it don't matter...

For those of us who grew up in the church, listening to the rich and familiar deatils of the crucifixion story, it is easy to assume that those passion narratives contain historical or at least quasi-historical details. In fact, an entire generation passed without any written record of the events leading up to the death of Jesus. because Paul's writings are the earliest New Testament material available, his account of the cross is both revealing and utterly spare: "For I handed on to you as of first importance, what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and the he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" (I Cor. 15:3-4)

That's it. That is the "totality of the only written story of the cross that Christians had until the eighth decade CE." Although Paul speaks often of the death of Jesus and the meaning of the cross, there is no crucifixion story placed in the week of Passover, no familiar and beloved passion narrative:
Robin R. Meyers, Saving Jesus from the Church, p. 58

Setting aside the fact that I think he and his Jesus Seminar fellows play fast-and-loose with the dating of the Gospels (not to mention their color-balling of those same Gospels)...

As he notes, Paul says much about the cross of Christ in his writings. It would have been meaningless for him to have said anything about it if the people he was writing to had no idea that that was how Christ had died.

So, when Paul tells those same Corinthians in the same book that "...we preach Christ crucified...", we may well think that they were familiar with what he was saying.

Did they know all about it? Did they know of Pilate, and Herod? Did they know of Peter and the disciples in the Garden?

I am left wondering "Why not?", because Meyers' argument is essentially an argument from silence--that since Paul doesn't go into details here, than he had not mentioned any details at all to them.

As well, in Acts we have Paul mentioned as being in Jerusalem not long after Christ's crucifixion. I'm not sure how long after it Stephen was stoned, but it seems to have not been very long after. Whether Paul was actually in the city when it occurred or not (I kind of doubt it, as he seems to say that he did not see Christ until seeing the resurrected Christ while going to Damascus), he was familiar with the early church (even if only as an enemy), and likely was filled in on events by those around him.

The question Meyers' seems to be asking is, "Why didn't Paul go into more detail here", and his assumption seems to be that it is because there were no details.

As to why Paul didn't give more details, perhaps the most knowing thing I can say is, "I don't know".

Another thing we can ask is "If he had mentioned more details, would it have mattered to Meyers?" Later on in I Cor 15, Paul goes into the importance of the resurrection of Christ. Here is what Meyers' thinks of the resurrection.

We know that the infancy narratives cannot be history any more than the four accounts of the resurrection, all contradictory, can be considered historical.
p. 27

We may conclude that Paul's thoughts are essentially secondary to the presuppositions of Meyers and his Jesus Seminar cronies. No detail Paul could have added would have made them believe

parsing heroes

Albert Schweitzer deserves to be remembered as the greatest Christian of the twentieth century.
Robin R Meyers, Saving Jesus from the Church, p 17

One wonders why he didn't mention Mother Teresa, but maybe she lost out when she stepped on toes when she said what she said about abortion. Liberals are such an unforgiving lot.

...yet he did not believe in literal miracles--the blood atonement, the bodily resurrection, or the second coming, just to name a few. All he did was walk away from everything the world calls good to follow Jesus.
p 17

First, some things said about Schweitzer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Schweitzer
The journalist James Cameron visited Lambaréné in 1953 (when Schweitzer was 78) and found significant flaws in the practices and attitudes of Schweitzer and his staff. The hospital suffered from squalor, was without modern amenities and Schweitzer had little contact with the local people.[36] Cameron did not make public what he had seen at the time: according to a recent BBC dramatisation,[37] he made the unusual journalistic decision to withhold the story, and resisted the expressed wish of his employers to publish an exposé aimed at debunking Schweitzer.

American journalist John Gunther also visited Lambaréné in the 1950s and reported Schweitzer's patronizing attitude towards Africans. He also noted the lack of Africans trained to be skilled workers[38]. After three decades in Africa Schweitzer still depended on Europe for nurses. By comparison, his contemporary Sir Albert Cook in Uganda had been training nurses and midwives since the 1910s and had published a manual of midwifery in the local language of Luganda[39].

My purpose isn't to attack someone who may have done some good works, but to put perspective to Meyer's obviously biased rhetoric.

It is ironic that none of those who took issue with Schweitzer's theology and cursed his writings gave up fame and fortune or membership in the highest stratum of German society to live among the poorest of the poor. They prepared their critiqus in the comfort of the pastor's study or the university library, while Schweitzer nailed patches of tin on the roof of his free medical clinic in Lambarene by the banks of the Ogoove River. Theologians who sat in endowed chairs took his Christology to task, while he scraped infectious lesions off blue-black natives in the steaming misery of equatorial Africa
p. 17

From the back fly leaf of the books dust cover, a bit about the author Meyers.

For over twenty years, Robins R Meyers has been pastor of Mayflower Congregational, an "unapologetically Christian, unapologetically liberal" church in one of the most conservative states in the country. He is a professor in the philosophy department at Oklahoma City University, a syndicated columnist, and an award-winning commentator for National Public Radio.

I find it odd that someone who is a pastor and professor should condemn other pastors and professors. If he feels free to praise Schweitzer for his views, then upon what basis does he say that those like him are not free to disagree with him?

Plus, look at these pages about the 'scholars' Meyers seems to think so much of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Borg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dominic_Crossan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Shelby_Spong

These three men are extensively referenced in Meyers' book, and he even thanks Spong for helping him the book published in the acknowledgements. If you look at their wiki pages, though, you'll be looking long and hard to find them "(giving) up fame and fortune or membership in the highest stratum of (American, or maybe world society as a whole) society to live among the poorest of the poor".

I can, however, think of many people, some well-known and others not, who have giving up much to serve and really follow Christ. How many missionaries have been persecuted and even martyred for their faith in Christ? How many put in prisons? How many were disowned when their faith in Christ put them at odds against their families and their cultures?

And most of all, Meyers and his cronies who "in the comfort of the pastor's study or the university library", question the Christology of the Apostles, saying they are essentially myth-makers and liars so that Meyer and co. can re-create a Jesus that they find appetizing.

All of which leads me to believe that Schweitzer's works of mercy are really irrelevant to Meyers' claim to him being " deserv(ing) to be remembered as the greatest Christian of the twentieth century". If Schweitzer's beliefs had been orthodox, Meyers' wouldn't bother a bit with him. I suspect it's only Schweitzer's aberrant beliefs that make him useful for Meyers.

scales, again

Love is a giving away of power. When we love, we give the other person the power in the relationship. They can do what they choose. They can do what they like with our love. They can reject it, they can accept it, they can step towards us in gratitude and appreciation.

Love is giving up control. It's surrendering the desire to control the other person. The love--love and controlling power over the other person--are mutually exclusive. If we are serious about loving someone, we have to surrender all of the desires within us to manipulate the relationship.
Rob Bell, sex god, p. 98

This closely echoes something mentioned a few weeks ago, from Chalke's and Mann's "the lost message of jesus"--this idea that love and power, or love and control, are somehow like the two ends of a set of scales or a see-saw.

And like then, we must ask, is what Bell is saying really true?

No doubt, we can point to instances when power or control have been abused. There is no denying that. But having acknowledged it, does that make it universal?

Like with Chalke and Mann, we can point to some examples. Do parent's who do not exercise authority over their children show that they love them more or less? If a parent warns a child about walking into the street just lets the child do it anyway, fearing to use any power or control for fear that it will somehow show less love for doing so, is that really showing love?

The context seems to deal God's love for man, and this becomes even more problematic than the love of parents for children.

Can we really say that God does not exercise power or control over people? I know that this is one of the more debated things out there, especially when it comes to the whole "predestination vs free will" debates. I have no dog in any such fight, but I don't need it for this topic.

We can look at the accound of the Exodus and Israel's wandering in the wilderness. Did God not lead them? Did God not show His power to them? Did God not provide for them? Did God not bless them? Did He not also punish them? Did He not give them laws, things they needed to obey? Even with one like Moses, with whom He seems to have had as close a relationship as with anyone else in the biblical accounts, does He not punish Him when he disobeyed? Did He not keep the whole of the people (save for two men and those under a certain age) from entering the Promised Land when they did not believe Him but doubted?

Did God love those people? Did He not free them from Eqypt? Why, then, these great and terrible acts of power and control concerning them? Why did He not just let them be, let them do their own thing? Why get in a tiff when they started worship a golden calf, or when they complained about His provisions, or when they doubted if they could take the land He'd promised to them? Why make such a big deal when Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it?

Abuses should not be used to soil legitimate exercises, though that is done far too much today. Pointing to parents who have abused their children is not really an argument against spanking, though some use it as such. Pointing to instances of husbands abusing their wives is not an argument against headship, though some use it as such. Instead, arguments against abuses are arguments against...well...abuses. A counterfeit $20 bill does not negate the existence of the real $20 bill; rather, it depends on the existence of the real to make it difficult to know the fake (a fake $3 bill would be easy to spot, because there is no real one).

The exercising of authority in relationships is something that certainly requires a lot of wisdom, and I don't think that simply saying "love and controlling power...are mutually exclusive" can really be said to be echoing reality. Things are too complex for that to hold up under careful consideration.

May we wonder why they seem so intent on making love and power polar opposites? If we take their formula, what does it do to our ideas of God? Does it say anything about their emphasizing God's love and de-emphasizing God's rules?

so close, yet so far...

It is usual for me and those like me to put the question to Rob Bell, and rightly so. Some of the things he's said and written have deservedly raised the eyebrows.

So, it was with something like surprise that I read these couple of paragraphs, not only for the position they seem to be saying he holds, but also for the insight he offers in them.

Who decided tha tkids--or anybody else for that matter--are unable to abstain?

In a lot of settings, abstinence programs are laughted at. So are those campaigns in which students commit themselves not to have sex until they're married. Have you ever heard a news piece on the television or read a magazine article about one of them that didn't at least subtly mock the idea of "keeping yourself pure for marriage"? People who organize and promote these kinds of campaigns are often viewed as hopelessly naive messengers from a far-off land that simply doesn't exist anymore. The criticism of the "sex is for marriage" view is usually presented as the voice of realism. Are people actually capable of restraint?

But it's not realism. It's the voice of despair. It's the voice that asks, "Aren't we all really just animals?"
Rob Bell, sex god, p. 54

It may be said that this, too, did raise the eyebrows, but for different reasons--that such as he should have seen through "We can't expect kids to abstain from sex" rhetoric to see even one of the hidden assumptions behind it.

And I think he is right, and very much so. The voices that say that we can't expect people to not have sex before marriage is the voice of despair. It's an insight that is almost like something Schaeffer would have said.

But a few pages later, any hope I may have had getting lowered a bit, by these words.

In the creation poem of Genesis 1...
p. 57

Yes, I'm reminded that Bell thinks the Creation account is something like a myth. Yes, he says that the voice of despair asks "Aren't we all really just animals?", but then he believes that we really are just higher animals who evolved from lower animals.

And I wonder how he can say that about the voice of despair, when he believe the real myth that feeds that voice.

choose your imagery

For some, this is an entirely new perspective on God. Many of the popular images of God are of a warrior, a creator, a judge, a system of theology, a set of absolute truths, a father, the writer of an owner's manual.

But a lover?

Rob Bell, sex god, p. 97

I'm not really sure where he says this is such "...an entirely new perspective on God". I would guess most Christians have had some idea of it. I don't think it's helps Bell's argument that what is likely the most well-known verse in the Bible begins "For God so loved the world...". And certainly the imagery of the Church as a Bride has been popular.

Of course, such imagery of God as lover has it's dangers, as do ones like God as judge (which dangers emergents are not charry about pointing out and even exaggerating). I think Bell falls into one of those danger, the one of the great kindly Grandfather in the Sky, who gets a little testy at times and does wish the kids would play nice together, but knows they have it tough and is ready to look the other way when all's said and done.

I suppose that is what he's saying in places like this, a few paragraphs later.

This raises questions about what is at the base of the universe. What, or maybe we should say who, is behind it all?

A list of rules?

A set of beliefs, which you either believe or you don't, and if you do, you're in, if you don't, you're out?

A harsh judge and critic, who's making a list and checking it all the time?

Who is at the base of the universe?

Well, I guess we could ask "What the heck does that mean?" Still, I guess we can guess what he's aiming at, even if the expression is a bit...

Anyway, as in John 1, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made".

So, we have the Word, Jesus, and the One by whom all was made. We then have all things being made by God. I think there is another verse in the Bible that says that He holds all things together.

Ok, so we have God as this central, foundation figure.

But what does that mean? What do we know about God? What can we know? How can we learn, if that is possible?

If we look to the Bible (which I recommend doing) to learn about God, we see many things about Him.

We can find lists of rules.

We can find things He commands us to believe.

We can see Someone who does judge, and sometimes harshly. We can sometimes find Him giving lists of the sins of some people.

This is why I think Bell is falling into one of the dangers of the imagery he is favoring here. Especially in his disparaging of "A set of beliefs...", he seems to being saying that beliefs are not so important (perhaps something like his trampoline analogy from Velvet Elvis).

The imagery of God as lover may have its benefits--one can find it in Isaiah and rather notably in Micah. But it is far from alone among the imagery used in the Bible for Him, and to isolate it or make it the main one while disparaging and discarding the others seems rather unwise to me.

the new divide

Here are some excerpts from quotes from the back of the dustcover of a book called "Saving Jesus from the Church" by one Robin R. Meyers

"...The invitation to follow Jesus instead of worshiping Christ could not come at a more important time, or be issues be a more credible source...."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

"With crisply prophetic joy, Meyers calls seekers and believers alike to leave belief about Christ behind in favor of becoming imitators of Jesus. We can save Jesus from teh church..."
Diana Butler Bass

I don't know when this started, this new divide. I've encountered something like it at least once, in a book by Marcus Borg, where he goes into his notion of the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus (basically, pre-Easter Jesus is a normal guy who said some pithy things, post-Easter Jesus is an early-church construct who did miracles and was God in the flesh).

But the first time I'd come on this distinction expressed so bluntly was in the chapter titles in Meyers' book, the one chapter called "Jesus the Teacher, not the Savior". And then there were those quote excerpts above, where we are encouraged to give up worshiping Jesus and to follow Christ.

For those who think Jesus and Christ are the same person (or maybe more accurate, Christ or Messiah is a title for Jesus), let me give this from inside the book to explain how Meyers and his ilk are making the distinction.

Jesus is the pre-Easter man, or what biblical scholars have long searched to uncover: the "historical Jesus". Christ is the post-Easter deity that had fully arrived by the time John's gospel was written, even though his evolution from Jewish mystic to supernatural Savior was already emerging in the synoptic gospels. For the remainder of the book, however, I will speak of "Jesus" when referring to the Jewish peasant from Galilee--from his birth through the writing of the synoptic gospels. I will use the exalted title "Christ" to refer to the preexistent divine Savior from John's gospel forward to the writing of the creeds.
p. 16

And you can see how Tutu and Butler Bass use the same language, the same distinction--how they say we ought to stop worshiping Jesus and follow Christ.

For the moment, I'll say little about the silliness of following what they consider merely an early-church construct. The point of this entry is merely to point out that this is where liberal "christian" thought is going, and to point out that Butler Bass is no slight Friend of Emergent (FoE).

i do not believe in "social justice"

Why aren't more Christians involved in social justice? Are we callous and uncaring? We don't think so. We can both learn and do

Ken and Deborah Loyd, in the book An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, p. 272

First, there is the question "What is social justice?" That's probably one of the concepts emergents and others who use it aren't likely to define very well. If you look back a few months, you'll see where in Tony Jones' book "The New Christians", he relates how in one emergent church a woman was wearing a t-shirt saying she was a straight woman for gay rights because her Bible teaches social justice.

Journey doesn't have an "official statement" about homosexuality, but there's obviously enough freedom in the community for Courtney to wear her beliefs on her shirt.

Courtney's shirt.
Straight Chrisitians for Gay Rights
(My Bible Teaches Social Justice)

Tony Jones, The New Christians, pp. 198, 197

Perhaps we aren't involved in social justice, because we can see through the rhetoric of social justice, and know what it is--a thin veil behind which leftist policies and politics are pushed.

Social justice seems to be about the legalizing of sexual immorality. It's also seems to be about the enforced silence of those who teach the Bible's stand on such immorality.

Social justice seems to be about punishing some crimes more than others because of perceived "hate" involved, even when unproven (one may almost say 'especially when unproven').

Social justice seems to be about the redistribution of wealth through socialistic economical policies.

Social justice seems to be about scaring people into being "green", despite the evidence against any such thing as global warming.

Social justice seems to be about going into histronics over deaths in war, while either downplaying over even supporting the many more who die in abortion.

I do not believe in social justice. I do, however, believe in justice. And I believe in compassion.

I do not believe that practicing theft through socialism will solve the plight of the poor. To borrow a quote I read in a comic book, "Communism is the equal distribution of poverty". To try to equalize the field (except for a handful of elites at the top who will find reasons to give themselves special privileges, which is one thing that happened in Soviet Russia), will only result in all being poor, and none being really helped. And there is no justice in the rhetoric of class hatred.

I do not believe that justice demands that we recognize and legitimize sexual immorality. If anything, justice and compassion demands that we call these things the sins they are.

I do not believe that justice demands that we cave in to environmental fearmongers, especially when truth of their claims is being questioned, and when there is such an obvious political agenda behind it.

In regards to how we are to care for the poor, there are things taught in the Bible that should be of help in how to properly do so.

It may be strange that Paul tells the Thessalonians to NOT help some among them who had stopped working and were only idling their time waiting for Jesus to return. He says they should get back to their work.

It may seem strange that Paul tells another church to be wary of what widows they should help and support.

It may seem strange that one can see things in Proverbs that don't seem very kind about some kinds of poor people.

It may seem strange that it's in the Bible that we find the phrase "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat".

It may seem strange that we aren't told that the Samaritan who found the guy left for dead didn't return home, find a few likeminded people, and start wandering the highways and byways looking for people left along the road, robbed or otherwise in ill fortune. He helped one man who was on his way, as he was about his own business.

I know that there are things said about helping the needy, I'm not making an exhaustive list here. But I'm saying the issue is more complex than many emergents seem to want to accept.

They also seem to think that because Christians don't do things their way, then they aren't doing them. They likely don't recognize that there are Christians who give when they have the opportunities, whose generosity takes many forms, who do things quietly and with their eyes open.

everythings...what???

Scholars believe that the word sex is related to the Latin word 'secare', which means "to sever, to amputate, or to disconnect from the whole." This is where we get words like sect, section, dissect, bisect.

Our sexuality, then, has two dimensions. First, our sexuality is our awareness of how profoundly we're severed and cut off and disconnected. Second, our sexuality is all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect.
Rob Bell, sex god, p. 40

If we take this understanding of our natural state seriously, we have to rethink what sexuality is. For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people invovling physical pleasure. But that's only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all of the ways we strive to reconnect with out world, with each other, and with God.
p. 42

This redefining of 'sex' seems rather problematic to me. For one, to define 'sexuality' so broadly as to make it mean 'all of the ways we go about trying to reconnect' is to in essence say that everything is sexuality.

By that definition, then, two men shaking hands in greeting each other is a sexual act, or a group of women meeting for coffee at a local bookstore, or children playing baseball in the park, or a father reading a child a bedtime story, or friends exchanging e-mails, or a vehicle driver honking a horn at another driver, or a person at a computer writing an entry blog.

All are, after all, examples of ways those people are trying to 'connect' with one another.

Trying to say all of that is 'sex' or 'sexual' threatens to make it rather icky. Sex is very right within it's own realm, but outside of that it threatens to get sordid very quickly.

So, yes, I am not happy with his attempt to make "sex" mean any attempt we may make to connect with another person. I'd like to think that I can play a game of checkers with a friend or a stranger without someone else trying to soil it by saying it's 'sexual'. I'd like to think that I can have a casual conversation at a coffee shop without someone saying it's a 'sex' thing.

I can't help but feel that there's something...dirty...about this redefinition. At least, it makes me feel soiled.

heaven (and hell) is a place on earth?

In the book of Psalms, it's written: "The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all" To the Jewish mind, heaven is not a fixed, unchanging geographical location somewhere other than this world. Heaven is the realm where things are as God intended them to be. The place where things are under the rule and reign of God. And that place can be anywhere, anytime, with anybody.

Now if there's a realm where things are as God wants them to be, then there must be a realm where things are not as God wants them to be. Where things aren't accodring to God's will. Where people aren't treated as fully human.

It's called hell.

Rob Bell, sex god, p. 21

If there is any doubt that Bell is saying that Heaven and Hell are things or condition here on Earth, in this present world, read a page further.

When Jesus talks about heaven and hell, they are first and foremost present realitites that have serioius implications for the future. Either can be invited to earth, right now, through our actions.

It's possible for heaven to invade earth.

And it's possible for hell to invade earth.

p. 22

I don't know if some other part of the book deals with his thoughts on after-death matters, but at least from that little bit, Bell is pretty much saying heaven and hell are here, that we humans make our own heaven and hell here on earth.

It would be interesting to know where he gets this stuff. For example, one can look at Jesus' story of the rich man in Hell to see that he didn't wind up there until after he died. One could as well look at Jesus' words to the criminal at the crucifixion, telling him he would be with Him in Paradise, to know that if one is promising Paradise to a man soon to die, then that Paradise has nothing to do with this present world.

you want me to take WHAT literally???

Pages 122-134 in "the lost message of jesus' are pretty much Chalke's and Mann's diatribe for us to become good little pacifists--you know, like Gandhi. Trying to support that, they turn to Gandhi himself, or at least the movie version of him.

Another scene in the films recounts how a young Christian Minister, Rev. Charlie Andrew...

"Doesn't the New Testament say, 'If your enemy strikes you on the right cheek, offer him your left'?"

Andrews looks rather bemused by Gandhi's sudded desire to quote Bible verses. "I think perhaps the phrase was used metaphorically."

"I am not so sure." Gandhi counters. "I have thought about it a great deal, and I suspect Jesus meant that you must show courage. Be willing to take a blow, several blows, to show you will not strike back nor will you be turned aside. And when you do that, it calls on something in human nature, something that makes his hatred for you decrease and his respect increase. I think Jesus grasped that, and I have seen it work."

The verse the movie Gandhi is talking about is Matthew 5: 39, and it goes like this...

But I say to you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite the on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Ok, so, how are we to take this?

Well, it is in the context of what is called the Sermon on the Mount. Earlier in the same chapter, the Sermon begins with Jesus' list of those who are Blessed. A bit after that, there is his list of "You have heard it said..., but I say" statements, and 39 is in one of those.

So, what are some of those things that Jesus said in the "...but I say..." statements?

Be careful about being angry without a cause, or insulting someone.

If you have lust problems, put your eye out.

If your right hand keeps getting you in trouble (considering the context, it probably means you can't keep it off other women), chop it off.

A man who divorces his wife without just cause makes her an adultress, and the man who marries her is an adulterer.

Don't make vows.

It's an interesting list. Let's look at it.

Ok, so, how 'literally' do we take any and all of these?

For example, how literally are we men to take the commands to dismember ourselves if we can't keep our eyes and hands off of women, at least in a lustful way? Usually, not very literally.

What about the one about vows? Would promises fit in there? I'm not sure, though I wouldn't doubt it. Still, we do recognize some vows. Marriage vows, for example, or those in courts. Some churches have various kinds of things they want people to commit to, or events like fasts or prayer sessions of whatever kinds that they want commitments to.

What about anger? That's usually seen more literally, though not completely. We do tend to think a spade should be called what it is.

And the divorce question is one that is very much pertinent today. I'm unsure what the general view is on that.

So, with all of this, what are we to make of the command to "turn the other cheek"? Is it metaphorical? Is it an impossible ideal? Is it to be taken literally in all situation? Is it like the commands to lop off hands and poke out eyes?

Let me give another example, from a few verse later, in 42. "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away".

How literally are we to take this command? For example, if you are watching TV and see a well-heeled faith-healer on there talking about how his 'ministry' is going to go under if you don't plant a seed of $10,000 right now and God will surely make you a millionaire and keep you from the flu this next winter if you do so, does this verse mean that you are to send $10,000 to this charlatan because you had the misfortune of watching TV when he was on asking you for it? Or if your ne'er-do-well Cousin Bruno asks you for a few thousand bucks to help fund him in his next sure-to-fail get-rich-quick scheme, are you obligated to help him?

I think most of us would say "No" to both of those scenarios, and can easily recognize others. I think we know that we are to use our knowledge and wisdom in determining how best to help others.

So, too, do I think the same in regards to "Turn the other cheek". Perhaps the movie Gandhi was not far off when he said it was about courage, but I don't think it was about pacifism.

Rather, it is about wisdom.

In the whole of the NT, there are three instances when interactions with soldiers are mentioned--when some came to John the Baptist for advice, when a Centurion came to Jesus to ask for his servant to be healed, and when Peter was sent to Cornelius' house as the beginning of taking the Gospel to the Gentiles.

In none of these are soldiers told to stop being soldiers. They are not told to leave the army. Nor are they told to stay in the army but not fight.

The "Turn the other cheek" text is an interesting one to try to understand, and I'm certainly open to being corrected on it. But if you're going to say that should be taken absolutely literally, I'm going to want you to send photos of yourself with your eyes gouged out and your right hand chopped off, and I'm going to ask you for all the money you got, so you'd best be ready to pony up.

pots and kettles

Last year I was in Canada for a couple of days, staying in downtown Ottawa. When I got to my hotel, I noticed that there was a buzz about the lobby. Lots of people with cameras and lots of British accents.

I got my key and took the elevator to my floor, and as I walked down the hall, the door of the room next to mine opened and a woman stepped out wearing a shirt with four words on it: "Mick, Keith, Ronnie, Charlie."

Ah, yes, the Rolling Stones.

With great passion, she told me that they were staying in this very hotel, and that the concert was tomorrow night, only a mile form here.
Rob Bell, sex god, p. 34

This entry isn't about the Stones.

It simply struck me when I read this the first time, that Bell is staying in the same hotel as the Stones.

Because, let's be honest, the Stones aren't camping out at the nearest Motel 6 or EconoLodge.

No, when the Stones go to a city, they're crashing at one of the swankiest places in town. Bell doesn't say what hotel it was, but with such a clientelle, it can't help but be a very nice place, with a hefty overnight price tag.

And that's where Bell stayed.

(Not to mention that he goes on to say that he got a ticket to the Stones' concert the next night, and that couldn't have been cheap, either.)

I kind of found that to be a bit off. You know, him being emergent, and them being so "Wealth is evil and God favors the poor and we need to stop being such greedy Americans and give up on capitalism and the free markets and go socialist so everyone is equally poor and all that..."

Do I hear Algore's private jet going by overhead...?

how to make a puppet Paul the Apostle

On his blog, Tony Jones has continued his debate on original sin.

One thing he tried to do was to post some kind of new translation of Romans 5, which is one place where Paul talks about how Adam's sin effected the rest of us. The translation was done by a Brian (likely not McLaren).

But at least at the moment, it looks like the translation of another chapter in Romans is up, likely chapter 14.

This isn't about that mistake itself, such things happens; rather, it's about the translation. Here is a link to it, and some snippets.

A New Translation of Romans 5

Welcome those who are traditional in faith, those who still believe in original sin, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. Emergent Christians believe in deconstructing all theologies, while the Traditional Christians only deconstruct certain theologies. Those who deconstruct must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who deconstruct; for God has welcomed them. Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own God that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for God is able to make them stand.

I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that no theology is un-deconstructible in itself; but it is un-deconstructiblble for anyone who thinks it's un-deconstructible. If your brother or sister is being injured by the theology you deconstruct, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let the theology that you deconstruct cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. So do not let your good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not about certain theologies or particular dogma but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Emergent Christians, who are progressive in faith, ought to put up with the stagnation of the Traditional Christians, and not to please ourselves

And here's the real thing.

Romans 14 (New International Version)

1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

14As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food[b] is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. 15If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died. 16Do not allow what you consider good to be spoken of as evil. 17For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.

I tried to match up the Bible verses with the "translation" at the first. It was a bit tricky.

So, let's see...

Brian equates Paul's words about eating to this undefined thing called deconstruction. Paul was talking about a real issue concerning a real thing. Brian's making him talk about something that no one has much of an idea what it is.

Brian's Paul says that "the kingdom of God is not about certain theologies or particular dogma". Perhaps his Paul forgot how much he writes about theologies and dogmas in other places. Perhaps as well the real Paul didn't see what one ate as being near as important as what one believed.

And, in a typical instance of emergent arrogance, Brian's Paul calls traditional Christians "stagnant", which kind of puts paid to all the "nice" things he had his Paul say before.

In fact, this whole things can be set on a shelf about being a shining example of emergent arrogance. I wouldn't even take it seriously, except that Jones seems to think it's somehow serious.

the incompetent god

I couldn't help but think that is how Chalke and Mann view God, especially in the Old Testament, when I read this.

Hence, Yahweh's association with vengeance and violence wasn't so much an expression of who he was but the result of his determination to be involved with his world. His unwillingness to distance himself from the people of Israel and their actions meant that at times he was implicated in the excessive acts of war that we see in some of the books of the Old Testament. From the very beginning, Yahweh's dealing with Israel were motivated by his desire to demonstrate his love. But to a people saturated in a worldview that saw him as power, this was always going to be a slow uphill struggle

God's relationship with Israel took place in the messy and often brutal reality of their day-to-day lives, longings and ambitions. And in the ancient Near East, where war and unrestrained violence were commonplace, having a god of power on your side helped justify cruel acts of revenge towards those who wronged you. That is why, if we focus in on individual Old Testament verses and stories, it is easy to fall into the trap of seeing God as a vengeful despot...

Chalk and Mann, the lost message of jesus, p. 49

Because, really, what else are we to make of these statements? That God, who wanted His people to be nice little pacifists, had to continually come to their aid when they went a-warring? The God really didn't want them to conquer there enemies and defend there lands? And He really didn't want to have Joshua go on some kind of genocidal conquest, and had little if anything to do really with the whole Jericho incident? That He was really hoping David and Goliath could sit down for a latte and talk about...whatever preppies talked about way back when?

Poor God, He just never could get those darned people to get the idea. When He told them to go off to war, He was really telling them to stay home and write poetry?

And I'm pretty sure Chalke is calling into question the divine inspiration of parts of the Old Testament (mostly those that he disapproves of, one may conclude). He seems to be saying that the OT writers are putting words in God's mouth (and in His book) concerning those times when they went to war against people who had done them wrong.

Yeah, poor god indeed. Too weak to protect them so they could become the non-violent pacifists he wanted them to be. Too clumsy with words to make them understand that when they thought he was telling them to go to war, he was telling to not do so. So pathetic that he couldn't even keep their propoganda from getting into his word.

Such a god ain't hardly fit to trust, or worship, or even respect.

come on, at least do a bit of research

The Bible never defines God as anger, power or judgement--in fact it never defines him as anything other than love.
Chalke and Mann, the lost message of jesus, p. 63

It really didn't take much thought to see that there is something bad wrong with that statement.

Verses from BibleResources.com

Isaiah 6:3
And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Isaiah 43:3
For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

Isaiah 43:14
Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

Isaiah 43:15
I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.

Revelation 3:7
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;

Revelation 4:8
And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

Revelation 6:10
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Isaiah 63:3
I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.

Isaiah 63:6
And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth

Revelation 6:16
And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

Revelation 6:17
For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

Revelation 11:18
And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.

John 9:39
And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

John 12:31
Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

Romans 2:3
And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

Romans 2:5
But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

Hebrews 9:27
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Hebrews 10:27
But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries

2 Peter 3:7
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

And this is only a small sampling of the verses I found in word searches for "holy", "anger", "wrath", and "judgment".

Chalke seems to want to take the one statement from I John, "God is love", and make it the focal point of the whole Bible. Considering all of the other things the Bible says about Him, particularly the thrice-repetitions "Holy, holy, holy", we must needs take care of taking that one statement, true as it is, and setting it up as being the thing by which God defines Himself. A far stronger case could be made for God's holiness being the thing by which God most strongly defines Himself.

But that may be scary to some people (no surprise). Some would rather have a "grandpa in the sky" who makes rules than winks when you break them, than a God who says what He means and means what He says.

And this is one thing we must avoid. It is quite proper to speak of God's love, but not at the expense of all else the Bible says about Him, and it certainly raises questions when one phrase in one book is taken from its context and made the lens through which one sees the rest of the Bible.

love and power are not scales

Willard Waller, an American sociologist, spend his life studying people in order to gain an understanding in of the complex interplay that goes onin human relationships. Though he wrote many research papers, his life's work can be summed up in two simple statements:

1. In any relationship one person loves more than another

2. The person who loves the least in any relationship has (the) most power and conversely, the person who loves most has the least power.

These two statements make up his Law of Least Love...

Chalke and Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus, p. 182

Many questions could be asked about these rather questionable conclusions. For example--

How did this man measure a thing like love, which is by it's nature no measurable?

What does he consider "love"?

What actions does he consider "loving"?

Finally, is this "Law of Least Love" true?

For example, does a parent who exercises power (parental authority) over a child show less love for doing that? Rather, would it not be unloving for the parent to NOT do so? In other words, is it more loving for the parent to be the authority figure, leading and correct thing child, or to simply let the child do it's own thing?

Does a husband and father who exercises godly headship over his family fail to show love when he does so?

Does a coach or teacher fail in love when he or she used her power to make the children do what is necessary--study, practice, learn lessons, run laps?

No doubt, we can think of times when such power has been abused--parents do abuse their kids, husbands do abuse their wives, teachers and coaches do abuse those under them.

But these abuses are simply that--abuses. Rightful authority is abused. Power that should be used rightly is used wrongly. Power without love is a bad thing.

And conversely, love without power is also a bad thing. One can think of what is called the Stockholm Syndrome, where those who suffer abuse become attached to their abusers. One can think of those who say they are "in love" with someone who demeans and mistreats them. One can think of parents who spoil their children, giving in to their every whims and desires, not correcting them and not disciplining them.

Love and power are not a balance--more love, less power; more power, less love--which is essentially what Waller's "Law of Least Love" seems to be saying (or at least that's the spin Chalke and Mann are putting on it); rather, power must be exercised with love, and love must have strength.

is this emergent's next stop?

A few weeks ago on his blog, emergent Tony Jones came out saying that the church should approve and recognize glbt lifestyles.

I wonder if this will be where emergents are going to go next?

The Other Side of Disgust

Daniel Bergner isn’t the devil’s advocate, but he is a pervert’s apologist. This author and contributor to the New York Times Magazine has a new book titled “The Other Side of Desire” which argues it is unfair to judge bizarre, harmful, and disgusting sexual attractions as bizarre, harmful, and disgusting.


Bergner’s book focuses on four real-life fetishists: a husband with a secret foot fetish, a man with an attraction to amputees, a vicious female sadist, and a man who longs for sex with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Book reviews and interviews suggest he hasn’t written a book to judge the fetishists, but rather to judge the society that would rush to condemn their drives and behaviors.

What these people call “moral ambiguity” leads inexorably to moral paralysis. Its champions in our popular culture aren’t trying to redefine the boundaries as much as destroy them. They may look like playful pundits who just want to talk graphically about sex for fun and profit. But they’re constructing a funhouse with mirrors so distorted that the people inside will be lost without any guideposts for an escape.


The commercial possibilities for Bergner’s exploitation of perversion may be never-ending. Gottlieb concluded: “On one level, this book has all the elements of a top-rated HBO series – provocatively graphic sex, humorous dialogue, and moral ambiguity.”

The problem for those like Jones now is--where do they draw the line, and why? As they have abandoned biblical absolutes, where do they say "This crosses the line"? And what if someone wants to cross that line?

I doubt it will be long before emergents start talking about "stories" of those who practice those kinds of sexual perversions, throwing in words like "oppressions" and "misunderstanding", claiming those have been "judged" and "condemned" and need rather to be "heard" in the midst of the pomo/emergent "conversation", essentially spinning them as the victims and those who says practices are sick and wrong as being "oppressors" simply interested in "power".

unsure of this

I read about this in a regional Christian newspaper in the place I'm currently visiting, and I was more than a bit taken aback by it.

Bible Across America

Bible Across America is a symbol of Zondervan's commitment to make the Word of God more accessible and more relevant to more people. What better way to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the NIV Bible than by inviting Americans to participate in this monumental tour and open more hearts to the Word of God.

The 15,000-mile journey will directly reach 90 cities in 44 states during the course of five months. Bible Across America is currently making stops at churches, universities, retail stores, American landmarks and special events between September 30, 2008 and February 11, 2009. More than 31,000 people are being invited to contribute a verse to complete an entirely handwritten Bible -- America's NIV.

I'm unsure what this is, exactly. Are they just going place to place, and having people copy verses from the NIV onto paper? Is so, then the only real problem with it would be whatever problems one may have with the NIV itself (not counting any problem one may have with the idea in the first place, which seems rather overblown and not really necessary).

But if they're having people re-write the verses any way they wish, then I start having more serious problems with it. It would be rather eye-openning, I suppose, if they are doing that, but not the other hand it would probably make The Message look accurate and scholarly.

And then, there's the whole "American NIV" thing, too. Are we going to have a British and Aussie version next, done in their own versions of English?

I guess we shall have to wait and see.

what did who say?

So, over the weekend, I'm in Lexington, KY, and drop in at a coffee shop near downtown, to get some joe and get on the internet. As I'm leaving, I pass a table with lots of stuff on it, mostly papers and flyers and such. One of those bits of stuff catches my eye, a postcard-size paper put there by some kind of new church called Embrace, and UMC church. The part at the bottom of the front of it was what raised the eyebrows. Here it is.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learned (sic?) the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.
--Jesus Christ

I've looked online, but it seems this church or whatever it is doesn't yet have a website. There is a UMC church in Sioux City, IA, with that same name. I'm not sure enough to say if Lexington's is an offshoot or not. At the least, the Sioux City church's We Believe page seems ok enough.

I think I recognize the passage butchered in the above (quote/unquote) quote.

Matthew 11
25(AG)At that time Jesus said, "I praise You, (AH)Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that (AI)You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
26"Yes, (AJ)Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.

27"(AK)All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father (AL)except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

28"(AM)Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

29"Take My yoke upon you and (AN)learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and (AO)YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.

30"For (AP)My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

I don't know what version this church used to find thsi version of Jesus' words. I'd almost say the Message, but the Message comes off more stilted, usually. I almost think someone in the church made it up themselves; after all, it comes off more as self-serving propoganda then anything else, at least to me.

Where, in the passage taken from the Bible, does Jesus say anything about being "burned out on religion"? Or "get away with me"? What the heck is "the unforced rhythm of grace"? Or what about "you'll recover your life", what does that mean?

I don't know if embrace is some kind of emergent church, some kind of seeker-friendly one, or one of those blendings of the two that seem to be coming around. I suspect that latter.

The thing here is to raise questions about what the heck they're trying to do if their "Jesus" speaks like that. It seems quite a little twisting of what Jesus really was trying to say.

look familiar?

See how this reads to you.

We feel that a holistic political conversation--one honoring the powers of mind and spirit to help heal the world--is emerging throughout the global community. The Global Renaissance Alliance embodies its vision through small gatherings of citizens called Citizen Circles. Meeting in living rooms, at churches, around campfires, or anywhere else, we are joined with others of like mind in meditating for world peace; speaking from our hearts about our wishes for a better world; and working together to make it so. Within the Citizen Circle, we commit to cultivating an intimate fabric of deep community, and through our individual and joint efforts to create real change in ourselves and the world around us. Dedicated to the divine love in ourselves and in one another, we seek to extend the principles of forgiveness, atonement, reverence for life, faith, service, and compassion into the political and social dynamic of our time.

This paragraph is on page 413 of the book "Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century", a collection of essays edited by Marianne Williamson. The book is essentially a bunch of articles or essays by such new-agey lowlights as Deepak Chopra (who with a name like that missed his calling as a rap artist), Neale Donald Walsch, and I suppose others who think they've been talking with one god or another. The book claims that all proceeds for the book go the above-mentioned Global Renaissance Alliance (the book was put out in 2000, and I don't know if said alliance is still around or not; anyway, I found the book at one of the 'all the stuff in here is only $1' shops, and while in one sense it wasn't even worth that much, in another it's interesting to see what these types are thinking).

Consider that paragraph from the book, and please ask, "Does this seem familiar?"

I think that it does. I think it's very much like what the emergents are doing and trying to do.

I've thought for a while that, if you want to know where the emergents are going, you need to look at the "death of God" philosophers out there, or those who contend for some variation of the philosophy such as Caputo. I still think that, but maybe that's not the only things we need to look at, too. Perhaps those who are more well-known to the average person, popularizers like Chopra and Walsch and Lamott, are another source for information on where emergents are going.

That makes sense. Most people will not know of Caputo or Vattimo or Altizer, but they will be much more familiar with the people who put out the feel-good new-agey books, who claim to be channeling conversations with a god who doesn't do the judgment-and-wrath thing anymore, or who speak with some kind of strange accents so they must know what they're talking about.

Consider the Seeds of Compassion event last year, essentially a gathering of these kinds of ecumenical all-roads-lead-to-god types. To that event, with sported the luminary Dalai Lama and people from some other religions, two emergents were invited to participate in a Q&A--Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt.

Consider some things said in some of their books. Both Bell and McLaren have made positive comments about one Ken Wilbur, another in the new-agey thought rigamaroll. Bell even goes so far as to recommend a deep study of one of Wilbur's books.

If at one time all roads led to Rome, perhaps now it seems like all road lead to heresy and eventually hell. Or maybe it's just that it's one road, and it's very broad.

so this is what passes for pomo 'thinking'?

This is rich, not to mention ridiculous.

Comment of the Day 2

Apparently, a couple of guys are having some kind of online back-and-forth about pomo and Christianity, or whatever they think it is or will be or whatever. The guy whose writings are copied in the above link is one Peter Rollins, who's put out a book about how we ought to NOT talk about God. In my view, if this how he think who should talk about Him, then his book is only only worth using in an outhouse.

For me religionless Christianity operates without any metaphysical guarantees. There is doubt, complexity and ambiguity throughout. And so there can be no final foundational claim to an external source ensuring that everything will work out well in the end (one can, of course, hope that there is).

So, what does any of that mean? Take a guess; after all, they're pomos, to them the reader is more important than the writer.

Seriously, I think he's saying that he doesn't know if there is a God or not. Consider further...

'I have been reborn, transformed, renewed by God, but then again I wonder who, what or even if God is.'

So, a God who may not even exist has transformed, renewed, and reborn someone? Does that make any sense to anyone?

Instead of saying 'I am not sure God is there in my day to day life but I know that God really is there' (i.e. everything is ultimately going to be o.k), I am more prone to say that Christianity allows us to claim, 'God is here in our midst, although I am not sure God exists' (i.e. God is what we live here and now without guarantee that God is 'out there'). While the former justifies faith via a metanarrative the later lives Christianity as a meganarrative (a grounded story)

So, Christianity lets us say God is here, even if we don't know if God is really here, or there, or anywhere? And does his definition of God here...

God is what we live here and now without guarantee that God is 'out there'

...strike anyone else as being merely an empty collection of words without real substance or meaning?

And saddest still, this 'thinker' has been teaching in Youth With A Mission schools. As a former YWAMer myself, I find this insulting and sickening. YWAM's flirtation with WoF was bad enough, but if they continue to allow this heretic to fill their students with this nonsense, than they do not deserve to be supported.

I'm still waiting for these pomos to finally get the integrity to admit their atheism.

what would who do???

A bit ago, I made a comment in a post that pomos seem to put more faith in Nietzsche than in the Bible. A few days ago, I came on this article, which seems to give weight to the observations and accusation.

What Would Nietzsche Do?

Lest I come off as being too judgmental or un-nuanced, I'll say up front that the article does have its virtues. And at the least it isn't a "RAH-RAH FOR 'BAMA" thing, at least not on the surface.

Still, it is what you think it is, as the first paragraph seems to begin showing.

In the 2004 senatorial race for Illinois, Republican candidate Allen Keyes claimed, “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”1 Keyes specifically had in mind Obama’s refusal to support a bill that would protect infants who are born alive after botched abortions. While I am confident that Jesus would not support abortion-on-demand, I am less confident that his followers should make pronouncements about how Jesus would vote. In fact, it is quite possible that Jesus would not vote at all. Not every situation lends an answer to the evangelical question “What would Jesus do?” Therefore, I was inclined to take a subversive approach to the presidential election in November by asking “What would Nietzsche do?”

The "What would Jesus do?" question is, admittedly, not often any easy one to answer. I would say first, though, that judging only by the Keyes statement quoted above, that Keyes isn't say who Christ would vote for, but is making a statment (based on the Obama's voting regard particularly in regard to the issue of the life of the innocent) that He wouldn't vote for Obama. The author seems to say that we cannot claim to know how Jesus would vote, which I guess means who He both would and would not vote for.

Is that a fair statement, though? For example, if were to go back to 1930s Germany, do we think that we cannot say that Jesus would not vote for the Nazi party? Is it safe to say that Jesus would not vote to put Hitler into power?

Of course, one could say that is a special case, or even a bad example, but the point is, if we can make statements about it in that one case, why not others? Can we say that God, who gave Israel judges and kings, doesn't care about politics? Can we say that the types of people who rule our nation are unimportant to Him?

As such, than, I think an honest attempt to answer the WWJD question in warranted, and certainly more profitable than to substitute Neitzsche for Jesus.

This past election cycle has given me some sympathy for the dilemma he expounds on, where we may have only two choices, and neither is acceptable. Unlike him, I'm not against voting outside of the big two, and in the Presidential vote I did just that, since I judged that neither Obama nor McCain were worthy of my vote (though the thought of Palin in the position of VP was almost enough to win my vote for McCain; still, he would have been the one in the highest seat, and while it's likely he would have been much better than Obame will be, his history of compromise makes even that claim doubtful).

Also, unlike emergents, the author seems to take seriously the biblical notion that our citizenship is in Heaven. He's not a utopian (to use his own concept) trying to perfect things here on earth.

Still, I'm not sure about his overall point, which seems to be a more wordy and seemingly deep way of echoing the sojo mantra "God is not a Republican (or a Democrat)", but with the sojo unspoken caveat that God likes liberal policies (because they seem warmer and fuzzier) over conservative ones (which are as hard as real life).

Most of all, when partisan political animosity has infiltrated the congregation so as to divide the body, or when the cause of Christ has become conflated with the limited agenda of one particular political party, then the time has come for the church to withdraw from political activity for a season in order to listen again to the voice of the One in whose name we speak.

And yet, what does this mean? Does it mean we must accept anyone who claims to be Christian, no matter what candidates and social issues they vote for? There may be some issues on which there is room for disagreement, but many others on which little to no compromise can be given. If the church truly believes that murder is wrong, than what compromise can there be with any 'christians' who are for abortion right? Is the church truly believes that marriage is only a man and a woman, than what compromise can there be with those 'christians' who want to redefine marriage in any other way?

Despite making some interesting points, I think the overall jist of the article is off. Trying to find answers in a madman like Neitzsche insist of in Christ is simply setting oneself up for failure.

getting it mostly right 1

Tony Campolo is, in many ways, a rather frustration person. I could rather like him, and could think that in many ways he's right. On the other hand, in those ways I can't agree with him, I would think those ways are pretty important.

If I could put it a particular way, I think he's trying to hang out in the enemy's camp, hoping to make them somehow better. I don't think it's working; rather, I think they are influencing him more than he them.

Still, he's sometimes not too far out there, at least in the book "Adventures in Missing the Point", which he kind of co-wrote with McLaren. McLaren wrote a chapter on the Bible, which may well provide some material for here later. Campolo has a brief but pointed response at the end of it.

One thing the emergents and pomos try to do with downplay the idea that the Bible is a place to find answers or doctrine. Campolo makes a comment on page 83 of the book about that.

Brian is quite right when he tells us that the Bible should not be considered a mere repository of propositional truths. But certainly we must be aware of those sections of the Bible that do contain propositional truths, and of the importance of analyzing those doctrines...

I agree with him here. The attempts by emergents to overplay the story and poetry aspects, among other things, at the expense of doctrine is not wise, and is already starting to bear bad fruit. Consider the post a few weeks ago, where an emergent pretty much says that if the Bible disagrees with him than the Bible should be scrapped.

And I haven't seen anyone sum the postmodern tendency to relativize texts better than this.

They tell us to see in the text whatever meaning we want to impose on it. They tell us that no single interpretation should be considered objectively valid. The text, say these postmodernists, has a life of its own--and once it is written, the reader provides the meaning. To me, that approach to the Bible has inherent dangers.

I couldn't agree more. If that is what they are pushing for, than the postmoderns are simply leaving themselves open to another disaster, one they thought to avoid by going so extreme relativistic. If postmodern was in part a response to the Nazis and the extermination camps, as McLaren says elsewhere, than how can they hope to avoid that again if someone wants to say that their interpretations are for such things? If interpretation is something read into a text, rather than taken from it, than Pandora's Box is truly open, and all the evils are loose.

Better by far is a solid hermeneutic and interpretation, based on what the Bible is really saying, over any attempt to put our own meanings into the Bible.

a bit of sense

I've recently put up a few posts about a book put out by a Phyllis with the last name of Tickle. Here's a bit of something else, some very different, from a Phyllis much more worthy of respect.

Public Schools Change Young Evangelicals' Values

It's not very long, and well worth the read.

follow the threads

Ok, how about some threads.

Diane Butler-Bass, in her book "Christianity for the Rest of Us", takes an approving look at one St. Andrew Christian Church in Kansas. Here is an excerpt from that church's beliefs page on their website.

We welcome and affirm all children of God of any color, class, sexual orientation, age, gender, ability or thought.

While following the guidelines of the denomination, we have developed as a congregation that is particularly passionate about preserving the dignity of all, valuing diversity, seeking justice for the disadvantaged and preserving the delicate balance of Earth’s ecosystem.

In other words, a church that's so in the liberal's back pockets.

This church is a part of a group with the oxymoronic name The Center for Progressive Chrisitanity. The CPC's website's links page has come interesting things on it, like a link to the Westar Institutes, the people who have given us the travesty called the Jesus Seminar.

And there's the link to the progressive hymn writer, William Flanders. And from his site, one can find the lyrics to his hymns. Here's a couple of stanzas from one of them, with a possible spelling correction noted by me in one of them.

The God that we love is no God we hear.
While “Thus says the Lord” rings bold and sincere,
The words are the prophets’, theirs evermore.
Still unheard but, our God, listened for.

The God that we love may not even be;
To face this our mind must always be free.
Our heart says that God awaits us, instead,
Our (perhaps that should by 'out') of sight and, always, up ahead

So, in this man's head (and likely in that of these 'progressives' he writes hymns for), when the prophets said "Thus says the Lord" they were only speaking and writing their own words, and the God he claims to want to hear from may not even exist.

Don't be surprised at this, please, unless you really are new to this kind of progressive non-thinking. There are many out there who claim the name Christian who are really little more than athiests in their philosophies and beliefs--Spong, Borg, Crossan, Caputo, Vattimo, and others, and one can see the emergents going the ways of these people, though they are not there yet (while noting that Butler Bass is an emergent in her own right, and it was her book that lead to finding this songwriter).

Why these people want to call themselves Christian while denying everything true in Christianity is beyond me. Were they honest, they would drop the pretenses and own up to their athiesm. Since they don't, I don't think it too harsh to think that there are subterfuges and manipulations they can pull off on the 'inside' of the church that they can't do if they were 'outside' it as self-proclaimed nonbelievers.

certain of uncertainty?

It's truly amazing how far people will go to try to undermine biblical authority.

On pp. 77-80 of The Great Emergence, Tickle goes into Einstein and Heisenberg, about Einstein's Theory of Relativity and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. And what do these scientific theories have to do with the Bible...?

...Nor would the Heisenberg Principle stay safely tucked away in physics laws. Instead, "uncertainty" became the only fact that could be accepted as fact, not only in the popular mind, but also in large segments of the academic world as well

In particular, literary deconstruction planted its standard dead in the center of Heisenberg, claiming that there is no absolute truth, only truth relative to the perceiver. And, as an obvious consequence, all writing--be it sacred or secular--has no innate meaning until it is read and, therefore, has no meaning outside of the circumstances and disposition of the reader. Enter the battle of the Book. Enter the warriors, both human and inanimate, who will hack the already wounded body of sola scripture into buriable pieces. Enter the twentieth century's great, garish opening in the cable's waterproof casing of story.
Tickle, The Great Emergence, pp 79-80

If you've heard some people make arguments against the current postmodern virus, you'll likely have heard them sum up the postmodern position in a statement something like this, "The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths". I mention that because Tickle may as well have said that when she writes ""uncertainty" became the only fact that could be accepted as a fact".

In other words, it is a statement that is it's own contradiction, it is self-refuting. One cannot believe it because if it is truth it is a false statement. To say that "The only certainty is uncertainty" is to make even that statement an uncertain statement.

So, right off, we can see that postmodernism is a realm of madness.

Even more subject to madness and the result of it is the statement "there is no absolute truth, only truth relative to the perceiver". McLaren goes on in one of his books about how postmodernism is supposedly a reaction to Nazism and the certainties that led up to it. Even granting that those early pomos may have been at least partially right in the diagnosis of the problems leading up to Nazism, can we really say that extreme uncertainty really sufficiently answers what went wrong? If truth is merely relative to the perceiver, than upon what basis can one even answer someone who says that something like Nazism was a good thing? If there are no absolute truths, than how can one say that Auschwitz was evil? And if such a thing happens again (and things like it have happened since then, in places like the Soviet Union and Cambodia and China and Darfur), how are these disciples of uncertainty ready to say that those who do those things are wrong?