Christian Carnival CLXVIII (168) is Up

It has been a tough three weeks for the Carnival; and it is back: The introduction from Matt at Random Acts of Verbiage:

Welcome to the 168th edition of the Christian Carnival! For those that follow the Christian Carnival, you may have noticed that it hasn’t happened in a few weeks; Dory over at Wittenberg Gate has been out of contact as of late (please be praying that everything is ok with her!) so this is kind of a make-shift edition as we don’t have access to the normal Christian Carnival email. Because of this, posts for the last three weeks have been accepted and I will also be adding posts until Friday since many of you may not have known about the change

About Christian Carnival:

Contributing a Post to the Christian Carnival

The Christian Carnival is open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this Carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought.

Posts need not be of a theological topic. Posts about home life, politics, or current events, for example, written from a Christian worldview are welcome.

Update: As the goal of this Carnival is to highlight Christian thought in the blogosphere, entries will be limited to blogs that share that goal. Blogs with content that is focused on a business, that has potentially offensive material Christians may not want to link to on their sites, or has no reference to distinctively Christian thought may not be included in this Carnival. There are other Carnivals that would be a more appropriate venue for that material. I realize that this will be a judgment call on the part of the Carnival administrator, and being human she may make mistakes. However, as the Christian Carnival is getting quite large, and it is sometimes questionable whether the entrants are seeking to promote Christian thought, I find this necessary.

Update: We also expect a level of discourse that is suitable for a Christian showcase. Thus entries may be refused if they engage in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, offensive language, or for any similar reason as judged by the administrator.

So, if you have a post in this framework - go here to find out more: Christian Carnival Participation Instructions.

It bears repeating one more time: do not send your submissions to any of the old submission email addresses -- send them to matt510 [att] gmail [dott] com

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John or The Fourth Evangelist: Part II

[The point of this post is to draw in both Critical and Conservative Bible scholars for, particularly, a discussion of The Gospel of John. I am not such a scholar, and I am posting my view on this - based on the work of others- to kick off that discussion. Certainly, it would be nice to have a good discussion of this here - or an "elsewhere" I am looking to create]

As the Catholic Encyclopedia points out:

The authenticity and authority of St. John's Gospel form the great battlefield of present N. T. criticism. They had been attacked as early as 1792 by a certain Evanson. The majority of contemporary critics incline to Harnack's view, which is that the Fourth Gospel was composed by John the Presbyter or the "elder" referred to in a fragment by Papias, and asserted by the Harnackians to be distinct from the Apostle and a disciple of the latter.

I think there are theological reasons for this assault on the authorship of John: as pointed out by the Catholic Encyclopedia article, John is mainly a theological work - not primarily an historical one - and it destroys the modern view that the divinity, and therefore the divine authority, of Jesus is a creation of the post-Apostolic church.

This part of the post will not be comprehensive - I would hope the reader will follow the links to the many much longer articles on the topic. However, I will try to at least deal with Ben's statement quoted in Part I:

I'm willing to concede more room than many of my colleagues for 'apostolic' authorship of many contested NT texts, but it is almost inconceivable (based on internal evidence alone) that, for instance, the Fourth Gospel was written by the Beloved Disciple who was John son of Zebedee.

To draw the distinction very sharply, I think it is almost inconceivable that scholars would discount the universal early church testimony to the authorship of the fourth Gospel by just that son of Zebedee based on the arguments I have seen presented. I offer the following resources for those wishing to investigate the Conservative arguments against the Critical view of John :

• The Introduction to the section on John in B.W. Johnson's New Testament Commentary Vol. III (1886):

  If, then, John did not write the Fourth Gospel, it must have been written about the time he died by a great Unknown, the mightiest mind of the Gospel historians and palmed off on the men who knew John personally and had been educated at his feet as the genuine composition of the last of the apostles. This must have been done so skillfully that no dissenting voice in the Church protested against the fraud!

  This expresses exactly why I hold Critical scholars to a high level of proof if they are going to say the Apostle John's authorship of John is "inconceivable".



• For a discussion of the difference between an anonymous work and a pseudoepigraphic one go here:

  "Until recently, most scholars tacitly assumed that the four gospels first circulated anonymously and that the present titles were first attached to them about A.D. 125 . . . Now, however, this consensus has been vigorously challenged by Martin Hengel. Hengel examines the practice of book distribution in the ancient world, where titles were necessary to identify a work to which any reference was made . . . Tertullian contends that "a work ought not to be recognized, which holds not its head erect ... which gives no promise of credibility from the fullness of its title and the just profession of its author." Hengel argues that as soon as two or more gospels were publicly read in any one church--a phenomenon that certainly occurred, he thinks, not later than A.D. 100--it would have been necessary to distinguish between them by some such device as a title. The unanimity of the attributions in the second century cannot be explained by anything other than the assumption that the titles were part of the works from the beginning. It is inconceivable, he argues, that the Gospels could circulate anonymously for up to sixty years, and then in the second century suddenly display unanimous attribution to certain authors . . . Hengel concludes that the four canonical gospels were never even formally anonymous.

• "Background to the Study of John":

  Views on the authorship, origin, and historicity of the Fourth Gospel have changed drastically over the last century and a half. One hundred fifty years ago, if one had asked a New Testament scholar which of the four gospels gave us the most information about the life and ministry of Jesus, the answer would almost invariably have been, “The Gospel of John.” Today if one asks a typical New Testament scholar the same question, the Gospel of John would be the last choice as a source of information about Jesus (if it was viewed as having anything to say about this topic at all) . . . This state of affairs held sway until only about two decades ago. Things have now begun to change again with regard to views on the Fourth Gospel as a legitimate source for information about Jesus’ life and ministry.

• "Major Differences Between John and the Synoptic Gospels"
• Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of John
• "The Gospel of John: Introduction, Argument, Outline"

I will follow this last by Daniel Wallace, primarily, for sake of unity throughout the series: unless otherwise stated it is almost all a direct quote, paraphrase, and/or re-arrangement of Wallace's argument. Since Ben mentioned the internal evidence as adequate (and seemingly overwhelming) to prove the Apostle John was not the book's author, I will focus there (and leave the reader to look at the external evidence in the links on their own).

Internal Evidence of Authorship

Against John's authorship: Wallace traces three areas:

1. the identification of the “beloved disciple,”: Although the identification of the beloved disciple with the apostle John has been alleged as a proof of Johannine authorship, one problem plagues this certitude: would any writer be so arrogant as to identify himself in such a manner?
   • However, not only is ἀγαπάω rather than φιλέω used in this designation (suggesting more of a commendation of the subject than the object), but
   • John, in his old age, might well have adopted an affectionate term given to him by others in this self-description. “Far from it being an evidence of arrogance, as is so often suggested, it may perhaps be regarded as a sign of modesty" -- Guthrie


2. apparent contradictions with the synoptic material: Where John and the synoptics do overlap (only 8-10% of the time), there seem to be inherent contradictions, especially in three areas: the cleansing of the temple, the presentation of dominical sayings, and the chronology of the Lord’s supper.
   • Although John places the temple cleansing early in Jesus’ ministry, there is no necessary chronological indicator in John 2. Thus, John may have moved it forward for theological/motif reasons. Further, there is a good possibility that Jesus cleansed the temple twice
   • Although the Johannine Jesus speaks with a different voice than the synoptic Jesus, only if we assume both that (a) only ipsissima verba constitute authentic dominical sayings and (b) Jesus must speak the same way, regardless of his audience or locale (Galilee in the synoptics, Judea in John especially), does this criticism hold water. In our view, John has indeed hellenized the voice of Jesus for the sake of his largely Gentile audience. But this is not to deny his accuracy, for he basically gives us the ipsissima vox, not the ipsissima verba of Jesus.
   • The Lord’s Supper in John does pose major historical difficulties with the presentation in the first three gospels.
     • Wallace leaves it at saying that there are solutions available which, in the final analysis, may indeed show independence, but not contradiction; and suggests particularly reading H. W. Hoehner, Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ, 76-90; and I. H. Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper, 30-56.
     • Deffinbaugh also dismisses this while giving resourses:

       There are many technical questions involved in the timing of this meal, which are of much interest to scholars, but not of much profit to our exposition. Suffice it to say that John is not really interested in such matters, either. He must have read the Synoptic Gospels before he wrote this Gospel, and yet he did not see it profitable to clarify every apparent discrepancy. For a more careful look into these issues and possible solutions, see D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, pp. 455-458.

     • Johnson, however, says:

       To the same conclusions the Hebraic style of the book bears testimony. Dr. Ewald, the greatest Hebrew scholar of the nineteenth century, declares “The Greek language of our author bears the strongest marks of a genuine Hebrew who, born among the Jews of the Holy Land, and having grown up among them, had learned the Greek language in later life, but still exhibits in the midst of the whole the spirit and air of his native tongue.”

For John's authorship: Ben implied that the internal evidence runs against the Apostle John writing John; but there is positive internal evidence for his authorship to go with the rebuttals of the evidence against above.

1. Westcott's Concentric Proofs which according to Harris have never been refuted - only ignored.



2. Incidental Evidence:
   • The author uses the historical present more than any other gospel writer (161 times) and in such a way as to indicate vividness of portrayal. One should note the especially heavy use in chapter 4 and the passion narrative. This suggests the vivid recollections of an eyewitness.
   • In 19:35 and 21:24-25 the most natural reading of the text suggests that an eyewitness wrote the gospel. But this has been debated: “advocates of theories of authorship which deny an eyewitness author treat the clear testimony of this verse [21:24] as a redactional device.… By such a method any embarrassing evidence can be disposed of."
   • The beloved disciple shows up with Peter on several occasions; belongs to a group of seven in 21:2 (Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two others) — and here, he must be one of the last four unnamed disciples; and nowhere in this gospel does John the disciple appear by name (even though he is named twenty times in the synoptics). This strongly infers either that the author of this work was absolutely unaware of John the disciple—a possibility which seems quite remote—or he was John the disciple.
   • Independence from the synoptic tradition coupled with early and widespread acceptance by the church. The fact that over 90% of the material in this gospel is unique to itself, coupled with its early acceptance by the church, argues very strongly that it was authored by some authority. This, coupled with the further fact that John was widely employed in early gnostic circles yet was not thereby abandoned by the orthodox, argues quite compellingly that all quarters recognized its authority. A work not done by an apostle would hardly have met such a reception.

Going back to Johnson's statement quoted above: it will take far more proof than Critical scholars have presented up to now to overwhelm the external proof in the testimony of the early church; and the internal evidence which I think favors John as the author of John. Certainly, his authorship isn't "inconceivable".

Dating the Gospel of John

I am not going to go into this here. I will only state that I agree with John A.T. Robinson that John pre-dates the destruction of Jerusalem - I think it was written before 64 AD; and that John did not have access to the synoptics when he wrote it. There are many arguments on this in most of the quoted pieces and the reader can draw their own conclusion. The one conclusion, however, that I believe is impossible, based on manuscript evidence from 20th century archeology, is that John was written anywhere after the 90's.

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Interlude: Lewis on Critical Scholarship

I said I would pet my peeve Pooky at the end of Part II; but my peeve runs to the question of whether modern Criticism can even begin to accumulate proofs enough to overcome the external testimony to the authorship and veracity of the New Testament books. I found an essay that says what I have felt - not surprisingly by C.S. Lewis. First, as Lewis says in "Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism" (now "Fern-seed and Elephants"):

I think his idea was that you ought to know how a certain sort of theology strikes the outsider. Though I may have nothing but misunderstandings to lay before you, you ought to know that such misunderstandings exist. That sort of thing is easy to overlook inside one's own circle. The minds you daily meet have been conditioned by the same studies and prevalent opinions as your own. That may mislead you. For of course as priests it is the outsiders you will have to cope with. You exist in the long run for no other purpose. The proper study of shepherds is sheep, not (save accidentally) other shepherds. And woe to you if you do not evangelize. I am not trying to teach my grandmother. I am a sheep, telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell them. And now I begin my bleating.

There are two sorts of outsiders: the uneducated, and those you are educated in some way but not in your own way. How you are to deal with the first class, if you hold views like Loisy's or Schweitzer's or Bultmann's or Tillich's or even Alec Vidler's, I simply don't know . . . A theology which denies the historicity of nearly everything in the Gospels to which Christian life and affections and thought have been fastened for nearly two millennia - which either denies the miraculous altogether or, more strangely, after swallowing the camel of the Resurrection strains at such gnats as the feeding of the multitudes - if offered to the uneducated man can produce only one or other of two effects. It will make him a Roman Catholic or an atheist. What you offer him he will not recognize as Christianity. If he holds to what he calls Christianity he will leave a Church in which it is no longer taught and look for one where it is. If he agrees with your version he will no longer call himself a Christian and no longer come to church . . . I claim to belong to the second group of outsiders: educated, but not theologically educated. How one member of that group feels I must now try to tell you.

His four "bleats":

1. First then, whatever these men may be as Biblical critics, I distrust them as critics. They seem to me to lack literary judgment, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading . . . These men ask me to believe they can read between the lines of the old texts; the evidence is their obvious inability to read (in any sense worth discussing) the lines themselves. They claim to see fern-seed and can't see an elephant ten yards away in broad daylight.

   He goes on to discuss criticisms by Bultmann and others. The core for John is:

   In what is already a very old commentary I read that the Fourth Gospel is regarded by one school as a 'spiritual romance', 'a poem not a history', to be judged by the same canons as Nathan's parable, the Book of Jonah, Paradise Lost 'or, more exactly, Pilgrim's Progress '. After a man has said that, why need one attend to anything else he says about any book in the world? Note that he regards Pilgrim's Progress, a story which professes to be a dream and flaunts its allegorical nature by every single proper name it uses, as the closest parallel. Note that the whole epic panoply of Milton goes for nothing. But even if we leave out the grosser absurdities and keep to Jonah, the insensitiveness is crass -- Jonah, a tale with as few even pretended historical attachments as Job, grotesque in incident and surely not without a distinct, though of course edifying, vein of typically Jewish humour. Then turn to John. Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling with his finger in the dust; the unforgettable δε νυξ (xiii, 30). I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage -- though it may no doubt contain errors -- pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read.

2. . . . the claim that the real behaviour and purpose and teaching of Christ came very rapidly to be misunderstood and misrepresented by His followers, and has been recovered or exhumed only by modern scholars . . . The idea that any man or writer should be opaque to those who lived in the same culture, spoke the same language, shared the same habitual imagery and unconscious assumptions, and yet be transparent to those who have none of these advantages, is in my opinion preposterous. There is an a priori improbability in it which almost no argument and no evidence could counterbalance.

3. . . . I find in these theologians a constant use of the principle that the miraculous does not occur. Thus any statement put into Our Lord's mouth by the old texts, which, if He had really made it, would constitute a prediction of the future, is taken to have been put in after the occurrence which it seemed to predict. This is very sensible if we start by knowing that inspired prediction can never occur. Similarly in general, the rejection as unhistorical of all passages which narrate miracles is sensible if we start by knowing that the miraculous in general never occurs. Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon 'If miraculous, unhistorical' is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in.

4. All this sort of criticism attempts to reconstruct the genesis of the texts it studies; what vanished documents each author used, when and where he wrote, with what purposes, under what influences -- the whole Sitz im Leben of the text. This is done with immense erudition and great ingenuity. And at first sight it is very convincing. I think I should be convinced by it myself, but that I carry about with me a charm – the herb moly -- against it . . . Until you come to be reviewed yourself you would never believe how little of an ordinary review is taken up by criticism in the strict sense: by evaluation, praise, or censure, of the book actually written. Most of it is taken up with imaginary histories of the process by which you wrote it . . . Reviewers, both friendly and hostile, will dash you off such histories with great confidence; will tell you what public events had directed the author's mind to this or that, what other authors had influenced him, what his over-all intention was, what sort of audience he principally addressed, why -- and when -- he did everything . . . My impression is that in the whole of my experience not one of these guesses has on any one point been right; that the method shows a record of 100 per cent failure . . . I can't remember a single hit. But as I have not kept a careful record my mere impression may be mistaken. What I think I can say with certainty is that they are usually wrong . . . Am I then venturing to compare every whipster who writes a review in a modern weekly with these great scholars who have devoted their whole lives to the detailed study of the New Testament? . . . consider with what overwhelming advantages the mere reviewers start. They reconstruct the history of a book written by someone whose mother-tongue is the same as theirs; a contemporary, educated like themselves, living in something like the same mental and spiritual climate. They have everything to help them. The superiority in judgment and diligence which you are going to attribute to the Biblical critics will have to be almost superhuman if it is to offset the fact that they are everywhere faced with customs, language, race-characteristics, a religious background, habits of composition, and basic assumptions, which no scholarship will ever enable any man now alive to know as surely and intimately and instinctively as the reviewer can know mine.

That has laid my precious pet peeve Pooky to bed. Now, on to John Part II.

[Comments are open here; but please limit them to Lewis's critique of Critical scholarship. Leave comments on the dating and authorship of the Gospels until the end of Part II]

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John or The Fourth Evangelist: Part I

[The point of this post is to draw in both Critical and Conservative Bible scholars for, particularly, a discussion of The Gospel of John. I am not such a scholar, and I am posting my view on this - based on the work of others- to kick off that discussion. Certainly, it would be nice to have a good discussion of this here - or an "elsewhere" I am looking to create]

I have a pet peeve towards folks who ascribe in some degree to Higher Critical views of the Bible. Let me define that as well as I can: I am not talking about textual, or lower, criticism, which is working hard at reconstructing, as much as possible, the original text of the Bible - very necessary and very good. I am talking about the "Higher" Criticism of the last two centuries:

Higher criticism, in particular, focuses on the sources of a document and tries to determine the authorship, date and place of composition of the text.

In particular:

Higher criticism originally referred to the work of German Biblical scholars. After the path-breaking work on the New Testament by Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834), the next generation which included scholars such as David Friedrich Strauss (1808 – 1874) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 – 1872) in the mid-nineteenth century analyzed the historical records of the Middle East from Christian and Old Testament times in search of independent confirmation of events related in the Bible. These latter scholars built on the tradition of Enlightenment and Rationalist thinkers such as John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gotthold Lessing, Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Hegel and the French rationalists.

Let me make this clear: my pet peeve isn't that folks question the authorship and authority of the Bible: I expect that from materialists and rationalists. It isn't even that folks who consider themselves followers of Christ take up some of the materialist and rationalist pre-suppositions and arguments of Higher Criticism. My pet peeve (its name is Pooky) is about the arrogance/ assumptions of some of those Christian adherents (the non-Christian ones are not the issue here) who seem to believe true scholarship rests in the Critical camp; and that Conservative scholars aren't. Examine these recent comments in threads I have been involved in: First this

Given the currently presumed dates of composition of the canonical gospels, with Mark thought to have been written some 50 years after Jesus's death, and the others somewhat after that, there are many (including me) who feel that in the interest of verisimilitude, it might be more appropriate to refer to the gospels as written by the "Markan" community, the "Matthean" community, the "Lukan" community and (especially) the "Johannine" community, each of whom wrote - rhetorically, as was all current testamentary material of the time - to express their particular understanding of the events the gospels describe, as well as the doctrinal position taken by each of these communities toward those events.

and then this

I'm willing to concede more room than many of my colleagues for 'apostolic' authorship of many contested NT texts, but it is almost inconceivable (based on internal evidence alone) that, for instance, the Fourth Gospel was written by the Beloved Disciple who was John son of Zebedee.

These are only a taste. I have bumped into this same argument, and its variations, many times with assumptions by the makers that this is "just a known fact". The first quote presents these books being written by "communities of believers", or disciples, of these authors long after the event, and the fall of Jerusalem (a very critical event in this discussion). The second quote presents it as being "almost inconceivable based on internal evidence alone" that John was written by the Apostle John. Ben, in an unquoted part of this comment, also implies that all "scholarship" supports this conclusion. However, Conservative scholars find this Critical conception inadequate to overcome the universal, and early, belief in the Apostle John as the author of John. So, are the Critical scholars true scholars and the Conservative scholars some group of anti-intellectual apologists living on beachfront property on DeNile? That is the discussion I want to start.

Dating outside The Gospel of John

First, about that "Mark thought to have been written some 50 years after Jesus's death" comment above: this is important because Mark is generally thought, by both Critical and Conservative scholars, to have been a source available used in writing Matthew and Luke; and perhaps John. So, if Mark wasn't written until the 80's - that pushes everyone else farther back. However, certainly Conservative scholars do not push Mark back that far - the conclusion of this very good review, written by Daniel Wallace of the dating issue (as well as the internal and external evidences of authorship):

In sum, Mark should be dated before the production of Luke’s gospel which we date no later than 62 CE. Sometime in the mid-50s is most probable

So, first we have Mark in the 50's (25ish years after Jesus' death), while Peter (who Mark recorded) was still alive. In scientific support, a piece of Mark was found in Qumran cave #7 - 7q5 - and is dated as pre-70 AD.

Now, Luke is dated by Conservative scholars no later than 62 AD (29 years after Jesus' death); because otherwise its companion work (which it must have proceeded), Acts, would not have mentioned Paul's final imprisonment, but not his death that came as a result. Wallace (from the Acts link below) does not find the two Critical explanations of this satisfactory:

1. He did not want to mention the trial’s outcome. The opinions put forth for this refraine are very numerous—a telling argument against them. Some argue that it would put too much emphasis on the man rather than on his mission; that it would hint at a parallel with the death of Christ, which would be inappropriate; that the readers knew the rest of the story and hence Luke did not need to go on; etc. As Guthrie remarks, “It is not sufficient, on the other hand, to propose a theory of the author’s intention without supplying an adequate motive for the intention, and it may be questioned whether this condition has been fulfilled



2. Luke intended to write a third volume. This was the view of Spitta, Zahn, Ramsey, and W. L. Knox. It is based on the use of πρῶτος in Acts 1:1—a word which, in classical Greek, indicated “first of at least three.” That it does not do so in hellenistic Greek is quite evident from the data supplied in BAGD; further that Luke does not use the superlative as a true superlative is evident from his discussion of the first census of Quirinius in Luke 2:2: scholars have had enough trouble trying to locate two censuses of Quirinius, let alone three! Further, even if Luke did use πρῶτος as a true superlative on occasion, why would he break his three-volume work here? This explanation seems a quite desperate expedient.

All in all, that Acts ends where it does is a great embarrassment to those who do not maintain a pre-64 date. Robinson, who bases much of his Redating the New Testament

[Bishop Robinson, a theological modernist whose "Honest to God" made him controversial within the Anglican communion, began this book as what he labels "a theological joke": "I thought I would see how far one could get with the hypothesis that the whole of the New Testament was written before 70", the year in which the Roman army sacked and burned the Temple of Jerusalem. As it turned out, he got much further than he had ever expected, a journey made more impressive by his lack of any predisposition toward a "conservative" point of view. - commenter at Amazon

he wrote in his work . . . that past scholarship was based on a "tyranny of unexamined assumptions" and an "almost willful blindness".]

on an early (62) date of Acts, argues ably for this view. In particular, he points out that Adolph von Harnack, “whose massive scholarship and objectivity of judgment contrast with so many who have come after him,” is still worth quoting precisely because “on this subject he was forced slowly and painfully to change his mind.” Two snippets from Harnack’s The Date of Acts will have to suffice: “Throughout eight whole chapters St. Luke keeps his readers intensely interested in the progress of the trial of St. Paul, simply that he may in the end completely disappoint them—they learn nothing of the final result of the trial!” “The more clearly we see that the trial of St. Paul, and above all his appeal to Caesar, is the chief subject of the last quarter of Acts, the more hopeless does it appear that we can explain why the narrative breaks off as it does, otherwise than by assuming that the trial had actually not yet reached its close. It is no use to struggle against this conclusion.”

However, this flies, as does Matthew, in the face of the great underlying pre-supposition of German Higher Criticism: that miracles and prophecies are impossible and therefore Jesus could not have prophesied the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD in the Olivet Discourse. In fact, it is this rationalist anti-supernaturalist presupposition that marks Higher Criticism in general; and can be seen in the theology of many scholars of the school generally. Read both "Luke: Introduction, Outline, and Argument" and its Acts counterpart for a continued discussion of the authorship and dating of Luke and Acts

Of course, if Luke can get away with the Olivet Discourse as prediction, so can Matthew. If you are a Critical scholar who operates under the presupposition that prophecy is impossible, then Matthew cannot. Again, there is scientific support for a pre-temple destruction Matthew: The Magdalen Papyrus (P64) with a piece of Matthew 26 which has been re-dated by new scientific technologies and handwriting analysis to 30-70 AD. Also, the solution to the "Synoptic problem" favored by Wallace in his pieces quoted here is that, while both Matthew and Luke had access to Mark, Matthew and Luke wrote without seeing each other's work - and therefore they believe they were written in the same period of time.

The conclusion is that Mark, Matthew, Luke and Acts were written between 55 ish AD and 62 AD; or the authors intentionally wrote them that way in order to pass them off as pre-destruction texts. This dishonesty would really make them unworthy of authority or reading; but there is no real reason to believe this about them - and no indication that any 1st or 2nd century church father viewed any of them as written by anyone but the Apostle Matthew, the doctor Luke as a companion to Paul, and John Mark as a companion to Peter.

I have looked at the three synoptic Gospels to lay the groundwork for the real point of this post: John - I think the assumptions and mistakes of Critical scholarship are highlighted better in these works because John creates more difficult problems for Conservative scholars.

And, of course, to pet my peeve Pooky. At the end of Part II we will discuss that peeve a bit more.

[Comments, BTW, will be open at the end of Part II only]

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Christian Carnival CLXVII (167) is Up

The introduction from Nerdmom at Nerd Family:

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Christian Carnival. We have received many interesting and thought provoking entries so let us jump right in!

About Christian Carnival:

Contributing a Post to the Christian Carnival

The Christian Carnival is open to Christians of Protestant, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic convictions. One of the goals of this Carnival is to offer our readers to a broad range of Christian thought.

Posts need not be of a theological topic. Posts about home life, politics, or current events, for example, written from a Christian worldview are welcome.

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Update: We also expect a level of discourse that is suitable for a Christian showcase. Thus entries may be refused if they engage in name-calling, ad hominem attacks, offensive language, or for any similar reason as judged by the administrator.

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γνῶσις or not γνῶσις

That is gnosis (knowledge) for you non-Greek writers (which, BTW, includes myself). I have had a few discussions with modern Gnostics - almost always not a productive affair. This post may continue that string.

There are things we cannot discuss well: Sacred texts and canonization are the main one. First, all ancient gnostic texts related to Christianity were pseudoepigraphic (signed in a name, Apostolic usually, not that of the writer) in order to give the work weight. Those I have talked to, as in this post, seem to believe that this was accepted practice in the canonical Biblical texts:

The small texts that mention the "antichrist" were written to attack the Gnostic understanding of who Christ was. A Gnostic relies on intuition and not on dogma and doctrine. Gnostic's were most certainly free spirits and most all of the writings we have about Gnostics, have been the attacks upon them. That all changed when the Nag Hamadi Library was translated and published, for what had been deemed heretical by those in power in the fourth century can now be read in most every language.

Biblical scholars today agree that many books of the Bible were written by others in the name of an apostle, for the quickest way to gain credibility is to trade on another's reputation. [my emphasis]

No, "liberal" (or "some" will work) Biblical scholars agree with this. Let me just say: a very specific test from the 1st century to the 4th century for canonization was actual apostolic authorship - known pseudoepigraphic works were rejected for that reason alone and should have been. As should, for that matter, the Gnostic works as well. Pseudoepigraphy was not an accepted practice in the early church - especially when it came to accepting scripture as inspired.

The second part of that statement I have problems with is the implication that the Gnostics were not declared heretical until the 4th century: one only has to read the second century Patristic fathers right after the appearance of the Gnostic works to know that is not true. There is no evidence that any large part of the Christian community ever accepted Gnostic writings as inspired or their philosophy as mainstream. You can find a few people, like Origen in Alexandria, where it was tolerated - and only when it was at distance from the center of the Church and those who had direct relationships with first Christ, and then the Apostles.

We will never agree on this because it is a critical part of the current Gnostics argument that Gnostic Christianity was an accepted view of Christianity crushed by the hierarchy two centuries later.

* * * * *

However, all that really isn't important. What is important is whether the theology of gnostic Christians has become more acceptable now than it was then. So we need to talk about what gnostics believe, and whether it does - or doesn't - conform to the Christian religion as practiced for the last 2000 years. Now, of course, the part of the quote above about "dogma and doctrine" comes into play: dogma and doctrine are only important if they conform to the reality of God and Christ - at least if you are going to be a Christian. Gnostics can believe what they will about Jesus Christ, as can Islam; but their attempts to co-opt Christ for their personal religious/philosophical structures are only Christian if they conform to what Christ taught and did. Do they?

The author of the above linked piece had one a couple of days earlier titled "Fundamentalism Is Holding Up Evolution" which presents a pretty good look at the Sermon on the Mount; and uses it to support the Gnostic notion of us being spiritual (good) beings wrapped in a material (bad) shell. It also presented two statements that I commented on:

Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved! This evolution has led them to the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount AKA:The Beatitudes which sound like crazy promises, but is the litmus test of how we will be judged, if we claim to be a Christian.

and

Being true to one's self in more important than being loyal to one's family...those who think they know the most are the most ignorant...

Also, I take exception to the use of this part of Psalm 82 in the way it was used:

1 God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers. 2 How long will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked? Selah. 3 Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. 4 Rescue weak and needy; Deliver {them} out of the hand of the wicked. 5 They do not know nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 I said, "You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High. 7 "Nevertheless you will die like men And fall like {any} one of the princes." 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth! For it is You who possesses all the nations. [she quoted the bold text]

My disagreements were (first expressed in a comment there):

I think Jesus presented the "litmus test" a little simpler (and harder):

1. Love God with your all. That is nearly an impossible task for human beings.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself. That is only a little less hard than the first

Also, I do not know where in all of Jesus's teaching you find the foundation for:

#9: "Being true to one's self in more important than being loyal to one's family...those who think they know the most are the most ignorant..."

Jesus placed God at the core of your loyalities, and folks around you - your neighbors, which includes your family - as equally important to your self (if not more important). Isn't that the implication of "poor in spirit"?

For an answer, she went to the story in Matthew 12:31-32 (also Mark 3:28-29 and Luke 12:10)

24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons." 25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 "If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 27 "If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 28 "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 "Or how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. 30 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. 31 "Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come. 33 "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. 35 "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. 36 "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. 37 "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." [she quoted the bold text]

Her explanation of "be true to yourself" was

so what I am-and JC [big yuk! from me] is saying is necessary, is NOT what you think of God the Father or the Son-but that you WAKE UP and know God is already within everyone! . . . Now, being 'true to yourself' is simply meant to become who you were created to be, to serve Gods pupose in this world, . . . To wrestle, struggle with God to discern what you were created to do in this world-and that is being true to yourself and true to God.

So, if I have her view right:

we all - every human being - were created for God's purpose and has God within themselves in the form of the Holy Spirit - Wisdom in the Gnostic view. They should be true to that god that they are (at least in potential), and evolve to higher spiritual levels, based on listening to that voice within them (properly discerned) - and be true to themselves to the extent that their self aligns to who God made them to be:

Discernment leads one to discover if one's desires are to help another or just to serve oneself. The Spirit speaks for others; the ego for itself.

That voice, that spirit, is the one called Wisdom in much of Solomon's writing - and talked about by the Gnostics by the name Sophia: Wisdom/Sophia or Christ to some resides in all of us as the Divine Spark.

She and I are actually pretty close together - and, I think, oh so far apart as well. I agree:

• that every human being is created by God imago dei (in the image of God);
• that we are all eternal spiritual beings in a temporary physical body destined to live on for eternity (we will worry about eventual bodily resurrection later on);
• that we all were created for a purpose by God, and for God's purposes;
• that we all have a core of morality that overflows from God's character. I would call that our deep conscience (synderesis) :

  According to theologians of the Middle Ages (5th century to 15th century), the conscience is divided into two parts. Synderesis (probably a misreading of suneidesis) is the faculty in human beings that knows God's moral law; this faculty remained unaffected by the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

  I think this is a direct connection to God's character and not routed through a secondary created spiritual source - like Sophia.

That is a pretty serious set of agreements. Why do I think we are "so far apart"? I do not think that our deep conscience is the Spirit of God; or at least not in the sense mentioned by Christ above in the Matthew passage; Jesus elsewhere in scripture [see "How to be Filled with the Holy Spirit" for source of this quote]

Jesus told His disciples they would receive the Holy Spirit:

John 14:16 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

John 16:7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

Jesus said the Holy Spirit’s power in their lives was essential for them to be able to live the life He intends for them

Luke 24:49 "And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

Acts 1:8 "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

or the one that descended on believers at the Pentacost. It is obvious to me that while our deep conscience forms a general revelation to the whole human race from its Creator in Whose image it was made; the Holy Spirit on the New Testament is a higher level of indwelling, and revelation, promised - as far as scripture says - only to believers in Christ so that His presence can remain with us forever. There is no way that any of the scripture in this post up to now can be made to support the indwelling of all people by that higher source of revelation - the Holy Spirit.

Even if I was going to grant that every human being has that higher revelation within them, the author's explanation - while satisfying many of my objections - still doesn't get me to "being true to one self". My objection stands: the core test of Christianity is not the Kingdom character outlined by Christ in the beatitudes; but the Great Commandment:

Mark 12:30 “ ‘and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength’ “ [Deuteronomy 6:5] 31 The second is this, `You shall love your neighbor as yourself ' [Leviticus 19:18]. There is no other commandment greater than these."

All really means all, and while the author's sketch of spiritual development may be correct - it comes from focusing on God and bringing His power to transform us into our lives. We will never become so transformed that we can place our selfs, and being true to ourselves, at the center of our focus. It must be 100% God 100% of the time (an impossible feat. by the way, in my opinion); and, as a Trinitarian Christian, on the Person of Christ, in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit:

“There is no such thing as a once-for-all fullness [we leak]. It is a continuous appropriation of a continuous supply from the Lord Christ Himself. It is a moment-by-moment faith in a moment-by-moment Savior, for a moment-by-moment cleansing and a moment-by-moment filling. As I trust Him, He fills me; the moment I begin to believe, that moment I begin to receive; and as long as I keep believing, praise the Lord, so long I keep receiving.” Charles Inwood

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Weekly Tour: 3/26/07

As I cruised some favorite places on my first day off - what did I find interesting:

• At Evangelical Outpost is "Thirty-three Things (v.4)" with these individual items that caught my eye:
  
  
  • "Why and How to Debate Charitably"

    … when things really break down, it’s when the respondent sees possible implications and assigns them too-high probabilities and then fails to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt when they disclaim those assertions. Often, it’s because the respondent is unaware that the implied assertion is not actually explicit in the speaker’s words. The respondent is so ideologically separated from the speaker, and often unfamiliar with (or, worse, dismissive of) of the subtleties and variations of different positions similar to the speaker’s that they’re not familiar with, that they’ll obstinately group the speaker’s explicit positions with a wide array of other positions perceived to be similar, but that the speaker never explicitly stated (or even implied with a probability higher than 60%). And when this happens, communication becomes much more difficult.

    A very big - and personality experienced - "Yep". His rules:
    
    
    1. The Golden rule. He says this is the central rule that sums up the rest:

       Treat the person’s position as if it were your own. First, make sure you understand the argument. Then go about trying to see how you would disprove it to yourself. Then, walk step by step with the person through your rebuttal, and see where the arguments you use against their position fail to have the same effect on them (and why). Charity is about empathy

       That is a great process.
    
    
    
    2. You cannot read minds.
    3. People are not evil.
    4. Debates are not for winning.
    5. You make mistakes.
    6. Not everyone cares as much as you.
    7. Engaging is hard work.
    8. Differences can be subtle.
    9. Give up quietly.
  
  
  • A must read for parents: "How to Raise a Pharisee"
  
  
  

  • Tired of the partisanship of the early 21st century? Family-friendly? Look into the family-friendly agenda of the radical middle, with folks from the Left (Matthew Miller, Michael Lind, Phillip Longman) and the Right (Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru, David Brooks) finding common ground.

  • A nice interview with N.T. Wright: "Mere Mission":

    CT: One of Lewis's classic maneuvers is this: Jesus said he was God, and you either believe that or that he was a madman on the level of someone who thinks he is a poached egg. It's a powerful argument that has had a strong effect on a lot of people, but modern source criticism of the Bible has undermined the idea that Jesus claimed to be God.
    
    Wright: My major work has been designed to refute the wilder claims made by some so-called historical critical scholarship. Because now we see only too clearly that the whole historical critical movement was not, as it tried to claim, a neutral, objective, scientific account of the Gospels. It had its own agendas that were heavily driven by the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The movement really started out with the assumption that if there is a God, this God does not intervene in human affairs. In other words, the Enlightenment has already settled Lewis's question one way. It has decided that any Jesus who said John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," would be completely out of his skull. Therefore, Jesus couldn't have said it, because we know he was a good man and we want to follow him for other reasons. It becomes a circular argument. Lewis breaks into the circle by simply ignoring the critical possibility.

  • Please read "Conscience, Calling, and the Christian Conservative Agenda". Incidentally, while I agree with almost all of the article - and especially it's core message about calling - this I do not agree with (re: gay marriage)

    Additionally, if we fail in our efforts to preserve marriage, society will unravel.

    Now, I am assuming that the author believes that opposing gay marriage is necessary to preserve non-gay marriage. If so, I think that this is wrong. What will preserve marriage (and keep society from unraveling) is for men and women to submit to God in their marriages: let's worry about adultery and pornography (which is adultery), selfishness, and rejection of biblical teaching on how husbands and wives should treat each other as a starting point. Whether one part of 10% (max) of the population marries another part of that 10% is not nearly as important as the 50% of married Christian men who struggle with pornography - an issue that not nearly enough of our churches are providing support for and healing from.


• Mohammed at Iraq the Model makes a case for Iraq being "The Real Front in the War on Terror"

  I wanted to talk about this because recently we've been watching the debate in America about redeployment of troops and identifying the real front we must focus on. I see that al-Qaeda and terrorists in general didn't hide their position in this respect—despite the fact that they still operate in many parts of the world, they are clearly redirecting most effort and resources to the war in Iraq. The war here has a lot that to do with drawing the future prospects of spreading religious extremism and this in turn is connected to the agendas of countries that have mutual goals with al-Qaeda in spite of the difference in ideology. This collaboration is complex but it clearly shows the priorities of the terrorists and rogue regimes and in turn suggests what our strategic priorities should be … Al-Qaeda and its supporters are using most of the capabilities of their propaganda machine to cover their effort in Iraq, and so is the case with financial resources. All evidences indicate that most of the money is used to support the terror activity in Iraq … But why Iraq became the main front?

  Go and read on



• Jeremy Pierce is discussing the (philosophical) issues of "Freedom and Determinism: Possible Views" - the 40th post in his "Theories of Knowledge and Reality Series"



• WorldMagBlog:
  
  
  • points out the discussion of John Edwards staying in the Presidential race despite the return of his wife's incurable cancer. I am not so much interested from a politics standpoint: read this interview, and tell me what you think. Myself: if Elizabeth Edwards believes that this is an important way for her to spend what may be the last of her life and believes her husband should run - I have no problem. My regret is that this decision is going to become political fodder on both sides of the campaign.
  
  
  
  • I have a brother in Christ in this position; but luckily he isn't "Struggling Alone":

    Is there any student more alienated or marginalized on campus than one who experiences same-sex attractions but who doesn’t embrace them? Silence is forced upon him, and his entire life experience is discounted: He suffers same-sex attractions, he doesn’t want to, and he seeks to be made whole again. This doesn’t seem so extreme a narrative, and yet there are very few, if any, campus groups devoted to supporting these students.
    
    While listening to Chris, I grew angrier and angrier about our troubled culture, the sexual chaos our parents’ generation bequeathed us, the lack of support the Church provides, and the hostile environment the university maintains. Gradually, however, my anger gave way to sadness. A sadness that Chris struggles almost alone. A sadness that others like him have no one to turn to. A sadness that universities deliberately reject chaste students with same-sex attractions. In the end, though, I found myself feeling grateful. Grateful for knowing Chris. Grateful for the chance to see him carry a cross he did not choose. Offering up his daily struggles, he strives for holiness, refuses surrender, and resists temptations. He labors to remedy the unwanted causes and side effects of attractions he never desired, aware all the while that a cure isn’t certain, that in this fallen world some disorders may always be with us.
    
    I am witnessing my friend’s unique path to holiness: a remarkable instance of grace working through a broken earthly vessel, making all things new, and leading to fullness of life. I think how blessed I am that I’ve been fortunate enough to witness it and find inspiration for my life in his struggles. How sad, though, that the rest of the world will never know.

    I am not going to get into the "nuture vs nature" debate here; but there are folks who have same-sex attractions who honestly and deeply do not want them (think Ted Haggard as well). It seems that they are often caught between a condemning church (for having the attraction) and a large chunk of society condemning them for not just going with the attractions
  
  
  
  • "Free speech" (or not!) on campuses:

    Much campus censorship rests on philosophical underpinnings that go back to social theorist Herbert Marcuse, a hero to sixties radicals. Marcuse argued that traditional tolerance is repressive—it wards off reform by making the status quo...well, tolerable. Marcuse favored intolerance of established and conservative views, with tolerance offered only to the opinions of the oppressed, radicals, subversives, and other outsiders. Indoctrination of students and “deeply pervasive” censorship of others would be necessary, starting on the campuses and fanning out from there.

    Whether this view is that philosophically organized, or can be traced to Marcuse, I cannot affirm or deny - but that there is intolerance among those that consider themselves "progressive" to "established and conservative views" is undoubted by me.

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Christian Carnival CLXVI (166) is up

The introduction from Dory at The Wittenburg Gate :

Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival, a showcase of Christian thought in the blogosphere. Christian writers are invited to submit their best posts from the last week. If you would like to participate in or host future Christian Carnivals, please refer to our guidelines.

What did I like this week

• "Behold … Can, Worms, and the Lid Ajar" where Mark Olson

  attempt[s] to engage others in a modern discussion on race and gender, seen through the lens of Patristic Theological thought.

• Martin: "What I believe about origins" from a retired university science teacher.
• Jeremy takes on the myth that "inerrancy" is a relatively new doctrine with "Historical Inerrantists"
• This was not in the carnival; but I got to it from somebody's blog: Dan Edelen is a little miffed (as I am) about the ignoring of the third person of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit - and talks about it in "The Holy Who?"

  Ask yourselves how the Church grew from a couple hundred disciples at Pentecost to around 20-25 million adherents by the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Most people couldn’t read, no NT canon existed, the Gentiles had passing references to the Scriptures, persecution of Christians flourished, Christians didn’t meet in megachurches, and yet Christianity flourished. How?
  
  Not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit!
  
  How is that we’ve forgotten this? Worse, how is it that we’ve forgotten the Third Person of the Trinity altogether?

  That is a good question

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Are Evangelicals "Owned" Politically?

As implied in my "Ok, Back to Blogging Here" post I have been getting my political "ya-ya's" out mainly as the loyal opposition at Street Prophets - a decidedly "progressive" blog; and now my political blogging will come here. I put the scare quotes around progressive because I am not willing to give liberals that word. If being progressive is what moves progress forward, then flying in the face of a sovereign God is not progressive. In fact, as C.S. Lewis said, if we are going down the wrong road the most progressive thing is to turn around and go back to where we got it wrong and start another direction - not to continue forward hoping things improve.

Now, Street Prophets is still a place I cruise through; and I value, if not always agree with, the prime moderator/founder's (Pastordan) opinions. Anyone with half a political brain realizes that the Republican Party is in disarray: its major wings are not unified; and politically and theologically conservative Christians - who have been one of its major bases - are no longer in love with the party. Frankly, I think liberal Democrats have always misjudged our allegiance to the Republican Party - or I hope so.

I hope so because Christians should not identify with any secular political ideology or group - we are the Body of Christ. Our allegiance is to the Kingdom of God and not the Republicans or the Democratics; and we are loyal to the Gospel and not secular conservatism or secular liberalism. Whether Christians see themselves as liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat - they need to understand what J. Budziszewski points out in "The Problem With Conservatism":

From time to time Christians may find themselves in tactical alliance with conservatives, just as with liberals, over particular policies, precepts, and laws. But they cannot be in strategic alliance, because their reasons for these stands are different; they are living in a different vision. For our allies’ sake as well as our own, it behooves us to remember the difference. We do not need another Social Gospel - just the Gospel.

Politically-involved Christians (which I believe we are all required to be) need to read that essay as well as its companion - "The Problem With Liberalism" - because we need to examine our political views in the light of the Gospel. We need to understand the Kingdom reasons we would enter into temporary tactical alliances with secular political forces.

This post got started, and the title came from, reading two posts by Pastordan at Street Prophets called "The Evangelical Vote"

It’s no accident that some of the biggest proponents of beyondism these days are folks who believe that at least some socially conservative evangelicals can be induced to switch party affiliations, from Republican to Democrat.

The thinking goes that if progressive politicians would only mute their stances on abortion and homosexuality, evangelicals would line up with their proper economic interests in the Democratic fold. Butta-boom, butta-bing, third way politics!

I honestly don’t know what drives this thinking beyond tantalizing personal experience. I’ve met a few conservative evangelicals who seem to be on the same page as myself economically or on the war in Iraq. Some of them even seem to be quite a bit more socially progressive than their church affiliation would indicate. It’s great to talk to them, and it’s great to think that they could be progressives some day – but then they go into the voting booth and pull the lever for Republicans just like they’ve always done.

and (should have linked this first probably) "Beyondism":

I think it was David Brooks who coined, years ago, the term "beyondist." A beyondist is someone who urges us to get beyond left/right distinctions, beyond partisan politics, beyond the stymied options of the day . . .

But as Bottum says, the condition for this transcendent bliss beyond politics always seems to be that one’s opponents finally stops being an idiot and comes around to agree with everything you’ve been saying all along . . .

I kinda agree here, but then this

Most religious commentors on politics seem to agree with Wallis that there’s the liberal way, the conservative way, and God’s way. I’d scratch the third. If God has a chosen political stance or method, he so far has not seen fit to share it with us.

This I do not agree with. While God would neither join the Democrats or Republicans - nor call Himself a secular liberal or conservative - I believe He very much speaks to us about all issues including our political stances. Of course, we are required to listen, comprehend, and obey - the big feats for a Christian indeed. I often wonder, since God wants us to be salt and light to a fallen world, whether God actually leads us to positions in both the liberal and conservative camps just so the work of His Kingdom can move forward everywhere (hey, look at the name of the blog)

Even Pastordan isn't really being completely honest here - his faith, and God, inform his politics everyday. He believes God indeed speaks to him on political matters. He no more separates his secular politics from his religious beliefs than I do. It is one reason I love him even though we disagree most of the time politically. We may all have to involve ourselves in the politics of the fallen world; but the "third way" is to seek God in that and not allow our political identities to overwealm our identity in Christ.

However, back to his point: Are theologically conservative Evangelicals owned by the Republican Party? Are the only issues we are concerned about abortion (Joe Carter says "yes" to this issue - well actually bioethics in general) and homosexuality? Not to say our solutions to other issues would align with those of liberals; but are we unconcerned about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless? Are the environment, the war in Iraq, and use of torture by our government unimportant issues - or do we simply disagree on the solutions? Have we taken the time to examine these issues Biblically and theologically? My answer is "yes" - evangelicals as a group have thought about these issues and these issues are important.

Are we "owned" by the Republican Party? This is not the evangelical church I am part of - but what do you think?

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Back to Touring

What did I find fascinating at my "usual haunts" this week:

Iraq

• While I did not support the invasion of Iraq four years ago (and really still do not believe it was just), much of the argument about the war ignores the real history. Joe Carter brings us back to the beginning on this anniversary with "Ten Things We've Forgotten About the Iraq War". Point one of the ten are the official reasons for the war, according to H.J.Res.114:

  Continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability (false); actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability (true); supporting and harboring terrorist organizations (true); continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population (true); refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq (true); failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait (true); demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people (true); attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush (true); firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces (true); harbored members of al-Qaeda (true); continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations (true).

  The rest of Joe's post is important for those who really want to work through an understanding of the war; and while some of the comments to the post show that desire, most do not.

However, I do not think we can leave until there is a stable government, and a capable army - or it is obvious there will not be one. The first part is still more likely, in my opinion, than the last:


• A few places are talking about the al-Qaeda chlorine gas suicide bombing in Anbar province against the Sunni tribal chiefs, and the war that just broke out. One of those is Iraq the Model with
  • "Tribes and police kill 39 terrorists in Anbar"; and
  • "One thing al-Qaeda excels at; making new enemies."


• The "surge" seems to be going well: "Why it's Working ..."

  What tactics are working? "We got down at the people level and are staying," he said flatly. "Once the people know we are going to be around, then all kinds of things start to happen."
  
  More intelligence, for example. Where once tactical units were "scraping" for intelligence information, they now have "information overload," the general said. "After our guys are in the neighborhood for four or five days, the people realize they're not going to just leave them like we did in the past. Then they begin to come in with so much information on the enemy that we can't process it fast enough."

Actually, I will leave it at Iraq. If someone wants to go read three weeks of Christian Carnival links, and some of my stuff from Street Prophets, that should keep folks busy.

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What Do We Fear?

I cruised by The Jesus Creed today and found a post from the 15th that I came late for. The title of the essay is "Letters to Emerging Christians" by Scot McKnight. He responds to a question by Holly:

What a fascinating question. You are taking a sociology class, your professor says what people fear the most tells you most about them, and you and your friend begin to discuss what fear drives the “Liberal churches, the Evangelical churches, and the Emerging churches.” And you want me to weigh in the greatest fear of each. Great one . . .

These are, BTW, theological categories and not political ones. Scot's answers:

• One of the cardinal virtues of Liberals is tolerance and that means intolerance is intolerable . . . Which all means that Liberals are most fearful of Traditionalists and Evangelicals with upper-case “T” and “E.” Why? Because they fix firm boundaries on how far tolerance can be extended, and at the same time they say “some things are just wrong.” Now it is also clear that we can’t be simplistic here: Liberals think some things are wrong and when conservatives say they are moral relativists I’m willing to bet that conservatives can’t really find a pure relativist. At least not among Liberals — for a Liberal doesn’t relativize freedom. But, they do fear the inflexibility of Tradition.


• Evangelicals, on the other hand, are most fearful of change to the core of what is perceived as central to their faith. By nature, Evangelicals are Conservatives — some with an upper-case “C” and some not (that’s a big difference but I’ll not go there now) — and they are Traditionalists . . . When it comes down to it, change is a major, major fear for Evangelicals.


• The emerging movement, no matter how many times I say this it doesn’t seem to convince many, is not a movement rooted in a set of doctrines. It is theological, but not the way either Liberalism or Evangelicalism are. It’s biggest fear is centralization of power and authority.

I cannot argue with these answers from what I know. However, I think there is a more central fear that we all are motivated from; and different theological responses react to differently. My comment (#96) was (in the quotes - the main text expands on my comment):

If C.S. Lewis is right and evil comes in pairs of errors (and Satan does not care which one we flee to) - then to me the two errors (the ditches on the side of the narrow road) are license and legalism: theologically liberal Christians err to the former; fundamentalists, and to a lessor degree, evangelicals err to the latter (I am, for full disclosure, very much an evangelical).

To me, what is in the middle they are both running from is obedience to a real living God. Take for the proposition that we are indwelt by a God that has a plan for us - what Americans fear most is losing their freedom and giving up control to someone else: being a puppet - even to God.

For evangelicalism, this meant for a number of years rejecting the ministry of the Holy Spirit to a degree and denying that there is continuing revelation. If there is continuing revelation, then you might have to get quiet in front of God; listen to what He says; and then actually do it. Why, He might make you sell everything and go to Africa as a missionary. Instead, we turn the Bible into a rulebook; and rather than follow the Holy Spirit in our lives - we try to do the right thing. We deny the power of Grace, and His leadership, in our lives and try to live by rules - rules defined in scripture; and not the voice of a real living God

For more of a discussion of the above, see "How to Hear God Speak"

For the theologically liberal (or at least a chunk of liberal theologians), they reject the action of God in this world at all: God does not reach into, and act, in His creation. They talk about continuing revelation; but that is revelation from the community of believers - not from a living God. That community, in consensus, determines what God really is. Love for each other is everything. Grace abounds, and rules do not. The true theologians will tell you God is not going to tell you anything except through that community of other believers. Again, you do not have to worry that God is going to tell you to sell everything and move to Africa. [This ends my comment at Scot's place]

From German "higher criticism" to the Jesus Seminar we are seeing a movement to a deist God - one where miracles and the metaphysical are dropped in the face of the "rationality" of modern culture. God does not "take a hand" in this world; and only the community of believers determines his desires [in a sense, the Body of Christ - free of its Head - becomes Christ]; and, if you do not like what the community says about your personal view of God - you can go find one that does. Even the resurrection is turned into mythology whose importance is in its lessons, and not in its actual occurance.

However, liberal theologians who object to the resurrection as a real event in real history fly in the face of a truly rational view of the historical record; which, as N.T. Wright points out:

. . . brings us to the point where we must say that the tomb previously housing a thoroughly dead Jesus was empty, and that his followers saw and met someone they were convinced was this same Jesus, bodily alive though in a new, transformed fashion. The empty tomb on the one hand and the convincing appearances of Jesus on the other are the two conclusions the historian must draw.

I propose that, at heart, they fear a God that they are required to obey when He speaks; and that is because they do not wish to give up control to that real living, and Risen, God. By reducing the Bible to interesting stories and myths (and not a revelation from God), and Christ to an great, but unrisen, moral teacher - you remove their authority to direct and lead you.

If Scot is right, and the emerging church also fears authority - I do not think that falls outside this analysis. This fear of authority also laces the theological differences: from the plethora of denominations, congregations, and theological stances; to the stripping of the authority of scripture and Christ. Humans want control and they fear submission to community, church authority, Christ and the Holy Spirit - and, ultimately, God. So, I think the central fear of Christians that drives our theological divisions (leading to both personal, and corporate, license and legalism) is:

We all fear giving up control to a real, living God

Or, maybe deeper than that, that there is no God to obey. We then substitute the Bible, or our own conception of God and Christ, for the real thing.

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OK, Back to Blogging Here

I have spent a lot of time at Street Prophets being the fringe evangelical in the community; and that has affected by writing here:

• First, since almost everything I posted here was cross-posted to there (or vice-versa) - there were topics I avoided entirely since they were not appropriate there. There were also things that were posted there that never made it here.


• Second, I spent a lot of time in comments sections chatting over there. That is not a bad thing, but it was time-intensive.

I do not have the time to post and chat here and there, help plant my church, and participate in my FMO group and my church community group - while working and being a husband/father. While I enjoyed the online community at Street Prophets I have to narrow my focus somewhat.

The good, or bad, news is that I am going to focus here. I want to post more often, and complete some series that I started and have never finished. I also intend to start some new ones. Right now, I am going to do some catch-up:

• Christian Carnivals. There are some great posts in these carnivals that are worth catching up on and reading. I will be better about linking these weekly:
  • CLXIII (163) at Chasing the Wind
  • CLXIV (164) at everyday liturgy
  • CLXV (165) at Pseudo-Polymath


• My posts at Street Prophets never crossposted here:
  
  
  • "A 'Fill in the Blank' Tour"
  • "John Edwards at Beliefnet"
  • "Iran in Iraq"
  • "Secularism vs Pluralism"
  
  Mostly, I left political stuff there - and now it is linked here.

I plan to now focus here. Some upcoming stuff:

• I am going to keep posting the questions from The Life You Always Wanted and maybe get them journaled online
• I may actually finish the last post in the "The Natural Law Series"
• I recieved my first free book as a blogger - The Listening Heart, by A.J. Conyers - and I am going to do a review/series on this book. I can tell you now that I recommend reading it:

  In a stunning insight, Conyers shows that the quintessential institution of modernity is slavery, for the slave is the ultimate autonomous individual. Stripped of every human tie, he belongs to no community but to a stranger. It is no accident, then, that the rise of modern slavery coincided with the Enlightenment itself.

  It has been a fascinating, and difficult, book for me - and I may have to read it twice before I can speak rationally about it.

Anyway, I am going to focus here now.

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