The Golden Compas, Part II

Honzo December 4th, 2007

Is The Golden Compass anti-gnostic propaganda? If it is, should the Christian Community embrace it?1

I was talking with a good friend of mine last night after Heroes. On the boob tube an ad ran for The Golden Compass, which prompted a shift to that topic. My friend was telling me that the books argue against a certain god, but not the one that Christians often posit.

He said that the “god” in the books is the first created being and has duped everyone into thinking that it is the real god. It might have even been reordering creation against the plans of the actual creator.

Does this sound like anything you have heard of before? Perhaps the demiurge of Gnosticism?

Now, I have not read the books and I am sure that some of you know more than I about Gnosticism. It just sounds like the god being railed against is not the god that I often talk about. If so, should “we,” i.e. the Christian community, be up in arms?

Has anyone else come across anything similar here?

Plus - Fighting armored polar bears. How can you not want to see a movie with fighting polar bears in it? It’s better than sharks with figgin lazers on their heads.

  1. Given that the Christian Community rejects the “Gnostic” worldview [↩]

Wayne on Wayne on Gender

Honzo November 28th, 2007

Wayne Leman over at Complegalitarian looks at what Wayne Grudem said at the annual Evangelical Theological Society meeting last week.

Grudem on the State of the Gender Debate and the Way Forward

Grudem had this to say:

I am surprised that this controversy has gone on so long. In the late 80’s and early 90’s I expected that this would probably be over in 10 years by the force of argument, by the use of the facts, by careful exegesis, by the power of the clear Word of God, by the truth. I expected the entire church would be persuaded and that the battle for the purity of the church would be won. I still believe that will happen because Jesus Christ is building his church and purifying it so that he might present it to himself without spot or wrinkle. But, it is taking much longer than I expected.

Leman responded with:

The logical fallacy in Dr. Grudem’s statement, of course, is the assumption that his interpretation of the scriptures concerning the role of women in the home and church is the only possible biblical interpretation. He equates following his interpretation of the scriptures on gender issues with having a high view of scripture and its infallible truth.

A strong case could be made for the claim that the reason the gender debate is taking so long is that it truly is a matter of how Bible-believing Christians understand the scriptures about gender differently. It is not a matter of whether or not they believe the Bible and seek to have it transform our lives.

Some really good points are being brought up in the comments. I suggest heading over there and contributing to the discussion.

Question of the Day: Christians and Government

Honzo November 25th, 2007

If we accept, which I do, Tom’s rejection of the soteriology of the State, how should Christians interact with the government? I don’t see a scriptural imperative, as the situation of a participatory government as we Americans have currently did not exist during the writing of our set of sacred texts. Given that lack of an imperative, do Christians vote, run for office, try to legislate the tenants of our faith?

Do we wash our hands of participation in government and focus solely on the work of the Kingdom of God, the whole while reaping the benefits of this country’s contradicting history of domination and freedom? Do we actively engage it, using it as a tool to bring God’s distributive and or retributive justice to the people that we can bring it to?

I don’t know, but with the November of 2008 slowly approaching debate by debate, I am giving increasing thought. I’d like to hear yours.

The Peace of Christ and the Soteriology of the State

tom November 6th, 2007

Violence is the default reality of our society. We assume violence. We consume violence. We trust violence. It is our default reality because we can see no other alternative to defeating evil in many circumstances. We run to it before considering other possibilities. We flee to violence because it offers us protection and preservation. Indeed, violence offers the very same things the unseen God does.

For us violence often has a salvific quality to it. It is seen as that which can ultimately save us, preserve us, and justify us. We call upon it to protect our American way of life. We utilize it in the effort to preserve our lives, which Christ said we could not save anyway. We employ violence to justify things we already wanted to do.

Long before our willing submission to soteriology of violence, however, we have bought into what others have called the ‘Soteriology of the State.’ That is, what we once trusted the church for (salvation, preservation, justification) we have handed over to the state. The state preserves our way of life, it saves us from evil (terrorism), it justifies our desires and actions (consumerism and exploitation). In fact, it tells us what we should live and die for. We’ve fallen in a Soteriology of the State – Caesar has become our Lord.1

If you doubt this, just look at the war rhetoric of our nation – it is rhetoric taken from the church: The spreading of democracy coincides with the spreading of the gospel (GW – “Democracy is God’s gift to the world.”). The war was needed to ‘preserve the American way of life,’ just as Christians are supposed to preserve society by being ‘salt.’

In our co-opted Soteriology, we have blindly bought into the ideology and agenda of the state. The goals of the state have become our agenda and Jesus has become nothing more than a bumper sticker politician.

Because we have given Lordship to the state, we’ve also given away any possibility of seeing an alternative reality – especially an alternative reality where violence doesn’t win. If violence is used to stop evil – violence, not the cross, wins. This is, in effect, eliminating evil with evil – the very thing Paul commanded us not to do. Indeed, he tells us to over come evil with good. Then, in the very same context, tells us to submit to government. Government = evil, submission to government = overcoming evil with good.2

Is this impossibility of seeing an alternative reality to the Soteriology of the State, the Soteriology of Violence, the reason we so quickly jump to violence as justifiable? I think so. Even Just War Theory says violence is the last alternative after all others have been exhausted. But because we assume violence we cannot see any alternative to exhaust. Maybe this is part of our problem.

Christians as part of the kingdom of God cannot continue to conform their lives to the kingdoms of this world. In the kingdoms of this world violence wins - violence saves. In Christ’s kingdom the denial of self, the laying down of one’s life, and the taking up of one’s cross wins.

All I know is that I’ve seen us (as American Evangelicals) jump to violence without biblical support.3 In the rules of logic the one who says something exists must offer evidence. Is there NT justification for violance? I’ve found nothing compelling.

I don’t like this non-violent streak in the NT. But I also know that we must be faithful to the witness of Scripture which says, ‘pray for your enemies, love those who hate you, bless those who curse you, go the extra mile, turn the other cheek.’ You will simply not find an example of Jesus or any other NT writer saying, ‘protect your way of life, spread democracy, or slug your enemy.’

Peace (no, really) in Christ.

  1. This, I think, is why we are so adamant about getting a Republican in office. We think politics (the state) is the way to save America. Unfortunately, politics never saved anyone and Jesus wasn’t a Republican. [↩]
  2. It’s not even funny to me how many times I’ve heard Christians justifying the war in Iraq by saying that we should submit to our government and its decisions. Yeah, apply that logic to abortion and see what you get. [↩]
  3. And I understand why. I wish I could allow myself to do the same. I’d much rather someone prove to me that I’m wrong though - it would be a lot easier on my conscience. [↩]

Church and State

Honzo October 27th, 2007

I took this picture a few weeks ago while I visiting my hometown.


(Click for larger view)

A couple of things leap out at you at first:

  1. The American Flag draped around the Cross
  2. The lack of any Church officials on the parade, just two service persons.

However, the most striking part of the float is the captions at the bottom:

The Savior and the soldier

paid the price to set us free.

The Savior and the soldier ~

we give our thanks to thee!

This is a haunting image. It animates the term, American christianity.

One of the things I have been rethinking this year is the role of the Christian in a government. This picture serves to remind me that it is a topic worthy of consideration.

At what point does one meld the Christ and the military? Where is the message of peace? How does this function to a) define Christians from other cultures/nations; b) tie our faith to the state; c) link criticism of one to criticism of the other?

On the one hand, military personnel are responsible for the creation and sustention of my political freedoms and Christ has freed me from the bonds of sin. I like both of these things. On the other hand, the float serves to equate the two, to meld them together, to raise up the political (earthly) to the religious (heavenly). Should we, as Christians, be overly concerned with our political freedoms, or should we simply focus on furthering the Kingdom of God and let our political/economic conditions take care of themselves? I can justify the words and the float a variety of different ways. However, I keep coming back to one question:

Why did this church decide to interweave the message of patriotism with the message of Christianity in their singular public statement to the thousands of people that would be watching the parade?

I’d like to get your thoughts on the matter.

Links for Monday AM Thinking

Honzo October 15th, 2007

BOOK REVIEW : A Review of “Become a Better You” by Joel Osteen from Challies Dot Com
A scathing review of our favorite Bible exegete.

Osteen seems unable or unwilling to bring the power of the gospel to bear on life–real life. Life, he teaches, is not a meant to bring glory to God, but is meant to bring blessing and ease to the individual.

CHRISTIAN HISTORY : Skarsaune and the Jerusalem Council from The Forbidden Gospel’s Blog
DeConnick talks about a plausible explanation of the Jerusalem council, given the contradictions in Paul’s letters and Acts.

  1. Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem: Gal 1:18=Acts 9:26-30
  2. Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem: Gal 2:1-10=Acts 11:30; 12:25
  3. Antiochean Affair: Gal 2:11-14=Acts 15:1-3
  4. The writing of Galatians: before the council in Acts 15
  5. Paul’s third visit to Jerusalem and the Jerusalem Council: Acts 15:2-29

DeConnick thinks that there are some problems with this, but that it is a good start. She follows up this post with What about this scenario? where she proposes a new sequence of events that is too long to quote here.

RELIGIOUS THINKING : Inerrant, infallible, inspired from 4Simpsons Blog by Neil
A devotional conclusion on Christians and the [un]holy trinity of loaded i-words: inerrant, infallible, and inspired.

We can read the Bible with confidence that God has transmitted his Word to us accurately. Sometimes the words inerrant and infallible are too loaded with various meanings to be helpful, so I like to emphasize that the original writings of the Bible turned out just the way God wanted them to.

RELIGIOUS LIVING : The Center from Bentch.com

“Each day you have to decide, am I going to be Christ-centered or self-centered?”
I love this because it reminds me that life is not all about me. It is about showing others Christ’s love.

BIBLE TRANSLATION : Gender language literally speaking from the Better Bibles Blog

I have to wonder if most people really do think that gender neutral language is less literal than gender specific language. Each case has to be assessed in isolation and then the group as a whole.

First, brothers and sisters…

Acts as History

Honzo October 14th, 2007

Is the Acts of the Apostles history?1 Boy, I bet that could set off a good debate `round these parts! (But please see the first footnote and the links contained therein before you jump all over me.) This is an interesting and valuable question indeed. Late last month a couple of scholars that I enjoy reading brought up this very issue.

April DeConnick, at the Forbidden Gospels Blog, brought this topic up in her post: Is Luke a trustworthy historian? In the post, she asks why Acts is written off as a Lukan myth. She acknowledges that in the past people have trusted in its historical value a little too much and not treated it as histories should be treated. However, the conception of Acts as history has shifted to the other extreme. She argues that Acts must have been based off earlier sources and that understanding these sources is valuable in learning about the earliest Christians traditions and as a consequent constructing the earliest Christian history. Her argument is as follows:

  1. When Luke uses Mark, he does not rework Mark as much as Matthew.
  2. When Luke uses Q, Q-scholars tell us that he retains Q better in terms of verbage and order than Matthew. In fact, our reconstructed Q is versed according to Luke.
  3. Luke tells us in the beginning of his gospel that he relied on older sources to rewrite the Christian narrative which we apparently trust given our hypothesis that Luke is a second edition of Mark.
  4. If we think that Luke used Mark and Q as literary sources, wouldn’t the best assumption be that he also used older traditional sources for the composition of Acts?
  5. If 4 is valid, then shouldn’t we be trying to figure out what those older traditions are and what they tell us about Christianity earlier than Luke?

The first comment on DeConnick’s post summed up my thoughts on this issue quite nicely. Judy Redman asked why do people think that Luke’s gospel is reasonably accurate but that in writing Acts Luke engaged in “wild flights of fancy“? Judy points out that just because something is written “from the perspective of a particular faction of the early church does not make it myth.”

Mark Goodacre, over at the NT Gateway Blog, picks this question up and first goes into a critique of the use of Q (an interesting discussion in its own right) and ends with a rather positive view on Luke as a historian with qualifications. It is quite obvious that there is no video taping of history in Luke or Acts (or in any of the Biblical books for that matter), but that the situation is not as bleak as some modern scholars might think.

One of the other comments on April’s original post, left by JC Baker, asked the excellent question: What, if anything, can we know about history from our texts? DeConnick wrote up a great post in response that is worth reading now matter you interest in the Bible23: How can we know anything from our texts? She outlines four steps everyone should take when glistening a text’s modern historical value.

First, one should seek to identify the “authorial revision of received tradition” because every furthered tradition has been recieved by an earlier tradition and most likely been edited to some extent. After this is accomplished, one must “read against the grain” to seek out the parts of the narrative that are inherently troublesome for the author. These troublesome bits are most likely to be historical.4 Next, one should try to identify the back story that the author does not give, but the recipients would be familiar with. Lastly, use contemporary texts to compare and identify agreements (more likely to be history) and disagreements (most likely to be functions of the point of view of the author or community than history). Using these methods one can begin to ascertain a text’s historical value.

In conclusion, Acts is not a history in the modern sense of the world. Acts is useful in many respects for building a history of the early church before 100CE but is not completely authoritative as history5 and should not be used in lieu of a history book. There just was not the intention there to write the same sort of thing we look for in a modern history. However, that is not to say that Acts has zero historical value. Instead, through the processes outlined above, one can sift through Acts and use it to piece together a modern history of the early Christian movement.

Further reading: Danny at Danny’s Blog Cabin takes up the issue of the Harmony of the gospels and comes to a very negative conclusion. While I disagree with some of his conclusions and demands of the text, it is a very open and honest approach to the issue and worth reading and wrestling with.

  1. I am talking about what our idea of what history is, namely an accurate description of events, both in chronology and substance from an unbiased 3rd-person perspective, not the way the ancients viewed history, which were stories that were designed to illustrate lessons to be learned by the reader. [↩]
  2. devotional, scholarly, or any mix of the two [↩]
  3. or of any text, for that matter [↩]
  4. note, this does not by itself invalidate the bits that serve the author’s purpose, but the bits that don’t we can be more sure about their historicity [↩]
  5. See the conflict between Acts 9 and Gal 1 for an example [↩]

Too much of one, not enough of Another

Honzo September 13th, 2007

A while ago, the BBB had a poll running on headship and submission. Right now they are unpacking the poll and the issues surrounding the headship/submission issues. See part 1 and part 2. I really liked what Wyane had to say in the following quote. I think it is good to reflect how we view our Christianity especially in what parts were emphasize over other parts.
Better Bibles Blog :: head and submission poll results - post #3

From my own point of view, not enough biblical teaching has occurred on what it means for Christians to mutually submit to each other in comparison with how much teaching there has been on wives submitting to their husbands. The larger amount of teaching devoted to wives submitting to their husbands does not align with the fact that the first relationship Paul addresses in this section on submission is that of Christians to each other. That relationship is explicitly stated in Greek. It seems to me that other relationships of submission flow out of the teaching that mutual submission is God’s design for his children. I think that much of scripture tells us, in one way or another, how to submit to each other, and such submission would define what a wife’s submission to her husband should look like. Mutual submission surely involves love (John 13:35), honor, respect, deference, being like-minded, and being one in spirit (Phil. 2:2).

After I read that, I read his conclusions on chapter 5 of Ephesians:

So what does it mean for a man to be the head of his wife? Here is what the Bible explicitly says about this matter. In the Ephesians (chapter 5) context of teaching about the husband as head of his wife, the husband head is to love his wife. The husband head is to love his wife sacrificially, “giving himself for her” as Christ gave himself (died) for the church. As far as I know, this is all that the Bible explicitly teaches about what the husband head does for his wife. Everything else which is said on the matter is, I suggest, application or theological extrapolation. Is the husband to lead his wife? Perhaps, but the Bible does not explicitly say so. Does he have authority over her? Perhaps, but the Bible does not explicitly say so, other than when it refers to authority of one kind, mentioned in one passage which we will discuss below, concerning the statement “A husband has authority over his wife”. Is the husband a priest for his wife? The Bible does not teach this. Does a husband mediate between his wife and God. The Bible does not teach this either.

Update The Better Bibles Blog has now posted their fourth post in the series: head and submission poll results - post #4. The post sums up my thoughts on the subject quite well. Wayne looks at the difference between ὑποτασσω (a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden) in Eph 5:21-22 and Rom. 13:1 and contrasts it with ἐξουσιάζω (to have power or authority, use power) in such places as 1 Cor. 7:4.

Wayne then goes on to look at the Genesis account and comes to much the same conclusions that Dave and I did a while back.

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