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Monthly Archives for August 2008

More good stuff from Ben Witherington

Ben Witherington’s blog has become essential reading for me- he has a lot to say on such diverse topics as Biblical archeology and movie reviews. The following quote from his blog is from a draft of an upcoming book on the New Testament and ethics called The Indelible Image.  His blog post contains a much larger segment on the connection between the Old and New Testaments.  It’s good stuff, and I think even non-Christians who question the validity of the Bible, believing it to be full of errors and contradictions,  will find it interesting and hopefully enlightening. Trust me – if you’ve ever criticized the Bible, you probably should read this if you want to maintain any kind of intellectual integrity.

Some will ask why is it so important to consider the theology and the ethics in the Bible in a processive and progressive manner? One answer is that we cannot judge the meaning of a story, and the character of its actors before we get to the end of it. Consider for a moment the example of the great trilogy the Lord of the Rings. One cannot tell whether Frodo will have the necessary character to do what is required with the ring until we get to right near the end of the story. Up to that point we do not know whether he will pass the test. Or even more tellingly, we cannot tell whether Gollum is going to end up being an adversary or an assistant in the process of saving the Shire and the world until right near the end. Or what of Gandalf? Will he return in time or at all to help the human race ward off evil? We don’t know until many hundreds of pages into the story. The Bible involves a similarly epic story from creation through fall through various acts of redemption to the final new creation. Viewing the whole story from the end changes the way we look at the character of God, the character of God’s people, how human history will play out, the nature of redemption, and a host of other subjects. The truth is—we don’t fully know God and the divine character sufficiently for eternal salvation before Jesus turns up to reveal it.

This is not necessarily the best section to quote, but I chose it because it is reasonably self-contained and does give the flavor of what he’s saying. I really encourage you to head over to Ben’s blog (here’s the link again) and read the entire article.

Now for something completely different, thanks again to Ben W for finding this little gem:

Who says that Christians don’t have a sense of humor?

Written on 31 August 2008 by me under Humor and/or Sarcasm, Theological Musings with No Comments

What do you mean, “Christianity isn’t about making me happy”

“I was quite shocked…that most people thought the reason for Christianity is to make you happy. I shared that with the youth worker at my congregation…as I told him about that I invited him to bring the high school students to my class because I was expressing things about the faith and that particular Sunday I was going to talk about the Creed. So the youth came and they participated a little bit…when they went back to their own class they voted whether to come to my class anymore, and they voted not to, because they didn’t want to learn the substance of faith.

I was very disappointed, and I asked about what they were doing in their junior high class to prepare them for high school class. There they were doing “How Christianity helps us grow up.” But it was matters of “I need comfort when I break up with my boyfriend.” There’s more to Christianity than how its going to make you happy… Young people have very little doctrinal content. And that’s dangerous because, if it’s just feelings that hold them to Christianity, when their feelings aren’t there…they’ll move away .”  – Dr. Marva Dawn from The White Horse Inn, 8-24-08

Thanks to Charles St-Onge for the quote.

This issue has been plaguing me for some time now. One of the issues that gave rise to the Reformation was the theological and Biblical ignorance of the Roman Church, including the leaders. Many of the local priests didn’t even understand the Latin that they recited daily from memory. Today, as “educated” as we are, with an amazing plethora of resources available for free on the internet, the contemporary evangelical church is largely ignorant. And, they apparently want to stay that way, even many of the leaders. I’ve heard from more than one pastor that they don’t have time to read or study (aside from what they have to do to prepare sermons, etc.). More and more sermons are on the level expressed above, “where do I find comfort when I break up with my boyfriend?”

It’s embarrassing, and it’s frightening. I’m putting my son, who’s a high school senior, though a self-study theology program (called “The Theology Program“), so at least he’s got some kind of foundation. He’s not getting it in the youth group. Fortunately, my wife and I taught 3 years of Jr High and High School classes (my wife has taught for longer) where we provided basic theology, but still, it was nothing like the education I had growing up. As a Lutheran in Confirmation class, I learned church history as well as basic theology, including the meaning of the creeds, and so on. It takes a church, not just one person.

Who cares, today?  I don’t think the church we’ve been attending does.  Churches today are offering more practical, “meaningful” topics to attract people to their classes. It’s not about education, it’s about marketing, experience and entertainment. It’s time for a new Western evangelical reformation, and the emerging movement isn’t it. Cultural relevance isn’t it.

The church needs to rediscover the Gospel, that Jesus is Lord (king) and that he’s got a plan. We’re not just here wasting time waiting to be taken away to some Heaven-Nirvana. We’re called (remember “calling?”) to a purpose, to start working for the Kingdom here and now.

To those waiting to hear the next “feel-good” sermon about what’s in it for you, this is what I have to say: “Suck it up. Wake up. Get over it.” Certainly there are benefits for you in the process; Christianity is a religion of “enlightened self-interest.” But recall the Bible talks about working out your salvation. That’s not working for your salvation, that’s putting your salvation to work.

Welcome to the New Reformation.

Written on 30 August 2008 by me under Church, Letter to a Christian Nation, Theological Musings with 2 Comments

Journalist Julie Burchill: For the love of Christ

Today, atheism is big business with the success of books like The God Delusion. If you want to get ahead, be a heretic! Something, however, has been lost. Say the word “atheist” 100 years ago and it conjured up a vision of sexy, freewheeling rebels celebrating life, love and creativity in their rejection of a higher power. Say it now and a vision of fun-hating killjoys, desperately scared that somewhere a Christian is having a good time by singing lustily in church on a Sunday morning, comes to mind. And, sadly, the alleged “humanist morality” never happened – to this day, 80% of all unpaid and unself-interested voluntary and charity work is faith-driven.

From For the love of Christ.

Thanks to Quixote for pointing me toward this article. I wasn’t familiar with Ms. Burchill before today, but I’ve looked back on a couple of earlier articles. She certainly has an interesting persepctive on things, and a way with words. She also seems to understand that being a Christian means something beyond finding personal peace (which, coincidentally, appears the direct opposite of what my oldest son heard in the church he attended this morning), as she states in her opening paragraph:

First of all, let me tell you what this isn’t. It’s not some “I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found” sob story. These days, many people reach out to faith “to find peace”. I had too much peace in my life already. In faith, I was looking to be troubled – on behalf of other people. Every film and pop starlet, trawling after a reason to exist, says, “I’m not religious – but I am spiritual”. I don’t have a spiritual bone in my body; but what I am, is religious. I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I’m a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist. But over the past two decades, almost without me knowing it, the Christian part has become the most important.

I haven’t yet figured out what her “Christian Zionist” thing is, and how that fits with her Christian socialism. But, she has a perspective on things that is not what we usually hear, and I appreciate that.

Written on 24 August 2008 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt, Reviews with 4 Comments

All have sinned… an atheist’s perspective

I haven’t blogged for a while, due to work, vacations, and life in general. However, I’m currently really enjoying a dialog over at my friend Mike’s blog, on the subject of what Christianity is all about, and of course, whether there’s any reason to believe it at all.  I invite you to surf on over there and check it out, and join in if you feel so inclined.

I’ll be back talking more about epistemology and other fun stuff soon.

Written on 24 August 2008 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 2 Comments
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Communion, reality, Plato’s Cave and parallel universes

While I am not nearly as fond of Plato as some, I think I can understand why many Christians hold to somewhat of a Platonic Idealism; the belief that “the other side” is more real than the physical world seems to fit in with much of Christian thinking on the nature of reality.  I thought that C.S. Lewis did a marvelous job in exploring that concept in The Great Divorce, one of my favorite Lewis works.  I also can understand – in a sense – the belief that parallel universes exist. The idea that reality branches off in a decision tree, where all potentials are real somewhere, is intriguing, even if the theory is based on some questionable approaches to mathematics. Some of my favorite fiction is that which explores the nature of reality. It’s just fun to think about.

And then, sometimes I just encounter reality.

My neighbor, Randy, is pastor of one of the larger churches in our area, which I understand is one of the only 3 growing churches in town.  Randy’s a really great guy, we like him a lot. His church, on the surface, is one of those white, middle-class, conservative evangelical churches that I have a really hard time with.  However, this church is not your normal evangelical church, and Randy is not your normal evangelical pastor. He knows, for example, that life sometimes is very hard; a few years ago his son, still a teenager, simply died after a game of golf.  Randy never lost his faith, however the joy of golf is no more.

So, we visit Randy’s church on occasion.  He speaks truth, from the heart, and has no need for followers, or for your money. The church is on its 2nd huge building project in 6 years, but they only build what they have money for.  They don’t take an offering, people drop it in the basket on their way out.  The first time we visited, I confess I had a hard time dealing with the whole middle-class evangelical culture thing; while I sensed there was something more beneath the surface, I wasn’t sure that I had the patience to deal with the surface.  Then, of course, there’s evangelicalism itself…

While I have some difficulty with evangelical culture, I have perhaps more of an issue with evangelical theology; being self-consciously modern, they’ve done away with anything approximating mystery or the unexplainable, preferring to turn sacraments into mere memorials or “testimonies.”  They have, for the most part, accepted Plato’s dualism; they live life in the “cave,” looking for some future escape into a supernatural reality. Sometimes, in their attempts to bring some kind of faith element back into the sacraments, they become more like superstitions than anything else.  For this reason, I don’t take communion in the church we’ve attended for 7 years, or in most evangelical churches.

Surprised by Reality

This past Sunday, Randy’s church celebrated communion, which they tend to do once a month.  There, I had an experience of Reality. Rather than tack communion on at the end of the service as kind of the “weird uncle” of church practice, they center their morning around it. I was amazed… even Lutherans don’t put that much emphasis on communion.  Even though this is a regular practice for this church, Randy spoke at length about the meaning of communion as if they had never done it before, and I think what he had to say would have made most Lutherans feel at home, as well as most evangelicals.  As we took communion (even though they were little crackery things and grape juice), I encountered reality, or what is sometimes called the Real Presence.

I am not talking about any molecular changes or pseudo-cannibalistic superstitions, but a simple experience of Reality, a connection between parallel realities. It’s not a physical multiverse thing or even a Platonic vision of reality, neither of which I believe in.  I do believe that our material universe is entirely real, is not just a cave of shadows, but is “spiritual” in its own right. However, I do believe that there exists another reality, known theologically as the Kingdom of God/Heaven, and that God has provided a number of “contact points” by which this reality can be touched by those of us currently inhabiting our material universe. Communion is one such point, where – in a manner of speaking – Heaven touches Earth.

Being I was in a setting where I didn’t expect it, my epiphany, this sudden awareness of Reality, took me by surprise.

Is it mystical? You bet.  Is it detectable by any scientific means?  I don’t think so.  Is it irrational?  Not at all; such a reality is, as I’ve said, conceivable by better minds than mine.  To those who haven’t encountered Reality, it is indescribable.  However, for those of us who have encountered Reality, it is simply undeniable.

Written on 06 August 2008 by me under Church, Faith, Science & Doubt, Philosophy with 1 Comment
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