion of Iraq. Just how did anyone benefit? We’re looking at sanctions on Iran. Will they really work, or will they just make certain politicians feel better and let them tell their consituents, “Yes, we’re doing something about Iran. We’re calling for sanctions.”

  • First Reaction to ‘The Scriptures’ Bible Translation

    Someone kindly e-mailed me a question about this Bible version, so I decided to take a look for myself. This is just a preliminary look, but you can find my notes at The Scriptures, and you can compare my results on this version with others using my Bible Translation Selection Tool.

    I would say that this version is a specialty Bible, specifically aimed at the Messianic Jewish audience, and those gentile believers who have a strong interest in it. The extremely literal style, and the use of transliterated Hebrew names, as well as the tetragrammaton and the Hebrew version of the name of Jesus, printed in Hebrew characters, will probably drive away many other users.

    One very positive point is that the translators/publishers are very straightforward about just what they are trying to do. You can read their own preface to the translation at Institute for Scripture Research. If you read their list of features and think you will like it, very probably you will. I do hope to spend some more time with this version, as it has interesting characteristics. It would be nice to work through a few chapters and critique them in detail. I’ll try to do that as I have time.

  • Hebrews 6:4-6: Can Those who Fall Return?

    Again I’m addressing a very small portion of this chapter. To get the context in mind, please read my previous post Hebrews 6:1-3: Going On Toward Perfection. These three verses have generated a great deal of commentary, because they appear to be saying that if one falls away from the Christian walk he cannot return, that repentance is no longer possible. And certainly read in isolation, that is precisely what the passage says.

    I relate my own experience with these verses in my personal testimony, Drawn to the Cross. In that experience I was led to question this interpretation by broader considerations of scripture from outside the book of Hebrews. That testimony is repeated both in my study guide to Hebrews, and in my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic.

    Here, however, I want to look more directly at the context of this passage in the book of Hebrews, to see whether any other interpretation, including my own, is possible in the context of the book. To do that, let’s look first at the major elements of the context, and then at the elements of the doctrinal statement made in the three verses.

    This passage comes right after 1:1-3, which talks about laying the foundation, and the need to keep moving forward. In my previous post on that passage I suggested that the basics of faith listed in those three verses corresponded to conversion, to one’s joining the Christian community. Following verses 4-6, we have the expression of hope that follows in verses 13-20, in which our author expresses his confidence that verses 4-6 are not going to apply to his audience. If we broaden our view a bit, this comes immediately after establishing Jesus as a priest, greater than the angels and than Moses, but still understanding our situation and our weakness. Immediately following he begins to discuss the eternal and perfect priesthood of Jesus, the way to God that allows us to approach the throne of grace boldly.

    With those elements in mind, let’s go back to the verses themselves:

    4Now it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gifts, become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5and tasted the good word of God and the wonders of the coming age, 6and then fallen away to be renewed to repentance. It’s because they are crucifying the Son of God again for themselves, and putting him to open shame. — Hebrews 6:4-6 (from my TFBV project).

    What I see as the elements of this doctrine are:

    • A person may be enlightened, consisting of tasting the heavenly gifts, partaking of the Holy Spirit, tasting the good word of God, and the wonders of the coming age
    • From that state, a person may fall, and that fall is equated to crucifying the Son of God again, and putting him to shame.
    • Such a person cannot be renewed or brought to repentance.

    Since few commentators really want to just say outright that if you’ve left the faith, you can’t return, there have been numerous attempts to explain this. Indeed, there should be, because the idea that it is impossible to return after backsliding, for example, which is a possible interpretation, seems contradictory to quite a number of Biblical teachings. One would have to picture the prodigal son driven off by his father on his return, for example!

    Such interpretations have dealt with various elements:

    • Some interpreters look at the various requirements of enlightenment, and determine that very few, if any, people have actually attained that state, and thus it would only be someone who had truly been enlightened, and not merely converted to Christianity, who would be unable to come to repentance.
    • Some interpreters deal with the idea of falling away, claiming that the falling away is not just any simple departure, but rather a complete and utter stubborn rejection, complete with public renunciation of Jesus.
    • Some adjust the concept of impossible, pointing out that it might be humanly impossible, but that with God, all things are possible

    Can the context point the way through this? I think so. First, I do believe it is right to try to find a sense of hope in the passage, because while the author of Hebrews is handing out some fairly tough medicine, there is a strong element of hope in his presentation. As I have noted, he expresses confidence that his readers will not fall in the way described here. Because of both the immediate context and the broader context of the book, I think we need to understand a more hopeful message than that you can fall from grace and you’re finished if you do.

    Further, I think that the idea of saying that it may be impossible in human terms, but with God all things are possible does not fit well in the context. We are quite clearly presenting a divine opportunity of salvation throughout the book, and I suspect the readers would hear that here. In addition, if he’s saying it’s impossible, but it’s really possible, then these three verses don’t seem to move forward very much, and it’s a strange way of saying it.

    Further, though I think the question of just how enlightened a person is before they fall is quite appropriate, since this passage follows a description of conversion, I think it is likely to contain a warning that is applicable to people at the stage of their Christian life just described–immediately after they have acquired the basics.

    As for the fall, on the same basis I think it is right to inquire what was considered a fall by the author. There are those who believe this would only be a denial of Jesus in the face of martyrdom. When the persecution was over, some would desire to return to the community even though they had denied Jesus in the face of death. Some commentators suggest that this was forbidden by this text.

    Let me suggest a view that relies a little bit on each of these approaches to interpretation, that applies a warning, and yet also provides a basis for the message of hope that follows.

    First, the warning applies to everyone who has undertaken the Christian journey. That is the context and that is what is suggested. If you have taken that first step with Jesus, this warning applies.

    Second, there is a point to which you can fall from which repentance, turning back becomes impossible. More on that in a moment.

    Third, note that it is “impossible.” It does not say that God will reject you, but rather that the repentance itself is impossible.

    Now to support this, look back at Hebrews 3:7-4:11. Here we have the review of God’s offer of a “rest” for the people of God. One of the requirements to enter that rest is that we listen to God and do not harden our hearts. Consider further the discussion, Hebrew 2:3, of the quality of salvation offered–“how shall we escape” if we neglect it?

    What I am suggesting here is that if we reject the voice of God repeatedly, and thus harden our hearts, we will come to the point at which we will no longer desire to repent. This is a necessary warning no matter where you are in your experience, because you don’t want to get in the habit of hardening your heart and not listening. Whether you are very near such a problem or far enough away, you just don’t want to go there. If you follow the “hardening” path, there will come a time when repentance is impossible. That point can also be described as one at which you would not hesitate to crucify Jesus again. The more you have both heard and rejected, the more danger you are in.

    Note also that all of this refers not to non-Christians but to people already on the Christian journey, as our author sees it. It is a warning about moving forward, and continuing to listen to and be led by God.

  • Hebrews 6:1-3: Going On Toward Perfection

    1Therefore, leaving the beginning of the message of Christ, let us carry on to maturity, not re-laying the foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith in God, 2of the doctrine of baptism, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3This we will do if God pleases. — Hebrews 6:1-3 (from my TFBV project)

    This is too short of a passage to recommend for separate study, but it will make for a reasonable sized blog entry. Put this passage inside of the broader picture of Hebrews 5:11-6:20. To summarize this background, our author has established his idea of the priesthood, and given us the human attributes of Jesus as a priest, but now he begins to make a transition to discuss the essential nature of the new priesthood. All priests had the human characteristics of the priesthood. Why was Jesus different?

    As we move forward we are going to see that a perfect priesthood, in his view, is what will bring perfection or maturity and a clear conscience to believers. The two tie together. So in these few verses we have a study of our side of the problem. What is it that we need? First, in 5:11-14, he tells his readers that they are not mature enough to hear everything he has to say. I’ve already discussed what I see as the key text here, verse 14, being trained to distinguish good and evil.

    But at the beginning of chapter 6, he calls on the people to keep on moving, “moving on toward perfection.” As a United Methodist, with connections to the Wesleyan tradition, this phrase “going on toward perfect” is an important and central text. I’m going to suggest, however, that our author has a dual meaning in mind. First, he’s moving on toward perfection, or completion, in his argument about the priesthood. There is a parallel here between the divine work and the human work. The divine priesthood, or the divine effort on behalf of humanity, moves from the partial (the old priesthood) to the complete (the priesthood of Jesus). God doesn’t stop with the job partially completed. Second, he’s referring to the lives of the believers. Now at this point I listed these in what might be seen as reverse order of importance. What he is explicitly saying is that the believers need to keep moving forward.

    But what is his primary thought? I would suggest that he sees the moving forward of the heavenly and of the earthly as necessarily intertwined. He is calling on his readers to get on board and move on toward perfection, as God did through the ministry of Jesus. He says he’s not going to lay the foundation again. In this foundation are six elements:

    1. repentance from dead works
    2. faith in God
    3. baptism
    4. laying on of hands
    5. resurrection of the dead
    6. eternal judgment

    I have heard some interesting thoughts from this, including someone who thought that one of the foundational thoughts involved was how to raise the dead, thus raising people from the dead should be a regular, foundational part of ministry. But look at the list carefully. In many modern traditions we don’t have all the elements, laying on of hands especially, in accepting someone into the body of Christ, but those in churches with a any sort of high church flavor will recognize much from the baptismal ceremony and vows. These are the elements that go into bringing people to a basic relationship with Jesus and with his church in most of the Christian tradition. So what our author is telling us is that he is not going to talk again about the basics of salvation, rather, he is going to move on to matters of the Christian life after one’s conversion. Verses 4-6 especially refer to one’s continuing Christian life.

    With that, he places even the course of his argument in the hands of God and then proceeds to some of the most difficult text in the book, Hebrews 6:4-6.

  • Praying to be Seen

    A few years ago a number of my students in an introductory Bible study class arrived very excited. There was a town coucil here in Florida (I forget precisely where), that had invited a Wiccan–a witch!–to offer a prayer opening a public ceremony. My students were discussing what they would have done about this obviously heathen prayer, and were cheering folks who had turned their backs on the person offering it.

    “I bet you would have done something good!” said one of them to me.

    “I would have stood silently and respectfully as she prayed,” was my response.

    Why is it so difficult to respect someone else’s spirituality, their prayers, or any other religious activity they pursue? Now we have a story of a school at which one student did not want to sit through a Christian prayer at the commencement, and the ACLU filed suit on his behalf and got an injunction to prevent it. I understand the student’s position. It can be very uncomfortable to be in the minority, especially a minority of one. At the same time, I must say that I have a problem with the ACLU position on this one. I think student initiated, student led prayer, even in a public ceremony should be regarded to some extent as free expression, though at the High School level there would be some limits to this. (See the story at Judge Blocks Prayer at High School Graduation, thanks to Ed Brayton, Religion and the Majoritarian Impulse for calling my attention to this.)

    I think that there are much better ways to deal with a situation like that, including finding ways during the year and at various school ceremonies to acknowledge the beliefs of students who are in the minority. I’ve been in the minority religiously, growing up as a Seventh-day Adventist. “Do you go to church on Sunday?” asks someone. “No,” I reply, intending to continue with “we go to church on Saturday. But I see the “you heathen” look, and I know this is not a person who is interested in hearing about alternatives to the expected Sunday spent in church. That, of course, is very minor, but Seventh-day Adventist businessmen often had considerable problems with Sunday blue laws. Their faith required them to stay closed on Saturday, and the law required them to stay closed on Sunday. The majority felt it had the right to enforce its brand of spiritual life.

    So back to this high school. What do the students do? About 200 of them stood up during the principals opening remarks and recited the Lord’s prayer. Now I have a serious problem with this. Whether the judge was right or wrong about the law, his injunction was the law. Those students said that they didn’t really care about that, they were going to make their prayer demonstration anyhow, disrupting the ceremony. They announced loud and clear that they were the majority and they didn’t much care what the minority thought, or what a federal judge ordered. Others at a rehearsal booed the student involved in the suit.

    Now how does a prayer demonstration fit in with Matthew 6:5: “But when you pray don’t be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray in synagogues and standing on street corners so people can see them. I tell you truly, they have their reward.” How does the attitude of rebellion stand up against Romans 13:1-7? I do believe there is a proper time to protest, but is the use of prayer as a mode of protest really something we want to do?

    But I have a better idea for us as Christians. Consider Philippians 2:4: “Let each person not look after his own interests, but after the interests of others.” What would the Christ-like attitude be in this situation. I’m not talking about the law here. What would our Christian standard be? I would suggest that Christian students–or better Christ-like students would seek to find a way to make the one in the minority feel more comfortable. Perhaps they could acknowledge his faith in some way during the ceremony. Such an approach might prevent a case like this from going to court in the first place.

    The Christian majority in this country is whining about persecution quite a bit these days. We’re dealing with words, folks, and as Christians we’re in the majority. No, your own little sect, or big sect, whatever that may be, and my sect, are not all by ourselves in the majority, but Christians are. We are mostly putting up with one another, and most of the claimed persecution seems to be cases in which we don’t get to do precisely what we want, or what we’ve always done, because there is someone pesky outsider to object.

    It’s not that we’re not free to pray; we are. Our children can pray in public school right now! They can do it legally. What is not permitted is having the state sponsor it. So the real problem is not that your child can’t pray. It’s that you can’t have the teacher force him, and other people’s children, to pray in some specified way.

    But prayer as a demonstration is just noise. I suspect, based on the words of Jesus, that God is not particularly pleased with that sort of noise.

  • Every So Often Links

    I often run across things I’d like to mention on this blog just to call folks’ attention to them, but I hate numerous, short blog entries in which my only contribution is to say, “Hey! Look at this!”

    So I think that every so often I’ll provide a series of links to things that I find exceptionally interesting for some reason or another. I’ll try to keep these short and group them by topic so you can find anything you might be interested in quickly. I’m not sure how regularly I’ll do this, but we’ll see. This will also give me an opportunity to link to some of my own material on the more specialized blogs I contribute to without cluttering this one up with excessive numbers of posts.

    Theology

    Since I so regularly find things to dislike about William Dembski and his blog (Uncommon Descent), I should mention that I really enjoyed his recent article on theodicy, Christian Theodicy in the Light of Genesis and Modern Science. I disagree with him quite profoundly, but I found the article well-written. I hope to have time to write a response sometime soon. (I started with the first version, and my link is to a revision, but you might as well go to the most recent version.)

    Methodism

    Head on over to Locusts and Honey and get into the discussion on Changes to the UMC Candidacy Process. How important is doctrinal orthodoxy in your choice of pastor?

    Nate Loucks has an interesting entry on Funding for the Poor which I found via the Wesley Daily.

    Chris Morgan’s post Just Wondering, also found via Wesley Daily (whatever would I do without Shane Raynor?), set me to wondering why we don’t set about cleaning up the act on our own side of the political spectrum instead of complaining about the other side. But then Chris continued with a nice post along that very line, titled Bipartisan Corruption.

    Bible Translation

    Wayne Leman has started a new series over on the Better Bibles Blog, discussing some material by Wayne Grudem and Jerry Thacker, titled Key Issues Re: Bible Translation: critique #1. I enjoyed the first entry. Wayne is always very careful, and gentle but thorough in his critiques.

    From My Specialized Blogs

    On the Participatory Bible Study Blog, I’ve been discussing the priesthood as taught in the book of Hebrews, starting with What is a Priest?. The series is interrupted by some discussion of 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, Baptized Foolishness. I will be continuing my series there on the book of Hebrews, but interspersing it with a few comments on other scriptures.

    On the Pacesetters Bible School Newsletter, I am doing a series on designing personal continuing education for pastors, starting here. Too frequently, continuing education is a matter of checking off the appropriate boxes on a form. What do you need to study?

    I also just started The Jevlir Caravansary, a place to play with poetry and fiction. You won’t see any more posts here about my fiction reading. That will allow me to stick to religion and society issues with my focus on the religion side here, and have fun there.

    Just Plain Funny

    DaveScot’s posting of a known hoax over on Uncommon XXXX, and the great fun had by all in trashing him for it. It was the sort of fascination that keeps you watching a multi-car pileup on the interstated. You really don’t want to see another car crash, but you just can’t stop watching! Start with Ed Brayton over on Dispatches from the Culture Wars. I do have to add my two cents worth here. I’m a Christian who teaches on prayer and advocates prayer in your home and in your church. People can pray in the military. It’s fine, and they should pray, but you do nothing for prayer or the kingdom of God by perpetuating a well-known hoax. I would add that real spirituality isn’t helped by putting the force of the state behind it, which is why I am strongly in favor of separation of church and state.

    Well, that’s it for the moment. I make no effort to produce a comprehensive list of anything. These are just things that caught my eye.

  • A Step for Abiogenesis?

    In a short article, ScienceNOW Daily news discusses some new research that may shed light on how life first emerged on this planet. I want to call attention to the article for a couple of reasons, but primarily because this, in my view, is how real science is done, and how it sounds when announced. No, they don’t know that this is an element of the formation of life, no, they don’t have the rest of the process, even the next step, figured out. What they have done is provide one more option, and filled in one more blank in the unknown.

    Michael Behe, in his book Darwin’s Black Box describes structure after structure and process after process, recounting how we have discovered new complexity as we continue to learn more about how the function. What is a black box at one point in the history of science will not necessarily remain so. Unfortunately, Behe uses all this skillful writing to produce an ode to ignorance, and complains that evolutionary pathways have not been found. He believes they never will be. But as things get more complex, one simply has to work harder to learn the details that are part of the complexity of nature. In this case, there is now a new reaction that opens up possibilities for study. Does it resolve the problem? No! But it suggests new research and provides more options for continuing the search. That’s how science works.

    Some may be wondering how I, a “theistic evolutionist” got onto the topic of abiogenesis. After all, the expected method of argument for theistic evolutionists is to distinguish evolution of life from abiogenesis. I do believe they should be regarded as distinct. But I also believe that abiogenesis will be solved, and an pathway for the origination of life will be formed. How then can I relate this to my belief that God is the creator of life? Actually, I believe God is the creator of everything. I believe God created the universe as a system, a system that works.

    Let me use the analogy of my car. I don’t regard periodic maintenance requirements for my vehicle as a sign of the wisdom of the engineers. Sure, they did well to warn me of those requirements, but I would be happier if they were less frequent, and if it were practical to produce a vehicle that never required maintenance, that would be even better. I also don’t look at the simple parts of my car and determine that they did not require an engineer, while the more complex parts must have been designed. I know that each element was put there as a part of the design strategy of the car. That they work together (mostly) seamlessly, and that I cannot find parts that are “more designed” than others is not a defect.

    Now as all analogies, this one has it’s limitations. My car is very little like a universe. But I think it does illustrate my point. If God designed the universe correctly, then it should work. If it requires periodic maintenance, like my car, it gives evidence of manufacture by a less-than-perfect creator.

    I don’t like the idea of tinkering, whether it comes at the time of speciation or when life first came into existence. I creidt life to God whether intervention was required or not, but I suspect a competent God of getting it right the first time (A “fully gifted universe” to borrow Howard Van Till’s phrase).

    So folks, I think this one will be solved in the next few years, and if you hooked your faith in God to the impossibility of life being formed from non-living matter without special miraculous intervention, you will be disappointed.

    But make no mistake, no matter how thick the gloves are on God’s hands, no matter how many processes supposedly separate him from his handiwork, it is still God that does it. An omnipresent God is not less present when working through process (and consistent processes at that), than he is working directly. The evidence suggests that he prefers working through consistent processes.