A Muslim asked a Christian…

…the following question:

What are the Christians’ deterrent from sin?

The Holy Spirit is the Christian’s deterrent from sin. While there is debate as to the precise point at which this happens, the Holy Spirit is given to the believer and begins a “new creation” in him. This new creation is a process which is completed at the return of Jesus or the resurrection, whichever comes first. Throughout this process, the “old man” is “put to death” while the “new man” grows in life. The new man loses his desire for sin. It no longer appeals to him. Yet, he sins because he is not yet fully a “new creation”. When he sins, he is sorrowful and repents. God graciously forgives him and the relationship remains firm. As the Christian grows, a deterrent in the form of external punishment isn’t necessary.  The threat of Hell or of any other punishment is motivational in direct proportion to the maturity of the Christian. The more immature the Christian, the less he understands the love of God and the more easily motivated by fear of punishment he is. Conversely, the more mature the Christian, the more he understands the love of God and the more he values the relationship with God, so that he flees from sin.

Remember, the Christian knows that God did not make man sinful, therefore the sinful state must be reversed for mankind to be what God originally intended. This is only possible through a new creation, which (like the first creation) involves the Spirit of God.

Questions from Teens

I’m afraid of teenagers. Always have been. Even when I was one.  Patrick Mead, on the other hand, isn’t. He’s a preacher for a church in Rochester, Michigan who goes to local schools to speak with teens about Christianity. I recently saw a post at Patrick’s blog where he lists ten questions that teens in the public schools tend to ask him. I thought it would be a good exercise for me to try my hand at answering them. Of course, blogging answers is not the same as giving them out in real time but it’s still good to think about the kind of response I might give.

From Patrick’s post, 10 questions from teens:

1. Why do Christians hate gay people? Can gay people go to heaven? What’s so bad about being gay?

A) Some Christians hate gay people because they don’t understand gay people, God or themselves. I think a better question is, “Does God love gay people?” The answer to that is “Yes.”

B) It might surprise you to hear this, but the Bible doesn’t actually say that people go to heaven when they die. Seriously. Look it up. So you don’t think I’m dodging the question entirely, let me reword it slightly. “Do gay people live forever with God when they die?” People who live with God forever are no longer gay…or selfish…or dishonest…or sinful in any way.

C) Homosexuality,  like all sin, keeps us from living out the purpose for which God made us; namely to be His image in the material universe. All sin defaces that image. Homosexuality is no worse than any other sin in this regard. It just seems like it is because it gets a lot of attention from the media.

2. Why did you choose Christianity over the other religions?

Well, it’s not like I went online to GodMart.com, selected several religions for consideration, hit the “compare” button and then , after closely reading the resulting table, chose the one I liked best. Like you, and everyone on the planet, much of what I think, believe and know about everything has been inherited; I got it from someone or somewhere else like TV, music, books and even family and friends. I’ve chosen  Jesus over other deities and prophets because I think he was telling the truth about God, himself and humanity.

3. Will people who don’t believe in Jesus go to hell? How is that fair? How can God be loving if he sends people in Third World countries to hell just because they never got to go to church?

A) Jesus said that no one can come to God except through him. Now, this statement is either true or false. I accept it as true because I believe that Jesus was exactly who he claimed to be. Consequently, I have to accept that people who try to come to God through any other way will not reach Him. This is why it is so important to Christians to tell people about Jesus.

B) How is it fair for Jesus to be the only way to God? It’s better than fair. It’s loving. When we say that someone isn’t being fair, we tend to mean that they are not giving others their rights. You have to understand that God doesn’t owe anyone anything. He doesn’t owe anyone life or happiness. He gives life and happiness because he loves. When humans hurt Him by their sin, he doesn’t owe them forgiveness. He forgives because he loves. God doesn’t owe life forever with him, so God’s provision of  a way for us to be with him at all is an act of love. Choosing Jesus to be that way for us to be with him is his decision, not ours and it’s one he made in love.

C) God does not send people (from the First, Second or Third World) to hell because they never got to go to church. People go into hell because they reject God’s love. The question is, how can they accept God’s love if they don’t know about it? They can’t, which is why Christians think it is important to tell the story of Jesus through out the world. So, what will God do with those folks who never heard the story of Jesus and got the chance to accept God’s love? The Bible doesn’t address this question. In light of what God’s having made a way in Jesus for people to be with him forever, I trust that he is loving and wise and will do what is good.

4. Do you believe in creation? How can you believe the Bible and science?

A) Yes, I believe that God created everything.

B) The question assumes that they contradict each other. I don’t think that they do.  I think that the Bible and Science either address the same questions from different perspectives or different questions entirely. I think the real problem comes when we try to get our answers to certain questions from the inappropriate source. For example, when I’m hungry and I’m in a restaurant, I ask for a menu to help me decide what to eat. I don’t ask for a biology textbook so that I can learn how my food is digested and converted into energy.

5. Why did you become a minister/priest/pastor?

I didn’t. I started a blog instead.

6. Do you have doubts? What are they?

A) Certainly, I have doubts.

B) I sometimes ask myself “What if…?” What if I’m wrong?  What if  God doesn’t exist, or what if he does and he’s not going to forgive me of my sins? What if this group is right about God, Jesus, faith and I’m wrong? I don’t tend to think of these as doubts. I tend to doubt reports of miracles even though I believe that God can work them.

7. How many sacraments do you have? Why?

A) Um…not sure. I think two.

B) Of the seven sacraments of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, I see Jesus requiring only two of his followers, namely baptism and the Eucharist.

8. What does it mean to be a Christian?

To be a Christian means to follow Jesus. I’m still learning what all that entails.

9. Is there a heaven and hell? What are they like?

A) The word heaven has a couple of different jobs in the Bible. Sometimes it means the place where God is. Sometimes, it means the sky as opposed to the ground. It can also mean the space beyond the sky where the stars are. We know what the sky and space are like. As for the place where God is; I assume that it’s a good place. Hell on the other hand is a place without God and so I trust it is no where I want to be.

10. How can you say you are right and everyone else is wrong?

Understand that for the most part, people don’t make up their religious beliefs. They inherit them or they choose them. In some respects, it’s like joining Facebook or MySpace: you don’t register and then start ordering the network to function the way you want it to. Instead, you figure out what is acceptable use and decide whether or not you will follow the policy or not. If not, you either use another social-networking service or you start one of your own. You could say that I registered with “FaithBook” and friended Jesus…, but you probably shouldn’t. One of Jesus’ status messages reads,  “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.”  I believe him. If someone says to me, “All paths lead to God,” it’s impossible for me to say he is right, but so is Jesus. It is dishonest to God and an insult to your intelligence. After all, you know it’s impossible for “one way” and “all ways” to both be true.

I don’t know if these are good answers…persuasive answers…helpful answers, or not. But they’r what came to mind this time around.

Graven Literature?

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get a chance to read The Shack while I’m home this summer. I first heard about this book in a sermon by Mark Driscoll. Mark, within the larger context of a sermon about God, was discouraging his audience from reading the book because it contains …let’s say erroneous doctrine. One particular fault that Mark brought up as an example was the way in which the author, William Young, represents God the Father in the book.

From what I can gather over at Amazon.com, the main character of the book has a conversation with the Trinity in a shack somewhere in Oregon. God the Father is represented as a black woman named Papa, Jesus appears in the form of a Middle Eastern man and the Spirit appears as an Asian woman. Mark’s issue with the representation of God the Father in this book is the way, from his perspective, it violates the commandment against creating a “graven image”. I think that Mark’s objection doesn’t hold water.

I’m going to trust the scholars behind a couple of different translations and not get bogged down with the original Hebrew. So, here’s Exodus 20:4, the commandment Mark referred to, in 4 separate versions:

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (King James)

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (English Standard-the one Mars Hill Church prefers)

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” (New International)

“No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me. But I’m unswervingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.” (vss 4-6, The Message)

It sounds to me that the commandment is dealing broadly with worshipping other (and therefore false) gods and explicitly with the common practice of making an idol for the purpose of worship. In both contexts the idea that the people are not to worship these idol-gods is central.

Obviously, a literary representation is not a “carved” image or a cast “idol”. If that’s a bit too legalistic or literal of an approach, consider Deut. 4:15-19. Even looking at the fuller expression of the commandment from Deut. 4:15-19, I think that the heart of the issue here is worship. Without any evidence one way or the other, I’m going to assume that the author of The Shack is not inviting his readers to enter into the worship of a black woman called Papa and so I can’t see how Mark can apply this commandment to the character of God the Father from this book. But that doesn’t answer the wider question: is it a sin to represent God the Father as having a body in a piece of literature? As far as I can see today, the answer is no, so long as this literary representation isn’t presented as an object for worship. I suppose it could be argued that “Papa” is being offered an object of worship at which point the author would need to speak up about his intentions and I don’t think he’ll be reading my blog…so, it’s not really germane.

Maybe The Shack is chock-full of doctrinal error, bad theology and out-right heresy. Maybe not. Either way, I’m not discouraged from reading it by Mark’s example simply because I don’t agree with his position and his reasoning.

Something Reformed This Way Comes

Living outside of the US as I do, it’s difficult to follow the cultural trends, particularly those related to church/religion. Yet, for a while now I’ve gotten the impression via the internet that there’s been an increased interest/awareness/enthusiasm for Calvinism back home. Recently, that impression was strenthened by Justin’s post.  (And it was just now strengthened even more as I’ve just found out that Scott McKnight was aware of this resurgence of Calvinism as far back as August of 2006. Take note of the posts under his category Post-Calvinism located on the right side of the page.) I appreciated Justin’s post because he affirmed those aspects of “New Calvinism” which ought to be affirmed while encouraging caution.

My experience as of late indicates that these NeoCals tend to see theology in two camps: Calvinists and Arminians. (Perhaps they also see Papists but that’s a speculation on my part and not an experience.) I would like to add to Justin’s caution that the NeoCals remember that both theology and humans are more complex than that. Immediately assuming that non-Calvinists are Arminians and treating them with contempt does not encourage dialogue. For that matter, calling folks Pelagians and/or  Semi-Pelagians isn’t good for communication either.

Perhaps someone more in tune with the culture in the states could post some advice as to how to recognize a NeoCal from a distance thereby giving the rest of us the option of avoiding praying against for them.

What Would Jesus Say to Mohammed?

Someone I know sent me this video of a lecture by Jay Smith, a third generation Christian missionary, who attempts to answer the question I’ve used to entitle this post. To be sure, I know too little about Islam to be able to deliver the kind of lecture that Jay gives. However, when the above question was posed at the beginning of the talk, this was the first thing to come to my mind; “Who do you say that I am?”

If you’ve watched the video, you know that this is not the question that Jay comes up with. Instead, he has Jesus asking Mohd questions about the legitimacy of his claims to prophethood and the name of the god that he represents. It just seems to me that, as interesting as the answers to those questions are, Jesus would cut to the heart of the matter and simply pose the same question that He put to his disciples. After all, Mohd’s religion makes some clear claims about Jesus’ identity by means of the Koran.

I suspect that Mohd’s answer would be , “You’re a prophet of Allah. You are the son of the virgin Mariam. You are the bringer of the Injil (Gospel)”. The first response isn’t too far from the answer Jesus got from his disciples regarding what the “crowds” were saying about Him: “Some say you are John the Baptist, others Elijah or one of the prophets.” Mohd would fit somewhat neatly in with the crowd…until perhaps the second response.

I’ve tried to imagine how the conversation would play out and simply can’t. Would He tell Mohd. “You are not far from the Kingdom of God”? Would he say, “You do not know Me or my Father”? Would Jesus tell Mohd. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”, or would He declare “I am the Alpha and the Omega”? Would Jesus simply say, “Depart from me…I never knew you”?  I just don’t know.

On the other hand, I’m confident that He would not respond to Mohd’s answers the way He responded to Peter’s confession; “Blessed are you…for my Father in Heaven has revealed it to you.”

Armchair Apology

Last week, I wrote that I had an “apology” in the works. This is it. It’s an apology in both senses of the word: I express regret for my intellectual sin and I provide an explanation for why I sinned in a particular manner. Here goes.

A while back, I took issue with Calvin’s doctrine of predestination. I stated my opinion that his arrival at this doctrine was the product of a flawed hermeneutic. I contended that the specific nature of the flaw was that Calvin’s hermeneutic failed to see the Scriptures, particularly the writings of Paul, from an Eastern/Jewish worldview. Deservedly, this wording drew criticism from someone in the Reformed Theology camp. Since that post, I’ve come to the point where I would like to make some corrections to the statements which represented my understanding at the time followed by a defense of my conflation of some important concepts.

First, I would like to address my comment regarding Calvin’s hermeneutic. In my original post, I was wrong to write out of my ignorance. I’m sorry. However, thanks to this summary of Calvin’s hermeneutical principles by Pastor Biggs, I am no longer ignorant. While it is apparent to me now that Calvin attempted to take into account both the intent of the author and the historical context of the Scripture, I still believe that Calvin’s understanding of the author’s intent and of the historical context was shaped by his Western/Gentile worldview. Originally, I reasoned this way:

Calvin was a product of Western/Gentile culture. He was influenced by Augustine, another product of Western/Gentile culture (by way of Greco-Roman culture). Therefore, Calvin did not try to understand the Scripture from the perspective of a first century Palestinian Jew, which Paul certainly was. Had Calvin tried to understand Scripture with an Eastern/ Jewish perspective in mind, then he probably would not have articulated the doctrine of predestination as he did, if at all.

Now, I understand that Calvin was influenced not only by Augustine, but several other church fathers. As is pointed out by R.Ward Holder in this paper concerning Calvin’s exegesis of Romans 7, “Augustine was not the only Father who influenced Calvin. Especially in his exegetical writings, Calvin frequently considered the opinions of Ambrose, Origen, and Jerome, among others. But the citations to Chrysostom far outstripped these.” Each one of these men were Gentiles by birth and (with one possible exception) Western in so much that being products of Greco-Roman culture made one Western. Consequently, I continue to believe that my earlier position is not entirely unreasonable and without merit. (See this and this if you’ve got the time.) For clarity’s sake, I’ll restate my position: I believe that Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is NOT the product of interpreting the Scripture (particularly Paul) with the Eastern/Jewish worldview of the authors in mind. Instead, I think that he comes to the doctrine of predestination partly as a result of the Western/Gentile worldview which both he and his main influences possessed. I suggest that attempting to interpret Scripture with the Eastern/Jewish worldview of the authors (and some, but not all, intended audiences) in mind, Calvin’s doctrine of predestination is not an unavoidable theological conclusion. (Which I suppose is obvious because not everyone has come to hold Calvin’s views on predestination.)

The second issue that I want to address is my erroneous conflation of the following three doctrines: predestination, determinism and fatalism. Since my original post, I’ve been learning about these three doctrines and I believe I understand why the conflation of these three concepts was a mistake. At the very least, I certainly understand now why Calvinists/Reformed theologians would find fault with saying that they are the same things, which I did. However, I would like to demonstrate that the mistake is an easy and understandable one to make.

Even though I think that the Wikipedia has to be taken with a grain of salt, I’m going to gladly accept its support on this point and quote the following:

Concerning predestination:

“Predestination may sometimes be used to refer to other, materialistic, spiritualist, non-theistic or polytheistic ideas of determinism, destiny, fate, doom, or karma. Such beliefs or philosophical systems may hold that any outcome is finally determined by the complex interaction of multiple, possibly immanent, possibly impersonal, possibly equal forces, rather than the issue of a Creator’s conscious choice.”

At other times, it may be used to refer to the issue of a Creator’s conscious choice.

Concerning determinism:

“It is a popular misconception that determinism necessarily entails that humanity or individual humans have no influence on the future and its events (a position known as Fatalism);”

So, I’m not alone in my error. In fact, lots of people make it.

Concerning fatalism:

“While the terms are often used interchangeably, fatalism, determinism, and predestination are discrete in emphasizing different aspects of the futility of human will or the foreordination of destiny. However, all these doctrines share common ground.”

Of course, all bolding is mine.

Again, the Wikipedia may lack credibility, so I have to say that I didn’t really feel my confusion on these doctrines was validated until I read excerpts from the Belgic and Westminster confessions.

The Belgic Confession of Faith of 1561 states:

“We believe that all the posterity of Adam, being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest himself such as he is; that is to say, merciful and just: Merciful, since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he, in his eternal and unchangeable council, of mere goodness hath elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without respect to their works: Just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves. (Art. XVI)”

Take note of the word “unchangeable”. The definition of fate is that the outcome is unchangeable. In this confession, God’s council is unchangeable, that is to say that God’s decision on the matter can not be changed. He has decided. Humans can not avoid their destiny, be it heaven or hell.

The Westminster Confession of Faith (1643) says this about predestination:

“God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected . . . are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power. through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His Sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.” (Chap. III — Articles I, III, VI and VII)

This confession goes a bit further than just individual salvation and says that “whatsoever comes to pass” has been decided by God beforehand and “whatsoever” is “unchangeable”. So, even these documents, important to Reformation history, use language that can be easily understood by the uninitiated (me) as fatalistic (in the sense that the future outcome is unavoidable) and deterministic (in the sense that there is an external agent moving humans to a particular end).

Even this summary of Calvin’s Institutes uses language reminiscent of fatalism and determinism: “God once established by His eternal and unchangeable plan those whom he long before determined once for all to receive unto salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, he would have to devote to destruction.” Though it was certainly an error to conflate the doctrines of predestination, determinism and fatalism, I believe that I’ve demonstrated that it was an understandable one to make.

To sum up: my original assumption concerning Calvin’s hermeneutic was based on ignorance and I was wrong to conflate the doctrines of predestination, determinism and fatalism in the manner that I did in that post. I apologize. I’ve learned better and I am learning still and it seemed right to me to say something publicly about that since I made my errors publicly in that original post.

What’s Wrong with Calvinism?

I’ve never been a fan of Jean Calvin’s theology.

Even before I learned who Calvin was or what his five points were all about, I was in disagreement with him by way of his theological descendants on such things as “once saved, always saved”. As a young adult, I took an interest in Reformed Theology when a friend of mine became active in a Presbyterian church. I made a point of understanding the debate between Arminism and Calvinism and what I found was that Calvinism is a biblical doctrine. No, seriously. I had not realized that Reformed folks held a high-view of Scripture and that the “Doctrines of Grace” where thoroughly rooted in the Biblical text. That being said, I believe that a doctrine can be biblical and still be wrong. How? Flawed hermeneutics.

Calvin and company viewed Scripture through a flawed hermeneutical lens which resulted in seeing such things as ‘predestination’ and ‘perseverance of the saints’ when a different lens would have revealed something else. Thanks to a sermon by Mark Driscoll, I realized one evening not long ago that my problem with Calvinism is this metaphorical lens through which it views and interprets the Bible.

Mark was teaching about the doctrine of Predestination in his series “Religion Saves + 9 Other Misconceptions” when I had my epiphany. After a reference that he made in his lesson to two ancient church fathers; Origen and Augustine, I found myself thinking, “What about Jewish theologians?”. I realized that Mark was citing two people from Gentile backgrounds who read the Scriptures with Greco-Roman eyes. (See this and this.) As I thought about it some more, I understood that this is my problem with the doctrine of Predestination as well as Calvinism as a whole: it is the product of a Western/Gentile worldview and not an Eastern/Jewish worldview. Consequently, I went in search of Judaism’s take on predestination aka “determinism”(For an interesting discussion on God’s sovereignty and philosophical determinism, see this. For one rabbi’s attempt to answer questions on determinism, see this.) . Here’s what I found.

Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived comfortably in the lap of the Roman Empire wrote for his Roman patron(s) that there were three main sects of Judaism in his day and that one of the ways to distinguish them was by their deterministic views. According to Josephus, the Sadducees were the least deterministic, believing that God had given man free will and left him to get on with life. The Essenes were the most deterministic, holding that all is mapped out. No choices. No freedom. All is decided. Between these two poles were the Pharisees who held that while God sovereignly rules his creation, he permits humans the moral freedom and responsibility to choose between right and wrong.1

The Bible is clear: Saul of Tarsus was a Pharisee. In fact he was a rather “successful” Pharisee, meaning that he was very good at doing and being whatever it was that made one a Pharisee. Why not then assume that Saul held typical Pharisaical views of theology? Furthermore, when Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul, why believe that his Pharisaical education evaporated and was replaced with Calvin’s systematic theology? It seems to me that when we read Paul’s statements about God’s “foreknowledge”, “predestination” and “election”, we should strive to understand them from the perspective of a first century Pharisee and not St. Augustine via Calvin and other Reformers.

I believe that Calvin’s systematic theology goes wrong because it interprets the Scripture from a Western/Greek perspective. Fate is a Greek concept; not a Jewish one. (Note: fatalism is not a feature of Calvinist theology, however it seems to me that it is a common error among Calvinists.) That isn’t to say that there weren’t Jews who held ideas which were similar to “fate”. However, there is not much reason to believe that the Apostle Paul was one of them. In fact, there is reason to believe that as a Pharisee, Paul held a sort of middle position which acknowledged the sovereignty of God without relinquishing the ability of men to make genuine moral choices (as opposed to predetermined moral choices). Consequently, any interpretation of Paul which sounds more like hard-determinism is, in my opinion, suspect. That would include Calvin’s doctrine of predestination.

NB: In the interest of transparency and honesty, readers should know that everything in green was added following comments by Kyle. They were not present in the original post which his comments address.

Catholic-Islamic Dialogue

“VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Muslim representatives and Vatican officials begin talks this week that they hope will lead to an unprecedented Catholic-Islamic meeting. “

So, once they get the logistics worked out and everyone is in the same room together, I imagine the dialogue to go something like this:

Muslim: We agree that there is one God, right?

Catholic: Right, one God in three Persons.

Muslim: Um, no. Just one God who is not a “person” like we are people. Agreed?

Catholic: Agreed: one God, the Father who is not a person like we are, one God, the Son who is a person like we are and one God, the Holy Spirit who is also not a person like we are. Exactly right.

Muslim:Ok, let’s come back to that one later on.  Mohammed is the final prophet sent from God.

Catholic:Mohammed claimed to be a prophet of God, yes.

Muslim: Sorry, not just “claimed to be” but “truthfully claimed to be” and not just “a prophet”. He’s the final prophet. God did not send any others after him. Only the revelation Mohammed received matters now. Any others have been ditched. Agreed?

Catholic: (silence….blink, blink.)

Muslim: Um…okay. Jesus! He was a prophet, right?

Catholic: Right! Jesus was a prophet….and a priest…and King.

Muslim: No, not a priest. We don’t have priests. And not a King. He had no caliphate, er I mean kingdom.

Catholic: Yes he did. It’s called “the Church”. The Church is his kingdom. We are his subjects. God made him King because Jesus is His son. His mother Mary was a virgin you know.

Muslim: Yes, we know. Mariam was indeed a virgin, but just because God made her pregnant does not mean that Jesus is God’s son. God doesn’t have any sons, so Jesus can’t be one…or “THE ONE”. God doesn’t have anyone ruling the universe on his behalf either. He takes care of everything himself.

Catholic: Right, God takes care of everything, including taking away sins through the blood of Jesus. Did you know he died on a cross to take away sin? The best part though is that God raised him back to life three days later. The Bible says so.

Muslim: Ah, right. The Bible. The Book of the Christians. You do know that it’s been corrupted, right?

Catholic: How’s that?

Muslim: It’s been corrupted. The devil has added lies to the Bible to trick you. The Qu’ran says so.

Catholic:That’s your “Holy Book” is it, the Qu’ran?

Muslim: Yes. God has kept it from being corrupted like your book. Your book has been corrupted by the devil. You really can’t trust anything it says.

Catholic:Really? None of it?

Muslim: Well, I suppose you could trust those bits which are also in the Qu’ran, but the rest of it is rubbish.

Catholic:Right…anything in the Qu’ran about the resurrection of Jesus?

Muslim:Not really. You see, Jesus wasn’t actually crucified. It was Judas, made to look like Jesus. So since Jesus didn’t die, he couldn’t have been resurrected now could he?

Catholic:That’s in your Qu’ran?

Muslim: Yep.

(long silence…)

Muslim:So, let’s sum up then. God is numerically one; not three.

Catholic: There is only one Triune God.

Muslim: Mohammed is the final prophet from God.

Catholic: Mohammed said that he was a prophet from God.

Muslim: Jesus was a prophet, born of a virgin but not a priest and certainly not a king and he most definitely was not God’s son.

Catholic: Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, is the only begotten Son of the Father who has made him the Head of the Church and appointed him to mediate between God and man.

Muslim: The Christian Bible is corrupt while the Qu’ran revealed to Mohammed is the perfectly preserved final revelation to all men from God.

Catholic: The Bible is the Word of God. The Qu’ran is…your “holy book”.

Muslim: Isn’t it time we took a break for lunch?

Catholic:Absolutely! Since you’re our guests here in the Vatican, The Pope thought it would be a good idea to serve a traditional German meal of bratwurst, saurkraut and beer.  Dig in!

Apart from the patently offensive offering of pork and alcohol to the Muslims, this is precisely the kind of conversation that ought to take place, provided that all parties remain loyal to their beliefs. The essence of Islam is belief in the (cardinal number) one God and the prophethood of Mohammed. It is impossible for there to be a trinitarian Muslim who believes that Jesus wields greater spiritual authority than Mohammed. Conversely, the essence of Christianity is the belief in the (ordinal number) one God and the sovereignty of His Only Begotten Son Jesus. It is impossible for there to be a Christian who does not believe in the primacy of Jesus, which is His by virtue of being the uniquely divine Son of God.

As long as the two parties hold on to these core beliefs, any conversations between them ought to be similarly brief, and perhaps equally productive.

AMTOG on Brian on Franklin

You know how you’re reading one of the blogs on your list and it leads you to some other blog or article and then it sets off a response that you want to blog about? Well, that’s happened to me.

From the Charlotte Observer by way of the Tall Skinny Kiwi comes this quote from and interview with Brian McLaren, famous Christian guy. (Brian seems a little worn out by being the poster-boy of the emergent church so I thought “famous Christian guy” would be a nice euphemism.)

Q. I’ve been surprised in this job about the antipathy I’ve heard from a lot of mostly conservative Christians toward Islam. Franklin Graham voiced their concerns when he said it was an evil religion, that Allah is not the God of the Bible. What do you say to people with that view?

I do think we really have to dialogue about this.

I believe that there is something like a form of racism going on right now among well-meaning, but misguided and misinformed evangelical Christians. It’s becoming acceptable to create stereotypes of Muslims that are inaccurate.

The problem is, Muslims are just like the rest of us. They’re like Christians in this regard. There are wonderful, kind-hearted Christians and there are mean-spirited Christians. There are sincere Christians who live with integrity. And there are hypocritical Christians who are just out for a buck. We’ll find that kind of diversity among every group of people.

One of the unfortunate things — and one of the messages I’d like to get through to my evangelical brothers and sisters — is that when we try to make peace, we’re not being unfaithful to Jesus Christ, we’re being faithful to Jesus Christ.

And when we try to practice Jesus’ teachings about loving our neighbor and even loving our enemy — when we practice those teachings toward our Muslim neighbors, we are not being unfaithful to Jesus Christ, we’re being faithful.

But when we create stereotypes of people and when we are ready to call a person an enemy and have nothing to do with them, at that point we are being unfaithful to Jesus Christ. This is one of my calls to evangelicals. And when I’m with Muslims, I try to provide a better example.

Brian is right. Christians, stop it! Whether you consider Muslims as enemies or not, Jesus is clear: love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Love your neighbor. These are non-negotiable. Stereotypes are damaging and we must rise above them.

That being said, let me remind the reader that I am living in a country that is over 95% Muslim and the religion informs the law. As an example, by law I am not allowed to eat or drink in public from sunrise until sunset during the month of Ramadan when Muslims are required to fast. I can be fined or even tossed in jail. It’s serious. So, as a Christian living in a Muslim world, I think I have something to say about Franklin Graham’s comments that Brian chose not to address specifically.

Allah is not the god of the Bible…at least not the New Testament. Islam is clear that Allah has “no partners” and that Jesus is not the son of Allah. The NT is clear that Jesus claimed YHWH as his father. Ignore the variation in proper nouns and let each statement stand. Allah has no son. Jesus says YHWH is his father. Let’s give Muslims and Christians the same respect and take them as “experts” of their own religions. They are not worshipping the same deity. Of course, anthropologists and world religion scholars might disagree but that’s because they are outsiders to both groups. When these two groups talk about their deities, there are some apparent similarities but they are just apparent. At the end of the day, the Muslim god has no son and the Christian god has Jesus. They’re not the same god.

As to Islam being and “evil religion”…perhaps. I’m not sure that there’s any way of knowing. Apply the same theory to the “prophet” Mohammed that C.S. Lewis applied to Jesus: he is either a liar (because he says things that are not true about God), a lunatic (because he made claims that mentally healthy people do not make) or he is Lord (because he is exactly who he claims to be). Granted, Mohammed can’t fall under the Lord category because that’s a contradiction of the religion he taught, but he can be “exactly who he claimed to be”, meaning a prophet of Allah bringing the word of Allah to the people. (I don’t know if Mohammed claimed to be “the seal of the prophets” but that is certainly the teaching of Islam.)

Was Mohammed a liar? When he claimed to have had visions of the angel Gabriel dictating the Qu’ran to him, was he simply making it up for some self-serving purpose? Was he afflicted in his mind and hallucinating? Was he receiving a genuine revelation? There’s no empirical way of affirming any answers to these question. If he was a liar, then we can say that the religion he taught was evil because it was intended to deceive and manipulate. If he was a lunatic, then I don’t think we can say it was evil in the same way that calculated deception and manipulation is evil. If he was exactly who he claimed to be we still couldn’t affirm that the religion is evil until we learned how the religion defined evil. One other possibility is that Mohammed did have a metaphysical experience with a spirit-being who was not divine but demonic. Again, impossible to prove empirically, but that would definitely make the religion he taught evil.

Whatever the case may be, nothing is changed. Christians must follow Jesus. Jesus loved his neighbor. He blessed and did not curse. He loved his enemies and prayed for the forgiveness of his murderers with his dying breath. Regardless of who Muslims pray to and the nature of their religion, Christians are to love them with the same kind of love that Jesus loved them, loved us all.

Brother Mark

In one of his sermons (readily available from the church’s website) Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, remarked that people could be separated into two categories: Those Who Were Offended by Him and Those Who Had Not Yet Met Him.

As an interested observer of the emergent church scene, I’d heard Mark’s name in a variety of contexts but had never bothered to Google him or learn any more about him than I had heard, until recently. After having watched a couple of his sermons (Mars Hill video podcast rocks!), I believe  it is possible to separate people into three entirely different categories: Those Who Love Him, Those Who Hate Him and Those Who Have Not Been Exposed to Him.

I love the guy. Of course, I don’t know the man beyond the image on the computer screen. I’ve not read his books. I don’t keep up with his blog (although I might start). I don’t know anyone who knows him…or perhaps I should say that I don’t know that I know anyone who knows him; but I might. So, what’s the deal? Have I been charmed by his charisma? Have I been duped by slick video production and a purposefully cultivated image of “hip-itude”? For the sake of humility, I should say that those are possibilities…but here are some other possible reasons that I love Mark Driscoll.

I “get” him. Mark and I are the same age. We belong to the same generation. When he makes a fleeting reference to Ren and Stimpy in the sermon, I know what he’s talking about and I’m amused.

Mark is serious about God and Jesus but not about himself and Christians. I tend to think of myself as being like this. (It’s like Erwin McManus said, “We like people because they’re like us and we like ourselves.”) As insiders to the church, we know how ridiculous we can be and how it’s a good idea to “take the piss out” of some of us from time to time. He’s good at it too!

He’s brave. In the two or three sermons that I’ve watched, he has liberally used the word “repent” which is a churchy word that I’ve not heard preachers use from the pulpit in probably a decade or more. In this time when so many churches are striving to get away from “churchiness”, which includes churchy language, Mark pulls out the word “repent” and puts it to good use. Not only does he tell his audience, “If you are X, then you need to repent” but he also tells them, “I am guilty of Y and I repent.” The man is not afraid to call folks to repent and he’s not afraid to repent before them.

Finally, he’s good at his job. Thanks to podcasting, I listen to a lot of sermons over the course of year. I’ve heard preaching since I was about five years old. I’ve developed a taste for it, I guess you can say. Mark is a good preacher who obviously takes great care in preparing his lessons. He can go multimedia or he can do it “old school” (sans gadgetry) and it’s good either way.

Last night, my wife and I watched his sermon on Predestination and I seriously disagreed with his opinion of what the key questions are and his choice of analogies. He’s a Calvinist and I’m not, and that’s okay. Like he said, the debate over Predestination is a family discussion. We belong to same family, which is in itself reason enough to love the guy.

The Archbishop of Canterbury on the death penalty

After listening to the BBC interview of the Archbishop of Canterbury by John Humphrys, I visited his website to learn more about him. In a different interview, which took place prior to the execution of Saddam Hussein, that is linked there, I read this:

ES One pressing question in Iraq at the moment is of course is that of Saddam Hussein’s execution; do you believe that he should be executed?
ABC Once again, I’m not a believer in the death penalty as a general principle. He’s being tried under a jurisdiction which has the death penalty; he seems to be undoubtedly guilty of what he’s been charged with but I think I’d have to separate out the morality of the death penalty from ‘should Saddam Hussein be hanged?’, because I don’t believe in the death penalty. I think that Saddam Hussein is manifestly someone who has committed grave crimes against his own people and grave breaches of international law. I think he deserves punishment, and sharp and unequivocal punishment; I don’t think that he should be at liberty, but I would say of him what I have to say about anyone who’s committed even the most appalling crimes in this country; that I believe the death penalty effectively says ‘there is no room for change or repentance’.

I have to say that I don’t fully understand the Archbishop’s comment in light of something he said in his more recent interview with John Humphreys. It appears that his position could be stated this way:  The death penalty is immoral because the condemned is not permitted an opportunity to repent and change. This implies that the Archbishop believes that repentance and change is only possible in this life. At least, it implies that this was what he believed at the time of the interview quoted above.

Yet, when speaking with John Humphrys about God’s relationship with people after death, the Archbishop said, “God has an eternity with which to go on working…” In this particularly case, the Archbishop was referring to a little girl who died of cancer and her distraught parents. Now read this exchange about Humphreys’ own post-mortem state:

John Humphrys: What happens to me ultimately if I don’t open that door?
Rowan Williams: If you don’t open the door you’re not fully in the company of God. And it’s your choice.
John Humphrys: And after death?
Rowan Williams: What I’d love to think of course is that after death a possibly rather unusual experience might happen in which you’d say Good god, I got it all wrong.
John Humphrys: Too late then.
Rowan Williams: No.
John Humphrys: After death?
Rowan Williams: I think we continually have the choice of saying yes or no.
John Humphrys: So that death is not the end of us?
Rowan Williams: Death is not the end of us. I think that’s rather axiomatic for a religious believer.
John Humphrys: Quite so.. but I said ‘us’ meaning ‘us non- believers’.
Rowan Williams: Non-believers?
John Humphrys: Yes.
Rowan Williams: God alone can judge how much of your resistance to God is culpable, to do with selfishness, laziness of spirit, bloody-mindedness, and how much is just due to whatever it is that gets in the way. God alone can judge that. The willingness, the openness of the heart, even the wish to believe, God can work on that.

The implication here is that there is still a hope for Humphry’s change even after his death. Granted, the Archbishop treads lightly but I believe the implication is still there. And it would make sense to me if it were. After all, CS Lewis, also an Anglican, implies as much in his book The Great Divorce.

The problem for me is this: how can the Archbishop assert that the death penalty is immoral because it prevents the future repentance and change of the condemned while believing that there is hope beyond death that God continues to work on people? If death is not the end, if there is hope for “healing” and the changing of “no” to “yes” after one dies, then doesn’t that mean that the execution of someone does not prevent his repentance and change? If so, then the moral objection is eliminated. According to the Archbishop, even though a society says that it’s not willing to consider repentance and change for the condemned, that  does not mean that society has the final word in the matter.

On the one hand, I agree with the Archbishop; the death penalty does effectively say that there is no room for repentance and change… in our society for this crime. However, on the other hand I think that the death penalty makes another statement. It says that our society places a high value on human life. It says that those who are prepared to use their moral freedom to deprive someone of life must be prepared to compensate with their own lives. This is a principle found in the Bible and I do not believe it is immoral.

Additionally,  I’m not convinced that there is hope beyond the grave for those who leave this life outside of a relationship with God through Jesus. That’s not what is indicated in the Scripture as far as I can tell, but I confess that I’m nowhere near as intelligent or well-studied as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I could be wrong about this…and that would be just fine with me if I am.

Mithras, Osiris and Jesus! Oh My!

In his book “They Like Jesus But Not the Church”, Dan Kimball attempts to challenge leaders of churches to engage with the “emerging generation” (folks in their late teens to early 30’s with a heavy emphasis it seems on the twenty-something crowd). Kimball repeatedly tells the reader that this demographic is open to dialogue about Jesus but is not interested in the church. He draws primarily on his personal conversations with members of the emerging generation to explain why they like Jesus and why they dislike, distrust or are simply disinterested in the church. One conversation that Kimball refers to is with a young man named Dustan. This young man is apparently educated and open to talking with Kimball, a pastor, about Jesus. In their conversation, it becomes apparent that Dustan has identified aspects of the Jesus story which look and sound exactly like elements from the myths of the pagan gods Osiris and Mithras, which he points out, predate the Christian story by thousands of years. With this in mind, Dustan wants to know why Kimball accepts the Jesus story as something other than a myth like the ones Christianity has so obviously co-opted. Kimball includes this conversation to make the point that the emerging generation wants intelligent answers to these kinds of questions, not the traditional “The Bible says it, I believe it. Case closed.” sort of response that comes too easily from many Christians. He also says that he’s going to have to do some studying on his own to be able to articulate a response since he, like most of us I’m sure, isn’t all that familiar with the similarities between Christian doctrines and the myths of ancient Egyptian and Persian deities.  

I decided that I would take a look into the so-called similarities myself and see what kind of semi-intelligent response I would make if I were put in that position. So, I started with trying to learn something about the Egyptian god Osiris who, according to the story, was killed and raised from the dead. In the search results that I got from Google for the terms “god Osiris”, I came across a link to a paper written by Martin Luther King which is housed on a server at Stanford University. The title of the paper is “The Influence of the Mystery Religions on Christianity” and it set me back a bit. I wasn’t unsettled by the assertions that Christianity had borrowed heavily from pagan religions (which contributed to its triumph over them) but rather I was surprised that Martin Luther King Jr. had made those assertions. Perhaps, because I’m not a trained theologian or a scholar of human religions, I don’t know how to read a text like this one, but there were times in my reading when I thought, “Did MLK see Christianity as just another human religion? As a Baptist preacher, did he not really believe in the Truth of the story of Jesus? Was he simply invoking the religion and its metaphors in the service of his pursuit of justice in Americafor black people?” I finished reading the paper without formulating a theoretical answer for those questions. It’s not particularly important to me if MLK was a “true believer” or not, although it is a terribly interesting distraction. And a distraction is precisely what it is. The question that I want to answer is, “How would I address Dustan if I were having Dan Kimball’s conversation with him?”

After about a day of thinking about this off and on, I realize now that the heart of Dustan’s question is simply “Why do you believe the story of Jesus is true?” Taken at this level, the answer is fairly easy to summarize but, for me, very difficult to expound upon. The short answer is that I believe the Jesus story is true because I trust in the credibility of the witnesses. Then I would probably need to explain who (and what) those witnesses are and why I believe that they are trustworthy. Somewhere in there I would need to say something about the historical aspect of the story: that elements of the story of Jesus are rooted in time and space in such a way that can be, has been and continues to be investigated and often verified. These bits would be the parts that would give me great trouble since, although I’ve read plenty, I don’t get to have such discussions so frequently that I can effortlessly recall what I’ve read. Harder still would be offering some kind of intelligent explanation for accepting that Jesus is “The Son of God” when the same title was applied to Mithras thousands of years before.

 Of course, it’s possible that no answer that either I or Kimball could give to Dustan would move him from the category of Jesus-fan to Jesus-follower. And that’s fine. Just being willing and able to engage in the conversation in an intelligent, respectful and humble manner could go a long way in overcoming some of the (well-deserved) negative stereotypes that Dustan has of Christians, thus setting the stage for more conversations and deeper relationship which could ultimately bring him to choose the Jesus story over the Osiris story on his own. I think Dan Kimball would agree.

God, Show Yourself

I started this post three weeks ago and have been so busy with life outside the blog that I haven’t been able to finish it. Now that I’ve got some time, I’m not sure that I should even try.

It all began with this post about Phillip Pullman’s views on God as he’s expressed them in various interviews. When asked whether or not he was interested in theology, he said that he was. Pullman commented that he was very interested in the “big questions” of theology such as “Is there a god?” I made the point then that I think theology’s first question is not “Is there a god?” but rather “Who is god?” Originally, I had planned a post that would expound on that question. I did some very limited reading and then the end of the semester and the holidays came upon me. Today, I looked back at some of what I’d written and realized that I’m not up to the challenge.

Of course, I think I know something  about who God is, but I don’t think I know everything about who God is. I don’t even think that’s humanly possible. Yet, I do believe that it’s possible to know specific things about God. Those specific things are known and knowable as a result of God’s self-revealing actions.

Several years ago, I was having dinner with a self-described “overly-educated” atheist and we were discussing God. He challenged that if God exists, why doesn’t He just show Himself to everyone. This question/challenge comes out in different ways in different circumstances but I think it is rooted in the “Who is god?” question. It’s like saying, “Come on, show yourself so we can know exactly who you are. So we can have someone to acknowledge as existing and real.” My answer to this guy was utterly forgettable (as evidenced by my having forgotten it) yet it occurred to me recently that God has, according to the Scriptures, on occasion done exactly that. God has shown up.

He showed up in Egypt to deliver the descendants of Abraham from slavery. When Pharaoh heard God’s command he responded, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” God proceeded to answer that question by systematically undermining the so-called gods of Egypt by demonstrating that it was He who actually controlled the Sun, nature and even the revered Nile. God showed up repeatedly ever after in other ways, but another dramatic appearance was on Mt.Caramel during the reign of a king called Ahab.

At that time, there was a sort of question as to who the people ought to worship. The choice was between God, who delivered their ancestors from Pharaoh, and someone called Baal, a god reportedly imported from along with Jezebel, one of Ahab’s wives. A contest was proposed: Elijah, God’s prophet to Israel, and the priests of Baal would both set up altars to offer an animal sacrifice to their respective gods. The deity who showed up with fire to light the sacrifice would obviously be god. In the end, God showed up and Baal didn’t.

Of course, as a Christian, I believe that God showed up again in the man Jesus. I also believe that my friend will ultimately get what he asked for; that God will show Himself so that everyone will know empirically that He exists. The interesting thing is that God’s periodic appearances in the meantime, as we can see in the Bible, aren’t really enough to bring people to believe in Him. God’s revelation of who He is may move people from the category of atheist to theist, but it won’t necessarily move people to trust in Him, to give Him the honor and respect that are His due. Pharaoh was a witness to the plagues and yet he still gathered his troops and chased the Israelites into the desert. Ahab saw the fire of God consume the water-soaked altar, animal, stones and all and yet continued to defy God until his death. Jesus himself said that His own resurrection from the dead would not change the hearts of some people.

Along side of my former colleague, there is John Humphreys, the BBC journalist that I posted about last week. In his interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Humphreys says that he wants to believe in God, that he has “gone down on his knees night after night” trying to talk to God but he has “failed”. Still, he does not believe. God has not shown Himself to John Humphreys in spite of his prayers. Why? Why hasn’t God put in an appearance for someone like Humphreys who so desperately wants to believe in Him? I have no idea and would not venture to guess. However, based on the examples given above, I can’t help but pose the question for my former colleague, John Humphreys and others, “If God did show up for you personally, would you change? Would you worship Him or would you interrogate Him? Would you follow Him or would you continue to go your own way?”

In Search of God

Last week I intended to address what I believe to be the primary question of theology, “Who is god?” but I wasn’t able to. I was going to pick up with that theme this week, however, since it’s a rather hectic combination of the end of term at my school, the Christmas holidays and the attending end of the year chaos, I won’t be able to complete my post in time for my self-imposed Thursday deadline.

However, I don’t want to send you away empty-handed so I’ll share this with you. While I was running an errand, I was listening to the local broadcast of the BBC World Service in the van and tuned in ( a bit late) to a great interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The interviewer is John Humphreys and the program is called “In Search of God“. The gist of the program is simply this: crusty old journalist interviews heavy hitters of the big three monotheistic religions in an attempt to regain his lost faith in God. I thought it would be a good idea to listen to the interview and see what impact it might have on the thoughts that I’ve been trying to put together and write about here.

Technical note: it’s streaming media via RealPlayer, which I’m sure you have. I wish it were a podcast, but it isn’t.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post for real next Thursday and perhaps after listening to this, I’ll have an even better post than I’d originally planned.

Phillip Pullman’s (A)Theology

I will not see the film, The Golden Compass, nor will I read Phillip Pullman’s books upon which the movie is based…until the movie is available on DVD and I can borrow His Dark Materials from a library…perhaps sometime this summer when I’m back in the states on vacation.

I’m pretty sure that the film will be released here in the host country (possibly severely edited, possibly not) but my wife and I find it too hard to go the cinema now that we have four children aged 6 and under. As for the books…well, there are no good libraries here for us and I don’t think I care to the own books until I’ve read them. Nevertheless, I’ve taken some interest in the controversy that both the film and the books have stirred up. Consequently, I’ve spent this week visiting Pullman’s website and reading the interviews that he has linked there. Predictably, he has made some interesting comments in those interviews.

In one interview, Pullman is asked “Are you interested in theology?” and he responds in this way: “…yes, it’s an interesting question. The most important questions of all are the big religious ones: Is there a God? What is our purpose? And so on…” Today, that part of my brain which was processing this comment suddenly announced to the other parts of my brain, which were focused on getting a good cup of tea, that this is not actually the question that most people on the planet are asking. In fact, most people living today (as well as those who were living yesterday and the days before) do not ask the question “Is there a god?” but rather “Who is god?” (At least, that’s how I understand this.)

Yet, Pullman’s question remains: Is there a god? Of course, he’s thought about this a great deal and he has an answer ready should anyone ask. In the interviews linked to his website, the answer varies just a bit according to how the interviewer phrases the question. To one person who asked “Do you believe in God?” Pullman replied that he doesn’t see any “evidence for his existence”. However, confessing the limits of his own knowledge, Pullman conceded that god might very well exist. To another person who asked “Why do you hate God?” Pullman responded that he does not hate god but rather simply doesn’t believe he exists. In another interview, in answer to a separate question , Pullman offered that his “own belief is that God is dead”, which I guess is another way to say that God doesn’t exist.

Another comment from the interviews available at Pullman’s website which my brain has been processing this week goes like this:

“The Christian story gives us human beings a very important and prominent part. We are the ones who Jesus came to redeem from the consequences of sin, which our parents – you know. It is a very dramatic story and we are right at the heart of it, and a great deal depends on what we decide. This is an exciting position to be in, but unfortunately it doesn’t gel at all with the more convincing account that is given by Darwinian evolution – and the scientific account is far more persuasive intellectually. Far more persuasive.”

I’ve been wondering why it is that someone, who is as devoted to good story-telling as Pullman apparently is, finds a scientific answer to “the most important questions of all” more convincing than the highly dramatic Christian narrative? The answer seems to be that Darwinian evolution is more credible intellectually, yet Pullman, like all of us is much more than an intellect. One article I read described him in this way; “emotionally involved. He sits in the shed and makes it up and he weeps, yes, weeps copiously at the tragedies that unfold. He frightens himself and upsets himself and makes himself laugh.” Obviously, Pullman is a man with a heart as well as a brain.

So, I thought “Why would I prefer the scientific narrative over the Christian narrative?” I have an answer, but I confess that sharing it at this point would be unseemly. I’m afraid that in sharing it now, I would leave the impression that I was projecting my ideas onto Pullman, and I don’t want to do that. Generally, I disagree with the practice of attempting to psychoanalyze an author based on his works or even interviews about his work. While I certainly understand the temptation, I just don’t think I should do it.

Instead, let’s just leave off with the observation that, based on his comments in interviews, it’s easy to see how Pullman is a magnet for controversy.

NB: Last night while waiting for my son to finish at a friends birthday party, I sat in a restaurant reading an essay by CS Lewis. In it, I found him to be an unexpected admirer of what he called “the scientific outlook”, a story which is essentially the Darwinian story which Pullman says he finds so compelling. Leading into a dramatic summary of the scientific outlook, Lewis says,”Supposing this is a myth, is it not one of the finest myths which human imgination has yet produced?” I would reproduce the description except that it’s rather long. If you’re interested, you can read it in a collection of essays called, “The Weight of Glory” in the essay entitled “Is Theology Poetry“.

I’m beginning to think that Pullman is actually Lewis’ alter ego from an alternate universe.

How Theology Matters

For the past week, I’ve been thinking about the question: “What good is theology?” I started thinking about it after skimming this post by Michael Spencer. Later, when I had the time, I went back and read what he said more closely and began to think about a similar (yet rhetorical) question that he posed: “How does theology matter….” particularly to Christians?

I think one way to understand how theology matters is to look at some specific theological positions (opinions, beliefs, etc) and examine their impact. Attempting to answer the question in this manner runs the risk of being perceived as overly pragmatic. By that I mean that some might get the impression that so long as the impact is positive (an admittedly subjective term) the theological position in question is acceptable, without regard for whether or not it is Biblical and / or true. This is not what I think, but I’ll follow this tact and take the chance of being misunderstood.

Before looking at the impact of specific theological positions, I want to take a moment to explain what I mean when I use the word “theology”. Theology is one of those words that get a lot of use within certain communities where people assume that they’re talking about the same thing but they really aren’t. For example, “theology” to some is an academic term used to speak about a particular kind of study, perhaps even a course or program of study. For others, “theology” is whatever opinions / beliefs that a person has about God and / or religion. Recently, I read one blogger who seems to use the word “theology” to speak about a particular way of living one’s life. For the sake of clarity, I think it’s important for me to state up front that I’ll be using “theology” in the academic sense…unless I decide to use it in the sense of an opinion because doing so serves my purpose.

Let’s start out by looking at the Pharisees. The theology of the Pharisee articulated an understanding of God as one who loved Jews and hated Gentiles. They characterized God as favoring the ritually clean over the ritually unclean. they also saw God as one who materially and physically rewarded righteousness while inflicting poverty and illness upon the wicked. To put in the KJV vernacular, they considered God a “respecter of persons”. Jesus apparently thought that the Pharisees’ theology mattered enough to address it in both His actions and His speech. To counter their erroneous theology, Jesus touched the unclean, ate with sinners and took on the religious establishment’s misuse of the temple. He also characterized the impact of the Pharisees’ theology as tying “heavy burdens and laying them on they people” while they were not interested in bearing the same burdens themselves. Jesus also said that the Pharisees on one occasion “condemned the innocent” and characterized converts to their religious views as “twice the son of hell that you are.” The theology of the Pharisees mattered because it left people who followed them burdened, condemned and cursed.

Christians do the same thing to each other today with our ill-conceived theology. A contemporary example of a poor conception of God and its impact on Christians can be found in the book, “The Power of a Praying Parent” by Stormie Omartian. One anecdote in the book tells of her teenage son’s survival of a horrible car accident which she credits to her diligent prayers for his safety which began at his birth. Ok. The problem comes when she says;

“Of course, Satan can do a lot of damage if we don’t teach our children God’s ways and God’s Word and help them to respect God’s laws, and if we don’t discipline them, guide them, and help them learn to make godly choices. The Bible tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”. When we don’t do these things, our children can fall into rebellion and make choices that take them out from under the umbrella of God’s protection. Prayer and proper instruction in the ways and words of God will make sure that does not happen…”

While it is entirely possible for a parent to do all of the things stated and still have children who “fall into rebellion”, you don’t get that impression from her. Instead, she leaves the clear impression that God protects those children whose parents do these right things and pray for them. Conversely, it sounds like God won’t protect those children whose parent don’t do these things. Doesn’t it sound a bit like the Pharisees’ belief that God afflicts the religiously deficient and the wicked, while He favors the pious?  So, what happens if the child of the devout parent turns “bad”? Is the fault with the parental training? With the parental prayers?  To be completely fair, Omartian makes a statement in her book that she doesn’t mean to say that failure to pray “against” specific evils in her childrens’ lives will result in God not protecting them. Yet, this is precisely what she seems to indicate repeatedly. God comes across as a meticulous micro-manager whose hands are tied until we say a prayer. Until we do our children are vulnerable. Consequently, when we fail to pray, we are culpable when bad things happen to our children and ourselves. Again, the impact of the theology behind these teachings is Christians who are “harassed and helpless”.

Despite how it might seem, theology does have a positive impact on Christians. Predictably, the best illustration of this is Jesus who fully manifested the character of God when He lived among us. In the miracles of Jesus we see that God is powerful. In His choice of companions, we see that God is welcoming. In the teaching of Jesus we see that God is wise. Through the parables we learn that God is both loving and just. Jesus unburdened those who trusted Him. Their guilt was erased and their shame was taken away. As it was when He lived in a body, so it is today when He lives through His Body, the church…at least, when the Church is at her best. It’s easy to see why Michael Spence advocates a Christocentric theology.

Theology is necessarily limited. Some aspects of God are knowable through nature. Other aspects are only knowable by revelation. Eternity will be spent experiencing other aspects of God’s character which are not knowable by mortals as we are now. Yet, despite our limited ability to comprehend God, theology is important because what we believe about His character affects how we relate to His creation, particularly His “new creations”, our fellow Christians.

I Need a Muslim

Truth Booth is a blog by Stefan Rosty, a Muslim who seems to advocate something akin to a “Sola Scriptura” approach to Islam. His position and/or plea is available here. I’m hoping that either Stefan or another writer on his blog will pay a visit to AMTOG and answer this question for me:

• What does the Qu’ran say is the reason that the Jews wanted to kill Jesus?

The question is worded this way purposefully. I’m familiar enough with Islam to know that the story from its perspective is that Jesus was not crucified, but rather someone, whom Allah caused to look like Jesus, was crucified in His stead.

This is not an invitation for a debate or a “Christian-Muslim Dialogue” (Christian came first because it’s my blog and I asked the question. ) It’s a sincere request for information. I figured I’d get an answer quicker than if I tried to hunt it down in an English language Qu’ran myself.

Thanks

It’s About Time

When I decided to start this blog, I thought that “All My Thoughts on God” was a clever title. I thought that it had a sort of pop-culture vibe as a result of being lifted from a popular song by a group that, honestly, I never cared all that much about. (I just liked the one song, and really I only liked the music and that one bit of verse since I didn’t understand any of the other words…but I’m getting off topic.)

A quick run through the archives will show that I actually don’t write about God. Not really. In fact, the section at the top of the right column called “AMTOG is…” sums up this blog far more accurately than the title. However things are about to change. I think it’s time that I have a post that is about God. So here it is.

Sort of.

I’m not actually going to write my thoughts on God. Instead, I’m going to link to some other posts about God for you to enjoy while I try to put the baby to sleep. Once she’s snoozing away in her swing, I’m going to kick back and watch a movie while the wife is at a farewell party for a friend. Later, when I’m able to fully digest these two posts, I may take a stab at writing some commentary of my own about them or I may go fix myself a cup of tea (with milk, sugar and pinch of masla!) and see what interesting podcasts I can download on iTunes.

So, here are two posts filled with (someone else’s) thoughts about God.

One

Two

I should probably think about changing the name of the blog…

The View from Outside

Take a moment to read this article about American Evangelicalism’s relationship with the phenomena of divorce.

I don’t know if David Van Biema, the author of the above article, is a Christian or not but I’m going to take a guess and say that he’s not.

So what?

Nothing really, except that sometimes I find the perspective of outsiders interesting. The reason that I believe he’s an outsider to the Christian community is his choice of words, his phraseology. Take this sentence as an example:

The heated controversy provoked by the story showed how Biblically flexible some Evangelicals can be – especially when God’s word seems at odds not just with modern American behavior, but also with simple human kindness.

Consciously or not, Bieman has effectively identified two opposing sides in the debate on divorce: God and humans (particularly “modern American”s). It appears that from his perspective, God (as represented by Evangelicals) is both out of step and unkind in his opposition to divorce while Americans are both “with it” and kind by comparison. Or perhaps, his position is that Evangelicals are finally doing the smart thing by facing up to the facts and changing their position on the issue of divorce and then reinterpreting their holy book accordingly. These are two perspectives that I would expect from an outsider.

Another example of what seems to me an outsider perspective is in this sentence: “Evangelicals define themselves as being tightly bound by scripture.” Bound, like bondage. Slavery. Deprived of freedom. I can understand how an outsider might feel that Evangelicals are enslaved by their belief that the Bible is God’s word.

Don’t most slaves want freedom? Don’t the majority of them want to escape? From Bieman’s perspective, the article by Instone-Brewer in Christianity Today, “appeared to be its editors’ attempt to offer Evangelicals an escape from a classic dilemma.”

Finally, look at what Bieman suggests that a softening on divorce among Evangelicals could lead to;

“Flexibility on divorce may mean that evangelicals could also rethink their position on such things as gay marriage, as a generation of Christians far more accepting of homosexuality begins to move into power. “

As a Christian with one foot in the Evangelical community (and the other foot in his mouth) I can say with some confidence that Bieman has misinterpreted the situation. An increase in compassion toward homosexuals is not the same thing as an increase in the acceptance of homosexuality. Admittedly, it’s an easy mistake for an outsider to make.

I’m curious: How would insiders to the Christian community reading this post attempt to address what I’ve called an outsider’s perspective on:

• the character of God and how it is revealed in the matter of divorce
• the relationship between Christians and the Bible (pertaining to divorce)
• the current attitudes of younger Evangelical Christians toward homosexuality

The comments are open.

Christians and Atheists Still Agree

In the practice of Arbitration and Negotiation (both professional and personal) , the principle of identifying “common ground” is expressed often and in different ways. The idea being that recognizing commonality builds rapport and empathy thereby allowing the conflicting parties to move more smoothly toward a resolution. As the atheists of the West (e.g. the USA) become more vocal in the media and conflict with theists (particularly Southern Baptists Christians) increases, I thought I would offer this post listing the beliefs shared by both groups. Of course, it’s impossible to speak accurately on behalf of each and every member of either camp, so please don’t pummel me with the deviants exceptions.

• Christians and atheists believe in absolute truth.
• Atheists and Christians believe that morality is innate in humans.
• Christians and atheists believe that the material universe exists (which is something that not all theists believe).
• Atheists and Christians believe that life in the material universe matters.

On the common ground of these shared beliefs, it is possible for Christians and atheists to meet…just before attempting to utterly annihilate one another.

Christians and Atheists Agree

A while back, I published a post asking for atheists to leave their responses to a question that I had. Since then, I’ve read other, more intelligent posts and comments in the ongoing discussion/debate between theists and atheists at other blogs and I’ve realized something that I would like to share with the Christians out there.

When discussing the source of morality, I’ve heard atheists contend that a deity is not necessary. One atheist said (lost the blog, can’t link to it) that morality is simply hardwired (my term) into people. We’re born knowing what is right and wrong. I’ve noticed that the tendency for Christians  in this discussion is to be so focused on trying to prove that God is the source of morality and that He is necessary that they fail to see that the atheist has just said something that is completely in agreement with the teaching of Scripture. I’ll let you go back and read that wordy sentence again in case you missed what I said….

At least in the particular instance that I’ve described, we have an example where Christians and atheists are in agreement: both believe that morality is part of the make-up of human beings.  When Paul was attempting to explain to the Roman church that all humanity is under condemnation for disobeying God’s law, he alludes to this innate morality:

For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) Romans 2:13-15

Christians,we need to realize and remember that atheists have the moral law of God written on their hearts. They know what is right and wrong just like we do, and they experience guilt just like we do. Don’t get so caught up in the need to prove that you’re right and the atheist is wrong that you fail to see that even the atheist testifies to the truth of God’s word.

And if Christians and atheists can agree that morality is innate in humanity, what other things can they agree upon?

Jesus Christ, Therapist

Not long ago, I came across a blog called Apprising Ministries. The blogger had taken it upon himself to critique and criticize various ministries and their key personalities. As you might predict, the tone is often less than charitable, which (for me) makes anything the guy writes suspect. I took a look at what he had to say about Erwin McManus and the Mosaic church and I was unimpressed. I’ve been listening to the podcast from Mosaic for about a year or so and while I’ve often disagreed with Erwin’s take on various topics, I tend to believe that he’s a follower of Jesus and not a heretical, self-serving play-actor.

When I disagree, it tends to be along the lines of the call of God and purpose of life. He tends to be melodramatic and to speak like every one of us has a call in this life on the same order of the likes of Moses. Today, as I read the following, I began to see that this is the kind of message I tend to hear from Erwin:

THE CONTEMPORARY THERAPEUTIC GOSPEL

The most obvious, instinctual felt needs of twenty-first century, middle-class Americans are different from the felt needs that Dostoevsky tapped into. We take food supply and political stability for granted. We find our miracle-substitute in the wonders of technology. Middle-class felt needs are less primal. They express a more luxurious, more refined sense of self-interest:

• I want to feel loved for who I am, to be pitied for what I’ve gone through, to feel intimately understood, to be accepted unconditionally;
• I want to experience a sense of personal significance and meaningfulness, to be successful in my career, to know my life matters, to have an impact;
• I want to gain self-esteem, to affirm that I am okay, to be able to assert my opinions and desires;
• I want to be entertained, to feel pleasure in the endless stream of performances that delight my eyes and tickle my ears;
• I want a sense of adventure, excitement, action, and passion so that I experience life as thrilling and moving.

The modern, middle-class version of therapeutic gospel takes its cues from this particular family of desires. We might say that the target audience consists of psychological felt needs, rather than the physical felt needs that typically arise in difficult social conditions. (The contemporary “health and wealth” gospel and obsession with “miracles” express something more like the Grand Inquisitor’s older version of therapeutic gospel.)

In this new gospel, the great “evils” to be redressed do not call for any fundamental change of direction in the human heart. Instead, the problem lies in my sense of rejection from others; in my corrosive experience of life’s vanity; in my nervous sense of self-condemnation and diffidence; in the imminent threat of boredom if my music is turned off; in my fussy complaints when a long, hard road lies ahead. These are today’s significant felt needs that the gospel is bent to serve. Jesus and the church exist to make you feel loved, significant, validated, entertained, and charged up. This gospel ameliorates distressing symptoms. It makes you feel better. The logic of this therapeutic gospel is a jesus-for-Me who meets individual desires and assuages psychic aches.

The therapeutic outlook is not a bad thing in its proper place. By definition, a medical-therapeutic gaze holds in view problems of physical suffering and breakdown. In literal medical intervention, a therapy treats an illness, trauma, or deficiency. You don’t call someone to repentance for their colon cancer, broken leg, or beriberi. You seek to heal. So far, so good.

But in today’s therapeutic gospel the medical way of looking at the world is metaphorically extended to these psychological desires. These are defined just like a medical problem. You feel bad; the therapy makes you feel better. The definition of the disease bypasses the sinful human heart. You are not the agent of your deepest problems, but merely a sufferer and victim of unmet needs. The offer of a cure skips over the sin-bearing Savior. Repentance from unbelief, willfulness, and wickedness is not the issue. Sinners are not called to a U-turn and to a new life that is life indeed. Such a gospel massages self-love. There is nothing in its inner logic to make you love God and love any other person besides yourself. This therapeutic gospel may often mention the word “Jesus,” but he has morphed into the meeter-of-your-needs, not the Savior from your sins. It corrects Jesus’ work. The therapeutic gospel unhinges the gospel. (full article)

The Mosaic community is overwhelmingly 20-something and single. I think that plays a part in the popularity of Erwin’s perspective on the Gospel and the Christian life. After all, it’s a very self-centered phase of life and it would appear that the “therapeutic gospel” is also self-centered. As the writer of this text says, there’s a legitimate time and place for therapy both physical and spiritual, but there is also a time to grow up and go on to maturity

…and I’m struggling with doing just that.

EPILOGUE: In his recent sermon The Conflict (part 3 in the series about leading an original life), Erwin departs from the above description of the therapeutic gospel by addressing sin….which supports what I said in refutation of the assessment of his ministry at that Apprising Ministries blog.  (Nov. 6, 2007)

Wrong Hand

This one has been sitting in the queue so long that I don’t remember exactly how I came across it. I just remember that Mr. Hand has said something profound…and misguided.

A while back, I changed my religion. I used to be an Atheist. Now, I’m an Evolutionist. It isn’t that I’ve suddenly started believing in non-existent beings. My position on things metaphysical is essentially unchanged. I still uncategorically deny the existence of any deities. I still think that people who believe in deities (or just one deity) are incorrect in their beliefs. However, I’ve realized that that particular infection with an erroneous notion isn’t an especially damaging one. This is a kind of cheerful state of affairs. The simple fact is that belief in a deity is simply not even vaguely important to any of the things that really do matter. (emphasis mine)

In a sense, Mr. Hand is right. (Not what you might expect a God-blogger to say, right?) Believing in a deity (of whatever sort and/or multiples thereof) is not especially damaging to anyone provided that the belief doesn’t inform the way a person lives (and that the belief is in fact incorrect).  You might refer to this as “functional atheism”. Instead, what really matters are the specific beliefs that one has about the supernatural being(s) in question.

Without any appeal to some kind of authority, Mr. Hand says  that “Being mostly nice and often thinking carefully are important.” In order to keep things moving, lets agree and say that these two things are important. Who exactly should a person be nice to and what precisely should that person think carefully about? There are some in the world who believe that the deity to whom they belong requires that they should only be nice to other believers. Conversely, those people do not believe that it is important to be nice to non-believers. Furthermore, there are some people who believe that the deity in question is pleased whenever they are not nice to unbelievers. In fact, some people believe that their deity is pleased whenever its followers kill unbelievers. And so we have an example of how belief in a deity generally and specific beliefs about that deity are “especially damaging”. After all, I’m confident that Mr. Hand would agree that killing people who do not share one’s beliefs is not being nice.

I’m also confident that Mr. Hand would agree that the killing of “unbelievers” is not the product of careful thinking. However, I would disagree.  In fact, it is my experience that we deists have to do some very careful thinking to either justify our un-nice actions or to execute them. This is particularly true of those deists who believe that their deity will distribute some kind of reward or punishment at some point in the future based upon their actions; such people tend to think very carefully more than merely often.

Obviously, what people believe about God, god and/or gods is more than vaguely  important to the two things that Mr. Hand says are important, that matter. Consequently, we can guess that such belief (erroneous or not) is important to other things that matter as well.

Reposting-He Said, He Said 5

Concerning Guidance and God

Mohammed says:

“Thus God leads astray whom He pleases, and guides him He pleases:” Chpt of the Covered v11

Jesus says:

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…” Matthew 6:13 and Luke 11:4

Here we can see two different attitudes toward  God and His role is guiding people. From Mohammed, you get resignation. God guides or misguides and people are utterly powerless.

From Jesus, you get encouragement. In this model prayer, Jesus demonstrates that his followers should ask for God’s guidance (and deliverance) with the expectation of receiving it.

One teacher is resigned. The other is expectant.

Reposting-He Said, He Said 4

Concerning Marriage in the Hereafter

It’s been a little while since I posted my reflections on the differences between specific sayings/teachings of Mohammed and Jesus. Here’s one that I’ve had in the queue a while.

Mohammed says:

“Verily, the pious (shall be) in gardens and pleasure, enjoying what their Lord has given them; for their Lord will save them from the torment of hell. ‘Eat and drink with good digestion, for that which ye have done!’ Reclining on couches in rows, and we shall wed them to large-eyed maidens. And those who believe and whose seed follows them in the faith, we will unite their seed with them;” Chapter of the Mount vs 5-7 (italics mine)

Jesus says:

“Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!” Mark 12:24-26 (italics mine)

Both teachers speak about resurrection and the day of judgement, however Mohammed says far more about the nature of the hereafter than Jesus does. In fact, Mohammed gives much more detail about both heaven and hell; who is there, why they are there and what happens to and with them there. Conversely, Jesus never teaches that people go to heaven when they die, so there’s not much reason for him to talk about what it’s like there for them. (We can unpack Jesus’ statements about “Paradise” and “being where I am” another time.)

Mohammed clearly says that in heaven (aka Paradise) the believers marry virgins and they are even reunited with their children who believe. However you may choose to look at it, there’s an indication that the relationships of wife, father and child are preserved in Paradise. This is not the case according to Jesus. He clearly contradicts Mohammed when he says that marriage relations are not part of the resurrection life. It’s logical to assume that if the categories of husband and wife become irrelevant, so do the categories father, mother, son, and daughter for these all depend on the first relationship between husband and wife.

NB:Jesus only addresses this issue because it was put to him as a test. If you’re not familiar with the incident, read the whole chapter of Mark 12.

Reposting-He Said, He Said 3

Concerning Those Who Do Wrong to You

Mohammed says:

“And shouldst thou ever fear from any people treachery, then throw it back to them in like manner: verily God loves not the treacherous.”  Chapter of the Spoils v40. (italics mine)

Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go with them one mile, gow with him two miles. ” Matthew 5:38-41 (italics mine)

and

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.’ But I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven.” Matthew 5:43-45 (italics mine) See also Luke 6:27-36

Not much commentary necessary for this one. Mohammed clearly advocates tit for tat. Jesus doesn’t. In fact, Jesus says that acting with love and praying for (not against) one’s enemies makes a person  like God, who also loves those who hate him.

Two teachers. Two messages. Same source? I don’t think so.

Reposting-He Said, He Said 2

Concerning Giving

Mohammed says:

“Make not thy hand fettered to thy neck, nor yet spread it out quite open, lest thou shouldst have to sit down blamed and straitened in means. Verily, thy Lord spreads out provision to whomsoever He will or He doles it out. Verily, He is ever well aware of and sees His servants.” The Chapter of the Night Journey beginning vs 27.

Jesus says:

“Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” Luke 6:30.

Even without the fullest context for either quotation, I think it’s fairly clear that the attitudes of both speakers are not the same. Mohammed essentially says, “Give, but not too much,” while Jesus simply says “Give, and don’t demand.” One is self-serving:one is other-serving. There can be no doubt that these two are reading from different scripts.

Reposting-He Said, He Said

I’ve got the next several days off, and I expect that I won’t be able to keep up my posting routine (1 every other day), so I’m going to repost some things that I wrote at my former URL. Another reason that I’m reposting these particular pieces is that I saw a blog recently which touched upon these things. I left a comment, so perhaps the owner may come by and find these post interesting.

Anyway, here’s the first of the series just to let you know what’s coming:

He Said-He Said

I don’t know if such a book would be truly useful, but I know that a book which places the teachings of Jesus beside the teachings of Mohammed for the purposes of comparison would get my attention. Perhaps there is already such a book. In fact, I’m pretty sure that some of the pamphlets I’ve seen from Muslim societies already do this to some degree. It’s such an interesting idea to me that I’m actually doing my own comparisons. I’m not so ambitious as to seek to make a book out of it, but I intend to write a bit here about what I find.

Of course I’m biased, but I don’t intend to write a polemic. Such a thing wouldn’t be beneficial for anyone, including myself. Instead, my aim is to demonstrate that there is no real continuity between the teachings of Jesus and Mohammed. While Islam lists Jesus among the prophets of Allah, it does not acknowledge the New Testament as a reliable witness to what Jesus said and did. For that reason, I don’t expect anything that I write will impact any Muslim’s thinking. Even so, I do think it’s worthwhile to point out that these two people were not singing from the same hymnal in any meaningful sense.

One of the biggest obstacles to this personal investigation is reading the Qur’an. Whenever I’ve tried, the English is practically incomprehensible. (Is this what it feels like to read the Bible for some folks?) I’ve not found very much that reads like a narrative and the copious “blessings” really mess with the flow of the English text. That being said, what little I’ve managed to read has contained some divergent messages which are worth commenting on…which I’ll do later.

For the Sake of Relevance

Deeply concerned about the amount of media attention given to the Emergent Church Movement and afraid of losing large numbers of Generation Y from their own churches, several mainstream denominations are secretly considering “re-branding” themselves.

Insiders to each of the following groups have anonymously claimed that:

Southern Baptists are in negotiations with the Regular and Freewill Baptists to become known collectively as “The Submergent Church”.

United Methodists, Churches of Christ (Uniting), Congregationalist and Unitarian Churches are discussing the possibility of forming a single “Convergent Church”.

Taking note of the rise of “new monasticism” and an increasing interest in the mystery of Eastern Orthodoxy among Generation Y Christians, patriarchs from the various Orthodox Churches are considering the moniker “Resurgent Church”.

Speculators in the web domain market have already registered the following domains in the hope that other Christian denominations will purchase them once they’ve decided which names best suit them.

www.divergentchurch.org

www.insurgentchurch.mil

www.urgentchurch.org

Whose Child is This?

The Professing Professor doesn’t keep his blog updated but I’ve been listening to a podcast of his sermons for several weeks now which is available through iTunes. In a recent sermon given in respect of Dedication Day (a day for the parents and the church community to dedicate themselves to raising new babies born into the community), he said something that I wish he would expound upon. The Prof said that all children belong to the Kingdom of God. He said that Jesus doesn’t say, “These are my children and those are yours,” but that all children belong to Him.

It’s a bad habit (I know) but I still find myself questioning who belongs to the Kingdom and who doesn’t. Whenever I visit that question, it tends to be with regards to adults, not children. I know that there are some doctrines in Christianity which attempt to say something about the status of children before God, but I have not given as much thought to them as I have other topics. The reason that I’m provoked to do so now is because the Prof and I come from the same church heritage and what he says sounds different from what I grew up hearing and I wonder what he’s learned. Of course, he’d have to explain what he thinks the term Kingdom of God means and what (if any) connection that has to “being saved”. In fact, the term “being saved” would need to be unpacked a bit.

So, I’m wondering are children automatically born into the Kingdom? Are only some children born into the Kingdom while others aren’t? (If so, which ones and why?) If children are born into the Kingdom, at what point and for what reasons do they end up “outside” and need to hear the good news of the Kingdom?

Again, I know that there are some complex doctrines out there which say something about this and I’m familiar with some of them, but maybe someone will have something to offer that I haven’t heard yet. Radical Congruency and iMonk, are you listening?

Of course, if the Prof could chime in, that would be great…

Thank you Atheists

First, for introducing me to John Shore. I’ve added this writer’s blog to the blogroll and I recommend paying him a visit. However, I feel that I should warn you of the following:

1) John Shore is a Christian

2) he gets lots of comments

3) which means whatever you might have to add to a conversation will probably get lost in the crowd…

so, please just leave your comments here.

Okay, you’re right. That was my lame attempt to siphon off some traffic from a successful and more articulate blogger. I apologize, John.

Anyway, if you’re going to visit John Shore’s blog, allow me to direct you to this post. It’s called What Atheists Taught Me. In it, John pleads with Christians to listen to the atheists, really listen. And to respect them.

But how? How can Christians respect atheists?

(Hint: the same way we can respect everyone.)

I’ll elaborate on this later.

And second, for teaching me that I can up the number of visitors to my blog by simply adding the tag “atheist” to it. I promise I’ll not abuse this knowledge in the future.

For What It’s Worth

I got great response from the no-god camp on this post. Everybody expressed themselves in a civil manner and it was good. No debate. Just folks laying their perspective out there for my education.

I’ll be honest; it was hard not to attempt to defend and/or apologize for Christians and Christianity. It would have been wrong to do so, especially after saying that I wasn’t interested in debate. Yet, there are certainly some things that were said that I’ll probably want to revisit in later posts, after I’ve had some time to digest it all.

One thing that I won’t put off until later is an apology; not in the sense of a reasoned defense of a held belief, but instead in the sense of an expression of remorse for wrongs committed against another. There are some (a lot?) in the no-god camp who have been wronged by Christians and while I seriously doubt that anything I can post in my obscure blog could mean much to those folks, I still feel like I have to say:

I’m sorry that we Christians have treated you as though you were not human. I’m sorry that we have not been kind in our exchanges or civil in our debates. I’m sorry that where you were not our enemies at one point in time, we made you our enemies by failing to obey the God we claim to know and serve. We have dishonored you, our God and ourselves. I apologize.

Talk is cheap and words on blogs are perhaps even cheaper, but I felt I ought to put that out there. Also, I know that there are Christ-followers who live lives much more closely conformed to the likeness of Jesus than the ones you’ve met. I hope you meet them some day. Heck, one of them even writes a much better apology.

Beyond the Wall

Walls are everywhere in my host country. I don’t mean fences that you can see through, hop over or dig under. I mean solid masonry of one sort or the other. They are a fixed feature of every private domicile.

I don’t know if walls are a hold over from the days of tribal raiding or if they’re built to maintain privacy within the context of the relatively new urban lifestyle that people have these days. One thing I  do know is that walls are not only useful to keep things out, but they are also useful to keep things in.

The main compounds of Christian worship in my host city are all behind walls. At first glance, there doesn’t appear to be anything sinister about this. As I’ve said, walls are just part of the architecture around here. However, I think that upon closer examination we might find that the walls have been very useful to the local authorities to keep Christians from exercising much influence within the culture.

While the law does allow for Christians to worship in designated compounds, absolutely no proselytizing is allowed. Additionally, Christian literature and media are permitted inside the walls of the compound but may not be sold or distributed outside the compound. These and other restrictions which are not especially aimed at Christians have, I believe, boxed in our thinking…at least the thinking of the leadership of the group where I’ve been worshipping for the past several years.

No one inside the walls of our church compound talks openly in our assemblies of doing anything outside the walls of the compound. I’m not talking about hassling folks with pamphlets or anything overtly evangelistic. I’m talking about organizing an effort to alleviate some of the suffering that is all around us. When I pressed one of the church leaders about this idea, he told me that there are such things going on but that they are not talked about. The reason they’re not talked about is because a culture of extreme caution has been cultivated. As someone once told a friend of mine here, “It’s better (for the church) to be here and do nothing than to not be here at all.” Whatever good we’re up to, it needs to stay inside the wall.

Recently, I’ve learned about something going on outside the wall that I hope to get involved with. It’s an organization that seeks to help some of the poorest and most ill-treated people around by giving them food and clothes along with other kinds of aid. While the organization was started by a Christian couple, it is certainly not a bait and switch operation that lures folks and then tries to stuff religion down their throats. (They wouldn’t be allowed by the government to operate if it were.) All the same it is an opportunity to get beyond the wall and be Jesus to people, which is good for everyone involved.

Persecution in Eritrea

The BBC has a documentary about the persecution of Christians in Eritrea that you can listen to here.

I know that I don’t have a large audience but I’m asking any Christian blogger who visits my blog to post a link to this documentary on their own blogs so that as many people as possible will be aware of what’s going on. It’s important (especially among Western Christians) that we do not forget that there are brothers and sisters who are being persecuted and killed for their trust in King Jesus.

What Would Solomon Say?

The Bible tells us the following about the wisdom of Solomon:

 29 God gave Solomon wisdom and very great insight, and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore. 30 Solomon’s wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the men of the East, and greater than all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 He was wiser than any other man, including Ethan the Ezrahite—wiser than Heman, Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol. And his fame spread to all the surrounding nations. 32 He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five. 33 He described plant life, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of walls. He also taught about animals and birds, reptiles and fish. 34 Men of all nations came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, sent by all the kings of the world, who had heard of his wisdom. (1 Kings 4:29-34)
 

Notice that verse 33 demonstrates that Solomon was, at some level, a scientist, a biologist even.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that one of Solomon’s proverbs reads as follows.

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter;
       to search out a matter is the glory of kings. (Proverbs 25:2)

Which is precisely what Solomon did.

While it would be great hubris to disagree with Solomon, I do think that, some kings (read “governments”) might be better off to leave some matters concealed.

…and yes, I was looking for a way to include a link to this post on this blog. Sorry if it’s a bit forced. I guess this is an example of proof-texting.

Some Questions are More Important than Others

Since the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Americans have been attempting to answer numerous questions about Islam. What is this religion? Who are these Muslims and why do they hate us so? Is Islam a “violent religion”? How do we deal with these people?

Christians in America are no different. I recently came across a Christian blogger who posted his thoughts as to whether or not Islam is a violent religion. There are several more I’m sure. As an American Christian living in a Muslim country I think I have something to say about this particular question as well as the host of others.

First, Christians need to ask other more pertinent questions than those about the the teachings of Islam pertaining to violence. The most important question for us is “What (if anything) does Islam/Qu’ran have to say about Jesus?” The clearer we are on this point, the easier it will be to absorb other information about Islam. I say this because our expectations of this religion and its adherents will be more accurately guided by that information than any other. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet, that he did not die on the cross, that he was not raised from the dead and that he did not claim to be the Son of God. The Qu’ran contains some information about and words attributed to Jesus, but Muslims know little or nothing about the teachings of this person they accept as a prophet. Consequently, we can expect there to be significant disagreement between Christians and Muslims.

After this question, Christians need to ask how to communicate the good news of reconciliation to God through Jesus to Muslims. Honestly, I don’t have an answer to this question. Also, I’m pretty sure that the answers that apply in the States are not the answers that apply in other places of the world. Wherever we are, one answer that applies is simply this; be Jesus to them. Treat them as you want to be treated (even if they don’t reciprocate), love them and do good to them (even if they persecute you), and forgive them. Of course, we already know this, so I suppose we ought to be praying for the character of Christ to be fully formed in us so that we can be Jesus to them…and everyone else as well.

Knowing whether or not Islam is a violent religion, why they hate us (Christians and/or Americans) and whatever other answers we’re seeking will not ultimately change how we ought to relate to Muslims.

NB-But, if you’re still interested in one Muslim’s perspective on the question of Islam and violence, you can look here.

I Need an Athiest

Atheism seems to be in the media more lately than it has been in the past decade. (I choose the word “seems” because I’ve been out of the states for almost a decade and I don’t think I really know what’s going on back home.) As a result, the more thoughtful Christians among us are curious and are attempting to pose serious questions to atheists about their beliefs. I don’t know if Cat Juggler is a Christian but he puts this question into the ”world wide weird” for atheists to answer. Like him, I need an atheist or several to answer a genuine (meaning “not rhetorical”) question:

What contributions has atheism (or atheists) made to the good of humanity?

As a Christian, I know both the good and evil that we’ve done in the world, but as an outsider to atheism, I can’t say that. So, I’m seriously asking any atheists who might find their way here to fill in the gaps of my knowledge by answering the above question. I’m not looking to debate, just to learn something.

What’s in a Name?

Many of the numerous labels for identifying specific types of Christians and Christianity have never felt right on me. Being raised in a non-denominational community (as opposed to the Non-Denominational community) bred a dissatisfaction with any name other than “Christian” no matter how useful it may be at times to choose a buttonhole of my own for the sake of discussion. In more recent years, I’ve tried on “follower of Jesus” and “believer” as a way to distance myself from negative connotations that have been attached to the name “Christian” in Western culture…and even in the Middle East where I live.

Here in the Middle East, people still see the West as “Christian” and themselves as “Muslim/Islamic”. The idea of a “Post-Christian” nation/culture is inconcieveable. To them, Hollywood is making Christian movies. Chew on that for a minute. The point of view expressed by American media is Christian as far as they’re concerned. This makes sense since everything in their corner of the world is ordered according to their understanding of Islam…or at least the understanding of Islam which those in power have. Western values are Christian values in their eyes. Here, being a Christian doesn’t align you with the Savior of the World but rather with the evil West or even the “Great Satan”. As a result, whenever it’s appropriate (which isn’t often) I try to avoid the term “Christian” in favor of something that will more clearly and immediately identify that my loyalties are with the Kingdom of God and not the West.

Church and Gospel II

I’ve been thinking about the following statement: The Church is part of the Gospel.

The statement was made to me by an Orthodox priest in the context of a post on his blog and a comment that I made about it. My comment had erroneously left him with the impression that I believe that the Gospel and the Church are not linked to one another; that one could receive the Gospel without receiving the Church. While I do not believe this as I’ve worded it, I do believe that the Gospel is not the exclusive property of any particular expression of the Church.

The reason that I’ve been struggling with the statement of the priest is because the word Church does not necessarily have the same connotation for me that I believe they have for him. In my life, I’ve interacted briefly with the Ukrainian and the Ethiopian Orthodox expressions of Church. Additionally, I’ve done a small amount of reading about the Orthodox Church and it is my perception that the Orthodox Church sees itself as the ONE TRUE CHURCH and others are not. There are RIGHT ways to fast and WRONG ways to fast and it matters. There is a PROPER way to perform the sign of the cross and an IMPROPER way to perform the sign of the cross and it matters. Consequently, when I hear that “The Church is part of the Gospel” what I understand the priest to say is “The expression of the Church called THE ORTHODOX CHURCH is part of the Gospel and those other guys are not.” I simply cannot accept this, even though I fully understand it.I grew up in a Protestant expression of church (sectsounds like such an ugly word) that also saw itself as the TRUE CHURCH to the exclusion of all others. Whenever my mother spoke of someone as a “member of the Church”, she meant the particular tradition to which she gave allegiance. As a young adult, I abandoned that belief.

Thinking about the priest’s statement lead me to this question, “How is the Church part of the Gospel?” I’ll give that some thought and post on my ideas another time.

Church and Gospel I

The Orthodox Priest wrote:

If you have lived your Christian life and never heard the story of our relationship with God put in the sort of terms used above, then you have missed out on hearing most of the New Testament. You have missed the story as told by the Fathers of the Eastern Church (which means, most of the Church Fathers). It is possible that you have heard such a distortion of the Christian faith that you have wanted nothing to do with it.

But if what I have described above sounds like good news – then the news is very good – because this is the teaching of the New Testament and the Church founded by Jesus Christ and which continues to be proclaimed by the Orthodox Church.

I’m having a hard time with this concluding statement and the reason is because it comes across to me as a plug for the Orthodox Church. It feels to me as if the priest is saying that the good news is proclaimed by the Orthodox Church and not those other guys. I admit the possibility that my biases have caused me to misunderstand the man’s point.

I wanted to leave a comment but I didn’t want to presume to lecture a priest about the Bible or the Church so, in my caution, I ended up saying something that utterly failed to communicate what I wanted to say. I wrote ,

The news is very good not because it’s delivered by the Orthodox Church (or any body of believers) but because it is TRUE…as one day, all who are called by His Name will see.

Consequently, the priest percieved that I was divorcing the Gospel from the Church, saying that the Church is part of the Gospel. How does that sound to you?

The Church is part of the Gospel.

I’m going to chew on that some and post about it later…but until then I would like to hear how others respond to that statement.

Asylum II

This is the second part in a series of posts about a friend of mine seeking religious asylum in the West. Part I is here. 

A different officer came to speak with us. His name is B. He was God’s man in our story. Gently B. said, “Please guys, help us so we can help you. All we want is the truth,” then he went away. A third officer came to take us to get our bags. He opened each one of them and checked every single item. He kept my papers, documents, phonebook and my mobile phone, then he took us to a holding area. The holding area was a secured place with iron doors and angry faces. We waited for five minutes then B., the friendly officer, arrived. He took us to an office where he registered our names, nationalities, date of birth and the country of our departure. He also took our fingerprints. He asked, “What are you running away from?” We told him the main points of our story, then he said “You will be held while we check that your documents are not fake.”

We were taken to another small room where my wife was  thoroughly searched. As I was waiting for my turn, an older female officer spoke with me. I was struggling to keep a grip on myself so my wife wouldn’t see me cry, but once the older woman asked me why we were here I broke down. I couldn’t stop crying. She said, “Don’t worry brother. I am a Christian and I will be praying for you both.” Then it was my turn to be searched.

When it was over, we were offered something to eat and drink. We declined. Back in the detention hall, it was cold and silent. A TV was on with the sound turned down. Time passed so slowly. We had no idea what was going to happen next. After about an hour, they took us to a clinic in the airport where x-rays were taken and we were asked some medical questions. When we were finished there, we went back to the detention hall.

Hours crawled by. My wife was shivering from the cold. I asked the security guard if they could adjust the temperature in the hall. Instead, he gave us each a large sheet of some kind of paper to cover ourselves with. We tried it, but my wife was getting worse. I asked if she could be moved to somewhere warmer. I was afraid that she might be getting sick. The guard replied rudely , “She’s sick? She should’ve stayed home! Why did she come here!” I hugged her closely and tried to warm her up. Then they called for me.

to be conintued…