Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Christianity

  • Wal-Mart Advertising Anyone?

    Shane Raynor takes a brave approach to issues about Wal-Mart over on Wesley Daily, by putting his post Wal-Mart Observations right next to a Wal-Mart add. I guess we know where he stands!

    I wanted to call attention to this, because while I’m not running any Wal-Mart ads, I agree with Shane’s comments, and I don’t always do so. It is tremendously easy to criticize successful businesses, and Wal-Mart qualifies. I recently visited an art show in a small town that did not yet have a Wal-Mart. One was planned, but there were protests. But alternately we saw protest signs of those who wanted to keep Wal-Mart out, and then those who said that Wal-Mart meant jobs for the community.;

    While I believe it is quite possible for a business to behave in a manner that is unethical–and such behavior should be condemned–I believe most of the arguments about a powerful business “taking over” a community and running out local business have to do with who gets the money and who gets the power.that results. Wal-Mart is an example of competition in this country. What do local businesses need to do in order to compete? You have to offer better service. I have noticed that local businessmen often try to sell themselves as giving better, more personal service, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t really provide. On the other hand there are local businessmen to whom I’m willing to pay a little extra simply because I know that the level of support I will get exceeds what I will get from anyone else. It is worthwhile to deal with them.

    The competition simply needs to get smarter. In the meantime, it’s not my job to pay extra for someone else’s lifestyle, unless I choose to do so as a charitable donation.

  • The Best Place to Teach the Bible

    See You in Bible Class says the MSNBC/Newsweek headline on a story that informs us that the state of Georgia has decided that having a Bible class is a critical part of the public school curriculum for their state. They’re going to mandate that it be added. The story is headed by the picture of a woman praying while officials in Odessa, Texas debate a similar proposal. Then from The Lady Speaks (Oh, Here’s a surprise, we have the comment that the Bible is OK in public school, provided that it is in the mythology section of the literature class. And therein lies one of the problems with having a Bible class in public school.

    Now let me provide a couple of links. The Newsweek article refers to two different groups that have prepared materials for use as Bible curriculum in public schools. One is the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, which is endorsed by numerous Christian conservatives. There is also a review of their curriculum, done by Mark A. Chancey, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies at Southern Methodist University. I strongly recommend reading Dr. Chancey’s review of this curriculum. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but assuming that he has read the material fairly, I would be extremely concerned about some of the content issues he raises. Moderate and liberal Christians need to be careful how they are counted in political issues. Frequently supporters of marginal positions claim the large number of people who are members of Christian churches as a reason to support their very particular Christian position, irrespective of the likelihood that all those people would support such a position.

    Alternatively, the Newsweek article mentions the The Bible Literacy Project, which has apparently received some criticism from conservatives. I don’t have any outside review of their material at hand.

    Personally, I oppose the use of either of these options in the public school. The Bible, as such, is a faith document. It collects a particular set of literature, known as the canon which is regarded as authoritative by a particular religious community. Not only does this canon differ for Jews and Christians, but it differs substantially amongst Christian groups. Whatever selection of literature you choose to call “The Bible,” on which to offer classes, it will be the faith literature of a particular group, and not be precisely the faith book of another group.

    I understand that the courts have ruled that this type of Bible course is legal, though I would note that the material from the National Council on Bible Curriculum could well face significant problems in court. I am not arguing here that having a Bible class in public school is illegal. I’m arguing that it is a bad idea. It is not a good way to advance the appropriate activities and function of government, and it is not a good way to advance the cause of religion. That picture of a lady praying for the action of the school board that heads the Newsweek article troubles me. There was the time that we, as Christians, prayed that the government would leave us alone, and not persecute us, so that we could carry on the work of the gospel. Now we are praying that the government will use the force of law to do our job for us.

    The simple fact is that any curriculum on the Bible us such will be religious in nature. It will be perceived as religious. It will function as a religious exercise. In those states that adopt a more liberal curriculum, conservative Christian parents are going to be angry when they find a more liberal approach taken in the curriculum than the one they prefer. In some more conservative areas, the class will become little more than a Bible class based on the views of the dominant group in the area.

    I believe that some elements of the Bible can be introduced in public school, and not just in the mythology section of literature class. There is some material in the Bible that belongs in a class studying mythology. But there is also material that could be involved in studying general poetry, history (with proper attention to historiography), and also as an example of religious literature in a comparative sense. This allows various elements of Biblical literature to be used without the government committing itself on the boundaries of the Bible as such.

    The Bible as a book of faith should be taught in church, at home, and in private religious schools. If you want the Bible as the basis of your child’s education and you want the Bible integrated into every day in the classroom, private school is your option. You can choose the school according to the curriculum it offers. On the other hand if you support the public school system, as I do, keep your public schools out of these controversies. Use the wonderful Sunday School, Wednesday night, and retreat opportunities to teach your child religion. This will be good for religion, for the quality of public education, and for religious freedom in this country.

  • 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.