Theology for the Masses

The other day I listened to a series of sermons by Biblical Complementarians arguing for the traditional role of women in the home and church. Without fail, every sermon mentioned the fact that the Egalitarian position is influenced by secular Feminism, an influence which causes Christian Feminists to obliterate role distinctions and differences between the sexes.

To be sure, there’s no denying the cultural influence of secular Feminism. But does this necessitate that we disregard Egalitarianism simply because it’s been influenced by a culture? Could we not turn the same comments around on the BC position and protest that they’ve been influenced by 1700 years of theologically justified oppression of women? There’s no religious institution which has not in some way been tainted or influenced by secularism. None.

Thus, all sides of any theological/religious discussion have already been shaded by previous predispositions handed to us by culture. Being influenced by culture, then, is no reason to reject a theological position – indeed, if it were, there would be no theological positions to accept or reject.

Most often statements that accuse someone else’s position as being culturally compromised are fear tactics used to persuade people against a position before allowing them to examine the evidence for themselves. If I can convince you that someone is a misogynist bigot before you even talk to them, then I’ve won the argument. If you can convince someone that I’m a bra-burning wo-man, then you’ve won the battle without even allowing me a voice.

The goal, then, is not merely in labeling others as more influenced by culture than myself. The goal is in understanding and critiquing positions on both what they assert and where their logic might end up. How does my cultural influence help or hinder my exegesis or theological analysis? How does yours?

I fear certain BC’s repeatedly fail to understand that Christian Feminism is not the same thing as Liberal Feminism. Liberal Feminism emphasizes the similarities between men and women while downplaying the differences. Christian Feminism, on the other hand, appreciates God-given differences, but maintains that these differences need not necessitate hierarchy or subjugation. The failure of BC’s to understand this, or at least admit this when they do understand it, perpetuates stereotypes regarding their position.

Am I influenced by culture? Yes, but so are you and so is John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Ben Witherington and Michel Foucault. Let us acknowledge this fact and see where we benefit from it, where it hurts us and where to go once we’ve figured this out.

The Spirit and the Word are inseparable. They, together, are the means by which God created and sustains the world in Genesis. By His word God calls forth all of creation. By the Spirit He works chaos into cosmos. God has called the world into being with the breath of His mouth (ruach) and has made everything by his word (Ps. 33:6).

At times in the OT “spirit” and “word” are even interchangeable. Ancient Jews found it difficult to draw too sharp of a contrast between them. This is because they understood the creative and providential potential of both.

Ancient people believed they could create reality through the spoken word. The spoken word “is regarded as the medium of owners which effectively influence events.”[1]

And even today, though we hardly believe it, human words have the ability to create worlds. By gossip or negativity a world of despair may be created around a person. By love and grace a world of godliness may flourish around someone else.

If we are to have a renewed understanding of the Spirit in the church today, we need to also regain a new understanding of the power of words. With our words, we need to create a world where the Spirit and spiritual things may thrive and prosper. Clearly we do not take the freedom from God to choose to act on His own, but we can still work to create an environment that is ready when God does choose to act. This is done through a connection of Spirit and word.

Notice how so many of our spiritual charisms (gifts) essentially involve words: Tongues is itself a verbal gift, teaching and prophesy are gifts most often employed through spoken word, discernment involves distinguishing whether a spoken word came from God or not, and what would encouragement be if it did not involve a word of hope? And the list could go on.

In a world where everything has already been said, and much of our rhetoric is merely adding to the noise, we need to recover a sense of connection between the Spirit and words. If we fail to do this, “our words may well make a good deal of sense, but they will be devoid of power; it may be that they will explain something, but they will move nobody. They will be ineffectual, idle, fruitless.”[2]

We live in a world where words are considered either hurtful or meaningless. People do not trust the words of lying politicians, the words of cheating pastors, nor the words of even their own family members (“I love you.” doesn’t even mean anything anymore because it’s been so overused and commercialized!).

The church, to them, is just another political entity vying for power, a power to hurt other people. This is how the world sees the church – and we’ve given them no other model! But “if we really want the Spirit to place words on our lips, we need to live constantly in an attitude of death to our own glory, seeking only the glory of God.”[3] We need to stop our self-seeking and squelch our power-hunger. We need to humbly live in the Spirit and employ the words of humility and love.

A fresh recovery of the Spirit goes hand in hand with a recovery of our ecclesial rhetoric. From the individual struggling with gossip, to the larger community struggling with our political rhetoric, from the Pentecostal emphasizing the Spirit to the Protestants emphasizing the Word, we cannot forget that these are inseparable. The Spirit and the word, together, create and sustain worlds. As long as we ignore the value of both in the contemporary church we will continue to reap the harvest of spiritless meaninglessness.

In this final installment on the “Abraham Alone” series, we will look at the ambiguity of Abrahamic religion’s relationship with Canaanite religion and culture. Nearly every text has something to say about this porous relationship that is strained by the wickedness of Canaanite culture in general, but at times quite intimate and righteous. So, the last feature of Abrahamic religion is that it was distinct from, but at times having commonality with Canaanite religion and culture.

Beginning with the distinctions,[1] whether or not Abrahamic religion was monotheistic it is obvious that Abraham follows only Yahweh. Additionally, the practice of circumcision on the eighth day after birth also separates Abraham from the Canaanites. Though ancient Semitic peoples practiced circumcision, this feature is unique to Abrahamic religion. The rituals and theology separating Abrahamic faith from Canaanite religion reinforces the “choseness” of Abraham and the wickedness of most Canaanite culture.

Despite the texts generally negative view, in certain segments Abraham honors Canaanite people and religion. He pays tithes to Melchizedek, understanding El Elyon, a Canaanite deity who is “God Most High,” as Yahweh (14:22). Melchizedek’s is the apex of Canaanite religion, worshiping Abraham’s God, only by a different name. This deity was likely the highest in the Canaanite pantheon, and Abraham’s connection of this name with Yahweh may be due to Melchizedek’s conception of El Elyon as displaying Yahweh’s attributes. Abraham simply sees no difference between Yahweh and El Elyon in this text or a few others: he builds altars to the god El (22:9), which he also connects with Yahweh (22:11).[2]

Abraham’s attitude toward them, then, is not only shaped by the wickedness of some, but also by the righteousness of a few. He enters into treaty’s (21:27) and is even buried among some of them who honor him and his wife (25:8-10).[3]

In the end, full realization of Yahweh’s promises necessitated that Abrahamic faith avoid fraternization with the wickedness of the Canaanites. However, the boundaries were rather porous when it came to Canaanites who were generally righteous in character.

In a previous post I argued that everything is sacred. That is, all aspects of our lives are sacred because the Spirit permeates all things. Taking a bath is sacred. Baptism is sacred. Doing the laundry is sacred. The Eucharist is sacred.

What I unwittingly communicated in that post, however, was that taking a bath and getting Baptized are sacred in the same way and to the same degree. And though Luther says that every time we wash our face we should think of our Baptism, I am convinced that this reasoning is flawed. There is something distinctively set apart about the sacraments. That is, the sacraments are holy in a different way and to a different degree than taking a shower is holy.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think I was on the right track in that post, I just think there were implications of that line of reasoning that I hadn’t explored. In this post, I want to suggest that the problem with the previous post wasn’t so much that I uplifted the bath (which was the intent), but that in doing so I unfortunately drug Baptism down to the level of a bath.

Instead of positing an “everything is equally sacred” model, I want to continue to suggest that everything is sacred, including a bath, but that all things are not sacred in the same way or to the same degree. While a bath is sacred because the Spirit is present with us during that time, there is a very real sense in which the church has always held that Baptism is a time and ritual which invokes the Spirit in a special way. The sacraments of the church invite the presence of the Spirit in a distinct way. So, yes, my bath might be sacred because the Spirit communes with me there – indeed, some of my best times of worship and fellowship with the Spirit have been while showering – but it is not sacred in the same way as Baptism.

To illustrate this I want to pull from the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. Under the Old Covenant, the people of God worshipped and met with Yahweh at the Temple. The Temple and its objects were all considered “holy” or set apart from common use. But within the Temple there was a “Most Holy Place.” The existence of the Most Holy Place didn’t negate the holiness of the other spaces and objects, it merely suggested that there is a continuum of holiness. Everything in the Temple was holy, but this particular space and the objects within that space were more holy and holy in a different way.

So too it is with the Spirit’s activities in the life of the church. Mundane things such as eating and drinking can be made holy by the presence and activity of the Spirit of God. But there are some things which are Most Holy. Baptism, the Eucharist, the gathering together of the community on Sunday – these things are Most Holy. Common time, which is never common because of the Spirit, becomes increasingly holy. Common objects, such as bread and wine, become Most Holy during the Eucharist. And common water becomes Most Holy during Baptism.

Everything is still sacred. But some things are more sacred and in a different way.
And what was once routine was now the perfect joy – Switchfoot

The 247th Christian Carnival is up over at Rodney Olsen [dot] Net.  There are some pretty good posts up there this week.  Here are some of my favorites:

Tiffany presents So Right, You’re Wrong as she delves into the discovery that being right isn’t nearly as important as being humble and teachable over at her blog Fathom Deep: Sounding the Depths of God.

Rey from the Bible Archive shares what he describes as his likely heretical vision for the western Protestant church in The Once and Future Church.

Raffi Shahinian’s contribution is the post Top 10 Things I Learned from N.T. Wright, Bart Ehrman and The Problem of Evil posted at parables of a prodigal world.

Ken’s post Literalism and the Ascension discusses what it means, and whether it is legitimate, to take the Bible’s miraculous stories “literally” over at C Orthodoxy.

You can investigate how people’s ideas about sacrifice differ from those of the ancient world and a bit about the impact of this for teaching a passage such as Hebrews 7-9 at Henry’s Participatory Bible Study Blog with the post Sacrifice Then and Now.

I got excited for a bit when I saw Tiffany’s name up there.  Wrong Tiffany.  This Tiffany’s thoughts were also good.

For all our debates about the nature and genre of the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, I’m amazed by the lack of discussion surrounding the meaning of the Spirit’s activities in 1:2 where the text reads, “And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.”

We’ve been so sidetracked by other questions, often questions the text isn’t even asking, that we’ve overlooked this odd and fascinating feature of the Creation narrative – the presence and activity of God’s Spirit.

Neglecting the Spirit’s role in creation is easy for us, not only because we’re distracted by the Creationism vs. Evolution questions, but also because we’ve severely limited the Spirits role in the Christian life to conviction of sin and assurance of salvation. Or, more specifically, we’ve limited the Spirit’s role to our subjective devotional lives.

But prior to the need for conviction of sin and the need for assurance of salvation, the Spirit was involved in the work of creation. Contrary to our privatized Pneumatology, the fingerprints of the Spirit are clearly displayed in the cosmos.

But what do those finger prints look like? And why was the Spirit hovering over the deep?

By placing the Spirit within Genesis 1:2, where we have the beginning of a movement from darkness and void to order and light, the author suggests the Spirit is the agent by which creation is given form and order. The Spirit is not removed from the creation; the Spirit is intimately with the creation, guiding its development and progress along with the spoken word of God.

The Spirit’s hovering over the face of the deep is significant. For the ancient Hebrews, the sea was a force of chaos and unruliness. Often mythologized in Babylonian religions, the chaotic character of the sea is confirmed by numerous biblical accounts: Noah’s Flood and the destruction of the entire world, the crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, Jesus and the calming of the Storm. Even more telling is in Revelation when the sea is the place from which the great Beast comes (13:1) and, ultimately, a place to be destroyed in the new creation: “and there was no longer any sea.”(21:1)

Furthermore, within our narrative, it is important to note that the deep is possibly a subtle reference to a Babylonian deity, Tehoim, “a belligerent and monstrous ocean goddess.” If so, Genesis 1:2 would have been an especially comforting verse for ancient Hebrews wrestling with the constant pressures of Babylonian culture and religion. Not only are the chaotic waters of the deep under the Spirit’s dominion, but implicitly and subversively, Babylonian religion is stripped of its power and demonstrated to be inferior to the religion of Yahweh. For in our narrative, the Spirit is holding at bay the chaotic forces of the world – Babylonian religious and cultural influence, to be more specific. The Spirit drifts over the deep and demonstrates the dominion of God over the disorder soiling the life of an exiled people attempting to be faithful to Yahweh’s covenant “in a foreign land.” (Ps. 137:1-4)

I know the objections will be that there are no forces of evil yet b/c Genesis 3 has not yet occurred. But, again, like the Creationism debates, I don’t think that’s the question the narrative asks.

Rather, it assumes some sort of rebellion has already occurred. You see, the pre-Fall narrative is replete with numerous subtle references to Babylonian deities, and even words which indicated violent subjugation (1:28). Furthermore, such an answer also accounts for the mysterious serpent in Genesis 3 – another possible allusion to a Babylonian deity, and one which would, again, make a lot of sense to an ancient Hebrew person struggling with the constant influences of Babylonian religion and culture.

Thus, what we’re learning from Genesis 1:2 is that those forces of chaos, those things in the world that are disorderly and unruly, are still held in check by the Spirit. The Spirit is already at work to bring the creation back to its original intention – the order of God.

The implication of this is, yes, that there were forces of death operative within creation prior to Genesis 3, but these forces were not yet operative within humanity or the earth in which humanity resided. But these forces of death are being checked by the Spirit. Indeed, even though the narrative makes subtle references to pagan deities, these subtle references are subtle precisely because the narrator wants the reader to see that the sea was created by God and that God is in control. The sea is not a deity, it is part of Yahweh’s creation and He is sovereign over it as the Spirit hovers over the deep and keeps it in its place (Ps. 140:9). “The author here plainly understands God’s act of creation to have involved some type of conflict with cosmic chaos, but also clearly portrays Yahweh as being more than up to the task.”

So what is the Spirit doing hovering over the face of the deep? Displaying and maintaining God’s sovereignty over creation. Demonstrating God’s intimate concern for the details of His creation. And ensuring the ancient reader that God maintains control over the chaotic influences and forces of false religion. The gigs up: the Sea is demythologized and shown to be part of creation. It is not an independent agent, and insofar as chaotic forces do control the sea, Genesis 1 will not allow us to despair, as if Yahweh has lost his sovereignty.

*I reserve the right to change my mind later about any of this.*

But the basic religious economic premise was not just about being nice to poor folks. It was about the flow of God’s abundance that must move through the whole society, not get stuck in the pockets of the rich.

Read the rest: Let’s Try Biblical Economics from On Faith by Arthur Waskow

Here is an interesting post at the Biblical Theology blog on the Holy Spirit’s activity in the Old Covenant. I thought that in light of Tom’s recent posting that this would provide some food for thought until the next post in Tom’s series of posts. Here is the article.

God with Men in the Torah by James Hamilton

I thought this post series would be interesting considering Tom’s earlier post on Genesis 1:26-27. While the post did not address the issue of Egalitarianism vs Complementarianism, the issue of the date of the text is very interesting considering previous conversations here at MassTheo. The balshanut blog has been summarizing some interesting articles on linguistic studies and how they impact dating the OT, specifically דמות found in Genesis 1:26-27 speaking of humanity being made in “God’s image/likeness.” The blogger has really put into practice what he has been posting on for sometime recently and I really appreicate that. It helps me see how it works. The post series takes the reader on a journey to see if the Hebrew term דמות is an Aramaic loanword or an Aramaism (the Aramaic word being צלם). The point of this is to see if the presence of this Aramaic rooted word points to a late date or to an early date. The conclusion that is reached is that the evidence leans to a pre-exillic date but not in a conclusive and definitive manner. There just isn’t enough evidence to really come down hard either way and when the periscope was written. I just found these posts interesting and hope you do too. Here they are.

In his דמות and צלם, Part 1.

In his דמות and צלם, Part 2.

In his דמות and צלם, Part 3.

Perhaps the best argument leveled against Judaism and Christianity is the angry child of a god that people construct out of choice samples of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. These criticisms should not be taken lightly nor should the texts they reference be whitewashed. 

To this end, I came across an article via the Codex that I plan on reading tomorrow (for it is 2:11AM and early evening naps should be avoided, no matter how crappy one feels) entitled Is Yahweh a Moral Monster?:The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics which takes a critical look at the claims of the “New Atheists” and attempts to construct and honest and workable Christian reply to such criticisms.  Take a look online via the link in the preceding paragraph, or download the 30 pages of textual goodness in this pdf. 

While you are reading that article, I recommend you also read the one which referenced it over at the Codex entitled Yahweh – a Moral Monster?, which begins a discussion on the Canaanite genocide.

Scott, over at Grace is Unfair, looks at Amos and Isaiah and comes to some troubling conclusions about personal and societal sins.

In Amos, God condemns oppression of the poor and sexual sin in the same breath.  And in Isaiah, God shows that He detests both when people amass too much land at the expense of the poor and when people act as drunkards.  Neither passage suggests that God is placing a greater value judgment on personal sin or societal sin.  What does that mean for us as Christians, who desire to do God’s will?

At the end of his post, he quotes James 4:17, which says: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” We know the right thing to do – therefore societal sins that we participate in are our own.

Dr. Peter Enns (yes the doctor who got into so much hot water this past spring over inerrancy and inspiration etc.) gives this definition to inerrancy,

I affirm that I am committed to the Bible’s inerrancy as a function of its divine origin. If I may offer a thumbnail definition, the Bible as it is is without error because the Bible as it is is God’s Word.

Before you respond to this definition, read the rest of the post to get more of a context for the statement. But I am interested to hear responses to this topic.

Inerrancy

Danny, over at Personman, claims that God is imaginary.  He points his readers to this site which outlines 50 reasons why God is not real.  Danny then takes two examples that be believes demonstrate that the God of the Bible is not an actual God.

The first line of reasoning concerns the body of Jesus – but not in a manner you would expect.  The Bible says that God was once in human form and then withdrew into the heavens.  Humanity has spent quite a bit of time looking in the heavens – no God to be had up there.  We have been to the moon and have peered light-years into the past, yet no we have seen “gold-plated kingdom floating up there. We see only the vacuum of space. But now God and Heaven have moved to ‘another dimension’ or ‘outside of space and time.’”

The second line of reasoning examines prayer.  Quoting Mark 11:24 and John 14:14, Danny establishes that if the Bible is true and there is a God, then prayers must be answered. Given this, the effects of prayer in human lives should be verifiable. However, Danny lists three scientific studies that demonstrate that it is not – Study 1, Study 2, Study 3.

Because prayer does not work and God, through the Bible says it will, and the Bible describes Jesus as physically going up to heaven and there is no physically visible heaven, then God is imaginary.

Danny issues a challenge to his readers at the end of the post – and this is the strongest portion of the post.  He says that if you cannot come up with concrete proof that our God exists, then “can you claim that your beliefs are any more rational than Islam, FSM or Scientology?”

I have a few problems with his arguments.  Firstly, he is operating from a purely empirical and rationalist standpoint.  We posit a spiritual God that is hidden.  Because of this, setting up a falsifying experiment (looking for a physical Jesus in a physical heaven) that does not test for what you are looking for is just bad reasoning.  Secondly, the prayer experiment does not test for a God, it only shows a non-positive correlation between two phenomena – outcomes of heart surgery (as in the last study) and prayer for that outcome to be positive.  It really does not show anything about God from an existential standpoint.  Lastly, and this is the most important point, if, on the one hand, you assume from the beginning that God does not exist the studies only confirming what you already think is the case; if, on the other hand, you assume beforehand that it does exist, then all you say is that it is not easily swayed to act as humans want it to act and that the study has wrongly interpreted those two naked sentences from the Bible.

Why does a presupposed spirit God have to be physically observed? I submit that we see indirect evidence of God everyday.  Wondrous mountains, the fibonacci sequence in nature, beautiful star factories, and the eyes of my niece all serve as indirect evidence of God’s hand in the world.

“Does God exist” is an unanswerable question from a purely empirical standpoint. We can interpret the observable phenomena as evidence for a creator/God or as natural and random processes.  What it comes down to is that Danny’s interpretive framework does not allow for a god who hides himself – mine does. It is a difference in framework.

What remains is Danny’s last challenge – why the God of the Bible?  To quote my good friend JR, “We have the best story.”  When I consider what I can see, what I can deduce, what I can reason, the story found in the Bible is the best one.  Buddhism has a nice one, but I don’t have their givens.

What do you all think?  I highly encourage you to respond to Danny at his blog.

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…

We, as Christians, are among the world’s best at sweeping, dismissive judgments. All one needs to do is subscribe to the Worldview Weekend newsletter to see that. This is not a new trend, however, as evidenced by the following quote by Epiphanius:

Passing this judgment [on them is like passing judgment] on a toothless lizard full of madness, I will go on to the next things, beloved, calling upon God to help our inadequacy and to enable us to fulfill our promise [i.e. to write this book] (Medicine Box, 49)

As dismissive judgments go, likening your opponent to a “toothless lizard full of madness” is pretty sweet. In this case the lizards in need of dentures were the Quintillians and they were dismissed because of their allowance of women as clergy and prophetesses.

I keep wondering how Luke 6:37 fits into all of this, if not in the 4th century, then in the current postmodern context in which we find ourselves.

Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.

Here’s the rub: how can I actually not judge and still maintain myself?

I consider myself to be a collection of definitions.  I am 6′1” tall.  I like basketball; I hate baseball.  I follow Christ.  I determine that which I am. Well, the things that I can choose – I can’t choose to be a white male, for instance.  I determine this by means of judgment.  I judge for myself that baseball is three minutes of action crammed into three hours.  I determine that math is a good way to use numbers.  I determine that there is nothing sweeter than a drop step or a juke+spin+hook-shot in basketball.  How am I not to judge, which is a command from the One that I follow when judgments necessarily make up an individual?  In other places in the Bible, we are commanded to test the spirits, to determine what is right.  How do we reconcile this?

As best as I can understand it, there is a distinguishment between moral and factual judgments.  We are to make so-called factual judgments about matters and hold them over and above the judgments of others.  On the other hand, we are to refrain from making moral judgments about people and their positions.

While this seems almost self-explanatory, I know I often need reminding of this.  Just look through the archives of masstheology.com, hundiejo.com, or brendoman.com as evidence of this.

What do you do with Luke 6:37?