Theology for the Masses

Note: This is my first crack at this and it is rough and incomplete.  Also, I whipped this up at 1am after a long, long day.  So be gentle.  I am limited to 1000-1200 words of commentary.  I’m taking some chances with gender and scripture, so think of those areas as an exploration rather than… something else.

Section I – Preamble

We hold the below to be our best understanding of the reality of God, God’s relation to creation, actions within history, and our relation to both the rest of creation and to God. We draw upon the following for our formulations: the Spirit of God speaking through the Scriptures, the wisdom of our fore-parents, the best thinkers of our day, and our communal experience. We recognize that this statement is contextual and need not be universal and may even be wrong. If so, we welcome and humbly scrutinize any criticism as we pursue God and God’s will. This statement of faith will consist of statements which are commented upon in the footnotes.

Section II – The Nature and Relation of God.

We believe in one God who is love[1] and therefore internally and externally communal.[2]

And that this God transcends gender but relates in culturally engendered ways.[3] This God relates to itself and others

1. through the person of the Father, Almighty, judge, and maker of heaven and earth,
2. and through the Logos, [4] the only begotten Son, fully incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth,[5]
3. and through the Paraclete,[6] the Holy Mother,[7] which dwells within the members of Christ’s body and guides them through the Bible.[8]

Section III – Creation

We believe in the material and spiritual creation of all that is by God.[9]

And that there is a plan, purpose, and order to creation and that this plan, purpose, and order were disrupted by sin, rendering the whole of creation alienated from God, introducing chaos, decay, and death.[10]

Section IV – Humanity

We believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with the image of God and charged by God to care for creation in God’s stead.[11]

And that we sinned and continue to sin against God, creation, and one another, marring Shalom and separating ourselves from God, creation, one another, and from spiritual life.

And that humanity was created not to live alone, but as flourishing members of a community.[12]

And that those who accept the grace of God are crafted into the Body of Christ, made citizens of the Kingdom of God, and receive spiritual life anew.[13]

Section V – Scripture

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon.[14]

And we consider it to be human compositions[15] which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2Ti 3:16 NRS)[16]

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. [17] This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters.[18] In that way, it is subjective.[19] It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.[20]

Section VI – Redemption

In line with sections III and IV, we loudly proclaim a cosmic no! to the present state of ourselves and the universe. Accordingly, we believe that Jesus’ work on the cross is the means through which he will redeem all of creation.[21] This is happening in part now, but will only be finished at the Parousia. We look to the past for the pristine state, to the original Shalom as that which will be restored.[22] Yet, we also look forward to when heaven and earth will be created anew and heaven will descend upon earth.[23]

And that his begun with the victory of the Resurrection, continues through the present time, and will only be completed at the Parousia. Empowered by the Paraclete, we are agents of the reclamation of both sinful creatures and sin-smashed creation, as image bearers, until Christ finishes the work at the end of this age.

[1] “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1Jo 4:8 NRS)

[2] As love, God must have an object and subject of his loving and since it is dependent upon nothing, there must be plurality within the Godhead. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 195)

[3] God has no sex, save for the humanity of Jesus. God does relate to us in ways that are culturally gendered. He contains both genders, “for male and female he created them, (Gen 1:27 NET)” and so we speak of God as genderful, rather than genderless. God the Father relates to us as in traditionally constructed masculine ways. He creates us, protects us, rebukes us, and loves us. God the Son is sexually male, but genderly neutral. He carries both masculine and feminine attributes as commonly seen in cultures. He is Lord, but also Wonderful Counselor. It is noteworthy that Jesus was sometimes depicted with feminine features in Antique and Late Antique art precisely because of his traditionally feminine traits. (Jensen 2000, 124-128) The Paraclete relates to us as a mother, less as Lord, ruler, and protector, but more as a comforter, and intimate guide. See note 7 for my drawing from Christian traditions on this matter. Furthermore, to emphasize the relational aspect of the trinity, I will use he and she to refer to actions as persons and it to describe unified actions. This is more to underscore the relational nature of the members of the Trinity than anything else.

[4] “In [the] beginning was the Logos and the Logos was beside the God and God was the Logos.” Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. (Joh 1:1 NA27)

[5] "And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us…” (Joh 1:14a YLT)

[6] Just as we take Logos from the Greek in John 1:1, we take Paraclete from it as well later on in John. We are reminded most often of John 14, which is as near as you can get to a Trinitarian statement: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.” (Joh 14:16 NLT)

[7] I follow both Origen of Alexandria and early Syriac Christians which sometimes described or approvingly quoted works which described the Paraclete as the Divine Mother. (Rogers 2009, 119)

[8] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 64-68)

[9] In [the] beginning God created heaven and earth. “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (Gen 1:1 VUO)

[10] Where there was Shalom, there is now decay, death, violence. The climax of Genesis’ opening creation poem ends with God creating rest on the 7^th day. This rest can be seen as all of history bundled up in this day (see Hebrews 4 for the Future Rest) or as the completion and establishment of harmony in creation and with God, the pristine state which sin marred in the next few chapters of Genesis, the return to which history aspires. (Wirzba 2006, chap. 1-2)

[11] “God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27 NET) As image bearers, we rule and cultivate creation in God’s place. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 199) See Gen 1:28 and 2:15 for a scriptural basis.

[12] We were not created as individuals plucked from the void and twisting in the wind. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 203). Instead, we are social animals, who construct, find meaning, and live in community. By community, I refer to Toennies’ idea of Gemeinshaft instead of Gesellshaft. Gemeinshaft refers to “relationships encompassing human beings as full personalities rather than single aspects or roles of human beings,” to which Gesellshaft refers. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 211) This is a by-product of living within God’s design, not an end in and of itself.

[13] Called out of the rebelling masses of humanity are those who respond to the call of God to accept the gift of grace which is offered by Jesus and made possible through his work on the cross, which is the apex of history. Those that respond to the seed of faith are grafted into the body of Christ which is his bride. This body extends temporally from the past, through the present, and into the future, and geographically throughout the whole world. For the seed metaphor, see Luke 8:11-15; for the basis of grace and the cross, see John 3:16 and Col 2:14.

[14] We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

[15] We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts.

[16] We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

[17] As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage.(Grenz and Franke 2001, 75)

[18]Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete. The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks. (Grenz and Franke 2001, 81)

[19] Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

[20] (Grenz and Franke 2001, 272)

[21] “[A]nd through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.” (Col 1:20 NLT)

[22] See Hebrews 4, especially Hebrews 4:9: ‘So then, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;” (Heb 4:9 NRS)

[23] Consider “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” (Rev 21:1-2 NLT) This will fulfill Jesus’ prayer to God that “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. (Mat 6:10 NLT)

This post has actually taken a different route than I originally intended. [1] After examining the text, itself, I want to say that I think the Calvinist argument from this text has more legitimacy than I originally thought. However, I cannot affirm the implications of their arguments. I believe Calvinists and Arminians can both affirm the Calvinist reading to some degree, but I believe the implications of said reading is where we will part ways – necessarily.

The text is clear that God intended to ultimately bring about the salvation of Jacob’s house through the selling of Joseph into slavery. This is little different than God using the evil actions of Pilate to bring about the crucifixion of Jesus. In both cases God has a plan in mind and he uses the evil actions of men to work out that plan. The goal is always determined.

However, again, this does not necessarily entail that God determines the evil actions themselves. Notice in our passage, Genesis 50:20, that God has intentions that are his own (to bring about good) and the brothers have intentions all their own (to work evil). That God fully knows their actions and intends to use them to bring about his original plan is not problematic. God intended to have Joseph be the means by which Jacob’s household was saved. And God, possibly, even made Joseph ready to be the savior through suffering. But, the evil actions of Joseph’s brothers are their own and the text never connects God’s determination with their actions.

I truly think this distinction is subtle enough that almost everyone can get on board with it. For those who can’t…

Even if we fully affirm the suggestion that this passage points to God actually ordaining/determining the actions of the brothers, here are some consequences which I think are unavoidable and undesirable.

Necessary, Yet Undesirable, Implications of a Purely Calvinistic Reading of this Text:

First, humans are not to be held responsible for their immoral actions.

Why do I say this? Because in the context of this passage, Joseph’s brothers think Joseph is going to punish them for their evil deeds. But Joseph, in light of his understanding of God’s sovereignty and ultimate purposes of salvation, affirms that they will not be punished. They are not to be held responsible precisely because God was the determiner of their deeds. The responsibility of the human agents, then, is minimized. When God acts deterministically, in this passage, the human agents through whom he acts are not held liable. As Joseph says, “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” (vs. 21) He will not hold them accountable.

Second, in light of the first point:

If the determinist perspective is true, when a child is molested or a genocide breaks out, not only can we not hold the violators accountable for their actions, but we also must remind the victims that it was God’s action that brought this about and therefore they should not be angry at the oppressors.

These two consequences, to me, are the logical end of using this passage as a starting point for how God universally works. I say, rather, that this passage is an exception which proves the rule and should not be taken as normative.

Determination and What is Normative:

Finally, even if I’m wrong here – and Lord knows I always have the potential for that – there’s a sense in which there is still no need for this text to be normative. That is, it is hermeneutically fallacious to take a single text and make it normative for the way God must always operate. In other words, it is wrong to take a specific statement (especially a contestable one like this!) and universalize it. Both Arminians and Open Theists affirm that God does, in fact, determine certain things (such as the death of Jesus on the cross which happened before the foundation of the world!). But that these things are noted in this way suggests to me that they are not normative. Rather, God’s determinative actions are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Contextually, this means that the extraordinary act of God in saving Jacob’s family meant that He took an extraordinary amount of action in this event. He is demonstrating His providential hand in redemptive history by ensuring that Jacob’s family be saved. Therefore, as Greg Boyd notes, “Under these extraordinary circumstances it should not surprise us to find God involved in extraordinary ways. This text should therefore not be taken as a proof text of how God usually, let alone always, operates.”

Proving Their Point: What Calvinists Need to Textually Demonstrate the Superiority of Their Answer:

In the end, however, I would agree with anyone who says that I did not prove Arminianism from this passage! I have no problem with such a critique. As I said, the Calvinist reading is possible and even likely (on a restricted, localized level). But I believe they are imparting a larger theological/philosophical reading onto this text to come to the conclusion they have. For my part, I think the “text says nothing nearly precise enough to support a particular theory of sovereignty and human freedom to the exclusion of all other competing accounts.” [2]

If Calvinists want to prove their position from this text, to the exclusion of others, they need to provide the following evidence:

They need to provide a text which says explicitly that God caused Joseph’s brothers to have feelings of jealousy (or at least motivated their hearts to have those feelings – i.e. similar to the claims they make about Pharaoh in Exodus).

They need to provide a text which connects the God-determined jealousy with their actions of selling Joseph into slavery.

Demonstrate more clearly the hermeneutical leap from this localized event to a universalized truth

Demonstrate clearly how universalizing this specific story’s truth won’t lead to a lack of accountability for evil actions perpetuated by humans. (I know these Calvinists believe humans are accountable, but I want to know how they get around the lack of accountability in this, their classical text.)

Conclusion:

I actually don’t find the Calvinist reading here all that exegetically wrong. I think their implications from their exegesis, however, are where their errors lie. Did God sovereignly act in the events of Joseph’s brothers? Yes! He intended to bring good out of them. However, this in no way entails 1. That God determined their actions or the evil of their actions, or 2. That, even if he did determine their evil actions, God’s actions here are normative and universal. These are inferences that the text simply does not support. To me, these conclusions come about because of a larger philo-theological framework guiding their interpretation. Indeed, if they took their inferences to the logical conclusion, they end up with no human responsibility – which is exactly what Arminians/Open Theists have been complaining about for years.

In the end, I agree with self-proclaimed Calvinist Walter Brueggemann concerning this text, “This phrase has been endlessly problematic in theological interpretation, as it has lent itself to all kinds of scholastic notions of a blueprint for determinism…[yet] the Old Testament includes no notion of a plan in such a specific and rigid sense.” [3]   In other words, it’s not necessarily that the Calvinist’s exegesis here is lacking, but more that they read too much into this text – whether it be through reading their notions of soft-determinism onto a text which simply can’t bare that weight OR through universalizing a very localized incident.

1. I want to thank Hank over at Think Wink for his helpful response to my original post. I hope here to find some common ground, though, of course, there will always be some disagreement. Hopefully it will become smaller and smaller, though, as we analyze the text. [↩]
2. Walls, Dongell, 150. [↩]
3. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament. 355. I say self-identified b/c Brueggemann has called himself a Calvinist, but I’m not so sure most Calvinists will identify with him. [↩]

Here is an interesting article about gendered language and its use to describe God at Ancient Hebrew Poetry. The blogger asks this question in relationship to a work entitled “On Beyond Gender: Representation of God in the Torah and in Three Recent Renditions into English” by David E. S. Stein, “Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender?” While the blogger and Stein would both answer “no,” the two would differ on the nuance of their answer. The post is an attempt to critique Stein’s nuance and lay out the blogger’s own nuances. I really enjoyed reading it and was enlightened by it. I’ll post the concluding paragraph to the whole post but do take the time to read the whole post.

Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender? No, but gender insofar as it is ascribed to God by the biblical authors cannot be taken to imply that God is an inherently male or female deity. The biblical authors thought of their God in all of the following categories: gender-specific, personal, and a-personal. Specific truths are conveyed in each case. We do well, should we choose to situate ourselves in the slipstream created by biblical tradition, to emulate in our own God language the range and variety of categories and social constructs through which God is described in the Bible.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry: Is the biblical God a persona beyond gender?

Once upon a time, there were two men who were similar in many ways. Both were powerful and creative. Both were kind and loving. Both were well-respected in their towns. Both were fathers. And both were exceptional artists. In fact, the artistic community argued all the time as to which was the greatest, and the general consensus was that their crafts surpassed mere human judgment.

The first man announced an art show to be held in his private gallery at his home. He invited all the most prominent artists and art critics in the world, and promised that the revelation of his latest work would surpass all he’d done before. The night of the show arrived, and the artist’s home was truly a who’s who of the art world – everyone who was anyone was there. As the evening progressed, everyone agreed that these pieces were truly astounding, that they far surpassed the artist’s previous works. Frequently, guests were found weeping as they viewed various pieces, so moving was his mastery of his craft.

Several hours into the evening, the gallery door swung open and the artist’s young son came running into the gallery, clutching a piece of paper in his hand and saying, “Daddy! Daddy!” The artist was in front of the central display piece of his show, and when the son ran up, he excused himself from his conversation and bent down to his son.

“Yes, my boy,” he said softly, “what is it?” The boy excitedly waved his paper in front of his father.

“Look, Daddy! I did it just like you!” The artist took the piece of paper and turned it over. On it was a finger-painting, clearly crafted with all the patience and skill of a five-year-old.

“This is very nice, son. You did a good job,” the artist said, with the patronizing kindness unique to parents. “Why don’t you go show it to Mommy?”

“Put it on the wall, daddy! Put it by yours!” the boy begged.

“Son, this is a serious art show,” the artist replied. “Your daddy is a very important person, and he makes art that is beautiful and praiseworthy. You’ve just done a finger-painting. It wouldn’t be right for me to hang it in here, with all these glorious pieces of art that I’ve created. To display anything you’ve created in here would demean and devalue all of the glorious things I’ve done. I’ll hang this in my office.”

Dejected, the child left, finger-painting now crumpled in his small, unskilled fingers. As he shuffled out of the gallery, the crowd – which had been silently observing – began to whisper their approval. It would be a shame, they agreed, to tarnish the obvious brilliance of this room with such amateurish work. It was clear that the boy would never be half the artist his father was.

Shortly thereafter, the other artist also announced an opening, and he too promised work to surpass all that he’d done before. And once again, the cream of the art community crop gathered in a home gallery to experience an opening of epic proportions. And, as promised, the pieces were brilliant… each more beautiful and breathtaking than the last. And the final piece, the grandest of them all, the pinnacle of the opening surpassed everyone’s hopes. It was quite clearly one of the greatest masterpieces ever committed to canvas.

And once more, several hours into the opening, the door to the gallery cracked open, and this artist’s young daughter ran in, also with a painting in hand. “Daddy, Daddy!” she cried, “Look! I did just like you!”

The father swept his daughter up in his arms and with a growing smile looked down at his daughter’s crude, unskilled finger-painting. “It’s beautiful, honey. Simply beautiful. I know just where I’m going to hang it.”

With that, he set her down and handed the painting back to her. Then he walked over to his masterpiece, the central exhibit of his opening. As he approached it, the whispers in the room – which until now had been muted – grew into a low hum. The father grasped his painting and pulled it down off the wall and cast it to the floor, then turned to his daughter. “Honey,” he called, “may I have your painting?” The child brought her paper over to him and handed it up. The father took it and mounted it in the place where his crowning achievement had once stood. As he did so, the murmering grew to a dull roar, the outrage of the guests clear as they eyed the abandoned masterpiece.

Still smiling, but eyeing the crowd with comprehending eyes, the Father picked his daughter back up. “My dear child,” he began, never taking his eyes off of her, but addressing the crowd with his voice, “you are my greatest creation, the crowning joy of my life. Nothing else I have ever or will ever create could compare with you.” As he continued, voice choked with love and… yes pride, tears filled the corners of his eyes. “You made something the same way I do, and you did it as well as you could. Nothing could make me happier, or bring me greater glory and fame than this beautiful, talented person you’re becoming.”

The girl never left his side for the rest of the evening. And the father never ceased to display his most glorious masterpiece.

From time-to-time, some LDS missionaries visit me at my aunt’s house here in KC-MO. Instead of shutting the door on them I sit down with them and to discuss the differences in our theologies, hoping to share the good news of Jesus Christ as is found in the Bible. If anyone who wishes to dialog with Mormons, here is an amazing site by two former members of the LDS church: Utah Lighthouse Ministry. Another ministry that originally began as an outreach to Mormons and has since become an apologetics ministry in the fields of Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Watch Tower theology, Textual Criticism, and most recently, Islam: Dr. James R. White’s Alpha and Omega Ministries (Although I will warn you, he is very much a Calvinist–and I like it!). In fact Dr. White wrote a book called Letters to a Mormon Elder and it is available online here. I really recommend these resources if you wish to engage in an apologetics ministry with Mormons in a loving way.

I want to present an argument or presentation that has come to mind that I am thinking about presenting to the Mormon missionaries next time we meet. However, I wish for the authors here to read this argument and let me know if it is valid and usable. Here is my thought.
continue reading…

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2

Does the Bible, specifically Genesis 1:1-2, support a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing)? Would such a doctrine have made sense to ancient Israelites/early Christians? How does Gen. 1:1-2 fit into the schema of it’s contemporary ancient mediterranean understandings of the creation of the world? If something was there, then what was/is it? Further, what is really at stake in the answers to these questions?

I’m currently reading a lot about this in one of my classes and have some thoughts…but I’d like to see what you guys have. Certainly, those familiar with Hebrew could contribute much to our understanding of what the text itself (may) say(s).

Dan, at brendoman.com refers us to two lists of God’s that are rejected by two groups, Christians and Atheists.

The question becomes: Why do you believe in only one of these – and what makes that one so special to the point of rejecting all the other ones? I encourage you all to answer that question as it is a worthy one.

Brendoman.com :: Gods we don’t believe in

This is my best answer so far. What’s yours?

What I find interesting in the following logical syllogism is that the Calvinist, in order to avoid being a universalist (5), has to to deny premise 1 or redefine God’s love – which is to deny premise 2. If Calvinists were honest about this, Calvinism would die out fairly quickly in churches because the denial of 1 or 2 goes against what most church people consider God’s fundamental attribute. In other words, complete openness on this subject would be the death of Calvinism.

P1.God truly loves all persons.

P2.To truly love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.

P3.The true well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.

P4.God could determine all persons freely to accept a right relationship with himself and be saved.

5.Therefore, all will be saved.

A little while ago, I posted a short bit about Hitchens’ reply to a speech that Romney, a presidential candidate who happens to be Mormon, had given. Wuzzdem had made a nice little parody of Hitchens’ reply that tickled me a bit. During the course of writing that post, I claimed that Hitchens’ had strawman’ed Romney.

Gringo contested this claim in a comment on the post, asking me to clarify how exactly how Hitchen’s strawman’ed Romney.

Notice what Hitchens’ complaint was in the bit that I quoted; [1] it is the claim that God choose to reveal itself to the world via “few illiterate peasants in a barbarous backwater.” By doing so, he is claiming how God should be acting. It is one thing to claim divine revelation, i.e. that something has revealed how it acts; it is another to claim that you know, based on reason, that something must act a certain way. Hitchens is casting onto god, as a proof of its existence, the requirements that it act as Hitchens himself would act, i.e. choose another way to reveal itself to the world than how Christians and Mormons claim it has. This is a classic anthropomorphism, the attachment of human qualities onto non-human entities.

Hitchens’ anthropomorphism is especially ironic because Hitchens and the new atheists often criticize the “religionists”** for anthropomorphizing god. Yet, here Hitchens is doing so and uses this to discredit tenets of Romney’s faith. The question is not whether people of faith anthropomorphize god, but that Hitchens himself will only accept a god that is like him.

Having established that Hitchens is anthropomorphizing god, [2] is there a strawman in his comment? I think that there is. His sarcastic attack on the claims of Romney’s faith (and the claims at hand overlap with mine here) is based on how Hitchens’ anthropomorphism, not on Romney’s claim of a revealed God. In order to avoid a strawman, Hitchens must argue from the claims that Romney’s faith makes when he is critiquing his system of thought. That is to say, one must consider the whole of a worldview, not just take potshots here and there. Romney’s faith, and mine, describe a revealed God that consistently chooses those that are powerless, those that are oppressed, to be recipients of His revelation. Therefore, it would come as no surprise to anyone that actually listens to the claims of Mormonism that God would reveal himself to “few illiterate peasants in a barbarous backwater.”

Because Hitchens argues against the validity of Romney’s faith on the basis of Hitchens’ idea of what god must be like instead of how instead of actually using Romney’s claims of what God is like, he argues about his opponent’s position without actually using his opponent’s position – classic strawman.

[cross posted at H/J]

1. I am only concerning myself here and in the previous post with the bit that I quoted. Neither here nor in the original post did I claim to do a complete treatment of his reply; it was just something that came to me as I was relying the post from Wuzzdem. However, I do think that this comment is indicative of most of Hitchens’ attacks of Christianity. To put it as Stephen Prothero said, “What Hitchens gets wrong is religion itself.” [↩]
2. Notice that any group given an “-ist” on the end, when the group does not designate itself as such, clearly demonstrates that those receiving the suffix are silly, stupid, and generally unworthy of respect. [↩]

Given the shift in the way the Bible portrays Satan from a member of God’s royal court in Job to leader of the rebellion against the Kingdom of God with Paul, how do we, as Christians, construct our concept of Satan?

I think this is a great question on two levels, i) what the heck is Satan and how does it function? and ii) how do we interpret scriptures that have varying views on religious phenomena?

I have some suggestions, but I have a couple of hours to iron out a paper proposal, a panel proposal, and have lunch with Meredith, so I will leave mine later.

The sometimes funny WuzzaDem looks at Hitchens’ reply to Romney’s Mormon speech: Shocker: Christopher Hitchens Bashes Mitt Romney Speech.

According to the admittedly very contradictory scriptures of the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth warned his disciples and followers that they should expect to be ridiculed and mocked for their faith. After all, how likely was it that God had decided to reveal himself to only a few illiterate peasants in a barbarous backwater?

What better way to make this point than by mocking and ridiculing Christians?

I think what I like the most about this quote from Hitchens (the first part) is that he is completely anthropomorphizing God here; something the new atheists are always complaining about theists doing (and rightly so!). God must act in the ways that Hitchens thinks that God should act, or the God that others posit does not match Hitchen’s imagined God and therefore does not exist (is there a man of straw in there somewhere?).

C/P at Hundiejo.com

One of my recent purchases from iTunes was How great is our God by Chris Tomlin. The song has a great little melody and simple lyrics but the end product is an addictive anthem.

The song is one of my favorites because it projects the truth of our days. People are confused. They are lonely. They are tired. They want meaning. They want better lives. They want happiness. They really want assurance of the things not seen. Yet, they reject the good news of Jesus. They mock him. They cheapen his gospel. They ridicule him in their arts, their comedies, and their books.

Yet – how great is our God that – in the midst of all this hatred – that he still abides by his promise – that no one should perish.

Consider this YouTube video in which a Jesus character is paraded on Hollywood Boulevard. Should we laugh along? Should we boycott? Or should we sing together: How Great is Our God?

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=WLKk00OYKhU]

Here is a link to a video where Mark Driscoll gives his critique of Joel Osteen’s HWP “gospel” (although I think Paul says in Galatians 1:7 that there really isn’t a different gospel and that what Osteen & co. preach shouldn’t be called euangelion).

H/T: FIDE-O

Dr. Denny Burk here offers a critique of Osteen’s appearance on Larry King and relates it to gnosticism.

Check out The Fuerst Shall Be Last.  This guy has some fantastic insights on Trinitarian theology.

It’s an excellent starting point for some discussion.  And, I think, a cogent argument for the supremacy of Love over sovereignty as God’s defining attribute.