Bentley and His Brain

Summer, for me, is over.

The days of this blog are numbered.

While you’re waiting for the “farewell” post, may I recommend reading something by David Bentley Hart, like this and this. Over the summer, at the suggestion of Wonders for Oyarsa, I read his book The Doors of the Sea and I’ve taken an interest in his work. (I might even be learning to appreciate it.) Warning: DBH has a really big brain, thinks really deep thoughts and writes really long sentences that use really difficult words to talk about…stuff. His prose takes some getting used to if you’re used to reading…practically anything else, particularly blogs.

All Rebellion is Sin but…

…not all sin is rebellion.

The first time this thought occurred to me was in the earliest days of parenthood. My wife and I had been reading different books in order to prepare ourselves as best we could for what was coming. I’m not sure what well-intending, misguided soul lead us to read the Ezzo book but it didn’t take either of  us long to realize that we had a different idea of God’s way of raising children. Like a lot of evangelicals, Ezzo sees children as not just little sinners but little rebels. For him and those in his camp, to be sinful is the same as being rebellious. Consequently, God’s way of parenting is less about nurturing life and more about putting down a rebellion in the home. Even if that is an overstatement, it’s not an overstatement to say that the parent-child relationship portrayed in this book was combative. As we read it, we felt like children were seen as the (rebellious) enemy who need to be taken firmly in hand and have the rebellion squeezed out of them. While neither of us were inclined to deny that humans are born with a sin nature, we also were not willing to look upon our gift from God as the enemy. We refused to believe that every time our child misbehaved (i.e. sinned); he was acting rebelliously toward our God-given parental authority.

This past week-end, in a conversation with another Christian, I noticed that this person held the opinion that all sin is rebellion. The comment that revealed this had something to do with The Fall, the event in which Adam and Eve sinned/rebelled against God. I pointed out that I don’t think that all sin is rebellion and derailed the discussion just a bit. Come on, think about it…

I’ll assume that you know the story in full and pose the rhetorical question; did Eve rebel against God when she ate the forbidden fruit? As boring and/or sophomoric as it may be to do it, I’m going to take a moment to define the terms. The biblical word translated as “sin” can mean “to miss, to miss the way, to go wrong, to incur guilt” and the nearly-clichéd meaning “to miss the mark”. The biblical word translated as “rebel” can mean “to be contentious, refractory, disobedient”. The difference between these two concepts is that the first (sinning) can be either intentional or accidental, while the second (rebelling) can only be intentional. So, was it Eve’s intention to reject God’s authority and repudiate His love? Perhaps we can’t really know the answer to that but I’ll base my opinion on Paul’s characterization of Eve’s state of mind.

On two separate occasions (2 Corinthians 11:3, 1 Timothy 2:14), Paul made the comment that Eve was “deceived” by Satan.  On both occasions, the root of the words translated as “deceive” are the same and carry the idea that Eve was “cheated” or “beguiled”. She was lied to by the serpent, and for her part, she believed the lie. Believing the lie was wrong. Eating the fruit was disobedient but was it contentious? Was she contending with God or was she simply failing to think through the implications of her decision to trust the serpent and ignore her own experience of God? I’m inclined to think that Eve, without the knowledge of good and evil, had no idea that the serpent could have a sinister intent and so she was not on her guard. The devil was cunning and he “beguiled” her, leading her astray. Eve missed the goal of obedience but I don’t think that she contended with God. The word “deceived” just doesn’t carry the concept of intention(ality?) and making it carry that concept is forced. I suppose it could be argued that there is sufficient overlap between the concepts of sinning, disobeying and rebelling to allow for the position that all sin is rebellion but I think that doing so requires ignoring significant nuances. After all, words are chosen because they signify particular meanings and not other meanings. It’s not “just semantics”.

Why God Kills Babies

Chances are good that if you come from a Christian background, at some point in your life you had an encounter with this Bible Story book. This is the one that I’ve been reading to the kids from lately. (We have several that I’ve been rotating through.)

If you popped over to Amazon and took a look at it, you noticed right off that it’s a “serious” kid’s book. The illustrations are not quite photo-realism, but they’re not cartoons either. The people smile when they’re happy and frown when they’re sad, unlike this one where you’ll find a grinning Jonah kneeling in prayer on a comfy looking bit of whale innards. Obviously, the Egermeier book attempts to “keep it real”, which is why my wife and I recently had to have a discussion about reading the story of Moses to the boys.

If you know the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, you know that God had to afflict Pharaoh and all of Egypt in several different ways before Pharaoh obeyed God and released the Israelites from their slavery. One of the plagues that God visited on the hard-hearted Pharaoh and the complicit Egyptians was the death of all their first-born children . As far as I can tell, the plague killed all of the first-born whether infant or elderly, however I suspect my children would only think about the little ones. The challenge in telling this story to our little ones is reconciling for them why our Good and Loving God would kill Innocent Babies. My wife and I have had this discussion before and I’ve even posted about the time my oldest son quizzed me about why God wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. My wife and I didn’t come to a unified position on whether or not to read the Egermeier version, which doesn’t shy away from the facts, however we agreed that it’s not a bad idea to have an answer in mind should the kids ask why God killed the Egyptian babies. So, I went off, grabbed a notebook and pencil and began to write an imaginary conversation with the kids in order to come up with some kind of answer that is both true and understandable for kids. Here’s something akin to what I came up with that night:

Kids: Daddy! Why did God kill the Egyptian babies? That’s mean!

Daddy: That’s a good question. Let’s think about it: Do you know what a slave is?

Kids: Someone who works.

Daddy: Yeah, sort of. You see, a slave is someone that other people treat like animals. The Israelites used to be neighbors with the Egyptians but then the Egyptians took them, made them slaves and began to treat them like animals. Think about that: Where do animals sleep?

Kids: Outside? In barns? In houses?

Daddy: Ok. Where do animals go potty?

Kids laughter) In the potty!

Daddy: No, they don’t. Animals don’t have clean places to go potty. Some animals on the farm tend to potty in the same place where they eat and sleep…or just anywhere they can find. What kind of food do animals eat?

Kids: Grass!

Daddy: Yeah, some do. Do people eat grass?

Kids: No! Yuck!

Daddy: The Israelites probably didn’t eat grass, but they didn’t eat nice food like you and the Egyptians either. What are animals good for? What are chickens good for?

Kids: Eggs! Nuggets!

Daddy: Exactly. Does anyone ever offer to give the chicken money for their eggs? No. We just take them. As for nuggets, before you can make chicken nuggets, you have to kill the chicken. Do you go to jail if you kill a chicken?

Kids: No!

Daddy: That’s what the Egyptians did to the Israelites. They made them live in dirty places like animals and gave them simple food like animals. When the Israelites had babies, the Egyptians took their children and sold them like they were animals. Remember that the Egyptians even killed the Israelite babies and nobody put them in jail for doing it. Should the Egyptians have been punished for this?

Kids: Yes, but not the babies!

Daddy: God gave the Egyptians 400 years to stop being mean to the Israelites, but they didn’t. When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, He told Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. If Pharaoh had listened, then the babies would not have died.

Kids: But the babies didn’t do anything wrong! God should’ve killed Pharaoh!

Daddy: You’re right; the Egyptian babies didn’t do anything wrong and neither did the Israelite babies that the Egyptians sold and killed. God sent Moses to give the Egyptians a chance to do what was right: to release the Israelites and to stop treating them like animals. God tried to give them mercy but they didn’t want God’s mercy.

Kids: What’s mercy?

Daddy: Mercy is when we get something good that we don’t derserve instead of the punishment that we do deserve.  Justice is getting the punishment we deserve for the bad things we’ve done. God offered Pharaoh and Egypt mercy but when they said No! He gave them justice for killing the Israelite babies. Just like the Israelites lost their babies, so the Egyptians had to lose theirs because they would not accept God’s mercy.

Kids: But what about the babies? Doesn’t God love the Egyptian babies? Couldn’t He give mercy to the babies?

Daddy: Yes He does. In fact, God loves those babies so much that when Jesus returns, God is going to give those babies new bodies and new life. They’ll live with people who love each other and don’t treat people like animals. They won’t learn how to be mean like the Egyptians that God punished for treating the Israelites so badly.

Of course, no conversation with my kids would ever last this long. They’d get bored and begin to make jokes. In fact, I’d probably lose them completely once I brought up the idea of animals going potty. Additionally, my kids would constantly interrupt with additional questions. Yet, having gone through the exercise I think I’ve come up with a condensenced answer.

God loved both the Egyptians and the Israelites and He was very unhappy when the Egyptians took the Israelites and started being mean to them. Remember, the Bible says that the Egyptians killed Israelite babies. God sent Moses to give them a chance to stop being mean but Pharaoh and the Egyptians would not stop. When God saw that they would not stop, He gave them the same trouble that they gave the Israelites: He took away the Egyptian babies just like the Egyptians took away the Israelite babies. When Jesus returns, the babies of both the Egyptians and the Israelites will be given new life and there will be no more killing.

I don’t know if the kids would understand that or not. I think they might. They may not remember it either. I just know that I’d rather give them an honest, if difficult, answer instead of avoiding the subject entirely. I’d really love to give them THE CORRECT ANSWER but honestly, I don’t think I know that that is.

Bow Down or Boogie?

Over at The God Journey, Brad and Wayne were talking about Chuck Colson’s criticism of the book The Shack. Colson criticized that The Shack’s low view of God and the Bible, pointing out that Isaiah, John (the Revelator), Paul et al fell down in abject humility before the glory of God while the main character of The Shack ate collard greens with God and called her “Papa”. The conversation eventually turned to discussing who God is. Is God High and Exalted as experienced by Isaiah or is He Meek and Lowly as experienced through Jesus. Is God our Sovereign Lord or is He our Abba? On the Day of Judgment, will we kneel in reverence before His Majesty or will we be giving high-fives all around?

In the conversation on The God Journey podcast, Colson represents the God Most High attitude. The most intimate word that he could use for God would be the formal Father, but only because it’s in the Bible. Approaching the other end (if not completely on the other end) are Brad and Wayne. They would prefer to use Jesus’ word “Abba” to address God, a word that is supposed to be roughly equivalent to our “Daddy”. Colson thinks the appropriate relationship to God requires falling on our faces and proclaiming “How Great Thou Art” before the throne while Brad and Wayne want to play in God’s lap the way that little children did with Jesus. Which is appropriate? Should we grovel or should we dance before God?

The Bible shows God as “Most High” and “Most Nigh”. In the beginning Adam and Eve took walks in the garden with God. After the Fall, they fled from His presence. Abraham haggled with God over Sodom and Gomorrah. The Israelites cowered at the foot of the mountain begging that God not speak to them. Moses and the elders ate and drank in the presence of God. Isaiah fell prostrate and confessed to be a “man of unclean lips”. David called God his “shepherd” and described Him lovingly in the famous Psalm. When God came in the man Jesus, He dandled children on His knee and turned over tables in the temple. Sinners were drawn to him. Roman soldiers “drew back and fell to the ground” before Him. After the resurrection, Mary threw her arms around Jesus while Saul of Tarsus fell to the ground and called him “Lord”. The appropriate concept of God is one that is able to accept the all of these expressions. Some folks groveled. Others danced. Some responded in other ways. Relationships are complex as the Bible shows.

I don’t know if it’s necessary or not, but it seems to be fairly common that people who are growing in their faith go through a period of extremes. Someone grows up with God Most High, finds out that he is free in Christ and rushes toward God Most Nigh. Another one starts out with Big Daddy, Junior and The Spook in the commune only to end up with The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost at the Orthodox Church. Some folks need to experience greater intimacy with God. Others need to experience greater reverence for God. Some need to hear that they can approach the throne boldly. Others need to realize that it’s a throne and not a Lazy-Boy recliner.

If it is an error to tend toward one of these attitudes or the other, I tend to err toward the throne forgetting that the One seated there is Love. There are days when I boogie when I should bow. There are other days when the reverse is true. Some day, I’ll see God and I’m confident that whatever attitude I have then will be the appropriate one…for me.