Sandwiches There

My New Blog at Wordpress

2008-01-01T21:05:00.001-06:00

My blog has moved. I am leaving blogger behind and moving on to greener pastures at Wordpress. Please visit my new blog at rtjones.wordpress.com.

Am I Emergent?

2007-12-29T16:43:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Brian LePort for the link to this theology quiz. This is probably about right. Maybe I'd go a little lower on emergent, but then I'd have to go lower on everything else too. I certainly wouldn't self-identify with the emergent movement, but I'm not terribly far from it.

This is such a cheater post, but I haven't even looked at the computer for all of Christmas week. This is my first time getting on and just for a short time. Just wanted to let you know that I'm still here. I have only read about 1/3 of the blogs I usually read, so sorry I haven't interacted with you all in awhile. Right now I'm busy trying to increase my vocabulary enough to understand David Bently Hart's Beaty of the Infinite that I just got for Christmas. Also, I am still planning on switching to Wordpress in a couple days. So there's still time for you to get that free book.

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern

79%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

79%

Neo orthodox

64%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

57%

Classical Liberal

50%

Reformed Evangelical

36%

Roman Catholic

32%

Fundamentalist

29%

Modern Liberal

25%

Bloggers Unite: Add a Jim West Warning Label

2007-12-22T13:35:00.000-06:00

Jim West is shocked that anyone would find his blog a little too edgy. (It's not as if he has any strong opinions that someone might disagree with.) In particular, Michael Jackson added a warning label on his blogroll link to Jim's site. Personally I think this is quite a good idea and would encourage everyone to follow suit. This is a way that the blogging community can genuinely make the world a better and safer place for everyone.

-- Please note that it is very important that the warning be in ALL CAPS!--

Two memes

2007-12-22T11:38:00.001-06:00

Bryan recently tagged me with two memes: the 'seven little known things' meme and the 'what's in your/on your' meme. I'll do them both as one post, but I'm not going to tag anyone at the end. It's like multi-level marketing. After you've done it once and gotten all your friends involved, you are more hesitant to do it again. So if you want to be tagged, leave a comment and I'll tag. I promise. Please specify which meme(s) you want to be tagged for, since these are two different threads, and ought not to get tangled.

Meme #1 - Share seven little know things about yourself.
1. I had the leading role, Ebenezer Scrooge, in my fourth grade class play.
2. I wore a UCLA T-shirt to my first real concert, Metallica, in 9th grade. I had all kinds of real concert T-shirts that I could have (and should have) worn, but I have always hated doing things just because everyone else is doing it.
3. During my first week in the dorms at college, I blasted Madonna's Immaculate Collection as loud as I could in my room. I had all kinds of other more appropriate CDs that I could have (and should have) played loudly, but I have always hated shunning pop culture just because all the 'cool alternative people' are doing it.
4. I signed up for Latin in college because I wanted to read the Bible in its original language. I figured out in the first week that the Bible wasn't written in Latin, but I took three semesters anyway. I have never done a thing with it. (A little like learning Russian to read Marx in his original language.)
5. I can recite the alphabet backwards in less than three seconds.
6. I routinely consider moving to another country (England, Israel, India, and Costa Rica are among the options that I often think of) but I probably never will.
7. I'm a total neat freak. Oh wait, no, I'm not. I'm the total opposite of a neat freak, whatever that would be called.

Meme #2 - What's in your/on your:
CD player?
The Ancient Church, lecture 5 (for a distance ed course). On my mp3 player I have the first three lectures of Church History by Gerald Bray. You can get all kinds of free evangelical seminary courses at biblicaltraining.org.

DVD player?
It's empty. I think the kids were watching a VeggieTales Larryboy show last. I don't actually watch movies. I'm a Christian after all. :) Actually the last movie I watched was Babylon 5: A Call to Arms. At the beginning of the year we borrowed season 1 of Babylon 5 and we finally finished all five seasons plus all five movies. Good times.

To Read list?
Henry Chadwick, The Early Church; J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines; Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (All for the same distance ed course, though the Pelikan book is part of 1000 pages reading that I get to choose for myself, and was on my to read list already).
I am still only half-way through Kevin Vanhoozer's Drama of Doctrine. It's a great book, but I keep stopping after each chapter to read other books. That's everything on the front burners right now. To see what's on the back burners, see my Amazon wish list.

To see list?
The Parthenon, Paris, Rome and Vatican City, the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramids

Mind?
I spend too much time on the computer. Also I'm thinking about the relationship between theology and knowledge, and the Resurrection of Jesus - both especially in terms of comments I have recently gotten, both on my blog and through email. This kind of stuff usually takes me a week or two to process.

Christmas Mental Associations

2007-12-21T13:48:00.001-06:00

Okay. Here is a little Mental Association game. You start with a topic and tell what unrelated thing you associate with it. Then you associate another unrelated thing to that. After the seventh association (the 'number of perfection'), you have to somehow bring it back to the first topic.

Today's association topic is Christmas. When I think of Christmas, I remember reading the Christmas story from Luke 2, year after year. Stories of shepherds mixed with stories of wise men and drummer boys and Christmas trees and Christmas queens and five good reasons to memorize your Christmas play lines. The nativity passages in the Bible became...

1. Out-of-context scriptures. When I became a Christan, I had trouble even reading Luke 2 without gagging. After several years (and several sermons and papers on Luke, portions of Luke, or Luke's theology), Luke 2 has finally been integrated back into scripture for me. Now when I hear the Christmas story, I snap into redaction criticism mode, where I think, "Oh that part is from Luke (or Matthew), and here is what he was doing in his narrative through that passage." The other main out-of-context scriptures I stumbled over as a new Christian were the passion narratives. They would always remind me of...

2. Jesus Christ Superstar. I would get to the last supper and start singing to myself, "What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happening." Like the nativity stories, I am finally over this reaction, but I also have never seen a production of Jesus Christ Superstar since I was in high school. I have heard lots of Christians who hate it, but I didn't recall anything seeing it then that was particularly blasphemous. I would like to see it again sometime, but I fear that I will spent the next year singing, "What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happening," every time I read the passion narratives. That happened to me for a week after seeing just a short snippet of it in...

3. Along Came Polly. Do you remember this movie with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston a few years ago? Stiller's best friend (whose name I don't remember) was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. He was cast in some minor role (Judas?) but he was so full of himself that he thought he ought to jump in and play the role of Jesus. Now every time I start singing, "What's the buzz? Tell me what's a happening," all I can picture is the part in the movie where he jumps in during practice and starts singing, "Whyyyy shooould yooou want to know?" This little Asian guy timidly speaks up, saying, "But it's me. I'm Jesus." It was maybe one of the best presentations of arrogant pride (in the Biblical sense) I have ever seen. Ben Stiller has been in a lot of movies: "There's Something About Mary," "Zoolander," and others. But my favorite Ben Stiller movie has got to be...

4. Keeping the Faith. Ben Stiller plays a young rabbi who has been friends since childhood with Ed Norton's character, who grows up to be a Roman Catholic priest. And there's the woman from Dharma and Greg whose name I can't remember. My favorite scene is where Ben Stiller brings in a Black Gospel Choir to liven up their synagogue services. That scene, to me, is what church ought to be like. I got to have that kind of experience once during my...

5. Six Weeks Singing in a Black Gospel Choir. When I first became a believer, I had a friend in the UW Gospel Choir, and he invited me to join. I ended up dropping it after a few weeks, but I was in long enough to sing one concert. It was great fun, but I'll never forget how awkward I felt as one of maybe five white people in a choir of fifty or sixty, and the only white guy. It was an amazing experience that helped me catch just a little glimpse into what it feels like to be a minority. I had no problem with the music itself, but otherwise I felt totally out of place culturally. I said I quit because I didn't have time for it, but sometimes I wonder if it is just because I felt so uncomfortable. It was a great experience overall, and a fun part of my...

6. My College Life. Sometimes I regret dropping out of the Gospel Choir. I regret dropping out of the Marching Band after finding out I had only made Sweatered Alternate (which meant I wouldn't get to play unless someone else couldn't make it, but I would have to lug around everyone's equipment). I regret not doing more stuff during college. Sometimes I think should have gone to a smaller school than a state school with 40,000 students. I was too intimidated to ever do anything important. The only thing I ever really got involved in was church. But that was a good thing, because it changed my life. It was also the place where I met...

7. My Wife. "An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels." (Proverbs 31.10) This was the verse I spent the morning meditating on before I asked her to court me. Yes, we did the whole I Kissed Dating Goodbye method. And you know what? It actually worked. We had our very first kiss at the altar. (Talk about a Big Red moment!) I have read a lot of people online (okay, actually just Chris Tilling) that make fun of courtship, but dangit, it just works. I am more in love than ever after almost nine years, and have five children to prove it. O how a family helps you to recognize how many things you take for granted, which brings me back to...

· Christmas. It seems I have spent a lot of time overcoming Christmas burnout. But now with a family, Christmas is more fun than ever. My kids are so wired. We're going to our church Christmas party tonight, where I'll lead everyone in singing Christmas carols, which I like again. It's all good.

It would be fun if some of you would pick up this theme and do your own Mental Association post on Christmas. I would like to see where it leads for other people. I would love to see this become a sort of pseudo-meme, but where you don't have to tag people at the end. Leave me a comment with a link if you decide to play the Association Game.

I'm Less Introverted than I Thought I Was

2007-12-20T13:13:00.000-06:00

I just found out about the online Myers/Briggs personality test at personality.info. I accidentally clicked on the wrong test at first and got fooled into signing up for all kinds of offers. If you take the test, you shouldn't have to sign up for anything (other than an account). So make sure you click the right button. Here's my personality:

Last time I took this, I came up as an introvert. The first time I took this, I came up thinking. I guess I'm close enough to the middle that I can fluctuate somewhat between them. But I'm high in the N and P categories. Anyone that knows me (and knows the categories) is probably not surprised by that.

I probably wouldn't have taken the test, but I like the fact that it gives percentages instead of just assigning you letters. I am probably closest to being XNXP, since I'm really only one question off in the first and third categories.

So here's what they said about me, bearing in mind that, as an extrovert I'm not very extroverted, and for being feeling-oriented I'm not that feeling-oriented.

About the ENFP
"They can't bear to miss out on what is going on around them; they must experience, first hand, all the significant social events that affect our lives."

- The Portrait of the Champion Idealist (Keirsey)"ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential. They live in the world of possibilities, and can become very passionate and excited about things. Their enthusiasm lends them the ability to inspire and motivate others, more so than we see in other types. They can talk their way in or out of anything. They love life, seeing it as a special gift, and strive to make the most out of it."

- Portrait of an ENFP (The Personality Page)"Friends are what life is about to ENFPs, moreso even than the other NFs. They hold up their end of the relationship, sometimes being victimized by less caring individuals. ENFPs are energized by being around people. Some have real difficulty being alone, especially on a regular basis."

- ENFP Profile (TypeLogic)
"outgoing, social, disorganized, easily talked into doing silly things, spontaneous, wild and crazy, acts without thinking..."

- ENFP Jung Type Descriptions (similarminds.com)"ENFPs are energetic and enthusiastic leaders who are likely to take charge when a new endeavor needs a visionary spokesperson. ENFPs are values-oriented people who become champions of causes and services relating to human needs and dreams. Their leadership style is one of soliciting and recognizing others' contributions and of evaluating the personal needs of their followers. ENFPs are often charismatic leaders who are able to help people see the possibilities beyond themselves and their current realities. They function as catalysts."

- ENFP - The Visionary (Lifexplore)"Ranked 1st of all 16 types in using social and emotional coping resources and 2nd in using cognitive resources. "

Since the more detailed reports rank me as INFP, that's how I will continue to describe myself.

Jake's One Book Meme

2007-12-20T12:18:00.001-06:00

Jake, at The Blah Blah, just got tagged with the One Book Meme. But since a book meme doesn't really make sense to post on an mp3 blog, I offered to let him guest post here. Here is how Jake responded:

1. One book that changed your life:The Cross and the Switchblade, by David Wilkerson - He goes into the inner-city gangs of New York with the gospel, almost gets killed, and changes kids' lives. What more could you ask for?

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:Disciples are Made, Not Born by Walter A. Henrichsen - I didn't choose to read it multiple times (but it is very good). I was in a number of groups that used this book about making disciples.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:The Ultimate Guide to US Army Survival SKills - 962 pages of pure survival goodness.

4. One book that made you laugh:Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road, by Donald Miller - It takes a little time to get rolling, but once the story picks up speed, you'll laugh as Donald and his buddy road trip half-way across America and find God in Oregon.

5. One book that made you cry:A Walk Across America, by Peter Jenkins - a great, encouraging, well-written true-life story that will make you laugh, cry, and want to travel the world. I cried hardest when his dog died, for whatever that's worth.

6. One book that you wish had been written:A Foundational Retrospective History of Egalitarian Cross-Cultural Movements among Endangered Hybrid Systematic Elves of Upper Norway. Either that or some really well-written, engaging novels based on Biblical stories and characters, some books that bring everything to life.

7. One book that you wish had never been written:The Koran (not even deserving of an Amazon.com link) - This book has destroyed so many people's lives. I couldn't think of a better one to permanently delete.

8. One book you’re currently reading:Light Force: A Stirring Account of the Church Caught in the Middle East Crossfire, by Brother Andrew - amazing stories and inspiring stuff about Christians making surviving in Muslim territory.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock, by Andrew Beaujon - a non-Christian journalist's perspective on the Christian music scene.

10. Now tag five people:Mudpuppy, Man of Steel, WorshipCity, Jaybrams, Matt

The Ascension: Evidence Against the Resurrection

2007-12-19T11:52:00.000-06:00

I have concluded… that the Ascension represents my greatest struggle of faith – not whether it happened, but why. It challenges me more than the problem of pain, more than the difficulty of harmonizing science and the Bible, more than belief in the Resurrection and other miracles. It seems odd to admit such a notion – I have never read a book or article conceived to answer doubts about the Ascension – yet for me what has happened since Jesus’ departure strikes at the core of my faith. Would it not have been better if the Ascension had never happened? If Jesus had stayed on earth, he could answer our questions, solve our doubts, mediate our disputes of doctrine and policy.
Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (1995), 229.

The primary story of the ascension is recorded in Acts 1, after the Jesus’ resurrection and 40 days of personal appearances. “He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1.9-11)

It is my contention that the story of the Ascension counts as historical evidence against the resurrection. Like Yancey, I am troubled by several issues related to the ascension. They pose a serious problem for building a historical case for the resurrection. Please keep in mind that I write this as a Christian who believes in the resurrection. Because I love the truth, I cannot simply shrug off difficult issues. Here is why I believe the story of the ascension counts as evidence against the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus.

There is one uncontested fact about the current state of Jesus: Jesus has not been seen publicly since the first century. Some individuals have seen him in visions. Some have claimed to have traveled to heaven and seen him there. Perhaps some even claim that he visited them on earth in the flesh. Even if we grant the veracity of all these experiences, it is clear that he is no longer a public figure. In considering the historical case for the resurrection, we must answer the question of where Jesus is now. There seem to be four possible answers:

1. Jesus rose bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, according to Luke and Acts.
2. Jesus did not rise from the dead, and his body rotted away.
3. Jesus rose from the dead, and he is alive and well on planet Earth, living in obscurity.
4. Jesus rose from the dead, died a second time, and his body rotted away.

I am not aware of anyone who has seriously argued for the third or fourth options. As a living individual (option three), he would have less relevance than Elvis, who at least gets his picture on tabloids. If he died a second death (option four), his resurrection was practically irrelevant. Certainly Jesus would have no theological significance. The only plausible options, I believe, are the first two. Which option best explains the facts?

In Reasonable Faith (pp.295-8, also referred to in his debate with Gerd Lüdemann), William Lane Craig proposes C.B. McCullogh’s seven tests as a standard for accepting a historical hypothesis.

The hypothesis, together with other true statements, must imply further statements describing present, observable data.

The hypothesis must have greater explanatory scope than rival hypotheses.

They hypothesis must have greater explanatory scope than rival hypotheses.

The hypothesis must be more plausible than rival hypotheses.

The hypothesis must be less ad hoc than rival hypotheses.

The hypothesis must be disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than rival hypotheses.

The hypothesis must so exceed its rivals in fulfilling conditions (2)-(6) that there is little chance of a rival hypothesis exceeding it in meeting these conditions.

Craig argues that the resurrection hypothesis meets all seven of these criteria. My contention is that the Ascension hypothesis (which the Resurrection hypothesis seems to entail) fails at least four of these tests.

2. It lacks in explanatory scope. As Lüdemann suggested (Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?, 155) it does not explain the contradiction between the ascension in Acts 1 and that of Luke 24, where the times and locations of the ascension differ from one another. It does not explain why other biblical writers do not record an ascension. If the Lukan writings were removed from the canon, the issue of what happened to Jesus after the resurrection would almost certainly be a hot topic in Christian theology. There are hints that Jesus is in heaven in John and the epistles, but we are still left with (the original version of) Mark and Matthew. When read in their own context (rather than Luke's), Jesus’ final words in Matthew 28.20 seem to have a very different meaning: “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

3. It lacks in explanatory power. The best apologetic for Jesus’ resurrection would be public appearances. Imagine if we could hear the resurrection story for the first time. “Wow,” we might say, “you’ve made a very strong case that Jesus rose from the dead. I would very much like to meet him. I have all sorts of questions about what it would be like to be dead for three days.” The essence of Craig's response? “Well, um, you, ahh… can’t. Yeah, that’s the ticket. See, he, ah, he went to heaven. Yeah, that’s it. He went to heaven and now no one can see him. You just have to take my word for it. Look, didn’t I present compelling evidence.” This explanation does not seem compelling.

4 & 5. It is either not plausible or it is ad hoc. Craig has spent a great deal of time and energy arguing for a physical resurrection. Therefore the ascension must be a physical ascension. If Jesus actually came out of the tomb, then he actually flew up into space. But if so, did he go to the moon? … to Mars? … to another galaxy? A modern view of the cosmos creates certain problems for belief in a physical ascension. Roy Hoover posits that,

the idea of the resurrection is… dependant on a certain view of the cosmos, namely that the cosmos has a three-level structure: the earth is the middle part; above the earth is heaven or the heavens, the space occupied by God and the angels; below the earth is Hades, the realm of death and the powers of evil. ("The Contest Between Orthodoxy and Veracity" in Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?, 141)

In the same volume, Steven Davis responds to the three-story-universe view by declaring that it is a metaphor, not a cosmology. (79) “The ascension of Jesus was primarily a change of state rather than a change of location, but it was visibly symbolized for the disciples by a change of location.” (80) But there is no indication in the text that Luke believed, or expected his readers to believe, that Jesus’ ascension was anything other than a literal ascension. Bringing modern science to bear on the story is a matter of eisegesis (reading into the text something that is not there) rather than exegesis (letting the text speak for itself). This view may be properly accused of being ad hoc and contrived.

6. It is not in accord with accepted beliefs. It is not our experience that anyone can ascend to heaven. If the ascension story was told about another historical figure, would Craig be inclined to accept it? I doubt it because, in McCullough’s language, such a story is not in accord with accepted beliefs.

7. It may or may not outstrip any of its rival theories in meeting conditions (2)-(6). Those who do not accept the ascension must explain the rise of the early church, which was based on their belief in the resurrection, which was in turn based on (a)finding Jesus' tomb empty, and (b)Jesus' resurrection appearances. But there are a lot of events in history (especially antiquity) for which we do not have good explanations. The resurrection/ascension hypothesis perhaps outstrips its rivals, but given the difficulties associated with the ascension, they all frankly seem like conjecture. There are some historical questions which we must answer by saying that we simply don't know.

It is my contention that the Ascension hypothesis fails tests (2); (3); either (4) or (5); and (6). In light of this, the case for the Resurrection is not as strong as Craig and others would like us to think. At best, we may say that, although the evidence is somewhat ambiguous, the Resurrection seems to be the best hypothesis. It is disturbing, to say the least, to build my faith on a relatively uncertain hypothesis for describing somewhat ambiguous evidence. If this is not fideism, I don't know what is.

I would accept the historical hypothesis in an overall cumulative case for Jesus' resurrection, but I do not know what other lines of reasoning to pursue. I assert that we are justified (we are within our epistemic rights) in either believing or disbelieving in the resurrection of Jesus. But this is the beginning of the road to religious relativism and normative pluralism, which seems absolutely contrary to Christian orthodoxy. Thus I can no longer feel totally comfortable with evangelical theology unless I can (a)find arguments that make the Ascension more plausible, or (b)buttress the case for the resurrection with different kinds of arguments than Craig and others present.

Christian Music Superbowl I

2007-12-18T22:11:00.001-06:00

Okay. No one I know that reads my blog has voted on the first round of Jake's Christian Music Superbowl I yet. Tonight is your last night. After that it will be too late. Perhaps you think Christian music sucks and have just blown it off. Well most Christian music does suck, but not the artists that have made it into the FIRST EVER Christian Superbowl. Oh no. These guys are good. And if all you know of Christian music is what you hear on your local Christian radio, then you probably know four of the sixty-four artists that have made the first cut.

Jake says, "[Y]ou’ll see bands like Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, and Third Day in the lineup. Few of my readers consider themselves fans of the more “normal” CCM bands, but since I felt they’ve made a significant mark in the world of Christian Music, I included them. Besides, as much as I respect the major label bands, I thought it’d be fun to see Third Day get crushed by Agents of Future or Newsboys get stomped by Menomena. Sort of a Revenge of the Nerds moment in the making. All in good fun, though."

Maybe you've thought to yourself, "but I don't know the bands." Well, you have a music link right there that is good for seven days. What better way to get acquainted with Christian music that doesn't suck.

Maybe you think to yourself, "I hate the term Christian music." Well so do a lot of people. Jake isn't that fond of it himself either. He has a great series going about whether Christian music best describes this music. Anyway, it's all kinds of fun.

Plus, did I mention that I thought up the idea? Jake's visitor traffic is two or three orders of magnitude bigger than mine. So he can pull something like this off. But he's giving away away mp3s. I could give away mp3s, but it would be me singing into my mp3 recorder, and I'm sure you would all love that.

Please do check out Jake's blog. Round 2 starts up on Friday.

The Craig/Lüdemann Resurrection Debate

2007-12-18T11:20:00.001-06:00

Last week I asked the question of whether belief in the resurrection of Jesus is justified and referenced the book, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?, edited by Kreeft and Tacelli. Here are my thoughts on that book.

The core portion of the book is the transcript of a 1997 debate at Boston College between William Lane Craig, a Christian philosopher and apologist, and Gerd Lüdemann, a German New Testament scholar. Tom Wright has also debated Lüdemann on this subject (though I have not been able to find a transcript), which added to my anticipation of the book. The book is comprised of four responses to the debate, two siding with each opponent, followed by response essays by both Lüdemann and Craig.

I expected to find strong arguments from both debaters, since each is highly respected in his respective field. I hoped to be challenged on some points, and be forced to think through the relevant issues related to the resurrection. I anticipated a straightforward and objective book.
Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the actual content of the book. Beginning with the debate portion itself, it seemed that Craig was clearly the better debater. In his opening statement, Craig laid out his argument and then critiqued Lüdemann’s position before it had even been given. This one-two attack and counter-attack seemed to throw Lüdemann mentally off balance. In a total spirit of confusion, Lüdemann tried to alter his opening statement on the fly to be more responsive to Craig. Perhaps he figured that he was already going to address the issues, so why not rearrange them to correspond with Craig’s four “facts”, critiquing Craig’s argument while laying out his own. Unfortunately, he succeeded in neither. This made for an awkward rebuttal for Craig, who had been given no real opposing position to respond to.

I personally felt that the debate gave a good show of Craig’s debating prowess, and left little room for the facts to do their own job. In short, I felt cheated. It could have been a much more satisfying debate for everyone had Lüdemann spoken first instead of Craig, which would allowed us to hear his original opening statement in full. Alternately, Lüdemann could have been given time for his first rebuttal before his opening statement.

In the book as a whole, the editing favored the Christian position in several ways. First is the imbalance between philosophy and New Testament scholarship. Craig, a philosopher, had his argument strengthened by Gundry, a New Testament scholar. Lüdemann had no similar support on the philosophical side. Second, the editors chose a debate that had already been conducted. They already knew that Lüdemann had faired poorly. Third, the editors framed the book at the start with an introduction that emphasizes the Christian implications of the debate. I’m not sure that a non-Christian would be in agreement with Copan and Tacelli about the importance of the issue. (It is primarily Christians that are interested in these sorts of debates, as demonstrated by a brief glance at reviews of this book on amazon.com.) Finally, the book was framed at the end with Craig’s essay rather than Lüdemann’s, even though a strictly objective arrangement would likely follow their order in the debate.

This book can establish a grid for later reading on the resurrection. However, parts of the grid, especially the non-evangelical perspective, will need to be supplemented with more substantial books. A stronger case can be made against the resurrection than this book presents, so we should not be led to think that Lüdemann has given us the best that a skeptic has to give. Lüdemann’s concluding suggestion for a “new language of interpretation” (158) is particularly troubling. Looking to the gnostics for his inspiration, he states that “one’s stability is not assured by trust in the creator but rather is threatened by it… [T]he Gnostic idea of the unwavering race opens up an area of stability, steadfastness and depth – in short a ground on which I can stand in the struggle and mystery of life into which all of us have been thrown.” (161) He is not far from Anton LeVey’s vision for humanity as presented in The Satanic Bible. This sort of spirituality is blasphemous to the theist, bizarre to the naturalist, and unlikely to win either.

Roger Olson's Postconservatism

2007-12-15T11:18:00.000-06:00

Last week I checked out Roger Olson's new book, Reformed and Always Reforming. Ironically, I found it in the library at our local fundamentalist college. I may not have picked it up otherwise, but I was so surprised to see it on their shelves that I had to read it.

The book is essentially a manifesto for postconservatism, a term with Olson essentially coined. Olson defines postconservatism mostly in reference to conservative evangelicalism, which he believes is dominated by theologians that are obsessed with setting boundaries and tightly defining what it means to be an evangelical. Conservatives, he argues, are almost always opposed to fresh theological proposals and operate from a reactionary standpoint towards any revision of classical doctrines.

Postconservatives on the other hand are open to new ideas. They tend to be frustrated with theological systems that confine theology to head knowledge (which consensus has unfortunately labeled 'propositional truth'). Without rejecting the intellectual component of theology, postconservatives want to refocus theology on heart knowledge and our response to God. Postconservatives are more concerned about orthopathy (right experience, referring, I assume, to the need to be 'born again') and orthopraxy (right action) than with orthodoxy (right belief).

One can sense that Olson is frustrated with the reactions he has received from the theologians he has grouped under the conservative banner, including Millard Erickson, Wayne Grudem, D.A. Carson, and J.I. Packer. Olson's tone sometimes conveys the message that he just wants these guys to stop picking on him. Though I agree with him that conservatives often go too far in their reactions against postconservatives, Olson's focus on their differences makes it more polemic than necessary. He lacks the nuance of a postconservative like Kevin Vanhoozer, and draws more fire upon himself as a result. "Some [conservatives] have expressed harsh criticism, if not condemnation... of [another postconservative's] theological project while embracing and applauding Vanhoozer's. The fact is they are very similar." (121) Hey playground bullies, he shouts, shouldn't you be picking on him too! That's not fair!

That is not to say that he is necessarily wrong in his appraisal of the reaction from conservatives. In reference to Open Theism, his observations are right on: "It seems to me that conservative evangelical reaction to open theism has been nothing short of hysterical... All in all, it seems that the open view of God needs much more careful study and dialogue among evangelicals, whereas many conservatives seem to wish to halt study and dialogue and focus energies on drawing boundaries that exclude open theists from evangelical communities." (125-6) Amen.

Olson does a good job of commending postconservative theology, especially to those that are disenchanted with the similarities between fundamentalism and evangelicalism. The book functions as a sort of 'on ramp' to progressive evangelical theology. Or, to alter the metaphor slightly, he effectively draws the map of what he considers postconservative theology. It is no surprise the Yvette recently came away from the book with a massive reading list. Olson marshalls an impressive array of theologians in at least partial support of his program: the late Stan Grenz, Alister McGrath, Kevin Vanhoozer, Henry Knight III, Clark Pinnock, Miroslav Volf, and F. LeRon Shults.

Unfortunately, Olson draws and redraws and redraws the map several times. Readers are re-introduced to Stan Grenz an Kevin Vanhoozer four or five different times. He examines several aspects of postconservative theology in turn, often repeating himself each time. For instance, he mentions Grudem's (inaccurate) list of thirty-four conservative theologians four separate times (pp.9, 21, 173, 188). The book has about 125 pages of valuable information stretched into 237 pages. If he were fun to read (like N.T. Wright for instance) I wouldn't mind so much, but the last hundred pages or so were a chore rather than a delight to read.

The biggest flaw I can see with Olson's view of postconservative theology is that in attempting to straddle between liberal and conservative soteriologies, he ends up falling into a chasm of inconsistency between them. He states, "where right experience (orthopathy) and right spirituality (orthopraxy) are present in Jesus-centered living, authentic Christianity and even evangelical faith may be present even if doctrinal correctness is not yet fully present -- provided that movement in the right direction is clearly discernible." (84) In other words, you don't have to be orthodox to be a Christian, just moving towards orthodoxy. But he provides no reasons for this to be so. If salvation is dependent on an experience with God alone, why assume that such an experience will necessarily lead one closer to orthodoxy? If orthodoxy is an important component of salvation, then why simultaneously deny its importance. Either orthodoxy is necessary or unnecessary for salvation. In this matter, postconservativism has either moved too far from conservatism or not far enough. One senses that this is a vestige of conservatism that Olson is (inconsistently) not prepared to part with. Thus to liberals, postconservatives are still conservative in every sense that matters.

Is Belief in Jesus' Resurrection Justified?

2007-12-14T20:56:00.000-06:00

May I suggest that, fundamentally, the way we know Christianity to be true
is by the self-authenticating witness of God's Holy Spirit? Now what do I
mean by that? I mean that the experience of the Holy Spirit is veridical and unmistakable (though not necessarily irresistible or indubitable) for him
who has it; that such a person does not need supplementary arguments or
evidence in order to know and to know with confidence that he is in fact
experiencing the Spirit of God... How then does the believer know that
Christianity is true? He knows because of the self-authenticating witness of
God's Spirit who lives within him.
- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 32-4

What bothers me about Bill Craig (pictured here with two people I have never met) is that he is so absolutely overconfident that he is right. There are very few self-authenticating experiences in life - experiences that you can be so sure of that there is no way that you could possibly be wrong. Decartes' famous statement, "cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) seems to be self-authenticating; statements of feeling are self-authenticating, like, "I feel hungry." The fact that you feel it is proof that you feel it. But outside of a few examples, no experience is ever self-authenticating. There is always some room for doubt - maybe you misinterpreted, or don't have all the information, or have been deceived or something.

If you allow this line of reasoning, then you have to allow the legitimacy of Mormonism. They tell you to pray about the book of Mormon and God will confirm to you that it is true. They have this same sort of confidence that their religious experience is self-authenticating. It just doesn't hold up. I'm not saying anything here that Craig himself is not aware of, so I'm really not sure why he advances this argument.

But the place where this reasoning really bothers me is in his defense of the resurrection. There has probably not been anything that has shaken my faith so much as reading Bill Craig's defense of the resurrection. Take, for instance, his argument with Gerd Lüdemann in Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment?. Craig acts as if he has an absolutely rock solid case for the resurrection and that you couldn't possibly doubt it so long as you have all the historical evidence. Lüdemann, who has no philosophical training, is a really lousy debate partner and presents a confused and weak argument. There are gaping holes in Craig's argument, but you'd never know it from Lüdemann's presentation.

I will leave the holes in Craig's argument for another post. What really bothered me was how he came back to this idea of self-authentication in his concluding statement. He was smart enough to save this point to the very end, because it does not count as real evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. And yet the real reason Craig believes in the resurrection is not the historical evidence. "So if you ask me why I believe Christ is risen from the dead, I would not only point to the historical evidence, but I would reply in the words of the old hymn, 'You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart!'" (p.65)

The orthodox Christian faith rests, at least in part, on a defense of the resurrection. But the evidence to compel someone to believe in the resurrection is not that good. Say, for instance, that we had the same historical evidence for the resurrection of Abraham Lincoln. Would he be inclined to argue that Lincoln too had risen from the dead? I doubt it. The real reason Craig feels the evidence is so good is because it is confirmed by the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. But the inner witness of the Holy Spirit cannot function as valid evidence any more than it can function as valid evidence for the veracity of the book of Mormon.

I still believe in Jesus' resurrection. I believe for the same reason that Craig does: He lives within my heart. But I don't think I have sufficient epistemological justification for that belief. Moreover, I am skeptical that any historical argument will really be satisfactory (not even N.T. Wright's, with all his scholastic superpowers). When the early Christians first proclaimed Jesus' resurrection, they were not advancing historical arguments. It seems I am searching for a different line of reasoning that is more in line with theirs.

So I think we are within our epistemic rights to believe in Jesus' resurrection. That is to say, if we accept the resurrection on fideistic grounds, we can come up with rational arguments to justify the fideistic jump we have already made. But the belief still ultimately rests on fideism. I think this is what I was getting at a few weeks ago with my Theology is not Knowledge post. Theology cannot be truly public because it rests on this fideistic assumption that Jesus rose from the dead.

You may not agree with me that Bill Craig's (or Tom Wright's) historical arguments are not compelling. I hope to revisit that issue soon. But if you were to accept my premise that the Craig's arguments are not compelling, do you think the rest of what I've said follows?

Why Don't People Change?

2007-12-13T23:51:00.000-06:00

I am coming back to another question that routinely bothers me: why don't people ever change? Sometimes people will experience a huge change when they become Christians, but then after that things just flat line. Whatever you're like after you've been a Christian for a year is pretty much how you'll be for the rest of your life. So if you suck, well, you're pretty much doomed to suck forever.

Many of my friends would blame the people. But my first inclination is to blame the system. Isn't Christianity supposed to transform lives? And it does. But then it stops. Why? What happens? Is there something we've missed? Dallas Willard and Richard Foster would say we need the spiritual disciplines. Perhaps that's the problem. But doesn't it seem like it ought to be more clear in scripture what is missing?

I am writing right now out of frustration with myself. Anytime I score myself on different character issues, I always score low in self-discipline. Always. I'm average to excellent on everything else, but self-discipline always gets me. I had to take a character and personality assessment for seminary and they scored me in about fifteen different areas. For self-discipline, on a scale of 1 to 10, I scored a 1. A ONE! Now I would put myself at a four, or maybe a three, but a ONE!? I can only hope that the scale is skewed because seminary students tend to score higher than the average population.

When I was going through the answers with the counselor they assigned, I asked him the question: How do you get self-discipline without self-discipline? It seems like you need some in order to get some. He laughed. I didn't really mean it as a joke.

I'm thinking that the difference between new Christians and older Christians is that new Christians realize how far they are from God's standard, and constantly pray for better character. Older Christians usually blow that off. So I'm thinking that's the answer. I've been praying recently for godly character. I just didn't want to have to actually change...

More Potential Blog Names - Free Book Still Available

2007-12-12T12:39:00.000-06:00

I promised to send some crappy book from my personal library to the person that comes up with the best blog name for me when I switch to Wordpress on January 1. Nick Norelli has been trying really hard. (It seems so out of character for Nick to try to score free books, doesn't it?) Nick suggested that I go with a biblically inspired title, like his fundamentalist-sounding blog title, "Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth." So in an effort to be more like Nick, I found a few biblically-inspired names that might fit my blog.

These are probably not appropriate for children, since I have taken them pretty much straight from the Bible. Be warned.

Wine, strong drink, or Whatever Your Heart Desires (Deut 13.1)

Able to Enter
Tagline: No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. (Deut 23.1)

His Eye was Not Dim nor His Vigor Abated (Deut 34.7)
Tagline: And I have five children to prove it.

And the Crap Came Out (Judges 3.22)

My Little Finger is...
Thicker Than My Father's Loins (1 Kings 12.10)

No Limit to Windy Words (Job 16.3)

Hatred for Vain Idolaters (Psalm 31.6)

Complaining and Murmuring (Ps 55.17)
Tagline: Evening, morning, and noon

Make Their Loins Shake Continually (Ps 69.23)

Hating Them With the Utmost Hatred (Ps 139.22)

There is Nothing Better Than to Eat and Drink (Ecc 2.24)

Money is the Answer to Everything (Ecc 9.19)

Don't Spread Your Legs to Every Passerby (Ezekiel 16.25)

Keep those ideas coming. You still have a few more weeks to get yourself that book.

Christmas shows and songs

2007-12-09T23:14:00.000-06:00

Last month I wrote a little rant about my frustration with the lengthened Christmas season. I finally figured out why it bothers me so much. All through high school I was in both band and chorus. (Apparently our school wasn't cool enough for 'choir'.) Every fall we would rehearse for the Christmas concert, which was the climax of the semester. So I spent two hours of every day for three months of every year singing and playing Christmas songs. Some years I would be singing a different arrangement of the same song I was playing in band. So I was probably humming "O Come All Ye Faithful" for about a QUARTER of my high school career! (And that's counting summers!)

I was so happy when I finally got to college and no one even thought about Christmas until after finals (which some years did not end for me until December 23). I like Christmas music a lot more now. I sit around the living room and sing them with our kids. And as long as they are confined to December, I'm okay with that now.

We watched Frosty the Snowman the other night with the kids. I haven't seen it since I was in grade school. I remembered it being a lot longer, but then everything seems bigger when you're a kid. I've become a lot more sensitive to the magical elements in kids programs since I've become a parent. It's not that I think it teaches kids that magic is real, but rather that it teaches kids that magic is not real. According to the biblical narrative, magic is real, and it's on par with idolatry. But I thought to myself that we're probably just being overly protective Christian parents. Our kids are pretty smart, and we had a jolly happy time together.

After Frosty was another cartoon, "Frosty Returns." Neither Diana nor I remembered this one. It had John Goodman in it and we guessed it must have been made in the early nineties. But here's what really freaked me out. The first scene shows all the children happy about the first snowfall and all the adults mad about it. That seemed a little strange. But then in the second scene, a boy says to his sister, "Let's go outside and construct a fertility goddess." My wife and I turned to each other sort of stunned. In unison we declared that we were done with TV for the night (which we rarely watch anyway) and sang Christmas songs. Yipes. What was that all about? A fertility goddess? Maybe we weren't being overly protective after all. I would have liked to have watched the rest so I could see how the theme plays itself out, but not with my kids.

It would be fun to watch Rudolf this year, if we catch it at the right time. But I wonder if they will have a sequel where Burger Meister Meisterburger sacrifices children to Molech. Or maybe they will have a winter solstice celebration and dance naked around the Yule log. Or perhaps they'll get all the children singing Christmas songs for three months of every year in order to endlessly torment everyone who was ever in high school band and chorus.

I am a Christian Because of the Necronomicon

2007-12-07T22:32:00.000-06:00

I tagged Tom yesterday with the One Book meme. I now have leverage for teasing, knowing that a computer programming book changed his life. But the book he wishes had never been written is the Necronomicon (from the movie "Army of Darkness"). This reminded me of an incident that happened to me in High School that absolutely freaked me out, so I thought I'd share it with y'all.

This was in my pre-post-Lutheran days when I was a nominal Christian but went to church weekly with my parents. I had no real firm beliefs, but I loved to sit around and speculate about God, meaning of life, and all those sorts of things. A friend of mine, Jess, said she had a friend I had to meet. He liked to talk about those things too.

We went over to his house and the three of us sat out on his porch talking. He was the first goth kid I ever met. We talked about philosophy and reincarnation (which I argued against by default) and Satanism and all sorts of crazy things. After about, oh I don't know, 45 minutes or an hour, he turned to me and asked, "Have you ever heard of this book? It's called the Necronomicon?" I answered, "No, I don't think I have." "Are you sure," he asked. "It's called The Necronomicon."

And all of a sudden something trippy happened to me. I'm not sure I can really explain it. It's like I wasn't there for about two or three seconds. I had an overwhelming sense of great tragedy, like the sense you would have visiting a Nazi gas chamber and thinking of all the millions that died. It's like I tapped into a sense of devastating regret on a cosmic scale. Then I felt the presence of an evil being, laughing at it. Then it was over.

"Gee, look at the time," I said. Jess and I split as fast as we could. She said she felt the same thing, though it was hard to tell exactly.

What I took from that encounter is that there really is a supernatural realm, and at the very least, there really are evil beings. Even when I doubted the existence of God, this single event has kept me from ever considering humanist materialism as a viable option. It kept me pushing forward to try to figure out what is true. And it is the reason why, when I really embraced Christianity for myself, I needed to be in a charismatic church. Though I've come a long way since that experience, it has had a profound impact on my life.

One Book Meme

2007-12-06T20:50:00.001-06:00

I begged Bryan L to tag me with the "One book meme" that started a year-and-a-half-ago. I'm like the pathetic kid on the playground, running up to whoever is it and yelling, "Tag me, tag me!" just to get some attention. (This will all change January 1 when I join the cool kids at Wordpress. Then people will tag me without me asking. Oh yes, they will tag me.)

1. One book that changed your life:
N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (1992)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Stanley Grenz & Roger Olson, Who Needs Theology? (1996)

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
John Lofty Wiseman, SAS Survival Handbook: How to Survive in the Wild, in Any Climate, on Land or at Sea (2004)

4. One book that made you laugh:
Anders Henriksson, Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students (2001)

5. One book that made you cry:
John Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down (1976)

6. One book that you wish had been written:
The author of Matthew, I Acts (Matthew's version of the history of the early church, with Luke's version becoming II Acts)

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon (1830)

8. One book you’re currently reading:
Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine (2005)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite (2004)

10. Now tag five people:
I tag Jessie, J.K., Brian, Tom, and Daniel

Get a Free Book!

2007-12-06T09:10:00.001-06:00

It seems like all the cool people are moving to Wordpress. I have decided that I can't be cool unless I switch too. So I am planning to make the move at the beginning of January. But I need your help. "Sandwiches There" is frankly a stupid blog name. Before that, I was "The Hungry Scholar," but that made sense when I was only interacting with non-scholars. So what should my blog be named once I move? If you suggest the winning name, I will send you a FREE BOOK! Yes, you read correctly. I will send you a book from my very own book collection. And if it's a really really great name, maybe it will be a useful book too! Wow, the excitement is making me all giddy. If you offer me a blow-it-out-of-the-water name, I will even consider buying you something from your Amazon wish list.

(It will really have to be just amazing since I'm pretty much broke and need to feed my five small children. But we can sacrifice food for a few days. It's really no big deal.)

But in addition to the prize, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you helped make a real difference in the world. Good luck!

Nominations for Christian Music Superbowl I

2007-12-05T06:51:00.000-06:00

Jake is starting up the first-ever Christian music superbowl, where he will pair up different Christian recording artists and have people vote on who beats whom. It should be great fun. Jake is asking for nominations for bands. I am not nearly as knowledgeable about the scene as some others are (especially the kind of cool indie stuff Jake usually writes on), but I thought I'd post my own list of three artists who ought to make the list.

1. Leonard Jones. Leonard is the worship leader at Morning Star Church, pastored by Rick Joyner. He leads the greatest worship team I have ever heard. This is true jam band worship and they rarely have a song that times in at less than eight minutes.

2. Glenn Kaiser. Glenn is the frontman for REZ/the Resurrection band, which was one of the key Jesus People bands. He is also the head of JPUSA (Jesus People USA) which puts on Cornerstone music festival each year.

3. Burlap to Cashmere. I saw these guys play years ago at Summerfest in Milwaukee. They are great instrumentalists and are a lot of fun. The song that first hooked me was "Diggy Dime" from their first album, which is (I think) in 5/8 time. From the same album, "Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth" is probably the coolest Christian song based on a cheesy bumper sticker phrase that I've ever heard.

By the way, don't miss the opportunity to become part of the bucket brigade and get yourself a free Josh Clubb CD. I haven't participated yet, but perhaps soon...

Post-Lutheran

2007-11-28T16:35:00.000-06:00

In a time in which everybody is a post-something-or-other, I think I can affirm that I am a post-Lutheran. I am no longer a Lutheran, but it is same to say there are some vestiges of Lutheranism that will probably be forever with me.

In Wisconsin, most people who grow up going to church were either raised Catholic or Lutheran. Several years ago I noticed that when I was talking to people that had blown off the religion of their youth, the Catholics differed markedly from the Lutherans. A Catholic may not have been to church for 20 years but will be all over you if you rip on Mary or the Pope. A Lutheran that has not been to church will not care at all who you rip on, whether Martin Luther, Augustine (if she even knows who Augustine is), or Jesus Himself.

I noticed the other day that there is something that binds all backslidden Lutherans together, something that has escaped my attention, but I think is quite true. At the popular level Lutherans are not defined by what they are, but by what they are not. If you want to get a Lutheran's goat, start talking about praying to Mary or the infallibility of the Pope. There is one thing a Lutheran is and will always be: NOT CATHOLIC.

Theology is not Knowledge

2007-11-16T16:20:00.000-06:00

I so totally don't get theology right now. This is another perennial issue that I revisit every so often. Right now I am working through Vanhoozer's Drama of Doctrine, which is generally a very stimulating book. But I find myself butting up against two internal obstacles that keep me questioning the validity of the entire theological project - not Vanhoozer's specifically, but Christian Theology in general. So I decided to blog about it, not to advance an argument against the discipline of theology, but to try to articulate the reasons that lie behind my involuntary emotional reactions. I hope, perhaps with the help of some commenters, to make some sense of it all. So here, to the best of my ability to discern it, is why I get frustrated with theology:

1. Theology is not knowledge. Knowledge, at least the concept I have in mind, is inherently public. It can be confirmed or denied by others. Theology, on the other hand, depends on certain judgments made by a private community, the church. Now I think there is such a thing as private knowledge, knowledge that is legitimately held by only one individual, but these are typically about personal matters (personal health or sex life, for instance). If the claim to knowledge refers to something in the public domain, then I don't think it can be called knowledge if it is only held by a private individual or community.

By way of contrast, Biblical studies, whether Old or New Testament, deal with knowledge because they are essentially historical disciplines. Regardless of what private views people may have about God, they may all equally discuss Paul's view of God as presented in the New Testament - the data is publicly accessible. Likewise, philosophy of religion counts as knowledge because it is dependent on the laws of logic. Regardless of people's private views, they may all equally discuss whether certain beliefs are logically consistent. Perhaps a shorthand way to express this is to say that if you can't teach it at a public university, it's not knowledge.

2. Closely related is the notion that theology is speculative. Now I know that theoretically theology is not speculative, but theologians define a method and then follow that method to produce results. Yet I still get the feeling that what Karl Barth did was sit around and think up cool ways to think about God, and he made everyone go, "Wow, that's deep." But it's still just thinking; it's still just speculation. The real work, it seems to me, is being done by the biblical scholars, who continually work to help us get a fuller sense of what the biblical texts mean.

On the other hand, the main reason why any of this matters is because Christians believe it and want to order their lives accordingly. Thus I could make a case that the work of theologians is vastly more important than the work of biblical scholars. That is the main reason I sometimes feel a pull to pursue vocational theology. But I am not excited about the thought of devoting my life to a discipline that is speculative and doesn't result in knowledge!

I suppose the way through this is either to redefine theology, or to redefine knowledge and the value of speculation. It seems that my objections to theology are themselves theological , and I suspect they are somehow self-referentially defeating. The point of this exercise, though, was not to advance an argument, but to sort out my life. I welcome your thoughts.

An Evangelical Standard: Five Books

2007-11-13T11:14:00.000-06:00

A few years ago, before I had decided to go to seminary, I was talking with a friend, Scott Anderson, who had gotten his M.Div. from Trinity (where I'm going now). Of course, we got to talking about books, and I wanted some book recommendations. I asked him to recommend five books to me. I have been thinking about this list the past few days. It seems like a standard sort of evangelical list, though not at all the list I would produce now. It became sort of a point of departure for me in thinking through what I think is important.

Here was his list (produced from memory):

1. Christian Theology, by Millard Erickson. For Scott, this is the standard Evangelical theology, laying a solid foundation while interacting with non-evangelical positions.

2. "A good volume on church history." I was a little irritated by this one, since I wanted a specific recommendation. Perhaps we might fill in Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

3. One book of the Bible. "You should pick a book of the Bible, and study it until you understand it thoroughly." Again, I was a little annoyed with this recommendation, since it wasn't really a specific book. But I understand the thrust behind it - we should have some depth in our biblical knowledge, not just breadth.

4. A Theology of the New Testament, by G.E. Ladd. We should know how the Bible fits together.

5. The Hermeneutical Spiral, by Grant Osborne. It is not enough to read the Bible, but we must understand the complex issues involved in interpreting it. I have had Osborne for a couple classes now, but I still haven't read this book. He mentioned a few years ago that he was revising it for a second edition, so I decided to wait. The second edition is out now, so I suppose I should get with the program.

What five books would you recommend in a similar situation? The audience is an educated Christian without seminary training.

What is Christian Music?

2007-11-08T15:23:00.000-06:00

Check out Jake's discussion of what constitutes Christian music. I think it is a hard question to answer, at least if you want to be consistent with other areas of your life. The problem, I suppose has to do with how we categorize art. Does it matter what the faith commitment is of the person who wrote the lyrics? Or the singer? Or the other instrumentalists? Well, to some extent it is going to have an influence on the song. On the other hand, if a Christian sings a song about a kitchen chair, is that a 'Christian' song?

I am not ready to throw out the term Christian music just because it is slippery. There are certainly some songs which are explicitly Christian, as well as others which explicitly are not. As for the gray area in between, I will be interested to see what Jake concludes when this is all done. In the meantime, it is worth checking out Patrick's theology of Indie Rock from last January. I don't agree with everything he has to say, but you will be repaid for the the time it takes to read and think it through.

Hendrix-inspired worship

2007-11-07T21:06:00.000-06:00

I led worship tonight at our Wednesday night worship service at church. I am sick as a dog. I'm not sure exactly how sick dogs are, but I'm sure I'm at least that sick. No one could sub for me, so I had to go. I was doped up on NyQuil, and we had some kind of funky incense burning. My head was spinning. I turned to the other guys on the worship team and said, Man, it's just like real rock-n-roll, except I can worship God with a clean conscience. At times I felt like people in the congregation were just staring at me, but all in all I felt like it went pretty well, like God was pleased with our offering. Even if reality faded in and out in the midst of it.

I'm going to try to go get better. I have lots of papers coming up, so I have to get well again. Good night.

The Tyranny of Christmas

2007-11-06T16:29:00.000-06:00

I have been irritated my whole life with the way "the Christmas season" dominates over a month of each year. That is nearly 10% of our lives! The rest of our year is filled with engaging ideas, interesting music and variety. But suddenly the Christmas season hits, and a huge segment of our population shifts into a whole different canon of overplayed music.

Yesterday on my 2-hour-commute to class I accidentally heard several Christmas songs on the radio, on, I think, three different radio stations. I just wanted to scream. Does the Christmas season officially begin after Halloween now? Has Thanksgiving been overrun, like a small town that is overtaken as its nearby metropolis continues to swell? I am wondering if the Jehovah's Witnesses that came to my door were right that Christmas is really a pagan holiday. I can see Pan playing his Christmastime pipes on November 1, and the world bows to worship.

Call me a Scrooge, I guess.

One Hell of a Sleight-of-Hand

2007-11-04T23:00:00.000-06:00

I've got all these thoughts going on now and I've got to get them out. Brian left an insightful comment on my pluralism/inclusivism/exclusivism post from April. I argued for a separation between theological exclusivism (the belief that those who do not believe as we do are wrong) and soteriological exclusivism (the belief that those who do not believe as we do are not saved). He wrote:

(1) Your proposal concerning theological and soteriological exclusivism/pluralism only works if it can be proven that within a theological construct, exclusivism or pluralism is not a central element. If it is, then we cannot separate dogmatism concerning a particular theology from the declaration of that theology concerning who is and is not saved.

Thanks for your comment, Brian. First off, the pronouncement of soteriological exclusivism on the basis of theological exclusivism has such drastic consequences that I cannot help but ask myself, what if a piece of the puzzle is put together wrong? What if we have misunderstood the way the atonement works? What if salvation is an issue about knowing God instead of an issue of eternal destiny? Who are those people standing outside the New Jerusalem (Rev 22.24-27) after all the sinners have been thrown into the lake of fire(in 20.15)? We must resist answering these questions too smugly.

Have you ever done this little sight test. Read the the words in the triangles on the picture. Read them out loud. Go ahead. Do it right now.

If you thought it said, "Paris in the spring," "Bird in the hand," and "Once in a lifetime," you are wrong. Read them again. This time put your finger on each word as you say it. The words the and a are repeated in each triangle. In our quickness to make judgments, it can be easy to miss important details. My point is simply that it is so easy to be wrong.

But my real issue is that I think we miss the point when seekers ask about soteriological exclusivism. The typical response seems to go: (1)The fact that hell awaits those who reject Jesus is inherent in our theology, (2)Our theology is plausible based on other factors (things like manuscript evidence or arguments for the resurrection), therefore (3)The fact that hell awaits those who reject Jesus is plausible. But internal consistency was not the issue behind the seeker's question. I think most seekers have no problem with (2) unless it leads to (3). The plausibility of Christian theology is undermined by soteriological exclusivism.

The conclusion of my argument in the original post bears repeating:

The problem many of my friends have with Evangelical Christianity, I would suggest, is not its claim to theological exclusivism. It is rather in the fact that traditional evangelical theology includes a harsh pronouncement of soteriological exclusivism. I am not convinced that our faith has a strong enough epistemic foundation to make such bold exclusivist claims. I think what people find offensive is not when we claim “Jesus is Lord,” but when we claim “if you don’t believe the gospel you will go to hell.” To conflate the two forms of exlusivism and then defend theological exclusivism seems to me a rhetorical sleight-of-hand which does not really address the issues my non-Christian friends typically have.

Wishful Dreaming About Life After Death

2007-11-04T15:28:00.000-06:00

I remember losing an important business receipt years ago. I spent an entire night tossing and turning about where I would find the receipt. Several times throughout the night I actually dreamed I found it, only to wake up and realize it was just a wishful dream -- in reality I was no closer to finding the receipt than I was before the dream. Thankfully I did find the receipt the next day in my office wastebasket and was thrilled that I could have a good night sleep again.

Sometimes it seems people exercise a similar kind of wishful dreaming about our personal salvation. In particular, I want to respond to a comment made by John Botscharow after Brian's post on who will go to heaven. John wrote, "There is a... solution to this conundrum: each religion has its own heaven and its own hell. You go to the heaven or hell, as appropriate, for your particular religion, and that includes atheists."

How is this line of reasoning any different than my wishful dream? We do not have the liberty to decide what happens after we die, but we do have a responsibility to ourselves to make sure that what we believe lines up with the evidence we have been given. As far as I am aware, the evidence only points in a few possible directions:

1. Materialism - there is no god, and there is nothing beyond this life.
2. Revelation - God has revealed Himself through one of the world religions, and He will one day judge the world according to that revelation.
3. Reincarnation - We will come back as another human, or perhaps as an animal.

The evidence to commend option 3 seems to be that some eastern thinkers arrived at this position after having an enlightenment experience. Option 1 has many intelligent defenders who would point to scientific data (or perhaps the lack of credible data for anything else). On the whole, I find option 2 most compelling because there are good reasons for believing that God has given us Revelation (or I would not be a Christian). But I can at least understand all three positions; I can dialog with them since we are on the common ground that we must base our views on some kind of the evidence.

John's 'solution', by contrast, appears to be nothing more than pop-speculation. My question to John is, what evidence can you possibly provide for this strange belief? No major world religion teaches anything like this; no one claims the scientific data points in this direction. So far as I can tell, the only thing you have to support your position is the fact that you like it, which is nothing more than wishful dreaming.

The Golden Commandment

2007-11-02T08:51:00.000-05:00

"Just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way" - Jesus (Luke6.31)

I had always thought of this as a verse about ethics - you ought to live this way because it is the right thing to do. But a few weeks ago I was going through the story of Jacob with the kids for homeschool. We talked about how Jacob schemed and lied to get his birthright and blessing, and how later on Laban tricked him with his wives. There is an implicit argument here that you WILL be treated as you have treated others. Of course the argument is not explicit, and perhaps not everything we do in this life will have direct repercussions in this life - but often they will. So I think Jesus' statement is not so much about ethics as about wisdom, learning how to live your life in accordance with God's spiritual laws of the universe.

The golden commandment, then, is quite similar to Paul's assertion in Galatians 6.7: "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap." I wonder how many times the things that happen to people are the spiritual result of things they have done earlier in life. And the people who cry most loudly, "Unfair, unfair!" are actually reaping what they sowed.

Of course, the book of Job reminds us that not everything that happens to us is the result of our actions. But let us not conclude from it that nothing is.

Preaching in a Liturgical Setting

2007-10-30T17:48:00.000-05:00

I went to an Episcopalian church service last Sunday (for a paper I'm writing). Overall, I enjoyed it. Something that stuck out to me was how different it is when the preacher preaches after the readings rather than reading the scriptures as a part of the sermon. There is something strange about having already read the passage and put it away. The preacher cannot say, "Look with me at verse four," because it is past that time in the service for having the Bible out. Something about it seems to undermine its very purpose. Instead of going to the Bible for the message, we are attempting to remember what we read. The whole purpose of expository preaching (as its proponents often argue) is to make sure the message of the sermon flows from the biblical text itself rather than being imposed upon the text. But the message is blunted when the text is not in front of the congregation during the preaching.

Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.

2007-10-28T23:04:00.001-05:00

I'm sort of freaking out right now. I have so much going on. I have all kinds of papers due this week. We're doing a one-week non-stop (170 hour) prayer meeting at church, and I really ought to cover some of the time slots. Plus I would really like to find a job so that Diana can come back home with the kids, which she really really wants. I am just feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. And I have to figure out how to pay for all these classes (and the rest of the books I need... and the rest of our bills... you know how it goes).

And on top of it all, I have this crazy feeling like I really ought to go to SBL in San Diego in a few weeks. It seems absurd, but, I don't know. I'll gladly take donations. Second best would be advice on how to get really good deals to make it happen.

Muslims and the Power of God

2007-10-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

It is illuminating to read the reasons that Christians who are former Muslims give for converting. In a recent study conducted at Fuller Seminary in California, J. Dudley Woodberry looked at converts from many Muslim peoples and nations. The top three reasons given are:

1. The way Christians they were in contact with lived their lives
2. Visible manifestations of the power of God
3. Frustration with the way Muslims they were in contact with lived their lives
4. Dreams and visions, especially of Jesus.

Half the answers given are charismatic/pentecostal kinds of answers. Number 2 included healings, answered prayer, and deliverance from demonic spirits. Obviously, it is not the nice, tame Christianity of either Evangelicals or Liberals that is drawing Muslims. It is an honest-to-God supernatural faith with the power to back it up.

By the way, what ever happened to AlHaj? His blog seems to have disappeared several weeks ago? AlHaj, are you still around? I still owe you a defense of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Quest for the Perfect Bible

2007-10-26T09:24:00.000-05:00

Last night before I went to bed I spent an hour or so looking through the CBD catalog at Bibles. I dreamt all night about finding the perfect Bible. CBD has, I don't know, seven to ten pages of Bibles in their catalog, so there's a lot to look through. I was disappointed that I did not see one original language Bible. I guess there was one interlinear Bible, but that one is based on the centuries-out-of-date scholarship of the textus receptus.

I seem to get a new Bible about every three years. I am on a quest for the perfect Bible, which of course changes from season to season in my life. I started with the RSV I was given at confirmation. Then when I became a Christian, a friend of mine showed me the Student Bible, put together by Philip Yancey. I don't know what it is about the Student Bible, but there's something about it that says, "The Bible is cool. Read me." There really are not a lot of extras, and the 'helps' are not amazingly helpful, but there is something about it's layout that makes me, even now, think, "Wow, what a great Bible." For all the options out there, this one is still the best to give to a new believer.

Unfortunately my student Bible was only paperback, and it quickly became dogeared and beat-up. Time for hard cover. My parents took me to the bookstore to buy me a Bible for my birthday, and I picked out some generic study bible in the NIV. (For what I was looking for, I should have graduated to the NIV Study Bible, but I didn't know better yet.)

It was, I think, a year or two later that I asked my pastor what translation he preferred. He highly recommended the NASB. A few months later I bought my first NASB, the most literal translation available. This time I graduated to bonded leather. Though there were no book introductions or study notes, but I discovered the use of the side column references. I used them all the time to find parallel passages in the synoptic gospels, OT references, similarly themed verses, etc. The mini-concordance in the back was also quite extensive. Between the concordance and the references, I could usually find just about any verse that would come up.

The only thing that bothered me about the NASB was the stupid idea of the translators to refer to God with the pronouns Thee and Thou. But this really bothered me. Imagine my delight when, in 1995, the translators released an updated version with the Thees and Thous gone! I immediately bought a new one, this time in genuine leather. Do you know the difference between bonded and genuine leather? By this point I sure did. Unlike genuine leather, bonded leather is strips of leather glued on to a cardboard back. If you use it with any regularity, the glue will begin to come loose and the leather will start to fray, especially at the corners. Genuine leather is much nicer.

Once I started to learn the original languages, though, English bibles were no longer as exciting. My most recent Bible is built of two Bibles: an interlinear Greek/English (with UBS4/NA27 text) and parallel NRSV; and the Jewish Publication Society's (JPS) Hebrew-English Tanakh (Old Testament). I put grocery-bag book covers on them (just like high school textbooks) and taped them together, creating a complete Bible. What a cool idea, I thought.

But in practice I am very frustrated with this solution. First, it doesn't sit open like a single book. Whichever I have open sits awkwardly on top of the other book. I could deal with this, but a much bigger frustration is that I have no cross references or mini concordance. I didn't realize how often I use them until I no longer had them. Now I am absolutely lost whenever I get to the point of, "Oh shoot, what's that one verse?" Or reading through Matthew, I read a passage and I want to remind myself quickly whether the passage has a parallel in Mark. So I end up keeping my old NASB open next to me as I read, which entirely defeats the purpose.

Eventually I hope to graduate to a straight Hebrew/Greek Bible (which does include cross-references, though no mini-concordance). But even then I'm not sure how happy I'll be with it. I could do away with the Greek/English interlinear, but I will also lose my ability to read through, say, the gospel of Mark in a single sitting. Plus, I use my Bible too much "on the fly," and I don't think I'll ever be at the place where I can interpret on the spot for whomever I'm talking to.

Maybe I just have to use a computer Bible on laptop or handheld as my primary Bible. Something about that just seems wrong, though. I still want my primary Bible to be printed on real, physical paper.

My perfect Bible for this stage in my life would have: (1)Greek/Hebrew, (2)Parallel English translation; (3)Cross-references. It would also be great if it had (4)a mini concordance (in English, I suppose), and (5)still fit in my bag. I suppose I'm living in a dream world, but I'm not quite willing to admit defeat yet. I would love any advice from anyone else who has gone through a similar struggle.

What is your Bible story? How many Bibles have you gone through in your life? Why did you switch from one to another? Drop me a comment. I would love to hear.

The Challenge of Chrisendom

2007-10-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this interview with Chris Tilling over at Pisteuomen for a few days now. I read Chris's blog more than about anybody else's blog because, well, it's just dang funny. He's got a Charismatic background but he gets frustrated because, contrary to the tendencies of the bulk of common Charismaniacs, he actually likes to think. He's a Ph.D. student, so he's smarter than me. But what is most fun is that he is absolutely irreverent towards people's sacred cows, so you're almost certain to get offended at least once. (Which I have. But what fun would it be otherwise?)

Here is a brief response to four points Chris made:

1. "I think the pastor has the greatest responsibility to preach honest sermons, not to gloss over difficulties, gray areas and real differences of opinion."
Amen. The gray areas are one of the the primary reasons I left the pastorate to go back to school for my M.Div. I think we have an obligation to sort the stuff out fairly without just parroting the received traditions.

2. "Scholars would do a major service for the church if they enabled people to get beyond disorientation. I suspect that explains a great part of Bishop Wright's popularity."
Tom Wright, more than anyone else, was responsible for my plunge into the disorientation of scholarship. So even though I think he is pretty much the coolest scholar ever, part of me thinks he sucks.

3. "I am a theology/NT-o-phile, if you understand me. I salivate over books, read them almost non-stop, and am all-in-all a bit obsessive compulsive about turning the next page."
I admit that I am challenged by this statement. See, I love books. I love to look at books. I love to handle them and hold them. I love to read the dust jackets and flip through them and make piles of them. But I have to admit that I can tend to lose interest about half way through reading them. Sometimes it's from information overload and I need time to process, sometimes it's because I just get bored. This has really inspired me to press through and to want to become obsessive compulsive about turning the next page.

4. "By the way, I’m just joking about the Fundie shooting, of course. I know lots of lovely Fundie Christians–far better people than me. And bullets cost too much. Give me fifteen minutes with a golf club–that would be cheaper!"
Though most of what Chris writes is awfully funny, there comes a point where his pseudo-scholarship and lame-blog humor just makes me feel, well, crappy and defiled. Is this supposed to be funny? Sorry, but taking offense at gratuitous violence is not a sacred cow. Chris Tilling, you should be ashamed of yourself.

So today I (1) openly disagreed with a comment he made; (2) dissed Tom Wright; and (3) called his blogging humor pseudo-scholarship and lame; so I get three (or depending on when he reads this, four) fingers up from Mr. Tilling. I feel honored.

Thanks for the blog, Chris, and thanks for the interview, Michael.

Contempory Worship

2007-10-19T19:09:00.000-05:00

I am a subscriber to Worship Leader magazine, and every so often they will talk about the so-called "worship wars." I have never experienced the worship wars. I grew up in a denominational church where liturgy was the epitome of rote (and meaningless) prayer. I thought to myself in high school, if people here really meant what they are saying, wouldn't they say it differently? ...wouldn't they live differently? When I became a Christian and was first looking for a church in college, my only requirement was that they had to have contemporary music because I believed anything else would be inauthentic worship. God placed me in a church that had (and has) a very similar philosophy.

Since then, I have actually come to appreciate the old hymns. When I visit my parents' church or sing in hymns at a Trinity chapel service (which is never this semester, unfortunately) it would be unnatural for me to not lift my hands and sing with all my might. I have learned to worship because of the words but in spite of the form.

In the 19th century, missionaries tended to confuse Christianity with Western culture - the buildings were European architecture, clothing was European, and missionaries looked down upon the indigenous "tribal" cultures. And of course, they all sang Western hymns. Since then, we have figured out that Christianity must be properly contextualized within each society. Churches should be as authentically native to the culture as possible, and music especially should use culturally appropriate forms, not an imported and foreign culture.

With increasing globalization, the line between what counts as missions and what doesn't has become blurred or perhaps even non-existent. We must view our churches from a missional perspective. Does our worship adequately reflect the forms of the surrounding culture? In general, hymns represent an alien musical form to people in today's society. (And honestly, most of what passes as 'contemporary worship' is really only half-way there. But that is a topic for a different post.)

Let me be clear: this is NOT about evangelism. I argued earlier that worship services are not for unbelievers. This is about meaningful worship. It is about breaking the unbiblical distinction between 'sacred' and 'secular.' Worship is us coming honestly before God, not putting on some religious show.

The Self-Perpetuating Club

2007-10-18T09:48:00.000-05:00

Me: Would you like to join our club? It's really fun.

Unbeliever: That sounds great. What is it?

Me: Oh, it's the self-perpetuating club. Our purpose is to establish clubs everywhere we can.

Unbeliever: Wow, sounds like quite a vision. What do your clubs do once they are established?

Me: Well we make more clubs, of course.

Unbeliever: Oh, I see. And what do you talk about at your meetings?

Me: We talk about getting out there to get more people into the club. Would you like to come so that you too can be taught how to get more people into the club?

Unbeliever: No thanks. The club doesn't seem to really do anything.

Me: What?! Of course it does. It's the most important thing any club could ever do. We perpetuate ourselves!

Unbeliever: Have fun. I think I'll do something with my life that matters.

I am a part of a church planting movement, and I have a desire to see a thousand churches planted in the next thirty years (no matter how long it takes). But when evangelism and church planting becomes the primary focus of the church, it quenches my desire to do either. Is the purpose of the church to perpetuate itself? If not, what is it?

The Road to Emmaus

2007-10-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

Emmaus is mentioned only a single time in the gospels, though this reference occurs very prominently in Luke 24.13, in the “Road to Emmaus” story. Luke tells the story of two disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed person, walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on Easter Sunday. They are discussing early reports that Jesus has risen when Jesus Himself meets them, though they are unable to recognize Him. After lamenting how, “we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (24.21), Jesus explains through the scriptures how the crucifixion was a necessary fulfillment of Israel’s story. The three arrive in the evening at Emmaus and have dinner together. Suddenly the disciples recognize Jesus and He instantly disappears. The two return to Jerusalem to share their story.

Last week I turned in a paper on Emmaus for my M.Div. course on the gospels. I got an A on it which I'm pretty happy about. I am posting the results of my study in hope that someone somewhere will find my brilliant argument useful in some other endeavor, perhaps another paper. If you happen to use any of my argument in your own paper, please cite this page and drop me a comment.

Emmaus (modern Khirbet Imwas) is located about 20 miles Northwest of ancient Jerusalem. It is described in the Palestinian Talmud (Shevi’it 8, 9, 38d; Abodah Zarah 85, 44d) as the most important walled city[1] in the Shephelah, the lowland between the Mediterranean cost of ancient Philistia and the mountainous region of inland Israel. Yet Luke describes Emmaus as a village (κώμη), a small group of houses that are typically unwalled,[2] and its location being seven miles (60 stadia) from Jerusalem, not 20 miles. Within the context of Luke’s narrative, it is unlikely that the disciples would have been able to travel 40-miles round-trip on foot in a single day.[3] Because Emmaus was a relatively common name, scholars have speculated that Luke may have been referring to another Emmaus in the vicinity of Jerusalem. At least three candidates have been proposed along one of two routes from Jerusalem to the traditional Emmaus:
1. Mozah (modern Qoloniyeh/Colonia) located along the southern route to the traditional site. Mozah may be a Hebrew transliteration of Amassa (Latin) or Ammaous (Greek)[4], which are linguistically close to Emmaus. It is located only 35 stadia from Jerusalem, which may be explainable if Luke was estimating the distance, especially from the Southern side of Jerusalem where the disciples had probably taken the Last Supper.
2. Kiriath-jarim (modern Abu Ghosh) is located on the same southern route, about 83 stadia from Jerusalem. It had once housed the Ark of the Covenant for twenty years (1 Sam 7.2) before David brought it back to Jerusalem. The only thing to commend this site as the actual site is it’s relative proximity to Jerusalem, though it is still over 20 stadia farther than Luke records.
3. Castellum Emmaus (modern el-Qubeibeh) is located along the northern route to the traditional site. It was identified by the Crusaders as the Biblical Emmaus because (a) it was originally the site of a Roman fort named Castellum Emmaus, and (b) it is located 60 stadia from ancient Jerusalem. The difficulty remains, however, that this site had never been a village and likely took its name because of it’s proximity to the city of the same name.

Despite scholarly debate, it is highly likely that Luke’s Emmaus is the traditional city on the border of the Shephelah. First, there is a minority, though reliable, textual variant[5] that locates Emmaus 160 rather than 60 stadia away, the distance of the traditional site. It is conceivable that this was the original reading, and may have been changed by scribes because they could not imagine a 40-mile round-trip being taken in a single day and changed it to reflect the distance of the Roman fort (site 3). If, on the other hand, scribes changed the reading from 60 to 160, they likely did so in an effort to make the text conform to the actual distance, which shows that Luke’s Emmaus was associated with the traditional Emmaus from early on, if not immediately.[6] The closeness between 60 and 160 (rather than, say, 25 and 90) makes it much more plausible that one of these scenarios is true rather than the explanation depending on simple coincidence.

Secondly, a distance of 160 stadia actually makes better sense of the Lukan story than a shorter distance. It makes sense of the disciples comment in verse 29, urging Jesus to stay with them at Emmaus for a meal, “for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over.” Luke is emphatic that the disciples returned in the evening, (“They got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem,” v.33), which would have only been mildly notable if they were a two-hour walk from the city, but an entirely fitting (and dangerous) response to a life changing event like a resurrection appearance, forcing them to travel through the night.

Third, the repetition of the name Emmaus at such a close location becomes absurd for sites 1 and 2. By comparison, it is not surprising that there are Deerfields in both Illinois and Wisconsin, but it would be quite bizarre for there to be a second Deerfield located just fifteen miles from the current Illinois Deerfield.

Fourth, 1 Maccabees 4 records one of Judas Maccabaeus’ most decisive victories over the Syrian army. The battle was fought at Emmaus, and there is no debate that this Emmaus is the same as the traditional Emmaus. In fact, the very name of the city would have evoked a feeling of patriotic faith in first century freedom fighters. To make another modern comparison, Emmaus probably evoked a similar reaction to that of a modern American at the mention of Gettysburg. Luke could hardly have told a story about Emmaus without expecting many of his readers to hear an echo of Judas Maccabaeus.[7]

For these reasons, we may identify Luke’s Emmaus with the traditional site of Emmaus with a very high degree of certainty. There are, however, two additional events which were important in the history of Emmaus, and thus for an understanding of the Lukan passage. In the first century B.C., the Roman general Cassius asserted his might in Israel by sacking Emmaus and selling its inhabitants into slavery.[8] Then in 4 B.C., a shepherd named Anthronges from Emmaus led an uprising in the spirit of the Maccabees to retaliate against the Romans. In contrast to the Maccabees, however, Anthronges was defeated and killed, and the Roman proconsul, Varus, had the city burned to the ground.[9] This would explain why Luke could call it a village rather than a city, and would have actually emphasized the fact that Israel had not been able to expel the Romans the way they had done with the Syrians.

Then, in the years leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, Emmaus was captured by the Roman general, Vespasian, where he stationed the entire Fifth Legion.[10] He later gave land from the city in reward to his veterans.[11] Though this event occurred nearly thirty years after Luke’s narrative, it would have been a recent event for Theophilus and Luke’s initial audience when the book was written.

In this context, the initial disappointment of the disciples takes on a fuller meaning. In Luke 24.21, the disciples explain, “we were hoping that it was he [Jesus] who was going to redeem Israel.” In other words, we had been hoping he would be like Judas Maccabaeus and deliver us, but instead he was executed the same as Anthronges. They had not been anticipating that Jesus would have gotten crucified, and had not even remotely considered that he would be resurrected in three days any more than anyone considered that Anthronges would be resurrected to finish what he had started. Jesus’ response shows that His messiahship must be understood in light of God’s purposes for Israel (and the fulfillment of His promises to Abraham that they would be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth) rather than the story of national military resistance.

[1] Excavations have discovered city walls over two-feet thick. Avi-Yonah, “Emmaus” in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (NEAEHL), 386.
[2] BDAG, 580.
[3] Strange, J.F., “Emmaus” in Anchar Bible Dictionary (ABD), 497.
[4] Ibid, 498.
[5] In the Codex Sinaiticus. This variant is also found in Jerome’s quotation of the passage.
[6] It is conceivable that the mistake between Emmaus and the Castellum Emmaus goes back to Luke himself, though this is not a tenable solution for those who hold to a version of Inerrancy as represented in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. We must then posit that the change occurred very early in the manuscript tradition. If we hold to inerrancy, it is far easier to take the minority reading as the original based on the weight of the rest of the argument.
[7] Safrai, The Jewish People in the First Century, 86. Even if my argument for the traditional site fails, the name alone would have still induced a powerful comparison.
[8] Josephus, War i.9.
[9] Josephus, Antiquities xvii.10.7-9. This event happened subsequent to Varus’ destruction of Sephoris to the North, whose inhabitants he had sold into slavery. This compelled the residents of Emmaus to desert the city before he got there.
[10] Josephus, War of the Jews iv.8.1. The discovery of Roman Army tombstones from this period confirms Josephus’ account. (Avi-Yonah, 385).
[11] Shürer, et. al., The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 512.

Historical Context for the Gospels

2007-09-12T14:23:00.000-05:00

I am coming back to study the historical context of the New Testament - the first two centuries BCE. Here is a brief summary, using the 25-year grid method. Beginning this period in 200 and ending at the year 1 gives us eight blocks of time. I Maccabees covers block 2-3, while II Maccabees starts in block 1 and ends in block 2.

Block 1 (200-175) - Israel is under Syrian Rule.

Block 2 (175-150) - Leadup to the Maccabean revolt. Antiochus IV Epiphanes takes the throne in 175. He desecrates the Jerusalem temple, leading to the Maccabean revolt, which takes place about half-way through the block (167). Matthias (the first of the Hasmoneans) and his son, Judas lead the movement in turn and are both killed. The clensing of the temple from pagan influence (prompting the feast of dedication, or Hannukkah) occurs in 164. Jonathan, Judas' brother, leads the movement for the last ten years of this block and the first half of the next.

Block 3 (150-125) - The Maccabean struggle. Jonathan is killed, followed by his brother,Simon. I Maccabees ends with John Hyrcanus, Simon's son, becoming high priest (134), which he held through the next block.

Block 4 (125-100) - Hasmonean compromise. Hyrcanus dies and is followed by his son, Aristobulus I, who adds the title 'King' to his position as high priest. He reigns until nearly the end of the block (103). Both Hyrcanus and Aristobulus make concessions to Hellenistic culture which are detested by orthodox jews.

Block 5 (100-75) - Hasmonean Decline. Aristobulus's brother, Alexander Jannaeus, dominates this block, as king from 103-76.

Block 6 (75-50) - Hasmonean End. Alexander Jannaeus' wife takes power during the first half (until 66), followed by civil war between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II.

Block 7 (50-25) - Roman influence. Antipater, the first of the Herods, compells the Romans (under Pompey) to depose of the Hasmoneans altogether. He is assassinated early in the block, when his son, Herod I takes control. Herod reigns for the second half of this block (37 onward) until nearly the end of the next block!

Block 8 (25-0*) - Herod's glory. Herod has all sorts of building projects in Judea, repairing the Jerusalem temple, building the port-city of Caesarea, and countless temples, fortresses, and palaces. Herod I reigns until 4 BCE, when his son, Archaelaus briefly has power.

With a bit more work, I could fill out the next three:
Block 9 (0*-25) - Romans in power. A series of governors rule Judea.
Block 10 (25-50) - Romans still in power. Unrest grows.
Block 11 (50-75) - Destruction. Jerusalem razed in the year 70.

I should probably extend through block 14, with the Bar Kockhba revolt. Right now I'm trying to get a grip on blocks 1-8, which is what prompted this series to begin with. I am aware that I oversimplify things, but I think the clarity that I gain outweighs the little bit I lose from oversimplifying. And, of course, these years are totally arbitrary - and yet they seem to work pretty well. Let me know what you think.

*There is no such thing as year 0, since the people who first made the calander didn't get the concept. Technically you have to skip from 1BC to AD1. I noted earlier that the years are guides, not exact dates, so I use numbers that are convenient. Also, I use BC and BCE interchangably, as well as AD and CE. There is little rhyme or reason as to when I use one or the other. I probably should just pick one and stick to it.

My Personal Welsh Revival

2007-09-11T20:17:00.000-05:00

I've never even been to Wales, but they have bestowed quite an honor upon me. And here all this time I was worried that I am developing a gut! Silly me.

A Grid for Understanding History, Part II

2007-09-08T14:14:00.000-05:00

In my last post I laid out my grid approach for understanding history. Today I am examining the way individuals fit into the grid.

Similarly to my study of world history, this is the problem I have when studying biographies: I have trouble figuring out where the subjects fit in relation to everything else. Now with the grid, I have a place I can quickly 'file them' in my mind. It gets a little tricky, since very few people were born right on one of the grid lines, so what I do is get a rough approximation of where they fit. Here is how it works:

Segment the person's life into 25-year segments, beginning at their birth. Next figure out approximately how far off the 25-year marks from world history the person is (that is, the 0, 25, 50, and 75 year dividers in world history). For instance, Martin Luther was born in 1483, so he is about one third off from the 1475-1500 block.

Generally, every person gets three 25-year blocks if they live a full life. During the first block there are very few individuals that ever do anything important. You are just learning about the world. But it is important to pay attention to this block of time in a person's life because whatever is happening in world history is going to be formative. During this block, people may be willing to change the world, but generally are not able yet.

You can safely assume that each individual has indirect access to three blocks of time before they were born. That is, even if the subject did not personally experience those blocks, he or she will know people who did - typically parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

When people drastically change the world, it is generally during the second block of their lives(25-50 years old). By this block, people have acquired enough knowledge and experience to have a real impact, but generally have no deep commitments to the received wisdom of the past generation. People in this period are still willing to change the world, but now have acquired the ability.

Taking Martin Luther as an example again, he nailed his theses to the door in 1517. Because he is about a third off of the historical blocks, his second block starts about a third after 1500, or about 1508. It is the middle of his second block that he departs from the conventional wisdom of his time, becoming the catalyst for the Protestant Reformation. For Luther, it is his second block of time that is most important.

It is the third block, from 50-75 years, that people generally do their best work. They have already taken their stands on whatever issues they have chosen to tackle. These are the years when people are best able to really flesh out positions taken earlier in life. It is not so much that people in this block no longer wish to change the world, but they have already taken a stand on how to change it. Usually the people we are interested in studying are the kinds of people who overturned the prevailing orthodoxy, but once that is done, their own positions have become the new orthodoxy and need working out. People in this block of life are generally the most effective in whatever they have decided to do because they have so much knowledge and experience to bring to bear on it. Keeping with our example, Martin Luther died only a few years into his third block.

Occasionally people like Billy Graham get a fourth block. This used to be pretty rare but with modern medicine is becoming a lot more common. I call this the bonus round. It's usually harder to do things during this block, but it's like you get double points for everything you do.

I think this system helps give a quick-and-dirty view of a person's life. By comparing the person to the grid, you can often guess about when the person's major life events occurred. Nine times out of ten the grid's predictions will be spot-on. The remaining 10% of the time are worth taking note of, because there is probably a detail that accounts for it that is worth noting.

Let's look at a few more examples:
Karl Barth (1886-1968) - He is almost half way off the 1875 grid line.

1st block (approx. 1886-1915)
2nd block (approx. 1915-1940) - Romans commentary written 1922 (about a third of the way into his second block), the bomb in the playground of liberal theology; Barmen declaration written 1934 against Nazism.
3rd block (approx. 1940-1965) - Church Dogmatics, begun in 1932, but mostly written during this block of time, representing Barth's later theology and moving away from the dialectical theology of the 2nd block. Many of his most important lectures are delivered at the end of this block, 1962-1965.
Bonus (1965-1968)

Paul (10-65, though much of this is guesswork) - This puts him just over a third off the Year 1 grid line.

1st block (10-35) - Paul is converted near the end of this period, about the year 33.
2nd block (35-60) - The first third of this block is spent in Cilicia and Syria; the second two-thirds are his missionary journeys.
3rd block (60-65) - Paul in Rome. We have very little information about Paul's activity during this time. Tradition says he was beheaded in Rome.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE) - He's just a few years behind the 350 grid line, so we'll line his up at about five years off.

1st block (356-330) - One of the very few individuals in history to make an impact during his first block, which makes him noteworthy. He takes over Macedonia after his father's assassination in 335. Even so, he contributes militarily rather than intellectually, which partially explains this deviation.
2nd block (330-323) - Alexander dies early, having conquered the known world.

In my next post, I will look at a specific time period, the period that has grabbed my interest currently: Israel under the Maccabees and the time leading up to the New Testament gospels.

A Grid for Understanding History, Part I

2007-09-07T15:48:00.000-05:00

I just cannot fathom how high school teachers can make history seem so boring. Okay, I'm pretty sure Wisconsin history is pretty dull. But everything else is usually fascinating. World history is pretty much littered with wars, intrigue, and assassinations - the stuff good novels are made of. But most of what I got was "social studies," where we spent our time learning the main export of each country. Oh yeah, that will really hook kids on learning about history.

So I never figured out that history was cool until college. Even then I only took two history classes. My first was Byzantine history, which was a smart choice since it covers over 1000 years, guaranteeing that I would become hopelessly lost in the details and mixing up people who were separated by, say, 200 years or more. The problem is that I had no framework for grasping a span of history that large, a problem I discussed yesterday.

I have encountered the same problem several times since then, whether church history classes, personal studying, or teaching homeschool. History is so vast that it's hard to keep everything straight.

I have developed a solution that I have gradually developing since my American church history class a couple years ago. It has seemed to work pretty well for me so far. My idea was to break up history into 25-year blocks. The 1900s, for instance, would be broken up into four blocks: 1900-1925; 1925-1950; 1950-1975; 1975-2000. I am intentionally repeating numbers rather than using, say, 1926-1950. That is because I am not intending to separate events into hard-and-fast categories. I am just trying to get a feel for what fits where, using 1925 as a general reference point.

There are a number of advantages to this kind of system. First, it makes it easier to understand the relation between different events in the grid. Have you ever copied a line drawing by superimposing a grid over the original drawing and then doing your copy over a similar grid? You'll be amazed how well you can copy a drawing, even if you are a poor artist. Imposing a grid helps you to recognize proportions and spacial relations. When studying history, a grid helps recognize temporal relations. So even if twenty-five year blocks are totally arbitrary, they still work well for creating mental storage compartments for various historical facts.

Second, my system gives us perspective. Perhaps my illustrations yesterday of 6000 babies or six chairs were not helpful to you. (Some people didn't catch the joke.) They are not helpful because we have no real frame of reference for understanding 6000 1-year-periods or 6 1000-year-periods. But we can easily understand a 25-year-period since it fits within most of our lifetimes.

6000 years are composed of 240 blocks. 240 is still a lot, but at least it's manageable. And we really don't have that much information on the first 2000 years, so you can lop off about 80 blocks by just getting down a few basic facts. But more importantly, we are not usually focusing on the entire 240 blocks. Our topic will usually just take a portion, like Roman history, or the expansion of Islam, or American history. Each one is only going to cover 10 to 20 blocks. That is very accessible. In addition, we can gain a concept of how long a particular period is in relation to the whole. The US has been a nation for just over 10 blocks, for instance, which is pretty short compared to 240, but yet not so small as to be insignificant. I have found this perspective indispensibly helpful.

Third, twenty-five years is about the right amount of time to have its own story. You tend to get a lot of the same key actors in each block. Much smaller and you miss important parts of the story; much bigger and you start incorporating another story. Occasionally stories will 'spill over' into the next grid section. When a particular story, like a king's reign, is spread pretty equally over two blocks, that is also fairly easy to remember by thinking of it stretching between the two blocks, like part A and part B.

In my next post I will further develop the grid method in reference to individuals. If you haven't bought into it yet, stick with me. There are more reasons why I think the grid system works.

Americans and World History

2007-09-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

Since I'm an American, the perspective my public school education gave me was that anything outside of my lifetime is old; anything that happened before the 1920s or so is ancient history; history more-or-less started in 1492, but it didn't really get going until the 1600s when people began to colonize the east coast of America, and that was all just a lead-up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

We Americans have such a limited perspective. I recently reviewed the Chrononauts card game (Looney Labs) for Knucklebones magazine in an article about using games for homeschooling (which is currently slated for the July issue of 2008). It is a fabulous game where you become a time traveler who changes parts of history and then watch the ripple effects later in the timeline. From an educational standpoint, the game is awesome. Well, awesome for learning American history from about 1900 on. I found myself thinking, if I had a time machine, I would want to see Rome, visit Ancient Babylonia, watch the building of the pyramids, meet Charlemagne, and listen to the Sermon on the Mount. Why do we somehow think that history means the past four generations of American history?

Looneys, if you happen to read this, I didn't mention any of this in my article, since a gaming magazine is not really the place for me to take up my own personal rant. I had only great things to say about your game. I can't wait to play Andy's hippy game in the new Stonehenge expansion. It sounds very interesting. But I digress.

Here's the problem as I see it:
(1) Americans (myself included) have a hard time getting our minds around the history of our own country, which is just over 250 years old.
(2) Recorded history goes back over 6000 years.

6000 years is a long time! Have you ever tried to think about it? Just to help you grasp the immensity of it, let me illustrate for you. My youngest daughter is just over a year old. If you took her exactly on her first birthday, you would have one year's worth of child. So that helps you get a feel for how long a year is. Now, if you want to understand how long 6000 years is, you would have to line up 6000 children on their first birthdays and add them all together. Simply mind boggling, isn't it?

Or how about this: if your kitchen chair represented 1000 years of history, it would take an unbelievable SIX CHAIRS to represent world history! That's enough chairs to fit around your dining room table.

That's why you come to this blog, isn't it. Perspective. Tomorrow I will share more profound insights for understanding over 6000 years of recorded history. It's all in service to you, dear reader.

The God of Christians and Muslims

2007-08-09T10:13:00.000-05:00

I do not know why I keep circling back to the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship different gods. Here is a video clip from Ergun Caner arguing for the opposing view, that we have different gods.

[Your browser does not support frames or is currently configured not to display frames. Please contact tech support if you are unable to configure your browser for frames.]

My question is simply this: why do we have to have our theology right in order for us to be worshipping the same god? It is easier to differentiate between Islam and Christianity. What about Roman Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals? Do we worship the same god? How about classical theists and open theists? Same god? Calvinists and Arminians? Same god? Fundamentalists and Evangelicals? Where exactly do we draw the line?

I cannot see any way around this logic:
A. Every one of us has erroneous theology to one extent or another.
B. If erroneous theology necessarily leads to false worship, then we all worship falsely.
C. At least some people do not worship falsely.
Therefore:
D. Erroneous theology does not necessarily lead to false worship.

N.T. Wright Wrecked My Life

2007-08-07T13:45:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time the Christian faith made sense to me. There were some things that I did not understand or some things that did not seem to fit perfectly, but overall the whole thing worked pretty well. Then I started reading N.T. Wright and my whole world crashed down around me.

See, I read somewhere that you ought to pick one author and read as much of their writing as you can so that you can interact in depth with their thought. This was well before I started seminary, back when I did not care a whit about scholarship. I decided to read Wright after first encountering him in a "Life of Jesus" class at church. We had read through the little book The Life of Jesus, and even though it was not that impressive I felt Wright had more under the surface than I had been able to garner from this little volume. He seemed to be a highly regarded Jesus scholar, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

So I went to the library at our local Catholic college where I found and checked out his two massive works, The New Testament and the People of God and Jesus and the Victory of God. I also picked up The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, in which he and co-author, Marcus Borg, defend and critique one another's historical reconstructions of Jesus. I began with The Meaning of Jesus, since it seemed the most accessible of the three, and I started to get hooked. But it was when I moved on to The New Testament and the People of God that everything I believed was shaken.

The problem is that it was not a frontal assault. In fact, I stood behind N.T. Wright as we took the liberal onslaught from Borg in The Meaning of Jesus. But as Wright prepared to deliver an uppercut of historical scholarship to Borg, I moved in to see things more closely and got elbowed in the face. I have spent the past decade trying to recover from that injury.

What is this great injury? Simply this: to understand the New Testament, we must read it in light of the world of first century Judaism, which is a lot more alien to us in the twentieth century than we like to think. It is especially rooted in the apocalyptic genre, especially in Daniel. Specifically, Daniel 7 is a particularly important passage for understanding early Christianity and the message of Jesus: the Son of Man is enthroned beside the Ancient of Days as the Kingdom of God is ushered in.

The book of Daniel represents in a microcosm the locus of most of my theological problems. Was it really written by Daniel or was it actually written centuries later during the Maccabean period? Scholars can make a good case for the latter, which even Wright accepts. Why should we even accept Daniel as scripture? It is not enough to say that we accept it because Jesus accepted it, since this whole examination of Daniel was prompted because it is the linchpin which holds together the New Testament. The book of Daniel (and the Old Testament as a whole) provides the entire foundation for the New Testament. As I see it, if Daniel falls, so does the New Testament.

The book of Daniel presents the primary OT basis for belief in an end-time resurrection of the dead. If it was written just to encourage the faithful that were being martyred by the Hellenistic king Antiochus Epiphanies, then what reason do we have to believe it? Would we not have warrant to judge that it was just wishful thinking? ...that as the Jews looked around at the injustices against their people, they speculated that there must be a resurrection to put things right? Wright himself proposes that this sort of eschatology (God will one day make all things right) arises from the combination of the doctrine of monotheism (God is in control), election (He has chosen Israel), and reality (Israel is suffering). Am I to believe in the resurrection of the dead because there was a pogrom against the Jews over two millennia ago? Please forgive me if this is a bit of a stumbling block in my faith.

Finally, even if I can get past all of this, the message of Daniel looks very different from the gospel I received. The gospel I know says you can be forgiven for your sins if you trust in Jesus, but if you do not, you will be damned for eternity. The message of Daniel is much more intuitive: that even when the bad guys seem to get away with it in this life, they will not in the end; and even if the good guys seem to get screwed in this life, they will ultimately be vindicated. It is a much more 'pluralist-friendly' message than orthodox theology seems to allow.

N.T. Wright does a fine job of making the New Testament seem historically plausible, but only at the expense of making its message seem utterly implausible.

O Dr. Wright, why tormentest thou me?

Book Review - Gracism: the Art of Inclusion

2007-07-24T16:45:00.000-05:00

I just finished the book Gracism by David A. Anderson, pastor of Bridgeway Community Church and a former staff member at Willow Creek. I would probably never have read it, but I forgot to cancel my selection of the month with IVP book club, so it showed up on my doorstep. I thought it was another book on the doctrine of grace, which, quite honestly, I have no real desire to read. What I didn't catch was the play on words, combining grace and racism.

I grew up in a small Wisconsin town where I was a racial minority because I was a non-Norwegian Caucasian. It was not until I started meeting people of other races, specifically African Americans, that I began to become prejudiced. The reason? I feel like the race card is perpetually played against me. I have come to believe that if I ever act negatively towards someone that happens to be African American, I will be accused of being racist. I hate that. I mean I really hate that.

Anderson helped me understand aspects of race relations that I never understood before. Here is how he begins his book:

Maybe you have heard of the social experiment in which ten people were to interview at a company. Before they went to the office for the interview, a red dot was painted on one cheek of each interviewee. Each interviewee was to go into the office and sit across the desk from the interviewer. After each interview, the interviewee was debriefed. Each of the ten interviewees stated that the interviewer kept staring at the dot on his or her cheek.
Here's the kicker: Out of the ten who received a painted dot, five - unbeknownst to them - were actually given a clear dot that was not visible on their skin. Yet they still felt as if the interviewer was focusing on their dot. From this experiment we learn that people feel self-conscious about whatever makes them insecure.

This illustration helps me understand race issues in a new way. It helps me understand why some people perceive me to be racist even when I'm really not. It helps me recognize that the real problem is not one of "reverse racism", but rather perception that many black folks have that race is a liability for them, a red dot, if you will.

Anderson's solution for race problems is in recognizing the God's preferential treatment for the underprivileged. The privileged often discriminate against the underprivileged, and in reference to race, this becomes racism. Anderson suggests that privileged Christians (and this will include almost all of us in at least one circumstance) must discriminate towards the underprivileged by extending extra grace. He defines gracism as "the positive extension of favor on other humans based on color, class or culture." I think he is right on to suggest gracism as a big part of the solution to race problems.

Following 1 Corinthians 12, which Anderson makes a compelling case for reading in terms of racial tensions, he suggests we adopt seven sayings towards racial others:

"I will lift you up" - giving special honor to minorities.
"I will cover you" - helping minorities save face in dishonoring situations.
"I will share with you" - refusing to accept special treatment simply because we are not in the minority.
"I will honor you" - giving greater honor to minorities.
"I will stand with you" - rejecting divisions based on race.
"I will consider you" - showing equal concern for those who are different.
"I will celebrate with you" - rejoicing with those who are different.

Though I think Anderson has a great message, the book has the feel of a twenty minute message expanded into a 160-page book. I'm still not entirely sure what the difference between the first and fourth sayings. And some of the illustrations seem forced, like the story of his friend Rick, whose flight together with Anderson was delayed, and who chose to fly economy with him instead of wait for a later flight where he could have flown first-class. This is supposedly an example of saying three, refusing to accept preferential treatment. I thought it was an example of someone taking the quicker flight.

Nevertheless, at only 160 pages, it is a quick read and well worth it. It makes me want to consider ways I can be a gracist in my day-to-day life.

The Orgin of Species

2007-07-20T12:25:00.000-05:00

Chris Tilling is stirring up trouble again. This time he is ranting about why he rejects creationism in favor of evolution. Like Chris, I too get highly irritated when the issue comes up, but mostly because it seems like everybody on every side of the issue is simply talking past one another. I offer my thoughts on why I think just about everybody is wrong.

1. The origin of species is not properly an object of scientific study.
The number one argument against the Intelligent Design movement is that it is not scientific. The conclusion of Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences states, "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science." ID makes no predictions, as opposed to Darwinism, which predicts that the principle of survival of the fittest will continue the process of evolution. ID is ruled out a priori. The only thing that tells me is that the subject matter of ID is more like history than science. It is most properly philosophical, an area that most scientists that make bold pronouncements rarely have any training in.

2. The origin of species is an emotional topic.
Science (with a capitol S) is our culture's mythology, providing many with their understanding of who they are and where they have come from. I am absolutely amazed that people on either side of the issue simply cannot understand why those on the other side might become emotional over the issue. The subject matter strikes at the very core of our identity. There is no place for ad hominem attacks or caricatures of those we disagree with. Those who resort to name-calling only reveal their own insecurities. Please be gracious towards those you disagree with, and consider what might be at stake for them in the conversation.

3. One's position on the origin of species must be falsifiable.
Anyone can continue to hold their position by explaining away contrary evidence. To be significant, however, you must be able to say, "My theory predicts x, and if we ever encounter not-x, then my theory will be disproven." Evolutionists often accuse proponents of ID of not being falsifiable. Michael Behe's principle of irreducible complexity is sometimes called a "God in the gaps" theory, which reduces to saying, "If we cannot explain it, it must be God." Perhaps it is, but it is at least falsifiable. If someone can develop a naturalistic explanation for the various instances of irreducible complexity, then it will have been falsified. Evolutionists, on the other hand, have an equal commitment to "Nature in the gaps". Supposing there really is a creator, what evidence could there ever be that would falsify naturalism? Finally, for those who believe the earth was created in six literal days I also want to ask, if you were wrong, what evidence could possibly be produced that you would accept? Young Earth Creationists are notorious for selectively reading the data. It seems to me that whatever evidence there could be to disprove a Young Earth perspective has already been produced.

4. Simple answers about Genesis are inadequate.
Chris Heard argued last November that we should reject creationism on exegetical grounds: Genesis 1 is poetry, not history; it conflicts with other biblical creations accounts like Genesis 2 and Psalm 74; it reflects near-Eastern and Egyptian creations stories and cosmology expect for the fact the YHWH is the central character; and the species in Gen 1 are not fashioned by God but instead come forth from the earth. I grant that Gen 1 is poetic and bears close resemblance to the surrounding cultures, but these are not enough to lead us to a non-literal interpretation of the passage. For ancient Hebrews, it is clear that Gen 1 held a lot more meaning than just a six-day creation, but I cannot imagine that it meant less. (For similar reasons, it seems self-evident that they would have read the word 'day' as referring to 24-hour-periods instead of indeterminate periods of time.) As far as conflicts with other passages, systematic theologians have developed strategies for dealing with them, but these strategies are not properly the domain of the exegete, who must approach each text independently before attempting to harmonize.

But a literalistic interpretation seems equally simplistic for theology for reasons I mentioned in point 3. I am at a loss to know what to do with Genesis 1. That God creates indirectly rather than directly seems to support a theistic evolutionary position, except for the framework of six days. The most surprising fact is that, while all the Christians are struggling with what to do with this passage, atheist-turned-theist philosopher, Antony Flew, considers this passage in Genesis to have the best claim to be special revelation of any text in existence. Go figure.

Settlers of Catan: The New Table Fellowship?

2007-07-19T12:23:00.000-05:00

In an age of microwave burrios and drive-thru fast food (both of which I like entirely too much) we have lost in important aspect of community: table fellowship. Something about eating together draws us into closer relationship with one another. How can we restore that kind of fellowship? I suggest we consider turning to gaming.

Last Friday I picked up a copy of the game Settlers of Catan. For those who are not familiar with the game, it is often considered a "gateway game" into strategy-based Eurogames, often known as "designer games". Apparently I have been quite out of the loop. Last February when I returned to school after winter break, someone in my formation group mentioned that he spent most of the break playing Settlers. Nearly half the group of about a dozen of us said they had played the game. I felt hopelessly behind.

But praise God, as of Friday last week, the word "behind" no longer applies to me (at leat in reference to Settlers). Since purchacing the game, I have played at least one game every single day, mostly with my wife and our friends, Brian and Kathy. The fact that it appeals to both Brian and me, who tend to like these kinds of games, and also to our wives, who do not usually like these kinds of games, speaks volumes about why it is so popular. In fact the women have been the ones most likely to suggest getting together to play each night. One thing that makes it particularly fun is that players are not eliminated one-by-one from the game but stay in the game until one person wins.

If you have never played, you really ought to check it out. But be warned - it is addicting. Diana and I have decided that we will exercise the Christian virtue of self-control by taking a night off from playing in order to get some sleep.

Church Services: Who Are They For?

2007-07-18T13:45:00.000-05:00

Who church is for is an important question for anyone in church leadership. The question is particularly important for those of us in low-church traditions, where we just sort of "have church," and the entire flow of the meeting depends on the pastor and worship leader. But I think the question is also important in liturgical churches. Should we follow the seeker-sensitive model, where church meetings be geared towards unbelievers? In this model, the entire service culminates with the preaching of an evangelistic message. Or should we follow a discipleship model of church, where church meetings are geared towards believers and evangelism accomplished through other avenues?

Having pondered this question for several years, I have come to the conclusion that church services ought to be worship services. Church is neither for unbelievers nor for believers but for God. And if church is primarily for God, then we have no right to whine when church meetings do not go the way we might have wanted or when the preaching does not seem to meet our needs. After all, it is not about us, but about God.

But that leads to another problem: if church is for God, why preach? In fact, the old Roman Catholic masses were pretty much like this until the reformation. There was no preaching, masses were spoken to God in Latin, and Priests faced the altar rather than the congregation. In our sevices, it is tempting for the preacher to put himself implicitly in the place of God, speaking for Him to His people. Though there is a place for prophetic ministry, it becomes dangerous when the pastor places himself week after week on God's side rather than on the congregation's side. I do not intend this as a judgment on preachers, but rather an observation arising from years of personal preaching experience where I found myself asking, "How can I best tell the people what they need to hear?'

I am not suggesting that we remove preaching from our worship services. It was not just the Protestant churches that changed after the reformation, but Roman Catholic churches changed also as a result of the Counter Reformation. Preaching really should be a part of our worship services, but it is hard to know what role to assign to preaching if we decide that our church meetings are for God.

The answer, I believe, is found in a covenantal approach to scripture, as I outlined a couple days ago. If the Bible is our covenant document with God, then we honor God by remembering and reflecting on our covenant with Him. Preaching that flows from the Biblical text, becoming a meditation on it or providing insight into the text, is a normal response of worship when the people of God meet with their covenant Lord. The preacher's purpose, then, is not to minister to the congregation, but to facilitate ways for the congregation to respond appropriately to the scriptures.

For the people of God, we expect to encounter our covenant Lord when we gather together. When we worship Him in spirit and truth, we can rightly expect that He will show up, and I think we can expect that He desires to speak to His covenant people. But hearing Him speak is not the purpose of our church meetings - ministering to God is.

Observations on the Doctrine of Scripture

2007-07-17T12:18:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I (finally) laid out a covenantal understanding of the doctrine of scripture. Today I want to make a few observations that I think are entailed by the way I have approached things:

First, there is no need to jettison the term inerrancy. If God is inerrant, and the Bible is His covenant with us, it makes sense to view the Bible as inerrant also. It is important to define exactly what an error is. We do not hold the scriptures to a higher standard than they set for themselves. (See also my inerrancy post from a few months ago.)

Second, we should expect the Bible to give us information relating to the covenant and our response to the covenant. We should not expect the Bible to be giving us scientific information. If one can demonstrate that the purpose of a passage is to give scientific information, then a belief in inerrancy compels us to assume the passage is scientifically accurate. BUT given the covenantal purpose of the scriptures, I am doubtful that any passage does intend to convey scientific information.

Third, nothing about a covenantal view of scripture limits God’s self-revelation exclusively to the Bible. Even if we have been able to identify the way God has been dealing with us, we are given no authority to conclude how He has (or has not) been interacting with other peoples on the globe. Therefore we have no justification, for instance, for pronouncing all non-Christian religious traditions to be evil. Terrance L. Tiessen proposes that “formalized religions are ambiguous responses to divine revelation, and so are the religious commitments of individual members of those religions.” (Who Can Be Saved: Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions, 2004, p.358)

Fourth, our covenant with God is not logically necessary but rather historically contingent. That is to say, the covenant we have with God might have been entirely different than the one we have now, based entirely on the way different individuals in our now-distant past chose to respond to God. This might be self-evident were it not for popular gospel presentations like “The Four Spiritual Laws” which present the gospel as a set of timeless truths. The gospel is not like Buddhism's Four Noble Truths, which apply equally to all humans at all times, having always existed and were waiting only to be discovered by Buddha. Instead, the gospel is a call to accept that God has given Jesus, the real-flesh-and-blood-historical Jesus, authority to become the Lord of Heaven and Earth. There is no need to cross Lessing’s “ugly ditch” between the accidental truths of history and the necessary truths of history, for the gospel is firmly rooted on the side of history.

The Doctrine of Scripture

2007-07-16T17:12:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post, I stated my reasons for rejecting the two popularly held beliefs about the Bible: first, that the Bible is just a human book with no connection to the divine; and second, that the Bible as the Word of God is the “user’s manual of life.” In fact, there is a nugget of truth in each. That the Bible was produced by humans is self-evident on even a cursory reading. Whatever else one may believe, it is clear that the style of writing and the personality of each biblical author was not short-circuited when the Bible was written. On the other hand, literally billions of people have approached the Bible as the Word of God and have felt the Bible become a divine catalyst to connect them to God.

It is noteworthy that the early Christian creeds attempt to sum up the teachings of the scriptures but they do not include a doctrine of scriptures themselves. A few weeks ago I posted a quote from Clark Pinnock who argued that the most important purpose of the Bible is “to present a sound and reliable testimony to who [God] is and what God has done for us.” The Bible does not call attention to itself, but instead acts as a giant pointer to Jesus Christ and the gospel. It is far more important what you believe about what the Bible says than what you believe about the Bible itself. Jesus Christ, not the Bible, is the object of our faith.

Through His death, Jesus offers us the opportunity to enter into covenant with God (Mark 14.24). Ephesians 2.12-13 reminds us that we, as gentiles, “were [once] separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus [we] who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Entering into covenant with God requires that we understand the terms of the covenant that God has made with us, and this is the best way for us to understand the doctrine of scripture.

In The Last Word, N.T. Wright argues at length that “‘authority of scripture’ is shorthand for ‘God’s authority exercised through scripture” (p.23). The Bible functions as the covenant document between God and His people. Based on no other evidence but the cumulative experiences of Christians through history (including my own), it is entirely plausible that the covenant presented in the New Testament is a true covenant offered by God.

Thus the doctrine of scripture is best understood covenantally. It helps us unpack what it means to follow Jesus and live in obedience to our covenant God. A covenantal view avoids the problem of trying to defend the kind of bumper sticker faith that boldly asserts, “The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it,” but cannot stand up to rigorous cross-examination from those who are not so trusting. But the covenantal approach also allows us to open our eyes to legitimate difficulties in the text without collapsing into total skepticism.

Tomorrow I will make some observations that follow from this covenantal doctrine of scripture. As always, I invite your comments. I am still working this all out, so I am not sure I am consistent yet.

Current Happenings

2007-07-10T15:01:00.001-05:00

Sorry I have not posted in over a week. I spent the first part of last week with my family while my father-in-law was in town. I spent the second half of the week at the Origins game convention in Columbus, which reminded me that no matter how hard I try to escape it, I will always be a geek at heart. I have all kinds of things I want to share as a result. I also owe a response to AlHaj, who has been taking me to task on the Christian doctrine of the trinity. Plus I promised that I would give my defense of the Christian doctrine of scripture. So all that is on the front-burner in my blogging mind. On top of that, I have an article due for Knucklebones magazine on using games for homeschooling, and I will probably either be blogging some of my thoughts first or else blogging out of the leftovers from that article. But at the moment I have all kinds of stay-at-home-dad stuff to do, so this stuff will have to wait.

Theological proclamations

2007-06-29T10:29:00.000-05:00

I confess that I blew off the confessions meme that was so prominent in the theoblogosphere because it seemed like it was turning into an ironically hubristic enterprise, becoming a vehicle for people to "confess" things they were already saying (or usually ranting about) anyway. I proclaim that the proclamations meme started by Halden is a worthwhile meme.

I confess that the word proclamation conjures up memories from my camp counselor days when, at the slightest mention of the word announcement, the entire camp would break into the song, "Announcements, announcements, announcements; what a terrible way to die, what a horrible way to die, what a terrible way to be bored to death, what a horrible way to die; announcement, announcements, announcements." Thus we were forced to give 'proclamations' instead. It still sort of freaks me out. As I attempt to force such horrible memories out of my mind, here are my proclamations:

I proclaim: that propositional truth is necessary but not sufficient for an adequate theological system.

I proclaim: that theology is not a list of hard-and-fast doctrines but about entering 'the great conversation'.

I proclaim: that theology is meaningless unless it is infused with life by the Holy Spirit.

I proclaim: that Wayne Grudem is a fabulous model for attempting to infuse theology with the life of the Holy Spirit but a dismal failure at participating in 'the great conversation.'

I proclaim: that one of my greatest theological fantasies is getting Jim West to speak in tongues.

I proclaim: that Jesus sent His disciples out to preach the gospel, heal the sick, and cast out demons, and we are not at liberty pick-and-choose which we will throw out.

I proclaim: that most liturgical churches are no longer properly contextualized within their given cultures.

I proclaim: that N.T. Wright is amazing when he speaks as a New Testament scholar and mediocre when he speaks as an Anglican.

I proclaim: that evangelicals need to recognize that they are not the only Christians, and non-evangelicals need to recognize that evangelicals are not all out to lunch.

I proclaim: that reformed theology offers the best theological options on just about everything but the five points.

I proclaim: that Augustine's contributions to theology have been almost completely disastrous.

I proclaim: that dispensationalism is the most absurd and bizarre theological system ever devised.

I proclaim: that nature itself teaches that theologians ought to drink beer (especially dark beers and microbrews).

I proclaim: that more theologians need to live out their faith, and more people who are living out their faith need to read theology.

Internet Rumination: How to change the World

2007-06-28T15:41:00.000-05:00

Today I begin a new feature at the Hungry Scholar: Internet Ruminations. From time to time I plan to give you fresh information and links on a particular topic that will change your life. Today's Internet Rumination is how to change the world for Jesus.

How can we change the world for Jesus? Well, a good place to start is with some free online bible courses taught by real seminary professors like Gerald Bray, Ron Nash, and Bill Mounce. Scot McKnight has some excellent insights for changing the world in his current series on the "Missional Jesus" (He put out part 9 today). Citing stories from some of his friends who have had visions of Jimi Hendrix fishing off a cloud in Heaven, Leonard Jones predicts that the musical style of the late-60s is making a comeback and will be used by God to change the world. Regardless of Hendrix's current location, N.T. Wright reminds us that heaven is not our home, and our focus must be on changing this world. Maybe we can change the world if we understand why some people are drawn away from their faith towards neo-pagan religions like Wicca (very interesting) or how today's generation sorts through the creation/evolution debate (very funny). Changing the world will be easy if time travel is really possible since we can just go back and change whatever we need to. By faith, you can travel forward in time if you happen to fall asleep and wake up after a few centuries later. But ultimately, if you want to change the world you just keep doing your best and pray that it's blessed, and Jesus takes care of the rest.

Kantzer Lecture Series

2007-06-26T21:12:00.000-05:00

John Webster will be giving the very first series of Kantzer Lectures in Revealed Theology at Trinity this year (September 10-19). Modeled on the famous Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology, the Kantzer lectures will feature prominent theologians who attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice, between academic theology and practical pastoral relevance. Webster's lectures will examine the relation between God's attributes and His interaction with His creation.

The lectures will be published in book form by Eerdmans. Just as the Gifford lectures have given us so many classics (William James, Albert Schweitzer, Karl Barth, to name just a few), I hope to see the same from the Kantzer lectures.

The Bible and the Qu'ran

2007-06-26T19:53:00.000-05:00

Clark Pinnock writes,

The Bible is not a book like the Koran, consisting of nothing but perfectly infallible propositions, a book that should not be translated or commented upon for fear of corrupting the incorruptible. The Bible did not fall from heaven. We do not need to wash our hands before picking it up. Inspiration did not make the writers superhuman. It did not cancel out their historicity and weaknesses, but guaranteed that through them the true testimony to Jesus Christ should come that would have lasting normativity and authority in the church. We place our trust ultimately in Jesus Christ, not in the Bible. He alone is the foundation and ground of our faith. What the Scriptures do is to present a sound and reliable testimony to who he is and what God has done for us. The marvel of it is that he has done it, not through angels, but through ordinary human beings, with all their limitations. (The Scripture Principle, 1984, p.100)

Here Pinnock provides what I believe is the first step to answering the question I asked several days ago: What theological justification do we have to call the Bible the Word of God? However, if I understand Pinnock correctly, his own answer to this question seems to be church tradition, "that entrenched in Christian thinking of every kind is a belief in the Bible as the written Word of God." (p.ix) Admittedly his purpose is to set out an understanding of what it means to say the Bible is the Word of God rather than why. Pinnock's position is quite close to biblioblogger Chris Tilling's Statement of Inerrancy (Part 1 and Part 2) that caused such a stir last week.

I hope to publish my own views defending the Bible as scripture in a few days.

Blogging, Theology, and Worship

2007-06-25T08:37:00.001-05:00

I have discovered how much blogging requires creativity, and all creative works find their best fulfillment in worship, or at least in service to God. Similarly, at least one goal of theology must be worship, since theology gets us talking and thinking about the object of our worship. Thus theoblogging has a two-fold worship mandate. But because of our natural tendency to twist and distort things, it is easy to turn our creative works into a shrine of narcisism and our theology into a body of knowledge that is entirely independent of God Himself. Theology without worship is like foreplay without sex. Theology that is constructed independently of God's Spirit becomes spiritual pornography, an enticing but illegitimate endeavor.
In my experience, the days that theoblogging flows from or leads to worship have been very fulfilling. Days where I have blogged about theology without God Himself being particularly central have felt frustrating and unfulfilling. I'm not saying that everything we write should be explicitly about God, but I do think that no matter what we write, God should be first in our hearts.

C.S. Lewis on Inclusivism

2007-06-24T15:56:00.000-05:00

In the last of his books written for children, The Last Battle, Lewis includes a passage where a servant of the false god, Tash, recounts standing before the judgment of Aslan (Lewis' Christ-figure, who appears in the form of a fiersome lion).

When it began to be said that Tash and Aslan were one, then the world became dark in my yes. For always since I was a boy, I have served Taash and my great desire was to know more of him and, if it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me...
But when [those in charge] said that all who desired to look upon Tashlan - for so they mixed the two words to pretend that they were all one - must pass one by one into the hovel [before them]. And I said to myself, Doubtless this is some other deception. But when [another] had gone in and had come out again in a madness of terror, then I said to myself, Surely the true Tash, whom thay called on without knowledge or belief, has now come among us, and will avenge himself. And though my heart was turned into water inside me because of the greatness and terror of Tash, yet my desire was stronger than my fear, and I put force upon my knees to stay them from trembling, and on my teeth that they should not chatter, and resolved to look upon the face of Tash, though he should slay me. So I offered myself to go into the hovel...
Then I looked about me and saw the sky and the wide lands and smelled the sweetness. And I said, By the Gods, this is a pleasant place; it may be that I am come into the country of Tash. And I began to journey into the strange country and to seek him.
So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable trees till lo! in a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great Lion. The speed of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's; his hair was like pure gold and hte brightness of his eyes, like gold that is liquid in the furnace... Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hours of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him... But the Glorious One bend down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of Thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thaou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true... that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which that hast done to him, for I and he ar of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted... But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yes I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.

Interview with AlHaj

2007-06-21T10:47:00.000-05:00

This is the first of what I hope to be a series of interviews on the topic of religious pluralism and the agreement and disagreement between world religious traditions. Today's interview is with AlHaj ibn Ibrahim Asy-Sarawaki, who runs the Reminder to People of the Book blog. I have made some minor formating changes from our email interview. Using the compose feature of blogger makes consistency in formating almost entirely impossible.

RTJ: Thank you for agreeing to an interview.

AlHaj: PEACE BE UPON THOSE WHO FOLLOW GUIDANCE!

RTJ: What motivated you to start a blog that addresses the People of the Book?

AlHaj: I did not start to write a blog on religion. I actually started to write a blog on cure of sickness using Quranic verses. That's why you see the url of the blog was nur-syifa. The syifa verses in the Qur'an are use to cure sickness, especially person possessed by evil spirit. I do not have experience in that, but I would like to share ideas with fellow Moslem healers. The oringinal name of the blog was Nur Syifa.

When I started to put Google ads on the blog, I do not know how ads of Chritianity appeared on my blog. I wrote to Blogger to rid off the ads. They told to me to use the ads filter. I tried but the ads filter did not function. I created the blog by trial and error until it becomes what it is now, and I came to learn the type of ads coming to your blog depend on the words appearing in your posts. If you write about Islam or Chritianity, ads relevant to them will finally appear on your blog automatically. So I have to lived with them. In a way with the ads I am indirectly propagating Christianity but on the other hand the ads help me to keep abreast of what is happening in the Christian world.

I am not an Islamic scholar, but I do find the Christianity ads are rather misleading when touching about Islam, we are always put on the defensive. [I think that's how you and J. K. Jones felt also when you read my posts]. So I started to write counter commentaries, but as far as possible I tried to be honest to stick to fact and as you see I prefer to quote from literature produced by recognize figures in their respective fields. I changed the name of the blog to 'Reminder to Believers'.

In politics I based my argument on terrorism from books written by Noam Chomsky and Samuel Huntington (they are world level thinkers). From them you know what is militant Islam or terrorism is all about - their roots. I don't want to talk from prejudicial point of view, after all we want this world to be in peace. I find the results of his research that terrorisms are engineered by America are more plausible rather than the Western prejudicial reports against Islam, not that I support terrorism or militancy. You may disagree with Chomsky. The trauma of Iraqis under the tyrant Saddam is no comparison with their trauma under American occupation. Under Saddam people can still lived their normal life, but under American occupation Iraqis genarally lost their dignity. Somalia and Afghanistan is still bleeding badly. I have with me three books, 'Imperial Ambitions', 'Failed States', and 'Perilous Power' by Chomsky and 'Who Are We' by Huntington ( also author of the 'Clash of Civilizations'). I still wanted to collect onother book by Chomsky, 'Hegemony and Survival'.

RTJ: Why do you believe Islam is true?

AlHaj: I believe Islam is true not because I was born a Moslem. My parents are not religious people, they are nominal Moslems. But I thanked God I am born a Moslem. It is the most precious gift for I can't make myself a Moslem without His will.

RTJ: In your younger days you were educated in a Roman Catholic MissionarySchool. How has this impacted you?

AlHaj: I studied Islam, I self-argued it, but I read a lot book on Islam by Moslems as well as orientalists; and I choose to go to a Christisan missionary school not because I want to study Christianity even, but I want to get the best facilitated educational opportunities. The years I studied in the missionary school ( Sacred Heart Secondary School were among my happiest younger days). I am at ease with fellow Christians in my country. We seldom talked about Islamic terrorism or militancy here, I think it is irrelevant in Malyasia. We achieved our independence from the British not through revolution as our Indonesian counterpart from the Dutch but through the round table. Turbulence historical background in one's country does affect one's world view towards others and set one mindset. We Malaysian I like to believed are gentlemen when facing natoinal crisis. We articulate our objective even when we get help from the Americans to fight the Communist insurgency in the early independence days.

But then surfers began to comment on my posts especially on political matters touching America and I find their writings quite subjective. Its hard to confront subjective writings. So I deleted all posts on political matters and retained the religious ones and again I changed the name of my blog to what you find now, concentrating entirely on People of the Books with references from the Al-Qur'an and the Bible and especially literatures written by Prof. Emeritus Geza Vermes. I have three of his books with me at the moment, 'The Gospel Of Jesus', 'Nativity', and 'Whos Who in The Age of Jesus'. I still need all his other books including the 'Dead Sea Scrolls'. I surfed the Pontif blog once in a while but his blog is not productive. I also surfed the Vatican webpage to keep abreast of the latest news and I was surprised when Bush visited the Vatican, I say Romans demonstrated against him on the Iraqi issues. See that is Godly people sympathising the suffering of the Iraqis. I feel sorry also for Alan Johnson. But I think these journalists have gone overboard reporting from insane places.

RTJ: In a comment I left on your blog I asked why you accept the authority of the Qu'ran. I also said that the Bible does not play the same part in Christian theology as the Qu'ran does in Islamic theology. For Christians, Jesus is the Word of God, just as the Qu'ran is in Islam. The Bible is more like Muhammad in that it is the vessel through which God makes His revelation known. How do you respond?

Why I believe in Islam? What do you think religion is? What do you think Qur'an is? You believe Prophet Muhammad was an imposter? Are you people honest with him as we are honest with Jesus?You say, Jesus was God's word, I believed with all my heart.

You say Jesus is God, no! If you say Jesus is God then Al-Qur'an is also God because Al-Qur'an is also God's word. What do you see of the Al-Qur'an - if not papers, ink, writing etc. Are those items God? No! And what do you see of Jesus, not man? Sure! Man is no different with papers, created. Did he not become from the womb of a woman and grew as any of us? Did he not undergo the path of creation? Why blinded yourself, because the light is too bright until you cannot see? Who raised him to the level of God, himself or you and why did you deliberate on his Godship if it is inequivocally stated by Jesus that he is God? You argued and you have to argue on his Godship in the Council of Nicea 325 AD. So you hesitated also? You did doubt it also. It took convention by convention to determine that he is God, not Jesus himself dertermined it. But then you decided to claim him God. And you deliberated 'painstakingly' to come to the point that God is Jesus based on Greek script not in his own Aramaic language, having no point of return (original Aramaic manuscripts) when there's discrepancies aroused between Arius and Athanasian?

Let us be honest. Aramaic is not simply chosen as the language of revelation, you bear that in mind, it was a 'language of revelation' chosen by God's word and that's why Jesus spoke it and God did not choose Greek as His channel. Did God choose the language of revelation hanky-panky? You are a man of reason. Why God give us the gift of reason? Reason functioned to understand not to be the arbitrator. The arbitrator is the Scripture. Once the Scripture is not in the original, the translation are noly traces! What make man fall is dishonesty.

I read also Richard Dawkins' 'The God Delusion'. I couldn't help laughing reading his book. I am not enraged. I pity the man. Alas he is propagting Atheism in America, aggresively huh! Its you the front liner there to counter him. There's also one big name, an old lady Karen Armstrong, also said to be an atheist but not the like of Dawkins, she defended religion. I think she is a theist without any orgainzed religion affiliation although she was ealier a Roman Catholic nun.

The Triune aside, you believe God is one. Why I believe Islam is true? Because God is one. And there's nothing in Islam that goes against my human nature.

And the idea of 'incarnation'? Whose culture is that, be honest, Greek (Hellenistic) or Semitic? Had any God's Apostles from Adam till Muhammad spoke of incarnation? Jesus? Jesus or you? I know you can quote the Biblical verses as proofs but none is objective but all are subjective that can call for multiple/variant, even the dangerous 'allegorical' interpretations.

I have read the last revised Bible ( 2006) published by Pengunin Classis, 'The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (TNCPB)' that charged that the earlier translators misrepresented some of the words in the Authorised King James Version. So the TNCPB come with and as the more precise one. Read the preface to the TNCPB. In ten years time maybe another scholar come again with another version who saw another misrepresentation. Who dare to do that if there's an original Aramaic Bible as the original Arabic Al-Qur'an is? Do not be mistaken with the Arabic Al-Qur'an with its translation. Its translation is not Al-Qur'an at all. In the end you will have voluminous Bibles and those native Christians here have to alter also from time to time the Bibles in their native languages. And they will argue among themselves which native vocabulary is of proper usage or precise. For ages you will have that problems. You have argued about the Bible eversince the Bible was in Latin or Greek and you will never stop for God is not pleased with your tempering with His scriptures.

Quranicly speaking the Holy Qur'an says, chapter 32 (The Byzantines) verse 30, 'And so, set thy face towards [one ever-true] faith, turning away from all that is false, in accordance with the natural disposition which God has instilled in man: [for,] not to allow any change to corrupt what God has thus created - this is the [purpose of the one] ever-true faith; but most people know it not.' This makes me a Moslem. And the religion of all Prophets from Adam till Muhammad (Christ Jesus inclusive) is Islam (only officially known as Islam with the advent of Islam meaning submitting to the will of God as stated in the vesre alluded).

RTJ: What is the biggest misconception that Western Christian have about Islam?

AlHaj: My days in Roman Catholic Missionary School has made me understand the difference between Chritianity and Islam crytal clear. I can't take man as God. It is scripturally and rationally impossible. Jesus has spoken to be aware of your fellows who speaks on his behalf whom he will deny. Do you think they are we Moslems? We don't propagate Chrisitianity. Those will be you Christians preaching on his behalf speaking about him of which he never ever categorically approved.

RTJ: Do you believe there is salvation for non-Muslim monotheists?

AlHaj: If Islam is true which is true, Christians have no justification of remaining Christians but to embrace Islam. Prophet Muhammad says if Moses is living in my age of which I am the last Messenger he must also bear witness to me. Since Christians existed to the time of Muhammad so they must bear witness to Islam. If they refused their final everlasting abode is Hell. I don't joke with you with that teaching of Islam. If Moses was the last Messenger and Muhammad came before him, Muhammad must also bear witness to him and we the community of Muhammad must follow the religion of Moses. If we refuse we are regarded as not accepting the commandment of God as a whole. That's what happened to Satan when he refused to bow to Adam. Satan obeyed other aspect of God's commandments but not the commandment to bow to Adam. Satan was egoistic, he thought he was better than Adam because he was made from flame and Adam from dust. He forgot the one who gave him the commandment was God and not Adam. If Adam commanded him he may ignored the commandment on the justification of qualification but when God commanded, God's commandment is absolute. [Your question] is answered - no salvation, unless you want also to join the community of Satan.

RTJ: Is there anything eles you would like to add?

AlHaj: I quote the Qur'an, chapter 28 (The Story) verse 56: 'Verily , thou canst not guide aright everyone whom thou lovest: but it is God who guides him that wills [to be guided], and He is fully aware of all who would let themselves to be guided.'

Finally, I quote the Qur'an again, chapter 29 (The Spider) verse 46: 'And do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in a most kindly manner - unless it be such of them as are bent on evildoing - and say: 'We believe in that which has been bestowed from on high upon us as well as that which has been bestowed upon you: for our God (not Triune) and your God (not Triune) is one and the same (Unity), and it is unto Him that we [all] surrender ourselves.'

So, speaking from the perspective of Islam my Creator God is also your Creator God.

RTJ: Thank you for your time.

AlHaj: Thank you Ryan Jones.

Theological Competence

2007-06-20T13:15:00.000-05:00

After shamelessly soliciting friends for comments on this blog, I received an email from someone, who wrote,

I have given [your blog] a read-through. I did enjoy it. I had planned on making a comment. The thing is... I don't think I write NEARLY well enough to appear... I fear any comment I make would look stupid. Besides the fact, I am not nearly well-read enough to be intelligent on any of your points. In short - I really don't wish to sound like an idiot. I have gotten so accustomed to it, that I really am becoming quite bored of it.

Thank you for your interest, O Mr. or Mrs. emailer who shall remain anonymous. The funny thing is that I have exactly the same fear with nearly every blog post or comment I make. I think it has to do with the competence we feel we have in the things we talk about.

I think it is interesting to observe the process of developing competence in something. There are at least four distinct levels of competence:

Incompetence - You have no idea how much there is in a particular discipline that you do not know, so you refrain from commenting.
Pseudo-competence - You have started to learn something about the discipline, and in beginning to interact with it you make a lot of mistakes. You can easily become impressed with yourself in how much you know. "A little knowledge in the wrong hands can be dangerous."
Semi-competence - You now know enough to get around in the discipline, and perhaps more important, you know what you don't know, so that you can keep yourself from making major gafaws.
Full competence - You know what you're doing. Rather than seeming impressive, knowledge of the discipline is taken for granted.

Ironically, those who care least about looking stupid are generally those at level two. It is most enlightening to watch them, especially when the interact with people at level four. I remember when my daughter was learning to read, she was especially excited that she could recognize the name of our town, "Delafield." Every time we would pass a Delafield sign in the car, I knew she would demonstrate her knowledge and let us know where we were. It was cute at first, but after twenty-five times it gets a little old.

I remember a time working in a printship when a woman with a church background wanted to demonstrate her competence in the Bible. I don't remember the exact conversation, but she said something like, "There's a verse in Thessalonians, I think, about how God works all things together for good." I have so many things I wanted to respond: Did you know there's more than one book of Thessalonians?; The verse you have in mind is in Romans; the reference is 8.28; and the verse goes on to say 'for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.' Moreover, I don't think any of that knowledge is particularly impressive (other than maybe knowing chapter and verse), but I assume it is just base-level knowledge for anyone who knows the Bible.

In learning foreign languages, it seems that one or two semesters generally gets someone to level two; it takes three or four semesters to get to level three; and real competence is only developed by lots of practice in actually using the language.

The biggest danger, for me anyway, is assuming that competence in one area transfers to competence in another. I remember what a paradigm shift it was for me when I learned that competence in the Bible did not transfer into competence in New Testament scholarship. More recently I learned that competence in the American Evangelical sub-culture is quite different from competence in Christian theology.

As a theoblogger, I hope I have moved from pseduo-competence into semi-competence. That means I'm just now becoming somewhat confident in my use of standard academic and theological vocabulary, concepts, and arguments. For those who in either category one or four, the usage of this language can seem pompous and obnoxious. But for those of us who are seeking to gain competence, we're just trying to make sure we are able to talk the talk.

In the meantime, no matter what level of theological competence you may be at, please please PLEASE do not feel you cannot leave comments here. We are all friends here. :)

Raising the Issues

2007-06-19T02:36:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of issues in my faith that I am sorting through right now. Lots of things that I once took for granted don't seem to line up anymore. I feel like I am standing atop a giant rock pounding it with a sledgehammer in order to find out what is permanent and what is merely dirt. This is, I think, a good place to be. I would hate to treat my faith delicately only to find that much of it washes away in the storm of life. I believe that Truth is solid, able to take any blow because of the simple fact that it is true. In an email correspondance on this subject with Harold Netland last fall, he counseled,

You need to rest confident that God can handle some scrutiny and his truth can withstand some pretty rigorous questioning. I doubt that you have qustions or issues that 2000 years of Christian intellectual history has not already dealt with in some form or another. So do not worry about raising the issues and wondering whether this will lead you down a path you don't want to walk. Believe me, it would be much worse to have these nagging questions and just suppress them because you are afraid of where they might lead. If the Christian faith is not the truth, I for one do not want to believe it and keep teaching it (seems that is Paul's point in 1 Cor 15).

Here is my list of hot topics:

Non-Christians: Phonemonologically it seems that God interacts with people outside of the Christian tradition. How should we explain this theologically?
Eternal damnation: Though rooted in the justice of God, this doctrine seems to totally subvert the logic of justice.
Jesus' Resurrection: The historical evidence is just not as strong as some would like to make it out to be. It's not that I think the historical evidence is lacking, but it seems that I am searching for a different kind of evidence, perhaps theological.
Jesus' Return: Every time I think about the second coming I feel like I have embraced a total science fiction plot. God just doesn't seem to work this way. It is the one part of my doctrine that feels more like Scientology than rationality.
Scripture: I cannot find a theological mechanism that allows me to establish the Bible as God's eternal Word to all humanity. See my discussion a few days ago, as well as my proposed solution.

I have some ideas on number five that I will post in a few days, and I hope to explore the rest of the topics further over the next several weeks.

Game

2007-06-17T06:25:00.000-05:00

The Spirit, He quietly moves
A word is spoken
In a moment of surprise
New creation springs to life

Can this be what we were made for?
Designed to be imitators
But not simply to copy
We are icons of the divine

A world in chaos
Senseless pain
Pervasive suffering
And a cry for redemption

Yet here we are undeterred
Driven to create
Desiring to play the game
Of imagination and construction

O God our Father
Draw forth our purpose
To face the faceless void
And fashion a thing of beauty

RTJ 6.17.07

The Brain Shift

2007-06-15T14:16:00.000-05:00

Almost everyone who has ever gone to college knows about Brother Jed. He tries to be on some college campus preaching every single day that class is in session. Lots of people dislike his confrontational preaching style. A few dislike his theology. But it is hard not to find him interesting. He has a new bit he has been using with students recently. He calls it the Brain Shift:

“OK, everybody stand up and cup your hands around the genital area. Be sure not to touch anything done there. I don’t want you to have to go back to the dorm and change underwear in the middle of the day. All right now, let’s get some leverage by doing some deep knee bends, a one, a two a three. Now lift the brains out of your genitals back up in your cranium where they belong. There it is done! Now some of you should be ready to ask an intelligent question. No more questions about sex. [Homos will have to do the exercise several times a day for the next several weeks before there is any noticeable change.]"

Who is the Church?

2007-06-15T12:40:00.000-05:00

“…it is imperative that the leadership of the church take up the
Ephesians 4 mandate to equip the saints. As I was shown prophetically a few
years ago, the Lord's patience with the shepherds and ministries who are not
doing this is running out, and they will be removed from their places. However,
New Testament ministry does not just do the work of the ministry, but equips
others to do it as well, just as the Lord Himself gave us an example.”
-Rick Joyner’s Word for the Week, 6/11/07

Rick Joyner is one of the leaders of the charismatic-prophetic movement. He often writes about “the church,” and when he does, I wonder what he means by it. The week before he wrote, “[W]ith true spiritual maturity there will be increasing humility, not arrogance… [which] will always be found to have increasing fellowship and interchange with the rest of the body of Christ. That is also a sure sign of true spiritual maturity—we start to discern the whole body, not just our little part.” By the whole body, I assume he means more than just prophetic churches, or even charismatic churches. I tend to think he has evangelical churches in mind, though I have never seen him say asmuch.

What is “the whole body?” Is it the evangelical movement? Is it the Protestant church? Are Roman Catholics in? How about Orthodox churches? How about Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses? Robert Jenson, in the preface to his Systematic Theology, writes, “[T]he only church conceivably in question is the unique and unitary church of the creeds.” I think he is right on target. Does a church adhere to the Apostles’, Nicene, and Chalcedonian creeds? Then they are part of the catholic church – catholic with a small ‘c,’ meaning universal, which is much larger than the body we think of as Roman Catholic. Despite all that we might find wrong in them we must still think of them as part of ‘us’ rather than choosing a different (and arbitrary) standard that would allow us to exclude them. The catholic church includes most Protestant churches, the Roman Catholics, and Orthodox churches, but excludes Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

But Jenson goes on to observe, “To live as the church in the situation of a divided church – if this can happen at all – must at least mean that we confess we live in a radical self-contradiction and that by every churchly act we contradict that contradiction.” It seems to me that he conceives of this division either in theological or hierarchical terms. Either way, it is exactly here that I take issue. The church’s unity is primarily spiritual, a result of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The unity of the church ought not to be the unity of a Christmas tree farm where order is produced through artificial rows. The unity of the church is more like a forest, which consists of a complex ordering and interconnectedness, but not the kind we might choose to impose on it. The mandate of the church is to rule over the earth and subdue it, not to be forced into a giant edifice reaching to the heavens. But we do the church a great disservice if we attempt to enforce cookie-cutter-like conformity. And it seems that an organizationally diverse church is less likely to be infiltrated and subverted from her mandate to be a prophetic voice of justice in the world.

If we reject any portion of the true church, we act as 'mere men' (1 Cor 3.3). The temptation to splinter off and form faction must always be resisted. So how much fellowship and interchange can we have with the rest of the church, especially when we have significant differences? How willing are we to follow Joyner’s admonition with respect to Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches? Are we prepared to change our thinking of who “us” is if we have defined it differently? Paul did not crease giving thanks for the whole church, frequently making mention of it in his prayers (Eph 1.16). Will we do the same?

The Scripture Problem

2007-06-14T13:01:00.000-05:00

Is the Bible the Word of God? For skeptics, the answer is simply no - us crazy humans wrote it, and Christianity is patently false. On the side of faith the answer is yes, the Bible is the owner's manual for living - those who choose to ignore it will end up shipwrecked in life. For atheists and fundamentalists alike, these seem to be the only two options. I find both options troubling.

The skeptical answer seems to deny every encounter I've ever had with God through the scriptures. God transformed my life, and He has done the same for literally billions of others. This is one reason why I don't think the atheist position has much to commend it and why I don't find the atheist-theist debate to be anything more than mildly interesting.

My problem with the fundamentalist option is that I just can't find any good reason to accept it. The various defenses generally focus on refuting claims that the Bible is unreliable or contradictory. But once you have done that, you have still not proven that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, just that it is reliable and not contradictory. As far as I know, there are only three options for defending the "Owner's manual" view of the Bible:

Fulfilled prophecy - "One of the unique and fascinating aspects of the Bible is that in no other religious literature do we find the accuracy of fulfilled prophecy" (Josh McDowell, A Ready Defense, 56). My difficulty is that the fulfilled prophecies are not that cut-and-dry. Matthew 2.15 fulfills Hosea 11.1, "Out of Egypt I called my Son" - except that in its context in Hosea there is nothing that sets this passage apart as a Messianic prophecy, or even as a prophecy at all. Matthew 27.35, "And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots," seems to fulfill Psalm 22.18, but the skeptic's answer seems at least equally plausible: that Matthew invented this little bit in order add credibility to his story. Daniel seems to prophesy the rise and fall of kingdoms (Daniel 11), but there is significant evidence that the book was written during the Maccabean period, long after the prophesied events had already occurred. Of course there are answers to all of these, but one's acceptance of them seems to depend on an a priori belief in the inerrancy of scripture, the very thing this argument is attempting to prove.

Best option - The argument is that it is reasonable to believe that God has given us some divinely inspired writings and the Bible is the best candidate. The trouble here is that it merely shifts the problem from why we should believe the Bible to why we should assume that God would give us any divinely inspired writings. It is certainly not intuitive that God would give choose to give us a book. Why not speak directly to us? Why not write a message in the sky or light up a message on the board in a baseball stadium? Moreover, this argument has the added problem of now having to prove that the Bible is the best option, a proposition which is typically defended by creating straw men of those who defend other religious traditions. On the whole this argument seems to fail.

Jesus' authority - It is reasonable to believe in the deity of Jesus on the weight of the historical evidence alone, and Jesus authenticated the scriptures. The argument is weakest in affirming the books of the New Testament, all of which were written after Jesus had made any of these statements. The classic passage used to defend the New Testament comes from John 14.26, "The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." This leads us to all sorts of difficulties related to canon: How do we know we got the right books? Why should we accept Hebrews or 2 and 3 John, which offer no textual support for being written by apostles? Why should we accept Mark, Luke, and Jude which do not even claim to be written by apostles? Why should we accept any of Paul's writings, who had never even met Jesus during his earthly ministry, providing absolutely no way for the Holy Spirit to "bring to [his] remembrance all that [Jesus] spoke to [him]"? Even the strongest part of this argument, Jesus' affirmation of the Old Testament, comes from a single passage, John 10.35, where Jesus asserts that "the scriptures cannot be broken." Most critical scholars would deny that the book of John is historically reliable at all. Of course we might want to reject that consensus, but our primary reason for doing so, as above, rests on a view of inerrancy that we are trying to prove.

How can a Christian affirm the scriptures? Before I offer my solution, I am curious how you, the reader, might answer the question. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

What's In a Name?

2007-06-13T23:43:00.000-05:00

What does it mean to be a Jones? For me, not a lot. Before I was born my Grandma remarried a man named Tom Jones who adopted my Dad. Tom was, I believe, raised in an orphanage and never knew his real parents' last name. Apparently all (or at least many) nameless orphans were given the last name Jones in those days. My Grandma and Tom got together after my Grandma's ex-husband (my real grandfather) ran off with Tom's ex-wife.

So the name Jones carries no family significance for me. It does remind me that I have been adopted into God's family, so I guess that is something I can take from it.

Here are some other Jones blogs I have been reading recently:

Tony Jones - my favorite emergent church blog. Unfortunately Tony hasn't been posting much lately, but he's a lot of fun to read.
J.K. Jones - my favorite country-boy baptist layman industrial engineer who reads a lot of conservative evangelical theology.
Leonard Jones - my favorite worship leader.

Anyone else got any other good Jones blogs worth reading?

Do We Worship Different Gods?

2007-06-13T06:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently the assertion that Christians and Muslims worship the same God is extremely controversial. I am going to take another stab at it to try to defend this position.

First, Christians and Muslims clearly have radically different conceptions of who God is, e.g. Christians are trinitarians; Muslims are unitarians. I am not at all attempting to refute this. Many would argue that the character of the Christian and Muslim concepts of God are also radically different, and I would tend to agree.

Second, Allah is synonymous with God. The former is the Arabic term for the latter. When the Bible is translated into Arabic, Allah is used in the same places where our English translations say God. Asking whether Allah is the same as God is the same as asking whether Dios (Spanish) is the same as God.

Third, there are two fundamentally different ways to think about identifying God. The first is to take God as the subject and then describe who God is. If Christians and Muslims provide contrary descriptions of God, it seems likely they are describing different gods. This is analagous to two people describing their friend Andy, who discover that they have been talking about two different people all along. On the other hand, we can take God's actions (specifically His act of creation) as the predicate and then attempt to discover who performed the action. This is analagous to two people calling their American Family Insurance rep and discovering that they have diffent conceptions of who he is.

It follows then that the theological models of who God is (as subject) are different. In worship, however, we are both addressing the Creator (as predicate). When we address our worship to the Creator, it is the creator who receives our worship regardless of who we conceive Him to be.

The Gospel and Spiritual Formation

2007-06-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

Scot McKnight has posted an outline from a talk he gave on spiritual formation in Milwaukee last weekend. Unfortunately I was not able to be there. (If I remember right I think it seemed too expensive. Plus I would have had to find a sitter for the kids.) He includes a great discussion of the difference between the modern evangelical gospel and the biblical gospel, which is, I think, quite close to the one I laid out in my last post. Scot is solidly evangelical, so I'm obviously not out in left field on this. The major difference is that I see this as way to affirm soteriological inclusivism, a conclusion I'm sure he would strongly object to. The minor difference is that I would want to emphasize the concept of covenant more than Scot.

What I Believe

2007-06-08T16:37:00.000-05:00

For many people, struggles with faith come after their their conversions rather than before. I have had a significant number of struggles over the past three or four years. Typically they have been different kinds of struggles than the kinds I had before becoming a Christian. I have never had serious doubts about whether God exists, but I have gone through all kinds of doubts about what I believe about Him.

A couple years ago I began to have serious doubts about whether I even believed in Christianity or the gospel anymore. I did not doubt my encounters with God, I did not doubt the miracles, and I did not doubt the answered prayers. But I had serious doubts about whether Christian theology offered the best explanation for those experiences. Thinking Charismatics have long believed that supernatural experiences do not count as evidence for the authenticity of one's beliefs, as history demonstrates. What makes my theology any different? I was sick of being forced to write off everything God seems to be doing in the world that is happening outside of a Christian context.

In particular I was reacting against a particular version of the Christian story. The story goes something like this:

Each individual human is destined to spend eternity in conscious torment (Hell) because each individual human is sinful. Even if the only sin you ever committed was stealing a pencil from work, your are worthy of hell.

God is merciful and does not want to punish us for our sins, but He must punish sins because He is also just.

Jesus took our punishment for sins in our place when He died on the cross.

The work Jesus accomplished is only effective for you if you become a Christian.

Most of my Christian friends have never even thought to question this story. But a lot of it doesn't add up to me. How is spending eternity in hell for stealing a pencil considered just? Why does God's mercy mean that He doesn't want to punish us for our sins? I think we instinctively understand this because somehow we feel that sending us to hell really would be unjust. Consider this: on this model, God would have been totally just if He had never sent Jesus and allowed us all to be eternally damned for our sins. Do you really think God would be just if every single human that had ever lived was going to hell forever, end of story? And God's command for Israel to slaughter the Canaanites seems particularly unjust if by doing so they were instantly condemned to the fiery abyss for all of time.

The turning point came for me last year when I began to see that this is not they only way to tell the story. The solution I have come to is to view the Bible through the concept of covenant. The Bible seems to tell a different story than the one I had been told. It tells the story of a fallen humanity and a just God. God's plan was to restore humanity through a covenant with Abraham, and ultimately the people of Israel. However the people of Israel failed to uphold their end of the covenant they had made with God, thus bringing judgement upon themselves. God then sent Jesus as the embodiment of the true Israel, taking their convenantal punishment upon Himself, ushering in the fulfillment of many of the eschatological (end times) prophecies that Israel would become a blessing to the nations, the answer to the problem of sin. Thus gentiles are no longer cut off from the Abrahamic promises but are offered entrance into God's covenantal people through their true King Jesus.

This has caused me to rethink my position on non-Christians. Instead of seeing an overarching dichotomy between the saved and the unsaved, the Bible seems to tell the story that God does not damn those who are outside of the covenant simply for that fact. Consider the Ninevites in the story of Jonah, who repented but clearly did not enter into a covenant with God; or Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5); or Melchizedek (Genesis 14). In general, God does not seem to have written off those who are outside the covenant. But to those who are members of the covenant, He has made promises, particularly to promise to be our God and to have us as His people.

This story has not totally taken care of all my concerns, but I feel much more confident about this story than my old evangelical story. So I can affirm that I am a Christian, in covenant with God again. As to whether I am still an evangelical, that depends on how closely you think being an evangelical is tied to the first story.

I can't wait for the comments I'm gonna get on this one. None of this is substantially different from what I've believed for the past year or so (some of it for longer). I'm not sure how prepared I am to defend it, and definitely not prepared to try to convince others. But now I've made it public, I suppose this is a sort of crossing of the theological Rubicon.

Some Thoughts About Blogging

2007-06-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

I am still trying to sort out my identity in the blogosphere, who I am and what I am all about. Last week I was telling everyone I knew about blogging and about some of the issues I have been dealing with, like inclusivism and inerrancy. And as soon as I've gotten you all to start reading my blog, I stop posting. Sorry about that. Now lest you write this off as just another apology-for-not-blogging post (which I hate almost as much as "Under construction" web pages), I promise I have a greater purpose here.

Mostly I've been spending my blogging time trying to catch up on reading other people's blogs and submitting (what I hope to be) thoughtful reflection. Here's some of what I've been interested in:

Brian LePort has been looking at interpretive issues related to the Old Testament poetry books. His analysis seems quite close to Vanhoozer's proposal that the primary purpose of scripture is not to convey propositional truths, but rather to provide everything we need to live out the Christian life.
Speaking of which, Ben Myers featured a guest post by Byron Smith reviewing Vanhoozer's, The Drama of Doctrine. Dr. Vanhoozer was my theology professor last fall and is quickly becoming one of my biggest theological influences.
My friend Jake has a great meditation on Psalm 50 and offering sacrifices to God.
Brandon Wason has been conducting an informal poll regarding the so-called synoptic problem. I weighed in with my two-cents, which in turn got quoted on Mark Goodacre's blog, that blog that is currently ranked as the #1 Biblical Studies blog by Amazon's UnSpun. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have made it into a "real" blog!
Scot McKnight offered a great list on what it takes to be a successful blogger. It got me asking why I am blogging in the first place. Really I'm blogging for me, to try to work out my own thoughts on different theological issues I'm dealing with. But if I'm going to have a "good" blog, I have to do some blogging that is purely for you, the reader.

This leads me to my two questions. First, now that at least a few people are reading my blog, my blog title feels all the more pretentious. "Real" scholars don't need to call attention to the fact that they are scholars; their work speaks for itself. Only a scholar-wannabe would use the word "scholar" in his own blog title. My defense? Okay, I admit it. I'm a scholar-wannabe. I am just that much more aware of it now. Should I change the title?

Which leads me to the second question. I ask myself what I'm good at, and I arrived at this conclusion: I'm good at asking questions. Is there a market for a blog that majors in asking questions? All I know is that I have all sorts of questions that I'm trying to sort through. That's why I'm hungry... hungry for answers, for truth.

So how much of blogging should be for the blogger, and how much for others? What do you all think?

My Slender Apparatus

2007-05-30T07:03:00.000-05:00

"What are those ministers to do who have a slender apparatus? By a slender apparatus I mean that they have few books, and little or no means wherewith to purchase more. This is a state of things which ought not to exist in any case."

Charles Spurgeon, Letters to My Students

I love books. I preached a message several years ago that I titled, "Read Books," and I believe that reading is an important spiritual discipline. There are a couple of interesting blog posts related to reading. T.B. Vick has an obsession with books, and a bookseller in Kansas City has a particularly morbid way to promote reading. Though I wouldn't say my apparatus is particularly "thin," I am becoming more and more frustrated at just how many books I need to buy but just can't afford. Ben Meyer's list of must-read theology books is only adding to my frustration. What am I to do?

Spurgeon gives seven suggestions to those with a slim apparatus:

Purchase only the very best. "If he cannot spend much, let him spend well."

Master those books you have. "A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books which he has merely skimmed, lapping at them, as the classic proverb puts it "As the dogs drink of Nilus."

Do a little judicious borrowing. By judicious, Spurgeon means that you must return your books to their lenders if you hope to borrow more. Libraries are my friend. (I just feel like I can't thoroughly digest a book without being able to make notes in the margin.)

Spend much time with the most important book, the Bible. It is so easy to become consumed with books about the Bible that we fail to turn to the Bible itself. One goal of theological reading should be that when we return to the biblical text we are able to read with greater understanding.

Make up for lack of books by much thought. "Without thinking, reading cannot benefit the mind."

Keep your eyes open. Be observant of your world.

Learn from people around you:

Study yourself. "Study the Lord's dealings with your own souls, and you will know more of His ways with others."

Read other people. "A man who has had a sound practical experience in thing of God Himself, and watched the hearts of his fellows, other things being equal, will be a far more useful man than he who knows only what he has read."

Learn from experienced saints.

Learn from inquirers

Learn from those who are about to die.

And we might well add reading blogs.

Is Islam Evil?

2007-05-22T20:34:00.000-05:00

I am hearing the question, or rather the affirmative answer, coming up from a lot of places right now. Rabbi Avi Lipkin, for instance, thinks Judaism = good; Christianity = good; Islam = evil, evil, evil. At school my friend Silas is convinced that Muslims are unknowingly worshipping Satan. Read his letter to the editor of his undergrad paper to get a feel for who he is. Even when I disagree I really enjoy letters like this. Most recently, Derek told me he's convinced that Islam is demonic. (I was supposed to play lead guitar with Derek at Bobfest this weekend, but my wife's grandfather died a couple days ago, so we will be traveling to the funeral this weekend instead.)

So concerning Islam, I am just a little uncomfortable with what seems to be the party line among my friends. I want to at least express some reasons for being uncomfortable.

Ten years ago, my wife and I spent two weeks in Israel. Two sites in Jerusalem struck me in particular, and in a way they seem to serve as metaphors for religion. The first site was the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

This is a picture of the inside the church. The church is built over the site traditionally associated with Jesus' crucifixion, preparation for burial, and burial site itself. It is one of the most spiritually oppressive places I have ever visited. There is only one entrance/exit to the church, so one can easily feel "trapped" after entering. The entire building is dark. The air is thick and stale, as if layers and layers of incense have never fully dissipated but continue to linger for months. At the spot that is thought to be the site of crucifixion, people were on their knees to touch and even kiss a rock in the ground. I'm not sure if it is the inappropriate veneration of the saints and relics (which I can't help but view as idolatry) or the morbid fascination with the torture and crucifixion of Jesus, but the place just gave me the creeps. I felt like I was walking into a den of religious demons.

The second site was the Dome of the Rock, pictured here. In contrast to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome was bright, it was peaceful. In the middle was a rock - an ugly rock, to be sure, but just a rock. Nobody was kissing it or touching it to gain indulgences or transferred holiness or any such drivel. I thought to myself, if I had to pick one of the two places to pray for an hour, the Dome wins hands down. I was quite surprised since I had always bought the party line that Islam was pure evil.

What does it prove? Nothing directly, I suppose. But I have to consider this fact: Observant Muslims pray and worship several times daily to the creator of the Universe as the creator of the Universe. Even if their conception of who that creator is is vastly mistaken, would not the creator of the Universe receive their worship? And even if they have a radically different understanding of the character and attributes of the creator God than I do, would not the same creator God receive their worship just as he receives mine? Just because it is quite clear that Muslims and Christians have extremely different conceptions of God, it does not seem to follow that we worship a different God who stands behind those conceptions - it only follows that one or both of us are wrong in who we perceive God to be.

Keith Ward, in his excellent defense of religious beliefs, Is Religion Dangerous?, says,

...education in religion should be a primary goal. By education I mean providing a reasonably balanced view of the tradition, its history and its variety, giving a fair assessment of its place in global history, and making clear the necessity of reflective and self-critical thought in religion. There are plenty of Muslims who do this. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, perhaps the most famous Muslim university, provides such and education, and its scholars are, unsurprisingly, regarded by [militant Islamic] followers of Qutb with loathing and contempt. It is important to deprive those who fear scholarship in religion of social prestige and religious status. This is another reason why, incidentally, attacks on religion by those who think it is all blind and thoughtless provide support for the fundamentalists. For such attacks undermine the possibility of reflective theological thought as effectively as the diatribes of fundamentalists.

There are all kinds of questions going on here. In my camp the most common objection is that you cannot be saved through Islam, only through Christ. Without seeking to minimize that issue, it is important to recognize that the issue of whether Islam is evil is different question entirely.

The Value of Scholarship

2007-05-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

"The killing fields of Cambodia come from the philosophical discussions of Paris."
Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (p.7)

Ideas matter. That's why theology matters. What we believe determines our actions.

Derek recently loaned me The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. Wright traces militant Islam to the writings of Sayyid Qutb in the mid 20th century. What I find most shocking is that he spent quite a bit of time in the US. He was appalled at the lack of morals he observed, and especially the vain philosophies undergirding them. He in turn has influenced people from three generations (so far) to become terrorists. Theology really can change the world - for good or evil. There is no reason that Christian theologians cannot have the kind of (positive) impact on the world that Qutb's (negative) theology had.

A Book Meme

2007-05-10T08:53:00.000-05:00

Halden at Inhabitatio Dei tagged everyone who reads his blog with this book meme.

How many books do you own?: About 1000.

Last book I read: The Epistemology of Religious Experience by Keith Yandell

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: (In the order I read them)
Harold Netland, Encountering Religious Pluralism
Richard Shweder, Why Do Men Barbecue?: Recipes for Cultural Psychology
Kevin Vanhoozer, First Theology
N.T. Wright, The Last Word
Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology (which I'm currently reading)

And now to tag five people: Freely I received; freely I give. If you read this consider yourself "tagged".

A Visit from the Mormons

2007-05-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

I had a couple of Mormon agents stop over a couple days ago. Have you ever noticed how they never go by their first name, only by their title, elder so-and-so? They seem almost like agents from the Matrix, so I just started calling them agents.

At church we just finished a video series on Mormonism, which is perhaps a bit more fundamentalistic than I am comfortable with, but it still presents a lot of good information. Anyway, I had to let them in, having just seen the videos. I wasn't expecting them to be very open to what I had to say, but I wanted to at least try to find out why someone would believe such rubbish.

Since I have been dealing with epistemological issues recently, I was especially interested in what reasons they give for their faith. For both of the young men it all came down to, "I read the book of Mormon and I had a good feeling about it." Only one of them had experienced the "burning in the bussom," and that back when he was eight. The other converted from Roman Catholicism (with his mom) as a teenager. I asked questions like, "What makes your conversion experience different from a Muslim who reads the Koran and has a good feeling about it?" The only answer they had for me was that you just have to read the Book of Mormon and God will make it clear to you if you sincerely ask Him.

I am more convinced than ever that any truth-claim that is based on fideism (1)must be rejected as a claim to knowledge, and (2)leads to the logical problem of pluralism.

Roman Catholics

2007-05-05T17:57:00.000-05:00

I just don't get it when people convert to Catholicism. I had a ministry friend who did it a few years back and it really freaked me out. Now I am a bit more understanding I suppose. Now Frank Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has just announced becoming a convert, or perhaps a re-vert, since he was a Catholic as a child. I have begun to understand some of the reasons for becoming a Catholic - for instance it is easier to accept the selection of a canon of scripture on the basis of tradition if one recognizes tradition as a legitimate source of authority. So I am perhaps more Catholic-friendly now than I once was. (I no longer wonder about whether it is even Christian or not.) But I still have several knee-jerk reactions:

1. There are better reasons to think the unity of the church is spiritual rather than organizational.

2. If I was inclined to doubt point 1, I would be more inclined to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy than Roman Catholicism.

3. Despite the standard Catholic defenses of the doctrine, I cannot accept prayer to saints as anything less than idolatry.

4. If point 3 is true, it is even more true of Mary-veneration.

5. Roman Catholicism is not properly contextualized within it's indigineous cultures. Thank God for Vatican II which allowed for the saying of mass in the vernacular. Pius XXIII seems to be pushing the tide back. His recent encyclical, for instance, encouraged the use of the latin mass and promoted Gregorian chant as the most appropriate music for worship. I see this as absolutely contrary to the catholic (small-c, as in universal) nature of the gospel. Pentecost, by its nature, should lead us to affirm diversity in language and culture.

2007-05-04T10:44:00.000-05:00

There is a fun little online test Which theologian are you? Of all the tests like this I have taken, this one seems the best so far.

I scored as Jürgen Moltmann. The problem of evil is central to my thought, and only a crucified God can show that God is not indifferent to human suffering. Christian discipleship means identifying with suffering but also anticipating the new creation of all things that God will bring about.

Jürgen Moltmann

67%

Charles Finney

67%

Anselm

53%

Friedrich Schleiermacher

47%

Karl Barth

27%

John Calvin

27%

Paul Tillich

27%

Jonathan Edwards

20%

Augustine

13%

Martin Luther

13%

The test made me choose a tiebreaker between Moltmann and Finney in order to choose a winner, but I think they're probably both equal. I might have more points of agreement with Schleiermacher than Barth, but I would weight my agreement with Barth higher than Schleirmacher. Similarly, my agreements with Edwards are more important than my agreements with Tillich, so I would like to swap those. Let's leave Augustine at the bottom of the list. I'm surprised Luther came out so low, since I have such a respect for him, but I'm probably too influenced by the New Perspective on Paul.

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Inerrancy

2007-05-03T18:37:00.000-05:00

Lots of people hate the doctrine of inerrancy these days. Chris Tilling takes time to defend people who believe it, though rejecting the doctrine itself. I just want to offer a few brief thoughts.

1. A year ago, I thought one's position on inerrancy was very important theologically, and was leaning towards rejecting it. These days I am much more favorable to the doctrine but I think it is relatively unimportant. What one believes about inerrancy is less important than, say, what one believes about believer's/infant baptism.

2. Nobody in the blogsphere seems to like the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy. But I don't think it's affirming everything people think it's affirming. For instance, in article XVIII: "We affirm that the text of Scripture is to be interpreted by grammatico-historical exegesis, taking account of its literary forms and devices, and that Scripture is to interpret Scripture." It is wrong to hold scripture to a standard that it is not setting for itself, such as accurate chronology or exact qutoes. This point alone allows us to avoid the difficulties Lindsell encountered when he was forced to assume that Peter denied Jesus six times.

3. Note too article X: "We affirm that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy. We further affirm that copies and translations of Scripture are the Word of God to the extent that they faithfully represent the original." Yes, there are copyist errors. Check out Ben Witherington's comments in response to Bart Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus.

4. Vanhoozer, according to his speech-act hermeneutics, suggests that a doctrine of infallibility is perhaps more important than a doctrine of inerrancy. There is much more that is important in scripture than the propositional truth it conveys. Through scripture the Holy Spirit exhorts us, encourages us, questions us, commands us, etc. Much more than simply giving us true information (though certainly not less, as Paul Helm seems to misunderstand), the scriptures give us everything we need to walk out our covenant relationship with God.

Vanhoozer's Epistemology

2007-04-28T22:37:00.000-05:00

So I have this dilemma. I believe I have a call to be a vocational theologian, but I have trouble recognizing theology as knowledge – at least anything more than natural theology. It’s like playing FreeCell when you get stuck, so you keep looking and looking at the board trying to figure out how to get that last ace free – then suddenly you find a way to move the cards you need to move, and suddenly half the deck’s gone. I keep struggling to find a defense of Christian theology that I think is epistemically sound.
Last semester I approached my theology professor, Kevin Vanhoozer, for an answer. “I don’t believe theology is really knowledge,” I quipped. He offered to share with me the epistemology he had developed that he felt provided a satisfactory answer. Unfortunately we ran out of time, and he invited me back a different time. I tried to meet again but missed our appointment because of traffic delays. It hasn’t worked for me to reschedule this semester, so instead I went to his article “The Trials of Truth: Mission, Martyrdom, and the Epistemology of the Cross” in To Stake a Claim (1999). I was very hopeful, but I finished the article disappointed.
Vanhoozer believes the task of the theologian is to stake the truth-claim that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” He believes that a proper epistemology must be concerned with wisdom in addition to knowledge. If epistemology is concerned with how we know the things we claim to know, then I take it he means that we should also be concerned with how we know how to apply what we know. He goes on to say that proper epistemological task is hermeneutical: to interpret the ‘text’ of reality. Following Kierkegaard he allows that the proper starting place may rightly be labeled hermeneutical fideism – we must accept the authority of the scriptures in order to understand. He cites Kierkegaard approvingly that if this were not the case, if we could make a philosophical case for the authority of scripture, then “God and the Apostle have to wait at the gate, or in the porter’s lodge, till the learned upstairs have settled the matter.”
It is exactly here that I have always strongly disagreed with Kierkegaard, and therefore with Vanhoozer. This approach would maybe work if the only other options on the table were atheism or agnosticism. (He is primarily arguing against Van Harvey, a modernist; Nietzsche, a post-modernist; and Socrates, a rationalist.) But the Christian missionary mandate forces us into dialogue with Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, or neo-Paganism. If Koranic-fideism were to produce a similar wisdom, then would that not similarly count as evidence for the veridicality of Islam? In fact, John Hick makes essentially the same argument in defense of Normative Religious Pluralism: all the major world religions produce an equal proportion of ‘saints,’ (we could call them ‘people of wisdom’), and therefore they are all equally valid religious traditions.
But Vanhoozer argues that his system can resist collapsing into normative pluralism. He notes the need for an ethical dimension in epistemology: those who interpret reality must have epistemic virtues like passion for truth, humility, and courage to stand for one’s convictions; they must likewise avoid epistemic vices, like intellectual pride or ignoring inconvenient evidence. He notes that the wrong actions can refute a truth-claim more effectively than an opponent’s counter-argument. Through a play-on-words where the Greek root of martyr means witness, He argues that the Christian truth claim is best defended when Christians witness to the truth of their faith and are consequently persecuted for it, perhaps leading to martyrdom. Martyrdom confirms the veridicality of the doctrines of Christianity but not of Socrates or fanatics, he contends, because Socrates offered no answers, only questions; and fanatics have only a desire for truth, but lack other epistemic virtues like humility.
But again, this is not a compelling defense for the particularity of the Christian faith. Christians are not the only ones who possess these virtues. Even if it can be shown that Christians have a greater proportion of ‘true’ martyrs than other religious traditions, why this is anything more than an arbitrary standard remains a mystery. But even more disturbing is the counter-argument that follows: if epistemic vices count as evidence against one’s truth-claim, then there is significantly more evidence against Christian truth-claims than there is for it.

Evangelical Epistemology

2007-04-06T21:56:00.000-05:00

I have been looking for an epistemological foundation for my evangelical beliefs for several years now. When I first became a Christian, I was able to dismiss all epistemological questions related to my faith because of powerful experiences with God which were based on submission to Biblical teachings, not on theological or philosophical reflection. I think that position was important during that period of my life, but after a few years I yielded to the fact that mature Christian belief should involve theological reflection if it is to resist devolving into mere superstition. Since then I have never come up with an Evangelical epistemology that I have been satisfied with.

I am currently taking a Religious Epistemology course, taught by professor Keith Yandell. The course mostly follows his book on the same topic. I am hoping to use this as an opportunity to finally hammer out my own religious epistemology. My course grade will be based entirely on a twelve-page paper, due in two weeks. I am supposed to use formal logic, which I am about as comfortable with as I was doing geometric proofs in High School (not much). I’m hoping to use this blog to sort through the issues I want to deal with in that paper, or at least to lay the groundwork in my personal thoughts so that I can write something else.

Before I begin, I shall define my terms. By Evangelical theology (E), I mean theology that is based on the authority, infallibility, inerrancy, and inspiration of the Bible. I take it that E entails the following:

E1. God exists as Trinity, one substance consisting of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
E2. Jesus Christ is God incarnate, both fully God and fully human.
E3. Jesus Christ rose bodily from the grave.
E4. Humanity is enslaved to sin and destined to spend eternity alienated from God in hell.
E5. Jesus Christ made atonement for the sins of humanity on the cross, so that those who believe in Him will receive salvation.

By salvation I mean (a) having communion with God, and (b) receiving eternal life rather than eternal damnation.

When I first began my critical reflection, my defense of E ran somewhat like this:
1. I had powerful experiences of God after believing in Jesus. (A subject for another post.)
2. Having an experience of God entails (is dependant on) having received salvation.
3. Therefore I received salvation after believing in Jesus.

4. E entails that those who believe in Jesus will receive salvation.
5. Therefore E is correct.

There are several problems with this logic, however. First, premise 2 is based on E4 and E5, but these premises are themselves based on premise 5, which they are being used to prove. E4 and E5 would need to be supported on other grounds. Perhaps with some imagination I could reword the premises in such a way that would be logically sound. But this is not my primary concern with the syllogism.

A more critical error is that Premise 5 does not follow from 3 and 4. It is a fallacy that follows the form A entails B; B; Therefore A. For example, “Someone who has an M.Div. degree has necessarily taken at least one theology class; I have taken a theology class; therefore I have my M.Div.”
One possible way to avoid this fallacy is to change it to an argument of inference to best explanation:

5*. Based on Premise 4, E provides the best explanation for Premise 3.

But it is not at all clear that E is the best explanation. Many people in contrary religions have also had experiences of God. At the very least we would need comparisons with the explanations offered by other religions. Perhaps this is best way to proceed, but it requires significantly more knowledge than I currently have (or am particularly excited about taking the time to acquire). Instead, let me propose an alternate theological system that I shall call Soteriologically Pluralistic theology (SP), which is essentially Deism without the anti-supernatural bias. SP is based on the following premises:

SP1. God exists.
SP2. God has interacted, and continues to interact, with various people at various times (i.e. through prophecy, miracles, etc.)
SP3. Individual eschatological salvation (receiving eternal life rather than eternal damnation) is available through a plurality of religions.

SP is not pluralism in the sense that it entails that the major world religions are equally correct. Rather, it is pluralistic in the sense that salvation is not limited to a particular religion. Put simplistically, SP is the idea that God is more concerned with our deeds than our creeds.

Taking account of SP, my revised defense of E looks somewhat like this:

3. I received salvation after believing in Jesus.
4'. Belief in Jesus is a religion (namely, Christianity).
5'. Therefore I received salvation through a religion.

6'. SP entails that salvation is available through a plurality of religions.
7'. Based on Premise 6' and Premise 4, SP and E provide equal explanatory power for Premise 3.

I began looking for another defense of my faith. Christian apologetics seem to place a large focus on proving the Premise, God exists, but the connection from theism to Christianity rests entirely on the Resurrection. This argument runs as so:

R1. Jesus rose from the dead.
R2. If Jesus rose from the dead then E is correct.
R3. Therefore E is correct.

R1 was easy to accept when I thought my argument from experience confirmed E. When I am trying to use R1 to establish E, suddenly the arguments seem significantly weaker. It is easy to believe in the resurrection if I already have good reasons for being an evangelical, but when those reasons start to break down, the resurrection seems much less plausible. It is definitely not plausible enough to become a foundation for soteriological exclusivism! And even if we accept R1, I’m not entirely convinced of R2.

In contrast, SP has several factors that make it epistemically preferable to E. It accounts for positive aspects of other world religions in a way that is difficult for E. It avoids the problem of declaring large swaths of humanity (especially those who have never heard, or those who lived before the time of Christ) to be eternally damned. Finally, it has the support of some strands of Biblical narrative, such as Melchizadek and the Magi.

Again, I ask for your comments. I am not very happy with what I have written here yet, but it’s good enough for the blogsphere.

Exclusivism and Pluralism

2007-04-04T16:41:00.000-05:00

There have traditionally been three ways that theologians have attempted to deal with differences between religions, which I will try to briefly summarize.
1. Exclusivists, or more accurately called particularists, believe all other world religions but their own are wrong. (Most particularists would not exclude other denominations within their own religion. This is perhaps self-intuitive, but many Roman Catholics I have talked with refer to other Christian churches such as Baptists or Presbyterians as different religions.)
2. Inclusivists believe their own religion is ultimately true, but other world religions contain elements of truth that are ultimately compatible with their own. Examples would include the Roman Catholic conception of “anonymous Christians” among other religions, or Hindus who accept Christians as constituting another caste within Hinduism.
3. Pluralists believe that all religions are equally true. The main proponent of religious pluralism is John Hick, who argues that The Real (which is more-or-less synonymous with “God”) is ineffable, or unable to be described. As each world religion attempts to describe the Real, they inevitably describe It/Him in culturally relative terms. Therefore no religion (or at least no “nice” religion) can make a claim to exclusive truth; they are all equally true.

The more I think about these categories, the more I think they are not really getting at the heart of the issues I think are important. Though I am aware that some argue that any truth claim is oppressive, most people I have talked with seem to have no problems with truth claims in themselves. It seems obvious to me that truth claims made by proponents of various religions are at least theoretically testable, even if we don’t have any ways to test them in real life. The real issue, as far as I see it, is soteriology: who will be “saved?” I suggest making a distinction between theological exclusivism and soteriological exclusivism. Then the categories would be redefined as such:

1A. Theological exclusivists claim that their own theology is correct and contradictory claims are false. In other words, they believe Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction must extend into the realm of religious beliefs. (I include anyone making a religious truth claim in this category, not just those who affirm the existence of God. I’m not sure what word to use that would mean what I mean by theology and still encompass atheistic Eastern religions.)
2A. Theological pluralists claim that all theologies are equally correct. At the popular level, this is the belief that “what’s true for you may not be true for me.” But when I talk to people who claim to hold this view, they typically retreat to a position of theological agnostic pragmatism: since we can’t really know what is true about God, what is important is what helps you in your personal life.

1B. Soteriological exclusivists claim that there is no salvation outside of their own religion. For many, the obvious and loathsome conclusion of this position is that large swaths of humanity will be damned eternally to hell.
2B. Soteriological pluralists claim that salvation can be found in a plurality of religions.

This is where I disagree with the position of my M.Div. advisor, Harold Netland. In Encountering Religious Pluralism, he singles out two forms “pseudopluralism”: the Hinduism of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, and the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama (213-218). Both systems appear to be pluraslistic, he argues, but on closer inspection they are really just forms of inclusivism. Now I will freely admit that I am not terribly familiar with either of these systems so I may well be misrepresenting them. But it seems that the attractiveness of them lies precisely in their soteriological pluralism, not in any form of theological pluralism. They are not claiming you will go to hell if you disagree with them.

The problem many of my friends have with Evangelical Christianity, I would suggest, is not its claim to theological exclusivism. It is rather in the fact that traditional evangelical theology includes a harsh pronouncement of soteriological exclusivism. I am not convinced that our faith has a strong enough epistemic foundation to make such bold exclusivist claims. I think what people find offensive is not when we claim “Jesus is Lord,” but when we claim “if you don’t believe the gospel you will go to hell.” To conflate the two forms of exlusivism and then defend theological exclusivism seems to me a rhetorical sleight-of-hand which does not really address the issues my non-Christian friends typically have.
I don’t know that all this really makes sense like I want it to, but I think it’s good enough for blogging. I would appreciate any feedback you would like to give. Thanks!

Roger Williams' Mandate for the American Church

2007-01-25T12:43:00.000-06:00

This is a paper I wrote for my American Church History class. I was pretty excited about it and I think there's more potential here. Some day I would like to clean up some of the awkward working, fill out the details, and try to get it published somewhere. In the meantime, blogging is still publishing, of sorts.
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America’s Radical Reformer
Roger Williams, the primary founder of Rhode Island, often invoked the illustration of a garden surrounded by wilderness, recalling imagery from Genesis 2. The garden represents God’s people, the church, while the surrounding wilderness represents the rest of the world, which is hostile to the things of God. Throughout history, “by degrees the gardens of the churches of saints were turned into the wilderness of whole nations, until the whole world became… Christendom.”[1] The term Christendom represented all the evils that resulted from the marriage of church and state.
In a nation that places a high value on freedom of religion, historians have tended to find the historical significance of Roger Williams in his views on civil government. The principal mandate for the state, said Williams, is to protect the freedom to worship as one’s conscience directed, which must extend even to non-Protestants like “Jews, Turks, and Papists.”[2] For the officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Williams presented a subversive challenge to the role that the government should play in the promotion of religion. As Gaustad states, “Williams advocated the scariest political heresy of his day: namely, that a civil institution could survive without the supporting arm of the church.”[3]
Yet Williams himself preferred theology to political science. His passion was to cleanse the Church of all impurities. Though the American Puritans had made substantial strides forward, they had not gone far enough, and he was determined to complete the process. By proposing a new prophetic mandate for the church, Roger Williams subverted the dominant Puritan orthodoxy regarding civil government, church government, and dissenting congregations.
The process by which he arrived at this new mandate continued through the first half of his life.

A New Mandate for the Church
Williams came from England to Massachusetts with his wife in 1630. He was offered a pastoral position at the Boston church, but turned it down because they had not officially broken their ties with the Church of England. As a strict separatist, he soon found himself drawn to the Plymouth colony which had been founded by the original separatist pilgrims. However, he became disenchanted with them when he learned that they allowed members to attend worship with the Church of England when they returned abroad. In allowing this practice to continue, they showed themselves to be impure separatists, a position Williams could not tolerate.
Williams was a puritan in the true sense of the word, believing that the church must be absolutely purified of every trace of defilement. The separatist platform based the rejection of the Church of England on the fact that, as a national church, it did not challenge the membership of nominal or backslidden Christians. Additionally, its bishops received their authority through a lineage that included the Roman Catholic Church, which had become universally identified with the biblical anti-Christ.[4] But in his rejection of the Plymouth church, Williams went beyond separatism to become one of the first advocates of secondary separation, or the rejection of all churches that did not hold to strict separatism.[5]
He left there and found a site to settle which he named Providence. He gathered with other marginal movements, which had formed their own nearby communities, to found the colony of Rhode Island. He stood solidly for a policy of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience for all. Through a thorough re-examination of his beliefs, he soon concluded that his baptism, received as an infant by the Church of England, was invalid. After having himself re-baptized, this time as an adult believer, he proceeded to baptize a small group followers. This group became the first of the Baptist congregation in America.
Membership in the new Baptist congregation required one to be able to give a compelling account of conversion in good Puritan style. The standard Puritan conversion was expected to follow a general pattern: conviction of sin, exposure to true Biblical teaching, identification of personal hypocrisy, self-examination, and finally evidence of God’s individual election.[6] To this standard Puritan requirement, Williams added the additional requirement that a membership candidate must fully renounce the Church of England.
By 1652, at the publication of The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s, Williams’ view of the Church had been fully formed. As with most of his writings, nearly every page contained some provocative doctrine, guaranteeing the alienation of nearly all his readers. Nevertheless, this essay was highly influential and spelled out his views on the mission of the Church. Starting with the book of Revelation, he rejected the dominant post-millennial theology held by the Puritans in favor of his own unique interpretation.[7] The first of the four horsemen of Revelation 6, the white horse who was given to conquer, represented the original apostolic mission to the nations, whose time was now ended. The church was now represented by the two prophets of Revelation 11, and should expect nothing but persecution and martyrdom. This prophetic ministry would bring about the downfall of Babylon in chapters 18-19, which was the ‘Romish Beast’ of ‘Popery’. The downfall of the beast was probably soon, however, and in chapter 19 the ministry of the white horseman would be restored and the fullness of the Gentiles would be brought in.
The mandate for the church at the present time, said Williams, is to fulfill the “Ministrie of Prophesie.” Christians are to take their stand with the revolutionaries that have lived all through the history of the church. Putting forth Foxe’s Book of Martyrs as the standard for true Christian ministry, several groups were singled out for special mention:

Look upon Berengarius with the Saints, enlightened by him; Look upon Waldus, with his Waldenses in France, Wickliffe in England, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague in Bohemia, Luther in Germany, Calvin in Geneva, those Parts and other places, and Countries… wherin they Witnessed against the False, against the usurpations and Abominations of Antichrist, and therein they were the Infallible Witnesses, and Prophets of Christ Jesus, Preaching, and oft times Suffering to the Death for his Name sake.[8]

For the present time, the church was to take up the sword of the spirit rather than the physical sword. In other words, the mandate of the church is to preach truth and leave the results up to God. For the leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, this new mandate struck at the very heart of the Puritan experiment.

Liberty of Conscience
For the Puritan establishment, the most significant aspect of Williams’ mandate for the church was his insistence that the church remain entirely independent of the civil government. No church should be allowed to use the resources of the civil government in order to compel people to worship.
The Puritans saw themselves as establishing God’s kingdom on earth. They looked to the Old Testament as a model for a Christian government where civil laws are grounded in biblical revelation. In contrast to them, Williams’ proposed a biblical defense for pluralism. In his book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, he argued that the church must remain separate from the civil government if it is to remain truly Christian. Christ Himself did not come to found an earthly kingdom, but if that were the goal, He surely would have.[9]
Williams was drawn into a huge debate with John Cotton over the interpretation of the Parable of the Weeds (Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43).[10] While Cotton minimized the distinction between the weeds and the wheat (it was the inability of the servants to distinguish between the two until they were fully grown that prevented them from uprooting them), Williams argued that the weeds represented people who were openly opposed to the gospel. The field clearly represents the world, not the church and believers are called to live peacefully with everyone.
Williams was also opposed to all uses of force to reach the Native Americans.[11] Instead, missionaries must speak truth to them and allow them to come to their own conclusions. However, by the time of the publication of The Hireling Ministry, Williams had moved to reject all forms of missionary activity as the improper mandate for the church at the present time. In fact, he came to reject the very validity of the local church government and pastoral ministry.

“Seeker” Sensitive
Shortly after the foundation of the first Baptist church in North America, Williams began to reexamine the moorings for the local church itself. It was not enough for the church to separate from impure churches and clarify the relationship between the church and the civil government. The church must have a clear understanding of its mission and place in the world. It was in seeking to clarify this direction that Williams came to the doctrine that was perhaps the most controversial: rejection of all pastoral ministry and local church government. For the Puritans, this moved him from being a marginal Puritan or Baptist to become a heretical Seeker.
Mainstream Puritans, who held the upper hand during the English Revolution under Oliver Cromwell, gave pejorative titles to all the groups who opposed them. With censorship laws no longer in effect in England, every sort of sect was allowed to form. The Puritans tended to group them together for polemical reasons, whether they agreed with such groupings or not.[12] Those who rejected all church authority structures were called Seekers, though few would choose this label for themselves. This is the term many Puritans subsequently used to describe him.
Williams produced four reasons to reject modern pastoral ministry.[13] First, those who claim to stand in apostolic succession do not demonstrate any of the gifts of an apostle. Here Williams is anticipating a similar argument that would be made later in our nation’s history, primarily by holiness and Pentecostal movements. Both argued that supernatural signs should follow valid Christian ministry, but unlike those that would come after him, Williams did not think they were currently operational.
Second was that no minister had any way to receive a valid calling. The only true New Testament church was one established by a true apostle. Subscribing to a view of apostolic succession similar to the Roman Catholic view, which was in turn inherited by the Church of England, Williams believed that a true apostle must be able to trace directly back to the original apostles, who in turn received their authority from Jesus Himself. However, unlike Rome or Canterbury, he did not think such an apostolic succession had survived much past Constantine. Instead, he argued, the church had been taken over by anti-Christ. Therefore, no true church was possible any longer.
Third was confusion over the work of ministry – what was the proper field of evangelism? The great commission of Matthew 28 specified the nations as the proper field. Modern ministry does not take place among the heathen but rather among the so-called Christian nations. If the nation was truly Christian, then it was an improper field for evangelism, and therefore invalidated all ministries in those places.[14]
Fourth, and most importantly for Williams, was the problem of pastoral wages. Whereas Jesus commanded his followers to freely give, modern ministry was based on a sort of careerism where pastors negotiated for higher salaries and became simply hirelings.
Perhaps the consequences of this doctrine were too radical even for Williams, for he never put much effort into its promotion. He was content to allow people to worship according to their conscience without feeling the need to molest them. He seemed satisfied to hold his own religion privately without becoming an ‘evangelist’ for the seeker movement. In fact, he capitulates, he only published his treatise on the rejection of church government at the urging of friends who “importuned for more copies than I was possibly able to transcribe.”[15] Though Williams did not draw a large movement of Seekers to himself, his rejection of the church was significant nevertheless. He served as another voice for a disorganized group of people that had become dissatisfied with all local church structures.
Williams’ rejection of the church may be important for another reason as well. Rather than focus any longer on the purity of the church, he became free to focus his energies on creating a government that promoted true civility between citizens. Williams pictured the civil government as a ship: people did not have to agree on how to live their lives when they were in the cabins, but everyone must cooperate in the maintenance and steering of the ship.[16] It is unlikely that his civil vision would have been brought to fruition had his focus been on ordering cabin life.
Yet the most significant results of Williams’ views were not the changes he implemented in civil or church governments. Ironically those most positively affected were those who disagreed with him.

Radical Christianity
By proposing that the Church’s mandate was to raise a prophetic protest against all forms of false religion, Williams opened a door for other subversive groups, many of which were attracted to Rhode Island as a safe place to avoid oppression.
After Williams was first expelled, he drew a group of about 20 people and founded the first Baptist church in North America. This group became the first settlers of Providence, which would later become the capitol of Rhode Island. They determined to put a civil government in place that guaranteed radical freedom for people of every religious persuasion. Historians in the revolutionary era would look back to Williams’ mandate as a model for later radical sectarians.[17] By 1764, the Sabbatarian Baptists had become powerful enough to establish the College of Rhode Island. The college later became Brown University, one of the eight Ivy League universities.
Three years after Williams’ expulsion from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Anne Hutchinson was also expelled. Highly critical of most of the Puritan clergy, Hutchinson rejected any claim to a covenant of works, but boldly proclaimed that salvation comes by faith alone. She was labeled an anti-nomian by the Puritan establishment, who claimed she taught that Christians could ignore the law and live as they pleased, a claim she flatly denied. She was expelled after asserting that she had the ability to hear the voice of God. Though she was killed soon after in an Indian raid, her followers soon left the Massachusetts Bay Colony as well. Though Williams’ view of the prophetic mandate of the church was not yet fully formed, there was clearly a kindred spirit between the two groups. The Hutchinsonians founded the city of Portsmouth just south of Providence, as well as Newport a year later.[18]
Other groups soon followed. Williams extended a welcome to the Gortonites, led by Samuel Gorton, who were radical egalitarians. They founded the city of Warwick.[19] In the 1670s, Rhode Island began to receive a large influx of Quakers. Paradoxically, Williams himself became one of their greatest enemies, though he remained committed to his ethic to combat them through words rather than persecution. In 1672, he organized a four day debate with them, followed by a book refuting their doctrines.
As more and more religious outcasts were attracted to Rhode Island, religious diversity created an atmosphere in which pluralistic tolerance (or as Williams would say, civility) became a necessity. No one would have predicted how the landscape of America would change over the next three centuries to become the most ethnically and religiously diverse nation on the globe. The precedent set by Williams continues to be important for us today.

A Mandate for Today
We have seen how Williams’ mandate for the church presented a subversive challenge to the Puritan understanding of civil government by insisting that the church was called to promote itself through prophetic confrontation rather than legislating religion. This mandate was also subversive to local church bodies, as this prophetic ministry made pastoral “hireling” ministry invalid. His subversive message drew other radicals, helping to promote their growth. But the subversive mandate Williams laid out in the 17th century continues to be just as subversive today.
First, Roger Williams provides an alternative to the story of America as told by many modern Christians. Marshall and Manuel argue that the United States was intended by God to be a Christian nation, and the Puritans got it right.[20] In their history, Williams plays the role of a misguided and stubborn villain who needed to be “pruned from God’s vineyard”. Yet it is unclear why William Bradford, John Winthrop, John Davenport, or Thomas Hooker should have any more of a claim to establish the destiny for our nation than Roger Williams. After all, he founded a colony too.
Yet Williams also presents a challenge to those who would paint the Puritans in a negative light. Williams was himself a product of the Puritan worldview.[21] Yet he emerged as one of the strongest voices for what we might call religious tolerance, though he himself would have rejected the term because it did not provide enough protection for religious minorities. He instead spoke of civility, a guarantee that despite our differences, we will all get along.[22]
For Christians who are uncomfortable with the idea of pushing through legislation to turn the clock back to some perceived era when the government was truly Christian, Williams provides a clear biblical defense of separation of church and state in his book, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. In fact, it serves as a sort of theology of civil government. Although it is somewhat difficult to read, given that it is written as a dialog between ‘truth’ and ‘peace’, Williams delivers several clear and cogent arguments, most of which are as relevant for evangelical Christians today as they were then.
Some may appeal to Williams’ rejection of local church government as precedent to do so today. George Barna suggests that there is a new Christian revolution that is occurring as those who are worn-out on church are “finding vibrant faith beyond the walls of the sanctuary.”[23] Perhaps this movement can look to Williams as a “spiritual father”. But on a second look, William’s reasons for rejecting church government look very foreign from our perspective over three hundred years later. Few who would embrace Barna’s revolution would be comfortable with Williams’ usage of the book of Revelation to support his views, nor his other conclusions, like the futility of a missions movement until the papacy is destroyed.
However, many modern commentators would agree with Williams on one point of his interpretation: the two witnesses of Revelation 11 are intended to refer to the ministry of the church rather than two individuals. This means that even if a general consensus of evangelical Christianity would reject much of Williams’ theology, we can still appropriate his mandate to the church to be a prophetic people. We can still look to him as a hero of the faith, willing to take a stand for truth, no matter how unpopular.

Bibliography
Byrd, James P., Jr. 2002. The Challenges of Roger Williams: Religious Liberty, Violent Persecution, and the Bible. Macon: Mercer.
Davis, James Calvin. 2001. “A Return to Civility: Roger Williams and Public Discourse in America.” Journal of Church and State 43:689-717.
Gaustad, Edwin S. 1991. Liberty of Conscience: Roger Williams in America. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
-----. 2005. “Roger Williams: Soul Man.” Interview in Church & State July/August 2005:157-158.
Gilpin, W. Clark. 1979. The Millenarian Piety of Roger Williams. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Irwin, Raymond D. 1994. “A Man for All Eras: The Changing Historical Image of Roger Williams, 1630-1993.” Fides et Historia 26:6-23.
Marshall, Peter and Manuel, David. 1977. The Light and the Glory: Did God have a Plan for America? Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell.
McGregor, J.F. 1984. “Seekers and Ranters” in Radical Religion in the English Revolution, ed. J.F. McGregor and B. Reay. New York: Oxford University Press.
Morgan, Edmund S. 1967. Roger Williams: The Church and the State. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
Williams, Roger. 1644 [1848]. The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for cause of Conscience, Discussed, in a Conference Between Truth and Peace. Ed. Edward Bean Underhill. London: Hanserd Knollys Society.
-----. 1652 [1847]. “The Hireling Ministry None of Christ’s: or a Discourse touching the Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus” in A Review of the “Correspondence” of Messrs. Fuller & Wayland: on the subject of American Slavery/ by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor… To Which is Added a Discourse by Roger Williams, printed London, 1652, on “The Hireling Ministry.” Utica: Christian Contributor Office.

[1] Williams 1644, 155 (Chap LXIV.2).
[2] Williams 1652, 161.
[3] Gaustad 2005, 157.
[4] Morgan 1967, 18-20.
[5] Arguably, Williams’ rejection of the Plymouth church actually constituted tertiary separation, or separation from those who refuse to separate from non-separatists.
[6] Gilpin 1979, 5-7.
[7] Williams 1652, 161-5.
[8] Williams 1652, 165.
[9] Williams 1644, 92 (XXX.4).
[10] Byrd 2002, 87-127. Byrd goes into great detail regarding a controversy that we cannot do more than touch on here.
[11] Byrd 2002,189-90.
[12] McGregor 1984.
[13] These points are spelled out in Williams 1652, 166-7.
[14] One might expect Williams to follow this through to call for a new missionary movement, as William Carey would do a century later. However, Williams’ believed he was living between the times, so to speak, and therefore a missionary movement would not be effective until the downfall of the papacy.
[15] Williams 1652, 158.
[16] Gaustad 1991, 146.
[17] Irwin (1994) names John Callender, Isaac Backus, and Stephen Hopkins as the three most prominent historians from the late 18th century to praise the course set by Williams (p.11).
[18] Gaustad 1991, 51-54.
[19] Gura 1984, 276-303.
[20] Marshall and Manuel 1977, 191-9.
[21] Gilpin 1979, 2-4.
[22] Davis 2001, 691.
[23] Barna 2005. I am not suggesting that Barna himself has made the connection with Williams.

A Cover Song

2006-11-22T10:05:00.000-06:00

I found a great cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday by an up-and-coming solo artist.

Disturbing Psalms

2006-11-21T20:22:00.000-06:00

I have been listening to the band Sons of Korah for the past few weeks. Stuart Briscoe got me listening to them. Well, okay, I don't actually know Stuart. But he started promoting them to his church, and that's why the guy in their church bookstore recommended them to me. But I would like to say that Stuart did actually stop by and say hi to the bookstore salesman while he was showing me the Sons of Korah CD, so I think that counts for something.

Each of their songs are taken from a psalm or portion of a psalm set to music. I really enjoy it, especially being able to appreciate some of the psalms in a new way.

So of course I start thinking about the "difficult" psalms. I bet Psalm 137 is not high on their list of psalms to set to music, I think. Verse 9 says, "How blessed is the man who takes your babies and dashes them against the rocks!" I'm sure this will be at the end of their list and it will be interesting to hear how they pull that one off.

So imagine my surprise when I bring home their Songs of Redemption CD from the Elmbrook library, only to find that Track 1 is Psalm 137! TRACK 1! Not only did they manage to pull it off, it actually became the anchor song for the entire album, setting up our need for redemption with a heart-cry from the Jewish exiles in Babylon. What really makes is come alive is the answer to this psalm in the final track (10), based on Psalm 126, about how the Lord did bring them back from captivity. That, of course, is the substance of redemption, when God redeems His people from captivity.

Nevertheless, I must comment on the fact that they did use a looser translation of verse 9. Instead of "dash[ing] their babies against the rocks," it is "destroy[ing] your progeny." So it gives a meaning sort of like, "You destroyed all that we have done and built, so someone will one day destroy all that you have done and built." A bit of a cop-out? Perhaps. I'm still amazed at how they took one of the most disturbing psalms in the Psalter and used it to really minister to me.

Continuation of the Apostolic Office

2006-11-14T22:13:00.000-06:00

I originally wrote this paper for a course in missions, but reworked it for a Systematic Theology class. I included it as an appendix to a position paper on supernatural gifts of the Spirit. Also, see my continuing discussion of charismatic theology.

Contemporary Apostles
Gaffin provides four lines of reasoning that link the supernatural gifts to the office of apostle. If the apostolic office has passed away, then so have the gifts; if the gifts remain, so much the apostolic office. Though Gaffin’s four arguments are not all equally compelling, he has supported his overall case. As I have made a case for the charismatic view of supernatural gifts, I also contend that the apostolic office was never intended to pass away. Taylor states that “it is a linguistic quirk of history that the term for a missionary shifted from apostle to missionary.”[1] The term “missionary” is not found in the Bible, but the Greek equivalent, found 80 times in the New Testament, is “apostelos.” From this, we get the term “apostle” and “apostolic.” Much of the current debate arises from a misunderstanding of the function of apostles and the creation of a new “missionary” office.
Wayne Grudem presents several arguments for apostolic cessation.[2] First, the primary requirement for biblical apostleship was having seen Jesus, so there can be no modern apostles . Three main passages are brought as evidence of this requirement. In Acts 1.22, the replacement for Judas Iscariot was required to have been a witness of the resurrection. Paul implies the same thing in 1 Cor 9.1-2. Finally, in 1 Cor 15, Paul places himself on equal footing with the other apostles because he has witnessed the risen Jesus.
A second argument for the cessation of the apostolic office is that the apostles had the authority to speak and write the very words of God. Since the canon of scripture is closed, the apostolic office must now be obsolete.[3] However the evidence that the apostles had this kind of authority is lacking. Grudem provides three examples. In Acts 5, lying to the apostles is equated with lying to the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 2.13, Paul asserts that his words were directly taught by the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 14.37 Paul says that the things that he writes are the Lord’s command.
Third, is the charge that anyone who takes the title apostle is probably doing so out of wrong motives. Only the arrogant would seek to apply the apostolic title to themselves.
Finally, Grudem notes that there was a non-technical usage of apostolos in the New Testament, referring simply to a messenger. This non-technical use differed from the primary use of the term, which was used to designate a special apostolic office. This non-technical usage may still be held today, though its meaning is somewhat different from the non-technical usage in the New Testament.
How shall we evaluate Grudem’s arguments? It seems appropriate to begin with an analysis of the way the New Testament uses the term, apostle. Out of 80 uses of apostle in the New Testament, 70 are found in Paul and Luke/Acts. The remaining ten usages refer specifically to the 12 apostles.[4] Paul’s clearest passage on the subject of apostleship is found in 1 Corinthians 15.7-9, where he writes that the risen Jesus, “…appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Several things are clear from this passage. First, there was a distinction between “Cephus (Peter) [and] the twelve,” and “James [and] all the apostles.” Paul does not limit the apostolic office to the original twelve apostles. For instance, Andronicus and Junia,[5] are named as apostles (Romans 16.7), though we know nothing else about them. Second, Paul seems to imply that he is not on equal footing with the twelve, but he is with the rest of the apostles. Third, Paul claims that he was the “last of all” to see the Lord, not that he was the last apostle of all.[6]
Luke, on the other hand, uses the term apostle quite often, but always in reference to the twelve. The only exceptions occur in Acts 14.4 and 14 where the term is applied to Paul and Barnabus. F.F. Bruce argues that Luke only uses the term here because he is quoting from another source, and his intention is that it be taken in the non-technical sense.[7]
From the perspective of a unified biblical canon, those whom Luke and the other biblical authors call apostles, Paul calls the twelve. Those whom Paul calls apostles are not called apostles in Luke (with the two exceptions already noted). So it is clear that the entire biblical witness reserves a special designation for the Twelve. Modern theologians, following non-Pauline usage, refer to the Twelve as Apostles (with a capital A). A second category is Paul’s non-technical use of apostle (with a small a). [8] The word apostolos was infrequently used before the New Testament period, and when it was, it was primarily for messengers sent by sea.[9] It is unlikely for the early Christians to coin a new technical use of the term only revive the non-technical usage in a small number of passages. Even if we allow this non-technical usage (apostle, small-a), Paul places himself (and James) in this category and not with the Twelve.[10] It is much more likely that there is no distinction between technical and non-technical usage, and the standard use was equivalent to our modern term missionary. Similarly, in Luke it seems likely that he made a decision as a writer to refer consistently to the twelve (and no one else) as apostles for narrative clarity.
If this is true, then there is no real distinction between apostle and missionary at all, and Jesus’ commission to the twelve was a missionary commission that applies to the entire missionary endeavor. There is no reason to believe that the apostolic-missionary office would ever “pass away”. It is notable that the same sort of reasoning used to deny the modern-day apostolic office was once used to defend our lack of missionary zeal – the apostolic mandate to reach the world with the gospel ended when the apostolic office passed away.[11]
How, then, do we respond to the claim that one requirement for an apostle is having seen the risen Jesus? For the replacement of Judas, this was not the only requirement – he was also required to have been disciple from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. These were fitting requirements to replace a member of the Twelve. Paul himself could not have met this requirement. This in fact, was probably the very kind of accusation that Paul had to respond to in 1 Corinthians 9.1-2. In chapters 8-10, Paul is building a case that we ought to lay down our rights in deference to one another. In chapter 9 he uses himself as an illustration of laying down one’s rights – the rights of an apostle to be supported financially by the community. He therefore takes verses 2 and 3 to briefly defend his apostleship: “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.” Nowhere does Paul make an explicit claim that an apostle is required to have seen the Lord. More likely, he is attempting to bolster his own claim to apostleship in order that the Corinthian church will continue to listen to him rather than being deceived by false teachings. In fact, Paul probably considered his encounter with Jesus to be the confirmation of his apostolic call, not a requirement for it.
In 1 Corinthians 15, cited above, Paul equates his sighting of Jesus with those of the other apostles. However we also noted that Paul was the last to see, not the last of the apostles in the sense that Mohammed claimed to be the last of the prophets. We must note that the apostolic office was will mentioned in the Didache (11.3-6) written as late at A.D. 150. That would mean that apostles continued to be sent out of churches for two, three, or even four more generations after Paul’s time.
Grudem’s second argument is generally the most troubling for evangelicals, who equate apostolic authority with scriptural authority. But this equation is misleading. No biblical text makes this explicit. In Acts 5, lying to the apostles is equated with lying to the Holy Spirit. However an examination of Luke’s understanding of the working of the Holy Spirit reveals that the Holy Spirit empowers the church corporately, not just the apostles. What is sinful is lying to the Spirit-empowered church represented by the apostles, not lying to the apostles qua apostles. In 1 Corinthians 2.13, Paul asserts that his words were directly taught by the Holy Spirit. But this argument cuts both ways. Paul is not here appealing to his apostolic authority, but to the fact the Holy Spirit inspired his message. By implication, the Corinthians should not listen to an uninspired apostle. In 1 Corinthians 14.37 Paul says that the things that he writes are the Lord’s command. But again, this is not an appeal to apostolic authority, but rather an appeal to authority outside of himself – the Lord’s authority. It is the content of the message rather than the position of the messenger that makes it true.
There are further problems with Grudem’s model of apostolic authority. The first is what to do with apostolic error (i.e. Peter, Galatians 2.11-14) or dispute (Paul and Barnabus, Acts 15.39). Second, this model only really works in hindsight, because the canon is closed. Traditionalists can argue for this position because it is a safe, unchangeable tradition. But there was a time in history when the apostles had not ceased to speak and canon was not yet closed. At that time the notion of apostolic authority was much riskier, especially to the traditionalist, because of the uncertainty of what they have not yet said. Third, even Paul claimed that it was his message, not his position, that made his words true (Galatians 1.8-9). Finally, five of the 27 books of the New Testament (almost 20%) were not written by apostles. On the other hand, only five of the 15 undisputed apostles[12] (30%) wrote any portion of scripture. Scripture does not appear to be especially tied to apostolic infallibility.
What about the charge of wrong motives? While this may be true of some, the definition of apostle argued for here is one of function rather than status. The church does not need more “super-apostles” who exalt themselves, but she does need more apostolic missionaries who will lay down their lives for the Kingdom of God as Paul did.
Many men have functioned apostolically through history. A short list would include Augustine of Canterbury, Boniface, Martin Luther, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, John Wesley, Charles Finney, William Carey, and Hudson Taylor.[13] While none of these men called himself an apostle, they all instinctively fulfilled the apostolic mandate. The modern apostolic movement can look to such men as spiritual fathers.

Bibliography
Barnett, P.W. 1993. “Apostle” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Bruce, F.F. 1988. The Book of the Acts, Revised Edition. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Grudem, Wayne A. 1994 (2000). Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Taylor, William D. 1999. Introduction to World Christian Missions tapes and notes from the Institute of Theological Studies course. Grand Rapids: Outreach, Inc.
Walls, Andrew F. 1999. “Missionary Societies and the Fortunate Subversion of the Church” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. Ralph D. Winter and Steven C. Hawthorne. Pasadena: William Carey Library.

[1] Taylor 1999, lecture 11.
[2]Grudem 1993, 905-911.
[3] Idem, 60-67. Grudem agrees with Gaffin (1996), who then turns the argument against him to reject all supernatural gifts.
[4] With the possible exception of John 13.16, mentioned above.
[5] Or possibly the masculine name “Junias.” The Greek is not certain.
[6] Even his sighting of Jesus as “last of all” should probably not be taken in an absolute sense. Paul’s main point was not that it could never occur again, but rather that his testimony about the resurrection was valid because he too had been an eyewitness of the risen Lord.
[7] Bruce 1988, p. 271, n.7; p.276, n.36.
[8] Examples usually given include 2 Corinthians 8.16-24, referring to Titus and another apostle; Philippians 2.25, to Epaphroditus. John 13.16, seems to support this view, referring non-specifically to a person sent by a sender.
[9] Barnett 1993, p.45.
[10] The only other option is that Paul developed a third category between the technical Apostle and non-technical apostle. This seems unlikely, as there are no indications that Paul held to a ‘hierarchy of aposticity.’
[11] Walls 1999, p.234.
[12] Grudem admits Paul, Barnabus, and James.
[13] Grudem himself partially concedes this point. “Today some people use the word apostle in a very broad sense, to refer to an effective church planter, or to a significant missionary pioneer (“William Carey was an apostle to India,” for example). If we use the word apostle in this broad sense, everyone would agree that there are still apostles today – for there are certainly effective missionaries and church planters today… But there is another sense for the word apostle. Much more frequently in the New Testament the word refers to a special office, ‘apostle of Jesus Christ.’ In this narrow sense of the term, there are no more apostles today, and we are to expect no more.” (906) It is difficult to understand why it is acceptable to refer to William Carey as “the apostle to India” but not as “the apostle of Jesus Christ to India.” Whose apostle was he?

Supernatural Gifts of the Spirit

2006-11-14T21:52:00.003-06:00

I just turned in a paper last night stating my position on supernatural gifts in the contemporary church. Thought I'd throw it up on the blog real quick. Any feedback you'd like to give would be great. I just cut and pasted, so I don't know quite how well the formating will come across. Also, check out my continuing discussion of Charismatic Gifts.

Introduction
The doctrine of supernatural gifts is one of the most exciting and pastorally relevant topics in systematic theology. All evangelical theologians agree that these gifts were operative during the period in which the New Testament was written. Luke records several instances of healing, speaking in tongues, and prophecy in the book of Acts. John the Seer similarly gives some indication of the function and usage of gifts in the cryptic book of Revelation. Paul’s letters give us a window into the way early churches used the gifts, especially speaking in tongues and prophecy, though we can easily become frustrated by how much the window obscures rather than reveals. Clearly the supernatural gifts of the Spirit comprise an integral strand of the gospel story. But the question remaining is what relationship the supernatural gifts have to our contemporary situation, or more accurately, what relationship we have to the supernatural gifts.
In particular, the debate has centered around three main groups of gifts, both derived from the key text of 1 Cor 12.8-10.[1] The first group is the revelatory (or word) gifts, which include prophecy and speaking in tongues, and often word of wisdom and word of knowledge. Speaking in tongues is the primary gift associated with the Pentecostal movement. Some later Pentecostal groups and especially charismatic groups placed a greater emphasis on prophecy. Among these groups, the word of knowledge functions very similarly to prophecy, where the recipient supernaturally obtains propositional information, and its most common usage is to call out various kinds of healings needed among a particular congregation so that people may come forward for healing. Similarly, a word of wisdom is viewed as a kind of supernatural revelation, but specifying a course of action rather than prepositional information. For instance, Solomon exercised the word of wisdom in his judgment between the two harlots (1 Kings 3.16-28).
The second group of gifts are the healing gifts, includes healing and discernment of Spirits. The focus of the healing gift is to effect physical healing. The focus of discernment is to effect spiritual healing through casting out demons.[2]
A third group, less often discussed, are the power gifts, which include faith and miracles, such as walking on water or raising the dead. These have received less attention in the relevant literature because they are not as common in Pentecostal, Charismatic, or Third Wave churches, but are gaining more prominence in what are increasingly called New Paradigm churches.[3]
Finally, a closely related topic is whether the apostolic office continues today. I include a discussion of modern apostles in an appendix.[4]

Options
One of the most vocal opponents of contemporary supernatural gifts is Richard Gaffin.[5] His position may be called the Cessationist view. Standing firmly in the reformed tradition of B.B. Warfield and the early twentieth century Princetonian school, Gaffin presents eight reasons why supernatural gifts are no longer operative. Seven focus on the revelatory group of gifts. Four are related to the cessation of the apostolic office.
1. The healing and power gifts are specifically related to the apostolic spread of the gospel. The apostolic period ended in the first century, and therefore, so did the apostolic gifts (2 Cor 12.12, Heb 2.3-4).
2. The revelatory gifts were likewise only functional during the initial stages of the church age. Paul says in Ephesians 2.20 that the church has been “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,” and since the foundation has already been laid, the revelatory gifts no longer function (cf. Eph 3.5).
3. A consistent continuationist position is self refuting, for one must affirm the modern office of apostles, which necessarily means the canon of scripture cannot be closed. Yet all who deny the modern office of the apostle are no longer consistent, have at least partially affirmed a cessationist position. Moreover, there is no non-arbitrary reason for affirming supernatural gifts while denying modern apostles.
4. The revelatory gifts threaten the authority and sufficiency of scripture by effectively adding to the canon. Several defenders of modern prophecy see no distinction between Old and New Testament prophecy, which essentially affirms an addition to the canon.[6]
5. Scripture gives no evidence that any New Testament prophecy should have less authority than scripture itself. A word from God always carries the authority of God. Those who believe in modern prophecy can no longer affirm sola scriptura.
6. Paul affirms that “when the perfect comes the imperfect [tongues and prophecies] will pass away” (1 Cor 13.8-14). In light of Ephesians 4.11-13, apostles will also continue until the perfection comes. Regardless of whatever else “perfection” may mean, tongues, prophecy, and the apostolic office must either continue together or end together.[7]
7. The eschatological aspects of the church age do not require supernatural gifts to function throughout, but merely in the initial formative years.[8]
8. Charismatics cannot even affirm that modern charismatic gifts are the same gifts spoken of in scripture. Contemporary tongues are likely to be different from the New Testament gift of tongues. Similarly, no one is quite sure what a Word of Knowledge or Word of Wisdom even is.
Many evangelicals feel the cessationists overplay their hand by stating that God never gives supernatural gifts any longer. They instead opt for a sort of mediating position between the charismatic and cessationist positions. This view, most cogently articulated by Millard Erickson, may be called an Open Agnostic view.[9] Four points of Erickson’s discussion seem particularly relevant:
1. It is difficult if not impossible to determine whether the contemporary charismatic gifts are the same as the Biblical gifts. No Biblical passages indicate that gifts would ever cease, and yet the gifts seemed to cease through most of church history.
2. Scientific studies have shown that at least some of the supernatural manifestations can be explained by other phenomena.
3. We must be cautious not to attribute the works of God to the devil instead, which amounts to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mark 3.29).
4. Because God is Sovereign, He decides who receives gifts. Therefore, “we are not to set our lives to seeking them.”
A third position holds that supernatural gifts are not only operative today, but they should be the normative experience of contemporary believers. We may call this the Charismatic view.[10] Wayne Grudem gives eight reasons for the validity of this view:[11]
1. Prophecy and tongues will continue through the church age because “the perfect” which will eliminate them in 1 Cor 13 refers to the second coming of Christ.
2. New Testament Prophecy is qualitatively different from Old Testament prophecy. It is neither infallible nor absolutely authoritative, and therefore does not constitute an addition to the canon.
3. Scripture does not limit supernatural gifts were not limited to the time of the Apostles.
4. Supernatural gifts are just as necessary in the present as the past: authenticating the gospel, demonstrating God’s mercy, equip people for ministry, glorify God.
5. Contrary to many cessationist arguments, miraculous gifts have been operative throughout church history.[12]
6. The level of power of a gift is irrelevant to whether that gift is from God. Even if contemporaneous miraculous gifts are not operating as powerfully as in scriptural times, they are no less gifts from God.
7. Many charismatic churches are stronger in evangelism, purity of life, and love for the word, than their non-charismatic counterparts.
8. Non-charismatics need charismatics (and vice versa). Each part of the body has strengths that others can (and must) learn from.

Assessment
In theology, as in so many other disciplines, where one starts determines where one ends up. I propose that the gospel is the best starting place from which to examine the arguments concerning supernatural gifts. Contrary to popular presentations, the gospel, or good news, of the New Testament is not a system for ‘going to heaven when you die,’ but rather the proclamation that Jesus is Lord.[13] In theological terms, the gospel is about Christology rather than soteriology. Of course there are soteriological implications from the gospel, but there are just as important implications for all other areas of theology as well. Most striking is the way the Jesus’ lordship impacts eschatology, so that the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated in Jesus’ ministry but waits for a future consummation. In the current age we live “between the times”, experiencing tension between aspects of the Kingdom which are “already” and those aspects which are “not yet.”[14]
Scripture is univocal in ascribing supernatural ministry to the “already” of the Kingdom tension. Jesus declares, “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12.28). When John the Baptizer sent messangers to Jesus to question whether He was really the Messianic King he had been expecting, Jesus implies (to the reader at least) that His Sovereign Rule is part of the “not yet,” and instead pointed to His supernatural works as the “already” (Matt 11.4-6). In His ministry commission to the disciples He directed His disciples that, “as you go, preach, saying, ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” (Matt 10.7-8; cf. Mark 3.14-15, Luke 9.2) His instructions to heal and preach the inauguration of the Kingdom were not limited to the twelve, but applied to the seventy also (Luke 10.9). On the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the prophecy from Joel to explicitly link the revelatory gifts to the last days, the period of the inaugurated kingdom (Acts 2.17-21).
In view of the gospel, the good news that Jesus is Lord and that His kingdom has been inaugurated in this age, the supernatural gifts must be operational today. Despite Gaffin’s protests to the contrary, his rejection of supernatural gifts amounts to neutering of the gospel and of the Kingdom. Even Erickson’s more open stance towards the gifts clearly does not go far enough. By way of analogy, it would be simply absurd to a similar Open Agnosticism to soteriology: “It is not possible to determine with any certainty whether the contemporary salvation of the lost is indeed a work of the Holy Spirit.” The gospel simply cannot be separated from the supernatural gifts.
Revelatory gifts are clearly not on the same level with biblical authority. The primary reason for this is that scripture is a covenant document.[15] In ancient times covenants were made between suzerains and their vassals to establish a governing relationship. Under this model it is quite plausible that the suzerain may wish to communicate with his vassals after the covenant is made. Such communication would not be equal in authority to the original covenant document, though it would still carry the authority of the suzerain himself.
What of the contention that we cannot know if modern gifts are the same as those which functioned during biblical times? This boils down to an argument from experience. Charismatics seek to conform their praxis to their exegesis. We are simply doing our best to live in accordance with what the texts themselves say.
But the issue of the correspondence between modern and biblical tongues is worth singling for further examination. It is one of the most impressive gifts of the spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12.8-10 for the simple fact that anyone with the gift is able to speak in tongues at will. By contrast, a non-tongues speaker will be unable to imitate the tongues speaker. Kildahl notes, “Most people can imitate a strange language for only a few sentences, then the easy syllables become obvious, and stammering and hesitation take the place of fluency… Tongue-speakers can go on almost endlessly in a fluid, easy manner.”[16] Yet linguists claim, almost universally, that tongues are not true human languages based on standard linguistic criteria developed by Charles F. Hockett.[17] Samarin, for instance, claims that tongues only meet a portion of Hockett’s sixteen criteria for speech to be an actual language.[18] What is lacking is a conveyed meaning – or rather, a meaning that can be discerned. If tongues are in fact a “prayer language” which the Holy Spirit uses to make intercession when the petitioner does not know what to pray, as charismatics believe, then we would not expect to discern meaning any more than we would listening to a foreign language.
Arguments for Cessation or Open Agnosticism may seem more plausible when all is going well. But for the millions of believers in the pews who daily live with the pain of living in a fallen world the supernatural gifts are a pastoral necessity. Jack Deere explains the attitude he once held as a cessationist: “I didn’t need any healing miracles from God. My family and I had always enjoyed good health, and on those rare occasions when we needed a few stitches or a little medicine, our family doctors were more than adequate… I certainly didn’t need God to speak to me with any of those subjective methods he used with the people of the Bible. After all, I had the Bible now…”[19]
In light of the evidence, not only do Charismatics have warrant for their beliefs, but all Christians have an obligation to pursue supernatural gifts within the context of local churches (1 Cor 12-14).

Bibliography
Deere, Jack. 1993. Surprised by the Power of the Spirit. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. 1996. The Holy Spirit. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Grudem, Wayne A, ed. 1996. Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
------. 1994 (2000). Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishingHouse.
Jensen, Peter. 2002. The Revelation of God. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press.
Kildahl, John P. 1974. The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues. New York: Harper & Row.
Ladd, George.E. 1993 [1974]. A Theology of the New Testament, Donald A. Hagner, ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Nida, Eugene A. 1964. Glossolalia: A Case of Pseudo-Linguistic Structure. Unpublished.
Samarin, William. 1972. Tongues of Men and Angels: The Religious Language of Pentecostalism. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Wagner, C. Peter. 1999. Churchquake! Ventura: Regal.

End notes
[1] Cf. similar lists in 1 Cor 12.28, Rom 12.6-8, Eph 4.11, and 1 Pet 4.11.
[2] Most Pentecostals and charismatics have a trichotomist view of human constitution, consisting of body, soul, and spirit. Within this framework, one may add the gift of teaching or counseling, which each effect the healing of the soul. Because the teaching and counseling gifts are not particularly supernatural nor controversial, they will not be addressed here. Ferguson (1996, 89) sees these as the only gifts from Pentecost that may still be appropriated today, specifically when used ‘to be Christ’s witnesses.’
[3] See Wagner 1999.
[4] I have taken a substantial portion of the appendix from a paper I wrote for DE560, Introduction to World Christian Missions. I will not discuss baptism in (or of) the Holy Spirit in this paper because it is only a topic of internal dispute among the position I refer to as Charismatic.
[5] Gaffin’s major work (1974) is Perspectives on Pentecost: Studies in New Testament Teaching on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed). What follows is taken instead from Gaffin’s newer and more accessible essay, “A Cessationist View” in Grudem 1996, 23-64.
[6] See also Jensen 2002, 257-279.
[7] The view that the “perfection” of 1 Cor 13 is the canonization of scripture is widely recognized by all sides to be exegetically unsound. Note however Ferguson’s paraphrase, which makes this position more credible (1996, 227-8).
[8] Ferguson (1996, 223-4) notes that Charismatics cannot provide a theological reason for the historical cessation of the gifts.
[9] Erickson 1998 [1983], 892-897. The term “Open Agnostic” is mine rather than Erickson’s, who does not provide a name for his position. This position is called the “Open But Cautious” view in Grudem 1996, but this term seems bulky and imprecise. This view encompasses the majority of evangelicals today who are perhaps unwilling to either embrace or discount the charismatic experience.
[10] Though the term is not sociologically precise since it encompases the Pentecostal and Third Wave movements in addition to the charismatic movement. The differences between them are unimportant for a discussion on the frequency of supernatural gifts. The term is appropriate since the Greek charismata literally means “gifts.”
[11] Grudem 1994, 1031-46. I have reformulated Grudem’s list from a negative apologetic (defending against the attacks of cessationists) into a list of positive affirmations.
[12] Grudem especially cites the historical argument in Ruthven, Jon (1993), On the Cessation of the Charismata: the Protestant Polemic (Sheffield: Sheffield University Academic Press).
[13] Wright 2006, 91-2; 1997,39-62; Jensen 2002, 34, 45-63.
[14] Ladd 1993 [1974].
[15] Jensen 2002.
[16] Kildahl 1972, p.35.
[17] Greenberg 1963
[18] Samarin 1972. C.f. Nida 1964.
[19] Deere 1993, 15.