… through politics (HT to myself at Under Christ’s Archy).
Category: Religion
All posts relating to religion, including those on the relationship of religion to other fields, such as science and politics
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Christopher Hitchens Dies
I’m sad to report that after years of living with cancer, Christopher Hitchens has died at age 62. I have not personal encounters or recollections to report, but I must admit that, while disagreeing with him on many things, including his stand on the war in Iraq, I appreciated his gift for writing, the one way in which I did encounter him.
Most particularly I appreciated the honest and dignified way in which he faced living with cancer. Cancer is a difficult thing to live with, and he showed grace and good humor through it all. I do want to link to one post from someone who does have personal recollections-by Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
And as Ed noted the inevitability of deathbed conversion stories, a Christian habit I deplore, I must call attention to Russell D. Moore’s article Christopher Hitchens Might Be in Heaven, which is not a deathbed conversion story, but lays the groundwork for such stories. I have no doubt that God’s grace is sufficient for any moment, but at the same time it seems to me that such stories at times like this sound more like an attempt to win points against an opponent who can no longer respond than they do like a genuine witness to the faith.
If I am right that there is a God and an afterlife (and thus Hitchens was wrong), I would personally hope as did C. S. Lewis regarding J. S. Mill (God in the Dock, “Man or Rabbit”, 110), that I might encounter him there, and that this would happen without any contrived deathbed story. I’m not a universalist, but I am a hopeful person.
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Of Virgin Births and Whale’s Bellies
Allan Bevere asks an interesting question today on his blog: Just how important is the doctrine of the virgin birth to you? He titles the post Must One Believe in the Virgin Birth to Be a Christian?
I tend to annoy people on both sides of the spectrum (belief in miracles spectrum, of course) because despite the word “liberal” in the subtitle of this blog I do, in fact, believe in the virgin birth as an event that happened in history, but at the same time, I’m not concerned with whether others believe it or not. Allan cites Albert Mohler, who believes it is necessary to accept the virgin birth in order to be a Christian.
Allan also stomps on one annoying tendency, the way in which some liberals tend to pounce on conservatives as less intellectual because of their beliefs. If one accepts miracles, one is less sophisticated. But I think it is only fair to point out the opposite fault in Mohler’s article, the tendency to regard liberals as less devout because of the things they don’t believe in.
Nicholas Kristof pointed to his grandfather as a “devout” Presbyterian elder who believed that the Virgin Birth is a “pious legend.” Follow his example, Kristof encourages, and join the modern age. But we must face the hard fact that Kristof’s grandfather denied the faith. This is a very strange and perverse definition of “devout.”
This is a conservative’s way of belittling an opponent, just as “intellectually unsophisticated” is the liberal’s approach. I must, however, point out that neither side is above using the other’s ammunition, and that both sides have those who avoid either fault.
In support of my belief in the virgin birth, I will be very brief. I’ve already accepted the bodily resurrection, so the virgin birth hardly seems like an issue to me. At the same time, and more importantly, I accept the incarnation as both true and as the most central doctrine of Christianity, and if I can accept that infinite God can become a human being, the idea that this might be accomplished through a virgin birth again seems pretty trivial.
In support of my belief that the virgin birth is not essential, I will again cite the doctrine of the incarnation. I believe the incarnation is absolutely critical. It’s quite possible, however, to see the virgin birth as a metaphorical statement of that doctrine, or perhaps more precisely an expression of part of the meaning of that doctrine. I don’t even claim to have any details in mind on how the virgin birth might occur. Did God create a new baby in the womb? Did God adjust the DNA? So despite believing in a virgin birth as a historical event, I don’t have a clue as to how it happened. Thus in teaching it, I probably say almost the same things as would someone who believed it was purely metaphor.
And that brings me to whale’s bellies. On The Jesus Creed we have Scot McKnight getting involved in the question of the historicity of the book of Jonah. (I’ll leave you to follow the further links there.) A miracle of preserving someone’s life for three days inside a sea creature of some sort, whether a whale or something else, is again trivial alongside the incarnation and the resurrection. But I don’t believe the book of Jonah is historical. Why? I think there’s very good evidence in the text that we’re reading fiction designed to make some very specific points to an audience in a different time and place than the one in which the story is set. I don’t have a problem with the miracle. Were I convinced that Jonah was history, nothing else in my belief system would have to change. God could manage the whale’s belly thing. I just happen to believe God did not do so. But if you want to accuse me of being intellectually unsophisticated, go ahead. Because I am intellectually unsophisticated enough to believe the miracle is possible.
Then there’s the question of Jesus’ use of the three days motif from Jonah. I will simply comment that I know one can refer to a fictional story in this fashion because I have done it myself. I’ve used a fictional story to illustrate a real event and it has generally worked just fine. Occasionally fine, fact-oriented, 21st century folks get upset with me about it, but I tell them to chill.
I want to respond also to the first comment on McKnight’s article, which is from Joe Carter. Here he wonders how we might distinguish when Jesus is using supernatural power and when he’s using the knowledge of his culture. I’d make two points. 1) If Jesus didn’t use the knowledge of his culture, could he really have been said to have lived as a human? Would not constant supernatural knowledge make him not quite truly human? 2) Is this not the common problem in reading scripture? We distinguish the cultural background from the message all the time in case after case. Surely it is not that difficult in most cases, and in many cases where it is difficult, it is not all that important.
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On Merry Christmas from Last Year
Considering my previous post, I thought I’d call attention to a dialog I wrote for my Jevlir blog on this whole Merry Christmas thing.
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On Christians Insulting Atheists
A couple of months ago I got a forwarded e-mail which purported to tell about a court case in Florida. An atheist was said to be complaining about not having a holiday like various varieties of religious folks, and got the ACLU to take the issue to court. The judge explains that he does have a holiday already, April Fools Day, citing Psalm 14:1/Psalm 53:1. It was an obvious joke, though it was forwarded seriously. I read it and deleted it. It wasn’t even the first time I’d seen a variant of this story. I decided to look for a link for this post, and the obvious source was Snopes.com, which does, indeed, list the story and informs us it is fake, though they note that there certainly are plenty of people who have taken it seriously.
I find it disturbing that people with the intelligence to turn on a computer might think this was real. What matters more, I think, is that people regard this as a good joke, and that some of those who regard it as real expressed the hope that we would get more judges like the one in this joke. We would be rightly be angry if such a joke were told about a racial minority or a disabled person, but it’s just fine to tell it about atheists.
What got me thinking about this was all the “war on Christmas” junk that goes around this time of year. We have the constant effort to get religious displays on public property and then to prevent other displays, such as atheist or humanist ones, from getting shown as well. It’s not as if we don’t have hundreds of places to display our nativity scenes. I even put one on the header of my company’s web site, Energion Publications. I get to do that. It’s my company. I don’t have to give equal time.
My downtown Pensacola church can put up any displays they want, and most of the town will have the opportunity to see them. My church doesn’t have to give other groups equal time. It’s a church. It gets to promote the views of its membership. But once we go onto public property, such as at city hall or at a school, things are somewhat different. There, the government is a sponsor.
For example, in West Chest, PA, a display on public property excluded a Tree of Knowledge sponsored by the local free thought society. I mention this one in particular—there are dozens—because I know someone who is involved. My question would be just who is harmed by the display of this tree of knowledge. Why would someone be insulted that some other person disagreed, and was able to express their disagreement. It is not as though Christians don’t have plenty of opportunity to express their point of view.
Elsewhere, Christians have tried to prevent Muslims from erecting a mosque, a place of worship. The argument has been made that Muslims should be regarded as a political movement, and thus not covered by freedom of religion. Often Christians have led in these actions. (Note that this point alone would be sufficient to mean that I would never vote for Cain or Gingrich under any circumstances.)
The comments on posts and news stories about these issues are very revealing, however. I’m amazed at the insulting language used by Christian commenters. Now there are doubtless readers who are thinking, “But what about the insulting language used by atheist posters?” I know of atheists who are quite concerned with such insulting language, but I’m a Christian, and what concerns me here is Christian witness. Posting obscenities about atheists says very bad things about Christians who do it.
My interest here is not in the legal aspects. I support separation of church and state, but I really want to address Christians and the way we think about these issues and the way we behave. The word “blasphemy,” in my opinion, has no place in political discourse. The government should know nothing of and have no concern with “blasphemy.” It’s a religious concept. One of the arguments Christians use is that by their very denial of God, atheists blaspheme. By writing against Christianity, they do so even more.
But here’s what I think is truly blasphemous, and since I’m addressing Christians about what would be blasphemy in Christianity, I think the word “blasphemy” is entirely appropriate. When a Christian says “I am a Christian” and then uses obscenities about another human being, or insults that person, that is blasphemy. It is also taking the name of the Lord, Jesus, in vain. It’s not the use of four letter words that constitutes “in vain.” It’s the claim that you are a follower of Jesus, in scriptural terms part of the Body of Christ in the world, and then acting in a way that is diametrically opposed to what you claim.
By insulting, I don’t mean disagreement, even when vigorously expressed. If you disagree with me, for example, and inform me of that disagreement, that’s not insult. But if you call me immoral for my view, or call me a fool, or lace your explanation with obscenities directed at me, then that’s insulting. Christians shouldn’t be doing that. Indeed, nobody should, but as a Christian, I’m addressing Christians.
What should we do instead? In my view, there should be a line of Christians at any hearing that was about denying someone else their freedom of expression. We should be testifying in their favor. Just think of the difference in our witness if, instead of being insulted that others have views that differ from ours, we went out of our way to treat them as we would want to be treated.
I think Jesus said something about that somewhere.
Oh, yes. “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12 NLT).
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How Charismatic Am I?
Adrian Warnock is working on a spectrum for determining just how charismatic one is in belief and practice. His initial test seemed to make people more charismatic than they actually are, or perhaps than they consider themselves to be.
I took the test, and came out strongly charismatic in belief and mildly charismatic in practice. Some of my negatives include “I have prophesied” and “I have asked God to give me the gift of prophecy.” These two questions are legitimate measures of charismatic belief, but while I believe that the gift of prophecy continues in theory, I am very hesitant to point to any particular person I would regard as a prophet. In other words, God could call someone to be a prophet, but I have not identified one.
Another interesting one was regarding speaking in tongues. Under beliefs I indicated I believed this gift was available in modern times, and under practice that I have spoken in tongues, by which I refer to what is commonly called “praying in the Spirit,” though I don’t prefer that title. As closely I can describe the experience, it’s a bit like meditating. But that is for another article. But under practice, I had to note that I had never prayed to receive the gift of tongues, and in fact never desired it. It just happened. That is a valid distinction. If I believed that receiving the gift of tongues, or more specifically a prayer language, was a required, singular evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that the baptism is an event always or most commonly separate from conversion, then I’d presumably be answering ‘yes’ to all of these.
On the positive side I checked off praying for or receiving healing, raising and clapping my hands during worship, and getting emotional during worship, amongst others.
After presenting some results, he followed up with some questions that needed to be reworded. Amongst these he changed the question on healing to include the word “supernaturally.” On dancing, raising, and clapping hands, the questions indicated a biblical requirement rather than simply whether it is acceptable.
I really have little problem with the spectrum in general, but I would note the difficulty I have in answering these questions. In fact, I thought of some of these issues when responding to the questionnaire the first time. How closely do my definitions of these terms match the ones Adrian is using in asking the questions. When he added the word “supernaturally” to the healing question, the definition question came back to me.
I’m willing to answer supernatural healing positively, if that means that through prayer healing occurs that would not have occurred in the natural order of things. But there are two issues. First is the definition of “supernatural.” I don’t make as clear a distinction between supernatural and natural as some do. Yes, there are natural laws, but I see God in everything, so I consider all healing (and all truth) to come from God. I think also that most of what God does in the world is subtle and generally mediated through His people. This isn’t because God cannot act. I do not deny miracles. It is because God likes the way he designed the universe, and for the most part it works by natural law.
Then there’s the issue of a biblical mandate for particular acts of worship, whether singing, clapping hands, raising hands, or dancing. There would be two levels of distinction here. The first is whether such things are permitted. Many churches would reject the idea that people should dance in the church service, or even raise their hands or clap. Then there are those that consider this a valid part of worship, but wouldn’t require everything to do it. Then there are
others who think that if you don’t dance, you aren’t truly worshiping.
Neither set of questions truly distinguish all this, so I’m not sure how well the spectrum works. It’s especially difficult for someone who is a moderate or liberal charismatic. In that case, one would probably be open to many different approaches to worship, and might define various gifts (prophecy and healing, for example), in different ways, and still believe that the same gifts are available to the church today as ever were.
Finally, while I consider this spectrum interesting, since I hold only a very small set of beliefs as essential (saying the Apostles’ Creed without crossing one’s fingers!), I see such a spectrum as more for interest and entertainment than to be taken seriously. Any spectrum examining just one belief set is likely to obscure some differences and overemphasize others.
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On a Soterian Gospel
“Some folks have reshaped the Bible and the gospel so that it is driven by the plan for personal salvation. The Greek word for salvation is soteria so it is accurate to refer to such thinkers as soterians and their gospel as the soterian gospel.” Thus Scot McKnight begins his discussion of salvation and judgment and the focus on personal salvation.
I agree with him on the nature of the salvation described in the Bible, and the way it has been twisted, especially in American Christianity. We have created a gospel that is well designed to mesh with our self-centeredness. The gospel becomes so personal that we don’t really care what happens to others, as long as we can be sure we’re “saved.”
I suspect this is one of the reasons that we find so many American churches proclaiming a theology that would seem to imply missions, but at the same time not really being involved personally or financially with missions. In mainline denominations, such as my own, I think we’re much more susceptible to a complacency because we look at the judgment scenes and we decide that we’re not so bad. Both of these views fail because the concern is solely with ourselves. If we’re doing OK, even if we measure how ‘OK’ we are by our activities in service to those less fortunate, then we tend to neglect the Gospel Commission.
And that leads to one text McKnight cites in the post I linked that I think may be easily misconstrued, Matthew 25:31-46. We frequently take this as a parable intended to answer the question “What happens at the judgment?”. I think it is actually a parable against complacency. Notice that nobody is actually right about their standing with God in this parable. All are surprised. I’d tie it most closely with Matthew 7:21-23. Just because you proclaim, just because you think you have it nailed down, doesn’t mean that you’re right with God. That is something God gets to judge.
Now on first glance, one might think this points more to “social gospel” people, who think they’re doing what they should, when actually neglecting so much. A little bit of charity goes a long ways in salving one’s conscience, but God’s call is not to a little bit of charity. God’s call is to being a different type of person, the type of person who is focused on helping those in need, both spiritual and physical. And there’s no reason to neglect either. A church spending 5% of its budget on missions and outreach might be able to pat itself on its collective back and note that it’s doing better than other mainline denominations. But will that meet the standard?
And to those whose focus is on theological correctness as the standard for salvation, where’s the difference? There are works of the hands and works of the intellect. The way I hear salvation described by some, one would think that it’s based on one’s intellectual understanding of complex doctrines. If you don’t understand imputation, let’s say, you might not be saved.
But the sheep and the goats points against us finding ways to guarantee our own, separate salvation, and calls us to look to community. That says that the real question is whether God has worked and is working in us, and not whether we have correctly understood or carried out some program.
Related articles
- Review: The King Jesus Gospel (simuliustusetpeccator.com)
- How Many Gospels? (inchristus.wordpress.com)
- The Semi-Pelagian Narrower Catechism (mgpcpastor.wordpress.com)
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Atheist Holiday Ads and Christian Freedom
The Christian Post reports that the American Humanist Association has some holiday ads out. These ads have messages such as “Bias against atheists is naughty, not nice.” Such a message seems pretty straightforward to me.
But the Christian Post writer chose to quote Matthew D. Staver:
Mathew D. Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, said that the campaign was a crass attempt at restricting the religious freedom of Christians passionate about Christmas. As the birthdate of Christianity, he said no other holiday deserved more public worship.
Now as a Christian, I’m fully in tune with the idea of being passionate about Christmas and in worshiping on this holiday. That is my choice as a Christian. In addition, there are a number of things I like to do about Christmas to make it more a matter of worship and less a matter of commercialism. This includes paying close attention to the advent season and the worship involved, and in also following the season, always noting that Christmas, as a liturgical season, begins and does not end on Christmas day.
But all of that is my choice. I can be passionate about what I want to do. Nobody else can prevent me from worshiping during the Christmas season. Nobody can prevent me from being passionate about the incarnation during this season.
But the incarnation does suggest something else to me. It suggests that I shouldn’t want to try to exclude others. The incarnation represents the greatest inclusion, or gap crossing, in religious thought. Infinite God reaches across the gulf to the finite, us, and draws us in.
So should we, as does Mr. Staver, complain that our freedom is being limited or that these ads prevent us from passionately celebrating our own holiday? Or perhaps we should see this as an opportunity to treat people in a respectful way ourselves.
They aren’t hurting Christians in any way by disagreeing with us. That’s their choice. Complaining about it just suggests that in this country we have a majority (Christians) who are so thin skinned that they can’t tolerate a very small minority asking for a little respect.
And that’s pathetic.
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Through Difficulties to Ministry
Shauna Hyde is one of the authors at Energion Publications, so I admit to bias, but I really did like this write-up in the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail. Her book, Victim No More! is mentioned in the article.
I’m often critical of newspaper articles, not so much for being negative, but for being shallow. I think this one is pretty good.
