Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Larry Craig, Family Values, and Hypocrisy

    I generally try to avoid scandal stories about celebrities, though I’m much more often tempted to read, listen, and comment when they involve political figures. Listening to the arrest interview tape of Senator Larry Craig was an interesting experience. I was immediately struck by how naive I am at age 50. None of the conversation made any sense to me. I’ll have to take other people’s word for it that this was clearly soliciting. In the end, I can’t imagine he actually plead guilty even though he was innocent. Surely a politician of his experience realized the story wouldn’t stay hidden forever.

    I want to make a few comments on the reaction. Democrats are pretty happy, of course, to see another Republican get caught with his pants down, so to speak. Republicans have a harder time defending this one, though there is clearly a willingness in congress to let things pass if they can get by with it. With the information age, such behavior becomes less and less possible, and politicians will realize that if they want to be surviving politicians.

    For many conservatives, it seems that the media reaction is the main part of the story. The media focuses in on the hypocrisy issue, and this bothers them. Surely the basic moral issue is more important. Well, from a Christian moral perspective we have several issues.

    First is that this is a married man who is engaged in infidelity. I think that fact must concern us whatever we believe about homosexuality and its compatibility with Christian faith. Yes, there are many pressures that are put on a gay man by the moral disapprobation of homosexuality, but at the same time there is the sacred vow of marriage. I would suggest that any time we choose to loudly proclaim a set of values that we are not and/or cannot live up to, we are simply asking for the pressures to build. Senator Craig set about gaining power in a subset of society that disapproved of who he was. I know he denies being gay, but at the least it seems he had some tendencies, tendencies that would not be approved by his colleagues. He put everyone around him at high risk by his behavior.

    Secondly, this isn’t directly about homosexuality. Being gay is not about seeking illicit sex in restrooms. This act is dangerous quite apart from any moral view of homosexuality. We should not view this act as any different from that of Senator David Vitter in going to a prostitute. Now there are other points about the two stories that are different, but the type of sex outside of his marriage that was sought by Senator Craig is not the main moral issue.

    Third, we all find it very easy to condemn others for sexual sins. We think sexual sins are so much dirtier than other sins. I am not here trying to define “sexual sin.” Use your own definition if you have one. But other sins such as gossip, theft, accepting bribes and so forth are just as immoral in the sight of God, and yet while we condemn the people who do them, we don’t have the “yuck” reaction that we do to sexual sin. I don’t believe God divides sins into “yucky” and “not-yucky.”

    Fourth, hypocrisy is significant. In my opinion, what Senator Craig did was wrong, irrespective of any issue of hypocrisy. (I must note that it’s hard to separate hypocrisy from this one, since we have a married man carrying out the action. One assumes he was at least hypocritical to his wife.) But I do believe that hypocrisy is another offense and adds to the list, so to speak. Thus the media are not off track in pointing to hypocrisy. If a person who has said nothing about being gay, or who is positive about gay rights comes out of the closet, there is no issue of hypocrisy. Some may still object that they believe homosexuality is wrong in itself, but no issue of hypocrisy arises. When someone has proclaimed that the “gay lifestyle” is wrong, that it is a threat to family values, and that various elements associated with it should be outlawed, and then we find out he has been engaging in those very acts all along, it’s a different matter.

    It is a matter of integrity. The voters should expect that their elected leaders are who they say they are. Then they can choose wisely. Those leaders should expect that the most serious breach of trust is for them not to be who they say they are. In politics, I think hypocrisy is one of the most serious sin–very funny, I know, considering how pervasive it is. But then I believe gossip is probably the most serious sin in the church–very funny also, considering how pervasive it is.

    So would I think Senator Craig’s behavior was OK if he just wasn’t a hypocrite? Well, this is where it’s hard to separate his act from the context. To avoid the charge of hypocrisy, he would have to announce something to the effect that he believed that seeking random sexual encounters in restrooms was OK. He’d still be stuck with the legal issue–it’s against the law, but at least he wouldn’t be a hypocrite. I would think he was unwise (would “incredibly stupid” be going too far?) as well. According to my moral beliefs, he would be morally wrong. There wouldn’t be any possibility that he would be Senator from Idaho under those circumstances.

    Let me use a simpler issue–premarital sex. Now my personal moral code, which I believe is in accord with Biblical and Christian teaching, says “no.” But I know people of generally good character, who don’t approve of random sexual partners, who nonetheless believe that a period of time living together is simply a good way to test the waters. (I’m not arguing that they are right, nor would I make the same suggestion, but these are in general very reliable people.) Now supposing I read a story about a candidate for office that says that he lived with his girlfriend for a couple of years before marrying her. How do I react? Well, if he had concealed the fact, and said such behavior was wrong, and he wanted it to be illegal (unlikely these days, eh?) then I would regard him as a hypocrite, and I would be unlikely to vote for him. The reason is that his words do not match his deeds. On the other hand, if his stated believe was that this was OK, I would still give him consideration, because his deed do match his words.

    Supposing he opposed such behavior but had confessed to his prior behavior? That would again be quite acceptable to me. As a Christian I do believe in redemption and restoration.

    Which brings up one last point–restoration of fallen leaders. I’m thinking of this mostly from a Christian perspective. I believe that a leader who has fallen into sin needs to take a substantial amount of time out of leadership, followed by serving and being faithful in small things, before being restored to leadership. (I’m not going to argue the definition of “sin” here. Use your own again!) I would neither close the door, nor would I make it a revolving door. Some of what I’ve been hearing about Ted Haggard leads me to think that some folks have a revolving door. Forgiveness is good, redemption is possible, but when we’re choosing a small number of leaders we need to make as certain as is humanly possible that we have chosen good examples.

    Having done so, we need to realize that leaders will fall. The tendency to sin is a strong Christian theme as well. That means we need to hold them accountable, and they need to seek accountability to make this kind of problem less likely to occur. The most important method of preventing sin, however, is being transparent. Any time you are pretending to be someone you are not, there will be a great possibility that the pretense will slip, and the real you will show through. If you are being the real you, that danger is removed.

    (Note: I made a number of related remarks on my wife’s devotional list here.

  • Complementarianism and Suppressing Women

    There have been numerous really wonderful articles on women in ministry lately, and I have been so busy both with my own writing and editing, proofing, and formatting my very unsuppressed wife’s new book on grief, that I have not been able to get involved.

    I’m going to point to a couple of posts on Dave Warnock’s blog, and add just a few short words of my own so that if any of my readers have been missing all this, they’ll have a place to start.

    I dove back into the issue with Dave’s most recent post on the issue, Responding to comment storm, in which he deals with the storm of comments that resulted from this post in which he mentions that his wife refused to make a certain person her friend on Facebook.

    My attention was caught especially by just a couple of lines:

    . . . It is not and cannot be up to you to judge whether your actions make women feel inferior. You cannot do that, I cannot do that, no man can do that. Only women can judge whether complementarianism and male headship does that to them, in that way the evidence is clear.

    I have also frequently heard the refrain that certain men’s wives and daughters and totally happy and nobody feels suppressed in their churches. I also do know women who are complementarians, and would say the same thing. But I find it interesting that this apparent happiness is to be denied to others. There are many reasons why a woman might not feel suppressed in a church where leadership is confined to males. She might not be called to leadership herself. She might truly believe complementarian doctrine and thus stay away from such positions out of obedience to God as she sees it. I do think there is a certain peace in obedience to what you truly believe is God’s will, even if you are wrong.

    But then there is the other side, reflected in Dave’s comment that I quoted. We truly can’t speak for others. We can’t know how our attitudes and our speech impacts other people. I recently was able to rejoice as a woman with whom I am acquainted was sent out to pastor a church. She had felt God’s call when she was 10 years old, I believe, but her grandfather told her that women could not be pastors and she should forget about it. She did, but then with her children grown the call came again, and now she has the peace and joy of obeying that call. What impact did that grandfather’s denial have on God’s kingdom?

    But I really want to share my own personal perspective. My wife and I attended a service at a much more conservative church than we normally attend. At that service, the minister expressed the complementarian view rather forcefully, and then offered communion. It was open communion. I was simply amused at the sermon. I thought it was theologically and Biblically naive, though presented by someone who has a PhD in Biblical studies. It wasn’t just the complementarianism but the related church structures that he improperly inferred from scripture. Basically, I saw it as a theological debate.

    My wife, however, felt differently. I could tell that she was hesitant and a bit withdrawn during communion. She told me afterward that she had questioned even taking communion, but had finally forced herself to do so. The man was still a Christian brother. But what was a theological debate to me was a personal affront to her. What’s more, she was right, and if I had been fully sensitive to her perspective, I would have heard it as an affront. It said, “You are not what you claim to be.” She is called to be a teacher. She is a teacher of exceptional skill. Denying that role is an affront. Complementarians don’t see it. They think it’s some kind of pride issue. But of course the only people who are to humble themselves are women.

    For my wife to “humble herself” under those circumstances, however, would be an affront to God, because she truly believes she is called by God. It’s not something she can just put aside and ignore because some bigoted church leaders say it isn’t so. There’s a prophetic action against injustice that is called for, a proclamation: “I am called of God.”

    Does she need to disrupt someone else’s service? No. It’s their church. She doesn’t need or want to do that. But she isn’t going back there, and she will be very clear in other circumstances as to what her call is and to the fact that she rejects any claim that denies it.

    But let me get more personal about myself. I also cannot claim to define how others will feel about what I say and how I act. I have been egalitarian since at least my college years. I support ordination of women in ministry. I believe my wife’s call is at least as important as my own, and quite possibly more so. (I have no standard of measure, so who knows?)

    But when my wife felt she was supposed to submit a resume for a job in another city, she took some time to bring the issue to me. Why? She felt that I would not consider the move because of my own work circumstances. What had I done to give her this impression? I’d made some negative comments about the job option involved, amongst other comments that seemed minor to me. And I would note that my wife is not particularly shy. That particular job didn’t happen, but I thank God for the opportunity it gave for me to speak positively and precisely about how I viewed her calling. I made assumptions about that, and I should not have done so. (Note that we married when we were both in our 40s. There hadn’t been a large amount of time for her to evaluate my response.)

    There’s a certain amount of man vs. woman stuff here. I tend to breeze by things about feelings; she doesn’t. But at the same time, none of us should assume that we can speak for someone else on what will seem oppressive and what will hurt. We need to give consideration to what they express themselves and make as certain as we can that they are free to make such expressions.

    Final note: Dave has a number of good links related to this issue here

  • Bible Translation and Fundamentalism from a Wesleyan Perspective

    Dennis Bratcher, of the Christian Resource Institute, has an exceptionally good article on neo-fundamentalism, with a focus on the TNIV and Bible translation, looking particularly from the Wesleyan tradition. (He is Nazarene). There has been a frequent tendency amongst Wesleyans to borrow theology from the Calvinists, but not to go as far on certain points. I would note also that sometimes Wesleyans who are not part of the charismatic or pentecostal groups borrow some theology back from those sources, often without careful consideration of how it all fits together.

    I have encountered people with cobbled together theologies made up of mismatched elements from the Calvinist, charismatic, and Wesleyan traditions. Now often United Methodists are loose enough about their theology to make it sort of work. But Bratcher calls on Wesleyans to at least ask how this might be view from a Wesleyan perspective.

    I’ll leave the rest to him. Go and read.

  • A Static and Authentic Christianity?

    In a previous post, I promoted some comments in which Barry Jones of The Village Atheist web site questioned whether my version of Christianity was authentic. In particular, he believes that Christianity should be based on the Bible and should be singular.

    This post is not in direct response, but I will say a number of things here that are fundamental to my view on this issue. There is no way that I can deal with all elements of this debate in a single post, and the main reason I have decided to carry on the discussion is that it will be such a fruitful place for me to post on my own view of Christianity. Some terms simply beg for further definition, such as just what “Bible based” actually means. Since the Bible contains no constitution for a church congregation, but rather stories about and letters to various churches, just what singular church administrative structure should be used? This, along with many other things, has come about by tradition–often by a scripturally informed tradition, but tradition nonetheless.

    But the issue I want to begin to address today is this. What validity would there be to a Christianity which is singular both now and through time? Would such a Christianity be possible, and would it be authentic?

    What I have a hard time seeing as authentic is a static Christianity. The fact is that Jesus came in and spent his time doing anything but trying to conform to a common definition of Judaism. In fact, he proposed some rather challenging ideas. Now one might claim that he was going back to an earlier time historically, but I think one would be hard pressed to find the time that Jesus was pointing back to.

    This type of approach to religious ideas is actually very common. People frequently assume that the oldest source is the most reliable in terms of theology. If we can get back to the authentic words of _____, we will just have the truth once and for all. In most discussions of authentic Christianity, there will be a common acceptance of the view that we should get as close to the apostolic church as we can. The debate is simply about just what it was, and how close we can get to it under our circumstances. The person who challenges this assumption is often the odd man out.

    But the challenger will have the historical advantage. There was no singular, unquestioned apostolic church that passed on a singular tradition. That was why debates had to take place in the early church. If one could pick up a unified theology simply by reading the Bible, we would not have needed church councils to define doctrinal positions. But the fact is that without such church councils there wouldn’t even be a “Bible” from which to derive those doctrines. Those councils had to define what would be regarded as authoritative and what would not.

    The interesting thing about this apostolic church is that it grew out of the ministry of a man who challenged much of his surrounding culture (though he remained Jewish throughout), who was definitely pushing for something new and different. The Sermon on the Mount with it’s “you have heard that it has been said . . . but I say unto you” statements is not one that would be preached by someone intent on maintaining tradition and the status quo.

    But once that ministry was complete this apostolic church moved forward with wrinkles and debates, with agreements and disagreements, in other words, it wasn’t static either. So why is it that we can see a modern church as credibly apostolic if it does not itself have a lively theological dialog going on?

    Now my area of expertise is not church history, though obviously I have to spend some time there. I studied the ancient near east. My approach to Biblical studies was from ancient near eastern languages and literature. From that approach I would maintain that Judaism was no more static than Christianity was, and indeed changed greatly over time. We tend to miss this because we have in scripture a collection made over a fairly short period of time. We don’t have much documentation on the losers. What we have is documentation of the stream of tradition that became dominant.

    Now there was no absolute suppression involved. There are plenty of tracks left in Hebrew scripture by which we can tell that there was development in the thought of Israel. If we add the deutero-canonicals into the mix, we see an even more diverse mix of thinking. (Which relates to another question I ask about “Bible-based Christianity.” Which Bible?) Thus we have a new movement (Christianity) growing out of an existing diverse movement, and developing immediate diversity of its own.

    The question is this: Where is the static point in the past that should be preserved by all modern, authentic Christians? I don’t see it. I can see the drive to get at the pure words of Jesus, but even though I believe fully in the incarnation, I cannot see how Jesus would or could define a static point for all history. Whatever divinity was there still had to communicate with finite humanity, and thus those statements also are conditioned by time, place, and culture. They are extremely important, indeed foundational, to my own thinking about Christianity, but there are far from complete in answering questions.

    So what is that point? Let’s have a time slice in history that should define what a singular Christianity should be, and then consider why that point/period should be accepted as definitive.

  • Is Liberal (or Moderate) Christianity Authentic

    Barry Jones of The Village Atheist has suggested a discussion with me on the issue of the whether my sort of Christianity is authentic. He doesn’t believe it is. After the exchange of a number of comments, we’re going to discuss this here on this blog. He’ll be putting his notes in the comments, but I will promote many of those comments to full posts so that his points get equal attention.

    If anyone spots items that have gotten lost in comments and that should be placed in a regular post, please let me know. Since Barry doesn’t have a blog I would like to make sure that all of the debate gets as close to equal billing as is possible.

    This won’t be a formalized debate. We’re just going to discuss publicly on this blog. Anyone is welcome to join in via the comments, or from your own blogs with trackbacks. I will promote any links to or trackbacks from relevant posts from the comments into a regular post so that you get your incoming links numbers up as well. Note that I will only promote relevant posts.

    I’m going to start by entering three comments from the previous post, the first from Barry, my response, and his response to that. Probably tomorrow, I will respond further to this exchange in a new post.

    First from Barry:

    I genuinely don’t understand why you are so annoyed at the actions of these “Minutemen” in their condemnation of the church’s accommodation of homosexuals. No-one can deny that the Bible, and by inference God himself, is violently opposed to (male) homosexuality (despite the fact that, by creating Man, he must also have created homosexuals.)
    Are not these Minutemen simply obeying God’s proclamations, and is it not hypocritical of you and other Christians to pick and choose which parts of the Bible you wish to observe and which you will sideline? Surely, God’s word is absolute, and if he wished his rules to be modified or muted for the modern world he would have let you know?
    Although I find the anti-gay sentiments of the Christian fundamentalists quite obscene, I have some grudging respect for their willingness to stick to their guns, where you and others like you try to weasle out of what your God actually said, and invent your own version of sanitised Christianity.

    My initial response (backquotes are in italics):

    I genuinely don’t understand why you are so annoyed at the actions of these “Minutemen” in their condemnation of the church’s accommodation of homosexuals.

    The question is, “Which church’s condemnation of homosexuality?” They have a church that does, but the two churches they are protesting disagree.

    No-one can deny that the Bible, and by inference God himself, is violently opposed to (male) homosexuality (despite the fact that, by creating Man, he must also have created homosexuals.)

    No one can deny? That’s interesting, because it appears that there are at least two churches in Columbus, OH, who apparently do deny it. There are several disconnects. First, that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is wrong. There are certainly people who deny this. Second, that by inference, if something is stated in the Bible, it must also be what God thinks. There are those who believe that and those who don’t.

    One of the differences between streams in Christianity is whether theology is founded solely on scripture. The larger portion of the Christian faith does not hold to a purely scriptural foundation.

    Are not these Minutemen simply obeying God’s proclamations, and is it not hypocritical of you and other Christians to pick and choose which parts of the Bible you wish to observe and which you will sideline?

    There is nobody, and I repeat, nobody who actually obeys all the commands of scripture. It would be hypocritical of me to claim that I kept all the commands of scripture and then not to do so. It would be hypocritical of me to accuse someone else of failing to obey scripture, while failing to obey it myself, but since I have done none of those things.

    The charge of hypocrisy must be based on my claimed beliefs. That I fail to live up to someone else’s standards is not a basis for a charge of hypocrisy.

    Surely, God’s word is absolute, and if he wished his rules to be modified or muted for the modern world he would have let you know?

    And why is it that God’s word, in this case as reflected (if they are) in the Bible, must be absolute? Further, why should my understanding of them be absolute?


    Although I find the anti-gay sentiments of the Christian fundamentalists quite obscene, I have some grudging respect for their willingness to stick to their guns, where you and others like you try to weasle out of what your God actually said, and invent your own version of sanitised Christianity.

    It’s quite silly of you, who are not a Christian, to decide what should be my authentic faith. Apparently you have decided that only Biblical literalists who teach “sola scriptura” are to be regarded as authentic Christians. I will assure you that is not so. But more importantly, I follow my faith as I understand it, not as the fundamentalists understand it, nor as you understand it.

    And, if it matters to you, the issue I raised was one of courtesy. Even believing that homosexuality is evil does not give people the right to invade other people’s worship service and disrupt it.

    And finally Barry’s response to that:

    You ask “Which church’s condemnation…”

    I mean, the Church that bases its teachings on the Bible, which I take as the basic definition of “Christian”.

    Yes, you are correct, I do take the view that “only Biblical literalists who teach “sola scriptura” are to be regarded as authentic Christians.” How else can one make a definition of “Christian”, considering that the very name derives from a character in the book? Consider this – what would be the tenets of your faith if there were no Bible? You may well believe in some kind of creator God, who listens to prayers, performs miracles and grants an afterlife to those she deems worthy. But you would have no knowledge of Jesus Christ, or his resurrection, or the Ten Commandments or any of the other Bible stories that sustain your faith. No different, really, to the thousands of other religions around the world, past and present, who believe(d) in similar gods. What distinguishes the Christian faith from all others is its unique holy book, the Bible. This book is where the Christian faith originates; this book defines Christianity.

    For centuries, up to and including this day, the Bible has been promoted by the religious establishment as being the “inerrant word of God” (or some similar phrase), meaning that the Bible – ALL the Bible – is sanctioned by God. Those who wish to dispute this, and argue that certain passages are untrue or irrelevant, should, in my opinion, find a new name for their belief set, and then explain the origins of this “new” religion.

    You say there are questions over whether theology is founded solely on scripture, and that the larger portion of the Christian faith does not hold to a purely scriptural foundation. I dispute this, unless you are talking purely of the Christian “intelligentsia” (who number probably less than 1% of the total). I submit that the average Christian believer, sitting in a pew in Biloxi, or Rio, or Rome , or Seoul, believes 100% that Christianity is founded solely on scripture. However, it as a very restricted subset of scripture that they are exposed to, and a very pervasive and oppressive system that has drummed it into them probably from childhood, carefully skirting over any parts that might give rise to doubts.

    Returning to the central point of the original post, the two churches in Ohio that you mention do not “deny” that the Bible and God are opposed to homosexuality – they can’t, because it’s there in black and white for anyone to read (”If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Lev 20:13). They simply try to ignore it, and try to deflect criticism by emphasising other Bible passages that promote love for all. But the elephant in the room will not go away.

    In closing, I would say that I would not presume to decide for you what should be your faith – that is a personal matter for you. And I do agree that rudeness is never to be condoned, no matter what one’s beliefs.

    . . . and . . .

    One more point I forgot to make:

    You ask: “Which church’s condemnation of homosexuality?”

    You mean there’s more than one Church?? Why?

    I will begin my response from this point in a post, hopefully tomorrow.

  • Mainliners Stand Up!

    I use “mainliners” for lack of a better term. I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation, and it will probably shock many of my readers that it is, in United Methodist terms, a fairly conservative one. I’ll even be preaching one service there tomorrow.

    The problem I’ve found with mainliners is less that they don’t know what they believe, though they are often accused of that (sometimes justly), but that they sometimes have a hard time believing anyone else could believe something different. For example, in all of the United Methodist congregations of which I’ve been a member (three so far), and in fact generally all those I’ve visited as a teacher, there was a general acceptance of women as pastors. People would discuss the possibility of congregations having difficulty accepting a woman as pastor, but the overwhelming belief among the leadership was that those congregations would come along at some point, and no doubt at all that they should.

    Though there have been a wide variety of personal opinions about abortion and abortion rights, there is an overwhelming consensus against violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers and a certain discomfort with protesters holding up signs with mangled fetuses.

    While the views in the pew differ very often from more extreme views in Nashville (for non-Methodists, that is the center of Methodist boards and agencies), they also differ from fundamentalist churches and from far right politicians (and obviously far left).

    But there often seems to be very little action. We’re often willing to allow extremist viewpoints to dominate the representation of Christianity, and we don’t really want to stand up for who we are and why we believe that Christianity is not about the things that drives the American religious right. Now my point here is not that someone can’t be a Christian and hold right wing views on many topics. Rather I’m saying that those views don’t define Christianity, and it would me a good idea to let people know that there are Christians who differ. Nor should this be limited to political issues, but should reflect theological issues as well.

    I was reminded of this when I encountered PamBG’s blog. She is a Methodist pastor in the UK, and she wrote a post on sexism and the Methodist church, in which she said:

    We don’t take this theology seriously because we don’t hold it. However, ‘complimentarianism’ is held by many Christians in the United Kingdom including the growing ‘New Frontiers’ denomination. Complimentarianism is ‘preached’ by the Calvinist theologian John Piper who seems to be increasingly popular with many younger Christians in the UK as well as in the US.

    I think she’s right, and she’s right not just for British Methodism, but also for American Methodism. There’s a certain arrogance in failing to take seriously movements in other churches, but I suspect there’s more complacency. We’re used to being the second largest protestant denomination here in the U.S. (I don’t know what excuse our British brethren have, but hopefully it’s better than ours!). At the same time we’re in continuous decline. Some people think liberal religion will inevitably decline. Now I prefer to be called a passionate moderate, but I draw the “L” word often enough to at least embrace it with one arm. I’m really talking to everybody who’s to the left of the Southern Baptist Convention, however, moderates, liberals, mainliners, progressives, and any other set I may have missed.

    I don’t think liberal religious will inevitably decline, unless its own adherents fail to take it seriously. There are several ways to carry out this failure. One is to assume that one is the voice of the future and thus that everyone else will doubtless follow along as they evolve to new social heights. There is, however, no certainty of that.

    Another way is to assume that Christianity, as such, is of no great value. If the adherents don’t consider it valuable, it will inevitably decline.

    A third way is to ignore what everyone else is doing because we know where we’re going. But we don’t live in isolation. It’s quite possible that many of the nasty things we pride ourselves on not doing will become the norm while we’re not paying attention. That would be a tragedy, but with our current behavior, I think it would be one we richly deserve.

    Even if, especially if your positions differ from the noisy types, this is a good time to stand up and be counted.

  • Mother Theresa and Crises of Faith

    A friend e-mailed me the link to Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith. Although they use the singular “crisis,” that one crisis was one she lived with for a long time.

    I have to say that I have ample sympathy, not to mention empathy with people with doubts from time to time. I think God leaves us with an abundance of questions. Standing back and thinking in “theologian mode” that seems like an excellent scheme to make us grow spiritually. Living through it seems just simply annoying.

    It does remind me how much I dislike prosperity theology. Besides promising people something that is false–not all, or even most, followers of Jesus will be wealthy–it also encourages people to deny doubts and troubles in order to appear to be “real, faith filled” Christians.

    When our son was in his fight with cancer, from which he ultimately died at age 17, there were those who felt that if we had the right amount of faith, God would heal our son. It’s an interesting feeling to not only struggle with the reality of losing a child, but to also face the implicit accusation that it’s your fault because you don’t pray correctly or with enough faith.

    I suspect the faith that is without any doubts of being shallow. Trust and endurance are separate things. Faith, however, is not so absolute as some would like to make it.

  • Is Rudeness a Christian Value?

    The Minutemen United web site provides the following purpose:

    Minutemen United is a group of men and women dedicated to creating an environment where Christian thoughts, ideals and leaders can get traction in the marketplace of ideas. We hail from New York to California and are headquartered in Ohio ” the heart of it all”.

    But according to the Columbus Dispatch, their way of getting “traction in the marketplace” for their particular brand of “Christian” ideas is to be rude and to disrupt other folks’ church services.

    On one of the first Sundays, six people came to the church’s 11 a.m. service and addressed the congregation during a time designated for prayer requests and comments.

    Hurt said a man, who introduced himself as a minister from the New Beginnings Church in Warsaw, Ohio, started to give a sermon about how the church was acting against God’s word by accepting homosexuals.

    Members of Minutemen United also visited King Avenue United Methodist Church in Columbus that same morning, said the Rev. John Keeny.

    “They rebuked me as a pastor for preaching that God’s love is for everyone,” Keeny said.

    Interesting approach. I note that their is named “New Beginnings” and is thus neither First Baptist nor King Avenue United Methodist Church, a point they seem to have missed when deciding where to park their sermons.

    The churches would have every right to have the police throw these trespassers out. I congratulate both congregations for displaying a more Christ-like attitude than I likely would have.

    HT: Pandagon.

  • Are Atheists Autistic?

    Joe Carter has a post at the evangelical outpost [Note: Evangelical Outpost is showing a warning about browser exploit from McAfee Site Advisor. As I was admonished in the comments, I need to give warning. I’ve used the site for years, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe in doing so. Use the link at your own risk.] in which he proposes, with some caveats, that atheists may tend to be less socially aware, particularly aware of other minds, and may tend more toward Aspberger’s Syndrome. He invited readers of his blog to take a test here, which I did, scoring a 30. Since I’m a theist, that puts me close to a counter-example for his thesis.

    I commented there that I thought this approach is more polarizing than helpful, though I would admit is is no more polarizing than the suggestion some atheists have made to me that I hallucinate any experience of God. I don’t mind them doing that.

    In a reply to my own comment there, Joe states [see warning above]:

    About 95% of the atheists I have met seem to be “quarrelsome, socially challenged men.”

    His experience is different from mine. I’ve found Christian apologists to be much like this. I have also found atheist apologists to be like this. In fact, apologists in general tend to be in your face and somewhat quarrelsome. I think that goes with the territory, though I do know some counter-examples in each and every group. Personally, while Dawkins gets on my nerves, I don’t think it’s because he’s socially challenged. I’ve only read his work, and seen him on TV, but he seems reasonably personable for an advocate of a controversial position.

    If there is a correlation, and the problem is a type of “mind-blindness” then it should not be surprising to find that reason-based arguments are ineffective when trying to change their opinion of God. We Christians tend to treat atheism as if it was some form of Enlightenment-era rationalism and provide arguments that appeal to their reason.

    I’m afraid I have seen atheists as much more interested in discussing the arguments for the existence of God than most Christians. I would suggest that, rather than the intellectual arguments being ineffective because of a psychological failing on the part of atheists, they are ineffective because, as proofs of God’s existence, they are, in fact, flawed.

    In my experience, practically all of the arguments for God’s existence make more sense from the position of faith, i.e., I believe I can learn something about God through them, but they are not water-tight. Belief in God involves faith, which does not mean it is totally immune from intellectual examination, but I believe it does mean it’s not totally subject to it.

    I’ve always thought atheism was mostly psychological rather than epistemological. This potential correlation only strengthens that opinion, which is why I think it is worth exploring.

    Again, I would have to disagree. On a purely intellectual level, atheists do quite well. There’s no need to seek psychological reasons. They simply don’t find the arguments convincing. I wonder why that’s so hard to accept?

    For me, while there are pieces of the puzzle provided by arguments for God’s existence, at the core there is a serious leap of faith. That leap was not easy to take, and so I’m not at all surprised that some don’t take it, and some others don’t even believe there is a leap to take, and that I imagined both chasm and leap. Those are all things on which different people can have different views.

  • Incarnation and Women in Ministry

    I am a strong supporter of the inclusion of women in all aspects of Christian ministry. Sometimes I skip over the theology. Monastic Mumblings has a good post that covers some of the theological aspects very effectively.

    Check it out!