Retractions

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Homosexuality

2010-07-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

I have some discomfort about the future of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is the formerly moderate/progressive contingent in the Southern Baptist Convention. The CBF was established about 20 years ago. The leaders who formed the CBF are now retiring and so the next generation of leaders is beginning to emerge. The new leaders tend to be quite progressive on social issues. My discomfort rests specifically with regards to the hot button issue of how the church is to address the issue of same-sex relationships. I think how the issue is addressed reveals how durable this fellowship will be. There are a number of issues raised at the denominational level. I realize that a concern people have is to find ways to be welcoming and caring for people who feel alienated from the church. However, it concerns me that there is little reflection given to maintaining an ethic that is shaped by scripture. I attended a session described as an open discussion about the issue. There were by far more people in this session than any of the others I attended. In addition to the room being packed the constituency was significantly younger than the other sessions. In the discussion there was very little attention given to the Bible. I realize that Biblical ethics can sometimes become an exercise in proof texting, and I realize that the “families” of the Bible tend to exhibit an ethic no one wants to imitate….but I do feel there is need for reflection on the implications of revelation for our ethics when it comes to human sexuality. For example there was no attention given to defining chastity at all. It seems to me that if one is to take an approach that the Biblical injunctions against homosexuality were really directed towards pederasty (this was asserted in the session this was about the extent of the references made to scripture)…or were simply cultural conventions of the day (this too was asserted)…such interpretive decisions do not obviate the need for some reflection on what constitutes chastity. Instead what is offered is vague language about embracing the wide ranging “journeys” that people are on in the Christian life. This vague approach concerns me because I think there is a need to address in a more substantive way a distinct sexual ethic especially since a permissive attitude to sexuality tends not to take very seriously the dynamics of power that are present to abuse the other.

Education

2010-07-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has spent time with students has heard the common lament, “I’m just ready to be done with school.” There are a number of reasons students feel this way. They want to enter the work force and receive some compensation that enables them to act on desires that they otherwise are constrained from doing…at least independent of the largesse of another. Students are ready to be done with school because they do not see what their time in the classroom accomplishes. They can feel like the time they have spent studying is simply a form of babysitting. It is not usually the case that you point to an hour in class and say now…I know this. The fruit of learning is something that appears over time. There occasionally might be some skill taught at one setting. I think of learning a language. At one sitting you might learn the Cyrillic Alphabet. But it takes time to learn grammar and vocabulary. It takes time, repetition, many of the same kinds of activity that we might in another context call work. The fruit of this labor may bring monetary compensation, but it may not. If we judge the value of work only by the monetary compensation or even primarily we realize there are many things that require attention…that don’t pay. Learning does provide an opportunity one of many to mature as an individual. This maturation enables one to enjoy the fullness of life…and face the difficulties of life by drawing on the resources of the wider experiences of human life.

Evolution

2010-07-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Evolution is often identified as troubling because of the common ancestry of humans with all other life. Such an account of Human origin is felt to be an assault which potentially undermines the uniqueness of humanity. I appreciate some elements raised by this concern. The more substantive theological challenge to Christian theology lies in the idea of natural selection. This theory interesting enough is embraced by those who reject evolution. What are the implications of this judgment? I think this face should dampen at least be acknowledged at least caution criticism of evolution.

Journey

2010-07-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

The recognition that new experiences force us at times to revisit previous judgments is a natural development of…age. I think this is a reason for the development of the fashionable use of the term journey to describe the Christian life. This is not an entirely new development. In fact John Bunyan wrote the famous of devotional classics using the setting of a journey the Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan’s work continues to be instructive and illuminating to my Christian experience. And yet the way in which the term “journey” is employed raises for me some misgivings. My reservations come from the way this term seems to be used as a trump card to avoid or simply to dismiss dissenting judgments within the life of the Christian community. One need not consider a differing opinion if one simply relegates it to the circumstances of another’s journey.

If You CouldLive Anywhere...Where Would You Want To Live?

2010-03-19T06:06:00.000-07:00

I had a student some years ago mention that as soon as she graduated high school she was getting as far from her hometown as possible. She wanted to escape the boredom of a small town in North Carolina. Head out to the big city. This comment came after the students had asked me a bit about where I was from. I find this question to be quite difficult to answer. If I could live anywhere in the world where would I want to be? I’ve lived enough places to find this question difficult. I can remember being quite bored in all of the places I have lived. I can remember being most definitely unhappy. You can’t live everywhere. And all places have their unique delights what makes life most enjoyable most satisfying is found in relationships. I don’t just mean personal relationships though these certainly are among the most significant of our relationships, but the way we relate to the place in which we live. Our work, our community involvement, our friendships, our family, our hobbies, our relationships shape life far more definitively than the weather and the view. This reality confronts us with a further challenge. We are not entirely in control of these relationships. We do not have the ability to simply construct them in the way we can choose to move somewhere. This is where the difficulty in this question rests at least for me. Where would I choose to live? I don’t find the question helpful because such choice points one after a disconnection from the very relationships that make life most satisfying.

Why Read Poetry?

2010-03-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you sat down to read from a collection of poems? I find that in my experience most people don’t read poetry. This goes for English teachers as well. We can draw from our lack of interest in poetry…that this has been the generally held attitude towards poetry by most people at most times...i.e. the only reason people read poetry is because it is assigned reading... But such an assumption is challenged as one surveys the kinds of material that have been preserved throughout the centuries. There is a lot of poetry. One may see this by simply flipping through the pages of the Old Testament in a modern translation. The different way the text is set on the page reveals that the translators recognize a significant portion as poetry. Poetry is not only found in the Bible but in cultural heritages around the world. From Homer…to the Quran…to the Ramayana…and one could go on. Poetry represents a significant bulk of the literary achievement of civilizations. While most people do not regularly read poetry today, this does not mean that people do not encounter ideas that are expressed in the way ideas are expressed in poetry. When I ask a room full of people whether they read poetry, the answer is almost always that most people do not. When I ask the same group whether they regularly listen to music the answer is almost one hundred percent response in the affirmative. But what does it matter? One may consider this question how many times have you watched your favorite television show? One may have on DVD their favorite series they may have watched their favorite episode ten or fifteen times, but there is a limit to the number of times one watches their favorite television show. When you think about how many times you listen to your favorite song one finds that this number is quite different. One might listen to their favorite song over one hundred times. The reason for the difference helps us understand the different way in which poetry functions. The song isn’t just about someone else but it invites us to hear words that give voice to our situation. So what does this mean for our reading of the Bible? More to come….

Sabbath

2010-03-08T19:20:00.001-08:00

The practice of the Sabbath offers us the reminder that we can trust God. The first observance of the Sabbath is actually before this passage in Exodus 20 it is found in Exodus 16. Here is where the people have just entered the wilderness. They have escaped from their captors in Egypt. They have been delivered from the army of Pharaoh. They have made it into the Sinai and there is no food. How are we going to live? You recall how they survived. God provided for the people Manna. The word Manna in Hebrew actually means, “What is it?” They were to gather enough each day for the needs of their family. When they gathered too much it would rot over night. Each family was able to gather enough for that day except on the sixth day they were told to gather enough for the Sabbath. Some were not sure that it would be enough and so they went out the next day but there was no manna on the seventh day. The manna they collected on the sixth day was enough.

One of the reasons it is easy for athletes to live as if they will be able to play forever and the same reasons we live our lives often times as if there will always be more time, is because it is very difficult to face the fact that our lives are limited. There are a number of popular songs that have as a premise a person coming to realize how precious life is. In the song someone realizes through the death of a friend or through bad news at the doctor’s office that they are facing the reality of their mortality. But the response is something that is really not possible to imitate. How am I supposed to live as if I were dying? I would want to spend every moment with my children, or my parents. I would want to ring pleasure from every moment of life. This of course is not possible because of our obligations to others. The sustaining answer for us is found in the practice of Sabbath. It is in recognizing that we place our dependence not in our retirement accounts. It is not that we have saved up enough vacation days that at some point we will catch up. We weekly stop from our works to worship God in whom we place our trust.

Blessed are those who Mourn

2009-05-09T03:47:00.001-07:00

NRS Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

As with each of the beatitudes the happiness in each of these is connected to a promise. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Mourning would not be a blessing without this promise of comfort. The Greek word for comfort literally might be rendered to come along side. The promise of comfort is not only the promise of a future when all tears will be wiped away although this surely is an element of the promise but it is the comfort of God’s Spirit present alongside us in the midst of our mourning. Any happiness that comes to us apart from God is short lived. It is a thing of this world quickly passing away. Mourning seems to be the enemy of happiness the interruption even the final end of happiness. Jesus words set us in a different direction. Jesus does not have a morose sense of enjoying misery. What makes mourning blessed is the promise of comfort. In the mourner we see the individual who has come to experience the joy from the purpose of human community. Inevitably we realize joy is severed by sin and death. We mourn because we realize that life is not what it should be. Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:3

2009-05-08T04:40:00.000-07:00

NRS Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

At my high school our locks were on the lockers themselves. There was a down side for the student…or at least for me. It was very easy to close the door before I was finished. If you stepped back from your locker it would close and lock. You couldn’t get in, without once again turning the dial. Spiritual pride is a lock that closes our hearts to God. Poverty of spirit is not found by taking our very worst mistakes and failings and think only about them. Taking all of our accomplishments our good acts and stand next to God when you consider even your greatest acts of compassion and love next to God one realizes the very little that we have to offer. One realizes one’s own spiritual poverty. And this leads to happiness for it shapes us into being the kind of people who can receive God’s gifts. The promise of that those who are poor in spirit are blessed for theirs is the kingdom of heaven is more than a simple act/reward. If you are poor in spirit then I will give you this. It is like the relationship of bud to flower. The poor in Spirit will be a part of the kingdom of God because they have recognized what life is about. They have recognized what it is to be in need of God’s perfect love and desire for completeness in his world. Thanks for the minute

Pride

2009-05-08T04:38:00.002-07:00

Pride

2009-05-08T04:38:00.001-07:00

Pride

2009-05-08T04:38:00.000-07:00

NRS Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

At my high school our locks were on the lockers themselves. There was a down side for the student…or at least for me. It was very easy to close the door before I was finished. If you stepped back from your locker it would close and lock. You couldn’t get in, without once again turning the dial. Spiritual pride is a lock that closes our hearts to God. Poverty of spirit is not found by taking our very worst mistakes and failings and think only about them rather it comes from taking all of our accomplishments our good acts and standing next to Jesus. When you consider even your greatest acts of compassion and love next to Jesus one realizes the very little that we have to offer. One realizes one’s own spiritual poverty. And this leads to happiness for it shapes us into being the kind of people who can receive God’s gifts. The promise of that those who are poor in spirit are blessed for theirs is the kingdom of heaven is more than a simple act/reward. If you are poor in spirit then I will give you this. It is like the relationship of bud to flower. The poor in Spirit will be a part of the kingdom of God because they have recognized what life is about. They have recognized what it is to be in need of God’s perfect love and desire for completeness in his world. Thanks for the minute

Baseball or Football

2009-02-01T11:58:00.000-08:00

Just seeing if this works...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/weekinreview/01curtis.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

The Holiday Tree

2007-12-03T12:35:00.001-08:00

Isaiah envisions this day when everyone recognizes that it is the God of Israel who is the true God. I am not tempted to go to the temple of Rimon or the temple of Ba’al or the Temple of Marduk to “cover” the bases to ensure success and peace. But ….maybe there are some gods that present a temptation just with different names. The god of wealth, the god of pleasure, the god of health, the god of family these do entice. In Isaiah’s vision, he sees a day when there will be no more enticement. On the news they had a report of the lightning of the holiday tree in Raleigh. When I heard the report I immediately was troubled and frustrated by the fact that they had to call the tree a holiday tree. I resisted….just barely a telephone call to the station. As I cooled down, I realized there might have been some unrighteous oversensitivity on my part. As a minister the marginalization of the church is threatening. It excludes me. Fear created a disproportionate response. It can happen that as we try to encourage others to follow Christ that we come face to face with some of our own insecurities in these very people we might be trying to encourage. We can without thinking respond harshly because we are responding to our fears. The couple that doesn’t know Jesus and spends their free time with friends and family pursing the god of family or the god of pleasure may threaten you. Maybe they really are more peaceful than me. We await the day when there are no more threats.

A Terrible Test

2007-07-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

Genesis 22:1-18

John Calvin writes concerning this morning‘s sermon text, “For although Abraham, through the whole course of his life, gave astonishing proofs of faith and obedience, yet none more excellent can be imagined than the immolation of his own son.” Luther writes, “These events are recorded for our comfort,…” I suspect that this passage does not normally rank among the most frequented of people’s favorite scriptures. I suspect in fact that this is one account of which there are several that we sometimes find ourselves skipping uncomfortably over. It is hard to join the previous generation of commentators who celebrate the virtue and the steadfast faith of Abraham portrayed in this account. It may even be hard to find the comfort that Luther mentions. We may feel more inclined to the assessment of the anthropologist Carol Delaney who in her book Abraham on Trial; the Social Legacy of Biblical Myth finds a number of ethical questions raised by this account. Delaney goes so far as to assert that the story of Abraham has been promoting child abuse by creating an atmosphere that fosters evil. She argues that Abraham’s faith continues to this day to shape the thought-behavior patterns of Christians, Jews and Muslins, promoting child abuse, domestic violence, war, poverty and a host of other evils. She argues that Abraham’s actions betray an underlying assumption that a father, that is, the male parent, possesses complete authority over his child’s life. She cites a case in the 1990’s where a man in California killed his youngest and favorite daughter and claimed that God had commanded him to offer her as a sacrifice. So what are we to do with this passage?
I recently was talking with a man from out of state who was reminiscing about how they used to celebrate the Fourth of July. He said that back in the rural areas of his home state they used to make their own fireworks. On one such celebration they were all gathered around and his uncle was complaining about some I forget now exactly what animal but it was some digging animal that was making a mess of his crops. So the teenagers decided they would take care of the problem. They found a den, and prepared a firecracker. Their plan was to smoke out the beast and then shoot it. They lit the homemade firecracker and dropped in the whole. What happened next, was described as a blur. All he distinctly remembered hearing was the horrible word….skunk! They ran down the side of the mountain with abandon. The smell took a long time to go away. This account has a kind of repulsiveness about it…that I think is similar to the smell of a skunk. I should say at the outset that this is a passage that will always and should always trouble us. It is meant to. Luther and Calvin recognize the horror in this story, but they also recognize a message, a promise that is meant for us.

By the time one comes to this chapter of Genesis, if one were reading straight through the Bible one would already be familiar with Abraham. He is first introduced at the end of chapter 11. You know his name will be changed. His name from birth is Abram. Abraham as I will for convenience refer to him throughout is a special person in the scripture. Abraham’s importance is connected to what we looked at last week. You see the Lord made a covenant a promise that no matter the wickedness of human, he would not again destroy the earth. But this promise did not mean that the Lord was content to leave humanity in its sinful position. The Lord set about his plan to restore the world and the Lord set about to do this through a particular man. When Abraham was chosen by God he was called to leave the land of his Fathers to set out for a place that God would show him. And Abraham listened. He left all he knew. He packed up his family and set out. The Lord promised that through this man he was going to show his favor to all nations everywhere. We should not forget this promise. It is central to understanding his life to understanding this specific passage. By the time we come to this chapter one will have followed Abraham through many challenges that seem to thwart this promise. There are enemies in the land. There is famine that drives him to leave and find refuge with neighboring rulers. But most serious of all is the barren womb of his wife. He is promised that his line will bless the world but his wife is without child. In her old age she bares a son. And it is at this point in the story. When the long promised heir has finally come that we read in verse one, “After these things, God tested Abraham.”

It is a strange test. He is told to go to a place that the Lord would show him, and at that place to offer a burnt offering of his son Isaac. And Abraham goes about getting ready to do just as the Lord directs him. He gets up early and saddles his donkey. He chops wood and gets on the road. He once again does not know where he is going. The text is sparse in its details. We find no objection from Abraham. It was not the case that Abraham had never questioned God’s plans. Remember when the Lord told Abraham about his plans for Sodom and Gomorrah? Abraham pleads for these wicked cities. And yet here, when it is his own son whose life is at stake, there is not recorded word, just sparse action, he packs up and goes. After three days of traveling he raises his eyes and sees the place. It is hard not to want to imagine what kinds of things might have been going through his mind as he looked out on this mountain in the distance. But there is only one clue. You see as he gathers the supplies, he places the wood onto Isaac to carry. We do not know how old Isaac is at this point, many have offered guesses but I do not know that such guessing is even helpful. He was old enough to carry the wood. Abraham takes the fire and the knife and as they walk, Isaac asks his father. We have the wood, the fire, but what about the lamb for the burnt offering? Here in verse eight, Abraham responds, the Lord will provide. This is the only insight we have into his mind and his thoughts about what God is asking him to do. The Lord has commanded him to do this and the Lord will provide.

There are no more details. Details again are lacking in this story. The next thing we know he builds the altar, and prepares the fire, and then he binds Isaac. Was there a struggle? Did he explain to Isaac what he was going to do? Did Isaac willing agree to lie down. It is almost as if the narrator wants to get to the end of this story as quickly as possible, I know I wish the end came sooner. The intervention will come but it comes pretty late. It is not until Abraham has drawn the knife that the messenger from God an angel stops his hand. He tells Abraham do not harm the child. Here we again find another strange element in the story…as if it could not get any stranger for we find the Lord saying to Abraham now I know that you fear me that you will not withhold your son the son of the promise from me. Did God have to initiate this test to know what Abraham would do? God is all knowing. He knows the heart of man. And yet we find this as the explanation for this terrible test. Abraham then looks up and he sees a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. God’s provision for the sacrifice. As Abraham had told Isaac God will provide the sacrifice.

There are different kinds of test. Since I have spent so much time in school, I think of tests in the academic sense. You have tests that are to assess whether or not you have mastered the material. And you have tests to make sure you are completing your assignments. But these reference points are not fully satisfactory because what God is testing is Abraham’s relationship. Does he really fear me? Sometimes when we think of testing I think of someone trying to figure out what someone else really thinks. My first year of college there was a student who would after leaving a neighbors room stand behind the closed door. People came to know this because when we were walking up and down the hall you would from time to time see him standing at the door…listening. What were they saying about him after he left. This young man as I reflect back on his actions was trying to know what the people he considered to be his friends really felt about him. God did not need to test Abraham in this way. I think a more helpful image for thinking about this test is that performed on borsch the Russian beat soup. Before it is served the cook takes a sip. Is it finally done, or does it need a little more time. The blacksmith forging the swords would test them before they were ready for battle.

But what exactly is the Lord testing? In verse 12, the Lord says now I know that you fear God. What does this mean exactly? Fear is of course an important word used to describe a person’s relationship before God. Fear is the beginning of wisdom. But we should not read this word fear in the way that people normally used the word fear, in fact the way it is meant here is not just a little different but significantly different. We think of acting out of fear as doing something out of compulsion. The man shot his intruder because he feared for his life. Do you notice that almost anytime, in just about every case that the Lord sends his angels to visit people when these angels are revealed the people are terrified. Or when the people of Jesus day realized that this was not just any man they were afraid. The Lord quite easily could have shown Abraham fear. But this is not the way this discovery or test is meant to reveal.

No what this is meant to test is whether Abraham trusts God. Does he fear not doing what God has said not because is scared of God, but because he is scared of not being with God. The fear of God is the reverence and respect the desire to be faithful, the trusting in the almighty. But even here as we think about this encounter just what is it that Abraham is being tested. We think of someone being tested in their faith perhaps in the sense that someone has been given a promise that they cannot quite see whether or not it is going to work out. This is one aspect of faith. I know that my friend said he would meet me here so I am going to wait. I know that God has said this so I will wait on him. I will trust his word even when I cannot completely see the outcome. A second way we sometimes think of trusting God or the need to have faith is when things are not looking like they are going to happen perhaps the promise is against our reason. I am telling you this will work you need to trust me. Sometimes faith involves this trusting someone else’s direction even when our own thinking might indicate some other action. But the story here is even different than either of these scenarios. I mean there are elements of both. Abraham is trusting in God’s promise even though he doesn’t know how exactly it is going to work out. Abraham is also trusting despite the fact that it is counter to what he would think is the right course of action. But even more striking is that he is trusting in God despite the contradiction of God’s own word. This son who he has been promised will be the seed through which all people’s are blessed he has now been commanded to offer as a burnt offering. The Lord’s word to him is in contradiction of his promise. This is what makes this test so great.

The key to understanding this trial is in verse eight. Abraham’s simple straightforward reply to Isaac, God will provide. Even if this means that Isaac will have to die, this command is from God and he will bring him back to life. Now it is important to recognize one element of this story that is just taken for granted. As we read the story you might think how would I know if this was really God? What if it was a bad dream or like the horrible family tragedy recounted by Carol Delaney of the man in California who killed his daughter because he heard what he thought was the voice of God? The story does not really answer that question. Martin Luther makes the comment I pray ever day that I will never be visited by an angel. It is taken for granted in this story the reader knows that this is God who is commanding this. Abraham knows it and he trusts him. He obeys despite the contrary promise. He knows that God is faithful. And the Lord says Abraham is ready. This is the man through whom all nations will be blessed. This son Isaac would be the family line through which God himself became flesh. It will be Abraham who is the model of faithful response to the word of God. It is by faith that one is saved, trusting in the word of God.

We do not live vicariously through Abraham. The test Abraham experienced is in fact the test we all experience. How can we trust God given the contradictory word we find. We find the promise of life and the sentence of death. In the words from the gospel of Luke today Jesus tells those who are following him life is not found in trying to hold on to it but letting it go. The stink of this passage is that the son is on the block. It is Isaac not Abraham who is going to die. I think the choice of the son is very intentional by God and intentional for us. It is not merely though certainly an element that his dearly loved son was the most important thing to Abraham in his life. Isaac was the great gift that he cherished. But even more significantly the son lays down as an offering as a hint of what is to come two thousand years later. For a Father does sacrifice his son, but it will not be Abraham. It will be God the Father who gives his Son Jesus to be crucified that the judgment of God might be received upon himself.

On Wednesday evening Psalm 23 came to my mind as I was leaving the church. I was walking out to check on our soda count for the pool party, when I thought I saw someone in the breezeway between the church and the fellowship hall. It really startled me, until I realized it was my shadow. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil. Death looms over our lives. Life is too short not to enjoy yourself. This is the message so often sounding in our ears. How can you give yourself to God, when what we know seems like his no, not his yes. We need to see that the judgment of God is not the final word. We here the conflicting yes the promise of life everlasting the promise of victory over death. Let us be like Abraham people who respond God will provide.

Reflections on Relativism

2007-07-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

From time to time I encounter the person who is skeptical of religious claims to universal truth. One hears the almost stock expression, well that may be true for you....but... Being a pastor in the vicinity of an evangelical seminary I often encounter students who are extremely excited to expose and dismantle what is deemed the fruit of post-modernity..relativism. But I think the relativism ascribed to post-modernity is often too quickly dismissed. Strawmen usually are. The problem for the hedger is not as is often mistakenly proposed a difficulty with the question of whether truth is relative, but rather is the proposition true...."maybe it is just kind of true?" Post-modern "relativism" is more helpfully recognized to be a skepticism that is deeply suspicious that universal claims are veiled assertions of power. When one is working with this kind of baggage of suspicion it makes one hesitant to affirm the validity anything. For to affirm the wrong thing is to become a participant in the assertion of power. Post-modern relativism invites a willingness to probe the web of conflicting and often insidious entanglements that are at root quite ugly. They invite an openness to the sinfulness of those inner thoughts that are so often ignored or denied.

Talking About the War

2007-07-11T07:54:00.000-07:00

It is disheartening to me that the discussion concerning the war in Iraq is almost exclusively focused on the political cost of the perceptions of the potential electorate. This of course gives the greatest amount of influence to those who have expertise which marvels the profession of weather forecasting for accuracy in estimating the potential perceptions of the above designated electorate. It would please me personally and as this is my own small soap box to mount and cry for attention, to hear the candidates and politicians generally discuss what will happen in the coming years in this war. I fear that we may be underestimating the virulence of the fascist like groups within the radical Islamists. Such groups seem captivated by a vision that cannot be appeased. It is a vision for the political realm that will only be stopped by defeat. Only defeat will open the possibility for transformation. Many Nazis came to realize they had been captivated by a terrible delusion. I am for peace but the hope for peace may require war. I am not a priori against the idea that a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq may be a tactical decision. It may be that either the danger posed by the Islamists is exaggerated. Though many did not take Hitler seriously when he was giving political speeches throughout the pubs of Germany even when he came to power he was not thought to be as powerful as he turned out to be. What would happen if a radical Islamist regime came to power in Iraq? Might they be tempted to try to gain hegemony over Saudi Arabia? Is that so far fetched? At the end of the day my frustration with the campaign has been that these questions are not being addressed. And those who cover the campaign trail seem only interested in will it play in Preoria.

Baptist Joint Committee

2007-04-10T03:55:00.000-07:00

The Baptist Joint Committee frustrates me. Perhaps this is what this organization should do. I value religious liberty. I appreciate having voices that carefully consider the potential implications of legislation for religious life in America. My concern and frustration is that I am not convinced that they carefully consider the implications. I could support the BJC. But every time I see or read the activities of the BJC I get frustrated. I think what frustrates me the most is that in almost any of their current issues on which they advocate, I can predict with just about 100 % accuracy which side they will be taking, not by knowing the merits of the particular case, but just by seeing who is on which side. The BJC 100 % of the time, it seems, with the ACLU. Why not just support the ACLU?

Christ the Lord is Risen Today

2007-04-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

When I think of worship on Easter, I think of the song Christ the Lord is Risen Today. This song especially brings to mind my brief time in a puppet troop at church. Christ the Lord is Risen Today was one of our songs. It was an especially miserable song for a puppeteer , because it was so long. The Alleluias were especially hard on a middle school student’s forearms. We performed in flee markets, churches, senior citizens homes, and hotels. Yes hotels…but not the kind of hotels that you might be thinking of. We went to the hotels of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. I don’t know if these are even still there. I have heard that this neighborhood has gone through a revitalization. At that time it was a really seedy part of town. Most of the people who would come to the puppet shows were old men. They had the red puffy faces of men who lived hard lives. Now on Easter Sunday as we sing this song in church I think of those seedy hotels. And I am glad I suffered through those long Alleluias.

Lessons from the Duke Choir…or more on the importance of cooperation

2007-04-06T21:05:00.000-07:00

This evening I attended the service of shadows…the Good Friday service at Duke Chapel. It is a awesome experience to join together for worship in a place like Duke Chapel. The architecture elicits awe. The music is robust. The sermon is erudite. The parking is not so great you cannot after all park in the yard! For me it was special just to be a participant in the congregation. I spend so much time leading worship it is refreshing and I find important for me to find opportunities to attend services. For those who have attended a service of shadows you may be familiar with the order of service. It is somewhat different than the order of service that our church is accustomed to follow. The choir processes to the front. There are a series of readings and a hymn followed by the sermon. After the sermon the choir sung an anthem. The choir was enormous. But one of my favorite things in the service was what followed the anthem. The choir left the loft and came and sat throughout the church. I happened to have several choir members sitting near me. The service continued with readings from the gospel of Matthew recounting the last moments of Jesus’ life. After each reading a candle was extinguished and the lights throughout the nave were dimmed until the entire building was in complete darkness. In between each reading the congregation would sing a response. It was especially helpful to have choir members spread throughout the congregation. Their presence helped everyone sing out. It made me think that this is something of what happens when we cooperate with others. It is like the great singers coming to sit throughout the church making everyone sing just a little louder.

Reckless Words

2007-04-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Proverbs 12:18 Reckless words pierce like a sword….
I recently read the comments of one Southern Baptist who said that his church had more in common with a Presbyterian Church than with the liberal church in his own association. I do not discount the differences in some cases significant differences among Baptists. But these differences are often not as great as people claim. One can see this most evidently in the local church. The succession of pastors often reveals the great superficiality of our denominational conflict. An ardent supporter of the CBF is followed by an ardent supporter of the SBC or vice versa. In the local church the issues that are so often made to be the dividing issues simply are not as important because the people know their pastor for good or bad. The hope for the future of cooperative mission work is in the local association. And this is the case for one reason. At the local level people know each other. Or there is at least the chance to get to know one another. As they know one another they develop trust. Not because they come to know the inns and outs of all the differing opinions one might possibly share; rather, because they come to see the Holy Spirit at work, and know that God is in this place. It is the reckless words of people disconnected from one another that divide. I used to work on the staff of the DC Baptist Convention. In that capacity I was working for the association when Mark Dever’s church severed its relationship. Mark Dever is somewhat of an icon among Southeastern students, and he is a very intelligent and winsome person. But I will never forget a conversation I had with one of Mark’s associates. This associate had come to the associational board meeting to ask that the convention to adopt a doctrinal statement (which I might add was not even their church‘s doctrinal statement). The unspecified implication was that if we did not they would pull out. We did not and they pulled out. After the meeting I asked if this associate would have lunch with me. He graciously accepted and we had a nice visit. As we talked he expressed surprise to learn that I was born in Washington. In fact he commented that he had never met someone born in Washington. He had been in Washington several years. The irony to me was that many if not a majority of the churches that make up the DC Baptist Convention are comprised of people who were born in Washington. Now Mark’s church is on capitol hill where most people are from points elsewhere. However had they spent any real time getting to know people in the Convention they would have met many people born in Washington. They assumed that because the convention did not vote to adopt their doctrinal statement, that the convention was liberal and was too different to be a productive partner. A reckless decision born of reckless words. One can live near someone and not ever get to know them. I hope that in associational life where there are differences people will take the time to get to know one another. I suspect that when they do even thought differences will remain we will find the confidence that God is in this place and we can work together.

The Virtuous Life

2007-04-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Can one live the virtuous life apart from Jesus Christ? It would seem like this answer should be easy. After all we all know people who are “virtuous” who are not Christians, yes perhaps even not believers at all. Epicurus after all thought the life of study brought the greatest pleasure. Others have rigorously sought to be virtuous for the sake of being virtuous. The pagans had many such lovers of truth. Yet the answer of the church has always been that the virtuous life can only be found in Christ. This is not because acts of virtue are not seen in the world. Virtue is found not in the assent to dogma, but in the faithfulness of the Son. It is because the consummation of virtue is realized only in forgiveness.

Congress

2007-04-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

I have not posted anything in quite some time. And my first post back is directed at our current political situation. While I do not personally affiliate myself with any party, I do not begrudge other ministers who choose to do so. My reason for hesitancy is simply that I think whenever one enters the “party political machine” one can become blinded by the parochialism inherent in our system. A government responsive to the people is good. A government subject to the fickle whims of mob rule is tyranny. We need to be able to recognize that our own history has often teetered between the two. This is a recurring challenge to a government “by the people and for the people”. Tribalism is a dangerously fickle government. I am especially reminded of this in the present congressional activity with regards to the presidents supplemental spending bill. One does not see the ideas being sifted and examined, alternatives considered rather one just hears a mind numbing screech that “we are doing what the people want us to.” Why not try to win the discussion with ideas? Instead the detractors from the presidents proposal seek to win their arguments by appeals to the polls. Polls which can change in a matter of hours let alone months.

For Neal

2006-12-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

The Post Modern Fundamentalist

I think the fundamentalism of the current seminary student at Southeastern shares much in common with the basic approach of Stanley Hauerwas (though without the profanity).

Herbert McCabe provides an understanding of what might loosely be described as a “Post-Modern” ethics. McCabe proposes that ethics is language. McCabe argues that human beings are distinct among animals because of their linguistic ability. Animals (non-humans) are genetically preconditioned to recognize what is good or bad. By contrast linguistic beings are able to create the significance of their shared life. Beyond simply communicating, language creates the meaning.

Three complimentary components shape language, nature, history, and biography. The first component of nature is the physiological properties that function to enable a human being to communicate. Humans have certain genetic features that make it possible for them to be linguistic beings. But this genetic precondition is only a part. Each person is born into a linguistic community for example McCabe was born into a place where English was the language. This language had a long history that he was born into. This history shaped the way that he as a genetically preconditioned possibility became actualized. This historical development is a component of his linguistic ability. The third element to the formation of linguistic communication is a person’s biography. By this McCabe introduces how a language can expand. As poet uses language to express meaning in new ways, so a person’s biography can form new meanings for words.

McCabe’s understanding of the linguistic uniqueness of human beings provides the theme for his proposal of ethics as language. He proposes that ethics is the study of human behavior as communication. Actions do not simply get something done, rather they communicate something. McCabe argues that ethics is concern with why actions are meaningful. He proposes that ethics is similar to literary criticism. The literary critic does not simply identify good or bad poetry, but rather helps one to enter into the poem’s significance. Ethics as language provides the best approach to ethics because it is the quest for the ultimate meaning of human communication which McCabe argues the linguistic ability of human beings is what constitutes their being in created in the image of God.

This idea of McCabe’s may be seen as the touchstone for why Hauerwas thinks modern theology has confused ethics. It is commonly held (according to Hauerwas) that theology is where one develops a metaphysics, and then subsequently one may if so inclined speculate on the practical implications. Seminary curriculum are designed in such a way that reinforce this distinction one first studies Biblical Studies, and Systematic Theology and then one will be introduced to ethics. According to Hauerwas the development of Christian ethics as a distinctive discipline is a recent development that has emerged from two major concerns one pastoral and one philosophical.

The philosophical influence can be identified by looking at the thought of two major figures John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant. Let us first look to Kant. Presumably, in an effort to articulate an ethic separate from the religious conviction that had fueled the post Reformation wars in Europe, Kant proposed an account of moral obligation based on reason alone. For Kant morality stood as the center of religious albeit secondarily to any positive religious conviction. For Kant foundational to any morally responsible action was the need for individuals to make autonomous decisions. Hauerwas describes this as you should have no story except the story you had when you had no story. The individual who is truly liberated will think for him or her self. In this self liberating commitment one’s moral decisions should not be based on religious formation, but what Kant called the categorical imperative. This categorical imperative conveyed the maxim that one should act only according to that by which you would act if it were to become a universal law. This philosophical idea that morals should be self-evident apart from any religious teaching both influenced the west as well as found great resonance in the pluralistic communities of the second half of the twentieth century. The categorical imperative seemed to provide a moral ethic that could both be Christian and anything else. A second philosophical influence on Christian ethics came from John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism. This philosophical commitment proposes that one should do what is best for the most number of people. Whether one finds Kant’s approach more appealing or Mill’s the result is the same. As with Kant’s categorical imperative the major importance is that these approaches to ethics separate morality from a specifically Christian story.

Kant and Mill represent examples of the philosophical convictions that shaped the separation of Christian ethics from the Christian story (I am using story as an abbreviation for the historical claims of Christianity…and reader beware I am not sure H would approve). The second stream of thought that influenced this distinctive field of Christian ethics came from protestant pastors at the turn of the twentieth century. These leaders responding to the poverty and social dislocation resulting from the industrial revolution tried to Christianize the social order. The message began as a call for society to embody the principles associated with Jesus’ ministry, as well as the biblical witness of the ancient prophets message of justice for the poor. In time this call for social change became connected with the social sciences. As the philosophers led Christians to separate metaphysics from ethics, in time the social sciences accomplished the same thing by identifying fundamental underlying reasons for ethics apart from the Christian story. Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Neibuhr, H.R. Neibuhr all contributed significantly to this development. While their concern came from a pastoral desire to call Christians to serve the poor, their description of the problem came to separate ethics from the Christian story.

Herbert McCabe’s approach to ethics as language provides an alternative. Hauerwas’ concern with both the ethical approaches that have come from philosophical concerns and those that have come from pastoral concerns is that they both have functionally resulted in a similar effect on the Christian ethicist to separate the model for ethics from the story of the church. This is acutely seen for Hauerwas in the separating of ethics from worship as if the two are distinct disciplines. Liturgy and Ethics are the same there should be no need for the conjunction and. Ethics is worship. Or I think he would actually prefer worship is ethics. Hauerwas prefers McCabe’s proposal because his discussion of language makes intelligible the demand that the story of the church form the central unity for ethics. Hauerwas proposes that all ethics is description, and it is in worship that Christians learn to speak truthfully; thus worship is a precondition for living faithfully. For McCabe the moral life is predicated on the linguistic communities ascription of meaning to the culture. McCabe disagrees with the idea that language is the communication of private thoughts. People certainly have private thoughts, but they are thinking using language. The language that is formed by their nature, history, and biography. Fundamentally at the basic level of private thoughts the individual is acting as a part of the community. For Hauerwas this basic understanding provides a strong support for the idea that ethics is about the formation of language. The practices of worship form this new history and biography to shape the linguistic community.

And this is why I think there is a great similarity between fundamentalists and Stanley Hauerwas. For the fundamentalist they would I think substitute the Bible in place of worship but the practical effect is the same. One comes to ascribe meaning through the Bible. Apart from the Bible humans cannot ascribe meaning truthfully.

If you want a friend in Washington

2006-12-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Attributed to Harry Truman this aphorism captures the great challenge of relationships. It is painful to feel a means to someone else’s ends. Often our relationships (and maybe I should just say my relationships) can be characterized by such twisted motives. No one likes to be “used”, even if the ends to which one is “used” are in themselves good. The personhood of the other becomes irrelevant to the user. One is simply a means to an ends. It is the denial of the other. I think this characterizes much of our religious discourse today. One would hope that this kind of marred interpersonal relationship would be less common within the church. But religious convictions tend to offer some cover for self-deception, and it is, perhaps, more painful when experienced with the religious. One can see such self-deception in the benevolent worker, and one can see this in the pious personal evangelist. So what is one to do? Confession, repentance, and forgiveness the community of the people of God provide hope in a world of broken relationships not only in their health but also in their weakness.

Retractions

2006-11-30T06:44:00.000-08:00

Aaron summarized my previous post by identifying two main arguments against inerrancy. He may be making a fair analysis of what I have written, but I feel his restatement of my position significantly altars my argument. And so I would like to take a brief moment to respond to his assessment.

(1) Inerrancy precludes some accepted approaches to biblical interpretation in regard to some matters in Scripture.
This is not my problem with inerrancy. I think there are many “accepted approaches” to biblical interpretation that are entirely ridiculous and a waste of time. I do not think that because some people find an approach to scripture “helpful” then it is necessarily “useful”. My problem with inerrancy is that according to its definition the definition "when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social physical, or life sciences.", inerrancy becomes a position that precludes consideration of potentially truthful readings of scripture. If for example the position of Dr. Hays on the different last words of Jesus is actually correct then we should listen to it. We should not ignore it because it does not fit our definition of inerrancy. Now I realize you made an interesting caveat that you believe “thoughtful” inerrantists would not necessarily exclude Dr. Hays reading from the realm of inerrantist readings. Welcome to the moderate side! I would suggest that many of the professors at “Old Southern” were eventually dismissed for just such a use of the term inerrancy. If you follow the definition that I offered and again I am open to others, I think you are reinterpreting the word inerrancy to make such interpretations fit. More importantly I am concerned that it does not really help clear up the problem within the Convention. When people talk about inerrancy at the local church level they would not consider Dr. Hays reading of the gospels to be fitting of that term as your post-script not too subtly acknowledges. My problem is not that inerrancy precludes “some accepted approaches to Biblical interpretation.” My problem is that it potentially excludes truthful interpretations of scripture and forces people to allow untruthful readings of scripture to be substituted. This leads to the second observation that you make.

(2) Inerrancy actually deters people from the faith.
Inerrancy can actually deter people from the faith. I believe this statement true, but not for the reasons you seem to assume. It is not my concern that inerrancy is a buzz word offends people needlessly adding to the gospel. I think most people tend to have a rather simplistic approach to scripture that more often is compatible with the term inerrancy. I do not think this is necessarily a good thing. I think for many people inerrancy serves as a kind of moderately reassuring affirmation. But such a teaching can be serve to undermine faith by demanding that people misread the Bible. I think misreading the Bible can do people harm. As I am sure you would agree. I think this is why for example Bart Erhman’s understanding of the Bible was corrosively shaped by false readings of scripture that came from the teaching of inerrancy. Inerrancy may deter people from the faith because the term can be used to exclude truth.

I think you do bring us back to an important question is inerrancy right or wrong. By my previous writings in this post one might infer that I think it a great and dangerous doctrine. Let me back away from that a little. I like how you put it….inerrancy does not a hermeneutic make. My problem is not necessarily the idea of inerrancy. My problem is the next step that seems to be almost automatic….inerrancy must be right because of the testimony of scripture,
“The real issue is this: does the Bible's testimony to itself (which, keep in mind, includes Jesus' testimony to Scripture) lead us to conclude that the Bible is inerrant? I believe it does. That is the real issue.”

Where does the Bible assert the position of inerrancy as defined in the statement I offered? The Bible is a truthful witness to the acts of God in history. We need the Bible to come to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. It is through the Bible we come to know the God of Israel who created the world and sent His Son to redeem the world. It is through the scripture that we come to know that it is God’s Spirit that leads us in our understanding of our need for salvation. What the Bible is not…The Bible should not be thought of as God’s thoughts on science, history, psychology, sociology, zoology…. I realize there are “thoughtful” inerrantists who have a careful reading of scripture. One that I might not agree with but is nevertheless serious about what is being affirmed and what is not being affirmed in a particular passage. However, I think the common usage of the term inerrancy is not useful and in fact in many cases actually harmful. I appreciate your interest in responding to my thoughts.

Luke's Response to Aaron

2006-11-24T13:21:00.000-08:00

Aaron, I appreciate your comments. I think Baptists (and other Christians for that matter) should focus on the essentials of the faith. There is much shared ground which should provide the basis for cooperation. I believe there is enough shared ground between moderates, fundamentalists and even liberals that there could and should be more cooperation. But there are differences nonetheless and it is a benefit to the body of Christ to address them. You point to an important observation that I would like to clarify. I do not agree that I am making a false dichotomy between the agency of revelation and the content of the faith. But let me first define the term inerrancy. I understand the term to mean, "when all the facts become known, they will demonstrate that the Bible in its original autographs and correctly interpreted is entirely true and never false in all it affirms, whether that relates to doctrine or ethics or to the social physical, or life sciences." By asserting that everything affirmed in scripture is “entirely true” broadens the scope of scripture beyond its intended or necessary purposes. Let me make the caveat I am not saying that inerrancy is wrong. I am saying that it is a theological affirmation that goes beyond the central proclamation of the gospel. I think it is this going beyond the central claims that blurs what is most important and leads to squabbling and dissension about matters that while interesting are not of greatest importance. What is more it can become a stumbling block to the faith. For this reason if for no other one should willingly consider some of what one’s brothers and sisters in the faith are recognizing in this theological affirmation. Let me take two specific examples to demonstrate this the creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, and Jesus' last words on the cross.
Genesis 1:6"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters. This verse serves as an example of the condescension we find in Divine Revelation. By condescension I mean that God meets us and reveals himself to us despite our limitations. With regards to this specific verse some argue that one finds a typical Ancient Near Eastern cosmology in this account of creation. The expanse which provides for space is surrounded by water. The fact that our cosmology has changed does not take away from the significance of the account for God speaks into existence this space in which we move and have our being. Using the definition I have provided of inerrancy, one would a priori reject such an interpretive position.

Jesus' last words on the cross as recorded in the gospel of Luke and Mark provide a second example. In Mark's account 15:34 Jesus' last words are "eloi eloi la ma sabachthani? Which is being interpreted My God My God Why hast thou forsaken me?" In Luke's account (23:46) we find" And when Jesus had cried with aloud voice, he said, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said thus, he gave up the ghost." One common approach to the different descriptions of Jesus last words is to simply posit that he said both things Mark records one Luke another. It is a possibility, but it is not the only possible interpretative suggestion. In fact Barth Erhman the infamous agnostic argues that the difficulties of this account are a typical example of why he left the faith. According to Erhman Luke and Mark can not both be the last words of Jesus. I recently attended a debate between Erhman and Richard Hays. Hays agrees with Erhman that we cannot know what Jesus last words were, but he counters we can accept that both Luke and Mark are in fact faithful witnesses to who Jesus is. Mark quotes Psalm 22 as Jesus’ last words capturing the messianic motif of the lamb stricken for the sins of all. Luke simply places a different Psalm (31) on the lips of Jesus. This presents the motif of the faithful servant offering himself willingly to the Father. Both of these Psalms truthfully bear witness to Jesus’ act. Hays is not advocating that one may read anything one wants to in the texts. One cannot simply choose to either harmonize the texts or interpret them in his suggested way. He would assert there is one true correct interpretation.

Now how can we separate revelation from the content of the faith? God acts in history. Our faith is based in the historical acts of God in history. Scripture is the record of these acts. Scripture leads us to the knowledge of the Triune God. Now let me return to my central thesis and reaffirm a few important things. I am not proposing or arguing for an "errant"bible. Nor am I advocating for the interpretations I have made reference to. I use these two examples to demonstrate how according to the definition of inerrancy I have provided (some may take issue with that definition and if you do please suggest another) either of these interpretations would not be considered valid. If either of these interpretations is in fact correct (I do accept that either of these approaches could be correct) then inerrancy instead of helping one faithfully interpret the text would in fact serve as a hindrance and serve as a presupposition that leads one into error.

Luke's Response To Pete

2006-11-22T08:16:00.000-08:00

(OR a moderate’s response to a fundamentalists assertion that the claim of inerrancy is foundational to living a faithful life)

Last week at the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina the messengers voted overwhelmingly to amend their bylaws to augment the criteria for a church to be in good standing. This amendment proposed a church to be in good standing if it sends money and does not endorse homosexuality (or anyone else who does). Now I can understand how one might feel like the bylaws were lax. I mean potentially a Unitarian congregation could be a member of the state convention (not that I think this would ever happen). But why, might one ask, would those who want to “tighten up” the criteria for churches in friendly cooperation look to the issue of homosexuality. Yesterday I was at the library at Southeastern. I struck up a conversation with a student in the copy room. He asserted that the question of homosexuality went to the heart of the struggle in the contemporary church in America i.e. the issue of inerrancy.

There are a number reasons why I disagree. First, I do not think inerrancy is the underlying cause of confusion with regards to the question of homosexuality. Those who assert the need to create space in the church for homosexual unions do so from an interpretation of the scriptures. I do not agree with their interpretation, but I do not think it accurate to simply dismiss them as people who do not believe the Bible. They are interpreting texts in light of other texts and this is something orthodox theologians always have done.

But second, I do not think it is accurate to see the question of inerrancy as the battle ground question for the faith. Pete asked how could one trust anything they know about Jesus if the Bible is not inerrant? God would potentially be a liar. Because God is not a liar. We can trust that in God’s perfect economy the word of God is without error. While I have no interest in asserting the “errancy” of scripture, I think the position Pete asserted is deeply flawed. It is not a truthful witness to the gospel.

Let me begin by asserting a few of the convictions that I hold as a person who seeks to be faithful to my Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that God is Triune. I believe that God is the creator of heavens and earth of all that is seen and unseen. I believe the Father sent his only begotten Son to restore a fallen world. I believe God the Son was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. I believe that he was named Jesus. I believe that he died under Pontius Pilate. I believe that on the third day he rose from the dead. I believe that he is coming again to judge the world. I believe that his blood was shed for the forgiveness of sins. I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe that God the Father sent God the Holy Spirit upon the church at Pentecost. I believe the Spirit leads people to their need for God and their need for redemption as well as guides them in their restoration. I believe in the church the gathering of people who are united in the recognition of their need for God who are constituted by the practices of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as continuing witnesses to the reconciling work of God in the world.

Now this basic summary is not meant to be a complete statement of all that I believe. But it certainly touches on what for me is most important. Jesus is God. He died on the cross. One comes to God through faith in Christ which one comes to have through the Holy Spirit. As one who believes these things one should gather with other believers and practice baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I believe that Bible leads us to this faith. The entire purpose of the revelation of God is to lead us to know God. And this is where I have a problem with inerrancy. The emphasis is shifted away from the content of faith to the agency of revelation. The agency becomes the issue of concern. This is often coupled with mendacious aspersions to the orthodoxy of people who disagree with the inerrantist’s view of agency. Now this does not mean that I think there is no place for the inerrantist’s view in the discussion. I simply think that the content of the faith does not depend on agency. The inerrantist might be right but the inerrantist might be wrong. What is not wrong is that God is Triune. Now let me respond to one objection that I can anticipate (there may be more that I do not anticipate…no doubt). Namely how can you say anything about God as Triune if you do not accept the inerrancy of scripture? The syllogism tends to follow a well worn path. If you do not believe in inerrancy then anything you read might be untrue. You cannot then have confidence in scripture or the confidence you have comes from your own picking and choosing what you want to believe from the scriptures. My response to such an argument runs like this. There were people at the empty tomb that did not believe Jesus was God the Roman soldiers as an example. There is no amount of certainty to the faith. If one lived on a desert island and found a Gideon’s Bible (because what other kind of Bible are you likely to find on a desert island), you would likely not come to understand the orthodox faith (I do believe in angels and the possibility that one could be taught the correct understanding even on a desert island but lets keep this for another discussion). The purpose of the illustration is simply to identify that we come to understand the scriptures through the handing on of the faith. One can turn to Luke 24:13ff, on the road to Emmaus we find disciples who know the scriptures, who know the ministry of Jesus, who know of the resurrection, who nonetheless still did not understand the word of God. It is the community of God’s people that shares and proclaims this message. This does not mean that the church can never be wrong. Nor does it mean the scripture can be whatever the church (read here leaders) want it to be. The Bible is what it is. The truth it proclaims is the truth it proclaims. It is the means by which the record of God’s revelation have been preserved for the people of God. It leads one to fellowship with the Triune God. The attention given to the issue of inerrancy focuses attention away from the content of faith to the agency of God’s self revelation. What is more the discussion with regards to agency in our context i.e. Southern Baptist life has been marked by misinformation and deceit with aspersions about people’s character and the content of the faith they proclaim. For these reasons I think the issue of inerrancy should not be the focus of our life as Baptists.

The Human Predicament

2006-06-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

The following is a slight adaptation of David Steinmetz description of Luther's understanding of the hideness of God. He writes, "The fundamental human predicament is unbelief. Men and women will not put their ultimate trust in God, will not receive their lives as a gift from God, but place their ultimate trust in themselves, in their world, in created reality. Human nature is proud, and human beings must be tackled in the depths of their pride. Human pride is broken down by the hidden revelation of God which always contradicts human expectations. A patient in a hospital has an immediate perception of his illness. He knows without waiting for a diagnosis from his physician that he is running a fever, that he is suffering from nausea and headaches, that his joints are stiff, and that certain sudden motions give him sharp pains in his arms. What he cannot tell from experiencing the symptoms of his illness is whether he is getting wore or is on the mend. The physician, however, is in a position to make a dispassionate judgment about the real condition of the patient. Suppose the doctors tells you that you are on the mend. you can, of course, put your faith in your symptoms and assume that the doctor is trying to keep from you the cruel truth that your illness is terminal. Assessing the empirical evidence with your own reason and common sense, no other conclusion is possible. Or you can, against the evidence of your sense and the pessimistic conclusions of your intellect, trust the word of your physician and assess your situation from his perspective. The fact of your beginning recovery is hidden under the contrary appearance of your virulent fever. you can grasp it now by closing your eyes to your symptoms and opening your ears to the word of your physician, who contradicts by his prognosis your immediate experience of pain."

On the reception of Grace

2006-06-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

The Pelagian controversy set the parameters for discussing salvation in the church especially in the West. Augustine’s later work demonstrates how the discussion of election shifted from Pelagius’ views to the implications of Augustine’s. His treatise On the Gift of Perseverance provides an example as he discusses what he understands the doctrine of election to entail. Augustine wrote this treaty late in his life between 427 AD and 429 AD. By this late date the Pelagian controversy “proper” had ended. In this work, Augustine responds to the teaching of John Cassian. Cassian had come from the East to establish a monastery in Marseilles.
The specific reason for this treatise is to respond to some questions raised by some of the brothers of a monastery in Hadrumetum. A copy of one’ of Augustine’s anti-Pelagian letters had been sent to the monastery. This letter had caused quite a stir. You may recall from my previous post the Pelagian distinction between natural and supernatural grace. When one makes good use of natural grace then one is given supernatural grace. Augustine makes use of what would have been a familiar image in that day the death of newborn babies. Consider the situation of two infants both of whom die shortly after birth. One receives baptism. One does not. For Augustine this “hypothetical” epitomizes the Christian understanding of grace. The baptized child received grace while the other did not. This he argued was not the result of foreseen merits but due to the inscrutable action of God. This example was not universally well received in Hadrumetum. Some argued that the grace of God cooperated with a person’s will. Others followed Augustine’s argument, but they contended based on the logical flow of the argument that believers should not exhort one another to good actions, rather they should simply pray as any merit would be the gift of God. So you have some in the monastery who argue that Augustine is wrong the grace of God is not completely without human response, there are others who agree with Augustine and then take this to mean they should not exhort others to acts of service because if they are going to act it will because God has determined for them to act.
John Cassian proposed that Augustine’s understanding of grace was incompatible with monasticism. He understood grace to be offered to everyone. However this grace cannot enter a human soul because of the passions. Asceticism aided the cutting away of the passions to enable the reception of grace. Cassian maintained that one should not arrogantly hold that one’s own ability to be disciplined allowed one to receive the grace of God. Grace was dependent on God. One requests this grace of God. Cassian viewed Augustine’s idea that God wills to save only some to be not only incompatible with monasticism but also with scripture. He believed that God gave humans the ability to neglect or delight in the grace of God. Here is a question to you my dear reader, is this view Pelagian? More next time.

Immigration Reform

2006-05-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

Open the borders let anyone who desires a better life come. I also think we should offer amnesty to those who are within our borders illegally. I know that some Senators object to such a course as matter of conscience with respect to the rule of law. I respect decisions made based on conscience; but I believe this application of the commitment to the rule of law is misplaced. Both Republicans and Democrats frame much of the issue in terms of our national security. I do think that there is obviously a danger from Islamic extremists. However border security will never stop this threat. And if the concern was principally with terrorism our attention would be with our northern border with Canada. There is a far lager Muslim community in Canada than in Mexico. The only terrorist plot that has been foiled at the border has been on the Canadian border. The issue with immigration from South America is not security at least not national security but the fear of the Spanish language cultures that are changing the make up of our county. Immigrants provide a source of a restoration of family values. Immigration brings the mission field to our own neighborhoods. The way we govern our nation is a witness to the world about our faith in Jesus Christ. They provide a great source of vitality and strength to our country. I do think immigration will affect our lives. It already does. But that is okay. We will be better for it.

Pelagius

2006-05-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

In Confessions, Aurelius Augustine prays, “Command what you will and give what you command.” This simple prayer reflects the basic difference between Augustine’s understanding of grace and the understanding of many of his contemporaries. While Augustine was the foremost theologian in the Western church, his basic understanding of the work of operative grace in the life of the believer has been the source of continued debate throughout the history of the church since his first writing of these lines. This passage was written before he would knew of Pelagius which reveals that his understanding was not formed within the context of the controversy that would consume much of the later part of his life. However in the ensuing controversy he refined and articulated his view in numerous works. Augustine argued that the human condition is fallen and because of this fall needs God’s redemption. For Augustine this lies at the heart of the gospel. Salvation is the gift of God not dependent on merit but on grace. God’s grace according to Augustine is not simply the act of bestowing the beginning of faith, but the gift of continuing in the faith to one’s end. It is not possible to please God without this grace.
Nearly all of the present knowledge about the person of Pelagius comes from his correspondence. He was a monk from the western parts of the Roman empire. He came to Rome in 409 AD. He found in Rome a mixing of the pagan practices with increasingly prominent Christian faith. The moral laxity among many of the new Christians caused great concern for Pelagius. Apparently his reading of Augustine’s confessions raised even more concerns. For he found in the prayer of Augustine what he inferred to be resignation about the capacity for moral behavior. For Pelagius it seemed that Augustine’s work only served to encourage the moral laxity that was prevalent in Rome. Citing passages like Leviticus 19:1-2 “Be holy for the I am Holy.” Pelagius refused to concede that the power of self improvement had been irreversibly damaged by the fall of Adam. Man has no excuse for his own sins. Pelagius was horrified by the low moral stands and the people’s contentment in their moral debasement.
It is helpful to consider a basic overview of the major events of the Pelagian controversy. When he came to Rome in 409 AD, he converted Caelestius a young disciple who would also play an important role in the controversy. For several years Pelagius lived in Rome and through his example and moral exhortation developed a considerable following especially among the intellectuals. In 411 AD, he and Caelestius went to Africa. They stopped in Hippo, but did not meet Augustine who was away at the time. At this point they exchanged polite correspondence. In Africa Caelestius and Pelagius parted ways. Pelagius went on to Africa, while Caelestius stayed on in Carthage and applied to the presbytery. Caelestius initiated what would be the beginning of this controversy during this period. In his candidacy for the presbytery his views became known with regard to grace and original sin. This lead to a hearing in 412 AD during which he was asked to change his views. He refused and was denied ordination. The denial of ordination did not deter Caelestius who simply went to another presbytery and was ordained in Ephesus. The hearing and subsequent charges provided the basis for the dispute with the teachings of Pelagius.
In 416 AD two more synods were held in Africa which both condemned Pelagius and forwarded their condemnation to Innocent. The Pope agreed with the findings of the North African church but before he had an opportunity to question Pelagius and Caelestius he died. His successor Zosimus did not follow Innocent’s earlier inclination. He was troubled presumably by the reputations of some of those bringing the charges against Caelestius and Pelagius. After meeting with the two he declared them innocent of heresy. He sent a letter to the North African churches reprimanding what he considered a hasty condemnation of the Pelagians on matters that were not of essential importance.
At another council in Carthage in 417/418 over two hundred bishops protested Zosimus’ judgment. Subsequently there was some unrest among disciples of Pelagius that further complicated the matter. The unrest led the emperor to become involved in the dispute. Zosimus in 418 AD passed another encyclical this time he agreed with the African bishops. In this decree any person who did not renounce the Pelagian teaching with regard to nature, baptism and grace where to be removed from their posts. Eighteen bishops were deposed including a young man Julian of Eclanum who would become an articulate spokesman for the Pelagian position. By 430 AD the controversy had ended. Augustine died in that year. By 431 AD at the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus Pelagius was determined to be a false teacher.
The main proponents of the Pelagian position were Pelagius, Caelestius, and Julian. Their basic contention rested on the necessity of human freedom to be necessary for moral responsibility. Freedom they argued is the supreme good and cannot be lost. Every person has the ability to do good or evil. When the will decides it acts. As a person acts one develops habits If a person exercises their will to act virtuously then they will be truly free. Conversely the person who acts sinfully develops bad habits. These bad habits become binding leaving the person trapped in sin. Every acts goes to form a moral state. In relation to God humans are in a state of alienation and cannot be restored by their own will. Thus all people who sin need regenerating grace. Grace sets a person free to practice Christian virtue.
Adam does not stand for all humanity but was simply the first individual. His sin did not result in any guilt passed down to the rest of humanity. Pelagius did accept that Adam’s sin had consequence for everyone to follow. Namely he set a bad example. At the local Palestinian synod at Diopolis in 415 AD Pelagius condemned Caelestius teaching that Adam’s sin had no affect on humanity. For Pelagius the bad example of Adam set off a chain reaction. The bad example of Adam led to an increasing corruption of humankind thus alienation from God. Sin for Pelagius was not the result of a fallen nature, but the product of a will poorly formed. The universality of sin attests to the power of the evil example of corrupt humanity, but every person begins with a clean slate. He believed that each person’s soul was created by God (this of course touches on a very debated question in the earlier church period that is largely unasked today). For Pelagius the idea that the every soul was present in Adam was an imposition on the biblical text. Unlike Adam, every person since is born a child and so grows up influenced by the bad examples around them.
Pelagius understood moral acts to consist of three parts power, will and act. The power to do good is human’s natural condition which is the result of God’s grace. The will to make a decision for good or bad is within the capacity of the individual as is the act itself. Due to the preponderance of bad habits humans need more than the natural grace with which they are endowed. This need God provides in the gift of supernatural grace. Through God’s revelation humans are assisted by enlightenment to be able to will and to do the good. Christ’s instruction and example provide an alternative to the world. Instead of following the world the believer should follow Christ. Through humility one receives this supernatural grace. Grace for Pelagius is meant for all, but only those who deserve are able to receive it. They deserve this grace through a good use of their natural grace of the freedom of the will. A person who uses their will (natural grace) to humbly seek God receives enlightenment (supernatural grace) to be able to do good. These view of Pelagius were roundly rejected by the church. However in the reasoning that supported this rejection new questions would raise. From this controversy onward the label “Pelagian” would be affixed to a broader spectrum of theological claims. This can be especially recognized in the disagreement between John Cassian and Augustine.....more next time.

Signs of Grace

2006-05-24T20:48:00.000-07:00

For the last three years I have put loose change from my pocket into one receptacle. I regularly would comb through my coins for quarters to supply an afternoon snack from a vending machine. I have been adding to my change for a long time, and while I had removed and reused most of the quarters I decided it was time to cash in. You may have made use of this service at the grocery store. One pours one’s change through an opening and the machine counts the coins. There is a small slot at the bottom of the machine where some coins are rejected along with buttons and other fuzz mixed in with the change. I did have a few buttons, and one large silver coin. I realized immediately why it was not counted. It was a Euro. Now in Europe it would be worth over a dollar, but not in Louisburg. Money reminds us of the power of symbols. We use symbols all the time in our daily lives. In ways that we do not even stop to reflect upon. But if we do not know what the symbols mean we can misunderstand their value. A few years ago before I baptized a couple I wanted to find an explanation of Baptism. I went to our local LifeWay bookstore, and there were no books on baptism. I kept searching and found one book at the seminary bookstore. There were many books about ethics, even more on apologetics, some on living the blessed life, but nothing about the ordinances. I think this is a problem.

Chaff

2006-05-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

RSV Matthew 3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Any use of a threshing floor and winnowing fork ought to preach. Luke uses nearly the same wording but adds an interesting editorial comment, “So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.” (Luke 3:18). The feeling of dread elicited by the promised divine meting out of justice seems not to be good news. After all, what if you are the chaff? Double predestination (which is in my opinion the only kind) offers no good news, well it offers some good news, and some really bad news. Definitely not an unqualified good news for all men (unless you follow Calvin/Augustine/Aquinas’s all means all kinds of...). Harvest time is good news especially if you are hungry, if you silo is running empty. It is especially good news If there have been several bad years in a row. No more dross. No more empty hulls. It is time for substance this is good news. On Sunday my sermon drew criticism from my youth. I must confess, it flattered me that they were listening close enough to complain! I said that Punk music was not beautiful. I said that it was discordant. What makes something beautiful is not based on a person’s tastes but rather it is based on conforming to what is harmonic. I was right and wrong. Static is without harmony. Punk music as much as it pains me to admit does contain harmony. The beauty of music is certainly dependent on a skilled artist. The artist must conform to the underlying rules of harmony (or break them in an harmonic way!). Divine judgment is a cosmic makeover. The discordant the rhythm-less will be tuned. This is good news for all.

Calculating Risk

2006-05-20T10:58:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I listened to a radio interview with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. For those not familiar with professional basketball Mark Cuban is arguable the most visible owner. He is young for an owner, and looks even younger. He often attends the games dressed like a fan and sits in the upper decks. He has proved to be a savvy owner. The Mavericks have been transformed from a perennial cellar dweller to among the top ranked teams in the league. The success on the court has been matched with financial success a rising tide lifts all the boats. One might be surprised to learn that the ownership of a professional sports team is only a small part of Cuban’s business life. In the interview he talked about his life. It seemed to follow the classic pattern of the American dream. Cuban was raised in a modest home in the Pittsburgh area. His parents moved to America for employment opportunities. He did not have any family savings to draw on to attend college, but was able through scholarships and work to attend Indiana University. He started a successful consulting business and within ten years of graduating college he was a multi-millionaire. He did not stop there. He was an avid basketball fan and since moving away from Indiana he could not listen to any of their basketball games. So he and a friend invested money in a company to make it possible to listen to radio broadcasts over the internet. Ten years later they sold the company for several billion dollars. Mr. Cuban has been extremely successful. Listening to the interview he conveyed a poise and sharp wit that gave the impression that he had a very capable mind. As one might expect judging from all his success. He made one comment in this interview that especially caught my attention. The interviewer asked him about his charity work. He mentioned several organizations that he supports, but he conceded that he had not done anything nearly the scale of Bill Gates or Ted Turner. The interviewer pressed him at this point, asking why he had not. He responded slowly. First by saying that he should do more, and that he was planning to put more attention in that area, but he confessed, “I want to provide for my family. I would hate to blow it all on a bad deal.” A billionaire worrying about losing all his money. How much is enough. Surely a few hundred thousand a million a billion I think I could manage. It is never enough. You cannot get enough money to eliminate risk. This is something Mark Cuban knows well. After all he has made his money on investments.

Imagination and sanctification or why poetry can be a bad thing

2006-05-18T10:19:00.000-07:00

I like poetry. I do not know how to put my finger on what it is I like about it. I feel about poetry kind of like I feel about America’s Funniest Home Videos if you don’t get it, I can’t really explain it to you. Poetry is powerful. And that is not necessarily a good thing. Poetry is a creative endeavor. Creative endeavors shape reality. One is mistaken to relegate creative endeavors merely to the domain of artistic expression. Creativity provides the foundation for every aspect of our life from technology, to economics, to governance, but most importantly to our sanctification. The ability to create something that previously had no existence is dependent upon our imaginative power. Imagination is not neutral. Imagination is not an additional sense humans have developed. Imagination is an innate human ability that is either good or bad. When we use our imagination for vanity we corrode our ability to imagine what is possible.

Modern Disbelief and the Church

2006-05-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

Stanley Hauerwas hates to love. Professor H is often asked to write articles for various publications so this in itself is not so surprising, but this case was a little unusual. This mainstream news magazine had not featured a column by a theologian since the early fifties. He was selected because the editor (though not religious) had taken a course in modern theology while an undergraduate. The course left him unprepared for the professor. I will let him speak for himself. “A few weeks later I called him to try out my initial idea. I said, ‘I think I have a terrific title—Christians in the Hands of Flaccid Secularists.’ There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. I waited. Finally, ‘that’s interesting,’ I said, ‘you do not get it, do you?’ ‘Get what?’ That the title is a play on Jonathan Edwards famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t read much nineteenth century stuff.’ At that point, I knew that this was not going to work. I told the editor, ‘I do not know how to write even half-serious theology for people who no longer have sufficient knowledge to tell which God it is that they no longer believe in.’.......that is the problem with modern atheism; it is just so uninteresting. Of course we can hardly blame atheists for that, since Christians have for some time been offering atheists less and less to disbelieve.”

The Question of Inerrancy

2006-04-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, I attended the North Carolina State vs. University of North Carolina baseball game. It was a good game despite the Tar Heel's victory. I brought some of my vocabulary cards to the game. I am trying to be more disciplined in keeping up my language skills. In the seventh inning a young man behind me asked if my cards were Hebrew (which they happened to be). He said that he had tried to get into a Hebrew language class at State but the course was offered only sporadically, and he was not able to, but he planned on taking Hebrew in seminary. Rarely do I meet young people who are planning to go to seminary. I meet plenty of seminary students, but it was a pleasant surprise to meet someone before they have arrived in seminary. He said that he was planning on attending either Southeastern or Southern. We talked for a while. I encouraged him to visit Duke, although I did not discourage his attending either of SBTS or SEBTS. He mentioned that his only encounter with Duke was through a conference hosted by Southeastern. He said that he was concerned that the only professor he heard from Duke did not "hold" to innerancy. He was referring to Dr. Hays. I do not know how the question was posed to him but I can imagine Hays not providing an “acceptable” response to the typical litmus test question. This week I attended a "conversation" between Richard Hays and Barth Erhman. They discussed the historical reliability of the canonical gospel witness to Jesus. Erhman raised a number of thoughtful and probing questions. He describes himself as an agnostic and his questions were hostile to the tradition. While I do not necessarily follow Hays in all of his interpretations, I am still not entirely convinced by his interpretive schema (I especially find C.S. Lewis' questions of Higher Criticism to be naggingly unanswered). However, with this caveat, I found it interesting to listen to Hays rebuttle of Erhman. They basically agree on much of the "historical" Jesus. It is too bad that a student would think he had nothing to learn from studying with Dr. Hays. It is unfortunate that this student was put off from Hays because of the battle lines within the fundamentalist movement. I have heard a professor at SEBTS dismiss as dangerous any professor who does not hold to inerrancy. I do not find such assertions accurate nor helpful.

Seize the Day

2006-04-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

Several years ago there was a popular bumper sticker and t-shirt slogan the man who dies with the most toys wins. Not long after this slogan came out there followed a number of responses. One memorable response was “the man who dies with the most toys still dies”. This sentiment would connect with the writer of Ecclesiastes. The reality and finality of death is behind much of the book. There is a time for everything under heaven but the righteous and unrighteous all share a common destiny. The teacher even admonishes the reader to enjoy your time with you wife your work for you are all headed to the grave where you will not enjoy anything else. Not only is death common to all but the way to death is not a straight line. It doesn’t seem fair that some die young. When I was first out of college there was a tragedy that occurred that still unnerves me. On the highway one of those large mowers was cutting grass and one of the blades struck a stone and broke off. The broken blade went off into the highway and struck a passing car killing one of the occupants. This tragic and bizarre accident is a reminder of how fragile life is.
We all have experienced in some way this reality. You may be familiar with the fable Meeting in Samara. A man has a terrible dream where it is revealed to him that he is going to meet death in the afternoon. He wakes up terrified and tells his friend the dream. He decides to leave town. He decides to go as far away as possible to Samara. Mid morning the friend goes to the market where he bumps into death. They strike up a conversation and death tells the man he has to be going he has an appointment in Samara. This view of death that it is just a part of a person’s fate is not the full Biblical witness. Ecclesiastes is not the full picture. It is an important reminder to us about the preciousness of life, but it is incomplete.
In the New Testament we find the clear teaching that the natural death that we all will inevitably experience is not the end. For it is appointed once for man to die and then after that to face judgment (Hebrews 9:27). The major issue the teacher wrestles with is the reality of death for both the good and the bad. In fact he says it is better to be a live dog than a dead lion. In the New Testament we learn that God the Son became a man he took on flesh and lived not to be served by people but rather to serve. He came to give his life as a ransom.
In the west there are many cities that at one time were frontier forts for example Fort Worth in Texas. These forts were places that settlers were able to go settle nearby and if there was trouble they had some security. The church is one of the forts of God. An outpost to proclaim the good news that death is not the final word. That God the Son came and died that those who believe in him may be raised to new life. We are an outpost of hope and refuge in a world that desperately needs help.

The Dead Letter

2006-04-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

On Tuesdays I often go over to Southeastern to make use of the excellent library facilities. It is an attempt on my part to stay abreast...or to keep my fingers in critical scholarship. I am especially interested in the history of the church. I once had a professor describe his interest in church history, “I decided to spend my time in the great thoughts of others, rather than in my little thoughts.” I try to read broadly in all of the major disciplines. I find the least amount of interest in Biblical Studies. Please note I am not saying nor do I would to intimate that I find the Bible uninteresting. It is the current approach in Biblical studies that I think enervates theological discourse. I locate the problem in the tendency to approach the Holy Scripture as one would approach any other ancient document. I think this approach is shared both within “conservative” and “liberal” circles. Certainly within the traditions that affirm the inerrancy and authority of the scriptures there is deference to the contents of scripture, but the approach to reading the Bible is the same. Find out what the author meant and then one can extrapolate what that means for us today. This is not the way the Holy Scripture has been read by our predecessors in the faith. The authorship of the Bible has always been thought to be God (no doubt through human agents). One frequently finds that ancients refer to the Holy Oracles. God is still speaking through the scriptures. I do not know how our modern rut may be changed. But I feel that it is not simply in a turn to the conservatives. For the preacher the commentaries of previous generations written largely by ministers are often the most theologically provocative. I think there is a reason for this. I think it is because those expositors were reading a living Word not attending to a dead letter.

A Christmas Surprise

2005-12-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

When I think about the Christmas story, I have a kind of mixture of the two gospel accounts. This year I am looking closely at each separately. It has been a meaningful devotional approach. Matthew focuses on the message that came to Joseph. We are familiar with the story. Mary and Joseph are engaged to be married. According to Jewish law and engagement was more legally binding than in our society. The period of engagement was as formal as a marriage contract. Mary and Joseph were engaged, but before they came to live together Mary by the agency of the Holy Spirit came to be with Child. Joseph must decide what to do. The passage describes Joseph as a righteous man, which would indicate that he was one who closely followed Jewish law. He we are told decided to end the engagement quietly without subjecting Mary to a public trial, and all the humiliation that would bring. As he was thinking about what he was going to do, an angel of the Lord came to Joseph and let him in on what was going on. Why didn’t God send the angel just a little bit sooner? I mean in Luke's account Mary is told before she is with child. Zechariah before, Abraham before.....why is the angel late with Joseph. Sure it would still have been difficult to believe, but at least there would be the element of prophetic fulfillment, it could have eased his conscience. Not to mention the fact that the Angel waited until he had already decided to end the engagement.

Trouble in North Carolina

2005-10-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

It appears that this years annual meeting in North Carolina will likely be a contentious affair. A headline on the web-page for Baptist Press highlights the proposal by Ted Stone to “strengthen the cooperative program”. I interpret this phrase to be a euphamism for the successful extirpation of all efforts to provide an alternate giving option for moderates in the state convention. Currently the state convention has brokered a modest proposal for keeping the convention unified. They currently offer a number of ways to support cooperative giving. churches are able to select from four plans. For those of you not familiar with Baptist polity, let me give a brief overview of how we give our money. For churches like mine that are Southern Baptist or “historically” Southern Baptist one of the hallmarks is the practice of giving money to “cooperative” mission efforts. Local churches give a portion of their tithes and offerings (a portion completely decided on by the local church) to entities consisting of churches that have joined together to further missions. Typically there are three such connections for each local church. The first is the local association. Our association consists of forty churches from three counties. The second partner for each church is the state convention. We give our money to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC). The state conventions typically provide youth camps, state wide conferences, disaster relief, and other resources. A church will also support national and international ministries by giving to a third entity. Thirty years ago everyone would give to the Southern Baptist Convention; however, for the last twenty-five years the national convention has been in turmoil. Financial support of certain national entities became a battle ground for the conflicted parties. Until recently most of the controversy has remained at the national level. The BSCNC attempted to mend the divide between the fundamentalists and moderates in the state by allowing churches to choose where they sent their money nationally. Mr. Stone wants to end this practice in North Carolina. In a self-described effort to “strengthen” the cooperative program, he would like to see all churches that choose to give to the State Convention to forward the same percentage to the Southern Baptist Convention. Not only does this eliminate a church’s perrogative with regard to the percentage they want forwarded to national and international work, it also completely eliminates the option to support the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in place of the Southern Baptist Convention. One could still give a percentage to the CBF, but it would have to be direct, and not a part of the state giving plan. Even if the motion does not pass, a vocal group does not seem likely to ever be content with any partnerships that continues to allow support for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Of course, the distinguised senator from Wisconsin was for a time feeling invincible. Those who chare the CBF with being a liberal group are wrong. Some of these detractors are simply opportunists seeking to bolster their standing by tearing down others. But I think many detractors are simply motivated by a genuine sense of concern to battle against heresy. Unfortunately while acting with pure motives, they are nonetheless misguided. False teaching is certainly a problem, but it is a problem no less among moderates than it is among conservatives. Allowing the presence and view points of moderates does not threaten the work of the convention. Truth will win the day. But it may come at the cost of a weakened cooperative network. One thought brings me great comfort and hope....My power is made perfect in weakness.

Science and Theological Discourse

2005-09-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth

John Polkinghorne the Physicist turned Anglican priest writes, “I believe that Christian belief is possible in a scientific age precisely because it is the search for truth, and science is one, but only one component, and in many ways quite a humble component, in that search for truth.” There are a number of concerns raised about the ability of deductive reasoning to say anything meaningful about God. I find Hauerwas dismissal of science to be unsatisfying. His critique comes from the nature of language itself, as far as I can tell. All facts are theory laden. The scientific method does not present an objective approach to reality, but rather a matrix for a certain kind of discourse. The success of science is merely the instrumental success of getting things done rather than describing things as they really are. One embarks down an epistemological dead end when one sets out to describe the world as it is. For the very act of describing is contingent upon the tools of language that are formed by one’s particular community. In the end I believe the seeming strength of these concerns fizzle. Polkinghorne points out that such concerns do not answer the reality of the success of science. I think it is quite fair to suggest that the ability of modern science to send a person to the moon or transplant organs not only reveals an effective means of discourse, but it also reveals something about the nature of reality.

Hauerwas views science as a competing story for what it means to be human. There may be some element of truth in such a statement, however I find his dismissal of science as a means of seeing the world around us to be unconvincing (I use “unconvincing” quite intentionally!). Of course he is not the only person who expresses concerns about the limitations of what the natural world can reveal about God. I find some of the more classic arguments about the limitations of natural revelation quite compelling. A first problem that I think must be recognized is the simple limitation of certain kinds of knowledge. Observation cannot reveal all kinds of knowledge. It certainly reveals a lot...but there are deficits in what one can come to know simply by trial and error. I can know a lot about you by watching you. I can know how tall you are, what you like to eat, how fast you are etc. But I can never know your name...unless you tell me (or someone else tells me). Names are quite interesting in this way. They are given and as such cannot really be known apart from someone being told. What is more significant to a personal relationship than knowing a person’s name? I will spare a prolonged reflection on why this is the case, but I think it certainly does warrant such reflection. It is of course quite significant that immediately before God redeems the people of Israel and delivers them from bondage, God reveals his personal name to Moses. In our modern bland way of talking about God I think we may have lost the centrality of the name of the LORD. There is a second classic limitation to our ability to know God through the natural realm can also be approached by the metaphor of a relationship. There is some knowledge like names that must be revealed, but a relationship is more than knowing someone’s name. I am going to use a second somewhat...”grown-up” metaphor of course this is also a biblical metaphor, the biblical euphemism of “knowing” someone. In the Bible the word used for sexual relations is that of knowing. Abraham knew is wife...and there was Isaac. Knowing in this sense requires something on the part of the two parties namely being disrobed. In a related way....knowledge of God requires more than an inquisitive spirit.
I began by saying that I thought science was an indispensable part of theological discourse today, yet I have just been arguing against its efficacy. Let me close with the reason why I see “bottom-up thinking” as an essential tool in modern theological discourse. We live in an age where “revelation” is suspect. “Bottom-up” thinking has produced results. I think it has produced results because it reveals truth about our created world. I think there is the potential that the discoveries and methods of “bottom-up thinking” can serve as a bridge to the importance of the revelation of God through the scriptures.

A Righteous Scandal

2005-09-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Reading Genesis confronts one with a number of troubling stories. For example, in the account of the rape of Dinah there are no good guys. One sees in this passage the perverting power of sin. Movies tend to portray the white hats and the black hats. The good guys and bad guys are clearly distinguishable. After all who wants to go to a movie where there are no heroes. In Genesis (and of course the wider Biblical witness) we do not exactly find heroes and villains. We find people, hauntingly familiar people I may add. We know Dinahs. We know Shechems. We know Levis and Simeons. In Chapter 38 of Genesis the story of Joseph is interrupted with this curious interlude recording a pitifully forgettable scandal with Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar. This story begs the question... “what is it about an action that makes it righteous?”
For anyone who believes in a God that demands righteousness, this is an important question. I am leery when people suggest that righteousness is something that is obvious. Certainly there are times when the right or wrong decisions are very clear. Do not take someone else’s crayons without asking. But there is a reason that officers are not allowed to fraternize with the enlisted. They have to send them charging up the hill. Their are some decisions that seem clear but in reality they are just decisions made from a distance. As Herbert McCabe notes the only interesting ethical question is, “who is going to get hurt”. This story like many in Genesis troubles the waters of what is right and what is wrong.
In this first section of the story the scene is set for what is about to unfold. The main characters in this account will be Judah and Tamar. One of the challenges to understanding some stories in the Bible are the different social practices. In today’s world we would not think it appropriate for a brother to marry his widowed sister-in-law. In Ancient Israel this was a practice codified in the Levitical code. Details of this practice are given in Deuteronomy 25:5-6. If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband’s brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in law to her. The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel. One simply is not offered the option to make judgments about the propriety of these actions. Levirate marriage is assumed to be required. Without accepting this practice the story does not make sense. Er is described as dying for having done something evil. We are not told what it is just that he is dead because of something he did. His brother Onan in like manner is struck down. Although with Onan we given the reason. He does not want to fulfill his responsibility to Tamar. This is sometimes cited as a passage to support the prohibition against birth control. Yet such an interpretation is not explicitly made by the text. In fact it seems that the sin of Onan is that he does not want to father his brother’s heir, for his own selfish reasons. He may want his children to have more of an inheritance. This of course is speculation all we know is that he does not want his brother’s line to be continued. So we find Tamar the widow of two sons of Judah both of whom were unrighteous before God. What will Judah do?
The story lends one to be sympathetic to Judah. He only has one more son. Is he perhaps afraid that Tamar is cursed? Will giving his only remaining son to her result in the end of his family line. It seems that he fears this to be the case. He makes an excuse so that he does not have to give his youngest son to Tamar. Perhaps he is trying to wait until his family line is set. The oldest child’s firstborn is the one who passes on the family line. It should be the child of Tamar, but he is afraid and wants to ensure some progeny. We know that Judah is acting out of concern for his own family line, but what about Tamar? How is she left to fare in light of Judah’s actions. She is left to fend for herself.
It is at this point in the story that one is presented with the familiar problem of the patriarchs. Once again we are presented with the situation when everyone is acting immorally. Tamar so far has been the victim of two bad marriages and a father-in-law who will not fulfill his obligation to her. Judah has been in the wrong, but here Tamar herself becomes the immoral agent. I do not mean to pass over what Judah does. Judah’s wife dies. After a period of morning on a long business trip he comes upon what he thinks to be a shrine prostitute. The story again seems to be painting a sympathetic dilemma for Judah. The story clearly describes Tamar has acting more deceitfully. She decides to go and seduce her father-in-law. As if prostitution were not bad enough, she seduces her father-in-law! Perhaps her actions would strike one as less odious if she had seduced Judah’s youngest son who was rightfully supposed to father her a child, but she goes to Judah? Prostitution was practiced widely in the ancient world and I guess it is still practiced pretty widely, but incest was always considered immoral and against the law. Why Judah? I think that she sought out Judah because it was his responsibility to provide for her. He was the one who was not willing to fulfill his obligation to Tamar. It is interesting to note that she had been wearing her widows clothing until this moment. Tamar had not been seeking to be remarried as one could have. We know that Michal remarried after David fled the court of Saul. We also know that Ruth remarried after the death of her husband when Naomi could no longer provide the son to take her husbands place. Tamar is doing what she is supposed to, but Judah is not. Even after she seduces Judah she goes back and once again puts on her widow’s clothing. Is it not curious that Judah will end up offering to pay to fulfill the responsibility he is already supposed to do voluntarily? She doesn’t take any payment only the evidence to prove that she has done what she has a right to do.
While I this passage does not give warrant to prostitution. It is not exactly condemning it either. It is perhaps helpful to note that the connection between morality and religion is not assumed in the ancient world. This will develop specifically within the covenant between the LORD and his people. But in the ancient world religious practice was connected with the power of the deities not with moral living. Moral living was connected with the wisdom tradition. This is one reason why you find the greatest amount of condemnation against the practice of prostitution in the book of proverbs. In this story it is the prostitute who is declared to be the righteous one. Judah learning that Tamar is pregnant demands that she face the consequences for adultery, and it is only at the point when she is brought out to receive this punishment that she reveals the father. This is the culmination of the story.
Nicholas of Lyra a medieval commentator believes this text should be corrected to read, “you Tamar are less unrighteous than I am.” I can sympathize with Nicholas of Lyra’s feeling upon hearing Judah’s response. I think we might be more likely to take another commentator’s approach Walter Brueggeman. His approach to this passage is to simply say, there is little here of exegetical or interpretive value. Time to move on. If you are reading through the Bible check your box and get back to the story of Joseph. But I do not want to have this attitude. I may at the end of the day have to simply say my faith grade is not up to this passage. But I am hesitant to ever think that there is any passage of scripture that does not have significance for our life of faith. I do not mean by this that we need to understand everything. We of course do not nor will we. But we should always be open to hear God speak to us. One temptation the I think more modern temptation is to ignore this text. Another temptation is to moralize the text. But it is not so easy to find the “moral of the story”. The difficulty with this approach is multifaceted. First one finds the challenge of finding helpful moral lessons from such a specific problem. This is like an example of case law, where the facts of the case are so specific they could barely ever apply to much outside of the exact situation. I tend to want to read this story and find some moral and yet I find that the particular circumstances do not fit thankfully my own. We recognize the flaws. Because their flaws are our flaws, but their problems thankfully are different. The first problem then is the specificity of the account. One could perhaps suggest some greater ethical principle, like the ends justify the means, but that does not really help because it leads to the he second problem with this approach. If one is going to find a moral in this particular case one has to determine a hierarchy of sins. How does one determine what sin is worse than another. I am inclined to find prostitution far worse than Judah’s technical failure to keep his end of the deal, after all he tried with two sons, who could blame him fearing that the third son would be a dead duck marring this crazy black widow. I do not think that one can simply find morals at least in the sense that we use that term today.
If as I have suggested it will not do to ignore nor moralize the text, what is one to draw from this story? Let me begin with the caveat that the comment option is open and I heartily welcome any suggestions. In this passage we see the promises of God fulfilled in a very unrighteous way. The descendent of Judah is born in the immediate circumstances of deceit, incest, and prostitution. I think Judah’s affirmation that Tamar is more righteous than he does not refer to a reckoning of some moral equivalency that presents a balance favorable to Tamar. Rather Tamar’s pregnancy demonstrates to Judah that she is more righteous than he. For she is to bear the child of the promise that he had failed to knowingly provide for. The righteousness of Tamar rests in the seed of Judah. If this is the case then what does that mean...exactly. The owner of a local used bookstore in town was encouraging me to read a novel with the title Life according to Pi. I may have the title slightly off, but if you spend anytime in bookstores I am sure you have seen the book. When people learn that I am a minister I have a number of people recommend this book. I am not sure it is because I am a minister, but anyway. I have not yet read the book though I intend to, but the store owner provided a brief synopsis revealing to me the reason I suspect for her recommendation. Apparently the main character is a fairly easy going person who investigates or attends I various religious groups. Each of these religious groups think the man is one of their devoted followers. They think he is an outstanding Christian, Buddhist, etc... Only one day the meet on the street. The different religious leaders get to squabbling about their own religious particulars. I think the idea this bookseller was trying to convey was that she thought that all religions were pretty much the same. This is a pretty common view especially among the educated in our country. Righteousness as presented in this story seems to present a problem with the idea that righteousness is about morals. Righteousness is about being a part of the promise. This is my take anyway, I am eager to hear your ideas.

A Country Parson

2005-08-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Recently sitting on my back porch I saw a large cow near my the fence that borders our parsonage. I walked up to the cow to pet it. Being from the city I am not exactly sure what you are supposed to do around cows. As I approached the large group of cows they all at the exact same time turned and stared at me, with the most empty looking eyes. I slowly continued to edge nearer to the fence, as I came within about fifteen feet all the cows near the fence jumped up and hurriedly skirted away except for the lone pony that was next to the fence. So I walked up to the pony and began petty him or her I feel that it is somewhat indecent to check. As I pet the pony I heard a kind of snorting noise. I had intentionally not been looking at the cows because I did not want to startle them. Hearing this noise I slowly began to turn to my right when I noticed a large black animal standing very close. This cow was bigger than the rest and had his head resting on the hind part of the pony. I though this kind of odd for several reasons. For one the cows always jumped up and ran away whenever I came near. And second I had never seen any of the cows have horns. The cow again made a very loud snort almost as if this dumb animal was trying to speak like Balaam’s donkey. I thought this is the most curious thing, and then a feeling of dread slowly began to grow. Could this cow with horns be a bull? Uh oh. I hurried back inside thinking that at any moment this bull would dash through the fence and trample me like in Pamplona.

Peer Pressure

2005-08-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. To be chosen is something everyone likes. In fact the desire to be chosen is one of if not the greatest openning to destruction in the life of young people. There are a number of television commercials that capture the normal dilemma of peer pressure. Teenagers in a car on a dark street pass the bottle in a brown bag around the car. The camera focuses on the face of one teenager and then McGriff the crime dog comes on the screen and bellowsJust say no. Marketing campaigns tend not to attempt to deal with nuance. There is a main idea don’t give in. But unfortunately this is not the entire problem with peer pressure. The campaign might help keep people from doing certain activities which is a good thing. But it does not address the underlying problem. The problem that we never outgrow. The desire to be chosen. But simply considering the underlying problem as the desire to be special or important to be chosen is of itself not quite all encompassing to answer the problem. Many children who will become influenced by people around them are loved and accepted are chosen by their very birth into certain families. But as young people grow older there is the naturally distorted desire to be important over others. But it is not simply for the desire to be chosen, it is a perverted desire to be chosen over. The desire to be important. The desire that the young person has to assert their own importance. This desire for so many young people becomes manifest in harmful and self destructive ways. The real danger of peer pressure is not giving in to the sirens call, but it is the desire itself to be important. This is a message we prominently send to all young people. It is a conflicting message and it is one that if we are not careful as believers we too can misunderstand. The root problem with peer pressure is that the subject of the pressure is herself or himself wanting to be important. This leads people to search for importance in all the wrong places. In this passage Paul asserts that In Him, before the foundation of the world we are chosen for a purpose. Chosen to be holy and blameless. For many people this does not sound like such a great deal. Chosen to be holy? That does not sound very fun. Chosen to be blameless? Have you really ever lived if you are without blame? For Paul this is something that he is really excited about. There is a reason for his excitement. This business of being holy and blameless is really good news. But to hear it we need to be able to see life as it really is. And seeing life as it really is, can be quite painful and depressing.

Seeing God

2005-08-05T21:47:00.000-07:00

I recently read an interesting article in the Raleigh News and Observer. In bold print the headline announced, “Study finds prayer doesn’t heal.” I know that headlines are intended to grab one’s attention. I think the writer may have been pushing it a bit with this one. The article recounted the latest results of a study conducted by cardiologists at Duke University. The study involved 748 heart patients about to undergo catheterization. The researchers asked religious groups throughout the world, including Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Christians, to pray for some patients. The patients underwent the procedures in nine hospitals between 1999 and 2002. The results suggests that intercessory prayers did not significantly better the outcome for those patients who received it. Thus the scientific findings for the headline, Study finds prayer does not heal. One might respond to this survey in a number of ways. How could people genuinely pray for some and not others? Prayer is not magic it is a request. Do not put the Lord your God to the test. There are a number of problems with this survey. However I think it is interesting and quite natural that a major research university should find it significant to try to apply the methods that have led to all manner of new insights about life on earth to the question of greatest significance namely that of people’s relationship to the Divine. However I think that the observation of a group of Medieval theologians offer a helpful philosophical limitation to such an inquiry. One of the most famous complaints about Medieval scholasticism is that during this period there emerged a fascination with frivolous speculation. One of the most famous examples of the triviality of this kind of speculation is the question, “How many angels could stand on the head of a needle.” What kind of possible purpose could such a question serve? This question actually points to an intriguing concern. How can that which is material interact with that which is immaterial? Why is there the need for faith? Why can we not simply see God.? How could we see God apart from God’s own self disclosure? All of our senses depend on the interaction of material objects whether sight, smell, hearing, taste, or touch. Immaterial beings could not be sensed logically using these senses. For me the significance of this musing is that one comes to faith necessarily through the means afforded by God. Learning about God will by necessity require a different approach than that which is applied to the material.

Abortion and the Supreme Court

2005-07-02T09:02:00.000-07:00

All the political commentators predict a prolonged nasty campaign for the forthcoming confirmation process. I have heard that the American Family Research Council has already expressed that they will not support the potential nomination of Attorney General Gonzalez. And reproductive rights groups are no doubt already busily preparing their political apparatus to challenge any nominee that may be seen to limit a woman’s access to “reproductive” technologies.” How should one approach this process? I do not have any real answers except to say that I hope the president decides to appoint a judge that is a centrist. As a religious leader, perhaps this is a bit of a sell out. I oppose abortion. This may be the time when the court could be swayed, and yet I feel disgusted by the fighting. Campaigns have become so expensive that the extreme interests groups are the only organizations able to gather the necessary strength to help candidates. This in my opinion is one of the contributing factors to why certain issues dominate all others. I think it would be a great decision by the president if he would decide in this instance to find a candidate acceptable to the main; obviously, the extremes will not be happy in any case. If abortion is to be outlawed let, it be introduced as an amendment to the Constitution. Let it come through some development of consensus.

Heretics are not all bad

2005-06-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

One of the frustrating aspects of studying at Southeastern is the frequent use of the word heresy and wherever there is heresy there is a heretic. I would estimate that at least half the time we were reading the Pastoral Epistles the practical application had to do with false teachings/teachers. To some extent, this is appropriate given the subject matter of the Pastoral Epistles. After all, Paul the false teachers are the main reason he wrote the letters in the first place (assuming he did write the letters, which I heartily accept). On the other hand, we are not Paul, and at Southeastern, there is a tendency to put those with whom they disagree in the category of THE false teachers about whom Paul wrote. One must give people room to err, because people will err. Yet if there is room to voice their thoughts, however heretical those thoughts may be there then emerges the opportunity to correct those ideas. It is an allusion that fundamentalist churches maintain a doctrinal purity among the flock. I am not sure they realize to what extent they may actually being failing to help address peoples false understandings. In my experience with fundamentalists, there is a fiery reluctance to allow for heterodox statements. If someone is saying something that is in anyway wrong, the teacher corrects him or her immediately. I have seen many times where the correction comes so quickly and so definitively that people learn to keep their thoughts to themselves. The problem with this approach is that it does not really help people come to orthodoxy. It does not mean that their ideas are orthodox; it just means that their words are orthodox. I am not suggesting that most people in these fundamentalist churches do not believe what they verbally affirm; I think they learn not to think about it. The problem of course in one’s life these ideas will be challenged. So why are heretics not all bad, let me tell you what I am not arguing. I am not suggesting that being wrong is okay. However, I am suggesting that allowing people to be wrong is not only okay it is a necessary. It is a necessary part of helping people come to understand what is in fact true.

Worship Habits

2005-06-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

This week I am leading the youth section of our Vacation Bible School. On the first night, the Bible study focused on worship. There are some handouts provided with the teacher guide for the youth to complete. One of the activities in these handouts is a quiz about attitudes of worship. The quiz is more like a “diagnostic” test to examine the health of one’s approach to worship. On this quiz, I noted an interesting question. The question read something like this... did the student come to worship eager “to be nourished” spiritually or...did they come to worship as a habit. It seemed obvious that the “right” answer is supposed to be that the youth are to come to worship to grow spiritually. I can think of at least one faculty member of the Divinity school who would pull out what was left of his hair. Habits shape the way we interact with the world. Worship as a habit forms us to see the world in the right way. How is a youth to know what it means to be “fed” spiritually if they have not been instilled with the correct habits that enable them to see the world rightly?

The Bible is a Hard Book

2005-06-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago after Wednesday night prayer meeting and choir practice, I went home, sat on the couch, and turned on the television. I watched the end of the show The West Wing. I do not normally watch this show. I do not know the characters or the plot, but this particular episode caught my attention. One of the characters in this show was a senator with presidential hopes. In the news it came out that, he was not a person of faith. A plot in the show was the political question of whether an atheist could be elected president. At the end of the show, the senator and the president were sitting alone, and the president asked the senator why he did not believe. The senator responded that someone had given him a Bible...and he read it. In his response, he did not cite the usual concerns, at least what I expected. It was not that miracles were too difficult to believe. He did not mention any conflict between science and religion. He said that he did not believe that a loving God would condemn people for the things he found in the Bible. He did not believe a good God would call for the execution of children who did not obey their parents (see the Ten Commandments). He did not believe a good God would make it a law that a man who raped a woman had to marry her. He did not believe that a good God would command people to go to war and kill every living thing. Anyone who reads the Bible will find passages, books that are very difficult to understand. I am taking a class at Southeastern, where the professor observed that “liberals” like to say a passage is difficult when what they mean is they do not like what it has to say. The students in the class chuckled and gave a small hurrah for the importance of the bastion of faithfulness to THE BIBLE. Often times the difficulties popularly discussed about the Bible tend to focus on the first chapters of Genesis, or in the miracles, or of course, the “apparent” prohibition of women in leadership, but I think the concerns expressed by this fictional television character are a more difficult question. The Bible is to my view a record of God's work in history. The fundamentalist demand Genesis chapter one to be interpreted in a narrow sense. By demanding uniformity with some controversial issues they create for themselves an illusion that the Bible is without difficulty. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. When people have this attitude I wonder how much of the Bible they read.

LOVE AND STEM CELLS

2005-06-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

In my ethics course we read a small book entitled Law, Love, and Language by Herbert McCabe. He provided interesting reflections on some of the limitations that are present in basing ethical decisions on love. Ethics as love seems like a great approach. Laws are inflexible unable to address the needs of particular situations. To make loving decisions is analogous to a great painting. There exist norms that need to be followed but the person who has mastered the art will know when to break the rules. McCabe using the metaphor of a painting illustrates two challenges to the use of love as a model for ethics. The first weakness is how one determines whether a painting is beautiful or ugly. When people use love as a model for ethics there are many difficulties in determining what exactly is a loving action. Furthermore, if there is no concrete correlation between love and behavior then the same act might be loving or it might not. One could never say anything about a person’s behavior as an indication of whether something was loving whether it was ethical. While love may be many things it cannot be anything. A related difficulty is the fact that love is an expanding word. As people mature they learn new facets of what it is to love, thus to know how to use the word is autobiographical. What may have at one time been thought to be loving may come to be recognized as not loving. Using the metaphor of the painting, another limitation for love to be the controlling factor in ethical decision making is determining the border. It is one thing to think about a loving act in reference to a face-to-face personal interaction, but human beings exist in larger contexts. If one only focuses on face-to-face interactions, one might miss the proverbial forest for the trees. One might love those who they have a personal face-to-face interaction with and yet be completely without love to wider societal problems. What happens when to be loving to the individual is to be oblivious to the wider societal problems? The decision about who to love becomes an arbitrary decision with this model. Why should a person be loving to one person as opposed to another? Who decides who is going to get hurt? People live in overlapping situations, love as an ethical model fails to give direction concerning how one should prioritize their ethical responsibilities. Ethics as love is not sufficient to sustain moral direction in the world of conflicting claims.

Master of Ceremonies

2005-06-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

The master of ceremonies is a delicate position. One is tasked with providing a background rhythm that moves a program along throughout the evening. Rhythm is a good word for what the master of ceremonies provides in that rhythm is something that often times goes unnoticed especially when done with great precision. A master of ceremonies has a great role to play for concerts and other gatherings, but it is not a position without some risk. The position poses a temptation. Not a temptation that strikes all people equally, some are more vulnerable. I recently attended a function where the master of ceremonies unfortunately succumbed to the temptation facing all people in this position the temptation shall we say to want to move from playing rhythm to wanting to play the melody. In this case the shift happened when, Master of Ceremonies felt compelled to “warm up the crowd”. If you are ever required to fulfill this function you might want to consider not alerting the crowd to your intended purposes. There is nothing the crowd can do to participate in being "warmed up". Either you succeed or you fail. If you choose to alert the audience, you may not want to share how you intend to fulfill this task. “I am going to tell you some jokes this evening, you know to warm you up”. Humor can be a quite effective means towards this end provided one hits one’s target. The poor MC who provided the impetus for these reflections set out to do just this unfortunately both for himself and those in attendance he began with flatulence humor. Generally a bad idea in almost any occasion perhaps a boy scout jamboree yet this was not the occasion. The parachute pants did not add any to the particular routine and in fact only seemed to exacerbate the already tenuous position the MC had created. I think most in if not all in the audiences would have likely preferred to begin the show, but the MC was not sure that the crowd had yet been adequately warmed so he proceeded to reflect on his image in the mirror after taking a shower. I guess he thought this self effacing humor might serve some possible purpose for me it simply served rather to want to crawl into some corner and only come out after the MC had exited the arena. Whether he felt the crowd was appropriately prepared or had exhausted his repertoire the master of ceremonies decided the time was at hand for the show to begin. And finally mercifully introduced the children’s dance recital.

Why Duke

2005-06-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

This summer I am taking a course on the Pastoral Epistles at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS). This course will complete my degree. I am glad to be near the end. It is interesting that I am finishing my degree in way where I began, perhaps there is some irony in this. I began my seminary training at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS). If you are not familiar with Southern Baptist Life there are six denominational schools. New Orleans, Golden Gate, Southwestern, Southern, Midwestern, and Southeastern. After a year at New Orleans I transferred. Today at SEBTS I was reminded of why I left New Orleans. I should first note there are many things I liked about New Orleans, and that I appreciate at Southeastern. I especially appreciate the devotion and commitment of the students. There is a piety that feels both familiar and comfortable to me. The students seem to have a great commitment to serve the church. Being in this community reminds me of the great appreciation I have for SBC life. And yet when I go into class it all changes. The professor and students spend at least half the class time talking about the potential false teachings that could emerge from some potential reading of a scripture passage. The professor in his wisdom asserts the ability to divine the motives the under gird variant readings. There is absolutely no questioning of the professors’ opinion. Today I was unable to keep from probing what seemed to me to be a questionable deduction. The professor became quite agitated and asked heatedly several times if he had answered my question. I had this same kind of experience at NOBTS. At NOBTS one encounter ended with a professor asking me to stand on my desk and flap my arms. It should come as no surprise that there is very little questioning of professors. No school is perfect obviously and there are many things I could identify as weaknesses about Duke. Today has reminded me to appreciate the learning environment at Duke. This environment fosters the probing of ideas. At the two SBC seminaries I have now attended there seems to be an initial fear to any questioning like that of an over protective parent who will not let anyone touch their child for fear of germs. Two more weeks, two long weeks.

The Form of Faith

2005-06-02T20:34:00.000-07:00

Thomas Aquinas presents what strikes me as a provocative way of understanding the relationship between faith and love. There is sometimes expressed a reticence within certain evangelical groups that some people put too great an emphasis on acts of charity without a proper balance of doctrinal instruction. The logic seems to be presented that “what good does it do to help someone with their physical needs if one does not meet their spiritual needs as well”. Can one be described as sharing one’s faith, if one does not convey the basic confession of the Christian faith? Aquinas presents an interesting approach to this question. He argues that the form of faith is charity. Voluntary acts take their species from the object to which the will is directed as an end. Things derive their species from the manner in which a form exists in natural things. The form of any voluntary act is shaped by the end to which it is directed., both because it takes nature by the end towards which it is directed and because the manner of the action is understood to by necessity correspond to the end. This does not mean that any action of “benevolence” is an act of faith. As Bertrand Russell notes albeit quite cynically there are many acts of benevolence that are by their very nature self serving. Some acts of good will are in fact done from selfish ends. However such cynicism is perhaps too quickly attributed to acts of charity. I think that one might consider in so far as acts of charity correspond to what is in fact true charity they are in fact bringing faith.

I'm glad I'm not like them

2005-06-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

Self-righteousness is not easily identifiable, at least not to the subject. The reason it is not easily identifiable is because of the deceptive nature that can result because of the interplay between our will and our observation. One can after all only see what one wants to see. Take as an example the story about the Sunday School teacher who taught the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector. The teacher recounted about these two men who went to pray. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself, while the tax collector humbly sought mercy. Jesus told his onlookers those described as confident of their own judgment that it was the tax collector who went home justified. After finishing the lesson the teacher looked at her children and said, now let us be thankful that we are not like that Pharisee. The Sunday School teacher did not realize that she was doing the very thing the Pharisee had done. Aren’t you glad you are not like that Sunday School teacher! People have a great susceptibility to deception not only from others but from oneself. A hallmark of self-righteousness is that one’s own standing is fixed in relation to someone else’s. To move up someone else has to move down. This delusional approach deprives one of joy, for who knows who might come along and displace me. There is no joy, that can be displaced. I'm glad I'm not like that.

Created in the image of God

2005-05-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Traveling to school a few weeks ago, I heard on the radio a discussion of the sport of track and field. The person on the radio was speaking of the great benefits of track and field. It is in his description the best sport to be involved in. If you want to be a real athlete you need to run track. Only the real athletes could handle the difficult training regimen that involves the dreaded intervals. These are a series of laps that one has to run. I did run track briefly in high school and I can attest to the odious character of these intervals. In Football one had to do something really bad like forget your helmet to have to run what the track athletes did everyday. I must confess I quit track before the end of the season, but it wasn’t because of the intervals, not that they were something I really liked. For me it was not even the humiliation of running the 100 yard dash as a freshman against what must have been the fastest men in America. The gun went off and my dignity would have been better preserved had I pretended to have been struck by the shot. I felt like I was running backwards, and in fact I probably gave off that impression to the spectators. The competition was not the reason I quite track. It was the shorts. If you have ever worn track shorts you know what I am talking about. They are just so short. I did not compare to the other track athletes. To think of myself as one was to find a quick way to a very low self esteem. There is a common challenge we all face. How do we understand who we are. If we understand ourselves primarily in terms of biology, of life, then our focus will be solely on the length and quality of living. If we focus on psychological understandings of our personhood then our focus will be on having healthy relationships, meaning getting what we want out of others. How you feel. If your focus is on sociology then what will be most important is where you come from, and what you are leaving behind your legacy. If your answer to the question who am I, can only be answered from these perspectives then you will in my opinion live a life of despair. It may be quiet, it may not be quiet despair. But these aspects of our personhood are insufficient to explain the complexity and depth of what it is to be you. Genesis gives a different message. And the Lord said, “let us create man in our image.”

Violence in Defense of Justice

2005-05-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

I so enjoyed New Testament 18 with professor Hays that I eagerly purchased a copy of, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. I was shocked and challenged by professor Hays interpretation of the responsibility of the Christian to pacifism. I say shocked because in my Christian formation I had never been taught that Christians should be pacifists, so perhaps you can imagine my surprise when I came across the passage, “ Can a soldier be a Christian? probably so, but my understanding of the gospel requires me to urge that person to renounce the way of violence and to follow Jesus in the way of costly refusal of violence as a means to justice[1].” I came across this quote in another section of the book. Immediately my curiosity peaked I flipped the pages to discover to my shock that not only did Professor Hays contend that the way of the Cross excluded one from military service, but that the church for this reason should be at the margins of society. In my Christian formation I had always learned the opposite. Christians should participate in the life of the polis. The two ideas are in diametrical tension. While I hope to be able to reorient my understanding to the truth of the scripture, I am not quite yet ready to accept all of the professors argument.

I think one of the challenges I have to Dr. Hays’ understanding, is the idea that Christians should not serve the state, if I am understanding him correctly. Having grown up in Washington, DC. I have seen first hand the perversion that power can do to people. I recognize that there are people who can make horrible decisions based on their desire to stay in control. There is a definite ugliness to the political life, but does that have to be? I think the same observation could be made for any authority role. Even in a family an insecure immature parent can through poor judgment become an ogre. The maxim that politics always corrupts is perhaps to quickly accepted. For example, I believe this article does not address the current reality that many of the most well trained able leaders for many countries around the world are Christians. In many places in the world the best education has for many years come from religious schools. My wife comes from Burma, you may know the country as Myanmar, but those who fled the country due to the brutal military regime prefer to remember the country by the old name, in Burma currently a military government rules the country in a horrible way. At family gatherings I hear the older family members reminisce about how much better life was under the colonial authorities. The British for all their problems brought education to the mass of people. There was not corruption at least not at the level that exists today. There was not the trafficking of young girls by the government to brothels around Southeast Asia etc. Is it possible that the participation in good government by Christians could be a witness to the truth and glory of God?

If Christians are to serve in positions of authority then they must use the sword to maintain justice, thus the reason for Dr. Hays contention that Christians should not serve in such a capacity. I believe this is an issue that should be at least considered. If a Christian has the responsibility for administering authority there is always the need to administer consequences for improper actions. As an example on page 7 of Dr. Hays’ syllabus he cautions, “Any student who is found guilty of plagiarism will receive an F in the course and will be referred to the academic dean for possible expulsion.” The warning against plagiarism is recognition that wrong actions have consequences. Can the execution of justice that is necessary for society be compatible with the Christian life? In the Old Testament one finds the people of God in positions of civil authority, and certainly there is the use of force. Dr. Hays argues that the New Testament witness trumps the Old Testament where there is a conflicting message. I agree that one should not take passages of holy war from the Old Testament and apply them to the role of the church, but could one see in the Old Testament an example of people of faith using both justly and unjustly the use of violence for the sake of the society.

Beyond the issue of how a Christian is to live within the state at the theoretical level there is also the practical question of how we are to live in a society of violence. Before coming to Duke I worked in a crime ridden neighborhood. One day I was working with children outside on the streets and a fight broke out across from where we were practicing baseball. One man chased another with a pistol. How according to Dr. Hays’ paradigm is a Christian to respond? Is one to call the police? If one is to call the police, how can one say that a Christian cannot serve as a police officer, but one can call on their services if needed? Or is one supposed to just keep playing baseball?

In Durham, probably while I type this letter there are drunken men beating their girlfriends. Priests sodomize children. Hundreds of parents refuse to pay child support. I could go on but I am sure one would concede that there is much that is unjust in the world. I am not a liberationist (perhaps I should be) I simply think that if a woman was being raped across the street it would be immoral not to stop the violence even if it necessitated the use of force. If you would concede this than it follows that if there is a rape in China that we could some how stop we would have the moral authority indeed the moral obligation to intercede. I willingly recognize that my thoughts on this matter are formed in large measure by the community that raised me, but this was a community shaped by the message of Christ. The passage in Matthew Dr. Hays cites from the Sermon on the Mount that followers of Christ are to turn the other cheek is a difficult passage. There are many passages in the New Testament that challenge one’s sense of fairness (the Old Testament too for that matter). At the same time is there not a difference between letting oneself be wronged, and letting someone else be wronged especially when it comes to people who we choose not to help? The parable of the Samaritan is applicable in principle (I think). Pacifism seems to be like the Levite who does not want to get defiled by the bloody corpse. No doubt the sword has been misused in the history of the church all the more reason to request that Christians engage how to measure the use of force.

Kate Campbell wrote a song that perhaps sums up my thoughts, “The devil’s got a line for you and ten thousand lures.” The devil can be misguiding the church in what is perceived as Biblical pacifism just as the devil deceives the Church in Serbia to bless murder.

Ethics in the Public Square

2005-05-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

I am not sure that it is possible to have a coherent exchange of ideas with regards to ethical matters in a pluralistic setting. I suppose it is possible to express one’s owns viewpoint, however I think that even such a proposal is more difficult than believers realize. There is an assumption that people can through rational reflection consider the merits of a matter and then form a conclusion. Unfortunately too often there is little if any discussion of what constitutes the merits. As an undergraduate I took a course on environmental decision making. We considered several different complex formulas for evaluating policy decisions. These models attempted to capture the complexity of different policy decisions. The different potential impacts of some decision on a particular ecosystem. Such models do serve to illustrate the various impacts that one might not immediately recognize, however they ultimately do not help to build a consensus. The evaluators must ascribe different levels of significance to concerns. In one particular model the evaluators were asked to place a numerical value between 1 and 10 of the importance of separate impacts. These would then be placed in a complex equation to determine the best decision. The obvious limitation of the equation rested on the subjectivity of the measurements. What might be a ten for one person might be a one for someone else. Our political discussion of stem cell research seems to take a similar approach. Depending on what the values one places on the various “factors” shape the outcome of one’s position. Ethical debates simply become political maneuvering to ensure that one’s own point system is in place.

2005-05-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Customized embryonic stem cells offer the potential to provide scientist more information about the development of diseased cells. By learning the derivation of specific diseases scientist would then have the opportunity to explore ways of preventing or treating the diseased cells. Researchers could potentially identify ways to treat cancer and genetic diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, juvenile diabetes etc. Most people do not need to go far from their immediate circle of acquaintances to know people who are affected by these diseases. It seems that such research should be supported. Of course this new field of research has generated a number ethical concerns. I think that most people would agree that a utilitarian approach to the problem is not satisfactory, but why is it a problem? Such reasoning affects not only the subject i.e. the embryos but also those making the decisions to support such research i.e. potentially me. Consider the dilemma in the Russian Novel Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov the protagonist in Doestoyevski’s story is convinced that an old miserly woman who runs a pawn shop could be killed, so he can use the money to help the poor. I do not mean to draw a direct parrallel with embryonic stem cells. However the consequences of Raskolnikov's actions are interesting. As the story unfolds the very act leads to his own destruction. The destruction in his life is not simply the punishment from the law, but the punishment that comes from the reasoning that led to the act. The book has a great happy ending that I do not want to spoil if you haven’t read the work. The story provides an interesting reflection on utilitarian reasoning. No ethical decisions are made in a vacuum. I am concerned that such research will have unforeseen consequences for the way we ascribe worth to individuals. The concern that I fear is not simply the protection of the “unborn”, but the way such ascription of worth will affect the way potential supporters of the research (again me) view themselves.

Just a Test

2005-05-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

This is my first post, just testing to see if it works