#388 Embracing Our Foolishness

There are so many good passages in William J. Abraham's The Logic of Evangelism.  Evangelism, defined as all activities undertaken with the goal of initiating one into the kingdom of God, is more than just simply a proclamation, a quick altar call, the sinner's prayer, and a recognition of our salvation by grace.  As vital as those elements are, the good news, the evangel, is so much more comprehensive than that.  And that is very good news indeed.  And yet it cannot not be taken lightly.  The decision to become a Christian should not happen without counting the cost.  Here's why (italics are mine):

"... a profound intellectual conversion constitutes entry into the kingdom of God.  From the beginning the gospel has appeared as foolishness.  Belief entails a spiritual appreciation for certain events in history that lie way beyond the plausibility structures of the modern mindset insofar as these structures rule out talk about the agency of human persons and of the supreme agent of all, the Lord God.  It engenders a comprehensive and searching understanding of oneself as a child of God who has fallen into sin and rebellion , and into corruption and self-delusion.  It calls for a radical reversal of ones vision and values as evoked by a narrative of mercy and love that will forever appear astonishing and incredible.  And it evokes a longing for fellowship and community that can be satisfied only by worship and adoration among the saints and martyrs.  These beliefs cannot be packaged and marketed like soap and cornflakes.  We should be astonished if they are embraced quickly without struggle and without intellectual sweat."

In practical terms, this means that seeing thousands stream forward at a Billy Graham crusade should give us pause.  Later, reflecting on Jesus exclusive claim in John 14 that he is the only way to God, Abraham comments,

"Taken in a prima facie manner and in isolation, this claim is absurd.  It is surely extraordinary to insist that people can come to God only through a first-century Jewish day-laborer who was sentenced to death and crucified by the conventional legal processes of the Roman judiciary in Palestine.  The claim is an obvious scandal, and Christians who make it without reflecting on this can scarcely profess to understand in any deep sense what they are saying.  Consider a contrary claim to the effect that the world can be saved only through Johnny Megaw, an Irish house-decorator who was killed by terrorists in Enniskillen on November 8, 1987.  No one would take this seriously, yet, stated in a bald fashion, this is what classical Christianity wants to uphold."

So, taking the two passages together, until we admit and even embrace the absurdity of our claims about the action of God in the life, death, and life again of Jesus Christ, we have not truly known what it means to enter into the kingdom of the God to whom we have pledged our allegiance.  We have not been fully evangelized.

#387 Come Thou Ecumenism

There are traditions with a regional emphasis such as the Roman Catholics, the Moravian Brethren, and the Nebraska Amish; and similarly inclined, those with a directional emphasis such as the Eastern Orthodox, and the Southern Baptists.  There are those who pride themselves in numbers: First United Methodist or Tenth Presbyterian; but also those whose numbers have so dwindled that they extinct or nearly extinct: the Huguenots and the Waldensians.  There are those with a specific theological emphasis: Missionary Baptists, Evangelical Lutherans, Full Gospel churches, and Holiness churches; while others think of themselves as movements: the Jesus Movement, the Restoration Movement, the Grace Movement.  There are even blended denominations: the African Methodist Episcopalians, the Anglican Catholics.  I came across what may be the most surprising blend of all in the story of the origins of a hymn that Christian hipsters like to sing.  It is Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing and it was written by Robert Robinson in 1758.

After a rough beginning in life due to his father's death while Robert was still young and his mother's sending him away to London where he lived the life of a gangster for a short time, he was converted while listening to a convicting George Whitfield sermon.  Well, Robert sobered up and soon found himself in ministry serving at, wait for it... the Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Norfolk, England.  That doesn't even roll off the tongue right.  It has a halting sound to it.


But it was there at the age of 23 that Robinson wrote his now famous hymn.  I imagine that if he had proposed his hymn today in either a Calvinist or Methodist chapel, but not a blend of both, he would not receive such a warm reception as he has posthumously.  Where he writes that he is prone to leave God and says, "Here's my heart Lord, take and seal it," the doctrinaire Calvinist might say, "Robert, asking God to seal us against our wanderings implies that we are not already sealed before the foundation of the world."  Where he writes, "Tune my heart" and "By Thy Help I Come," the rigid Methodist might sense a thought-crime: "This gives our parishioners a false sense that they don't have a responsibility to make a decision for Christ."  Both might say, "It's good, evocative even, but let's not have it in our official hymn book."


Interestingly, the 1832 Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Methodists (also known as the Presbyterians of Wales) states the following under article 36: "It is the duty of those who profess godliness to maintain fellowship and communion with each other in the public worship of God, to love each other as brethren, and to do good especially unto them who are of the household of faith."  Calvinists and Methodists do good to each other?  Sure, we can do that.  Love each other?  Yes, of course.  But to maintain fellowship and communion with each other in the public worship of God?  In the words of another hymn-writer, "Oh the bliss of this glorious thought!"

#386 Quotes from Communist Sympathizers

These men would get booed off the stage at today's GOP debates:


"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations


"Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.  Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance - where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks - the case for the state's helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong... Wherever communal action can mitigate disasters against which the individual can neither attempt to guard himself nor make the provision for the consequences, such communal action should undoubtedly be taken," - F.A. Hayek, The Road To Serfdom


"It can be argued that private charity is insufficient... I am distressed by the sight of poverty; I am benefited by its alleviation; but I am benefited equally by whether I or someone else pays for its alleviation... In small communities, public pressure can suffice to realize the proviso even with private charity.  In the large impersonal communities that are increasingly coming to dominate our society, it is much more difficult for it to do so.  Suppose one accepts, as I do, this line of reasoning as justifying governmental action to alleviate poverty; to set, as it were, a floor under the standard of life of every person in the community... First, if the objective is to alleviate poverty, we should have a program directed at helping the poor and so far as possible the program should, while operating through the market, not distort the market.  The arrangement that recommends itself on purely mechanical grounds is a negative income tax [i.e. a subsidy]. In this way, it would be possible to set a floor below which no man's net income could fall... The precise floor set would depend on what the community could afford." - Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom

#385 Theologians Against Apologetics

This will be a collecting post for all "against apologetics" quotes I come across in chronological order.

Ignatius of Antioch

"The greatness of Christianity lies in its being hated by the world, not in its being convincing to it."  -- From the Letter of Ignatius to the Romans

Thomas Aquinas

"For the will of God cannot be investigated by reason...  But the divine will can be manifested by revelation, on which faith rests.  And it is useful to consider this, lest anyone, presuming to demonstrate what is of faith, should bring forward reasons that are not cogent, so as to give occasion to unbelievers to laugh, thinking that on such grounds we believe things that are of faith."-- Summa Theologica

Karl Barth

“Anxiety concerning the victory of the Gospel – that is, Christian Apologetics – is meaningless, because the Gospel is the victory by which the world is overcome… God does not need us.” -- Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 35

Hans Urs von Balthasar

"But the essence of the matter is faith, not a (neutral) looking on or a desire to experience something (for oneself).  One who snatches at psychological experiences (presumably perhaps "in the Holy Spirit") will reach into a void.  And one who gropes for the flame will get burned by it.  Faith is reverent; it allows the light space in which to burn.  Still more: it receives from the light the eyes with which it sees the light.  Si comprehendis, non est Deus*: and if you think to have grasped it, you are not one whom God has grasped...

Jesus has no need of apologetics: he shines through.  He shines upon everyone who comes into the world (John 1:9) and does not deliberately look away (John 1:12).  The Church should not pursue any apologetics for herself, but should instead endeavor to make her Lord visible." -- Von Balthasar, "Does Jesus Shine Through?", Communio (1968), 319ff

William Platcher/Hans Frei

"'The most fateful issue for Christian self-description,' [Hans] Frei wrote…, 'is that of regaining its autonomous vocation as a religion, after its defeat in its secondary vocation of providing ideological coherence, foundation, and stability to Western culture.' We no longer live in what Kierkegaard called Christendom. But old habits die hard, and Christian theologians had fallen into the habit of trying to delineate the religious dimension of our general culture. Some seem not to notice that our culture, by and large, isn’t much interested. Some grow angry at the lack of interest. Some try all the more desperately to make the appropriate connections.

In a post-Christian age, however, Christianity might instead try to regain 'its autonomous vocation as a religion.' We Christians still have stories to tell—distinctive stories. Stories about how God worked in the life of Israel, and God’s self-revelation in the life of Jesus Christ. Stories that define a community different from the world around us because of the way these stories shape our self-understanding, a community that may sometimes be wildly radical politically and on other issues seem conservative... Hans Frei called us to be tellers of such tales." -- William Platcher quoting Hans Frei in Hans Frei and the Meaning of Biblical Narrative

Michael Spencer (some of the last words he ever wrote)

"There is little good news in 'My argument scored more points than you argument.' But the news that 'Christ is risen!' really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying.  If Christianity is not a dying word to dying men, it is not the message of the Bible that gives hope now.  What is your apologetic? Make it the full and complete announcement of the Life Giving news about Jesus."

John Hobbins

"No reasonable person with a brain attached to their body is going to experience zero cognitive dissonance in their lives. The control beliefs we have, if they have any substance at all, are going to clash, often or occasionally, with facts on the ground. It may even be an index of the truth of those beliefs if they do. If we are intellectually and spiritually alive, meta-narratives at odds with our own will garner our attention and call the viewpoint we have adopted into question. Traditional apologists too often paper over such conflicts, offer answers where instead we should hold on to questions, and shut off inquiry rather than encourage it.  Or I should say pseudo-traditional apologists, since the Bible itself and great authors like Augustine, Maimonides and Aquinas do not sweep the substantive issues under the rug, but face them head on."

#384 Post-Liberals Against Apologetics

"'The most fateful issue for Christian self-description,' [Hans] Frei wrote…, 'is that of regaining its autonomous vocation as a religion, after its defeat in its secondary vocation of providing ideological coherence, foundation, and stability to Western culture.' We no longer live in what Kierkegaard called Christendom. But old habits die hard, and Christian theologians had fallen into the habit of trying to delineate the religious dimension of our general culture. Some seem not to notice that our culture, by and large, isn’t much interested. Some grow angry at the lack of interest. Some try all the more desperately to make the appropriate connections.

In a post-Christian age, however, Christianity might instead try to regain 'its autonomous vocation as a religion.' We Christians still have stories to tell—distinctive stories. Stories about how God worked in the life of Israel, and God’s self-revelation in the life of Jesus Christ. Stories that define a community different from the world around us because of the way these stories shape our self-understanding, a community that may sometimes be wildly radical politically and on other issues seem conservative... Hans Frei called us to be tellers of such tales."

-- William Platcher quoting Hans Frei in Hans Frei and the Meaning of Biblical Narrative

I post this quote to explicitly contrast coherent apologetics to the telling of what Chesterton might call the strangest tale ever told.  Jesus was most certainly a teller of tales, strange tales, rather than an apologist.  The martyr Steven's last act before being rushed and stoned, as a man named Saul gathered the coats of onlookers, was to simply repeat Israel's story one last time.

As Andrew Perriman has pointed out, religion is a poor choice of words for Frei.  But I know exactly what Frei is getting at and can look past that.  His idea that Christianity has been defeated at its secondary vocation echoes Alisdair MacIntyre's famous quote at the end of After Virtue about the Benedictines turning aside from the task of "shoring up the Roman imperium."

#383 Steno Quote

"Fair is what we see, Fairer what we have perceived, Fairest what is still in veil."

-- Nicolas Steno, in a quote that sounds as if it were taken right from Chesterton were it not written centuries earlier.

#382 Occupy vs. Inhabit

News events can crisscross in our minds in funny ways.  Somewhere between watching the Occupy movement unfold and subsequently fold again all over America and the wax and subsequent wane of focus on the plight of North Korea in the wake the Dear Leader's death, I began to think about what it might mean to incarnate rather than invade a place, about the two alternative courses of action I might take after crossing the border of North Korea for the first time: Occupy or Inhabit.

Occupy invades.  Inhabit incarnates.

Occupy goes against.  Inhabit comes alongside.
Occupy takes over.  Inhabit believes the victory is already won.
Occupy starts a revolution.  Inhabit seeks to be radical, that is to go to the root.
Occupy becomes a rebel.  Inhabit becomes a citizen.
Occupy forces the hand of change.  Inhabit recognizes that we have been and will be changed.
Occupy imposes its will.  Inhabit is open to being imposed upon.
Occupy demands justice.  Inhabit bears injustice.
Occupy asks "Why are we suffering wrong? Why are we being cheated?" Inhabit asks, "Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?"
Occupy sets up an outpost.  Inhabit is a signpost.

Occupy strikes out of place.  Inhabit lives life in place.

#381 Lectio Divina

During adolescence, my faith was very emotional, hot.  Over the past 10 years or so it has become academic and cold.  Both represent extremes but both, in their seasons, were integral to what I've become.  Last year I began to feel an increasing urge to go back towards that intuitive, wide-eyed passion I had as a child, but not all the way away from the calculating, open-eyed faith of my later years.  So it is that with a new year comes new resolve.  I resolve to swing that pendulum of my faith back towards, without over-shooting, that middle ground.  And what better way to center myself than in prayer.


So I found something called Lectio Divina, which is Latin for Divine Reading.  It is the reading of scripture in prayer.  It is the reading of scripture as prayer.  It is reading scripture as if God were real. Though I've never doubted God's reality, the faith of my more mature years was more concerned with God-the-concept than the God-as-person that my youthful self was so in tune with.  Lectio Divina is an attempt to marry the two:  A relationship centered in scripture.

The method consists most traditionally of four steps: 1) read, 2) meditate, 3) pray, 4) contemplate.  You start by reading a passage of scripture which can be as short or as long as you like and can be done repeatedly or just once.  This is followed by meditation on the passage.  This is not an academic analysis but a pondering, a consideration with the mind open for the Holy Spirit.  Then comes prayer which may be inspired by the reading and meditation.  Finally, contemplation.  Perhaps a better word for this step is listening.  This is, for me, a complete silencing of the heart and mind before God as one who can speak.  The whole process is an act of faith.  But for me, this last part is especially.


I have been at it for three days now, each day of the new year.  My choice for the reading step has been to read one Psalm four times.  First in NASB, then in KJV, then NASB again, then KJV again.  These are the only two versions I own.  The whole process takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes for me.  I have yet to hear from God, but I believe he rewards persistence, particularly the desperate kind, and I'll report if I hear anything.  Before this past year I wouldn't have thought this kind of commitment possible.  Over the last year, I've realized it's not just possible but necessary.  And now I find it simple enough, once I've finished with the usual nightly routine of coming home from work, playing with the kids, putting them in bed, and fulfilling any other immediate obligations, to go into my room, sit at my empty desk with no electronics or other paperwork and divinely read, meditate, pray, and listen.  Lectio, meditatio, oratio, audite.

#380 Books of 2011

Here is a list of all the books I read this year ranked from favorite to least favorite. Another busy year with very few books read.  I purchased three of these and was given eight for a low total of 11.

I - Recommended Reading

1. The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith, 8 out of 10
2. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 7 out of 10

II - Middling

3. Moby Dick by Herman Melville, 6 out of 10
4. Chasing Fireflies by Charles Martin, 6 out of 10
5. Antiquities by Josephus, 6 out of 10
6. Romans Commentary by Ambrosiaster, 6 out of 10
7. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, 6 out of 10
8. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Freedman, 6 out of 10
9. The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton, 5 out of 10
10. Rabbit, Run by John Updike, 5 out of 10
 
III - Not worth the your time or effort

11. New Elucidations by Hans Urs von Balthasar, 3 out of 10

#379 Second Temple Never Had A Chance

If you ever asked why Jesus was born at the time he was, why God sent his son into the world at the particular point in history that he did, you probably got an answer that had something to do with the Greek language having spread across the region subsequent to the conquests of Alexander the Great, thus enabling the the gospel to reach a wider audience.  Additionally, the Pax Romana enabled early missionaries, Paul being the best example, to travel easily to spread the message.  But maybe these were more fortuitous than planned.  Maybe God had another reason.

The Israeli Antiquities Authority released news of an archeological finding which suggests that large portions of the temple were not completed within Herod the Great's lifetime, including four bronze coins found underneath the western wall of the temple mount that were struck in 17/18 AD which is around 22 years after the death of Herod's death in 4 BC.  The IAA is always trying to scrounge up news to support their national narrative and bring in tourism revenue, but scholars aren't impressed as it confirms what they, Josephus, and John (2:20) already knew, that the temple was only started by Herod but completed later.

But it is news to me.  I had always assumed, even after reading Josephus (whose chronology can be difficult to follow at times), that Herod finished his temple.  I think most people assume that.  That is the common assumption.  But now it appears that the foundations of large parts of the temple were still exposed as late as 17/18 AD!  Assuming a birth-date for Jesus of 6 BC, this means that Jesus would've been nearly 24 years old at the time the above-ground construction would've... begun.  This means that in the years leading up to the beginning of his anti-establishment activity portrayed in the gospels, he would've been aware of and probably saw the the final and most visible phases of construction.

I previously thought of the second temple as having been built with good intentions, completed, and having served a godly purpose for a short time before being corrupted by the Jerusalem leadership and later destroyed.  But this new chronology collapses that timeline.  It suggests that Jesus pronounced prophetic judgment on the building immediately.  It was never legit from planning to completion. 

Luke tells the story of Jesus approaching Jerusalem for the final time:

"And when he approached, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes.  For the days shall come upon you when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

Then, using an old prophetic technique (Ezekiel's brick under siege, Hosea's prostitute wife), Luke has Jesus demonstrate symbolically that which he just warned about, "And he entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling."

And indeed, just as Jesus had prophetically acted it out less than a generation earlier, the day came when the Romans entered Jerusalem, threw up banks, surrounded them, hemmed them in, leveled the city, and as can be seen from the picture below, threw down the stones of the walls from atop one another.

Later, overhearing commentary on the beauty of the buildings, Jesus sounded a sour note (my paraphrase of Luke 21:6, 32): "Guys, everything you're looking at will be gone within your lifetime."  The disciples were probably thinking, "But it was just built.  How can God already be judging it?"  This is an indication that God was pronouncing judgment not on this particular incarnation of the temple.  After all, it never had a chance to get off the ground (literally) and show its true colors.  He was pronouncing judgment on the entire system.  And with the destruction at the hand of the Romans on the horizon and the approaching completion of the temple, God was giving this people one final chance at escape.

#378 The Life He Imagines

“He didn’t love farming enough to be a farmer, much as he loved it, but he loved it too much to be entirely happy doing anything else. He is disappointed in himself. He is regretful in some dark passage of his mind that he thinks only he knows about, but he can’t hide it from his mother. I can see it in his face as plain as writing. There is the same kind of apology in him that you see in some of the sweeter drunks. He is trying to make up the difference between the life he has and the life he imagines he might have had.”

-- from Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter

#377 Children's Blessing

We dedicated our children at church this past Sunday and this is the blessing we put together for them.  It is a paraphrase of several passages, including Ephesians 3, Colossians 1, Psalm 56, and Psalm 23.

Gavin and Elena,

We bow our knees before the God from whom every family in heaven and earth comes, that out of his riches, he would give you strength in the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may know how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ Jesus which surpasses everything we know, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God.

We always give thanks to God for you because of the hope laid up for you in heaven and we ask that you may be filled up with him.  May you walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit like trees in all the good works that you do.

As Jesus became one of us, our highest hope for you is that you become one with the lowly, the lonely, and those who feel left-out.

When you are afraid, may you trust in God and not be afraid.   He puts your tears in his container. He records them in his book.  May you know that he is on your side.

The Lord is your shepherd, you don’t need anything else.  May he make you lie down in green pastures and lead you beside still waters.  He will restore your soul and lead you down the right path.  Even when you’re in the dark, don’t be afraid.  God is with you.  He will comfort you.  May God’s goodness and love chase you every day of your life.

#376 The Moral Challenge of the Law

Here are three mutually exclusive ways to look at the difficult moral challenges presented by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

Starting in the 4th century, Ambrosiaster reads it the way that comes naturally when you first encounter the text at face value, that is that Jesus took the moral standards in the law of Moses (don't murder, don't commit adultery) and raised the bar (don't hate, don't lust):

"[The law and the gospel]: both have a single author. Yet in the time of Christ it was necessary to add something, namely, that we should love our enemies as well as our neighbors, whence love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10), so that righteousness is to love one's neighbor, but overflowing and perfect righteousness is to love one's enemies."
-- From his commentary on Romans

But in the 16th century, John Calvin, commenting on Matthew 5:20 and the surrounding verses, seems to directly address Ambrosiaster's comments and says that interpretation is all wrong:

"It has been a prevailing opinion, that the beginning of righteousness was laid down in the ancient law, but that the perfection of it is pointed out in the Gospel. But nothing was farther from the design of Christ, than to alter or innovate any thing in the commandments of the law. There God has once fixed the rule of life which he will never retract. But as the law had been corrupted by false expositions, and turned to a profane meaning, Christ vindicates it against such corruptions, and points out its true meaning, from which the Jews had departed... That Christ, on the other hand, intended to make no correction in the precepts of the law, is very clear from other passages: for to those who desire to enter into life by their good works, he gives no other injunction, than to, keep the commandments of the law (Matthew 19:17). From no other source do the Apostles, as well as Christ himself, draw the rules for a devout and holy life. It is doing a grievous injury to God, the author of the Law, to imagine that the eyes, and hands, and feet alone, are trained by it to a hypocritical appearance of good works, and that it is only in the Gospel that we are taught to love God with the heart. Away, then, with that error, 'The deficiencies of the law are here supplied by Christ.'"
-- From his commentary on Matthew

Then in the 21st century, along comes what I take to be the standard kerygma of most reformed-leaning churches I have attended over the past ten years.  John MacArthur, contradicting both Ambrosiaster and Calvin, provides a good example:

"The purpose of God's law was to show you that you had to have more righteousness than you could come up with on your own; that's the point of it, the purpose.  Galatians 3:24 articulates it with this statement: 'Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.'  The law was the schoolmaster, or the disciplinarian, to bring us to Christ.  The law was the perfect standard which would show us our sin; that was its purpose.  The law was to show us that we couldn't do it on our own, that even the best - the scribes and the Pharisees, with all of their religiosity, trappings, ceremony, and ritual - could not gain the righteousness required to enter the Kingdom.  In other words, if you want it simply, the law was given with the purpose of frustrating us, showing us our inadequacy.  The law wasn't to tell us how good we are, but to show us how rotten we are."

-- From a sermon delivered on March 18, 1979 entitled Christ and the Law, Part 4.

For what it's worth, Ambrosiaster rings true and Calvin hits the nail on the head.  But I've heard countless sermons more along MacArthur's line where morality/virtue/ethics/good works/merit/law/what-have-you are viewed as nothing more than a foil, a matador's cape, to show you how depraved you are.  These preachers have a strong, sincere belief that the greatest threat their congregants face is the chance that they might slip into thinking they can earn their salvation through works and it is their top priority to disabuse them of this notion.  Why else do I hear this sermon Sunday after Sunday?  Why else do the words separated by slashes above feel like such dirty words when spoken among Protestants?  Why else do accountability partners feel the need to remind me that I can't earn my salvation when I share about a moral hill I am trying to climb? I say they are preaching to straw men.  And I say if God is waving a matador's cape when he urges obedience, then he is waving it at a straw bull.  And while MacArthur and the countless other preachers I've heard in person over the years will help someone who grew up in a very legalistic environment struggling with an existential crisis, they do so by stretching the text to fit into their own preconceived gospel story.

#375 Interesting Links XLIII

Is sugar toxic?  That's the argument being made by Robert Lustig in a 90 minute presentation here.  The NYT magazine article about the topic is here.  As Dr. Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Harvard Medical School says, "Sugar scares me."

When Jerusalem was sacked in 597 BC, its inhabitants were raped, tortured, and murdered.  The Babylonians even committed infanticide according to the Jewish history as found in the book of Ezekiel.  So how do we read this as Christian scripture given a loving God?  Dr. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (via Michael Bird) suggests that we, "read Ezekiel in tandem with Lamentations [and Job] and so complain that God has gone too far, and leave the response up to God."

Josh Rowley passes along a quote from Ron Sider (of Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger fame): "What the Almighty will do if thousands of praying, loving Christians non-violently face death in the search for peace and justice will remain shrouded in mystery--at least until we have the courage to try it"

John Updike sounds like the Protestant version of Flannery O'Connor here: "This age needs rather men like Shakespeare, or Milton, or Pope; men who are filled with the strength of their cultures and do not transcend the limits of their age, but, working within the times, bring what is peculiar to the moment to glory. We need great artists who are willing to accept restrictions, and who love their environments with such vitality that they can produce an epic out of the Protestant ethic ... Whatever the many failings of my work, let it stand as a manifesto of my love for the time in which I was born.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer from a 1932 essay: "Praying for the kingdom cannot be done by the one who tears himself away from his own misery and the misery of others, who lives unattached and solely in the pious hours of his 'own salvation.' The church may have hours in which it can sustain even that, but we cannot. The hour in which the church prays for the kingdom forces the church, for better or for worse, to identify completely with the fellowship of the children of the Earth and world. It bind the church by oaths of fealty to the Earth, to misery, to hunger, to death. It renders the church completely in solidarity with that which is evil and with the guilt of their brothers. The hour in which we pray for God’s kingdom is the hour of the most profound solidarity with the world, an hour of clenched teeth and trembling fists. It is not a time for solitary whispering, 'Oh, that I might be saved.' Rather, it is a time for mutual silence and screaming, that this world which has forced us into distress together might pass away and Your kingdom come to us."

Cool picture of a gorilla being evacuated from a Congo war zone here.

Walter Burghardt offer five suggestions for creating a contemplative life of prayer and expands on each of them at this link. First, seek out some sort of desert experience.  Second, cultivate a feeling for festivity, the experience of doing something utterly lacking in utilitarian value.  Closely related is the third suggestion: cultivate a sense of play.  Fourth, learn to let go, to not posses, to let experiences and things be ephemeral.  Finally, make contemplative friends, friends who radiate wonder, whose sense of delight is finely tuned.

The Afghan tribal elders know that America will go the way of all empires who enter The Graveyard.  It's only a matter of time.

Here's a bunch of art indexed by biblical text.

List of messianic pretenders.

#374 Lifted to Death

The particular Old Testament references through which we choose to view particular New Testament events will have a significant impact on the interpretation of that event.  That's largely redundant, but here's a drawn-out example.  John 12 contains the following account,

"The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. They began to shout, 'Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the king of Israel!'  Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 'Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt!' (His disciples did not understand these things when they first happened, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that these things had happened to him.)"

The contextual background to this passage is a political and cultural situation whereby the storied and formerly triumphant Jewish people were undergoing nothing short of an existential crisis as a result of assimilation into and domination under the Roman Empire.  Things are looking bleak and then, as indicated by the OT passages being quoted, the hopes of the entire nation for an anointed servant of God, a messiah, who would deliver them from their oppression appear to be coming to fulfillment.  However, the author of the gospel of John tells us parenthetically that at the time of these events, Jesus' own disciples failed to make any connection between what they were witnessing and the prophecies which foretold of the deliverance of their nation by a messiah and that they finally understood seemingly only as a result of his being later "glorified."

Not cooincidentaly, almost immediately on the heels of this explanation, the author has Jesus abruptly put an end to his ministry of public healing by refusing to entertain a meeting with some Greek proselytes who had requested some time with him, saying instead that,

"'The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified... Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.' (Now he said this to indicate clearly what kind of death he was going to die.)"

And because of this second parenthetical, I've always interpreted this phrase about Jesus being "lifted up" in the same way, i.e. as referring to the type of death he would die, on a cross.  When asked how Jesus died, you might say he was lifted to death.  Allusions to the OT passage where Moses holds up a serpent on a stick always came to mind and just like that, this interpretation was confirmed and stuck.

But now there is a problem with John's interpretation of Jesus' motivation for using the phrase "lifted up."  It is that even after he was lifted to death on the cross, the disciples still failed to understand.  They failed to be drawn.  Good Friday came and went.  Holy Saturday came and went.  Nothing about Jesus being lifted to death was ever going to draw anyone, much less all men, to himself, except perhaps prolepticly.  In fact, the fact that Jesus was lifted to death was a very good reason why this man could not have been the hoped for savior-king of Israel.  After all, dead kings cannot be triumphant.  So we'll have to look elsewhere for the referent of the "lifted up." That will be the next post.

#373 Praying With Atheists

I'm extremely uncomfortable praying when there are other Christians listening.  There is a certain grammar and rhythm to it that I either can't produce or that integrity won't allow me to produce were I able to.  There is appropriate language and there is inappropriate language.  There are formulas despite lip-service paid against them.  Around atheists though, I think I could be myself, because the words would flow freely.  The awkwardness, questions, stunned silences, confusion, and long pauses would be appropriate, as they truly are when speaking with God.  I sense that, in the words of Brad Johnson,

"In the end, if one doesn’t share the grammar — prayers, etc. — whether one is saying the same thing by way of that grammar or not, the risk of alienation is high."

#372 Von Balthasar Against Apologetics

Previous posts have quoted Ignatius of Antioch, Thomas Aquinas, Karl Barth, Joseph Ratzinger, Michael Spencer, and John Hobbins as either against the enterprise of apologetics all together, or at the very least relativizing it.  Here's Hans Urs Von Balthasar continuing the time-honored tradition:

"But the essence of the matter is faith, not a (neutral) looking on or a desire to experience something (for oneself).  One who snatches at psychological experiences (presumably perhaps "in the Holy Spirit") will reach into a void.  And one who gropes for the flame will get burned by it.  Faith is reverent; it allows the light space in which to burn.  Still more: it receives from the light the eyes with which it sees the light.  Si comprehendis, non est Deus*: and if you think to have grasped it, you are not one whom God has grasped...

Jesus has no need of apologetics: he shines through.  He shines upon everyone who comes into the world (John 1:9) and does not deliberately look away (John 1:12).  The Church should not pursue any apologetics for herself, but should instead endeavor to make her Lord visible."

-- Von Balthasar, "Does Jesus Shine Through?", Communio (1968), 319ff

* from St. Augustine, Sermo 52, 16: PL 38, 360; roughly translated: "If you understand, it is not God."

#371 In Leviathan We (Selectively) Trust

In my experience, I've found that supporters of the recent wars, perpetual U.S. military presence in far reaches of the globe, and the National Security apparatus (may it's name be praised) that has grown up in the years since 9/11 (which includes but is not limited to the Orwellian P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, the Homeland Security Department, or Minipax, warrantless wiretaps, torture by any other name, etc.)  often happen to be simultaneously be for limited government.  Of course, how you can have an open distrust and hostility toward big government with one half of your brain, while not letting said half in on the secret that the other half of your brain vociferously supports an empire that even ancient Rome would've envied, is beyond me.

Similarly, it's oddly consistent that most advocates of the death penalty also happen to be pro-life.  So a question for those pro-life/pro-death penalty persons out there: how can a culture that fails to take seriously and with appropriate gravity the life and death of one helpless segment of its society (the unborn) be trusted with the power over the life and death of another helpless segment?

Regarding the death by firing squad of Ronnie Lee Gardner just a year ago, Joseph Bottum writes at First Things,

"There is, in fact, only a single reason that Ronnie Lee Gardner died last night—a single explanation that makes any sense at all. And it is that he deserved it. The murder he committed twenty-five years ago still cries to the heavens for justice.

And maybe it does. Certainly it does. But where, exactly, does the State of Utah get the authority to answer the calls on heaven? Where, exactly, does a modern nation, founded on no deliberate godly principle, derive its power to kill in the name of high justice? This is a nation, after all, that refused—with the infamous “mystery” passage in Casey v. Planned Parenthood—to protect the unborn, precisely because, the Supreme Court said, no such metaphysical foundation can be imposed by government. So where do these assertions of divinely based power for the death penalty come from?"

He goes on to answer the obvious objections that arise based on the standard reflexive and careless use of Romans 13:1-7 to legitimate the act and then closes by bringing it steering his post toward the direction in which I started mine, i.e. trust/distrust (which is it?) of government and the devolution of society's moral consciousness:

"More to the point, there is nothing in Paul that demands death in every situation of punishment. And if we don’t have to kill a prisoner, in the ordinary social justice that demands protection of citizens, then we have a responsibility not to kill a prisoner. The death of Ronnie Lee Gardner last night, four .30-caliber bullets in his heart, was unauthorized, wrong, and foolish.

We have so devolved that we kill even while we cannot explain how we are allowed to take matters of life and death into our hands. And that is a door I fear to watch our government—or any government—walk through."

#370 Treason

"If a man slanders his people... you shall hang him on a tree and he shall die.  On the testimony of two witnesses and on the testimony of three witnesses he shall be put to death and they shall hang him on a tree.  If a man... curses his people, the children of Israel, you shall hang him also on the tree, and he shall die.  But his body shall not stay overnight on the tree.  Indeed you shall bury him on the same day.  For he who is hanged on a tree is accursed of God and men."

-- Dead Sea Scrolls, The Temple Scroll, Column LXIV

"Then he began to speak to them in parables: 'A man planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for its winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went on a journey. At harvest time he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his portion of the crop. But those tenants seized his slave, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. So he sent another slave to them again. This one they struck on the head and treated outrageously. He sent another, and that one they killed. This happened to many others, some of whom were beaten, others killed. He had one left, his one dear son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, "They will respect my son." But those tenants said to one another, "This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and the inheritance will be ours!" So they seized him, killed him, and threw his body out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.'"

-- Mark 12:1-9

#369 Election Year

A parable about American elections in these latter days of the empire, from Judges 9:

9:7 When Jotham heard the news, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim. He spoke loudly to the people below, “Listen to me, leaders of Shechem, so that God may listen to you!

9:8 “The trees were determined to go out and choose a king for themselves. They said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king!’ 9:9 But the olive tree said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my oil, which is used to honor gods and men, just to sway above the other trees!’

9:10 “So the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come and be our king!’ 9:11 But the fig tree said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my sweet figs, my excellent fruit, just to sway above the other trees!’

9:12 “So the trees said to the grapevine, ‘You come and be our king!’ 9:13 But the grapevine said to them, ‘I am not going to stop producing my wine, which makes gods and men so happy, just to sway above the other trees!’

9:14 “So all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘You come and be our king!’ 9:15 The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to choose me as your king, then come along, find safety under my branches! Otherwise may fire blaze from the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’

You won't find olive trees, fig trees, and grapevines on-stage for political debates.  So voters, every four years like a dog returning to its vomit, take shelter in their favorite brier patches.

#368 What if it were true?

In an essay that is worth at least a couple reads, Robert Jenson asks, "What if it were true?"  Here's an excerpt:
“In 451 the Council of Chalcedon set out to establish Cyril of Alexandria’s teaching, in the less alarming of its forms, as the norm of teaching about the person of Christ. It was Cyril’s great concern that everything the Gospels say about their protagonist is to be taken as true of one and the same concrete subject, that whether the Gospels say Jesus told a parable or forgave sins, whether he wept for Lazarus or raised Lazarus, we are talking about the same personal protagonist. So the council, starting off on Cyril’s line, laid it down as its primal doctrine that 'one and the same' is the subject of the whole gospel-narrative.

“Particularly, in the council’s polemic context, it is one and the same one who is born of Mary in Bethlehem and born eternally, begotten of the Father. And we can very straightforwardly continue with Cyril: it is one and the same who has the divine attributes displayed in the Gospels and who has the human attributes therein displayed, one and the same who forgives sin and who is tempted, one and the same who prays in anguish and rules all history, one and the same thought it took a few more councils to say it out loud who is crucified and who orders the galaxies, one and the same who as Luther loved to say lies muling and puking in his mother’s arms and the while restrains Satan.

“Chalcedon begins with the `one and the same,’ and so far, one may say, so very good. But when the fathers at Chalcedon moved on to the necessary work of setting boundaries for the contending schools of theology, outlawing the errors that each side feared the other must really be thinking, they did not quite dare carry on from their beginning. The formulas they produced have been memorized by centuries of theological students and have frustrated all of them, by their surface profundity and material elusiveness. Notoriously, the council stipulated that Christ has two 'natures,' one divine and one human, which while remaining unmixed, unadulerated, etc., are united in 'one hypostasis.' The trouble is, that they refrained from unpacking the notion of `one hypostasis,’ which one would have thought was more or less the whole point. Chalcedon’s formulas fulfill some ecumenical and occasionally disciplinary functions, but conceptually they are close to being empty.

“Then finally the council appended the famous letter of Pope Leo as an authorized interpretation of the whole, which at least on its face says something rather different than the face value of the council’s primal teaching. According to Leo, one entity, 'the divine nature' does the glory bits and another entity, 'the human nature,' does the suffering bits, each 'with' the other. Ever since, at least in the West, we have found great relief in the notion that each of Christ’s natures does its own thing. We have been relieved to think that while of course it is the one hypostasis of Christ who died on the cross, he did it in such fashion ‘according to his human nature' that we do not need to think that the God the Son himself was ontically affected. We have been relieved to think that while of course it is the one hypostasis of Christ who rules the universe, this is in such fashion 'according to his divine nature' that Jesus qua human participates in this rule only by way of special but nevertheless creaturely human endowments. Christology, we have supposed, is a matter of discerning the relation between two entities, Christ’s `divine nature’ and his `human nature,’ and we have exploited that way of thinking to shy away from Cyril’s blunt faithfulness to the narrative unity of the Gospels.

“But what if Cyril’s teaching, and the teaching with which the council began its decree, were true in the dumb sense? What if, given the Incarnation, there were not two entities for Christology to relate to each other, but just the one person for Christology to describe? Perhaps indeed with such analytical terms as `divine’ or `human’ or `nature?’ What if talk of distinct human and divine `natures’ of Christ were therefore only a sometimes useful, or even necessary, abstraction from what is actually given? What if it were the unadulterated fact of the matter, that this particular human individual with all his peculiarities, the executed Palestinian Jew, the prophet and rabbi from Nazareth, is the second identity of God? Getting down to the level I want to probe: that he is the being who appears in Scripture and theology as the Logos of God and God the Son?”

#367 One Hitters IV

1. Denominational lines don't seem to matter much in theological discourse anymore, if they ever did.
2. Joseph said God meant it for good.  God means things.
3. The Westminster Confession started as a parliament commissioned revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles.  Can you imagine a U.S. congress-commissioned revision of any religious document being considered legitimate by evangelical reformed Christians now or 300 years from now?

#366 Principalities and Powers

I've written about the government and big business policy of scratching each others backs before here.  Thanks again to Wikileaks, and no thanks to the free press, we now know this:

"A Wikileaks post published on The Nation shows that the Obama Administration fought to keep Haitian wages at 31 cents an hour... It started when Haiti passed a law two years ago raising its minimum wage to 61 cents an hour. According to an embassy cable:

This infuriated American corporations like Hanes and Levi Strauss that pay Haitians slave wages to sew their clothes. They said they would only fork over a seven-cent-an-hour increase, and they got the State Department involved. The U.S. ambassador put pressure on Haiti’s president, who duly carved out a $3 a day minimum wage for textile companies (the U.S. minimum wage, which itself is very low, works out to $58 a day).

Haiti has about 25,000 garment workers. If you paid each of them $2 a day more, it would cost their employers $50,000 per working day, or about $12.5 million a year ... As of last year Hanes had 3,200 Haitians making t-shirts for it. Paying each of them two bucks a day more would cost it about $1.6 million a year. Hanesbrands Incorporated made $211 million on $4.3 billion in sales last year.

Thanks to U.S. intervention, the minimum was raised only to 31 cents."

Some questions.  Since when did the Clinton state department become a division of Hanes and Levi Strauss rather than a function of the executive branch of our democracy?  Was this intentionally hidden by the Obama administration?  If not, why does the media scarcely mention this story?  Is the media fresh out of journalists?  Why am I asking rhetorical questions?

I'm not sure exactly why Clinton/Obama felt beholden to the underwear industry but both U.S. and especially Haitian citizens can have answers if they choose to seek them.  This choosing to seek answers is probably what our founding fathers meant when they said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.  Certainly, the Haitian president felt obligated to act as a vassal to Washington due to the American outpouring of support after the earthquake last year and surely the Clinton/Obama team took advantage of this fact.

Those are issues worth investigating for someone with skill in such things.  But this leak really got me thinking about something else.  (And isn't that the value of leaks, Wiki or otherwise, in a democracy?  To get people thinking.  Thinking is dangerous to a totalitarian state, but healthy to a democracy.)  It got me thinking about the undershirts I wear every day to work.  I probably pay somewhere around five dollars for a pack of five.  But do these shirts really cost a dollar?

The obvious answer is yes.  Consumers simply look at the price tag and the resulting debit to their own personal bank account to determine the cost of any product.  Their questioning stops there.  Economists look a bit further and include things like opportunity costs and some measurable negative externalities.  Their questioning stops there.  But ethicists (which I believe all Christians are called to be) go even further.  They ask about the human costs, the environmental costs, and the moral costs.  A Christian ethicist has to see the world with wider eyes.

In short, this ethic asks about the true cost of things, not to the self only, but and even primarily, about our neighbor, especially the least of these.  What does it truly cost to get a t-shirt for a mere dollar?  Thanks to Wikileaks, we're closer to that answer.  My ability to get a cheap t-shirts cost Haitian textile workers the difference between a 31 cent an hour wage and a 61 cent an hour wage.  If I doubled my wage like that, I'd go from the very comfortable lifestyle I lead now to what I and most of the world outside America would consider a luxurious lifestyle.  But all in all, not a big deal to me.  I currently have the necessities and then some.  The difference between what I make now and what I make doubled is not a life and death difference.  It is not the difference between having health insurance and not having it.  It is not the difference between feeding my children healthy foods and just getting them by.  It is not the difference between providing my children with a decent education and making them work at a young age instead.

But for Haitians, I'd imagine it is all of these things.  The Clinton/Obama team has pulled the rug out from under the lowest of the low.  And the weighty thought is this: my decision to purchase a one dollar t-shirt from Hanes costs far more than one dollar.  It is just that, until I widen my eyes, the one dollar portion of the cost is the only portion I'll ever notice.

Why did the Haitian president make the decision he did?  He is beholden to the state department of course, thanks to an earthquake.  Why did the state department exert the pressure they did on him?  It is beholden to a big business, thanks to backroom dealings.  Why did Hanes and Levi Strauss lobby in secret as they did?  They are beholden to me, the consumer, thanks to a purchase decision.  As eating is an agricultural act and voting an ethical act, so purchasing is a moral act.  I am the principalities and powers.

Anyway, the next time someone tells you how benevolent America is, know that even charity has a price.  It just doesn't get media play.  Oh, but remember, they hate us for our freedoms.

#365 From Wikipedia

Super-centenarian Leila Denmark, who I was a patient of on a couple occasions, is still alive and kickin' at the ripe old age of 113.  I'd already decided that the ultimate secret to health is to simply avoid added sugars.  Everything else, I believe, will fall into place.  But this confirms it:

"On her 100th birthday in 1998, she refused cake because there was too much sugar in it. On her 103rd birthday she refused birthday cake, telling the restaurant's server she had not had any food with sugar in it (other than natural sugar like fruit) in 70 years."

Inspiring, but challenging for me since my favorite man-made product of all time, Coca-Cola (which turned 125 this year) contains a large quantity of a sugar-like substance.

#364 Interesting Links XLII

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), which studies products for the health and environmental impacts much like Consumer Reports studies the quality and durability of products.  They do a lot of good work and they have just come out with their 2011 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce based on their own testing.  The result is a list of the "Clean 15" and the "Dirty Dozen".  The "Clean 15" are the produce types that were lowest in pesticides (the three most clean being onions, corn, and pineapples), and the "Dirty Dozen" which contained the most pesticides and which it would therefore be better to buy organic (the three "dirtiest" being apples, celery, and strawberries).  This is helpful for consumers concerned about their own health and the health of those they are feeding.  The deficiency of the report however, is that while it provides information about what amount of pesticides end up on produce at the supermarket shelves, it doesn't tell us which produce requires the most to produce.  After all, it could be the case that while corn has almost no pesticides once processing is complete, they could actually require an inordinate amount applied to the land to grow.  By the same token, apples may hold or bond pesticides more strongly and so they rank as "dirty", yet they may not actually have as many or as much applied to them.  Who knows?  And that's where the report is lacking.  It helps us make better health decisions, but not better environmental ones.

Adam Smith, though probably thinking about his own experience as a British citizen, explains 200 years in advance,  explains why America has such a thirst for perpetual war.

More maps!  This one is a map of crime in San Francisco.  Each map represents a different type of crime displayed topographically so that the part of the city where that crime is most frequent appears to have a higher elevation.

Andrew Sullivan asks if the creation of Israel was a mistake, to which I reply, of course!

The phrase "That's what she said" is ubiquitous.  There is an archival project underway so as to collect the occurrences of this gem for posterity.  Here is what is arguably the first ever recorded version of an archaic form of the phrase.

Cool video of an 8 month old deaf baby hearing for his first time ever after the activation of a cochlear implant.

Quote on the death of God: "It is ironic that some of the people who express the most shock that anyone would say God is dead are the very ones who have most insistently and most cold-bloodedly killed God off in some of the basic areas of their lives. To say that God doesn’t belong in certain areas of life is to say that God is dead in those areas, at least."

Dan Ariely attempts to make a list of the 7 habits of highly ineffective people.  I think I succeed (or is it fail?) on most of them.

How pro-life was our federal spending during the Bush administration?  The GAO runs the numbers.

Here is a fantastic graph clearly showing how our energy economy works.