Category Archives: christianity

Pat Robertson and Haiti – where angels fear to tread

15 Friday Jan 2010

Posted by in christianity, Hell, media, orthodoxy, religion and politics, Theodicy

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I had a great birthday. January 12 was a happy day for me, all day long. But a couple of days later I discovered what a big tragedy it was… an earthquake hit Haiti, killing maybe 100,000 people.

Aside from the small donation I sent to World Vision, there isn’t much I can do. I can urge you to support Haitian rescue efforts. I can express my thanks to Doctors Without Borders and others who were already there, hard at work. My impact is ridiculously puny.

But perhaps to salve my conscience I’m going to use this as the occasion for my re-entry into the blogosphere, a year and a day after my last post here on HappyGod.

Since my topics are God and what’s wrong with the world, let’s talk about Pat Robertson. Not the man, but his ideas. OK, alright, let’s talk about the guy too, and his habit of rushing in where angels fear to tread. (Thanks, Alexander Pope, for helping me break the spirit of Matthew 5:22 without disobeying the letter!)

Sometimes we’re confronted with foolishness that is so laughably evil, so hatefully dumb, that all we can do is gape in amazement. Where do I begin?

Keith Olberman was articulate and strummed some chords I wanted to hear:

Whoopi Goldberg and friends were similarly indignant and equally articulate about Dr. Robertson…

Other worthy comments are all over the web:

Atheists weigh in (and the Atheists.org site links to an excellent Salon.com article)

Ambassador from Haiti weighs in

Even God weighs in (humorous press release, via Andy Borowitz, in which God distances himself from the Christian right)

I’m going to leave Pat Robertson squirming in the discomfort of his own religious hotsauce, and come back tomorrow with some historic perspective on the real cause of Haiti’s disproportionate suffering.

Q: Why OT/NT dichotomy?

27 Friday Jun 2008

Posted by in Bible Questions, christianity, eschatology

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Hello Brothers and Sisters…

I am a true follower of Christ, and I accepted Christ as my only saviour.

But I have one question that bothers me…We know the Old testament and the new testament are different. Why is it that God is an ‘angry and destructive’ God in the Old testament, and written that we follow an eye for an eye, and destroyed lands and annihilated tribes, and there were strict rules then, etc. you know what I mean. BUT…in the new testament, God is a God of love, forgiveness, compassion, etc. Here, it teaches that we should turn the other cheek, etc. And that the old testament rules don’t apply to us now! Who said that? We are commanded not to eat pigs, and we still eat them. Please…tell me. What is the difference b/w the old testament and the new testament, and why did God suddenly change in the New.

Thanks

With much love in Christ,

Eyoel

Thanks for an excellent question.

I would start with the fact that Jesus lived as a Jew, born under the law, and did not condemn the Law. He obeyed it both in letter and spirit, and won the right to become the mediator of that law for the world of mankind. (1 Timothy 2:3-6)

Now, here’s where the mainstream teachings of Christian tradition will start to steer you wrong: most churches teach that Jesus abolished the law for all people, and made the new testament concepts of turning the other cheek, etc. as the new standard … as though God had changed the rulebook half way through human history. I agree with you that this is how it seems.

In reality, I think to make sense of the Bible we need to see 3 things:

1. The Law is eternal.. that is, the principles of right and wrong, how to treat people, etc.

2. Overlaid upon the Law are some ceremonial features and some dietery guidelines that have more symbolic, spiritual significance. These ceremonial features include the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the activities of the feasts and fasts. Each of them is a picture of God’s dealings with different parts of humanity, at different times. The spiritual meaning of each of these applies to things God is planning for either the Church or the world of mankind.

For example, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) sacrifices picture the activities of Jesus and his followers (Aaron and his sons the under-priests) during the Christian age. They experience the symbolic burning of the flesh outside the camp (The writer of Hebrews refers to this in Hebrews 13:11-13 and applies the process to both Jesus and his followers — clearly a reference to the fact that both the bullock and the goat of sin offering experienced the burning of their bodies — an offensive and dishonored smell as viewed from the world’s perspective. And yet the result of the very same sacrifices involved the commingling of their blood with incense which ascended from the “holy” compartment to the “most holy”.

I believe that this feature of the Law — the tabernacle — defines for us the temporary dwelling place of God among members of the Church of Christ in this life. Throughout the Christian era, God has met only with  those who approach him through Jesus — who is pictured by the 3 doors of access to God the tent was fitted with. An outer gate, represents belief in Jesus as our savior. The inner building could only be entereded through the door of full commitment to Jesus, as described in Romans 12:1. And the inner door represents the pathway to the presence of God which Jesus made accessible through his death, and we only pass through upon our death as his followers.

At the same time that those carcases — hide and hoofs and entrails — were making a stench from the world’s perspective, the blood or life essence of the same animals was brought with incense and coals of fire and combined on the golden altar inside the Holy. This created a “sweet smelling savor” from the viewpoint of fellow-believers, and it actually permeated the door and wafted with the High Priest into the Most Holy when he came to sprinkle the blood at the “mercy seat”. (See Revelation 5:8, which defines incense as the prayers of holy people, and Revelation 6:9-11, which indicates that the blood of martyrs is valuable to God and he factors it into his decisions as the righteous judge.)

Hopefully from this example you can see that the Law was given to foreshadow things which the New Testament presents in greater detail. Other examples which you can easily research include:

  • the Passover lamb picturing Jesus, their escape from Egypt picturing the promised deliverance of all people, and the night of the firstborn, picturing the deliverance of the Church in advance of the rest of the world;
  • the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham picturing God and his sacrifice of his only Son;
  • the whole story of Joseph picturing Jesus and his interactions with the Jewish people;
  • the 3 40-year kingdoms of Saul, David, and Solomon picturing the 3 ages of grace — the Jewish, the Christian, and the Messianic;
  • the battle of Gideon and the Midianites, picturing the “little flock” of the Christian church defeating the enemies of God;
  • the battle of Joshua against Jericho, picturing the fall of the world system through an earthquake brought by God.

The Old Testament is literally filled with these “types” or foreshadowings of the great plans of God.

3. The most important thing you need to see is the amazing love of God for all the world of mankind. What few Christians seem to realize is that God ordained two different ways of dealing with those whom He intends to save through Christ. In New Testament times until now, God is dealing with people who in his wisdom he decided not to actually make healthy, get new bodies, etc. Instead, he gives us a “treasure in an earthen vessel”. He gives us a measure of His spirit which “transforms our mind” (Romans 12:1-2) but does not actually restore our physical bodies. We continue to sin, and learn to be somewhat punished, somewhat crippled, by those sins. We must struggle with our environment, too — temptations from bad people and even evil angels; tendencies to sin from our own fallen nature as well as our selfish human heart. In God’s wisdom, this is the condition we are left in throughout our Christian walk in the flesh.

Therefore, much of the Old Testament teaches the human followers of Jesus for the last 2000 years how to think and act in imperfect surroundings. It helps us learn how to struggle and fight against evil in our very souls. In the Old Testament, this struggle was pictured by the battles of the nation of Israel to capture the promised land. All of that happened, not because it is God’s will that we should practice “ethnic cleansing”, but because he wanted to create an illustration of what is happening in the lives of true Christians across the last 20 centuries.

But both the Old and New Testaments also state that the vast majority of the human race will be dealt with by God in a different way. He will “pour out his spirit upon ALL FLESH”. He will swallow up death in victory. He will heal all people. “All in their graves” will come forth and be resurrected onto the earth. In that era, people will actually be healed physically, while their moral development is still progressing. All the inhabitants of the world will “learn righteousness”. There will be no stumbling blocks. Satan will be bound. There will be no deceivers, and God will no longer hide himself. Instead, he will be with them, and be their God. Before they call, He will answer.

These promises are the key to understanding how to harmonize the Old and New Testaments.

When you came to the Lord you were probably taught that those who don’t accept Jesus now will burn in hell forever, either literally or in some sort of psychological separation from God. Perhaps you grew up being taught this awful idea since you were a child. Clearly the Bible has lurid language in places which can be interepreted this way. However, the only way you’ll be able to harmonize the entire Bible and really make sense of the Old and New Testaments as one united work is to realize that God has planned for the complete recovery of all who are willing. The whole world is going to be restored. The whole world is going to be taught. God so loved the world — the entire world — that he sent his son to save them. He didn’t come to bring a message that would in reality condemn them. No, he came to die for their sins, to pay the price of their inherited sins from Adam, so that they would have what some people call a “second chance”. In reality, it is a full “first real opportunity” to know and understand God for the vast majority of the human race.

If you look carefully at the words of God uttered through the mouths of the prophets of the Old Testament, there is very good news promised for the whole world. Everyone. Not just for Jews, and not just for Christians either. A “feast of fat things” has been decreed and planned for the entire world. It is the sovereign God’s righteous and irresistable will that all the world will be saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth. Because Jesus was “lifted up” (like the serpent of Numbers 21), he will draw ALL MEN to him. All the world will be delivered from death, as Isaiah describes it. All people will know the Lord, as Jeremiah expresses it. All of these Old Testament promises are echoed in the broadest possible language in the New Testament, such as Revelation 21:1-4 which describes the blessing of all the people of the world, and paints a picture in which the “wife of the lamb” works with the lamb to bring these blessings to all. Clearly the intent of the writers is to tell us that the Christian church (that is, the folks whom God hand-picks to be the spiritual wife of Jesus in heaven) will be united with Him and bring life to all the world. This is really good news.

As for the dietary laws, I would think of part of them as sanitation and health regulations for the benefit of the people back then (as well as now) and part of it is meant to have spiritual meaning as so much of the rest of the Old Testament does.

I believe that the number of “goats” (Matthew 25) who will perish in what the Bible calls the “2nd death” is, relatively speaking, very small. Even if the “Gog and Magog” rebellion at the end of the Millennium is comparable to the 200 million evil “horsemen” described at the beginning of the Millennium in Revelation 9, that’s only maybe 2 percent of world population by the time all the dead are raised.

In summary, the important thing to remember is that God does not change, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. For Christians now, God has a higher standard and a more difficult test in place. We aren’t just as as Christians to be good people to the best of our ability, we are asked to love our enemies and “turn the other cheek” as Jesus did. And we are being trained to be kings, priests, judges and rulers of the world of the future.

The rest of the world is not on trial at the present time. Their sins are not being imputed to them, but instead they are “storing up” the wrath or judicial judgment of God for their day of reckoning and learning, the 1000 year reign of Messiah. But they will be evaluated at that time, not as a simple condemnation for past mistakes, but as a hopeful and righteous opportunity to learn from those past mistakes and learn to walk in God’s ways. They will be helped and taught in that time by a very merciful group of mentors — the Christian Church and Jesus himself.

And so in the end, the wrath of God (which describes the entire time period of human history — 6 thousand years to us, but only 6 days to God) will have been but “for a moment”. And his mercy — his love for the human race which will effectively and massively restore it, will last forever.

Thanks for your question and please follow up with the many more questions which my answer will probably generate.

"Gospel of rational hope"?

25 Wednesday Apr 2007

Posted by in christianity, Emergent Conversation, eschatology, Theodicy, Virginia Tech

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Pastor Glenn Parkinson of Severna Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church writes in his blog that he is starting to wonder whether the media is doing more than reporting on a culture in crisis. He suggests they are promoting a “culture OF crisis”. It’s a clever turn of phrase, and reflects, I think, a view that is quite popular among my Christian brothers.

He says,

“day after day, one horror after another works to emotionally tear us down and condition our response. An increasing number of these crises are forced upon us by the larger media and shepherded by a new priesthood of secular institutions…”

I emphatically disagree with Glenn. First, because he severely trivializes the importance and value of the lives of those who are not Christians, and who are not destined for heaven, according to Glenn’s concept of salvation.

In my view Glenn demeaned those lives, by saying that to them grief is merely the process of “getting over” tragedies, “coping” with them so that folks can get back to their personal dreams, which Glenn seems to think is the only real meaning in their lives. It would appear that in Glenn’s view, only those who are predestined toward heaven have a rational basis of hope in their lives. The rest are living on borrowed time, and pursuing a meaningless existence that the media attempts to bestow significance upon.

Glenn suggests that the media should be blamed for “taking on a ‘priestly role'” and “determin[ing] what emotionally stresses us”. He states that

“modern media…assures that selected crises can and will draw the attention of the entire nation. In other words, our own personal trials are no longer enough. Now, we must enter into the personal torment of others — others we do not know, and whose agonies are chosen for us by the whims of the larger media.“

(italics mine)

It’s true that the troubles of people everywhere, people we once could ignore, keep invading our personal space. But is that the media’s fault, or a change in the world around us?

I’m sure that Glenn profoundly feels the pain of the victims and their families. I’m sure he disagrees with Cain, and acknowledges that we are indeed our brothers’ keepers. I’m sure his tears after Virginia Tech were no less heart-felt than mine were. But I think there’s a much better explanation than simply that the media is selecting crises, or choosing these agonies for us to pay attention to. It seems to me that the reason why the world has been drawn together to share each others pain is that God now wants it that way. I think the Biblical phraseology which refers to this is that God has “gathered the nations.”

Appropriate, is it not? Since, like Pastor Parkinson, I believe the Bible is relevant and reliable, and God is sovereign — ruling in the kingdom of men as Nebuchadnezzar came to see it — then could it be that the same God who chose to scatter the nations in Genesis 11 might now be choosing, as he promised he would in Zephaniah 3:8-9, to “gather” them? The scattering involved the introduction of multiple languages. The gathering that seems in evidence now involves mitigating the language differences, is accompanied by a lot of trouble, and finally results in a single-minded recognition of God by all people. Travel, communication, and knowledge are doing that. Computers are doing that, music is doing that, and visual images are doing that. Gathering the nations. From Caesar to George Washington there was one mode of travel, one means of communication. Then, in the blink of an eye, the skills and powers that created the modern age leaped into the human experience.

If God is behind the “global village”, the “time of trouble“, the “distress of nations with perplexity“, the “increase of knowledge“, the “trouble like a woman in labor“, then “the Media” is not what Glenn should be blaming for the gattling-gun of events that grab world attention. These things, in my view, “demonstrated the planet’s relentless march toward equilibrium”, as Greg Mortenson and David Relin write about the interplay of cultures in Three Cups of Tea. We’re seeing something global here, something organic, something bigger than Christianity, bigger than America, bigger than the world Media or all the negative forces on the earth. And though there are paroxysms of pain, the relentless march is making life better for the poor, rougher for the rich, and more egalitarian all around. In spite of the efforts of Christianity to retard it.

As Thomas Friedman and Isaiah put it, the world is flat. As Zephaniah put it, the nations are gathered. At Virginia Tech, a Korean raised in America buys a German gun to randomly-yet-willfully kill an Israeli Holocaust survivor, a French instructor, an Indonesian graduate student, etc. etc. Did the media decide we needed this tragedy, and thus play it up? To suggest this idea is to miss the point of the trouble.

Instead of nostalgically looking backward to a time when Churchianity supposedly had more power, and more people listening to its claims, I suggest that Christians like Glenn, or David Wayne, or other good and devout men and women who trust God, re-examine the hopes and explanations they draw from the Bible.

To Glenn, people need and deserve to hear what he calls the Gospel of rational hope. He doesn’t want folks just weeping over the waste of human potential that occurred a few days ago. He wants hope to emerge in the minds of those who somehow conclude that, despite all evidence to the contrary, God really is powerful, and really does love the human race. Glenn seemingly doesn’t want anyone consoling themselves with what he considers to be the false hope that every life has value aside from religious conversion, and that somehow things will work out for everyone. To Pastor Parkinson, things won’t work out for anyone except the authentic true believer… everyone else is in for sadness, separation, torment… for eternity.

[but wait? Don’t the U and L in TULIP say that God is the one who chooses folks for salvation anyway? If so, then why mourn for Cho’s unsaved victims? Oh well, that’s another discussion for another day. After tragedies like this one, most Calvinists find themselves sounding like Arminians in spite of themselves.]

The irrational hope, the liberal or secular-humanist assumption Glenn speaks of is the notion of personal autonomy: self-motivated dreams, earth-bound involvements as the be-all and end-all of life. The concept of self-will is, after all, repugnant to every well-schooled Calvinist. In his view (and I only partially agree) tragedies like this one give the lie to self-will, forcing folks to at least consider the words of Solomon: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, says the Preacher”. I would argue that this view of life is only valid for those who, like the Christians Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15, are called by God to choose a life that walks away from many of this life’s opportunities in order to participate in a higher resurrection.

Glenn has a different idea. He covets the opportunity to tell people his concept of the Gospel, what he calls a rational hope. Though he admits it would sound “foolish” to the masses if, suddenly, some Christian spokesman were allowed to explain the Gospel (the traditional Gospel that is), to the public…

What would that “good news” be? Let’s suppose that, miraculously, Glenn got his way and the masses didn’t change the channel, Again and again I hear Christians admit that most people turn away in disgust from “The gospel” — the one most of my friends, and Glenn hold to be taught in the Bible. Generally my Christian friends blame these skeptical folks for rejecting what to them is “amazing grace.” While it is indeed amazing that a Creator God would accept, adopt, and pursue a relationship with the likes of Glenn, or David Wayne, or me … but is that all the Good News the Bible has? Is there an additional gospel of grace that covers those who were not chosen from among men by a Sovereign God during the Christian age that is now clearly waning?

Or put another way, might there not be another explanation for the paltry size of this saved family than simply the Arminian “the others have hardened their own hearts?” or the Calvinist, “God in his sovereignty has made atonement limited”?

Here’s the mainstream Good News, put in plain speech as most Christians perceive the Bible to teach: A dark and tortured man just killed 32 people against their will. Of these, a few appear to be authentic Christians, confident that because they placed their faith in Christ as savior, they will next live with God in heaven. But for most of the dead — the Jews, Moslems, and non-believers among the victims — Glenn’s gospel says these folks all lack the thing that they would have needed to gain eternal life in heaven — “saving faith in Christ”.

In this view, they not only lost the rest of a life that Glenn feels is vanity (but which these poor unsaved souls were enjoying up to that moment); they now get to experience a hell created by God himself for those whose names were not written in a book of life before they died.

For Glenn, it would appear that these tragedies were meant as examples, goads, to be a lesson to the rest of the unsaved…. a warning to accept salvation through Christ. I’ll come back to that in a minute… because I think Glenn and the millions of authentic Christians who agree with his perspective are sincere, and are correct in believing that God is indeed loving and gracious toward all people.

If God is using troubles to remind the masses of their own impending loss, then the unsaved among the victims are a sad case indeed. They will be in some God-forsaken place, kept separate from those who “did the good deeds”… forever. Hmmm. I wonder what sorts of torments will they have to endure? Will they have to get shot again and again by multiple Chos? Maybe they’ll have to listen to that hideous Cho laugh.

Now, all of this awful pain — not only the Cho-inflicted pain but the God-inflicted pain that dwarfs it — a Christian commentator apparently would be able to tell us … would have been unnecessary if every one of the victims had first entrusted their life to Christ. If somehow the Jewish Holocaust survivor could have disregarded the religion of his upbringing, disregarded the religion of those who wiped out his family and almost killed him… and embraced Protestantism… well, if he could have done that he wouldn’t have had to go to hell for his unbelief. Yes, he was a hero, and saved the lives of his students by taking bullets for them while they escaped… but as one Christian radio commentator I heard recently said, “There are lots of nice guys in Hell.”

For my Christian friends who believe in a burning Hell because the Bible seems to teach it, please stay with me a little longer. I’ll stop insulting you now.

Let me suggest that you have missed something. That there is great value even in the un-Christian life of this age, strange as it may seem to you. Let me suggest that the Bible itself offers a better outcome than this, a truly good Good News, a truly rational Gospel of hope.

Here it is: the Judgment day is not for sentencing, but for teaching and correction. It is a time of learning righteousness. It is a second age of hope, with much broader results and a complete absence of the confusion and deception that has marked the Christian age. It is a time when all people learn who the true God is. It is a time when all people discover that God really is kind and loving and just. It is a time when the hereditary curses will melt away, and folks’ll be able to sort through what they did wrong to themselves and others, and learn from those mistakes. The Chos of the world will not be question-marks any more, and will discover what it’s like to feel love and to give love. Love from God, which most people NEVER knowingly experience now. And love from other people, which most people crave more of.

Think of all the victims of the Chos and the Hitlers and the Saddams. Yes, and the victims of the Christian nations and the Christian crusaders and the Christian popes and emperors. Think of the recent past and near future — the victims who suffer from man-made environmental disasters caused by the misuse of world resources… they’ll come back and join in a process of restoring the earth into a global paradise.

Think of the victims of “acts of God” — those who died in tornadoes and earthquakes and tsunamis and blizzards and lightning strikes. All of the dead, the Bible says again and again, will come back. If they were in the earth, or the sea, it doesn’t matter. They are coming back from their graves. And in every case, they will find a new government, made up of merciful, fairminded peers who know what they feel, understand their struggles, and can enforce the high standards of love and justice with mercy, patience, and kindness.

In this view, Christians and Jews alike have been learning precise principles of right and wrong throughout the past two ages. Many of these have actually been prepared for servant-leadership and teacher-priesthood among their fellowmen. The folks God has been working with — the relatively small handfull who experienced and responded to God’s grace up till now … will have the heart of a mediator, and the skills of a wonderful counselor.

And the rest of the world, whom God has barely touched at all in a personal way, nevertheless have many, many lessons of life engraved in their characters. Think Ghandi, Einstein, Gorbachev, Sagan; God will not throw away these souls, or the billions of anonymous people who have lived and died in the shadow of God’s hereditary “wrath” on the human race. (Notice, Christian believer, that “wrath” is something revealed to all people already — not something for the future. We’re children of wrath — born into it. But the wrath will one day be past, and then God’s mercy will endure forever.)

When brought back from the grave, everyone — everyone — will be able to pick up right where they left off, learning more about God and unlearning the negative things that habit and custom have led them into. No more deceptions will be allowed. Each will become productive, and spontaneous expressions of joy will sweep across the planet.

Glenn, I think that Christianity… following in Jesus’ footsteps — is indeed a rational hope for those of us whom God has called — revealed His grace to. It starts in our hearts and guides us toward heaven. It bends upward what inclines to grow downward.

But there is a rational hope for all the rest of the human race, too. It is a hope that is broad enough to allow for the random vicissitudes we see the groaning creation struggling under. If they were aborted before they were born, they have a hope of resurrection and life upon this earth. If they died in a Blacksburg classroom without Christ, they have a hope of resurrection and life upon this earth. If they will die next week from a car wreck in Boston, or a car bomb in Baghdad, they have a hope of resurrection that is as sure as the grace of God toward believers now.

Glenn, I urge you to consider the many texts of scripture which are so much broader, so much deeper, so much more hopeful, than the traditional Gospel which leaves the masses of mankind outside the family of God for all time.

Happy message from the Jolly Blogger

02 Tuesday Jan 2007

Posted by in christianity

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“Confess your faults one to another” (Jas. 5:16). He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. This pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desparate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. “My son, give me thine heart” (Prov. 23:26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates sin.

Excellent way to begin the year, David. I picked up Bonhoeffer’s book — can’t believe I haven’t read it before now in my Christian lifetime.

How thankful I am for the kindness of God…

The challenge of the golden middle

20 Saturday May 2006

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It’s so difficult to be balanced. In fact, I’ll say it’s impossible to BE balanced, and difficult to strive for balance. We keep overshooting the mark each time. Life becomes a series of corrections, first to one side, then to the other.

Hopefully somehow we can manage to go along without falling into the ditch of extremity on one side or the other.

The balance I’m thinking of right now is the difficulty of definding Christianity from attacks by atheism, humanism, Gnosticism, mysticism or whatever else, and at the same time calling my Christian brethren to account for their extremes.

So, if you’re a Christian and you find my comments loathsome at times, try to remember that my intent in this blog is to speak (hopefully in a balanced way) to both you and another entirely different audience who doesn’t share your assumptions, and who have a secular, humanistic mindset.

Back with a vengeance – Ya gotta like Dan Brown

15 Monday May 2006

Posted by in christianity, eschatology, gnosticism

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In the best Garrison Keillor tradition, an English teacher strikes it rich.
I haven’t read the book yet, and the movie isn’t out yet, but I already know what interests me about this latest pop sensation. It is the contortions my Christian brethren whose roots are deeply mired in Gnosticism go through as they attack Dan Brown and his fictional DaVinci Code for his resurrection of other Gnostic concepts.

My first quarter was filled with tentmaking activity; hopefully now I can slice out enough time to share what I’ve learned about Gnosticism in the New Testament.

My first installment will start, (DV) tomorrow.

In the meantime, a brief reflection on what good can come of all this fury, in the religious world, that is.

Isaiah records the prophecy of Messiah, coming to mystical Edom with garments spattered with bloodstains. In the picture of Isaiah 63 and Isaiah 34, the great controversy which God sends the messiah to avenge is “the controversy of Zion”.He has been trampling a winepress of lambs and goats. Hmmm… Lambs and goats. What are lambs in the parlance of Bible usage? Baby Christians, innocent little young believers. And what are goats? Self-willed, head-strong, pseudo-believers.

Naturally, the mainstream commentators such as Matthew Henry and John Wesley think this is about the enemies of “the church”. I am certain they are wrong.

In my judgment, these prophecies, like the ones in Revelation which speak of the “winepress” of God’s judgment, are about God’s judicial anger WITH THE CHURCH.

In the Isaiah texts, the prophet speaks of a time for those who have been associated with “Israel” but who really are out of harmony with God’s plans and ways in spirit and truth, to be exposed and debunked.

Just as the lambs are symbols and the goats are symbols, the “killing” that is going on is not literal either; I think it means to cease to have any claims of faith — to die as to faith in Christianity.

Across the world, that sort of killing, loss of faith, has been going on since the beginning of the 20th century. We are well into what is now acknowledged as “the post-Christian era”. Baby Christians, and those who associate with “Christianity” because of the selfish benefits that accrue to those who attend church, have been leaving the church in droves. If they remain seekers, they may end up in a smaller church, a house church, or a mega-church — but the mainstream denominations have experienced major drops in both attendance and contributions.

Works like Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code, with its speculations and fantasiies, aren’t speaking the truth, mind you… but these are strange times, and oddly enough these sorts of smokescreens and shows of “knowledge” do a work that accomplishes God’s will as described in those prophecies. It’s God’s will for the Christian church to be tested to the max, shaken to the foundations. Even if that means the lambs and goats are going to get shed from the fold.

So for me, reflecting on my lifetitme spent bristling at the “systematic theology” that smart but I believe misguided brothers have pulled out of their imaginations and their seminary coffee shops instead of from the pure words of God, it’s almost fun to read the anti-DavinciCode articles, as they awkwardly try to defend orthodox tradition. I get amused when I read erstwhile Protestants, defending Roman Catholic belief system, filled as it is with Gnostic concepts, from Gnosticism! (Example, Christianity Today). What am I talking about, Gnosticism in the “orthodox” church? Well, Catholicism harbors concepts such as mariolatry, the Immaculate Conception, hindering of marriage, (see 1 Timothy 4:1-4) restrictions on food, asceticism (monkism and nunneries), and a very negative Augustinian view of both the flesh and marriage. Their apocrypha are hardly any different than the “Gnostic Gospels” in credibility.

Orthodox Protestants have preserved intact the other Gnostic-borrowed or Gnostic-adapted concepts from Catholicism such as a concept of God who has been more informed by Babylon and Greece than Israel; not to mention straight Platonic (smart but nevertheless Pagan) ideas like the immortal soul, eternal hell, etc. It’s funny to read, say, Christianity Today’s article that attempts to poke holes in Brown’s research, while attempting to uphold aspects of Christ’s history and personality that are equally unbiblical! It’s funny to read Collin Hansen’s revisionist view of Arius and Athanasias. At least, it would be funny if I didn’t know something about the thousands of believers in the One God and His Son, Jesus Christ, who were killed for not accepting the official dogma. It’s evan funnier to see CT attempting to defend Roman Catholicism while at the same time distancing themselves from an institution that any sober student of history realizes was a suppressor, not an upholder of truth throughout its corrupt and sordid past.

God’s the One who views the mainstream Churches with a vengeance. I just hope to be useful in showing how the Bible reveals what God is now doing in human affairs to even the great balances of justice. I’m confident the good folks will come through the ringer… but the institutions are getting squeezed by all this pressure.

I’ll start presenting my proofs for this little rant tomorrow.

No life is wasted

07 Saturday Jan 2006

Posted by in christianity, Theodicy

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Like millions of others, I was deeply moved by Paul E. Schroeder’s op-ed about the death of his son, Augie. (Washington Post, Tuesday, January 3) I agree that from the perspective Paul is viewing it, a misguided foreign policy and foolish military tactics, Augie became yet another wasted life, an unnecessary casualty of war.

My comments are more about the theological implications of a wasted life.

It is a waste whenever a person’s life is snuffed out in the prime of life, after they have developed their own unique personality, after they have been educated and prepared to benefit the people around them, just by being themselves.

It is a waste whenever a person’s life ends in ripe old age, after they have raised a family, worked all their life, gone to school, gained wisdom, insight, humility, and historic perspective.

It is a waste whenever a person’s life is aborted before they can start it, or they are born dead, or they die in infancy, or they die in childhood before they can reach their potential.

Each death, of every person, is indeed a waste if we do not view it in the context of God’s promise of a second life, a fresh opportunity to return with the same memory, the same personality, the same dreams, to continue growing and be re-united with loved ones.

I believe that Augie is now firmly in the loving memory of God, just as freshly and warmly as he lives in the memories of his family. And I believe that God is happy because he knows that all people are in his memory* … and that when the time comes for Augie and all other people to return, the education, usefulness, love and dreaming will continue. And new vistas will open, as horizons expand to fill the entire world, and timeframes expand to fill eternity.

Augie will meet the guys who planted the bomb that killed him, and anyone that he was asked to kill by Uncle Sam. They’ll shake hands, learn each other’s languages, music, and stories, discover the world through each others eyes, and walk together toward Isaiah’s vision. A world that is at rest, and quiet, and spontaneously breaks forth into song.

*The Greek word for tomb (mnemion) literally means memory device, and comes directly from the Greek word for memory itself. When Jesus said that all in the tombs will come forth, he meant more than literal graves, because many or most people who have died are not in graves at all. They have died at sea, or in holocausts or tsunamis or earthquakes or wars that took them away without a trace. But all who died reside in the memory of God. Their unique personality, memories, and character have been recorded.

George Washington’s respect for religion

20 Sunday Nov 2005

Posted by in Christian liberty, Christian trends, christianity, religion and politics

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No doubt any Christians who read my yesterday post would wonder how I could seem to face the loss of morality in our culture with equanimity. I do not. I share George Washington’s view, that religion and morality are the foundation of political prosperity:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?
Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. 

My point is that the time of political prosperity is over; the time of social peace is past. It is now God’s time to clear the land for a new government, established in righteousness.

The United States, with its public education, its early infusion of enlightened, relatively tolerant Christian and Jewish minds, and its early spirit of freedom, was a great gift to human history. But the wineskins established by Washington are now old and worn, our current population is much more diverse culturally and spiritually, and freedom or license has multiplied in ways that would be shocking to George Washington.

What I was trying to say yesterday, is that true Christianity should not, (and, I believe, does not) identify with this or any other government, because the practice of true religion is an individual matter of conscience. Nowhere in the Bible do I see the imprimatur of governance handed to Christians. That is held in abeyance, until our personal obedience is complete. I think it is fact of history that morality cannot be legislated by human governments, and in a fallen world those who govern cannot always act squarely on the side of true religion and true morality — partly because of the limitations of human judgment and discernment; and partly because a government that is egalitarian and free must allow freedom of expression to those whose religion is different and whose morality is different. The first amendment is a good thing in a government in which immature and evil people are permitted to dwell with mature and good folks… even though the first amendment often creates conditions which are violations of the 9th commandment.

For example, it is the law of the land in the United States that a fetus does not have rights; that the mother can end its life if she chooses. A president swears to uphold the law of the land. Therefore a president must place his hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the right of a mother to kill the unborn child within her. From the first moment of a president’s tour of duty, he is thus a sworn opponent of what the Bible says in Exodus 21:22. (And no credible leader today would think to enforce Exodus 22:20).

Christians are taught to allow their experiences in life to humble them, to bear up under injustice, to submit to authority, for the purpose of learning lessons that will equip them to be merciful and humane “priests” and “kings” in a future age. Christians can live effectively as aliens and strangers, as guests in the countries where they reside, taxpayers and encouragers of what is good and noble and pure… but to grab the wheels of power and attempt to bring about the kingdom of God on earth has been proven to be a mistake in fact, as it is warned against in the Bible. Christ’s kingdom is not “of this world”.

So as society crumbles, and the elemental, foundational principles of social order (such as marriage, respect of parents by children, love of children by their parents, respect for law and order, etc.) melt away as Peter predicted they would, Christians have lots of work to do. Not by campaigning for power and attempting to turn back the clock on the United States — but by telling people not to worry, that the future will be tough but God is working to teach the world the lessons they need to learn — bitter at first, but sweet later.

I’m a Christian, but…

19 Saturday Nov 2005

Posted by in a happy God, Christian trends, christianity, eschatology, Theodicy

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The Christian community in the first century was outside, and in many ways opposed to, the power-struggles and values of the society of their day — both Jewish and Roman. Yet the Christians were culturally relevant — they understood the weighty issues of the day, and respected and honored their hearers.

What they offered was intensely interesting to virtually every segment of society. Jesus was intensely interesting to Pilate, to Herod, to Caiaphas the High Priest, and to the Scribes and Pharisees, the leading religious thinkers of Israel. Paul was intensely interesting to Agrippa and Festus. In Ephesus, Paul was spared from almost certain death by the intervention of the leading (pagan) committee of Asia (“The Asiarchs” – Acts 19:31)

Kings and governors chose to hear from them because so many people were violently opposed to their teachings, and the recent events in Jerusalem had gotten the notice of leaders throughout the civilized world. Christians were a pain to leaders, partly because they did not fear the only real powers the State could muster: economic sanctions or lethal force. Still, Christians weren’t competing to grab the controls of temporal power. They were taught by their leaders to be submissive to the “higher powers” — the State. They were relevant but not worldly; involved but not confrontational. They were a bit prickly at times, because they also acknowledged a higher order, and the freedom of thought and action in religious matters that they believed had come from God to be the ultimate guide of their conscience — not the decrees of an unbelieving State. But they went to prison and the cross with songs on their lips.

Not so today. Now, the Christian community to a large extent has intertwined itself with the world system, and attempt to use money and political processes to gain access to the wheels of power. Everywhere I turn, I see Christians whining about the supposed restriction of Christian freedom by a State that, well, the Christian right feels has betrayed them. This brand of my fellow-Christians seems to have imbibed the notion that the State should be a partner of religion in the institution of morals, in the guiding of children, in the upholding of religious “norms” such as Christmas, prayer at public events, pledging allegiance “under God”, presiding over a religious marriage rite, etc.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that all western governments, including the United States, has indeed become an ally of a number of elements in society that, in Biblical terms, are by definition immoral. I believe the Bible condemns murder, and specifically gives rights to the unborn fetus in Exodus 21:22 and following. (Though I acknowledge that most Jewish interpreters disagree with my reading of that passage). I agree that Biblical marriage is indeed between a man and a woman. I agree that the foundation of all human society in this fallen world is indeed the family unit, and that the integrity of marriage lies at the heart of that social foundation. I agree that children need to respect and honor their parents if it is to be well with them in life, and in their relationship with God. I think decent people in a democracy have a right and indeed a duty to try and keep their government moral.

But what I am taking issue with here is the notion that true Christian faith has somehow secured a place in the governance of the free world, at least in America. From a historical point of view, I believe that this idea is very dangerous to true Christianity, and very dangerous to the spread of true Christianity. Whenever Christians have gotten their hands on the controls of power, bad things have happened. Well, not always — a few leaders have from time to time been a little less vicious, a little less immoral than your run of the mill tyrants. But mostly, the worst leaders in history have been popes and quasi-religious emperors. These have been venal, corrupt, rapacious, and viciously evil. Among the most notable in this pantheon of “Christian” leaders has been Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (who expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492), Pope Innocent III, who persecuted the Albigensians and Waldensians, and launched the Inquisition and the Crusades; institutional “Christian” escalation and support of African slavery from the 16th to the 19th centuries; and the 20th century’s own King Leopold II, who decimated the Congo in the name of Christianity and set the stage for Rwanda just a few years ago. Taken together, the number of souls killed by “Christian” leaders certainly must number in the hundreds of millions. And I believe God has been keeping this list, and is now in the process of bringing retributive judgment upon Christian institutions that have been involved with these evils. (Revelation 18)

I am an American, and thankful for the comparatively humane record of the United States over the last two centuries; (I believe the U.S. was in part the “Open Door” of opportunity to oppressed Protestants mentioned in Revelation 3:8) but I am not blind to the many ways we have failed to help the poor, and have at times been conspirators in oppressive actions by religious and political leaders around the globe. The point is, that the United States is not, and never has been a theocracy — a government truly ruled by God. It is a republic or a democracy — ruled by the people who are partly good, partly bad, partly religious, and partly secular; and its strength for good has come as much from its Thomas Paines and Thomas Jeffersons and its Abraham Lincolns (agnostics or deists) as from its George Washingtons, Jimmy Carters, or George Bushes (openly religious men).

But I digress. My main point in this essay is this: what is so strange about recent trends is that the first century relevance and yet alienation from the halls of power by true Christians has been replace by irrelevance, insensitivity to the poor, and a pawing after the privileges of power on the part of “Christians”.

And equally amazing: concern for the poor, concern for the environment, interest in checking governmental abuses and advancing the rights of human beings on all fronts has been taken up by agnostics, atheists, unbelievers of every stripe.

Today “Christianity” is less likely to be identified with the poor and oppressed, and more likely to be today the preferred religion of many powerful, educated people. Partly because Christianity identifies with morality and “family values” — which in my opinion is noble and good. But also partly, because “Christianity” confers power and privilege and social advantage in the United States, if not in many places on the globe.

Today the preservation of the environment is more likely to be advocated by atheists and agnostics than by Christians. The reality of human-induced global warming is being ridiculed by “Christians” — why? Is it because of the weight of scientific evidence, or the advantages to our privileged ways of life and the disdain they hold for environmentalists?

The rights of oppressed people are more likely to be championed by secular or irreligious voices than by Christians. And even the cause of “truth” — logic, investigation, true science — instead of being advanced by true Christians as it was during the Reformation — is now becoming, embarrassingly to some of us Christians, the domain of the skeptical, the atheist, the unbeliever.

Gotta run. Truth and justice demand that I finish my Work in time to watch the Ohio State/Michigan game.

Terrifically Salvific

01 Tuesday Nov 2005

Posted by in Calvinism, christianity, love of God, prophecy, salvation, Theodicy, universalism

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The shallowness of evangelicalism leaves it largely inequipped to deal with the difficult issues. If we are to be a people that brings hope to the hopeless, purpose to the purposeless and joy to those who know only sorrow, we must be prepared to give answers that are biblically-based and Scripturally-satisfying. To do this we must wrestle with the difficult doctrines of sin, love, sorrow and suffering. We must be prepared not only to give an answer for the hope that lives within us, but for the suffering that causes us to draw upon that hope and to take our refuge in Christ Jesus, the One whose death gives us hope for now and for eternity.

These words by Tim Challies certainly resonate with me. I also appreciate his statement, “I find much beauty in traditional Protestantism, but realize that in some areas traditions are not Scriptural. Where that is the case I am open to change and improvement.” 

Though we are in very different places in the Protestant tradition, I certainly identify with his words above.

I think that more and more Christians, no matter what their denominational affiliation, will be drawn by the power of the terrifically salvific message of the Bible. They will realize that mainstream Christianity has been too judgmental of the sins of the unbelieving world, while too lenient in evaluating and correcting its own sins.

Here are a dozen or so questions that I believe explore how salvific the work of Christ will yet be — so terrifically salvific that it will reach all people — bringing the Christians who responded in this life to heaven, and then restoring the rest of the world through a judgment or probationary process to life on earth…

  1. God says it is his will for all to be saved, and that he performs all his good pleasure. Who can stop God from accomplishing this “will”? Can Satan stop him? Can human “willfulness” or “hardness of heart” stop God from causing the redemption of Christ from reaching everyone? (see my post from yesterday on this)
  2. Jesus said God could do more to teach Sodom and the other cities of ancient Israel. He said, if the mighty works done in Capernaum were done in Sodom, they would have repented. Evidently God could have done more for them, but chose not to at that time.
  3. God says during Christ’s reign he will bind Satan, keeping him from deceiving the nations until the “little season” at the end of the millennium. If God can do that, and now is the only time for man’s salvation, why doesn’t God bind Satan now and keep him from deceiving people?
  4. Ezekiel 16 says that God will indeed restore Sodom along with the nation of Israel, and forgive them, etc. If God is going to forgive Sodom and “restore” them — and Sodom was set forth as an example of what it means to suffer the “vengeance of eternal fire” (Jude 7), then can there be any doubt that eternal fire does not mean everlasting torment, but rather the annihilation or death of the wicked?
  5. God tells believers that they should continue to dwell with unbelievers as long as they are willing, in the hope that eventually the unbelievers would respond to their righteous character and be saved. Is God any less committed to trying to recover unbelievers than he instructs his children to be?
  6. God tells believers to love their enemies. This love is sacrificial and redemptive. Does God ask his people to stop thinking that way the moment their enemy dies? After that point, is it godlike to stop one’s ears to any future appeals, cries of help, or expressions of repentance by an enemy?
  7. 1 Corinthians 15 states that God will swallow up death in victory through the resurrection. Does anything in this chapter state that the resurrection only benefits those who were followers of Jesus in this life?
  8. Doesn’t it speak of the followers of Jesus as part of the “first resurrection”? Who, then, are part of subsequent resurrections? Would it not be the same “all” who died in Adam?
  9. Jeremiah speaks of God as changing the stony selfish hearts of man into responsive, teachable hearts of flesh. Is this a power and intention of God that ends when people pass into death?
  10. Romans 8 states that the whole creation groans, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Does this imply that they will stop groaning when the sons of God are revealed, or that they will continue groaning in agony forever, since they were not part of the “sons of God” class at their death.?
  11. Romans 11 states that God loves Israel in spite of their sins, because of their fathers. Will God forget this loyalty and commitment to the fathers, and instead send all unbelieving Jews into eternal death or even worse, eternal conscious punishment? If so, then why does it say, “all Israel shall be saved”?
  12. Jesus said that his followers would do even greater works than he would. He speaks of raising all the dead who have ever lived, etc. When does this promise have its fulfillment? Are the ‘greater works’ things that have already been happening on earth during the Christian era, or are they some events we have never really seen yet?
  13. Peter speaks of “times of restitution of all things”. What does restitution mean? What was lost by mankind, and what is promised by all the prophets to be restored?