Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Honoring God with your Mind

    I’m going to write today about a neglected part of God’s creation–the human mind. It is a wonderful element of creation, one that has provoked some of the most profound philosophical and scientific writing. No, I don’t mean merely that people think with their minds and then write philosophy and science. I’m referring to writing about how the mind evolved, how it functions, what consciousness actually is, and why the mind malfunctions from time to time. Those are all interesting topics.

    My topic, however, is how Christians can choose to honor God with their minds, and why they should. (I’m addressing Christians because that’s my own faith group, not to imply that other people cannot honor God with their minds.) Sometimes it seems that every element of our faith is used against the human mind instead of in cooperation with it.

    1. Our saving faith is sometimes seen as a termination of our ethical decision making
    2. Dependence on God is often seen as dependence on him solely in a supernatural sense, what God can do for you miraculously, but not in the natural sense
    3. The inspiration of the scriptures is seen as bypassing the people involved, whether, prophets, secretaries, or readers
    4. The church offices, especially those of teacher and prophet, are seen as bypassing good thinking
    5. Laziness replaces the hard work of good thinking, as when we accept something just because we saw it in a book, and it was written by someone holy
    6. An appearance of piety can replace wisdom. When someone announces–“God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”–without being certain that God says it, that bypasses the human mind.

    It would seem that simply from observation and logic we could discover that God wants us to use our minds. He provided them. They are necessary to our survival. Even if we didn’t have scriptural statements to confirm this, it is pretty obvious from nature. But we do, in fact, have scriptural confirmation.

    How long, simple-minded folks, will you love being simple?
    How long will scoffers delight in scoffing?
    And fools hate knowledge? — Proverbs 1:22

    Now I could spend my time listing texts that back this up further, texts that talk about thinking, wisdom, using our minds, and our choice. They are a strong theme in scripture. But I’m going to assume you either know or can find the texts. I’d just like to call your attention to two texts. The first is from the words of Jesus.

    15Watch out for false prophets, who come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16It’s by their fruit that you’ll recognize them. 17People don’t gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19That’s why you will recognize them by their fruit. — Matthew 7:15-19

    This is a sentiment that Paul repeats in Galatians:

    7Don’t be deceived! God won’t be mocked! Whatever a person plants is what he’ll harvest! — Galatians 6:7

    These two texts make it clear that God has not abrogated the law of cause and effect in his kingdom. The law of cause and effect is one that is basic to human thinking. It’s clear that God wants you to think about the consequences of your own actions, not to mention the words and actions of others. What people think, what they say, and what they do does have consequences. (I discuss choice and the kingdom in the pamphlet Seven Kingdom Principles of Choice, and its relationship to salvation in my essay A Fruitful Faith. I believe that the twin principles of choice and fruit operate throughout the kingdom of God.)

    So how can one honor God with one’s mind? Primarily by using it!

    Our saving faith is sometimes seen as a termination of our ethical decision making

    Some may have wondered about this first point in my list of excuses above. Aren’t we saved by grace? Are we not to accept salvation as a gift? Indeed we are. But Paul noted the same problem I’m noting. My point is certainly not original with me–it’s Biblical! Paul uses most of Galatians 5 and the first several verses of Galatians 6 dealing with the possibility that some would take their salvation as permission to sin. He makes it clear that’s the point. I think the best antidote to this type of thinking is for us not to think of salvation merely as a ticket to heaven, but as spiritual healing. When we think of it like that, we might find the question rather silly. If the doctor provides you with a cure for your disease, and does not charge you (a true miracle, I know), you have received the free gift of healing. But if you go home and say, “I want the disease, I’m going to get it back,” you may well be able to make yourself sick again. You can’t then complain to the doctor that his free gift failed. You set his gift aside.

    Christians sometimes depend on Jesus to save them from sin, while at the same time they indulge themselves in destructive behavior. I’ve been working on a paraphrase or representation of the story of Susanna (Daniel 13, from the apocrypha) for my literature and fiction blog, The Jevlir Caravansary. Update: The article is now completed, Susanna: A Transformation. What struck me as I read that story is that the elders who falsely accuse Susanna do everything possible to lead themselves into sin and eventual destruction. They dwell on their temptation. They hide the fact that they are being tempted. They get as close to sin as they can. When eventually they are caught, everything that follows is inevitable. Christians are often like that. “Why won’t God free me from my addictions?” someone asks, at the same time sitting with the object of his addiction readily available. Grace opens the door, grace makes it all possible, but no number of gifts will make you rich if you throw them all away.

    Dependence on God is often seen as dependence on him solely in a supernatural sense, what God can do for you miraculously, but not in the natural sense

    In my second point I mention depending on God only supernaturally. The problem here is that Christians take actions that will bear one form of fruit while expecting God’s supernatural intervention to produce other results. I am not denying miracles, or asking anyone not to pray for them. I pray for God’s power and God’s action myself. But I also know from scripture that God normally folllows the simple law of planting and harvesting, or as Jesus said, of bearing fruit.

    God’s supernatural power is not there to provide you with a license to ignore God’s laws, whether moral or natural laws written in the fabric of the universe.

    The inspiration of the scriptures is seen as bypassing the people involved, whether, prophets, secretaries, or readers

    This laziness is generally manifested when people simply use “God said” for anything in the Bible. There are portions of the Bible that are identified as the words of God, but there are also large portions which are not. I have even heard Job’s friends quoted as what “God said,” and they are soundly condemned by God right in scripture. It takes more work to find out what God is doing when he acts in history or in our own lives than it is simply to find a phrase that says what we want it to, and then to quote it, but it also means that very often we are ignoring what God actually meant, while taking on the appearance of affirming his word.

    The church offices, especially those of teacher and prophet, are seen as bypassing good thinking

    God put prophets and teachers in the church for a purpose–to help bring his word to the people. I’m going to be brief about this, but it’s very important! Please think about it! Now that we can all enter the sanctuary with confidence (Hebrews 10:19), we have as our goal getting everyone to approach God for themselves. The goal is not to teach people to accept what we, as teachers, prophets, or leaders, say, but rather to get them to think for themselves, and to listen to God for themselves.

    For the individual, the goal is to approach God individually, and not to depend on the teacher, preacher, or even prophet. It may be harder, but it’s the right goal.

    Laziness replaces the hard work of good thinking, as when we accept something just because we saw it in a book, and it was written by someone holy

    This is the printed version of the previous point. Some people think that just because it’s in a book it must be true. Many who know that one can’t trust it just because it’s in print, will trust it because it’s in print written by someone well known. But I have a secret (not really!) to tell you. There are plenty of Christian books in print that contain misinformation. I’m not talking about differences of opinion–I’m talking about things that people from many different perspectives could agree were just factually wrong. I find, for example, that a distressingly large number of “insights” brought from Greek or Hebrew in popular books are simply wrong, while many others are at least misleading because they don’t have the proper context.

    When you get information from a book, you need to check references, and then you need to assure yourself that the references themselves are reliable. There are some facts making the rounds in Christian books that have simply been quoted so many times that everyone “knows” they are right, but nobody knows precisely where those facts came from. You need to check back to a primary source–the person who actually observed and recorded the data in the first place–whenever possible.

    You are responsible for planting seeds in your mind. You are the one who is going to bear the fruit. You need to honor God with your mind by looking up the information.

    An appearance of piety can replace wisdom. When someone announces–“God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”–without being certain that God says it, that bypasses the human mind.

    It’s easy to dishonor God while sounding extremely pious. I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone say, “I’m just doing what the Bible says,” or “That is just God’s word!” when they are not, in fact, correctly quoting the material or are taking it badly out of context. (For some help with context, see my essay Understanding Context.) What God says for a specific situation should settle it, but what God says and what people say God says may well be two very different things.

    Always remember: You will harvest what you plant, and you are the one who chooses what to plant!

  • Mission and Prosperity

    In God’s economy, there is never prosperity without mission.

    I’ve been thinking about this in the last few days in connection with a number of issues, and I think it is a scriptural principle. I think you can replace “prosperity” with other terms of blessing, such as peace, joy, and fulfilment. This is where, in my opinion, modern prosperity preachers are missing the point. It’s not that they don’t mention mission, it’s that they put prosperity in the first place, and then mission follows after. I believe God puts mission first.

    Is this Biblical? Let’s look at a few examples.

    Many of my friends frequently remind me to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6). Now I don’t want to diminish in any way the need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. But there is some baggage that comes along here. Read the rest of Psalm 122. You will find there a call for worship, a call for obedience, a call to carry out justice, and the call for prayer itself is aimed directly at the house of God and the presence of God. Mission is implicit throughout the passage. This is not an either/or situation. The peace of Jerusalem does not occur in scripture without justice and righteousness in Jerusalem.

    But as gentile Christians, we need to look just a little further out. This Psalm calls upon us to preserve centers of worship, to be glad to go into the presence of God, and to aim our prayers in that direction. Don’t miss the physical Jerusalem over in Israel, but don’t miss the presence of God here and now either.

    A friend once told me that praying for Jerusalem was a way to get a cheap blessing. But I don’t think there is such a thing as cheap blessing. The blessing has to go with commitment. A friend of mine passed a way a couple of years ago. She was a friend of Israel, and definitely prayed for the peace of Jerusalem. One time when she returned from Israel she came back with a new understanding and sympathy for the Palestinians as well. Her love of Israel was undiminished, but God had made a place in her heart for someone more. I could sense the blessing and the anointing that resulted from that growth. Her prayers were not cheap prayers, nor were they a means to an end. She not only prayed for the peace of Jerusalem, she invested heart and soul, time and money in it.

    Some may think the mission in Psalm 122, as clearly as I see it, is not so clear. Let’s look at a couple more passages from the time of the exile. Isaiah announced:

    ?6? I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,
    I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
    I have given you as a covenant to the people,?a?
    a light to the nations,
    ?7? to open the eyes that are blind,
    to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
    from the prison those who sit in darkness.
    ?8? I am the Lord, that is my name;
    my glory I give to no other,
    nor my praise to idols.
    ?9? See, the former things have come to pass,
    and new things I now declare;
    before they spring forth,
    I tell you of them.

    Isaiah 42:6 (NRSV)

    Note the call and the covenant are brought in a context of mission. God affirmed the same thing through Ezekiel when he said:

    Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. — Ezekiel 36:22

    I commend all of Ezekiel 36 to you to read.

    But why should this be at all surprising? The concept goes back to Abraham who is told that God will bless him and that he will be a blessing. From that first call, blessing came with mission, and mission was the focus of blessing.

    Jesus expressed the same concept when he said:

    First look for God’s kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. — Matthew 6:33

    Notice the focus! Mission is at the center, and “all these things” follow from mission.

    If you are praying for peace, prosperity, joy, or any blessing, and feel that you are not receiving it, perhaps you need to consider two possibilities. First, God may be working on you, preparing you for mission. With him, the kingdom comes first. But second, it may be possible that you haven’t gotten the mission, you haven’t gotten the vision, and thus the blessings can’t follow. God isn’t going to give you the blessings of a great and powerful mission for you to hoard.

    Get the mission, catch the vision, the blessings follow.

  • KJV Only: Anatomy of an Argument

    Recently I’ve talked a fair amount about using numbers as a means to dress up lies and make them look more respectable. I even discussed the issue in a Sunday School class I was invited to teach last Sunday, using the various ways in which grocery (or any) prices and sales can be stated and how those various ways can be used to deceive the consumer into buying something more expensive while thinking he’s getting a bargain.

    (As an exercise, if you’re not sure you understand this idea, make a list of all the ways in which prices and specials on particular items are stated. Your list should include things like 1/2 off, 20% off, $x.xx off, 2 for the price of one, buy one/get one free, and so forth. Then think about how these numbers might be used to make the price of any particular item look better. The bottom line is that you have to bring all prices into relation to a single standard by calculating a price per unit, thus comparing the actual value you’re getting. You do have to be careful with the units used as well. I found myself comparing the price on two rolls of packing tape, one was $3.47 for 54 yards, and the other was $2.38 for 60 meters. You should be able to do that one on sight! Now consider that when people present statistical arguments to you, they have more ways even than the grocer does to make the numbers appear the way they want them to, all without actually telling a direct lie.)

    It’s interesting that just as I’m writing about numbers, I get an e-mail in response to my Bible Translations FAQ that brilliantly illustrates precisely the type of misdirection and lying with numbers that I’ve been talking about.

    The e-mail consisted of a text, badly abused, followed by a table of numbers, followed by a paragraph containing his challenge. I’m going to look at the last paragraph first. The correspondent identified himself simply only by his initials, so I’m going to call him C, for correspondent.

    C states:

    So, as you have so aptly put it in some of your responses to others, “Them’s just the facts”.

    Well, no, them’s just the lies, as I will show below. Claiming something is a fact doesn’t make it one.

    Let’s see you include this e-mail to your web site section on “KJV Bible Translations FAQ”;

    I’ll include a link to this blog entry. How’s that?

    if you truely don’t have a hatred for the KJV (as you’ve stated), then you would have no problem presenting the facts as they stand, without your commentary, and let the reader decide for themselves based on the factual evidence!

    My rejection of your arguments has nothing to do with hating the KJV; it has to do with the fact that your “facts” are wrong, and your logic incorrect. You would, of course, like me to post your table without my commentary, because falsehood hates the light. You know that any commentary on your table will show it to have no evidentiary value whatsoever. The only hope you have for such arguments to work is that people who don’t know better will read it quickly and think the numbers and your assurance in presenting them is impressive in themselves. You absolutely can’t afford to have anyone think about your little number table.

    I sure hope this e-mail contains enough “substance” worthy of your response!

    Actually, your argument is simply a repetition of the argument I answered in my Bible Translations FAQ, #12, based on the majority of the manuscripts. The only reason I’m responding to it is because you provide such an excellent example of abuse of numbers in making an argument.

    Concerned for the lost,

    Bluntly, I doubt it. If you were concerned for the lost, you would likely be more interested in the gospel message and less interested in the support of a nearly 400 year old Bible translation that now more often than not stands in the way of people who want to understand the Bible. The KJV Only position is not a position that honors the word of God. It is not “Bible believing.” It is man serving in two ways: First, because it elevates the work of human beings–a translation–into the position of God’s actual word, and second because it serves primarily to support the positions of spiritual power of its advocates over others. It is destructive spiritually and intellectually.

    Now, let’s look at the table:

    The KJV Greek Text Attested by the Evidence

    Manuscripts

    Total

    WH/TR

    %MSS
    WH/TR

    Papyrus

    81(88)

    13/75

    15%/85%

    Uncials

    267

    9/258

    3%/97%

    Cursives

    2764

    23/2741

    1%/99%

    Lectionaries

    2143

    0/2143

    0%/100%

    Totals

    5255

    45/5210

    1%/99%

    Now let’s consider this chart briefly. I’m not going to deal with the actual numbers, though there appear to be some errors there. For example, it is quite doubtful that the editors of the Textus Receptus actually consulted 2143 lectionaries. But even if all of these numbers were correct, the chart as it is would convey a lie. Numbers require a context; they do not have independent meaning. In this case, the numbers are tabulated so as to suggest that many less manuscripts were used in producing the Westcott & Hort text than in producing the Textus Receptus (TR), and the TR is inturn equated to the KJV Greek text. In some way, not stated, this is supposed to convince us that the KJV text is correct.

    No reference is given for these numbers, but one is quite easy to locate. A google search provides us with The Bible Believer’s Baptist web site has their Bible Tidbit #65: Westcott & Hort which is itself a disgusting ad hominem attack, contains such a chart, and they reference it to THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIANITY without providing further information. This tactic is used by KJV Only advocates to make their arguments look more respectable–after all, the source is an encyclopedia. But a little more checking leads us to the encyclopedia web site, The Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible and Christianity. Here we discover of this “encyclopedia” that:

    “It is the only Bible dictionary/encyclopedia that is written by a Fundamental Baptist and based strictly upon the King James Bible.”

    and

    It does not correct the Authorized Version of the Bible . . .

    So it is a KJV Only advocates encyclopedia, giving them a respectable sounding reference for misinformation–and this chart is definitely misinformation.

    Here are the issues with the context and presentation of these numbers:

    1. What does it mean to “use” a manuscript? We are told how many manuscripts were used by the editors of each text, but we are not told what is meant by this. I am not nitpicking here. As an undergraduate, I had to produce a critical text of a passage working solely from available manuscript photocopies and collations. I worked with about a dozen manuscripts, and based on my knowledge of family relationships and so forth was able to produce a reasonably accurate text, certainly better than the TR. Does “use” mean simply to have them around? Does it mean to examine each reading in each one? Do you “use” a manuscript when you reject its reading, or does only acceptance of a reading count as using? Clearly, we don’t know what these numbers represent. This in itself would render the chart useless as evidence. But there’s more.
    2. The TR is equated to the Greek text of the KJV. It would be easy to claim that the two are “close enough” because they are, indeed, very close. And yet we’re dealing here with KJV Only advocates, who believe that any deviation is too much. Thus the equation of the TR is deceptive.
    3. There is an implication that the TR is based on the majority of the manuscripts, and thus is equivalent to the majority text–a text based simply on counting manuscripts. But this too is false. The KJV includes the long text of 1 John 5:7-8, for example, which is definitely a minority reading, and is also definitely a significant variant, and yet a consistent majority text would have to exclude that passage.
    4. Why is the Westcott and Hort text being used in comparison at all? Westcott and Hort advanced knowledge of the Biblical text and were pioneers of modern textual criticism, and yet almost nobody actually uses their text any more. Go to any Christian bookstore, and you will not find any version produced within the last century that uses the Westcott and Hort text. Besides the simple fact that the text criticized is not the one used in preparing modern versions, this particular piece of misdirection prevents people from checking the numbers as easily. The United Bible Societies 4th edition, commonly used as a starting point by modern translators lists 69 lectionaries, for example. Anyone who understands the study of textual criticism will realize that 69 lectionaries is actually a substantial survey, provided these are chosen from different text groups.
    5. Finally, why is it that one should be concerned simply with the number of manuscripts? That is the implication of the chart. It suggests that modern versions are using a minority of manuscripts, and that this practice is bad. But the simple fact is that the more time that passes between the writing of the autograph and the creation of a copy, the more likely it is that manuscript generations have passed. This is not the only criterion in determining which is a better manuscript, but it is a very important one, and one which makes the entire chart completely ridiculous. Manuscripts are not equal, and because of the nature of manuscripts–they decay–the majority of manuscripts are relatively recent. We only have a few manuscripts from the first few centuries of Christian history

    All this chart does is wrap the respectability of numbers around a much repeated lie. If you stop and examine the numbers, and consider what they actually mean, you will find that these “facts” do not convey what their author has dressed them up to convey. That is what you need to do with all deceptive numbers.

  • KJV Nostalgia and Standards

    Suzanne McCarthy, on the Better Bibles Blog has blogged somewhat about nostalgia for the KJV language and for the standard English Bible that was accepted by everyone in a post titled The 1611 King James Text. I like Suzanne’s work, and this is not intended as a critique of her comments, but she collects the various links quite nicely and I’m saving time (and being lazy) by linking to her and you can follow the rest from there. Besides, Better Bibles is a good blog for you to look at anyhow, and I have a list of posts there that I intended to comment on, but haven’t had time. (Hmmm! Having read this again, I want to repeat that nothing here is aimed at Suzanne’s post; I thank her for the convenient references and for her useful comments.)

    I want to examine briefly the key element that most of the nostalgia posts about the KJV have in common, which is the element of moral authority. In the past, the argument goes, there was the KJV which all regarded as a standard, and which was used to settle all arguments. This admirable (to some) state of affairs has now been shattered by the existence of multiple translations so that nobody is sure anymore what the Bible really says.

    This reminds me of a young man who came by our booth at a show where I was displaying my book, What’s in a Version?. His major question, repeated often through about a half an hour of discussion (it was a slow show) was this: “What is your absolute standard? Where do you have a book that you can hold in your hand and say, ‘This is the Word of God’?” What he wanted was something in English, accessible to him, that gave the absolute answers.

    The answer to his question is that no such book exists, no such standard exists, and none has ever existed.

    Previous generations may have been sure that they held the absolute one and only Word of God in their hands when they held their KJVs, and modern KJV only advocates may try to stand in their footprints, but they are both surely wrong! The fact is that even if we had only the KJV to guide us, there would remain substantial differences of interpretation. We might be pointing back at the same book, but we would not be getting the same standard things from it. But that’s not really the issue or the state of affairs.

    • When the autographs were penned, there was no Bible, there was just a collection of scrolls. There was no single book that one could hold and say, “This is the Word of God!”
    • When the New Testament canon was finally collected, the autographs were probably no longer in existence, and certainly not collected into a book. Differences between manuscripts, sometimes substantial, already existed. There was no single book that one could hold and say, “This is the Word of God!”
    • When the New Testament and the Hebrew scriptures (as the Old Testament) were first collected together into books, the version of the Old Testament used was a translation, and one of quite variable quality. There was no single book that one could hold and say, “This is the Word of God!”
    • When the KJV was translated, based on several earlier English versions, there were both numerous translation options in English, and numerous variations in the available manuscripts. There was no single book that one could hold and say, “This is the Word of God!”

    This search for the supposed “standard” in the form of a book is simply a search for security where none is available. There is no great benefit in being sure but wrong, as our ancestors were in regarding the KJV as the one authority. The weakness of that position is demonstrated by the collapse of that position when contrary evidence was discovered. Now there are many who thought that such assurance was available in Christianity give up because they find that it is not available. It was a false trust, and it failed because it was false. There is no benefit in trying to step back towards an imagined standard.

    Let me be blunt. I think the problem here is much the same as the problem with idolatry–we put our trust in something less than God. Stealing from Tillich, we make our ultimate concern the KJV, which is considerable less than ultimate, and thus fall into idolatry.

    In supporting this idolatry, we use the standard arguments of idolatry, which go back at least to Exodus 32. Moses is missing. We don’t know where God is. We need something to hold on to, we need assurance, we need a standard. So we make a calf.

    There is no such standard, indisputable, not subject to misinterpretation, easily accessible to everyone. It does not exist. Short of God, that is. Inventing an alternative is idolatry and is doomed to failure.

    God has given us minds. He has created and he sustains a universe that is susceptible to serious study using those minds. He has given us the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, as our guide, and he has provided the guidance of the past experience of those who were in communion with Him through the Bible. Now we just have to use the tools God has given us to make good, Godly decisions for our lives and for our communities.

    It’s not really that hard. But our natural human laziness asks God to provide us with clearer answers, ones that don’t take work. We are like a man provided with a stream filled with fish, rod, reel, hooks, and bait, who complains that he lacks fish because they won’t jump out into the pan. What God doesn’t provide we simulate, and because God knows that is our tendency he has forbidden us simulation as idolatry. He wants us to have the real thing.

    He could make us with finished characters, but he doesn’t. He lets us mature.

    14Solid food is for the mature, for those who through practice have exercised their understanding to distinguish good and evil. Hebrews 5:14 (from my project)

  • Creation and Evolution Summer Camps

    Summer camps to indoctrinate children on creationism? Look at this article: Beliefwatch: Camping.

    I certainly have no objection to churches teaching their beliefs at summer camp, and I congratulate the Unitarian-Universalist church on having a camp on discoveries in science. What I sincerely wish we would see would be a Christian camp that would teach about the variety of views of God’s creation that are held by Christians. This could be a unity building event, letting children know that Christians disagree on how God created, but we all agree that God didcreate, and that he is the creator.

    Such classes could help ease the current atmosphere in which a Christian who is serious about his or her faith is often beaten back to the peripheries by misguided people who believe only creationists, or in some cases even young earth creationists are really Christians.

  • Nostalgia and Idolatry

    In worship recently I was privileged to hear a group sing some old gospel music. They were enthusiastic, energetic, and clearly enjoyed worshipping God through their music. As I sat and listened, I could feel a wave of nostalgia roll over the congregation. There was the feeling that this was the sort of service–campmeeting style, singing good old hymns, and expressive–in which they had really met the Lord.

    Now I’m not complaining about people being nostalgic for the style of worship that they experienced in their youth. It’s wonderful, in fact, to see people trying to look for that first love, the intimacy with the Lord that was felt for a short period of time but that they don’t necessarily feel on a daily basis now.

    But there is a point at which nostalgia can become idolatry, and that point is when we let the form replace the substance. For many of the folks in that service, while they loved the form, they knew and sought the substance, God’s actual presence in their lives. For others, however, they loved the form, and let it replace the substance. Just across the campus, during the next hour, at another worship service, there are people who are worshipping with enthusiasm and sincerity, and experiencing that good old time revival encounter with God. Many of the second group–those who long for the form but have forgotten the content–think that the group of people in the other service have either departed from the faith, or at least have ventured onto dangerous ground. They don’t recognize that these people, using modern music and a modern setting are experiencing the communion with God that they experienced when they were young. The form has changed, but the substance is the same.

    I call it idolatry when we let the form replace the substance. This is the Exodus 32 dancing around the golden calf. “These are your gods, oh Israel!” (Exodus 32:4). We replace the golden calf with the order of worship, and the plural “gods” with “God’s presence” but we still substitute the image for the reality.

    And lest anyone get me wrong, it is just as easy to worship the modern form as an idol as any older form. Young people who look at their contemporary worship service with modern music and equate the music and the form with the presence of God are just as much idolaters as older members who remember the past with nostalgia, but forget the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

    It’s about God’s presence, not the form!

    During the years when the Brownsville Revival was going strong here in Pensacola, people would come from all over the country, and yes, all over the world, to see what God was doing at Brownsville Assembly of God. They would observe the music, the order of service, the style of preaching, even the prayers and personal ministry, and then they would go home. Some understood that God was not necessarily going to work everywhere in precisely the same way. But many went home and tried to duplicate the “Brownsville experience.” The folks on the platform could say, “Don’t go home and try to duplicate Brownville. Pray and listen to what God has to say, and do that!”

    Some people couldn’t get past the form. Their golden calf was a band with guitars and drums, a sequence of songs, a style of preaching and prayer. When God didn’t show up, they pretended. They danced around their golden calf.

    Worship is about you in community with others worshipping and communing with God. It is not about the particular form. You may find a particular form most helpful, but that’s not the definition of worship; it’s just the way worship works for you. Others may find that communion with God through other music and other forms. The key is to be watching for God. In order to do that, you have to get your eyes off the golden calf, whatever that is for you.

  • Minimum Wage and EITC

    I got this link through a comment on my previous post on the minimum wage, but I want to make sure to call everyone’s attention to it. David Prenatt, Jr., on his blog Net Esquire, made a number of posts on the minimum wage debate, and particularly on the Earned Income Tax Credit as an alterantive to it. You can start with his latest, Simplifying the Minimum Wage Debate, and work your way from there.

    I had not previously thought of the EITC as an alternative to the minimum wage, which simply illustrates the dangers of keeping one’s thinking inside the box. A little more flexibility allows me to see this as a viable alternative.

    I wanted to underline this point because it illustrates my major point, which was that Christians can agree on the moral issues whilst disagreeing on the strategy. We can be in support of a living wage, and yet disagree on the strategies to accomplish that goal. Equating the strategy with the goal in a moral sense will simply prevent us from finding new and better strategies.

  • Christian Ministries and Politics

    CNN.com has published a commentary by Bishop T. D. Jakes titled Commentary: No political party can contain us. My wife called my attention to it as a blog topic.

    Bishop Jakes is explicitly addressing his comments to the African-American community. To what extent should black churches use the pulpit for politics? How much should they depend on a single political party to accomplish their goals. Often ministers disagree on this issue. Bishop Jakes says:

    I do not believe that African-American ministers should allow their political views to dictate the subjects and tone of their sermons. Some believe their calling is to consistently petition society to address its role in depriving African-Americans of the full benefits of citizenship. Others believe they are called to inform, encourage, coax and propel people of color to provide for themselves, shape their own reality and build institutions to better their communities.

    I’ve encountered both types of ministers, and often they can be very impatient with those who have a different emphasis. Their goals are generally very similar, yet the debate over strategy can get in the way of recognizing the similarities. Bishop Jakes suggests a solution:

    If we as African-American ministers allow anyone to script our sermons for us, where will it end? I respect each minister’s views and recognize his right to tout them, but it is dangerous to try to force all members of any group to align themselves with anyone’s viewpoints, including my own. Each of us must answer the call that he or she receives from God, not the direction of any man.

    Now I don’t feel qualified to comment on how the African-American community deals with politics, but I think he has some very good ideas for the rest of us. We all face issues of how politics relates to our spiritual beliefs and activities. Should a preacher use his pulpit to deal with social issues? If so, just how specific should he get about the solutions to such problems? Should we, as Christians, look primarily for temporal solutions to our problems, or is our focus on another world, if not to the exclusion of this one, certainly to its diminishing?

    There are two temptations for the preacher or church leader involved in politics. First he may get so involved in political solutions that the good news about Jesus gets lost. Second, just as he can with doctrinal issues, he may make peripheral matters, or issues of strategy or tactics become central, and thus divide the body over non-essential issues. Both of these problems occur in the church as a whole.

    For many Christians, good goals get confused with the specific strategy for accomplishing them. Using the issue of abortion as an example, I believe we have farily widespread agreement amongst Christians that reducing the number of abortions in this country is a good goal. As a matter of strategy there are various mixtures of education and legal sanctions. For many, the strategy becomes the actual goal. Thus many conservatives accuse liberals of actually desiring abortions to take place, and believing they are good things, because those same liberals do not support particular laws against abortion. Liberals, on the other hand accuse the conservatives of a lack of concern for the health of women, for individual choice, and for the needs of the children who are born. Now while the priorities may differ, I suspect that the vast majority of liberals are concerned with life, and do not regard abortions as a good thing, while the vast majority of conservatives are concerned with the health of women and with the care of born children, and not just the unborn. While the priorities differ, the hopes are similar.

    Solving this sort of issue in a political way, through the action of the law, can interfere with the gospel way, which is the transformation of people one by one through the power of the Holy Spirit. Such transformed people would be much less likely to have unstable families, and much less likely to be having unjustified abortions. The point here is not to condemn one form of politics over another, but rather to suggest that we can get together on the more basic issue of the gospel, while we differ on political strategies.

    The second problem, making the political strategy part of the goal, is one that was first called to my attention in reading the United Methodist social principles before I joined the United Methodist Church. The social principles struck me as material written by impractical idealists–in many cases (but not all) admirable goals, yet rarely well-considered strategies for attaining those goals. Conservatives are generally likely to agree with me here, though they will often consider the goals themselves less than admirable. Liberals may wonder why I object to the social principles at all.

    Recently I wrote about the minimum wage, so let me use it as an example. I had a very pleasant exchange with a commenter on this blog who disagreed with me on the topic, yet we found that we agreed on the goal: a just, living wage for all. Now we disagreed profoundly on the strategy for implementing that goal. Politicians of all stripes seem to forget that simply because you say some strategy is for the purpose of accomplishing some goal, doesn’t mean that it actually will accomplish that goal. I believe that increased funding of education and infrastructure will tend to improve wages and go further toward creating a living wage than will the minimum wage. Others disagree. It is important to note that we are disagreeing not on the goal, but on the strategy. I think there is little doubt that Jesus would want his followers to support a living wage. But he didn’t tell us how best to accomplish that in 21st century America. That matter of strategy is left to us to decide.

    Even greater confusion results when a pastor allows himself to be identified with a particular political party. The American political parties do not represent a coherent ideology, and certainly neither one can claim the allegiance of Christians in all areas. Those who suggest otherwise are in grave danger of obscuring or drowning out the message of the gospel. This error is again something that can happen from either side. In these cases church leaders would do well to talk about principles and goals, and allow church members to choose strategies for themselves.

    In all cases, however, Bishop Jakes’s advice is important. Each of us must follow the calling of God in what we say and do. Let’s just make sure it’s not our own political and social agendas we are following, and not God’s calling.

  • T4G: Salvation

    Articles VIII-XIII of the Together for the Gospel statement all deal with salvation, in this case with a strong focus on justification. (Note that the link above is to the final revision of the statement rather than the earlier form I have referenced in previous comments.) Those who have read my previous entries on this topic will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with the emphasis of these statements.

    My objections can generally be placed under two headings: 1) Elements that undergird Calvinism, and 2) Elements that constitute what I call “salvation by correct theology,” which I regard as an even more insidious version of salvation by works.

    Calvinism

    Let me first state that I do regard Calvinists as Christian brethren, but I do not think that Calvinism and predestination are consistent with the gospel. I cannot see how it can be regarded as “good news” that God has ordained that certain people will burn in hell. I understand that some find it comforting to have the assurance of election, but that assurance comes at the cost of the election of certain others to eternal punishment.

    I’m going to limit myself to these few remarks on this issue at this point, because this issue has been beaten into the ground. Some of my own thoughts on salvation can be found in my essay A Fruitful Faith.

    Salvation by Theology

    I want to give a bit more time to the second issue, what I call “salvation by correct theology.” While there are numerous statements that relate to this in the articles I cited above, the concept is best illustrated by this quote from Article X:

    We deny that there is salvation in any other name, or that saving faith can take any form other than conscious belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and His saving acts.

    Notice the elements involved in saving faith, just according to this one sentence:

    • Conscious belief
    • Acceptance of Jesus as Lord
    • Acceptance of Jesus as Messiah
    • Knowledge of the saving acts of Jesus

    Now I’m assuming that the T4G statement is written carefully, and that the authors actually intend all of these implications. It is still unclear, of course, just how much one must understand about each of these elements. What are included in the “saving acts?” How much must one know? It seems from the remaining articles that the authors of the T4G statement think one must know quite a bit, and some quite specific theology.

    All options such as a limited knowledge of God, such as described in Romans 2, are eliminated. One must consciously believe specific things in detail. One wonders how much detail Paul and Silas taught the jailer in Philippi before they baptized him, but they seem to have gotten done by morning. The possibility of salvation for those who have not heard the gospel is eliminated as well. Only conscious belief in details will do.

    I would suggest that this view stands against a number of texts, such as Romans 2, and the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46, in which people who clearly do not realize they are saved are nonetheless received by Jesus into his kingdom.

    Why do I regard this as more insidious than salvation by works? At least good works are of some value in themselves. But more importantly, one who is not a deep thinker can understanding doing right and avoiding wrong. Loving one’s neighbor is accessible to the intellectually challenged as well as to geniuses. Theology, especially systematic theology, is only accessible to a minority. Salvation by correct theology limits God’s kingdom to certain people who can understand and be consciously convinced of a number of intellectual propositions.

    Worst of all, it equates “put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” with intellectual assent to a set of propositions.

  • Interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

    Religion and Ethics has an interview with Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, recently elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. I commend this article to you for an overview of how the new presiding bishop thinks about the world and Christianity.