Christian Leaders and Politics

This could broaden the discussion on the intersection of politics and faith. Here is the (start of I hope) a dialogue between Dr. David Gushee and Joe Carter. A little background on the players in the following diary.

Dr. David Gushee is involved with Evangelicals for Human Rights, an organization that has called on President Bush to end practices it believes crosses the line into torture. He is/was involved with the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity (CBHD) where he gave his working definition of the "sanctity of life":

The concept of the sanctity of life is the belief that all human beings, at any and every stage of life, in any and every state of consciousness or self-awareness, of any and every race, color, ethnicity, level of intelligence, religion, language, gender, character, behavior, physical ability/disability, potential, class, social status, etc., of any and every particular quality of relationship to the viewing subject, are to be perceived as persons of equal and immeasurable worth and of inviolable dignity and therefore must be treated in a manner commensurate with this moral status. [I think this is an incredible definition]

Joe Carter has a blog - Evangelical Outpost - which is arguably the biggest of the Evangelical blogs. Joe has said he is a "single issue voter" when it comes to abortion; and worked at the CBHD before he took his present job at Family Research Council. He also came out in opposition to torture.

These guys worked together, and do not disagree on two issues that are touchstones on the left and right: torture and abortion. Both have been politically active on these issues. The main thread is David Gushee's proposed rules of political engagement posted at David's blog Counter Culture. The block quotes are Joe Carter's comments on the points. Italics are me.

1. Christian leaders must not officially or unofficially endorse political candidates or a political party.

   This legalistic rule could lead to results that are absurd and or un-Christian. For instance, should ministers in 1930s-era Germany have avoided showing approval or support of the republican political parties that were running against the Nazis?

   Someone pointed out in the comments at EO that we are not 1932 Germany, yet some on the left have placed the need to remove the Republicans on this kind of level; as some on the right have implied the same about electing Democrats - folks on both ends seem to think civilization as we know it rests on the next election (in nearly every election)



2. Christian leaders must not distribute essentially partisan or single-issue voter guides that purport to be apolitical or nonpartisan.

   One of the qualities I admire most about Dr. Gushee is his commitment to the sanctity of life. So it seems odd that he thinks that National Right to Life shouldn’t be able to distribute voter guides on this "single-issue." Shouldn't Christian choose to support candidates who will uphold what Gushee considers to be a "moral conviction?" What would be the reason for such a prohibition?



3. Christian leaders must not publicly handicap or comment upon the political horse race.

   Conversation between a congregant and her pastor (c. 1932):
   Congregant: "Herr Bonhoffer, what do you think about the Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party."
   Pastor: "I cannot speak of such matters, for it would be imprudent for a minister of the Gospel to comment on this particular political horse race."



4. Christian leaders must not provide private or public advice to particular politicians, parties, or campaigns concerning how they can strategize in order to win evangelical or Christian votes.

   If this rule is a prohibition against providing Machiavellian advice, I'm in agreement. But I see nothing out of line with providing prudent counsel on politicians, parties, or campaigns on how best to appeal to a group of their constituents. I see nothing untoward, in saying, "If the GOP is stupid enough to nominate a pro-choice candidate in '08, then they should expect evangelicals to abandon their support for the party."

   Up to now, I think Joe has asked some incisive questions that will spur debate; and here he misses the point. Gushee doesn't think Evangelicals should be "on board" with the Republican Party (or the Democrats) so why would he advise the GOP on keeping us from not supporting the party. How can we abandon that which we are only in tactical, and not strategic, alliance with?



5. Christian leaders must not calibrate their public teachings or writings in order to affect the outcome of political elections or to gain and hold the support of politicians.

   Again, this rule would be dependent on context. For example, if the Sunday before an election a Catholic priest were to remind his congregation that to vote supporter of abortion would be a sin, he should be commended -- even if it might prevent the pro-abortion candidate from gaining office.



6. Christian leaders must not attend political rallies or campaign events of one candidate or party unless they are prepared to attend rallies and events of all candidates and parties.

   Should Abraham Kuyper, founder of the Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands, have attended the rallies of the Socialist parties, groups that he considered a threat to the Christian worldview? Why should Kuyper--or any other Christian--attend a rally for a group whose views are antithetical to their beliefs?
   And how far do we carry this principle? Should Republicans attend Green Party debates? Should Democrats sit in on Communist rallies?

   Again, I think Joe misses the point - Gushee doesn't think Christian leaders should be attending rallies of political parties. Also, this is a two-party country right now - let's leave this to the Democrats and Republicans for now (perhaps the Constitution Party on the right and the Green's on the left if you must broaden



7. Christian leaders must not invite political candidates to speak in church pulpits or on church grounds unless they are prepared to invite all political candidates of all parties to do so.

   Legally speaking, this is already a requirement. Morally speaking, there is no reason why a church should be required to give "equal time" to political candidates who hold positions that they find repugnant.
   



8. Christian leaders must not identify the potential or actual victory of any politician as a victory for God or God’s kingdom.

   Admittedly, it might be presumptuous for a Christian leader to claim to know whether an electoral victory is a victory for God's kingdom. But it is also presumptuous for a Christian leader (in this case, Dr. Gushee) to make a blanket prohibition about what others might know about God or his kingdom.

   Sorry Joe, have to go with Gushee here for sure.



9. Christian leaders must limit their direct contact with politicians or staff in order to avoid even the appearance of undue loyalty or involvement.

   This presumes that loyalty and involvement are things that must always be avoided. Last year Dr. Gushee wrote:

   President Bush’s veto on Wednesday of any change in his stem cell research policy was derided by many as a sop to his conservative base. But the price that the president and his party are sure to pay for this decision leads me to the conclusion that, whatever the politics of the move, the president actually has been persuaded by the moral argument against embryonic stem cell harvesting

   What if it was a "Christian leader" that had provided the persuasive moral argument that had convinced Bush of this grievous harm? Would they have been acting unethically since that level of familiarity and contact could have been construed as "undue involvement?"

   Certainly, that same argument could be made about a candidate's position on Iraq, feeding the poor, rebuilding New Orleans, or support for gay marriage. Are we really going to cut politicians off from their spiritual advisors if those advisors are also Christian leaders?



10. Christian leaders must not engage in voter registration campaigns or get out the vote efforts aimed at mobilizing the voters of one political party rather than another.

    Why not? Should abolitionists not have mobilized voters in an effort to end the great sin of slavery? Should '50s-era civil rights leaders not have engaged in voter registration campaigns since it might have led people to vote against pro-segregation candidates?



11. Christian leaders must not direct the funds of their churches or organizations toward direct or indirect support for a particular political candidate or party.

    In practice, I would tend to agree, though I wouldn't make this a moral absolute. While following this rule would certainly be wise here in America, there might be instances where it would be more prudent to directly fund a candidate who faced a corrupt or evil party organization.

    I would be more morally absolute here. When I give money to my church it is for the church and its ministries. If someone wants me to fund a candidate who faces a corrupt and evil party organization they should approach me for a separate donation



12. Christian leaders may not sidestep these rules by drawing a distinction between their activities as a “private individual” over against their service in their public role.

    Let's combine #1 and #12:

    1. Christian leaders must not officially or unofficially endorse political candidates or a political party.
    
    
    2. Christian leaders may not make a distinction between their activities as a “private individual” and their public role.
    3. Voting in an election is a form of official endorsement of a political candidate.
    
    
    4. Voting in an election is a form of official endorsement of a political candidate. [oops] Therefore, Christian leaders must not vote in elections.

    
    If applied consistently, the logical conclusion would be the Christian leaders should not vote or do anything else that they would be prohibited to do in their "official" capacity.

    The problem with this logic chain is #3: endorsement must imply that someone else know your vote; and really that a lot of people know your vote - and before the polls close. A secret ballot does not constitute endorsement either official or unofficial. Joe has given some good arguments above about why Christian leaders left and right might support issues and candidates - this isn’t one of them.



13. Christian leaders must offer Christian proclamation related to that large number of public issues that are clearly addressed by biblical principles or direct biblical teaching.

    Here is where Dr. Gushee's reasoning goes completely off the rails. For example, biblical principles would warrant the protection of innocent life, the prohibition of abortion, and the denial of the legitimacy of homosexual behavior, including the manufacturing of "gay rights." To offer Christian proclamations on these issues, however, would directly conflict with the official position of the DNC and/or specific Democratic candidates.

    As the proclamations both Joe and Gushee have made against the use of torture might affect Republican ones. So what? We cannot be silent on issues for Christ's sake (that was serious and not in vain) - and that falls where it falls on parties and candidates. This ability to speak openly and loudly on issues mitigates some of the problems above about opposing evil organizations and candidates



14. Christian leaders must encourage Christian people toward active citizenship, including studying the issues and the candidates and testing policy stances and candidates according to biblical criteria.

    Again, this rule could directly conflict with many of the others on this list.

    I do not see why.



15. Christian leaders must model and encourage respectful and civil discourse related to significant public issues as well as political candidates.

    Finally, a point on which we can completely agree.



16. Christian leaders must model and encourage prayer for God-ordained government, its leaders, and their policies.

    Amen.



17. Christian leaders must teach and model respect for the constitutional relationship between religion and the state as these are spelled out in the First Amendment.

    Based on whose understanding of the First Amendment? My interpretation differs from Christian leaders of various stripes, including David Barton, founder of WallBuilders, and the Rev. Barry Lynn, president of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Whose interpretation should we teach and model?

There you have it — seventeen rules for Christians and politics. Who will offer some revisions? Who will come up with the other three to make it an even twenty? Who will join me in committing themselves to these rules for the 2008 election?

While Dr. Gushee's intentions are noble, the last thing we need in the electoral process is legalistic rules that transform conscience-driven politics into political correctness.

[End dialogue]

In discussing this, do not get bogged down in Joe's opposition to abortion as a key to his criticisms - it might just as well have been the war in Iraq, torture, or any number of issues.

What do you think of these rules for - please note - Christian leaders (as opposed to Christians in general). Incidentally, I disagree with Joe - Christian bloggers are not Christian leaders for the sake of my definition.

Enjoy.

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Everybody is All a Vitter About Hypocrisy

Pastordan at Street Prophets talked about the theologically conservative Christian view of the Vitter scandal. A couple of folks I read a lot have chatted on the subject, and I thought y'all might like to hear what my ilk herd is saying. The first is Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost: "Larry Flynt vs. David Vitter: Examining the Difference Between Hypocrisy and Moral Inconsistency". A couple of points he made that I find interesting:

Indeed, the American Heritage Dictionary defines hypocrisy as "The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness." The British literary critic William Hazlitt once explained, “He is a hypocrite who professes what he does not believe; not he who does not practice all he wishes or approves”

By all appearances Sen. Vitter does indeed believe in such "family values" as marital fidelity. Where he has failed is in behaving in a way that comports with those values; a matter not of hypocrisy but of moral inconsistency. Such consistency is essential--particularly for democratically elected representatives--for establishing and maintaining trust. This is why private behavior has such public implications. The marital infidelity of a legislator, for example, is strong signal that they are untrustworthy: If a man cannot be trusted to keep a sacred vow to an intimate, how can I trust him to keep his word to me, a stranger?

What we desire in a representative is that they be a person of integrity--that their character be a morally consistent whole. A person who is free of contradictory ethical impulses and actions is likely to behave in a manner that is trustworthy. Even if we disagree with their views, we can deduce how they will act and make our judgments about them accordingly.

This is why both Vitter and Flynt agree about the significance of integrity. What separates the two men (besides the fact that Vitter is a man of weak character while Flynt is a despicable pervert) is where they put the emphasis on this trait.

I could post the whole post - but go read it; because the difference he posits between Flynt and Vitter is whether they believe there is anything objectively immoral, or whether all morality is subjective and internal.

The next guy to weigh in is Jeremy Pierce at Parableman with his take on the "Hypocrisy" in this story. There are not particular money quotes in the post, but it to is worthy of a read. He, in talking about moral inconsistency, pointed out a whole 'nother issue brought up by a third place I read: the conservative (ala the law) Volokh Conspiracy quoting Ann Althouse:

I hate seeing people publicly humiliated for the sexual things they do in private. But the government is criminally prosecuting a woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, for what it says was a prostitution ring. These are federal charges, and the senator, David Vitter, has some responsibility for the laws that make this prosecution possible.

Vitter situates his misdeed in the realm of religion and private morality: ... "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling... Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them...." ...

Palfrey can't say God has forgiven her and walk free. In fact, Vitter's statement hurts Palfrey because it strongly implies that Palfrey was doing what she's accused of. Vitter's confession -- intended to move us to mercy -- links him to criminal activity, but only she is facing criminal punishment.... It's not a matter to be resolved within the realm of church and family as long as Palfrey is being prosecuted.

Is there objective immorality, or are morals subjective and internal?

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Need a Laugh?

One of my work managers is a Christian, and after I showed him this video - he forwarded me this email.

Church Bulletins:
Thank God for the church ladies who type them. These sentences actually appeared in church buUetins or were announced in church services:

• The Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.
  
• The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
  
• Our youth basketball team is back in action Wednesday at 8 PM in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.
  
• Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
  
• The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
  
• Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
  
• Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
  
• Miss Charlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
  
• For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
  
• Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
  
• The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing: "Break Forth Into Joy."
  
• Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
  
• A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
  
• At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
  
• Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
  
• Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
  
• The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
  
• Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
  
• Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
  
• The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
  
• This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
  
• Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the FeUowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
  
• The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
  
• Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
  
• The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
  
• Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
  
• The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours"

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Some Ministry Tools

and a bit about the church plant.

Paul (the pastor not the apostle) has been in a series called "In" launched from

Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go in to all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."

There have been four messages [as I post this the audio of yesterdays isn't up yet] in the series on the subject of Christians at Westport getting in to God's agenda in the world: in short it has been a series on evangelism and being involved in the Body of Christ. The recurring theme has been:

Somewhere
Sometime
Somehow
Someone [influenced you, invited you, got involved with you and for you]

In the case of this series, this has been about following Christ - but it is true in all walks of life. Wherever you are, and whatever you are doing, you were brought there by someone else influencing you, inviting you, and getting involved in your life. Go and do likewise. That said, it isn't why I started the post . . .I started it because the church played a great video as part of the ministry fair we had this week - showcasing the work that must happen for church to occur each Sunday; and the places people are needed to get in-volved. Go watch this and come back.

That is a bit over the top; but anyone involved in a church, or a group of any kind, knows the folks who come each week expecting it all to happen for their benefit - and then complain if you get it wrong. Politically, folks expect their neighborhood association, city, county, state, nation, etc. to run for their benefit as well - and complain if they get it wrong - without even the minimal involvement of voting. It is not about me.

Igniter Media Group has a number of great videos that can be made a part of your services. The next one that was played when I was at Cedar Mill. Only go look at this if you do not mind a straight up Gospel message about Jesus Christ. The last video was cute/funny, this is awesome with the incredible voice and passion of Shadrach Meshach "S.M." Lockridge: "That's My King"

For those involved in Christian ministry, I hope this is a source of video tools for you.

The next tool I discovered when I attempted to link the text of the seminal book series The Fundamentals

usually regarded as a signal of the beginning of the organized fundamentalist movement, was one of the sources for the movement’s name...The authors of the essays were mostly respected Bible teachers. A few were widely recognized conservative Protestant scholars, such as Benjamin B. Warfield and James Orr of Scotland. Not all the authors were dispensationalist. Rather, they were chosen to present a united conservative “testimony to the truth” (as the subtitle to the volumes put it).

Of the ninety articles bound in twelve volumes (bearing no systematic organization), about one-third defend the Bible, usually against higher criticism. Another third are either presentations of basic doctrines or general apologetic works. The rest include personal testimonies, practical applications of Christian teaching, appeals for missions and evangelism, as well as attacks on various “-isms.” Some of the articles had been published previously.

The essays were generally moderate in tone and a mix of both scholarly and popular interests and styles...The central themes of the volumes...were that conservative evangelical Protestantism could be defended on two major counts. First, its affirmations of miraculous divine interventions — as expressed in fundamental doctrines such as the inspiration of Scripture, the incarnation, the miracles and the resurrection — were fully compatible with modern science and rationality. Second, the testimony of personal experience was also important in confirming Christian belief.

The Fundamentals represented an early stage in emerging fundamentalism, an alliance of a variety of conservatives alarmed particularly over the spread of false doctrines. After the 1920s fundamentalism generally became more militant. Eventually, when in the 1940s and 1950s the main part of interdenominational fundamentalism broke between “neo-evangelicals” and stricter separatist dispensationalists, that split reflected a tension that had been present in the alliance that The Fundamentals helped forge.

at Street Prophets - and blew the guys bandwidth out. In looking for another linkable copy, instead I found Logos Bible Software with their Logos Digital Library System (LDLS).

There is so much cool stuff in here I feel like a kid in a candy store (regretfully I only have lint in my pockets)

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A Death Close to Me

There was a scene in Dances With Wolves where the muleskinner kneels over the bones of a women who died on the prarie and says:

"Someone back east is saying 'Why don't she write' "

Today, I found out that a brother in Christ from a men's accountability group I am in died at the age of 46 from a sudden and severe respiratory disease.

Perhaps the quote above makes it appear that I am making light of his death, but I am not. Last night the group was having a social night and barbeque and discussing A.Y.'s sudden failure to attend our meetings, while not calling and saying he would not be attending. Today, his brother called one of us to tell us he died on May 25th.

I have often thought in the past when I am wondering why someone stood me up, or failed to meet a committment, how I would feel if I found out something drastic had happened to them to give them a valid reason for not performing as they were expected. Now I know.

A.Y. was a resolute brother in Christ, and I ask his, and God's forgiveness, for the thoughts I had about his failure to attend our meetings - I should have known he would not just drop out without word. I ask your prayers for him and his family; and I hope God is with his family and friends, as A.Y. is with God, as they work through their loss and grief.

This year Dory from Wittenburg Gate, after long service, disappeared suddenly from directing the Christian Carnival. I continue to pray that she is healthy and well; and that she might still write.

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Christian Carnivals 172-174

Ah, my blogging has been so sporatic. There were three great Christian Carnivals you should catch up on:

1. Carnival CLXXII (172) by Diane at Crossroads


2. Carnival CLXXIII (173) by Mark at Pseudo-Polymath


3. Carnival CLXXIV (174) by Jeremy at Parableman

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When We Pray: Why Do We Pray?

A number of little goodies have come together for this post:

• a discussion on prayer, and its purposes, initiated in this comment thread about this statement

  an act that has been scientifically proven to be ineffective . . . "We know that prayer does not work--but medical science does." . . . we want to let America know that there are millions of us who know that praying is nothing more than talking to yourself. So on that day, we atheists will be engaging in action that we can prove scientifically has real-life impact on our fellow citizens . . . we hope will point out that there are alternatives to silently beseeching a deity to perform miracles.

  from an atheist organization's press release.



• During my tour on 5/15/07 I mentioned not only that comment thread above, but also pointed folks to "Praying, Being Heard, and Not Getting It" from Henry at the Participatory Bible Study Blog



• events in the church I have been involved in. Almost exactly a year into the plant of our church, one of our two founding, teaching pastors resigned after a "significant breach of trust" with our other teaching pastor - two folks who had been best friends and co-workers for years. I know nothing about the actual conversation (nor should I) but I found the other pastor's sermon on this event, and the way it was handled, one of the best examples of the handling of this type of inter-church conflict I have ever heard. Regretfully, it is no longer found online or I would link it for folks to learn from.



• This set of events had a positive influence on the church's next teaching series - Gripped focused on the fruits of the spirit from Galatians 5:22; and how they give us strength from God to deal with the pressures life grips us (and our churches) with. It is obvious that the problems which gripped our pastor Paul in losing the other half of his teaching team (not to mention the conflict with his long-time friend) added to these messages



• Losing half of our teaching team temporarily led our pastor to seek some other resources to give him [and us :-)] a break

This leads us full circle back to prayer (and the lacks in my prayer life are my central life issue) - with a three-part series of DVD sermons by Wes Hamilton from Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, Texas called When you Pray. I have been a member of two small mega-size churches (over 1500 attending each week); but there are no 12,000 member churches in my neck of the woods. The chance to hear a teaching series from Lake Pointe was good - and, so far, the series has been as well. I am as curious as anyone about the culture of these huge churches; and most of the comments from the outside are negative - and most of those seem to involve pop-culture psycho-babble and bad political/religious analysis. Anyway, this post is really about prayer - as taught in a church with 10000 attenders in Texas.

"Why We Pray"
Part I of When You Pray

Matthew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2 "So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 "But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 5 "When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 "So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.

[I would have liked to have linked the video from Lake Pointe, but can only link the audio from Westport - my church]

While the point here is for the reader to listen to (and I wish look at) this teaching so you process the form, the style, and the teaching itself - I will at least cover the bullet points and some highlights here. The first interesting thing to me in verse five is the word hypocrite, or, in the Greek upokrite, was not a pejorative as it is now:

the hypocrite was a Greek actor who wore a very large mask with an exaggerated expression, and then they played a role . . . with exaggerated motions and exaggerated manners so that even those in the far corners could see the action on the stage. A hypocrite was nothing more than an actor playing a role to be seen

The flaw Jesus points out is not that they lack sincerity (although they may), but that their motive is "to be seen by men".

Wes looks at a number of practices that had crept into Jewish prayer life by the 1st century AD; and posits that the devout Jews Jesus criticizes here had put the cart before the horse and become more concerned about the form and structure of prayer rather than the "why" of prayer. Which is the question Wes wants to deal with at his church (and mine - and now with you): why should we pray?:

Honestly, what can we possibly tell God that He doesn’t already know? What can we bring to the Lord that He doesn’t already have? What is the purpose of presenting Him with requests, or informing Him of needs, that He is already aware of and He already cares about? . . . God does not need us to pray, but over and over again in His word He invites us to pray

Wes gives four major reasons we pray:

1. Prayer teaches us to listen closely. We have all seen two actors on stage delivering their rehearsed lines to one another - they give the illusion of communication; but beneath the surface they are not truly listening to one another except to pick up their cues to recite their lines. In the same way, if we stand in the right place and recite the correct lines we can create the illusion of relationship. We can end up mindlessly regurgitating a stream of religious words, but leave no room for the voice of God in our lives. Listen to what Wes says about our tendency to fill the quiet with words, because we hate silence. We have to pause in our prayer, even if it makes us uncomfortable, in order to allow God to speak - prayer is about a relationship with God and not our own religious oration.



2. Prayer helps us to see clearly. While the Jesus' hypocrite's eyes were turned to heaven, his attention is still locked on the earth and the things it has to offer along with the praise of men. Real prayer lifts us out of this world and re-orientates us to the cosmic reality and the supernatural nature of our lives. It provides us with a view from above as it lifts us out of the concerns that crowd in on us and distract us. Prayer helps us reorder our priorities because it helps us see reality clearly.



3. Prayer helps us to depend daily. We can appear to be successful Christians - go to church, serve, give, speak right - without any empowering from God at all. It is so easy that we have lost touch with the supernatural nature of the lives we are supposed to live and the work we are called to do. Indeed, lack of sincere prayer is our declaration of independence from God. However, daily prayer is a daily reminder that we do need Him and that we cannot function well without Him.


In short, we pray because prayer changes us, alters us, and affects us. However, even if prayer didn’t promise us anything and we received absolutely no benefit or blessing from it - we would still be compelled to pray. Why?


4. We pray because God is worthy to be sought This is the reason we pray above all other reasons.

Listen to the whole audio.

[crossposted at Street Prophets]

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Weekly Tour: 5/15/07

Ah, the problems of a blogger. I haven't been making enough money; so I have had to take a second job. Also, my DSL got turned off (that money thing again) - so I am surfing on dial-up. However, there are many things I want to write about - and I need to get started. So, I will do a tour.

The Christian Carnival

The latest Christian Carnival is up (and the next one is forming) - go to Light Along the Journey and check it out. Three posts that struck me from this Carnival were:

• As the parent of a thirteen-year old daughter, how to get her to view sex responsibly is important to me - and to Jan. Read The View from Her "about not having sex".



• At Street Prophets I got into a short conversation about prayer inspired by a press release by an atheist organization

  an act that has been scientifically proven to be ineffective . . . "We know that prayer does not work--but medical science does." . . . we want to let America know that there are millions of us who know that praying is nothing more than talking to yourself. So on that day, we atheists will be engaging in action that we can prove scientifically has real-life impact on our fellow citizens . . . we hope will point out that there are alternatives to silently beseeching a deity to perform miracles.

  My comment was that it would help if the folks writing the press release knew what prayer was actually for. I was asked what I thought it was for, and you can read my answer here. However, for what I think is a really good answer read Henry's "Praying, Being Heard, and Not Getting It" where he cites a really famous example of prayer not answered:

  But the text [Hebrews 5:7-10 ] explicitly says that Jesus was heard. And there is what’s hard for us to get hold of. Praying is not about getting stuff. Praying is about our communion with God. That’s why all these scientific tests about prayer and healing largely miss the mark. They’re interesting, but they can’t test prayer because prayer is not a means of getting things.
  
  What if the prayer of Jesus was counted in a scientific test? It would certainly go into the “failed” column. He didn’t get what he asked for. And yet he was heard, and what actually happened was better–in the end–than what he had requested. It happens that way because there’s a lot more knowledge on God’s end of the prayer than on mine.

• Going along with that prayer post, is Bryan on "Prosperity Theology"

  To pastors who tell their flock that God desires that all of them be rich enough to have their own jets what do they say to verses where Christ tells a rich man to sell all his positions in order to follow Him? Instead of promising us wealth and fame, Christ says that we will be hated and that we will suffer; but we are storing up treasures in Heaven. Our Father will provide for us, but that does not necessarily mean that we will be rich in things; rather when we truly depend on God we will be rich spiritually.

  He calls it "old and pernicious" heresy, and I think that is right.

Parental Notification

Parental notification is a big issue. I think, as a parent, that I should be notified if my child is going to have an operation - in this case an abortion. As someone who believes in parental notification, I realize that it may have a chilling effect on a scared young girl's actions when she discovers she is pregnant. I am sorry for that; and on principle I have to accept whatever bad outcomes come from what I believe.

Planned Parenthood has the opposite problem. They believe, on principle, that a pregnant girl is by definition now a responsible party for their own health issues; and wish to keep that girl's decisions private to that girl: a woman's (or girl's) right to choose and to have that choice be a private decision is at the core of their philosophy and ethics. Further, as a medical provider, they have a reason - a good one - to want to protect the privacy of their clients (whatever their age): young girls will not come to them for help if they feel they will get "ratted out" to the powers that be. However,

In all 50 states, sexual activity with underage children is illegal. Also, every state mandates that if a healthcare worker has reason to suspect that an underage girl is being sexually abused, they are required by law to report that information to a designated law enforcement or child protective services agency. That agency is then responsible to investigate the possibility that the child may be the victim of sexual abuse or statutory rape.

Because the pregnancy of an underage girl is evidence that she is the victim of sexual abuse, any healthcare worker who has contact with a pregnant underage girl has an obligation to initiate a report to the state.

That is how it should be. Of course, Planned Parenthood, like me, also has to realize the bad outcomes that will come from protecting the privacy of children who should not really be pregnant: they seem to be systematically (I didn’t say intentionally - I think it just comes with their philosophy) covering up statutory rape and incest:

• They are being sued by a young women who endured another one and a half years of incest by her father after telling her Planned Parenthood worker in Ohio that she was being raped by her father, who had brought her to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. The worker did not report the incest to authorities.



• They are threatening to sue an 18 year old who caught one of their workers on video conspiring to cover-up statutory rape in California



• Planned Parenthood's defense that they are being picked on by anti-abortion activists for isolated mistakes by bad employees is kind of smashed by 800 different tape recordings secured by Life Dynamics in 2002 as they investigated child sexual predation:

  To test this conclusion we conducted a covert survey in which we called over 800 Planned Parenthood and National Abortion Federation facilities across the country. Our caller portrayed a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant by her 22-year-old boyfriend. Her story was that she wanted an abortion because she and her boyfriend did not want her parents to find out about the sexual relationship. In every call the ages of the girl and her boyfriend were made perfectly clear. It was also made clear that the motivation for the abortion was to conceal this illicit sexual activity from the girl's parents and the authorities. Additionally, our caller never said a single thing that might suggest that her parents would become abusive if they discovered her sexual activity.
  
  The results of this survey were appalling. Even though many of these clinic workers openly acknowledged to our caller that this situation was illegal and that they were required to report it to the state, the overwhelming majority readily agreed to conceal this illegal sexual activity.
  
  Some employees of these organizations even coached our caller on how to avoid detection, how to circumvent parental involvement laws and what to say or not say when she came to the clinic. In a significant number of instances she was encouraged to lie about - or conceal - her age or her boyfriend's age or to give false names.

So, just like me, Planned Parenthood is going to have to come to grips with the logical outcome of their position on parental notification: the ability of children to get pregnant at the hands of adults and their own family members; and have no one know that the child was ever pregnant except the rapist/abuser and the girl. The same child, scared to death her parents might find out, isn't going to be any happier at child welfare authorities or the police finding out. I, as you might guess, prefer my bad outcomes to theirs.

Other Stuff

Joe Carter re-posts (with revisions) his "Fads and Fixtures: Ten Deadly Trappings of Evangelism". Considering that I came to a real decision for Christ at an altar call I am not sure that I entirely agree with his list; but his point is correct: we are supposed to be about gaining disciples for Christ - it is God's job to bring them to us for that purpose. We have to be available when folks are ready; but it is God that softens their heart.

Iraq the Model looks at two sets of political forces in Iraq that point to "It's a rough time but I wouldn't panic"

"The Ring Thing: We Must Have Marriage" reports on "Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-Six Conclusions of the Social Sciences"

As an Evangelical with a Catholic MIL living in the house, the agreements and/or disagreements we have on religious matters is evident to me often. So, when Francis Beckwith resigned from the Evangelical Theological Society (as its President) because he decided to join the Roman Catholic Church - it is of some interest. It was also of interest to Scot McKnight at Jesus Creed and to Bonnie at Intellectuelle. For some background (at least for me) I think it is important to understand (as someone talked about in the Jesus Creed comment thread) the difference between the Evangelical movement and being an evangelical Christian. Perhaps reading the "Lausanne Covenant" and the "Manila Manifesto" will help - even though these are not completely accepted by all "big E" Evangelicals. Perhaps even my own church's "Statement of Faith" is of interest. So, do these generally represent the types of Statements of Faith "big E" Evangelicals agree on? If so, do they keep me from being a creedal Roman Catholic?

That is it for this week

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Christian Carnival CLXX (170)

Praise Him for the Carnival Edition

It is an exciting time for the Christian Carnival: Dory's absence has led to a flowering of ideas and an explosion of structural items for the Carnival. I will discuss some of these features interspersed among the posts.

The overall thought that I have is that God is so Good. Many people have jumped up almost simultaneously to re-build the structures that we no longer had access to; and, rather than compete, we have supported each other in whatever ideas have arisen. It be cool, as are this set of submissions. The posts, BTW, are in order of receipt.

Elizabeth at At a Biblical Home describes "How Darwinism Hurts Women" - several of the ways that an evolutionary worldview is detrimental to women.

Peter Smythe warns: "Hebrews 2:9 - For Mature Audiences Only"

Matt Jones looks at Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's intentions to "scientifically prove God's existence" and is somewhat skeptical.

Richard, at dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos theophilos discusses the meaning of the "Birth pangs of new beginnings" in Matthew and Mark and the significance of the absence of the word in Luke.

Bryan at THEOdyssey explores the "The God-shaped Vacuum"

Google Group for Notification of Members

We have set up a new Google Group - Christian Carnival II - as a notification list to tell folks who the next host is, where to send the submissions, and when the Carnival is posted. Even if you on not own a blog (or never intend to submit to the Carnival), but you would like to be notified of where and when the Carnival will be posted, please go and join this group. Incidentally, there is no reason to join if you pick the "no email" option: you do not have to be a member to read the notices at the site; and the only purpose of the Google Group is email notification about the Carnival.

All messages to the group are moderated except for those of the moderators; and the current host. Incidentally, there are five "owners" of this group with equal access - we will not lose access to it if one person is no longer available. Once you join, you will be able to see how to send messages to the group (which, again, will be moderated)

Now, we just need those who read the Carnival to join the Google Group; and enjoy the next set of posts.

Chasing the Wind has created a Christian Carnival blogroll, and posted the HTML code you can put in your sidebar to link back to the more recent Carnivals.

Jan has The View from Her on "Q Day One" after attending the Q Conference last week - a gathering to explore the role of the Church in influencing both culture and the future.

Lillie applies A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye to "Slavery and Abortion: Moral Relatives" -

Abortion is justified by saying the aborted fetus is not a human being, just a blob of tissue. Slavery was justified was saying that the slave was not a human being, but something less than human.

Henry at Participatory Bible Study Blog takes a "Look at New Perspectives on Paul ". This is just an overview of a discussion that he intends to relate to studies on Galatians, Hebrews, and even the gospel of Mark.

This week at Light Along the Journey John examines how we should think biblically about all the things we think we can't do without in his post "Need". BTW: John will be the host of next week's Carnival.

Submission Gmail

There is also one email to send all submissions for the Carnival to. The moderators will make sure the forwarding is flipped when it should be flipped. Again, there are five moderators to make sure these tasks are done.

So, again, send all submissions to the Christian Carnival to the gmail email. Back to our program.

Barbara points out another of her Tidbits and Treasures about a "Christian Alternative to MySpace" - a faith-based networking site called JCFaith.com

Jeremy at Parableman examines "Carhart, Religion, and the Constitution" - particularly

the claim that the Supreme Court's upholding of the partial-birth abortion ban is just religiously-motivated, along with a reflection on a different view of constitutional issues taken in this decision as opposed to previous ones.

Mark at Pseudo-Polymath examines "A Great Stroke of Luck … or Something Greater?"

I was recently Chrismated into the Orthodox church. In the Orthodox church Chrismation is a sacrament associated with Baptism for which Confirmation might be a analogue in the Western church. In this essay I discuss that event and some of what I went through before that event.

Amanda of Imago Dei asks the question, "What's the deal with H.R. 1592?"

In response to Pseudo-Polymath's question: what can we do towards Christian reconciliation now, Weekend Fisher at Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength has written "The Anti-Christ: A Call for Discussion Among Lutherans".

This post re-opens old controversies and is nearly guaranteed to raise tempers among both Lutherans and Roman Catholics. I have to respectfully ask the Roman Catholics to pass over this conversation as a matter internal to Lutherans.

Christian Carnival Forum

One of the blessings of the current situation is that Nick Queen, the original founder of the Christian Carnival, is actively involved again - and came up (with help from others) with the Christian Carnival Forum. It is a bulletin board type site, and it allows the scope of the Carnival to expand greatly - the ideas for its use are just beginning to be explored. Go visit, look around at some of the discussions, and give your ideas.

Practically, it is serving three real functions right now:

1. A place to discuss how, why, and when we are going to use these new tools
2. A place to volunteer to host a future Carnival
3. A place to link posts that will, or could, not, for one reason or other, be submitted to the Carnival - but would be of interest to Carnival readers

I am sure more uses are coming - how would you use it? To paraphrase an old TV show: "We have re-built it; and it is stronger than ever".

Now, all you need to do is enjoy it - and here is the last set of posts for just that purpose.

Lingamish: "Dinthi Day 36"

As our month of posts about life in an African village ends we finally have a snake story and it's a big one! It has a happy ending (but not for the snake).

Katy at Fallible presents "DNR":

“He will not live the day,” he said. “You have a decision to make, and I need to know now."

Don at The Evangelical Ecologist writes a review of a book by Christian author Bill McKibben called "Hope, Human and Wild - Living Lightly on the Earth" that folks mightfind useful.

Dana at Principled Discovery looks at what it means to "Cleave to that Which is Evil"

Thanks for taking all of these great rides.

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Christian Carnival CLXIX (169) is Up

The introduction from Mandi at Imago Dei:

Welcome to the 169th Christian Carnival! There are some great posts this week.

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 go to the Christian Carnival Google group.

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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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