Theology for the Masses

I try to stay out of politics as much as I can.  However, I did leave some feedback on a column over at Worldview Network that I bloged about the other day.  Much to my surprise, it survived moderation and even received two responses.  Since all of this reflects how I see the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of America interacting, I thought I’d copy the discussion here.

My first comment:

How much should Christians be involved in political affairs? I don’t see Jesus or Paul or anyone of the New Cov era getting involved with Rome’s invasions or defense. I wonder (and I am not sold either way) if we followers of the prince of peace should be concerned with advancing and defending America’s political, economic, and cultural power and instead be concerned with showing God’s love to the world though our deeds and actions and rhetoric. What do you think?

First Reply by Lou

JESUS CARED FOR ALL

Are we not to lead all men to Jesus Christ. Would that not include people in the government, people of the government, and people for the government. I try to show the Way of Jesus Christ by all that do or do not do. Jesus was concerned for every single person and died for all. Should I be unconcerned about one group trying to take the property of others or even one group trying to take the life of the poorest and weakest and most innocent of the humans here on this earth. We know that most of these illegal immigrants have a religion that is hostile to true Christianity. Our government is giving this nation away to those who have not shed any blood, sweat, or tears for it. Should we not protect the innocent in this matter. I do care about a van load of children being killed by Mexican trucks that can not even read our signs let alone obey our laws. Lou

Second Reply by John

answer

Well, Christianity is giving. If we say we have love and aren’t involved in the affairs of the world, do we have love? You say Jesus was not involved in the affairs of the world, however, he battled the world, the world systems, and their beliefs. This is why He is hated and why we are to be hated. Jesus also said to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. He said this because governments are instituted by God and we are to be salt and light, defend righteousness, and be bold. To put this all together, I would say faith and love requires action. As for the USA, we still should defend the good and proactively try to change the bad. The principles of freedom and democracy are biblical and worth defending, bondage (Egypt) is the alternative and the unsaved seek it. John

My Response to John and Lou:

Hey, Thanks for the gentle feedback Lou and John. I appreciate your thoughts.  So, Lou, you rightly say that Jesus cared and died for all.  I think we should very much be concerned about one group taking the lives and livelihood from another group of people.  What I am not sure about is if war with that first group of people is the best way forward.  Why are we upset with one group taking from another?  Because it denies the image of God present in the second group.  Our challenge is to respond to the situation that shows Christ’s love for both the attackers and the attacked.  How do we as citizens of the Kingdom of God help the situation without denying the images of God in the attackers?  Christ loves and died for them as well.  I am not advocating any sort of easy solution, but rushing to defend them through killing their enemies seems to fly in the face of what Jesus advocates.

Lou, you also talk about how most illegal immigrants are hostile to Christianity and suggest that on this basis we keep them out.  (I might be misrepresenting you on this point, so let me know if I am, for that is not my intention.)  Assuming for the moment that this is the case, I love the idea of having people move in around me that are hostile to Christianity, for there are more opportunities to grow the Kingdom of God and help restore interpersonal relationships and to help them get to know their creator and to trust in Him for their salvation.

John, I completely agree with you when you say that we need to be involved in the affairs of this world.  I agree wholeheartedly.  I think we disagree in terms of how we go about doing that.  I see us as citizens of the Kingdom of God first and American citizens second.  As such, I think that Christians as a group and individually should act from our primary membership, as citizens of God’s Kingdom, not America’s Republic.  Jesus did confront the world, but he did not battle it (in terms of physical aggression, that is).  He used teaching, aid, and relationships to transform the world.  We should, as citizens of His Kingdom, employ the same tactics.  We are called to be good citizens, to be sure and God has instituted the governments of America (and Iran and China by the same logic).  But we are to be citizens of God’s Kingdom first and to our local political systems second.  I think (and I could be wrong) that God’s Kingdom would be better served if we acted via God’s Kingdom rather than via America’s interests and methods. 

What do you think?

A few months ago I wrote a post charging myself with being Too Skeptical for the Holy Spirit. I lamented, really, the fact that my Pneumatological Hermeneutic of Suspicion is always in over-drive. A few weeks later I wrote a post delineating those Christian beliefs I considered Dogma, Doctrine, Opinion or Heresy. My friend Bryne pointed out that my Dogmas (those things I considered essential to the Christian faith) were overwhelmingly Christological. I realized, in frustration with myself, I had very little to say about the Holy Spirit.

A Hermeneutic of Suspicion is not entirely responsible for this. My tradition (Evangelical/Southern Baptist) rarely touches on the 3^rd person of the Trinity. It’s hard to develop a thoughtful theology when there’s no consistency within the community’s rhetoric.

Our communal avoidance of the Spirit is borne out of at least two factors: 1. we are afraid allowing the Spirit to have control will turn us into Pentecostals,[1] and 2. our view of the Bible restricts our Pneumatological experiences.

Let me explain the second point.

I’ve always loved the authoritative emphasis Evangelicalism places on the Bible. While in certain respects I have no problem with this, I also feel it has led to an unfortunate dichotomy between the Scripture and experience; a dichotomy which is, itself, not scriptural.

John Stott argues in his discussion on the Holy Spirit, “God’s purpose for our lives is to be found in Scripture and not in experience.”[2] Stott argues the Holy Bible, above our experiences of the Holy Spirit, should direct our Christian lives. He says this primarily because he distrusts experience, not because he distrusts the Holy Spirit. The Bible must be the medium of the Holy Spirit.

But here’s the fundamental flaw: All our experiences of the Spirit, including the illumination given by the Spirit to understand the Bible, are still experiences. As Ruether says, “Human experience is both the starting point and ending point of the circle of interpretation.”[3] There’s nothing outside of experience (or the text!). This distrust of experience is an epistemological left over from the Enlightenment, not from a biblical worldview.

The problem with appealing only the Scriptures, and avoiding experience, is not only that everything is an experience, but the Bible only Speaks of experiencing the Spirit. Experience is how the biblical authors knew the Spirit. They didn’t have a Bible on which to rely.

The Luke-Acts narratives, for example, spill over with experiences of the Spirit’s outpouring. Furthermore, Paul appeals to his audience, not to only search the Scriptures (the Old Testament) for their awareness of the Spirit, but to look within their own communal experiences for evidence of the Spirit’s work:

What, don’t you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Or

If there is any consolation in Christ, any comfort from His love, any fellowship of the Spirit, then make my joy complete…

Indeed, some of Paul’s statements only make sense with the assumption that his churches experience the Spirit: Did you receive the Spirit by works of Torah or by believing what you heard? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to gain perfection by the flesh? (Gal. 3:2-3). His question only works because of the experiential quality of their reception of the Spirit.[4]

Paul assumes his audience will acknowledge, from experience, the Spirit’s work among them. Paul is no Enlightenment scholar suspicious of experiencing the Spirit. He see’s the Spirit at work in his churches, in his mission, and in his life. This is no subjective reality to Paul: don’t you know!

By placing the Bible above the Holy Spirit, we’ve in essence claimed the Bible is objective and public knowledge and the Spirit’s activities are subjective and private. In this, we’ve not only violated our Scriptural foundation, but we’ve denied the 3^rd person of the Trinity out of a preconceived, prefabricated, position of suspicion. For all our arguments about the Historical Jesus, maybe we need to reexamine the ways we’ve abandoned the Historical Spirit.

Part of the churches New Covenant is that the Spirit of God will personally abide with the people of God. This is not an abstract doctrine waiting to be delineated; it is an experience – an experience of a person. When the church gathers, God is present in person.[5] Until we regain this personal, relational, experiential aspect of the Spirit, our churches will continue subject themselves to Enlightenment philosophy instead of the biblical worldview we claim we posses.

The person of the Holy Spirit, not the Bible, is the down-payment of God’s eschatological promises (Eph. 1:14). The Spirit in our midst reminds us that God has already purchased his church and the victory is already won. Christians ought to be the most hopeful of all people for we have the Spirit in our midst reminding us that God has already defeated sin and death. By our failure to experience the Spirit in our midst, we are robbed of that personal assurance.

In the end, this is what I wanted to communicate:

1. Everything is an experience. You cannot avoid experience in your theological, biblical or, especially, your pneumatological reflection.
2. Our fear of experience not only betrays an Enlightenment epistemology as opposed to a Biblical one, but straight-jackets the Holy Spirit – indeed, probably even grieves the Spirit.
3. Paul’s assumption is that the Spirit is experienced by his churches. In contrast to Paul’s churches, I doubt many evangelicals could say, “Yes, Paul, we know from experience that we have fellowship with the Spirit; we know from experience that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This is a major flaw in not only our Pneumatology but also our Ecclesiology.

Is Al Mohler a deterministic Calvinist? It does not seem so: So . . . Why Did I Write This? The Delusion of Determinism where he is responding to Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain.

As a matter of fact, this capacity and accountability is rooted in the biblical concept of the imago Dei — the image of God.   Our Creator made us as moral creatures and planted within us the capacity of conscience.  All this refutes the concept of moral determinism.

I’ve heard that rhetoric before, yet doesn’t Calvinism subscribe to moral determinism? [1]

Update: Tom corrected me on Calvinists describing themselves as (hard) determinists.  They subscribe to compatibilist soft determinism.  For more on this, see parableman’s posts on this topic:

1. Determinism and Fatalism

2. Arguments for Determinism

3. Arguments for Free Will

4. Freedom and Determinism: Possible Views

5. Libertarian Freedom and Incompatibilism

6. Problems with Libertarian Freedom

7. Arguments for Compatibilism

8. Compatibilist Freedom

9. Moral Luck: The Cases

10. Moral Luck: Responses

 

I myself subscribe to incompatibilist libertarianism, which Jeremy (and I assume Calvinists in general) rejects in favor of compatibilist soft determinism. 

1. This is where I get the Calvinists to do my homework for me. [↩]

Monday we finished looking at the Thecla Cult in early Christianity.  Today we will take stock of the actual text itself before looking at the tides of rhetoric it employed.

The textual tradition of the Acts of Thecla effectively co-opted and modified established patterns rhetoric for its own ends. We will explore one of these pre-existing rhetoric patterns that the tradition drew from, the Roman romance novel. [1]  

As mentioned earlier, the Acts of Thecla is a second century account of a female disciple of Paul’s, Thecla.It was included along with Third Corinthians in the Acts of Paul. The relation between the Acts of Paul and the Acts of Thecla is uncertain. It is possible that the Acts of Thecla was originally crafted independent from the Acts of Paul and later inserted. This is evidenced by the shift in protagonist and its ability to stand on its own as an independent work. Some scholars, such as Goodspeed and Davis, assert the opposite, that the Acts of Thecla was originally crafted as a part of the Acts of Paul and later separated. [2]   They point to the rather abrupt beginning of the Acts of Thecla. The lack of a proper introduction implies that the work piggy-backed on the introduction of the Acts of Paul and signifies a common point of creation. Even if the Acts of Thecla was originally a part of the Acts of Paul, the Acts of Thecla became separated relatively quickly. [3] For our purposes, the relationship between the two works is largely irreverent because we our analysis will privilege the oral tradition that served as a source for either the Acts of Thecla or the Acts of Thecla portion of the Acts of Paul.

The Acts of Thecla begins with Paul as the primary protagonist and moves Thecla from her Roman household toward her eventual discipleship. [4] The work opens in Asia Minor. Paul is traveling to Iconium, present day Konya, after fleeing Antioch. At this point in the Acts of Paul, Paul had previously been outside of Rome. This disjointment of the narrative of the Acts of Paul suggests that the Acts of Thecla is a separate work which was inserted into the Acts of Paul. The flight from Antioch in chapter 1 of the Acts of Thecla most likely refers to the tradition in the canonical Acts of the Apostles where Saul and Barnabas are run out of Antioch Pisidia in chapter 13 and their next destination is Iconium, where they are consequently run out of town in chapter 14. This suggests one of two things, either that the author of the Acts of Thecla was familiar with the Acts of the Apostles or that these two accounts are multiple attestations of the historicity of the events.

Understanding the Narrative

In some senses the text is a variant of the Roman romance novel and in others a complete reversal. Roman romance novels were reproductions of the Roman civic ideal. They “[encoded] marriage as a theme signifying both domestic and imperial harmony.” [5]   Cooper argues that romantic novels illustrate “concerns about the social consequences of imperiled marriage – dynastic strife and social instability.” [6]   The Roman romance novels elevate marriage by elevating its role in the narrative and connect it to the maintenance of civic values. [7]    Cooper frames the genre in terms of defending the city and the state from social dissolution by means of reinforcing social norms. This includes the defense of marriage; the ancient romance novel “may have been perceived as an attempt to stabilize a founding instituting of the social order by calling attention to its charms.” [8]   In order to accomplish this task, the text must rely on strict constructions of gender roles which mirror serve to bolster the established gender roles.

If this is one of the functions of Romance novels in antiquity, the Acts of Thecla utilizes this rhetoric tool, but modifies it for its own ends. As we explore the rhetoric in the narrative, we will find a constant theme of rejection. The assumed feminine is rejected though Thecla’s move into action; the assumed masculine is rejected through Paul’s move into passivity; and the community’s ideological opponents, Roman societal norms, are rejected through Thecla’s deliverance from their attacks.

Friday, we will be taking a look at the first story arc of the Acts of Thecla and see how all of this is working.

1. Melissa Aubin, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, ed. J. Bradley Chance Ronald F. Hock, and Judith Perkins (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 258. [↩]
2. Kate Cooper and Catherine Fales Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Harvard University Press, 1996), 28. [↩]
3. Aubin, "Reversing Romance? The Acts of Thecla and the Ancient Novel," 259. [↩]
4. Cooper and Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity, 37. [↩]
5. MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon 14.#38@14} MacDonald dates the Acts of Paul, which contains the Acts of Thecla between 150-190 CE. Given that the Acts of Thecla was an independent tradition (if not an independent text) that was merged with the Acts of Paul, it was likely crystallized at an earlier date. [↩]
6. Edgar Johnson Goodspeed, "The Acts of Paul and Thecla," The Biblical World 17, no. 3 (1901): 185. and Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 7. [↩]
7. Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader (Oxford University Press, USA, 2003), 278. [↩]
8. When describing the events in the narrative, items in quotes reflect the translation of the Acts of Thecla as reproduced in "The Acts of Thecla.". [↩]

Often when discussing Calvinism with my Reformed friends, I hear them use language like “God allowed/permitted sin.” This kind of rhetoric seems strange, though, coming from a group of people who believe, as the Westminster Confession of Faith says, that “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

Logically consistent Calvinists recognize this problem and concede that God must have ordained and caused evil as well as good. As John Piper has said, “Everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly.” That is, God didn’t merely “permit” sin or “allow” it; He actively caused it as its Primary Cause.

John Calvin (as quoted by Piper) even goes on to chide those “inconsistent” Calvinists who want to use “permit” and “allow” language when it comes to sin, “John Calvin denies that there is any “mere permission” in God: From this it is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be not by [God’s] will, but merely by his permission. Of course, so far as they are evils, which men perpetrate with their evil mind, as I shall show in greater detail shortly, I admit that they are not pleasing to God. But it is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely [= idly] permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them.”

Now, to be fair, Calvinists believe that God ordained, indeed determined and caused, sin to come into the world without in any way morally implicating God. Essentially God is the Primary Cause of sin and human agents are the Secondary Cause. God determined before creation that humanity would Fall, but because God is only the Primary Cause and not the actual agent committing or having the desire to sin, God cannot be held culpable.

Let me loosely, if not inefficiently, illustrate this*

God Determines (Primary Cause)
↓
Humans Have the Desire (The Immediate Cause) which God has Determined**
↓
Humans Sin (Secondary Cause)

The logic of this aside (for we will concede the point just for the moment and assume that a God who punishes people for actions that they could not have in fact chosen otherwise is actually good) I think it is important to note that nowhere in this model is there room for “permission” language. God does not permit anything; He causes everything – in such a way that He is not responsible for any of the negative results (but curiously all of the positive ones).

Now, when Calvinists slip into “permit” language, not only does it violate the Compatibilistic Freedom model they cling so tightly to, but they are actually employing Libertarian Freedom language. Indeed, John Piper has made this very point, “But we should not assume, as Arminians do, that divine permission is anything less than sovereign ordination.” In other words, it is logically inconsistent and theologically misleading for a Calvinist to say that God “allowed” instead of “caused” something just so it will sound more palatable to their audience.

Of course, there are many Calvinists who do not fall into this trap – as I have just demonstrated with Piper and Calvin. But this post if for those who think is permissive to do so – If you do indeed find “determination” and “causation” language morally abhorrent when it comes to evil and sin, then you would do well to become an Arminian or Open Theist – for that is exactly their complaint! If you do not believe in a God who caused the Holocaust or little girls to get raped, then by all means, abandoned your Reformed views.

In either case, let us not continue employing Calvinistic rhetoric and “permit” language together. For if Calvinism is right, God is not being glorified by such a denial of His Sovereignty.

However, if you are Reformed and you wish to retain your right to “permit/allow” language, you should at least understand that you are falling outside traditional, classical Calvinism, and your position is logically incoherent within that system This ought to tell you something as well b/c for your classical Calvinists, like John Piper, have no problem saying, “It is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin.”

*Calvinists, I’m trying to be fair in this illustration, so if you think something could improve it, then please let me know – I don’t want to be misleading.

**Calvinistic/Compatibilistic Freedom maintains that a person makes a free choice so long as that choice is immediately caused by an inner state (desire). The person acts according to their own desire, and is therefore making a free choice. They could not act otherwise, but they do act according to their desire, and are therefore responsible for their decision and action.

May I present part 2 of my pictoral tour of the Creation Museum! You’ll remember that we left last time secure in the fact that we can trust God’s Word ™ over the evil, corruptive forces of Human Reason. We saw how God’s Word ™ had been preserved throughout the centuries, despite the fact that evil persons such as Jews and Catholics had tried to corrupt it. And so now we turn to the modern incarnation of this (apparently) ancient war: the defense of Creationism in the face of Darwin’s bastard step-children, the evil Evolutionists.

The First Four Days (In the Blink of an Eye)

The couple of rooms are pretty much what we expected. We were treated to “scientific” Old-Earth “theories” based on Human Reason (read: foolish atheism) claiming that Creation is more than 6,000 years old. We saw various computer models illustrating how Young Earth science made better use of the available evidence, and how (surprise!) the Museum’s understanding of this evidence is perfectly in line with God’s Word. (It’s so comforting to know someone has it all figured out!) And at one of the unfinished displays, we were treated to an example of the Museum’s ever-vigilant dedication to undermining the rhetoric of Human Reason.

Clever, no?

Oh, and in case you were wondering (I know I was), the reason you should care about this is that believing in an Old Earth undermines all Christian doctrine and theology. Apparently unless you believe that Genesis 1-11 is literal, historical fact, then you are an evil, pagan.

Day Six (because who really cares about plants and birds? no one. that’s who.)

Whew… two whole rooms without people? It was almost getting to be too much! Fortunately, by the time we got through the second room, we were treated to a documentary film that chronicled all six days of creation in a relatively short time period (even shorter than Six Days! man, these Museum people are GOOD!). Once we’d been properly prepared, we were shown into the Garden of Eden.

I learned so much in this room! Did you know that all animals were vegetarians before the Fall? True story.

Who’s going to blame this guy for loving pineapple? Not me, that’s for sure.

They were so tame you could feed them!!

Did you know that no animals or plants were toxic or venomous before the Fall? TRUE STORY. Did you know that before the Fall, Eve never looked Adam in the eye!?! TRUE STORY! Don’t believe me? Not only was it in the video we watched; I got photographs!

Let’s go to the film:

Note Adam’s strong, upward gaze. He’s in control here, folks!

Oh Eve! You’re so demure and feminine! Oh, by the way, while you were off frolicking, the Outdated Stereotype store phoned; apparently your model is being recalled.

Dinosaurs in the garden? That you can FEED WITH YOUR HANDS?!? I know, I know. You’re thinking, “This is too good to be true!”

Oh, and alas, you were right. All good things must end. And so we come to the one scene where Eve finally looks Adam in the eye: when she offers him grapes. Or a pomegranate. Or something. I always thought it was an Apple.

The Devil Made Me Do It (Sin and Fallout)

Surprisingly, the serpent (who was Satan) did not have legs. Before or after the Fall. I was disappointed. So, apparently Adam and Eve ate the fruit, got kicked out of the Garden and God showed them how to make animal sacrifices. I have this awesome picture of Adam and Eve wearing deer skins and standing behind altar on which are lying the two slain deer, fully skinned. I can’t find the pic, but I’ll keep looking. Consider the implications – God skinned these two deer and made Adam and Eve wear the skins, probably while the poor things were still dying. That is awesome because little kids come see this museum. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the theory that Genesis 3’s claim that God made them clothes of skin is actually God showing them how to sacrifice is actually rabbinic oral tradition. Yes, the same Oral Tradition that was condemned as evil about 4 rooms ago. What’s that? No, that’s not a contradictory display. You can only find something contradictory if you’re using Human Reason, and we’re not doing anything even remotely resembling something reasonable here at the Museum.

And I’m sure you were wondering, but the animal sacrifices were insufficient because humans and animals are unrelated. This was the one and only place in the entire museum I found them giving explicit reasons that Evolution allegedly undermines Christian doctrine. Apparently, if evolution is true, then we can all just do animal sacrifices. Somehow. But since the bible says that animal sacrifices weren’t sufficient (which, to their credit, it actually does, in Hebrews – though of course they don’t bother with such things as citing references) then apparently evolution can’t be true. Now, can someone please tell me where the Bible ever gives “we’re not related” as a reason animal sacrifice isn’t valid?!?!

Anyway, now we move onto the hall of Sin. This is the room I described from last post with the gray walls and the black-and-white photos featuring the consequences of sin. They were (in order): An African kid starving, A Wolf eating raw meat and looking menacingly at the camera/audience, A mushroom cloud, Bones from the Holocaust, A Woman screaming as she gives birth, A Tornado, Heroin (complete with a spoon and needle, WTF? exactly how educational is this museum supposed to be?! here kid, THIS IS HOW YOU FREAKING TAKE HEROIN!)* and A Graveyard.

Sin is bad. And don’t forget that it’s all because you forgot to listen to God’s Word and started thinking for yourself. Human Reason will pump you full of drugs, genocide you with radiation, make you have babies and take you to Kansas where a wolf will eat your heart while you starve to death.

Also, since you were curious, it was at this point that animals started eating meat and being venomous. Apparently God had build the potential for these things into various animals, but did not reveal them until after the Fall. In a rare fit of exegetical fantasy, the Museum presents Isaiah 11:6-9 (which is an apocalyptic passage) as proof of this clearly sound theory. I find it fascinating that this idea is so completely insane that even Museum realized that no one would believe this unless they could find a Bible verse to throw at it. Fortunately, we don’t need to pay attention to context when citing. Context sounds a little too much like Human Reason for our tastes. God’s Word is God’s Word! We don’t need no context!

What could possibly be next? Oh, we haven’t talked about incest yet!

The Fallen Community

Note in this picture (of Cain, Abel, Adam and Eve), that Adam and Abel are inside the wall, while Cain and Eve (who is pregnant, but not with Seth!) are in their appropriate positions outside the wall.

Also note that Mike’s arm is outside the community.

So, Cain kills Abel (who was apparently the first prophet, more rabbinic Oral Tradition!) and then takes his sister as a wife. But isn’t that incest? Isn’t that something the Bible forbids?! Oh silly. Genetic drift hadn’t happened yet, and God’s Laws are pragmatic, not moral. So calm down. Plus, you’re gay. What’s that? Oh, well on a display called “Who did Cain Marry?”, we find this statement (reproduced verbatim):

“Since God is the One who defined marriage in the first place, God’s Word is the only standard for defining proper marriage. People who do not accept the Bible as their absolute authority have no basis for condemning someone like Cain for marrying his sister.”

Were you paying attention? If you don’t conform to our white-middle-class-fundamentalist view ::ahem:: we mean, our biblical view of marriage, then you don’t have any room to talk. So take your liberal Reason and go home.

The Flood was a cool display. Apparently Noah hired a bunch of guys to help him build the ark, but they all thought he was crazy. We know this because the displays were animatronic and talked. Yeah, they were that creepy. Some pictures:

They actually showed all the people dying. Again, I’m impressed. There are babies on that rock. At least they’re not shying away from the implications. Of course, these are also all pagan evolutionists, so… well… they probably deserved to die in the first place. I mean, they helped Noah build the ark. So they don’t have an excuse.

Sadly, not life-sized. Even sadder, not biblically accurate. Apparently the biblical specifications don’t build something that would actually float. So a Navy simulator came up with this version. However, and we would like to make this very clear: using a Navy simulator to fix something in the Bible is not using Human Reason to augment God’s Word. What we at the Museum are doing here is completely different from what we’re criticizing everywhere else in the Museum. Somehow.

Fun fact: because we can’t account for how rapidly species have changed after the flood, we are going to tell you that “these differences suggest God provided organisms with special tools to change rapidly.” No word on what those special tools were, but my guess is Craftsman. Also, if you were curious how the various animals got to the different continents, it turns out that they used rafts made of dead trees (killed in the flood) that float on the ocean currents. No, I am not making this up. The Museum people made it up. And they have a video simulation to prove it:

The Museum concludes with videos of college students who don’t believe in God. These are the victims of the Enemy. Given that the Museum’s primary demographics are Elderly persons and parents with young children, this is a brilliant piece of propaganda to encourage giving. The Elderly can fight against the ever-more secular Universities to get us back to those mythic “good ole days” and parents with young children can fix the problem before their kids get there. The final station is a well-produced, well-acted and (relatively) well-written 20-minute video gospel presentation. At the beginning, a guy compares a T-Rex tooth to the Bible, apparently because both are old and cool. Other than this, nothing from the Museum’s previous 2.5 hour tour appears or is referenced in the video. Somehow this is meant to prove that the Gospel is dependent on a literal reading of Genesis 1-11.

Oh Those Terrible Lizards!

I was getting pissed – we’d gone through the whole museum with almost no reference to Dinosaurs! Fear not! They had their own separate exhibit, complete with Job quotations and models!

A great question! And one we were exited to have answered.

The Leviathan and Behemoth in Job were both dinosaurs. Yes, really. Go ahead and go read their descriptions in Job 40-41. Yeah. They could breath fire (at least Leviathan could). Don’t you know that’s where dragon legends came from? No, we’re not joking. Why are you laughing? I mean… consider knights…

See?! Knights in the middle ages hunted dragons to extinction. We even watched a 10 minute video (of which I purchased a copy) explaining all of this in lucid, rational terms. Why are you laughing?

And with that, we left. We managed to doge most of the museum people, who all wanted to know what we thought. I’m sure they thought those were tears of joy.

When I first began reading feminist theology, Schusseler-Fiorenza and Welch drew my attention to how language, particularly patriarchal language, shapes not only abstract theological concepts, but also the everyday, practical matters of the Christian life. Among other things, we assume male dominance in the masculine pronouns we use for God, even though we classically maintain God is neither He nor She, but Spirit.

Though I could continue to criticize the church’s use of vocabulary in the oppression of certain peoples, the ecclesiastical rhetoric I want to appraise presently is the church’s employment of the vocabulary of the Empire – particularly its economic verbage.

I often hear Christians refer to “investing” in either non-believers or people whom they are mentoring in the faith. The language of investment is procured, obviously, from the economic world referring to putting money to use in order to gain a potentially profitable return. That is, one invests in order to gain a return.

But is the return what Christian friendship is really about? It is supposed to be what I can gain from my time and effort spilled into another person? When we “invest” in a non-Christian, what we often mean is that we spend time with them in order to make them Christian! When we “invest” in a disciple, we mean we spend time with them in order to elicit the return of sanctification!

But is the return at the heart of Christianity? Is my primary agenda in befriending a non-Christian that they might buy into my product? Does this language not dehumanize and objectify our “investment”? Does this language not communicate that this whole Christianity thing is about what I can profit, or God can yield? Being friends with people outside the Christian faith is not about investment, it is about being genuine friends! Genuine friendship, for sure, involves demonstrating God’s love to the other. But this demonstration of love is not artificial and contrived; it is not about reciprocation or return. Consider my friendship with JR.

I would never say of JR that I am “investing” in him. That would entail certain things which are not inherent in sincere friendship. It would imply that I deem him spiritually below me or that he needs me in his life to be spiritually fruitful. It also implies that my agenda is to correct his spiritual imperfections, and because of my investment, I expect that he will provide a certain return. In the end, the language of investment doesn’t appear to be a natural part of genuine friendship.

But, in the end, this is not even the most dangerous aspect of investment rhetoric.

For me, the most dangerous part of the church’s employment of economic language is that we have taken the language of America’s dominant deity (economics, consumerism, materialism), and leaving it unchanged and unchallenged, we have taken it into our communities like a long lost brother. But as long as the economic rhetoric involved in America’s one true religion is warmly accepted by the church, we will never be able to counter the influence of capitalism, consumerism, materialism, or just plain-ole Mammon in our lives.

Now from where I sit, it appears we have two options. First, the church can completely rid itself of economic language. We can completely drop the language like a deflated stock. No more language of investment or any other kind of rhetoric that smacks of capitalism.

The second option, and one that requires a bit more creativity, is to continue to use economic language, but subvert it by investing it with distinctly Christian meaning. This option falls in line a bit more with what we see in the New Testament. The Gk. word we translate “fellowship” often referred to partnership in business agendas in the first century. Also, and more obvious, the word we translate “redeem” means to “buy back.” It too is an overtly economic word.

I like this second option the best, but there are two difficulties with it.

First, are we creative enough, or even powerful enough, to change the way Christian people generally employ economic rhetoric? Like Wal-Mart in a small town, economic language dominates our American landscape. Completely subverting it and changing it is a nearly impossible task. We may try, but in the end, our use of language is merely a text which is interpreted and misinterpreted by our hearers. Just because I invest economic rhetoric with new meaning doesn’t mean my hearers will observe that investment.

Second, when the New Testament writers reinvested economic language with Christian meaning, they were not using the language of the dominant deity of the Roman Empire. So, even assuming our hearers will understand our new meaning, might we be safer in simply abandoning the language altogether?

So, that’s as far as my thoughts have taken me on this topic thus far. I’m looking for some help getting past this roadblock. What do you think? The bottom line is that Jesus did not heal people for his own glory, and he even healed some who never even thanked him or his Father. It doesn’t seem like his investment in people was only about what he or his religion can get out of it. What about just showing people the love of God for its own sake?

A Very Brief Background to Artemis:

The Greek/Roman female deity Artemis/Diana had a twin brother named Apollo. When her mother went into labor, Artemis came out of the womb first. Having preceded Apollo, many female worshipers considered her superior to Apollo because it symbolized the female preceding the male and therefore being superior. After she was born, while her mother was giving birth to her brother, Artemis assisted her mother across a river where she helped her mother give birth. This act made her, in the eyes of the women who followed her, the goddess of protection during childbearing. The problem, however, lied in that she was prone to killing a woman in labor just for the fun of it. This caused women not only to need her assistance, but also to fear her assistance.

Artemis was sort of a Feminist deity of the Greco-Roman world – especially Ephesus, Timothy’s location when Paul wrote to him (as her temple was in Ephesus). Women rallied around here for strength and escape from male oppression, and she gave them an avenue of resistance in a patriarchal culture.

I Timothy 2

As the previous word study from my last post suggests, the problem in the church did not lie in the fact that the women were preaching or having authority, but rather, they were enacting violence (probably through sermonic rhetoric) against the men in their congregations. Paul’s remarks do not forbid a woman “to teach or have authority”, but rather the Gk. word usage and construction of the sentence suggests he is forbidding women to “teach in such a way that oppresses men.” (my own paraphrase)

The Artemis Cult gives us the historical background to understand how this authoritative feminism might have arisen in their midst, and it gives us clear understanding of Paul’s subsequent response. The Ephesian women, through their cultural assumption of female superiority derived from Artemis, oppressed the men in their congregation. Paul responds with some statements regarding Adam and Eve – statements which have been taken to mean male leadership and female subordination. He says,

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

Adam and Eve

Paul gives 2 reasons women shouldn’t dominate men through their sermonic rhetoric:

1. Adam was created first and Eve was created second
2. Eve was deceived while Adam wasn’t

Traditionally these two statements have been interpreted to eliminate the possibility of women becoming preachers or pastors. It has been suggested by many that 1. Men are superior to women because God created them first. And 2. Men are superior to women because women are easily deceived and men are intellectually superior.

These statements fall apart when we examine them in light of the Artemis Cult.

How do these 2 reasons fit into the Artemis hypothesis?

First, by maintaining that Adam was the first one created and Eve the second, Paul is not establishing patriarchy based on the order of creation as most biblical Complementarians assume. Rather, Paul is answering the objection of the Artemis Cult. The Artemis Cult assumed female superiority based on the fact that Artemis preceded here male counterpart Apollo. Paul, reorienting the mythology by which these people have ordered their lives, introduces Hebraic narrative as a way of subverting the female dominance. In other words: Paul counters Artemis with Adam, suggesting a new way of viewing the created order and power. He is not establishing male dominance so much as he is disestablishing female dominance. He’s saying, “Female superiority founded upon the Artemis philosophy does not work in this new community because in the new community, founded upon Hebraic narratives of Genesis 1, the male came first. Thus, your premise is really no foundation for the way you ladies are acting.”

Second, he suggests, female superiority in teaching roles cannot be assumed either. After all, it was Eve who was deceived, not Adam. (Where Paul gets this from Genesis I do not know.) The ultimate failure of your first mother is no basis for establishing female dominance – it simply doesn’t work. This explanation also gives us reasons as to why this theology is so foreign to the New Testament outside of this passage. In every other instance Paul blames the sin on Adam (Romans 5). Here, however, Eve is blamed for the Fall. Why the theological shift? Actually, there isn’t a theological shift. Paul is simply arguing that their mother Eve does not provide them with opportunity for female dominance. He is simply trying to get his point across.

Related to this second point, Eve’s deception was probably connected to Adam’s lack of teaching. That is, interpreters throughout the ages have read into the Genesis text that the serpent deceived Eve easily because Adam did a bad job of teaching. Though I have some questions about this interpretation, I do think it can work with my I Timothy 2 interpretation. All a woman in the Artemis cult needed to take leadership was an ecstatic experience. Discipleship was not a prerequisite. However, Paul will not have them transfer this assumption into the ecclesiastical community. Discipleship is essential, and one cannot teach if they have not undergone long term discipleship. The church has stricter standards than the pagan cults did.

In the end, whether this text was written by Paul or one of his disciples, we need to understand that this is not a proof-text for male dominance or solely male leadership in the ecclesiastical arena. Yes, this text IS bringing women down. However, it is not bringing them down from oppression to further oppression; it is bringing them down from a place of dominance to a place of equality with men.

Paul does not assume a gender based hierarchy in this text – or any other for that matter. I will argue over the next few weeks (months?) from each of Paul’s male/female relation texts that this is the case.

*I promised in my last post to comment on the ‘saved through childbearing’ aspect of this text. I would have done it in this post, but that would have made this post so long no one would want to read it. I am working on it, and it will be my next post.