Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Isaiah 24-27 – Overview

    Many of the issues of Biblical criticism are illustrated in these four chapters from the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah as a whole is fertile ground for such study, but one has to take a reasonable sized bite for an illustration. What I want to do with these chapters is discuss how various critical tools apply, or do not apply, to the text, and what can be learned from applying those tools. I will focus my attention on tools that are available to those who do not read Hebrew, looking for ways in which they can evaluate various critical claims for themselves using easily available materials.

    To accomplish this I’m going to post on the following. (I may break some of these items into multiple entries or combine them where one element is very short.)

    1. The text, applying textual criticism to get an idea of the state of the text.
    2. Literary criticism, probably combined with elements of genre criticism. Are these four chapters a unit that can be studied independently as a whole? What type of literature are they?
    3. Form criticism, a look at the individual units, if any, in the text.
    4. Source and Redaction criticism, how we got to the state of the text.
    5. Tradition criticism, summarizing 3 & 4.
    6. Genre and canonical criticism, taking us back to #2 and tying this back together.

    If you want to follow the procedures, you can start by reviewing the book of Isaiah as a whole, and then by reading these four chapters several times–at least enough times so that you have a mental picture of the passage as a whole. As you do this, you can look for your own answer to the question of whether this is itself a literary unit as part of the book of Isaiah, whether I have drawn the boundaries of the unit I’m going to study correctly. At the same time, you can prepare for the state of canonical criticism, which will ask how this fits into the overall message of Isaiah as that message fits into the message of canonical scripture.

    The book of Isaiah contains 66 chapters. Conservative Christians generally believe that it was written by one prophet, Isaiah, who lived in Judah starting late in the reign of Uzziah and possibly continuing his ministry into the reign of Manasseh, Hezekiah’s son and successor. Critical scholarship, however, has generally divided the book into at least two parts, chapter 1-39 as First Isaiah and 40-66 as Second Isaiah. Chapters 36-39, no matter what the scheme, are a historical interlude telling the story of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and his eventual defeat. The vast majority divide that further into 40-55 as Second Isaiah and 56-66 as Third Isaiah.

    General readers often get the idea that the critical view of Isaiah is that simple (or quite possibly complain of its complexity) without realizing that the critical view of the book is many times more complicated than that. Form critics will look for a life setting and date of composition for individual prophetic oracles or other literary elements in the text. Source critics may provide a variety of dates for individual sources, and so you can have material from any date in the general period of the Isaiah tradition. To get an idea of the dates and their spread, see Isaiah Timeline. This gives the broad outlines of this scheme of dating.

    Individual portions of the text, may have been spoken, written, or added to the collection at any time, however. Let’s look at an example from outside our narrow range of chapters. In Isaiah 14, we find three separate sections that are clearly defined: 14:1-13, 24-27, and 28-32. The first is against Babylon, and appears to assume a situation with Judah in exile. Some would suggest, however, that the dirge (3-21) could have been written at any time, and then the prose introduction (1-2) and conclusion (22-23), which are the only parts that mention Babylon by name, are added by a redactor in the exile. That redactor could be second Isaiah (the author of chapters 40-55), or even someone after that time. Trying to answer such questions wouldl involve form and redaction criticism. Verses 24-27, however are addressed to Assyria. By the time of the Babylonian exile, Assyria was long gone as the primary foe of Judah, but in the time of First Isaiah, Assyria was the primary enemy. The third oracle is against the Philistines, and it would be much harder to date. My point here is that this chapter is one of the simpler ones in which to discuss dating. If one accepts the composite authorship of Isaiah at all, one will find plenty of complexity and a considerable number of cases in which one admits one doesn’t know.

    Let’s turn our thoughts back to chapters 24-27. If they are a unit, then when was that unit written? First, we will have to ask whether there are elements of this unit that were written separately and then combined, or whether the passage was written as a unified whole. As I noted above, Isaiah 14 is relatively simple to deal with, with specific enemies addressed, and clear beginnings and ends for the three sections of the chapters. But the absence of that sort of clarity in 24-27 has not prevented commentators from presenting a number of divisions. As a Bible student, don’t simply take a scholar’s word for the divisions. Each and every one of these items is controversial; test it all, accept what convinces you. We’ll look at the possible divisions when we discuss form criticism.

    But is there anything that can be said about date? One of the easily available tools I will follow through this study is the Oxford Study Bible (REB). This Bible provides some pretty good notes and introductory articles on many topics. In its note on chapter 24 it says, “The literary style with the tendency thoward apocalyptic (24:21-23) and the theological perspective of final judgment (v. 21) indicate that this collection originated long after Isaiah of Jerusalem (see Introduction)” (page 727). Here’s where you need to put on your own critical glasses and think seriously about the claim made.

    There are some assumptions here:

    1. Apocalyptic developed in a generally linear fashion so that one can place a particular example of it on a continuum.
    2. Apocalyptic started late
    3. This passage is an example of apocalyptic literature
    4. Final judgment is a late element in Hebrew literature

    One critical piece of this puzzle would be the dating of Daniel. I’ve called attention to a number of commentaries in recent blog entries, and one should note that such scholars as Gleason Archer and Joyce Baldwin maintain that Daniel was written in the 6th century BCE, while Ernest Lucas allows such dating. Hartman & Di Lella along with Porteous solidly supported a late dating (2nd century BCE) for Daniel. If one assumes some sort of linear development for apocalyptic, then Daniel is probably somewhere toward the early middle part of that process. It’s not quite up to the book of Revelation, but it’s more apocalyptic than some chapters in Ezekiel and perhaps more similar to Zechariah. Those four centuries of difference in the dating of Daniel could make a substantial difference in how one dates these chapters. In addition, there are those who regard Daniel as a composite itself, with some elements being quite early (5th-4th century BCE) and some later. Some strongly apocalyptic elements (Daniel 7, for example) are considered by these scholars as quite early.

    Whether apocalyptic was a linear development or not is hard to say, partially because we are not so sure just what apocalyptic was, and as is the case here, we aren’t too sure when to date it. If you are interested in testing this element of dating, try reading Ezekiel 37-39 and the book of Zechariah and comparing them to these four chapters. Some elements of apocalyptic generally include symbolic visions, emphasis on eschatology, judgment, and angelic guides or interpreters. If there was a progression, where do you think these chapters would fall? You can hold that thought as we study them and see if you change your mind.

    My next entry will be a survey of the text of these four chapters as we see them in English translations. I will discuss textual issues uses some original language resources, but I will focus on what you can learn from the text and footnotes of a few English Bible versions.

  • Gleason Archer on Daniel

    I’ve just run through another commentary on Daniel, in this case the Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 7, section on Daniel, by Gleason Archer. (See my notes on this commentary.)

    You can review my more detailed view in those notes, but I would simply state that this is one of two carefully conservative, scholarly commentaries on Daniel that I have read. Those who would like to preach from the book will find it particular useful. Let me list these major commentaries on Daniel in order, from most conservative to most critical.

    1. Daniel, by Desmond Ford.
      This is no longer in print, but it is available from some libraries, and occasionally used. Desmond Ford was a Seventh-day Adventist scholar and he did quite a good job of summarizing the evidence from a conservative perspective. His key to interpretation is the apotelesmatic principle, suggesting multiple fulfillments for predictions.
    2. Daniel and the Minor Prophets (Expositor’s Bible Commentary), by Gleason Archer.
      This is a solidly evangelical commentary. There is no give on historical or prophetic/predictive issues.
    3. Daniel (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries), by Joyce Baldwin. Conservative but with a lighter touch.
    4. Daniel (Apollos Old Testament Commetnary), by Ernest Lucas
      Allows either a 6th or 2nd century date, while affirming a high view of scripture.
    5. Daniel (Anchor Bible), by Hartman and Di Lella
      Affirms a 2nd century date while also affirming inerrancy.
    6. Daniel (Old Testament Library), by Norman Porteous
      A good example of a fully critical commentary, though it is a bit short for my taste.

    I may spend some time on literary criticism of Daniel after I present a series of entries on Isaiah 24-27 as an example of critical methologies.

  • Believing Stuff is not Enough

    My early morning reading brought two things together that led me to this post. The first was a blog entry by Shane Raynor on The Wesley Blog, titled What’s Missing from Our Christianity?. In it Shane makes a very important point:

    Many of us intellectually believe all the right stuff. Or at least most of it. And those of us who believe in a physical resurrection waste a lot of time fretting about liberal scholars who try to “reinterpret” this event so that it never really happened. But then I caught myself thinking, “Which is worse? Not believing in Christ’s physical resurrection or believing in it and not allowing ourselves to be changed by it?” Given the choice, I’d choose none of the above. I want to believe, both intellectually and with my actions. And I want to be part of a Christian community that believes Jesus is alive- not only in theory but because we really know him.

    I’ve heard many times how we can reform the United Methodist Church (I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation) by correcting doctrinal problems with our seminaries. But it seems to me that one can be liberal and dead, conservative and dead, or (horrors!) moderate and dead. The fact is that any group of people is capable of making themselves, their doctrines, and their priorities more important than spiritual life. (I define “spiritual life” as their relationship to God.) Now I’m not trying to say that any set of beliefs will do, provided we just have life. I believe that while we are less than fully capable of knowing all the truth about God, and thus full correctness of doctrine will always elude us, we can and should seek to understand the truth as much as is possible to us. But such a seeking after truth involves first dropping our own agendas in favor of God’s agenda. N. T. Wright (I don’t have the book at hand to give you a reference) translates the call of Jesus to “repent and believe the gospel” as “drop your agendas and trust me for mine.”

    Indeed, I’m not even saying that Methodist seminaries don’t need some reformation. I am saying that just fixing the doctrinal positions of seminaries to whatever state you desire, and believe me all groups have an agenda for what seminaries should teach, is not going to make the students spiritual persons, operating in relationship to God, and leading congregations in spiritual life.

    The second thing that tied to this was from the book of Hebrews. I’m reading that book through a few times, along with other studies (I’m blogging through it for the benefit of students or others who might be interested), and in chapter 13:15-16 I came across the following:

    15Through him we offer up always a sacrifice of praise to God, which is the fruit of lips confessing his name. 16And don’t forget the doing of good, and fellowship because such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

    Look at the elements:

    1. Sacrifice of praise
      This is our continuous response to God; not merely an acknowledgement of historical facts, but a response of praise. I have to tell you that I got goose bumps several times during the easter service. I had prayed with our pastor before the service for resurrection power in his preaching, and I felt it.
    2. Fruit of lips confessing his name. Not just confession. Not just the monotone “the third day He arose again from the dead,” but a confession that includes the fruit.
    3. Doing of good
      That’s more fruit.
    4. Fellowship
      That’s bearing fruit together!

    The result: Pleasing to God!

  • Creation by Command

    In my earlier post on the Biblical Doctrine of Creation, my second element of a Biblical doctrine of creation was that God creates by simple command, in other words, God’s word and will is reality.

    This is commonly used as an argument against theistic evolution, and even in some cases against old earth creationism. Duane Gish used it against Hugh Ross in debate by questioning the continuing process of stellar evolution, something that Hugh Ross acknowledges. The transcript that was on TalkOrigins is currently unavailable online, but there is a copy at ASA.

    There are some Biblical points, however, that I believe overturn this argument. There are multiple creation accounts. We have a simple command in Genesis 1:27, but is described as a process in 2:7. Then we have a description of the constant creative activity of God in Psalm 104. Even futher, God states that he created Israel (Isaiah 43:1). This is both the accomplishment of his word and his will, but it is also a very long process. Again, God’s word in prophecy promised and predicted the Messiah, and the fulfillment is the accomplishment of God’s word. Nonetheless there was a lengthy process involved.

    The key is that God’s word “does not return empty” (Isaiah 55:11). Even now Christians hold to just such a promise. Jesus promised to return, and yet he is not here. Much time has passed, yet we still wait. Why? Because we believe that ultimately God’s word is sure.

    Thus I would suggest that all of the views of origins that I have described in this series fulfill this doctrinal requirement for a Biblical doctrine of creation. Each has its own view of the way in which God’s word is fulfilled in creation, but each is certain that God’s word is and will be fulfilled.

    I would note that if God’s word is certain, and if we can see God’s word in action when we observe the processes of evolution, we are justified in deriving some of our understanding of the character of God from these observations. Theology may not make science, but by virtue of the fact that it is so good at collecting data, science can impact religion.

  • Belshazzar Plays Pretend

    Read the story of Belshazzar’s feast in Daniel 5.

    The stories of the book of Daniel all have something to do with worship. Often we read them as unconnected stories about Daniel and his friends, but they have a common theme. Daniel 1 shows us the faithfulness of Daniel and his friends to their God, and their God alone and the rewards. Chapter 2 shows not just God’s control of knowledge in interpreting the dream, but his control of history and the fate of nations. Chapter 3 shows God triumphant over idolatry and the king’s order to worship other gods. At the same time Nebuchadnezzar’s attempt to pretend that he would rule forever (he was the golden head in chapter 2, but he tries to be the whole image in chapter 3) is defeated. Chapter 4 shows Nebuchadnezzar humbled and finally acknowledging God as ruler.

    This was all history surely known to Belshazzar as he arranges his feast. The story is told in chapter 5. For many years scholars thought that Belshazzar was a fictional character because he was unknown outside the book of Daniel and literature that depended on it. But eventually records were found of his existence, and it turns out that Belshazzar was not a king. He was a regent appointed by his father Nabonidus who was elsewhere doing some fairly odd things. Belshazzar also must have known that the Persian armies were invading his country, and unless he was particularly unobservant, he must have known the enemy army was approaching the city of Babylon itself.

    So what did he do? Make preparations to defend the city? Call a meeting of high officials to plan? Pray? Put his trust in the God Nebuchadnezzar had learned to respect?

    None of the above! Belshazzar decided to pretend. He called a party. He brought in the temple vessels that had been dedicated to God and brought by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon and ate and drank from them. He behaved like he was a powerful king with nothing to worry about, and as though he had no need to behave respectfully toward any gods, much less worship them. He even had to pretend that he was from a more important family. Though Daniel 5 calls Nebuchadnezzar his father (verse 2), that actually wasn’t the case. It is most likely that Nabonidus, a usurper and Belshazzar’s actual father, claimed that title in order to make himself seem to be the true successor.

    And what was the result? God intervened to show that he saw through the pretense, and that Belshazzar’s time was up. When confronted with the real power of God he was terrified and his face was changed. He could no longer pretend.

    Can any of this apply to us?

    For several years here in Pensacola we experience the Brownsville Revival. People, especially pastors, came from all over the country to see what was going on at Brownsville Assembly of God. Often they were tired of the day to day dreariness of their home churches, of declining memberships, and a sense of futility. They came and they watched a church filled with excitement and energy, where people actually wanted to be.

    Some of those pastors and church leaders went home and decided that they wanted their churches to be just like Brownsville. So they tried to do all the same things, use the same phrases, plan the same activities. Like Belshazzar, they figured if they claimed a great king as father, drank out of the right vessels, and put on the right show, God would show up. But a show is just a show. The one and only way to have God’s presence was to do God’s will. No amount of pretense would do. Pastors who went home and sought God’s will for their own church, who prayed and studied and carried out their plans wisely had success. Those who pretended failed. Like Belshazzar, they were holding a party on the edge of destruction.

    Our own lives are much the same. We can claim to be spiritual people. We can claim to pray and to seek God. We can claim knowledge we don’t have, or skills we cannot back up. We can dress up and show up and play pretend. But the only thing that will hold up is actual character, and that is developed by honestly facing trials and overcoming obstacles.

    Are you developing that type of character today?

  • Appeal to Numbers and Supposed Authority

    When I was in the U. S. Air Force, I had to attend a human relations training program. The instructor was enlisted, but very proudly informed us of his two master’s level degrees. During the course of his presentation he brought up a particular bumper sticker, which happened to be one I had on my car. Of course my buddies made sure he knew I had one, and so he starts to make his point about how I should not have such a bumper sticker. When I disagreed, and pointed out that nobody was obliged to obey my bumper sticker, he became quite annoyed. During a break he came to me and said, “I have a master’s degree in management and one in human relations. Don’t you think I know what I’m talking about?” He had no way to know that I also had a graduate degree, though I possess only a meager one of the same, but he was very shocked when I said that I too had one of those pieces of paper and so was in a good position to know what it was worth.

    His was an argument from authority, and at least it came from an area in which he could claim some authority. He might even have had a point about my bumper sticker. 🙂 But today I’m interested in the argument from authority when one has no authority, and the argument from numbers when one is in the minority. Religious debates, and particularly creation-evolution debates, are often characterized by these types of claims.

    Recently in an online debate I observed someone arguing in favor of a young earth brought up a paper on ocean sediments and their evidence for the age of the earth. When another correspondent questioned the report, the first individual called him an undergraduate student critiquing a paper by a PhD in geology. We get various forms of the argument from authority and the argument from numbers in creation-evolution debates all the time and it’s really quite a humorous process. (You can find this discussion on The Religion Forum.

    Before I go into this just a little more, let me give you relevant links on this topic. The ocean sediment argument is one of those that is so simplistic and so bad that there really aren’t that many detailed refutations online, so let me give some links. First, the source article is ICR’s Impact #8, Evolution: The Oceans Say No!. Note that while the author’s credentials right now are listed as an MS degree, since this document was written, he has received a PhD. Now in case anyone is interested in the basic refutation to this, try the following article from the US Geological Survey: Developing the theory. It gives some of the basics and should lead you to some answers. In addition, Glenn R. Morton’s article Young Earth Arguments: A Second Look and the following article, The Age of the Earth from the Talk Origins Archive expands on material that may not be fully obvious from the more general article.

    Note that there are many people who are quite thoroughly qualified in the field who challenge the views of this “PhD in geology.” And this is the thing that got me thinking about this particular blog entry. Let me give another example. I was debating a Seventh-day Adventist about the proper interpretation of Daniel 8:13 & 14. (I’m ex-SDA, so I occasionally get into these debates.) This individual cites some SDA authorities on the subject, which happen to include my uncle Don F. Neufeld, editor of the SDA Bible Commentary. When I do not accept these individuals as authority (my late uncle would have been appalled at the notion that I would accept his position on authority, but that’s beside the point), he asked how I could hold my opinion against “all those experts.” He suggested I was alone in my opinion. Now I’m not particularly concerned about being alone on an issue, but I found that very interesting, because the interpretation I was proposing is, in fact, one that is either supported or offered as an option by practically every commentary on the book of Daniel. Those who hold the “investigative judgment” position that is held by many SDAs are in a distinct minority. And that is not relevant. I would never use the argument that the SDA position is a minority position as a refutation of that position. It’s perfectly possible that a minority position can be right.

    But it again is an example of someone in a position of weakness trying to use the appeal to numbers. The idea is to convince the person holding a minority view that their view is untenable because it is a minority view. But the argument from numbers when one is in a minority position already is a peculiar form of deception, or even of self-deception. I think the two arguments–from (false) authority, and from (false) numbers are closely related, and they are a favorite of creationists of all stripes, from young earth to intelligent design advocates. The number of fake degrees among young earth creationists is one good example (see Some Questionable Creationist Credentials). The fact that they spend a good deal of time talking about the number of people who support them is another.

    If you have the evidence, talk about the evidence. If you don’t you have to have something to talk about. But why talk about numbers and authority when those are precisely the things you don’t have? For every PhD that creationists can claim there are thousands in opposition. For examples of the argument from numbers see Project Steve, a satire of lists of people in support of some position or another, when that position is actually supported only by a tiny minority.

    Please understand that I am not in any way advocating that one simply accept the real majority position. Sometimes one has to accept authority simply because one is not well enough informed on a particular subject. But those competent in that subject should be able to propose new, minority positions and have them judged on the actual evidence.

    I am not certain just why the appeal to (supposed) numbers and the appeal to (alleged) authority are so popular. I can only think of two options. 1) Someone has such a narrow frame of reference that they simply do not comprehend the numbers. I think my SDA friend falls into this category. He was simply unaware of the numbers involved. 2) Someone knows that he has no solid support, but is using deception to convince people who don’t know any better that their position is better than it really is.

  • Cute Bunny Rabbits, Eggs, and Resurrection

    Is there a resurrection in your future? In your near future?

    Often concerned Christians complain about the pagan background of Easter, and such practices as Easter eggs, bunny rabbits, and all the signs of spring. Pagan religions in many countries have celebrated spring and the new life that it represents. Fall and spring festivals celebrate the cycle of life as we know it. I believe there is something very appropriate in placing the Christian celebration of the resurrection at the time of the spring, and I am even pretty happy with some of the pagan connections.

    Christian easter both reaffirms and transforms the idea generally behind spring festivals. (I’m not trying to make a connection with any particular festival here; I’m just looking at spring festivals in general.) We celebrate on the one hand that God does renew things on a regular basis. There may be valleys in our lives, but there are also mountaintops, and if we’re traveling with God, we know that the mountaintops will follow the valleys without fail. For every trial there’s a potential victory. We live in a world of death, but at the same time a world of life.

    As Christians we often look down on those pagan religions that emphasize fertility. Stories of sexual orgies and perversions help foster that attitude. But the elements of excess and perversion are just that–a perversion of something that God made and that God said was good. Human sexuality and reproduction are to be celebrated. Why? Because they provide us with the best example of God’s life giving power placed in our own hands. The passion of a husband for his wife, or a wife for her husband and the response of one to the other provide the greatest metaphor of God’s passion for his people and our response to him. It is not that sex is dirty without the metaphor; it is God’s gift of life and of passion. Try reading Song of Solomon as a love story. Don’t worry about any spirituality; just read it as passionate poetry and enjoy it. It is that passion that represents God’s desire to commune with you, to be intimate with you, and to renew your life.

    At the same time the resurrection transforms the whole idea of a spring festival. In many ancient religions there was an endless cycle of celebrations or commemorations of the changing of the seasons with no expectation that humanity was going anywhere. The resurrection transforms that. We are not in an endless cycle; God has a plan! We’re going somewhere. That’s the central message of Easter. We cannot have Easter without first going through Good Friday. The trial came first. But the cross would be a symbol of death if it was not followed by Easter. The resurrection breaks the cycle and brings life.

    So enjoy the cute fluffy bunnies, and eat the chocolate easter eggs. There’s a resurrection in your future!

  • Transforming the Cross

    Transforming the Cross

    Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic[The following Good Friday meditation is extracted and slightly adapted from my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel: Confessions of a Liberal Charismatic, pp. 17-22. This post was truncated at some point in the history of this blog. This is a restoration of the content on January 6, 2018.]

    There might be many reasons why someone would be ashamed of the good news about God that is represented in what we call the “gospel.”

    Historically, the shame was in worshipping a convicted and executed criminal, calling him God and following his teachings.  Very few people doubt that Jesus died, and that he was executed by the barbaric method of crucifixion.  Raised from the dead, alive today—that’s another matter entirely.  But the death is the best established thing about Jesus.  I’ve entered into debates about whether such a person as Jesus existed historically.  All of these debates start—must start—with a list of things that I will demonstrate limiting myself strictly to the tools of a historian, to the extent that past events can be demonstrated.  These are the things that Jesus did or that happened to him.  Many scholars have created such lists.  Invariably, “crucified by the Romans” is on them.  Jesus’ death by crucifixion is as established as a historical fact gets.

    It seems remote and distant to us.  If we have shame in anything about Jesus or Christianity, it is something different than it was for Paul and other early disciples.  For us, the cross is the symbol of a religion, a person, or a faith system.  We see it on churches every day.  We have pictures of crosses, sometimes with a figure of Jesus hanging on them.  Sometimes the figure will be portrayed with a halo.  We make earrings and necklaces with crosses.  We know the crucifixion is a horrible thing, but the symbols involved in it have become commonplace and familiar, and they are objects involved in the rituals of the church, not in execution.

    We may be ashamed of some of the people who carry crosses, or of some of the groups that worship in buildings with crosses on them.  We may object to where crosses are placed, such as on the lawns of public buildings.  But none of this is quite what the “shame of the cross” would have been for the early followers of Jesus.

    Put yourself back in Paul’s time.  Jesus was recently executed.  The one political power in the world was the authority by which that execution was carried out.  That particular form of execution was one reserved for the worst, and especially for rebels and political offenders.  There was a shame in worshipping someone who had been crucified.  It had the aura and the stigma of worshipping a mass murderer, perhaps a bit like modern Americans would feel about a cult worshipping Charles Manson.

    But in addition, it was something dangerous.  The followers of Jesus were proclaiming as divine someone executed by the Roman authorities.  Divinity was being carried by someone who was a rebel and a dangerous character.  Proclaiming the kingdom of a rebel was an act of rebellion in and of itself.

    And here we have Paul proclaiming that he is not ashamed of this good news.  He glories in the cross, glories in an instrument of shame.  In disaster, he finds good news.

    One of the key elements of that good news lies in the fact that you see a cross with much different emotions than did the people of Paul’s day.  That element is transformation.  The symbol of the cross has been transformed from one of disaster, death, agony, shame, and despair into one of hope for many people.  Not all people, and we’ll discuss that as well.

    That transformation comes from the way in which God used the experience of the cross.  God came to the earth in the human form of Jesus.  God experienced life with us.  He took action as we might need to take action under the circumstances of our lives.  He found himself in an occupied country, living under cruel foreign domination.  He didn’t just come and appear on a mountaintop.  He got involved in human experiences, human emotions, human weaknesses, and yes, human strengths as well.  When it came down to it, he died a death in just the way that a human would have to do it in that time and place.

    The first part, then, of the transformation was involvement.  The cross would never have been transformed as a symbol without the involvement.  God, the infinite gap-crosser, crossed the gap and stayed on our side long enough to experience the worst of the worst.

    But not only did he get involved, he stayed involved.  The second part of that transformation was endurance.  God didn’t quit.  He carried through.  If he had not, we could think of the wonderful time when God was with people, lived with us, talked with us, worked with us, but we would always have a distance from him, because he would never have experienced the one thing that seems to terrify most of us—death.  “Through death, he destroyed the one who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14).  “He endured the cross; he treated the shame with contempt” (Hebrews 12:2).

    Jesus knew when to ignore what others thought was shame.  The shame was intended to fall on the one who was punished.  But Jesus had no reason to be ashamed and he knew it.  Knowing what one should ignore is an important part of living in this imperfect world.  Many people, Christians and others, have endured torture and death with dignity and even peace because they knew this lesson.  What was intended to bring shame on them instead became a source of glory.

    The transformation that Jesus accomplished on the cross, symbolized by the transformation of the cross itself, is something that we all can grasp.  Circumstances and our environment are not fixed things that we have to take as they are.  They can be transformed by our attitude and by the way that we deal with them.  Every cross in your life, everything that you would prefer not to have done or not to have encountered can be transformed.  When we give testimonies of things that have happened to us, this is what we are doing.  Some think that testimony meetings are about telling how dark our lives were before God intervened.  And sometimes they are.  But if you are focusing on the darkness, and the negative things that have happened, perhaps you haven’t let those things be transformed yet.  Did you become involved, stay involved, and endure?  Did you have contempt for the supposed shame?  The real point of a testimony, a witness, is to present how things have changed, not how much they are the same.

    But there’s one more part of this process.  Some of you may be wondering whether I’m going to ignore it.

    Jesus triumphed over the adversity.  He rose again from the dead.  His movement should have died.  It came back to life.  Without this, the transformation could not have taken place.  In this sense, only one who was God, or totally in tune with God’s spirit, could have triumphed.  We daily deal with circumstances and troubles.  Jesus was dealing with the nastiest circumstance of all—death.  He was there to deny and destroy the one who had the power over death.

    I’m not going to argue here about the physical resurrection of Jesus.  It’s very hard, if not impossible to prove a miracle.  But I do think the greatest evidence that something different happened that day in Palestine is that the movement surrounding Jesus didn’t go away.  Having seen Jesus crucified, his movement should have failed, but it didn’t.

    But the critical element in transforming the symbol of the cross from one of shame to one of hope and glory was simply that the followers of Jesus believed that he had conquered death.  You may debate me about the idea that without something special happening on the morning of the resurrection, the followers of Jesus would simply have scattered.  You may have another explanation you think works as well.  But I think there can be no doubt that unless the followers of Jesus believed that something had happened, there would have been no transformation, no Jesus movement, no Christianity, and the cross would forever have remained a symbol of shame, or passed into history as an example of the barbarism of ancient cultures.

    But the fact is that those followers did believe, they didn’t scatter, but continued to proclaim the victory of the person the Romans had crucified.  And it was in that proclamation that the cross was transformed.

    Jesus could have died with dignity, endured the shame, and risen from the dead, but if nobody had arisen to proclaim those facts, no transformation would have taken place.  It took human beings getting involved, carrying the message, and acting on the good news.  I’m sometimes accused of being very human oriented in my religious beliefs.  But I believe that this orientation toward what people do and how they respond is thoroughly Biblical.  Not only did God accomplish reconciliation through Christ, but he gave us the same ministry.  In other words, God knows and intends the human element to be critical in carrying out his mission on earth.

     

  • Evolution, Theology, and Respect

    In my book Not Ashamed of the Gospel, I comment that God respects us:

    • God Respects You
      Some of my more theologically inclined friends may be questioning this one, but God created humanity a little bit less than God (Psalm 8:4), and he allows human beings to make their own choices and plot their own course. He tries to communicate, but he doesn’t force communication.

    What I mean here by respect is that God allows us choices, but God also respects those choices. We often assume that God can do anything, and in His infinity, that is likely close to true. But when operating in finite space and time, God has to meet priorities. So the question is, what is God’s highest priority? Is it our safety and comfort? If it is, he should make the world “child-safe” so that we cannot injure ourselves or one another. On the other hand, suppose God valued our intelligence and independent decision making more than our comfort. In that case, he would have to allow our decisions to be independent, to leave us to live with the results of our decisions. Every act taken to make us safer involves a constraint on our decision making or on respecting the consequences of those decisions.

    It’s interesting that in responses to my book, two things have predominated. First, many have told me that they appreciate the book, but that they question (or are disturbed by) my support of evolution. Second, folks are interested in an expansion of my views on salvation and what it means, and this is a key element of that second point. The two points are related. In the process of salvation, God respects human choices, and in the process of biological evolution, God respects the freedom of his creation.

    This principle is expressed in Galatians 6:7, “. . . you reap whatever you sow” (NRSV). A great deal more theology is built on the earlier chapters of Galatians, but it is instructive to note that Paul ends his epistles generally by discussing the life of the Spirit–the change in life that is to take place in a follower of Jesus. When he does this, he makes it very clear that our choices and our actions are critical. I believe this principle of sowing and reaping applies on a much wider basis than we usually assume, and in fact applies even in issues of salvation.

    For those who track “Henry’s heresies” I go past Arminian in my view of salvation and am at least semi-pelagian, if not fully pelagian in my theology. Since that’s a certified heresy, so to speak, you now have a clear case over which to make such an accusation. 🙂 Specifically, I believe that salvation is dependent on a free choice to put one’s trust in God, and that the resulting salvation includes, as something that is essential and not optional, a change or spiritual restoration in the individual. Thus people can make good choices and bad choices and that God respects those choices by allowing the results of such choice.

    Would freedom truly be freedom if there were no consequences of actions, either positive or negative? I’m honestly not sure of the answer to that question. I am certain that freedom would be quite meaningless. Yet frequently the Christian theology of prayer seems to imply that God should alleviate or eliminate the results of our own choices. This can go even further when people pray that a hurricane be turned aside from them, or that it simply be completely dispersed. But such dangerous weather patterns are actually a positive part of the environment, though they are terribly inconvenient for us. (For more of my views on prayer see The Hand of God, The Hand of God: Miracles, and The Hand of God: Prayer.)

    So what does all of this have to do with evolution? It is very common for Christian advocates of evolution to indicate that evolutionary thinking does not make any difference to theology, that a Christian can accept evolutionary theory without it having any impact on faith. Depending on one’s starting point, that may or may not be true. Young earth creationists, for example, assume an early “good” state, that they believe is described in Genesis, in which there was no death and sin. They assume that all death entered the world with sin. In order to accept evolutionary theory, they would have to change that view. One might decide that spiritual death entered the world along with sin, but that physical death happened all along.

    This is one issue on which old earth creationists face the same problem as do theistic evolutionists, with one difference. Old earth creationists would have to explain why God would use a progressive form of special creation in which so much death was required, when death is not actually part of the creation process. What is the purpose of life, death, and major extinction events, if repeated interventions on God’s part are nonetheless required to produce new categories of creatures.

    But there are two issues that stand out. Inefficiency in creation via evolution and the extreme violence of the process, as animal eats animal. I’m obviously not the first to notice this.

    There, indeed, those who flatter themselves with the notion of reading the purposes of the Creator in his works ought in consistency to have seen grounds for inferences from which they have shrunk. If there are any marks at all of special design in creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that a large proportion of all animals should pass their existence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments necessary for that purpose; their strongest instincts impel them to it and many of them seem to have been constructed incapable of supporting themselves by any other food. — John Stuart Mill, On Nature

    In addition, I have heard this particular objection in many private conversations. What does it say about God if he used such a violent method to produce diversity? Well, in my view, the evidence is in, and biological evolution, variation + natural selection, is the means by which he chose to diversify life. From the point of view of theology, the question is simply to ask what this reality means.

    Young earth creationists can defend against this charge of violence by saying that God created things good, but that they have been messed up by sin. Thus they hope to avoid the problem. God does things well, but they have been corrupted. I would like young earth creationists to construct a model of an “ecology” in which nothing dies and no creature eats another one. They could follow that up by constructing a world in which there actually was choice, but nobody every made a less than optimal one. (I think the latter is possible, but suspect the world would be pretty boring.)

    Even if we don’t find it troubling that animals devour one another, what about people? When human beings are involved we call it the “problem of evil.” The focus of this question is often the holocaust, though human history provides plenty of examples of human beings oppressing, torturing, and killing one another. I find it interesting that it is difficult for some people to stomach the notion of myriads of animals killing one another over millions of years, yet somehow manage to deal with the number of people who have killed one another in the world’s history. One explanation is that God is doing this for a demonstration to the universe (presumably people on other worlds) about the nastiness of sin, but one would have to wonder just how dense the “universe” is if it takes this long to figure out that there’s a problem. I think there actually is some light in the “demonstration to the universe” view, but I think we need to go a bit further.

    As I suggested before, while we may call God “good,” we need to reexamine our understanding of God’s priorities. It seems pretty clear to me that God’s priority on the preservation of physical life is a bit lower than ours. If God chose to diversify life by having creatures compete for limited resources, then he made it necessary that the results of various actions of the creatures, and numerous random factors, be negative and even fatal. The freedom of creation is more important than its comfort. Now in this latter case “freedom” doesn’t mean the same thing as in conscious choices, but the same principle is involved. Action produces reaction. Choices, conscious or not, have consequences.

    Thus to me the fact that God chose natural selection as the guiding force in diversifying life suggests that God puts a high priority on freedom, and that he does not choose to alter reality for our comfort or to protect us from the results of our own choices, or from more or less random factors such as destructive weather or earthquakes.

    This adds a division to miracles, as I discuss in my Hand of God essays (see links above). God likes the natural laws by which he manages the universe. We should not expect miracles to alter that reality for our convenience, nor should we expect them to be necessary to alter the processes of nature or the production of life. The key miracle, apart from existence itself, is that God reaches out to communicate with us. I would also expect that such communication would not be forceful; that God would not intervene to directly alter our minds and understanding.

    Let me add a note here. In any basic course in the Philosophy of Religion, students are presented with the problem of evil. God is omnipotent, God is good, yet there is evil. If God is good, one would assume that he would want to eliminate evil. If he omnipotent, he should be able to eliminate it. So what’s the solution? The professor will tell you that there is no way to deal with the problem without dealing with at least one of the legs of the triad. You can say God is not omnipotent, and so is unable to eliminate evil. You can say “good” means something other than what we commonly mean by it. Finally, we could decide that evil is not really so bad after all. In a sense, I have done all three here. First, I’ve suggested that God must have an order of priorities when acting in a finite realm; that limits omnipotence. He can’t create a world in which the results of creatures’ decisions are respected, and yet also make certain that everyone is comfortable. Second, “God is good” does not necessarily mean that God wants every small animal, or even every person to live a comfortable life. Third, by looking at the positive effects of hurricanes (and I’ve experienced a number of these lately!) I’ve questioned whether evil is really evil.

    In this system the answer to the question of why the holocaust took place is that evil people made evil choices and took evil actions, and that apathetic people made ineffective choices and did not prevent those evil actions. There were either an insufficient number of good people, or they also made choices that did not effectively stop the evil actions. The solution, therefore, is for people to learn to make better choices. If God solves this problem, he will do so by communication, but the choices and the actions will remain with people. Taking the “reaping what you sow” principle seriously means that we can’t assume that God will come and solve our problems for us. God is expecting us to take responsible action ourselves.

    Thus evolution shows to us a God who allows freedom in his creation. It’s not a safe universe, but it is an interesting one.

  • Resistance to Evolutionary Theory Confirmed!

    Just two posts ago I commented on the resistance to evolutionary theory and what I think are the actual reasons for it. Today I came across a blog that truly confirms everything I said from the other side. The blog is called The Sheep’s Crib. In a post titled EVOLUTION: Croco-fish can’t crack Chritian commitment!. In this post you will find the attitude I discussed expressed and defended from the Bible.

    Now anyone who has read my series on creation and evolution, and particularly my post Creation, Evolution, and Genesis 1-11, will know that I disagree with that blogger’s point of view on what these scriptures actually mean. I don’t believe theistic evolutionists are denying the faith. But he does, and he is bold enough to admit it and to proclaim that he simply won’t do that. His stance reminds me of the position of Dr. Kurt Wise, author of Faith, Form, and Time who admits that there is much evidence for evolution, but then states that for him the Bible is primary, and thus we must study until we discover the truth. I disagree with him, but that’s an honest position.

    I not only disagree with both those positions, but I deplore their approach, while accepting and commending their integrity in holding to their position. This contrasts with the folks who try to claim that the evidence does not exist, or is not what it clearly is. But what all of these groups share in common is a rejection of the evidence based on a prior religious commitment.

    I hold, on the contrary, that the physical evidence is part of God’s word or communication to us, and that we must listen to everything God has said in every way.