Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Evangelicals and Evolution

    One response I get to my teaching and writing on creation and evolution goes something like this: “You’re just a liberal who’s trying to do away with the Bible, so it’s natural that you go along with the secularist society around you on evolution as well.” But that isn’t the case. For example my company (Energion Publications) publishes Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. who would best be described as an Old Earth Creationist. You can imagine that as I edited his books for publication, not to mention in our personal friendship and dialog that has gone on for a number of years longer, we have engaged in a few debates on this. But the fact that by almost any measure you choose, Elgin is more conservative than I am, in the area of creation and evolution, there is no difference in the way we would handle the Biblical materials.

    That’s my long way around to get at the point that creation vs evolution need not be a conservative/liberal issue in Christianity. I may be a liberal (though I prefer “passionate moderate”) but you can’t determine that by my stance on evolution.

    Steve Martin, an evangelical Christian, has a blog titled An Evangelical Dialogue on Evolution. He left a comment on my previous post linking to a post on his blog Evangelicalism and Evolution: Why the Discussion Matters. I agree with the additional points that he makes there, and would like to call this to everyone’s attention.

    I had an experience with my pamphlet God the Creator that supports his point. A college student told me that he was talking to a fellow-student who was interested in Christianity, but whose scientific training convinced him that evolutionary theory was the best explanation for the diversification of life on earth. The Christians he talked to were telling him that he had to give up that belief in order to be a Christian. This young man had attended my seminar “God, Dinosaurs, and You” (I’m not responsible for that title), and told him otherwise. At the time he shared this with me, several more people were attending church simply because that barrier to faith had been removed.

    I would add also that as I believe the primary Christian witness is the individual Christian (and Christian congregation or community) through whom Christ is shown to others, a lack of individual integrity is critical to the gospel.

    OK, enough rambling. I’ve gotten in my commercial plugs. I don’t do that much all that often on this blog. Really! I’ll be adding Steve’s blog to the blogroll.

  • Why the Creation-Evolution Controversy is Important

    I’m going to try for a brief statement, something that seems to be an unnatural act for me!

    I am sometimes asked why I spend so much of my time on the [tag]creation[/tag]/[tag]evolution[/tag] controversy. The reason is simply that there is a full scale assault going on against free inquiry, something that is essential to the integrity and continued progress of science. As we have seen in the case of Dr. [tag]Richard Colling[/tag], scientists are asked to give up or lie about what they know to be the truth in order to meet a theological conclusion.

    Creation and evolution is simply the most obvious case at the present time. Not only is the pressure intense in church circles, so that many people prefer not to discuss the issue rather than deal with the controversy, it is also a factor in political circles as creationists seek government recognition for ideas which have failed in the scientific arena.

    There is simply no excuse in my view for what amounts to a demand to lie. This overlaps into my field of Biblical studies. Shortly after I completed my MA degree, I was interviewed by a college for a possible teaching position. I had some disagreements with the dominant theology and I recall listing these off for one person, saying I was flattered to be considered, given my degree level and lack of experience, but that I would have problems in those areas. The answer? “You don’t have to teach everything you know.” That would not be an option I could live with.

    In science the case is very clear. You go with what the evidence says, and to be evidence it must be something that can be seen by people of any religious persuasion, or of no religion at all. That’s a theologian’s way of putting it, but I think it does make the point.

    I’m not interested in theistic or non-[tag]theistic science[/tag]. I’m interested in science. My personal faith requires integrity of me, and nothing less meets that standard.

  • The Secret Diary of D. A. Carson

    I love humor and satire in particular, and I think every public figure, even if only a public figure in a minor way, should be prepared to be on the receiving end. Hmmm! It would be nice to be important enough myself to be a good target, but I suspect I’ll have to sell lots more books, get lots more blog visitors, and maybe even say a few hundred more outrageous things before it’s worth someone’s time. For now I’ll have to comfort myself with the nickname my students have given me–Henry the Heretic.

    Some folks have created a humor site, The Secret Diary of D. A. Carson, which has only been around for about a month. The authors have written some humorous things, and there’s no danger anyone will believe it’s the real Carson. In fact, the url “fakecarson.blogspot.com” should be a hint even to the most humor impaired.

    The writers say they have been approached by the TEDS administration and asked to remove their blog. They have a post asking for comments on what they should do. Check it out, but more importantly read some of their older entries. I think it’s good fun.

    HT: evangelical outpost.

  • Of Necessity and Suffering

    I’ve appreciated much of what John Piper has said about the prosperity gospel. Prosperity theology strikes me as not just false (Biblically and experientially), but particularly dangerous because it either drives one from faith and its actual benefits, or creates a very shallow Christian at best, ready to be driven away at the first difficulty. “Come unto me, all you who want to get rich,” just doesn’t sound much like Jesus to me.

    Via Adrian Warnock’s blog ( PIPER FRIDAY – Suffering is Essential to Christians), I found this set of notes from a talk by John Piper.

    I’m going to use the same quote Adrian did:

    Let me underline one of the statements I’ve already made: Suffering is an essential part of your Christian existence. I choose the word essential very carefully. Paul said to new believers in Acts 14:22, “Through many tribulations we will enter the kingdom of heaven.” This is Christianity 101. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 3:2-3 that we Christians are destined for suffering. This is your destiny—suffering. Think it not strange when the fiery ordeal comes upon you. And 2 Timothy 3:12: All who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. And Romans 8:16: We are fellow heirs if we suffer with him. There is one God-appointed path to glorification—suffering. If you are making it your life ambition to avoid suffering, you will perish and suffer forever. And all this Pauline talk is based on Jesus’ talk.

    I am not in disagreement with this statement, but I would take a slightly different angle on the issue. Suffering is an essential part of the way that the universe is put together. The difference in suffering for a Christian is one of perspective, and not one either of suffering exclusively. I’m not in disagreement with Piper here. One commenter at Adrian’s blog seemed to think Piper was indicating that only Christians suffer, which would be a foolish thing to say, not to mention demonstrably false.

    There’s also a reverse link that I have heard frequently, the idea that suffering or receiving persecution indicates that one is right. I hear this frequently about great leaders of the past. If they hadn’t been right, why would they have been so persecuted? This sentiment reflects an awe-inspiring ignorance of history, in which people on all sides of various controversies have suffered persecutions. The trinitarians, who won, were persecuted until they did win. The Arians, however, also suffered for Christ. Gnostics suffered as well. In the reformation, Catholics and all varieties of protestants were persecuted at various times for their beliefs. Persecution is an indication of persistence on the one hand, and a severely overdone desire for control on the other, but it doesn’t tell you whether someone is right.

    Back in March, I wrote about Bill Dembski’s article on theodicy, in which he argues that though evil occurred later in humanity, that evil (the fall) was nonetheless the logical cause of death and suffering. (Note that the article was revised on March 15, 2007, and the date of that post was March 4, 2007. I have not reviewed the article since that revision.) Though I have often written negatively about Dr. Dembski’s work, I find this particular article intriguing and challenging.

    I would suggest, however, that in order for their to be free will there must be options with consequences. Those consequences must offer the full range of results of the choices. Further, if there is both free will and interaction with other creatures, not all consequences of any one creature’s choices will fall on that creature alone. To take a simple example, if I fail to pay my power bill, I’m not the only one who has to sit in the dark. My wife shares that problem with me. If one person takes an incomplete course of an antibiotic, and as a result helps release a resistant strain, the consequences fall on many, not just one.

    One can easily imagine a universe in which there is no suffering, or no negative consequences, but such a universe would simply be a machine. I think it’s difficult if not impossible to demonstrate that the universe is not a machine, though most of us persist in the belief that somehow it is not and that our choices matter.

    Which leads me to a brief excursus on free will. I have heard many folks say there is no free will only to discover that what they mean is that our will is not completely free, i.e. that there are options closed to me. What I am speaking about here is any departure from the purest determinism. If the universe is not perfectly deterministic, and more specifically if my actions are not 100% determined by knowable causes, then I would call that free will. I would imagine a continuum, from pure determinism through absolute freedom. On the one hand, there would be no responsibility, because there would be no I with an input into my decisions. On the other hand, there would be no order against which to observe freedom in action. I’m calling anywhere on the intervening continuum free will. My feeling is that the reality is much, much closer to determinism than to complete freedom.

    I would note with some humor that every time I discuss this I seem to get someone who will tell me that quantum theory demonstrates determinism, and someone else to tell me that it demonstrates that there is some indeterminacy. I don’t know enough about it to argue with either one, though I lean to some level of indeterminacy.

    In any case, let me get back to my point. Suffering exists in the world, and it is a necessity because there is freedom. While I do not understand the physics, I can affirm that the Biblical writers believed in some degree of human freedom and responsibility. The Bible also affirms that God’s servants, even God’s very good servants, suffer. Job is called righteous, and he suffered. Jesus, according to Christian theology, made all the right choices in his life, and he suffered. The question is not whether some form of hardship will come, but rather what will come of the hardship.

    And let me make a little point here. Suffering is hard to measure, and it is probably better not to even try. When our son was suffering from cancer, one of our friends complained to my wife about a problem she had, and then was embarrassed. “How could I complain to you about my tiny problem when you are facing such a big one?” she asked. Well, just what a particular problem does to you isn’t that easily measurable. Even the moment in a situation that is hardest to take differs. I recall my lowest point being when I spoke to the doctor and heard the word that cancer had spread and was not treatable. My wife was overseas leading a mission trip, and I knew it would take hours at best to contact her. I’ve never felt anything like that pain and isolation, even when he died. (It’s coming up on the anniversary of that, September 22, so it’s kind of running through my mind again.)

    My wife Jody has just written a book about grief (which also is making me remember), based on what she learned in 12 years as a hospice nurse and our own experience. In it she said:

    I believe that each loss is personal and the degree of grief or pain is personal and cannot be compared!

    (OK, here’s the shameless advertising plug. The book is Grief: Finding the Candle of Light and should be shipping September 21. She has also written about this on her blog here.)

    The question is not one of quantity or whether or not you will suffer. Suffering is an essential. The question is what you are going to do with it. One of the things both my wife and I have been able to do is to listen with sympathy to people who are undergoing loss, and occasionally even to talk to them. Many people were encouraged by the way that James faced death. That is a good thing that happened. I know a number of people who started to wear “Live Strong” bracelets because of what they saw in James’ life and the way he faced death. More importantly, they determined to “live strong” themselves.

    Those are good things. Now comes the odd question. Did God kill James in order to accomplish those good things? I’ve found that there are some Christians who seem to need to think of it like that in order to deal with what happened. Somehow it’s easier for them to handle if God is doing everything. For others, the thought that God did it is so repugnant that they will deny it with all their force, or alternatively abandon faith because they can’t deny it, and feel certain that God did it.

    There is a sense in which God does everything. He is that First Cause (logically, not temporally) that brought everything into being. If it were not for God there would be no cells, no DNA to have copying errors, and thus no cancer. At the same time, all of those things are results of that basic law of cause and effect without which freedom would have no meaning. Thus as I see it God didn’t give James cancer; James got cancer in God’s world.

    I have been asked how I kept my faith through this struggle. I would say two things about that.

    First, I never thought that my faith would make me exempt from the troubles that are in the world. In other words, my theological thinking about suffering was refined, but not essentially changed by this experience. This is a major reason I oppose prosperity theology. One’s faith is most needed when things are not going so well. Discipline is needed when they are going well.

    Second, however, it was my faith that helped me work my way through it. To ask me why I didn’t abandon my faith in the midst of this difficulty is to ask a man in danger of drowning in heavy seas why he doesn’t let go of the life preserver. He’s in heavy seas, after all! But anyone in that situation would say, “That’s precisely why I’m clinging to this life preserver.”

    Faith will be tested. How and when will vary. You may find it impossible to compare your suffering to someone else’s. The question is whether you will grow from it, or get destroyed by it.

    PS: For more information, see my three essays titled The Hand of God, part 1, part 2, and part 3. These three essays are edited and incorporated in my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic.

  • Christian Politics

    I appreciated this post from Monastic Mumblings. (HT: The Moderate Christian Blogroll [RSS])

    I would like two add just a couple of notes. First, I think we begin to depend on politics when we cease to depend on the gospel. If we truly believe that Jesus can change lives, then we also must believe that we have a better weapon to use fighting against evil than the law.

    Second, I think it’s dangerous when we place our focus on being right about information, rather than on living right and on being in right relationship. Do I mean righteousness by works? No. That is simply another form of being right about things. Our right relationship with God should not make us feel better than other people. We simply have received more grace.

    Finally, while the article I referenced is largely about the religious right, I think we must be careful never to make a political stance the equivalent of being Christian. There are activities we can definitely point to as un-Christlike, but we should not make a political philosophy–a strategy for living in this world–our criteria for one’s place in the next. That applies not just to [tag]right wing[/tag] politics (which I opposed), but to [tag]moderates[/tag] (with which I identify) and to [tag]liberals[/tag] (who make me more comfortable than the right wingers). None is a necessary aspect of faith, and none are excluded from the label “brother or sister” based on their view.

  • Could You Take Your Pastor?

    I recall an argument in my freshman year in college, in which a fellow-student who was much larger than I was decided to end the debate by saying, “I think I’ll just beat you up!” He could have too. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. So obviously he was right.

    Well, I’ve found a second thing today that I would like to say isn’t true, but there it is. Via Locusts and Honey and Ignite I found this article by [tag]Mark Driscoll[/tag]. Now I must confess Driscoll has been dropping lower on my favorite list after his comments on the ESV which I discussed here.

    But in the referenced post Driscoll discusses his love of mixed martial arts. Now I’m not going to attack people for the sports they watch. I’m a baseball fan myself, even more so than usual because my stepson John Webb is a pitcher (AAA this year though he has some big league time). I get illustrations for spiritual things from baseball. Sometimes I even get some from football. I don’t generally watch boxing. I’m probably not “manly” enough in Driscoll’s world.

    Then he concludes thus:

    Because I am a Christian pastor I now need to find something that connects all of this to being a Christian. So, I’ll just say that while young men are watching tough men compete, the reason they don’t go to most churches is because they could take the pastor and can’t respect a guy in a lemon-yellow sweater, sipping decaf and talking about his feelings.

    Well, let me suggest something just as blunt: If you determine whether someone is worth listening to based on whether you could take him in a fight, if you despise someone because they wear a lemon-yellow sweater, sip decaf, or talk about their feelings, then you need to seriously reexamine both your intellectual and your spiritual life.

    Soon!

  • GMC not Ford

    When I see a headline like The Search for the Heterosexual SUV, I go to the actual source hoping against hope that it will turn out to be in the Onion. Of course, since I know that the American Family Association has called for a boycott of Ford, I know I don’t have much hope.

    But I go read the source story anyhow, and there I see this:

    The ministry leader says Ford’s diversity policies meant his ministry could not purchase a Ford vehicle. “Ford lost out on a huge amount of money,” he points out. “And this was money that was raised by SBM’s ministry partners — and it is just very sad that Ford continues to promote this agenda.”

    Instead, Bennett’s ministry purchased a GMC SUV that will be used to crisscross the nation, transporting a ministry team of former homosexuals who will visit churches and give their testimony of freedom from homosexuality through Christ.

    This is followed by comments from dozens of people talking about how horribly they will hurt Ford’s business by going and buying GMs or Dodges. The interesting thing is that the Human Rights Campaign (HT to Ed as well for this link) rates GM, Daimler-Chrysler, and Ford all at 100% in their support of equality for gays and lesbians. I’m really hoping to see all these people refuse to buy any of these models of cars because the employers treat their employees fairly. This isn’t family values; this is a campaign against fairness and decency!

    Folks this is why “hate the sin but love the sinner” has such a bad reputation. The problem is that in most cases when someone says they hate the sin but love the sinner they actually hate (or at least despise) the sinner as well, and that is especially true in cases of sexual orientation. When one can’t even tolerate someone else treating a person fairly, then one needs to look more carefully at just how one truly feels.

  • The Week in Church History

    Levellers has a number of interesting events and people. I linked simply because of two people: Thomas Coke, who was consecrated “bishop” by John Wesley, 9/2/1784, and J. R. R. Tolkien who died 9/2/1973. I’m pretty sure the two events unrelated, other than by the fact that I appreciate both men.

  • Not All Doctrines are Equal

    Before I carry forward into my discussion of the nature of authentic Christianity, I want to link to a couple of posts in which I have discussed my view of what Christianity is. I wish to do this near the beginning, because I will be making a number of statements about what Christianity is not, and it’s easy in such a situation to define oneself by what one opposes rather than by what one supports.

    Christianity is not totally unified. That is an understatement, of course. But while I would like us to be more courteous and open in the way in which we approach one another, I don’t believe it is essential that we be identical in order to be unified. Thus I can object to the behavior of other Christians, or disagree with them on points of doctrine without also regarding them as outcasts. The feeling may even be mutual.

    Not all doctrines are equal. I’m more concerned with someone’s belief on the incarnation, for example, than I am with their beliefs on baptism. I’m more interested in their commitment to the two laws (love God, love your neighbor) than I am about their orthodoxy on the trinity, though I am a fully orthodox trinitarian myself, to the best of my knowledge.

    So here are a few posts on Christian unity and diversity to provide an anchor point before I go talking about how different we are and how much we have changed and even should change. They are in order from oldest to most recent.

    . . . and just for fun Only Evil People Disagree with Me!

    I’ll refer back to these as necessary.

  • Which Paradigm to Check

    David Lang has written an interesting post at Better Bibles dealing with the complementarian/egalitarian debate. Readers of this blog will realize that I’m not terribly moderate on this particular issue–I’m passionately egalitarian.

    David does make a good point about polarizing arguments, however:

    . . . In the process of trying to persuade those who disagree with us, we often become even more polarized in our views. We get so frustrated with the other person for not agreeing with us and so flustered by their arguments, that we begin to shore up our own arguments and press the text to say something more clearly or explicitly than it really does. This is especially true when we see the stakes as being high. . . .

    It’s quite true that overstating one’s case can both drive neutral parties away and alienate opponents so that dialog becomes much more difficult if not impossible. I would say on the other hand, speaking from personal experience, that one can be so careful not to overstate one’s position that it becomes unclear just what the position is.

    People will then congratulate you for being a peacemaker, but the problem continues. You can spend so much time framing a debate, that the debate itself gets lost.

    David’s comments are not without merit, however. And I will keep them in mind as I state things fairly forcefully. But perhaps I will restrain myself from time to time!

    But the key point to which I wanted to respond is this:

    As I’ve observed the gender role debate, I’ve seen this dynamic played out over and over again. There is a finite set of Biblical passages which the two camps must deal with. . . .

    It’s a simple statement and is perhaps not David’s main point, but it becomes my main point. Why? Because I do not believe that this debate is a matter of dealing with a finite set of Biblical passages. We are warned to check presuppositions, so the presupposition I want to check is this very one.

    To me, the issue is not a finite set of Biblical passages. I happen to believe, for example, that at least in some of his churches, Paul did not permit women to teach. I don’t think Paul would, in his context, have advocated ordination of women. The “finite set of passages” position seems to rest on the idea that the Bible is primarily a set of theological propositions, and if we can just straighten it out so that all of them say one thing, that is the theological answer.

    I would suggest instead looking for the principles on which the various individual judgments were based. To me particular counter-examples to male leadership, such as Deborah in the Old Testament and Junia in the New are that much more significant because of the fact that they occurred in overwhelmingly male dominated societies. That is an interesting factor, whether or not there are particular texts that speak against women in leadership or not.

    This leads me to believe that I don’t have to “deal with” all of these passages, at least in the sense of explaining that they really express an egalitarian ideal. What I’m looking for is what are truly the basic principles of the kingdom.

    When I have found those I try to apply them to living in a modern society. What worked in Paul’s churches may not work in today’s churches and vice-versa. What I must be careful to do is to make sure that my behavior today is based on the same principles.

    I take this a bit further, however. It is not merely Biblical passages that are involved, but also church traditions, and most importantly the present day guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit will guide us into violating the principles that are expressed in scripture, but he certainly can guide us into seeing how those principles are to be applied in a modern context. All of this is accomplished using our reasoning powers–always under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or so we’d all like to assume.

    The paradigm that I would like to see shift is one that expects us to explain all of the texts one way or the other, and takes a look at the general trend of scripture–the trajectory, if you please–to see where God is leading us.

    I do believe passionately that God is leading us to more equality in ministry. I believe this because I see it happening in scripture–some of the time. I believe it because women have stepped up throughout church history. I believe it because I see genuine calls and gifting amongst women in areas the complementarians would reject. But most importantly, I see anything less than equality in the church as unworthy of the incarnation. The Word becoming flesh dwarfs these kinds of human barriers.