felix hominum

there is a difference between nostalgia and memory

I''ll have to confess that we had ocassion to rent the latest incarnation of Brideshead Revisited.  The movie lacked a great deal;  it missed many of the central themes of Waugh's work.  Most notable, it mistook mere nostalgia for memory.  In a brilliant little piece of writing, Thomas HIbbs pointed out some of the shortcomings of the film's treatment of Waugh's text:

The desire to arrest time, to hold onto the present as if it could be preserved from age, is a powerful human motive—one at the root of art itself. (In both the book and the film one cannot help but think of Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”) While the film’s focus is on guilt and lost innocence, Waugh’s focus is on the way faith overcomes the limits of romanticism regarding innocence and the past. It is not simply, as Lady Marchmain severely puts it, that time and eternity are at odds with one another. Instead, the task of faithful memory, or desire recollected through grace, is to discern the workings of providence in and through the moments of time. Thus, time itself, ordinarily an instrument of decay, can be redeemed, as the moments of time are gathered, rather than dispersed.

What the film makers did was to reduce memory to mere nostagia.  It is the sort of mistake I see again and again in the life of the Christian church.  And I see it operating in at least two ways.  In its most obvious and plain form, nostalgia supplants memory by a sort of romantic longing, with the past as a reference.  It is a form of reference to Golden Age theory (we might call it).  All starts out well and goes downhill from there.  In its fundamental Anglican form, one can see it in the 1549 preface:  "There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted."  On the other side we have a form of philosophical Darwinism:  remnants in the Church (which is always "behind" the culture) of ideas of progress, evolution, and a necessary moving beyond all that has come before. 

Nostalgia is a convenient tool for both camps:  in the first case it allows for mere longing, and in the second case it is used to reinforce a notion that what has gone before must be treated in a merely nostalgic way.  The notion of memory, however, is quite different.  Memory (and Augustine gives us insight into this) is really a power of the soul - the ability to be free (to some degree) of the contstraints of time.  Memory helps us to be part of the communion of saints, and not merely to be nostalgic about a golden age.

John Franke: Manifold Witness, The Plurality of Truth

I will be intrigued to read John's book - he's currently here giving some talks at a conference on missional theology.  The title and the phrasing can be troubling:  what does plurality of truth look like?  Does it simply mean an infinite open-endedness to every question?  Part of John's starting point is the evident fact of the "plurality" of Christian practice. 

To conjure up the past, has true diversity more to do with what St Augustine was trying to get at in book 12 of the Confessions?  Augustine argued that there could be many "true" interpretations of the same biblical text.  But for Augustine, this did not mean that every interpretation was true.  What places the limit on the variety (or plurality) of "truths"?  Better yet, the best model for plurality/diversity is really the Trinity itself...

NT Wright on the Resurrection

Nobody, including Jesus's followers, was expecting one person to be bodily raised from the dead in the middle of history. The stories of the Resurrection are certainly not “wish-fulfilments” or the result of what dodgy social science calls “cognitive dissonance”. First-century Jews who followed would-be messiahs knew that if your leader got killed by the authorities, it meant you had backed the wrong man. You then had a choice: give up the revolution or get yourself a new leader. Going around saying that he'd been raised from the dead wasn't an option.

Unless he had been. Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn't have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he's still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he's gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.

The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn't defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon - He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.

Let's be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so.

Full text here.
NT Wright is Bishop of Durham

On the limits of metaphors

It seems to me that the further back in religious history one goes, the more acceptable it is to apply the "metaphor" principle to an event.  Or rather, perhaps I should say in all fairness, a supposed event.  Take, for example, the idea that the resurrection of Jesus was only a "metaphorical" event.  A teaching kind of story, like the fable or fairy tale with a moral, a lesson to be learned.  Now there are certainly good stories with good lessons, even inspiring stories with inspiring lessons.  Perhaps this is one of them.  Would it matter?

I think that it is of course much safer to apply the metaphor principle to events distant in time.  However, I see no compelling reason why, for example, I shouldn't tell you that Mother Teresa never cared for the poor.  After all, the stories you have heard about Mother Teresa are really just that - inspiring stories with a moral, designed to teach you and inspire you.  Actually, she never lifted a finger to do the things which you think she did.  She simply read an inspiring story (which never happened in physical reality), and decided that the proper response was to create a new inspiring story (which never happened in reality)...

To be continued...  Really. 

BTW, what do you think of this video (h/t Pete Rollins)

And if you are looking for more, you might want to check out this event here in Edmonton, which I think will provide lots of food for thought & discussion:

Borg-Crossan Seminar: On October 30th and 31st, 2009, distinguished biblical scholars, Drs. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, will present a seminar, entitled “Jesus and the Call to Discipleship”, as part of Christ Church’s Centennial Celebrations. Borg and Crossan have written and lectured extensively on Jesus and the challenges of taking His message into our world. Registration for the seminar is $100, and must be received by June 30th, 2009. A limited number of tickets for a seminar and private dinner with the presenters on October 31st, at the Faculty Club, are also available for $275/person.

Thomas Brauer: "Mission by the verse"

guest posting by Thomas Brauer of the Barnabas Initiative

A word...

There's a word which gets thrown about to describe dominant modes of thought, or structures of behaviour - that word is "Paradigm".  And I love that word.  Not just the way it sounds (talk about a money word!), but what it describes.  Tucked neatly between Paradiddle, and Paradise, the Canadian Oxford  Dictionary gives three uses for Paradigm, but I'll list only the first two.

1. (noun) an example or pattern followed; a typical instance.

2. (noun, in Philosophy) a mode of viewing the world which underlies the theories and methodology of science etc. in a particular period of history.

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn coined the term (now used ad-nauseum) "Paradigm Shift" in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.  As we likely all know, paradigm shift refers to the significant changing of dominant world views, patterns of behaviour or of belief, or understandings of structures, systems or approaches.  Despite the now rampant use of the term, paradigm shift is still helpful, as it is a concise and direct way of speaking of dramatic theoretical or perceptual changes.

And paradigm shift is just as useful in our discussions of the changing face of Mission in the Church, as it was for Kuhn in his discussion of the changing face of science.  Indeed, in one the great missiological histories, David Bosch uses the term directly in the subtitle.  That book is, of course,Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, (1991, Orbis Books).  It is from one of Bosch's chapters that the discussion following will stem...

...but first, a little personal recent history. 

Of late, I've been having a lot of conversations with people about Mission and the Fresh Expressions movement (for obvious reasons).  And guaranteed, in 80% of those conversations, the subject of the Great Commission comes up.  You know the great commission, don't you?  Matthew 28:18ff, "Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (NIV)  Now it's not a problem that the great commission should come up, it's just that I'm not certain that it is the most helpful text on which to hang our missional hats any longer, at least not in mission to a post-modern context.  And so I say this, in these conversations, and the look of shock and horror that often greets me makes me fear that I've somehow accidentally trodden on someone's kitten.  So I thought it time to explain a little more formally why I'm not certain that the Great Commission is the best "biblical paradigm" for mission to most of the contemporary West, and what, instead, I believe is becoming a more dominant paradigmatic text for our time and place in mission history.  Now back to David Bosch.

Eras of mission...

Bosch is a very helpful fellow.  By taking the paradigmatic approach to analyzing the history of missiology, he has been able to condense 2000 years of mission into eras, and to analyze those eras in terms of dominant approaches and theories of mission.  And he has done this, in one short section of the book, by scripture verse.  That is to say, Bosch has looked at the historical paradigms of mission, and attempted to understand them in light of missional verses of the Bible (pp. 339ff.).  Now Bosch is the first to say that in not all cases are these paradigmatic biblical texts necessarily widely known or publicized as the raison d'etre of mission of the day.  In some cases, these texts speak to the nature of the way in which mission was carried out, and were applied in hindsight, but in either case, it is a helpful exercise.  I've taken the liberty of condensing his work into the following handy-dandy table.

Though dominant among evangelicals in the late 19th century, and throughout the 20th century, the Great Commission by no means has been the universal directive of mission in Christendom.  I believe that it was particularly appealing to the 'modern era' evangelical Church because it was a clear, concise directive, an order from on high, and a signally efficient rule by which to measure one's missional activity.  One HAD to be in favour of such-and-such a mission endeavour because it was Jesus' last command!

A new era in mission in the West...

However, I think we're entering a time when the Great Commission will no longer be the dominant scriptural paradigm for mission in the West.  Under the Great Commission model, the approach taken (no fault of the verse, this is just how people tended to do it) tended towards one of "Make 'em Disciples, get 'em in the pews," and the job was done.  Being made a disciple was taken care of by the simple repetition of something like "the sinner's prayer", and (maybe) baptism.  Then you were done, and the missional endeavour moved on to the next heathen down the block.  I'm certainly using hyperbole here, and most would never believe this is what they were doing in mission.  However, I have witnessed just this approach to mission more often than I care to count.  And it wasn't always bad. In the modern era western world, this approach worked well.  People were looking for a way to be that was clear, and understandable.  If you were already a Christian, you knew you needed to make disciples and have them baptized.  If you were not yet a Christian, but were being 'courted' by a mission, you knew that you were being invited to leave behind one way of life (which was bad) for another way of life (which is good), and you knew that you had a clear choice to make.

Sadly, it don't work like that no more.  Society has changed, and the world view of most people in the contemporary West no longer supports the existence of a clear and concise good/bad split to life.  Rather, most see all ways of being on a continuum, and most people don't believe that extremes of Good and Bad are achievable - "all things have good to them, and all things have bad to them, so what's the fuss?" might be the cry of this age.  Just look at the prevalence of the colloquial phrase "It's all good!"  The missional paradigm of the modern era, rooted on the Great Commission, was one of bringing in.  Making disciples.  It was about an outward action with an inward focus - that is to say, the Church reached out to the non-Christian in order to bring them into the Church. 

However, we are now solidly in the post-modern era, and this approach is no longer acceptable in the eyes of the people the Church would seek to reach.  The missional paradigm of this era is (will be?) one of going out.  What is being sought by contemporary society is an inward action with an outward focus - which is to say that the missionary to the contemporary western society looks to live out the transformed life of Jesus Christ for themselves, and finding that life of transformation within, they also find themselves compelled to reach out to others in a way which expresses Christ within them.  In this way, the contemporary westerner will at once witness a new way of living, and respect the missionary for living it out.  This will be attractive, but the non-Christian will be drawn to the person of Christ first, not to the Church.  Mission in this context is almost entirely relational, and avoids (almost entirely) the call to believe certain statements of truth (this is a stage which may come much later, just not at the initial stage of mission).  Here, mission becomes a way of being, not a way of speaking or doing.

A new scriptural paradigm...

What then is the scriptural paradigm that matches this new mission context, and new mission approach?  Well, I believe we've come full circle back to the patristic era, and we are once again missioning under John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son...." This is about the incarnation, and about the divine sacrifice.  Meeting people exactly where they are in their need, and sorrow, and joy, and excess, and being willing to die for them, to give up ourselves for them.  This is only possible if we are ourselves living the transformed life of Jesus Christ.  Unless we, the individuals, the women and men of the Church, are willing to be transformed by Christ, and to live out that life in the midst of the people with whom we share our society, then we will have nothing to say to that society.  No longer are people willing to listen to us talk at them ABOUT Jesus.  They are willing, though, to witness us live with them IN Jesus.  People will now reject being considered "disciples in waiting", they want simply to be individuals to be loved to the point of incarnation and sacrifice.  Mission in the contemporary West can no longer understand the world as being made up of 'believers' and 'no-believers' where we behave differently depending on to which group the person we encounter belongs.  Mission in this context requires only one way to live, and that is to live for Christ to the point of dying to all else, no matter to whom we are speaking, or for whom we are serving.  It is now for us to get out and live it.

 

Peter Rollins & the Shrine of the Book

There is a wonderful museum in Jerusalem containing the Shrine of the Book.  It houses the oldest "bible" in the world.  It is a testament to the place of sacred text, sacred word, in the life of Judaism, and by extension, to Christians who hold to a sacred text. 

Now Pete didn't say anything about the Shrine of the Book yesterday, but I want to raise it as a point of departure for what we might say or not say about a sacred text (revelation), our relationship to it, and its place in our relationship with God.  One of Pete's themes has been something along the lines of this (my phrasing):  the necessity of moving beyond language.  And by extension, moving beyond a way of reacting to sacred texts.  What I sense in some of Pete's approach is Wittgenstein - a theory of language and logic and reality.  To put it briefly, let us say that language is a ladder by which we climb to reach God.  That is, in one sense, a traditional understanding of what we mean by written revelation in the form of our scriptures.  Except, Wittgenstein says, when you get to the top, in order to progress any further, you need to sort of cast the ladder off.  True enough in one sense:  the fullness of God is beyond language to comprehend - at least language as we use it.

But in all of this there I also have a sense that what is missing is wrestling with the presupposition that language itself is the the way in which revelation occurs for a community.  It is different than simply saying "God 'spoke' to me".  On the one hand language is inadequate to describe God, yet I suggest that a defensible starting point is that we are creatures for whom language is a necessary part of knowing and loving God.  We are zoon logon politikon, as the Greeks would say. We are animals who use language and live in cities:  language and community are related.  Added to this, we have the use of language/thought used in language to describe or express the internal life of God.  The prologue to John's gospel uses the "language of language" (are you following that?) to describe God's internal relationships.  The word was God.  So one of my points in yesterday's conversation was this:  our use of language is really an imitation of, an image of, something which is already expressed in God:  the relationship between the One and the Word.  As such, it remains with us - we need to continue to use language, because it is part of our imaging of God's own internal life.

two guys died in the year 1274

One was St Thomas Aquinas:

I answer that, It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: "The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee" (Isaiah 64:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation.
(Summa - Prima Pars)

the other was St Bonaventure:

The source of sacred Scripture was not human research but divine revelation.  This revelation comes from the Father of Light from whom the whole concept of fatherhood in heaven and on earth derives.  From him, through Jesus Christ his Son, the Holy Spirit enters into us.  Then, through the Holy Spirit who allots and apportions his gifts to each person as he wishes, we receive the gift of faith, and through faith Christ lives in our hearts.  So we come to know Christ and this knowledge becomes the main source of a firm understanding of the truth of all sacred Scripture.
(On Understanding Scripture: Prologus: Opera Omnia 5, 201)

If you ask how such things can occur, seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervour and glowing love. The fire is God, and the furnace is in Jerusalem, fired by Christ in the ardour of his loving passion.
(Journey Into the Mind of God: Cap. 7,1 2.4.6: Opera Omnia, 5, 313)

Do you see a difference between the two approaches?  I like putting these two authors side by side.  You can certainly see a difference in approach (although Bonaventure as well had his share of structured writing).  There are parts of me which resonate with Aquinas' approach to the subject of theology and scripture, and parts which resonate with Bonaventure's approach.  Yet the two are saints in the same church.  I believe that they essentially (a good Aristotelian word) are saying much the same things, or at least things which complement each other.

Bernard of Clairvaux: on loving God

At first, man loves himself for his own sake. That is the flesh, which can appreciate nothing beyond itself. Next, he perceives that he cannot exist by himself, and so begins by faith to seek after God, and to love Him as something necessary to his own welfare. That is the second degree, to love God, not for God's sake, but selfishly. But when he has learned to worship God and to seek Him aright, meditating on God, reading God's Word, praying and obeying His commandments, he comes gradually to know what God is, and finds Him altogether lovely. So, having tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is (Ps. 34:8), he advances to the third degree, when he loves God, not merely as his benefactor but as God.

Surely he must remain long in this state; and I know not whether it would be possible to make further progress in this life to that fourth degree and perfect condition wherein man loves himself solely for God's sake. Let any who have attained so far bear record; I confess it seems beyond my powers.

On Loving God, XV

I'm thinking this might be a post series.  It's a great little work, wherein Bernard takes us through the "four degrees of love."  You can find it in English here.

Patristics Carnival XVIII - posts from November, 2008

Patristics Carnival XVIII - November, 2008 is up over at HYPEREKPERISSOU

As usual, there are a variety of interesting topics covered, and a great selection of posts for your holiday patristic reading.  Posts on church fathers, textual things, Jewish studies, apocrypha, book reviews & lots more.  Come early and read it all!

You see, it's not really about what you think it's about...

I suggest that God was so disappointed with our convoluted thinking that he inspired another messenger to make us think again. The doctrine of the Trinity had already confirmed the Jews that Christians were barking up the wrong tree and now they were confusing possible converts, so God sent a new messenger to proclaim that "There is only one God, Allah". Of course, his disciples added "And Mohomet is His prophet".

...Islam recognises Jesus as a prophet. Let us start there and show how great a prophet he is. He is the model, the ideal that God had in mind when he caused the development of the first human ancestor.

From an article in the November 2008 Niagara Anglican (pdf)

Susan Westall has written a very interesting piece for the Niagara Diocesan newspaper - "Has Christianity Blown It?".  The article seems to be a rejection of a Trinitarian understanding of God, and specifically of the divinity of Christ.  I tend to think those things are important, or at least "core doctrine in the sense of being creedal" as GS 2007 phrased it.  The article is a continuation of a bit of back and forth which started when the newspaper's editor suggested that no one knows who was really right in the 3d century christological controversies.  There was a reply by John Bowen, and now this seems to be another volley.

Does it matter whether or not Jesus is God?

Update: not that it answers the question, but it's kinda cool:

15 reasons why Romans 1 isn't about temple prostitution

I did a little thesis a while ago.  I'm sure a copy is buried somewhere in an obscure corner of Robarts Library at the University of Toronto.  It addressed some questions about the interpretation of Romans 1, (some of which thoughts I've posted here)  Before and since that time, I've been interested to see how aspects of Romans 1 are interpreted in public discussions and debates surrounding two themes: natural theology, (which the Wiki page says is in need of an expert to update the article),  and same sex issues.  One very particular question is whether or not Paul is talking same sex stuff in the context of the practice of ritual temple prostitution. Eg., what Paul has to say in opposing same sex practice has more to do with temple worship, and little to do with what we might tend to think of in contemporary terms.  So to keep to this one particular aspect of interpreting Romans 1, here are 15 reasons why Paul is not talking about temple prostitution.  The context was a reply by Dr Robert Gagnon (author of the 15 reasons) to some thoughts by Jack Rogers on Romans 1 and Temple Prostitution. I haven't fully digested this exchange, but hope to have some reflections later

I. Fifteen Reasons Why the Temple Prostitution Theory Is a Bad Idea

I know of no serious biblical scholar, even prohomosex biblical scholar, who argues that Paul had in mind only or primarily temple prostitution (not Nissinen, not Brooten, not Fredrickson, not Schoedel, not Bird, not Martin, etc).  There are many reasons why this view has not found a welcome in serious biblical scholarship. I shall limit myself to fifteen such reasons, without making a pretense that the list is exhaustive.

1. Rogers' historical anachronism regarding temple prostitution in Corinth. Rogers' trip to Corinth convinced him that Paul's views on homosexual behavior were profoundly influenced by the alleged existence of seven thousand prostitutes, male and female at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth in Paul's day. As it happens, the only ancient account that refers to cult prostitutes at the temple of Aphrodite in Corinth is a brief mention by Strabo in Geography 8.6.20c:

And the temple of Aphrodite was so rich that it owned more than a thousand temple-slaves, prostitutes, whom both men and women had dedicated to the goddess. And therefore it was on account of these women that the city was crowded with people and grew rich. (Text and commentary in: Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth: Texts and Archaeology [GNS 6; Wilmington: M. Glazier, 1983], 55-57)

Any critical New Testament scholar knows that Strabo's comments (1) applied only to Greek Corinth in existence several centuries before the time of Paul, not the Roman Corinth of Paul's day; (2) referred to more than a thousand prostitutes, not seven thousand; and (3) mentioned only female (heterosexual) prostitutes, not male (homosexual) prostitutes. Scholars agree that there was no massive business of female cult prostitutes, to say nothing of male homosexual cult prostitutes operating out of the temple of Aphrodite in Paul's day; and that there may not have been such a business even in earlier times (i.e., Strabo was confused). This is not particularly new information, which makes it all the more surprising that Rogers was taken in, apparently, by an ill-informed tour guide. For example, Hans Conzelmann made the following remarks in his major commentary on 1 Corinthians written some thirty years ago:

Incidentally, the often-peddled statement that Corinth was a seat of sacred prostitution (in the service of Aphrodite) is a fable. This realization also disposes of the inference that behind the Aphrodite of Corinth lurks the Phoenician Astarte. [Note 97:] The fable is based on Strabo, Geog. 8.378. . . . Strabo, however, is not speaking of the present, but of the city's ancient golden period. . . . Incidentally, Strabo's assertion is not even true of the ancient Corinth. (1 Corinthians [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1975 [German original, 1969], 12)

This continues to be the view held by scholars. As Bruce Winter notes in a recent significant work on 1 Corinthians,

Strabo's comments about 1,000 religious prostitutes of Aphrodite . . . are unmistakably about Greek and not Roman Corinth. As temple prostitution was not a Greek phenomenon, the veracity of his comments on this point have been rightly questioned. The size of the Roman temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth ruled out such temple prostitution; and by that time she had become Venus, the venerated mother of the imperial family and the highly respected patroness of Corinth, and was no longer a sex symbol (After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 87-88; similarly, Murphy-O'Connor, St. Paul's Corinth, 55-56)

The scholarly consensus that there was no homosexual prostitution at the Corinthian temple of Aphrodite in Paul's day is enough, all by itself, to dispense with Rogers's theory and show Rogers's unreliability as an exegete of the biblical text. But we continue anyway.

2. The plain-sense meaning of Romans 1:24-27. There is nothing in the language of Romans 1:24-27 that keys into the issue of prostitution or indeed the issue of exploitation generally. What Paul expressed as the problem was not the particularly exploitative way in which some homoerotic relationships were conducted in the ancient world but rather same-sex intercourse per se: females exchanging sexual intercourse with males for sexual intercourse with females, and males likewise having sex with males.

3. The mention of lesbian intercourse in Romans 1:26. The fact that Paul mentions lesbian intercourse in Romans 1:26 (which in the ancient world did not take the form of temple prostitution) proves that Paul did not have in view only forms of same-sex intercourse associated with idol worship or commercial transactions.

4. Mutual gratification and mutual condemnation in Romans 1:24-27. If Paul were condemning only exploitative forms of male-male intercourse, he would hardly have indicted in Romans 1:24-27 both partners in the sexual relationship. Yet he does condemn both partners: males engaging in indecency with males, receiving back in themselves the recompense which was required of their straying. This is consistent with the fact that he regards the activity as mutual and consenting: dishonoring their bodies among themselves and being inflamed with their yearning for one another. Far from painting a picture where one party is being degraded and exploited by the other, Paul portrays both partners as seeking to gratify their urges with one another and together reaping the divine recompense for their mutually degrading conduct.

5. The Genesis connection. That Paul had the other-sex prerequisite in Genesis in view is obvious from the clear intertextual echoes to Genesis 1:26-27 found in Romans 1:23-27 - eight terms of agreement between the two sets of texts, in nearly the same order. It is no accident, too, that the other major Pauline text dealing with same-sex intercourse, 1 Corinthians 6:9, is cited in close proximity to Gen 2:24 (1 Cor 6:16). And it is also no accident that these are the two key creation texts lifted up by Jesus in Mark 10:6-8 as prescriptive norms for defining all human sexual behavior: 'male and female he made them' (Gen 1:27) and 'For this reason a man will . . . be joined to his woman (wife) and the two shall become one flesh' (Gen 2:24). The story in Genesis 2:18-24 clearly images marriage as the sexually intimate 're-merger' of the constituent parts, man and woman, split from an originally undifferentiated sexual whole. Same-sex erotic unions are structurally precluded from reconstituting a one-flesh merger because the male and female elements cannot be reconstituted from a male-male or female-female union. Since the only differentiation created by the splitting is the differentiation into the two sexes, the presence of the two sexes is indispensable to a valid sexual rejoining. There is no realistic possibility that Jesus, in citing Gen 1:27 and 2:24 as prescriptive norms, missed this other-sex prerequisite 'male and female', 'man and woman' so clearly embedded in these verses and their surrounding narrative and so staunchly embraced by Jews everywhere in Jesus' day. (Many other arguments could also be made for adducing Jesus anti-homosex stance; see ch. 3 [pp. 185-228] of The Bible and Homosexual Practice or pp. 68-74 of Homosexuality and the Bible). And the fact that Paul had the Genesis creation accounts in view when he indicted homosexual practice proves that he recognized their implication for abrogating all forms of same-sex intercourse (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 289-93).

6. The parallel between idolatry as an act against creation and same-sex intercourse as an act against nature. Rogers belittles the notion of a parallel between idolatry and same-sex intercourse. Yet the context makes the parallel obvious (see The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 266-69). Paul emphasizes in Romans 1:18-32 that human beings are 'without excuse' even unbelievers who do not know Scripture 'because God's will is evident to them in creation/nature. Exhibit A (on the vertical level) is idolatry and exhibit B (on the horizontal level) is same-sex intercourse. Both alike represent attempts at suppressing the truth about God in creation or nature, transparent to human minds and even visible to human sight. Both acts are spoken of as 'exchanges' of clear natural revelation for gratification of distorted desires (1:23, 25 and 1:26 respectively). Both acts are depicted as absurd, foolish or self-dishonoring denials of natural revelation. The parallel, and not merely consequential, relationship between idolatry and same-sex intercourse is confirmed in Testament of Naphtali 3:3-4, where both idolatry and same-sex intercourse are viewed as exchanging the order of nature:

Gentiles . . . altered the order of them [viz., either that of the sun, moon, and stars, cited in v. 2, or their own], and have followed after stones and pieces of wood by following after wandering spirits. But you should not act in that way, my children, recognizing [instead] in the firmament, in the earth and in the sea and in all the products of workmanship, the Lord who made all these things, in order that you may not become like Sodom, which exchanged the order of its nature.

For further discussion of this text, see: The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 88-89n.121, 258n.18; and Homosexuality and the Bible, online note 35.

In short, the parallel between idolatry and same-sex intercourse in Rom 1:18-27 is evident: Those who had suppressed the truth about God visible in creation were more apt to suppress the truth about their sexual bodies visible in nature.

7. The other vices in Romans 1:29-31 not dependent on idolatry. Yes, Paul sees idolatry as leading to an increase in same-sex intercourse as well as to an increase in the other vices cited in Rom 1:29-31. But to say that Paul was limiting the indictment in Rom 1:24-27 only to homosexual cult prostitution is like saying that the continuation of the vice list in Rom 1:29-31 had only idolatrous contexts in view. Obviously, persons who reject the clear revelation of a transcendent God in creation are going to be more likely to engage in forms of sexual behavior that suppress the truth about human sexual complementarity accessible in nature. Equally obvious, however, is the fact that Paul recognized that it was not necessary to worship idols to commit any of the immoral behaviors cited in Rom 1:24-31.

8. Sexual uncleanness in Romans 6:19. Later in Romans 6:19 Paul warns believers not to return to the kind of 'sexual uncleanness' - akatharsia, the same Greek term employed in 1:24 of same-sex intercourse and other sexual offenses that characterized their lives as unbelievers. He certainly was no more restricting the use of the term to sex in the context of temple prostitutes than he was restricting any of the other instances of 'lawlessness' to activity conducted in the context of idolatrous worship.

9. The distinction between idolatry and male-male intercourse in 1 Corinthians 6:9. To say that Paul was limiting the indictment of male-male intercourse in 1 Cor 6:9 to homosexual cult prostitution is like saying that Paul was only opposed to incest (the case under discussion in chs. 5-6) in idolatrous and commercial contexts. In fact, 'idolaters' are listed as a separate category of offenders, distinct from those who commit incest, prostitution, fornication, adultery, and male-male intercourse. The case of the incestuous man in ch. 5 involves a self-professed Christian with no linkage to idol worshipping or to prostitution. And the discussion of prostitution in 6:12-20 certainly is not tied only to temple prostitution. The reasons for the proscription of incest and same-sex intercourse are similar: sex with someone who is too much of a same, whether a familial same (incest: sex with the 'flesh of one's flesh,' Lev 18:6) or a sexual same (homosexual behavior: males who have sex with males).

10. The expression 'contrary to nature' as applied to same-sex intercourse. In all the critiques of same-sex intercourse as 'contrary to nature' that can be found in the ancient world, not a single one ever refers to the idolatrous or commercial dimension of same-sex intercourse. For example, the physician Soranus described the desire on the part of 'soft men' to be penetrated (cf. 1 Cor 6:9) as 'not from nature', insofar as it 'subjugated to obscene uses parts not so intended' and disregarded 'the places of our body which divine providence destined for definite functions' (Chronic Diseases 4.9.131). Moreover, numerous cases of same-sex erotic relationships involving neither prostitution nor cultic activity can be documented for the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods.

11. Early Jewish critiques of same-sex intercourse. When one reads the critique in early Judaism of homoerotic practice -especially in Philo and Josephus- one notices rather quickly that the remarks focus on the compromise of sexual identity, not issues such as exchange of money or idolatrous connections. The same holds for rabbinic literature. See The Bible and Homosexual Practice, ch. 2.

12. The link between 'men who lie with males' in 1 Cor 6:9 and the absolute prohibitions in Leviticus. The term arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6:9, a distinctly Jewish and Christian term; literally, 'men who lie with males' is derived from the absolute prohibitions of male-male intercourse in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 (Septuagint: koite = lying [with], arsen = a male). That these prohibitions have to do, first and foremost, with sexual intercourse and not with idolatry is evident from their sandwiching in the midst of the sex laws in Lev 20:10-21, separate and distinct from the regulation against sacrificing to Molech in 20:2-5. They are no more tied to idolatry or prostitution than are the laws against adultery, incest, and bestiality that surround them. Neither Second Temple Judaism nor rabbinic Judaism (nor Patristic Christianity) restricted the relevance of the Levitical prohibitions to male-male intercourse conducted in the context of idol worship or prostitution.

13. The main objection to the homosexual cult prostitutes in the Old Testament. The Old Testament, particularly Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua through 2 Kings) does condemn homosexual cult prostitutes (the so-called qedeshim, 'consecrated ones'). But even here, parallel figures in the ancient Near East 'the assinnu, kurgarru, and kulu'u, were held in low regard not so much for their prostitution as for their compromise of masculine gender in allowing themselves to be penetrated as though women (The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 48-49). Even Phyllis Bird, a prohomosex Old Testament scholar who has done as much work as anyone on the qedeshim, acknowledges that the writers of Scripture emphasized not the cultic prostitution of these figures but rather their 'repugnant associations with male homosexual activity.' On the qedeshim, see The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 100-110.

14. The meaning of 'soft men' in its historical context. The term malakoi in 1 Cor 6:9 - literally, 'soft men' - was often used in the Greco-Roman world as a description of adult males who feminized their appearances in the hopes of attracting a male partner. Jewish and even some pagan moralists condemned them, not for their role in temple prostitution; [most were not temple prostitutes] but for their attempted erasure of the masculine stamp given them in nature. See further The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 306-12; and Homosexuality and the Bible, 82-83 with online notes 96-98.

15. A Corinthian critique of male-male love. The pseudo-Lucianic text Affairs of the Heart records a debate between Charicles, a Corinthian, who defends the superiority of male love for women, and Callicratidas, who defends the superiority of male love for males. Interestingly, the Corinthian never focuses on the association of male-male love with temple prostitution. Instead, he notes that men who engage in sex with other males 'transgress the laws of nature by looking with the eyes at the male as (though) at a female,' 'one nature [coming] together in one bed.'  'Seeing themselves in one another they were ashamed neither of what they were doing nor of what they were having done to them' (cited in The Bible and Homosexual Practice, 165-66 n. 10). What does this critique have to do with temple prostitution? Absolutely nothing. Yet Rogers would have us believe that Paul's view of same-sex intercourse, and that of Scripture generally, which every historical piece of evidence indicates was more absolutely, consistently, and strongly opposed to same-sex intercourse than anything found in the Greco-Roman world - was actually more accepting of homosexual behavior than the cultural milieu out of which emerged.

Martyrs, Mystics and Missionaries

This coming Tuesday we are going to begin a study/prayer/devotional group which will focus on the faith and practice of the early Christians.  "Early" is a relative term;  we will be looking at the life of the Church in the first six centuries.  Jaroslav Pelikan, in the introduction to his History of Christian Doctrine quoted the thought that “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”

In light of this, I hope that we will gather at least two things from this series of studies:  an understanding of the faith of the early Church, and a deepening of our own faith as we learn of the prayer, practice and devotional life of those who have gone before us.  So this study is not only informational (which I trust it will be) but also transformational.  It will engage the living faith of those early Christians, with a view to how our own faith can be enriched.

Starts September 16 @ 7 pm.  Location: St Timothy's parish (8420-145 St).  Everyone welcome.  I'll try to post a general outline when I have it completed.

Τὰ ἄρχαῖα ἔθη κρατέιτο; Cyprian: On the Unity of the Church

Τὰ ἄρχαῖα ἔθη κρατέιτο.

Let the ancient examples prevail.

The occasion of this post is a simple question:  what do I mean when I (or you) say "I love the Church"?  Augustine in his Confessions posed the question, what is it that I love, when I love God? It is the sort of question that one either sees as profound or simplistic.  To some, the asking of such a question borders on nonsense, either because it ought to be obvious that one simply loves God, or that one gropes about in the dark, and utters an untruth, when one says "I love God".  To others, asking the question is the first step in having it answered, as the soul expresses its desire for God and begins its journey homeward. 

I hear many people in Anglican circles saying "I love the Church".  Yet what do we mean when we say that?  With various loves appearing to move the church in different directions, perhaps the first question should be what do I mean when I say "I love".  But be all that as it may, I think the question about loving the Church needs to spark, at least for some Anglicans, the further question:  what is the Church?  And this is where our friend Cyprian comes in.  His treatise On the Unity of the Church was probably written c. 251, which is 7 years before the time of his martyrdom.  In this short treatise Cyprian lays out for the reader a few considerations about the nature of the Church.  I hope over the next two weeks or so to do a short study of this little treatise of his, in expectation that it might give the contemporary church some insight into what at least a few Christians of old thought about when they declared their love for the Church.

The online text of Schaff's translation can be found here, or here.

This sacrament of unity, this bond of a concord inseparably cohering, is set forth where in the Gospel the coat of the Lord Jesus Christ is not at all divided nor cut, but is received as an entire garment, and is possessed as an uninjured and undivided robe by those who cast lots concerning Christ’s garment, who should rather put on Christ.

Holy Scripture speaks, saying, “But of the coat, because it was not sewed, but woven from the top throughout, they said one to another, Let us not rend it, but cast lots whose it shall be." That coat bore with it an unity that came down from the top, that is, that came from heaven and the Father, which was not to be at all rent by the receiver and the possessor, but without separation we obtain a whole and substantial entireness.

He cannot possess the garment of Christ who parts and divides the Church of Christ.

Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, vii

Update:  links to the rest of the posts in this series:

related posts: Cyprian On the Unity of the Church
intro
part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

The messy history of church councils - McGuckin on Nicea

Graffiti emblazoned on walls, a vicious war of pamphlets, riots in the streets, lawsuits, catchy songs of ridicule … It's hard for modern Christians to imagine how such public turmoil could be created by an argument between theologians—or how God could work through the messiness of human conflict to bring the church to an understanding of truth.

To us, in retrospect, the Council of Nicaea is a veritable mountain in the landscape of the early church. For the protagonists themselves, it was more in the nature of an emergency meeting forced on hostile parties by imperial power and designed to stop an internal row. After the council, many of the same bishops who had signed its creed appeared at other councils, often reversing their previous decisions according to the way the winds of preferment were blowing. They found themselves less in a domain of monumental clarity and more in a swamp of confusing arguments and controversies that at times seemed to threaten the very continuity of the Christian church. To understand the significance of the Council of Nicaea, we need to enter into the minds of the disputants and ask why so much bitterness and confusion had been caused by one apparently simple question: in what way is Jesus divine?

Of course, like many "simple" questions, this was a highly complex and provocative issue. Theologians of that era were almost beside themselves when they found that Scripture often gave very different-sounding notes when they applied to it for guidance. The disagreements this "simple" question provoked made many of the greatest minds of the era wonder to what extent the Christian doctrines of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit were coherent, and even to what extent Christians could trust in the canon of sacred text (which had hitherto seemed to them sufficient as an exposition of the faith).

In many ways, therefore, Nicaea reminds us of the present era. Rather than being a symbol of clarity, peace, and order, it was a call to a difficult focusing of mind across a church that was often as muddled and confused as ours seems still to be.

Read the whole article by John Anthony McGuckin (Professor in Late Antique and Byzantine Christian History at Union Theological Seminary).

h/t to Creedal Christian

"I don't read the bible literally"

Do you read the bible literally? 

Affirming that the entirety of Scripture is to be taken literally is a confession of fundamentalism, which is one of the few things our pluralistic society cannot tolerate. Answering in the negative implies that you may not be taking the Bible seriously at all, questioning not only the historical credibility of the crossing of the Red Sea, but also that of the empty tomb. Some questions cannot be answered by a simple yes or no, precisely because some questions are themselves problems.

Tim Gray, "Do You Read the Bible Literally?" Lay Witness (June 2001).
Tim Gray is assistant professor of Scripture and catechetics at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College in Front Royal and Alexandria, VA.

So here are some things from the bible.  Do you take them literally?  I have heard a number of people over the years proudly say "I don't read the bible literally".  As a blanket statement, it's simply unhelpful.  Mostly what I find is that people mean that they don't believe that certain things happened historically. Consider these sayings from Scripture and ask whther they should be taken "literally":

"I desire mercy, not sacrifice"
"love your neighbour as yourself"
"love justice"
"neither do I condemn you"

Okay, so those are just a few examples.  For someone who likes to say "I don't read the bible literally, I would say that you are using the wrong adverb.  More often than not, the person using that phrase either doesn't really understand what it is to "read literally".  I find the what they are really referring to is "reading literalistically".  Tim Gray again:

Most often what our culture means by the phrase "reading Scripture literally," would be more correctly rendered "reading Scripture literalistically," that is, taking each word at face value apart from its literary context. Such an approach drains the life out of language; such readers leech the meaning out of Scripture. For example, a literalistic take on the phrase, "Her eyes are as bright as diamonds," would claim that her eyes provided a similar luminescence as diamonds.

Augustine on the interpretation of Scripture

"Whoever thinks he understands divine scripture or any part of it, but whose interpretation does not build up the twofold love of God and neighbor, has not really understood it. Whoever has drawn from scripture an interpretation that does fortify this love, but who is later proven not to have found the meaning intended by the author of the passage, is deceived to be sure, but not in a harmful way, and he is guilty of no untruth at all." (De Doctrina Christiana 1.36.40)

In the sense of of being creedal (pt 2)

I no longer wish to repeat the creed in church because I do not believe that Christ had a virgin birth. I understand that in pre-Christian times a virgin birth was often given to those to whom they wanted to give importance. It had no basis in fact.

I am surprised that the Church of England has embraced this pagan custom. I am amazed that St. Matthew is the only exponent of this in the Bible and then he goes on with Joseph’s genealogy after. This is inconsistent. Why is this falsehood
still contained in the creed?

a letter to the editor in the Montreal Anglican June 2008 (pdf)

I left the author's name out because the point is not to jump on (or extol) the person who wrote this, but rather to address the ideas which are expressed or implied by this letter.  I'll get around to that in a while...

a comment on Good Friday

Over at Magic Statistics, Russel Sutherland left an intersting comment describing his experience at a Good Friday service.

how to read proverbs

I'm pleased to see that Tyler at Codex is back doing some posting on aspects of Old Testament scholarship for the rest of us.  He has a few snippets on reading the book of Proverbs, and a little bit of insight from his course on Wisdom literature.

His archives are full of helpful and interesting stuff on OT topics.

the lenten blogging series: Dante's Divine Comedy

With Lent just around the corner, it is almost time to start planning the annual lenten blogging series.  Last year I blogged through Augustine's Confessions as a bit of online lenten discipline.  My intention is to pick a "Christian Classic" and try to get through it during lent.  This year I'm contemplating Dante's Divine Comedy.  At least it begins with a good down-in-the-mouth lenten theme:  Abandon all hope, you who enter here. (Inferno. 03.009)

The general plan, as it is now being formulated, is to work through the Inferno and Purgatorio up to Easter weekend, and then spend Easter week exploring the joys of the Paradiso.

book review: John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

Jesus for the Non-Religious

I just finished re-reading John Spong's latest offering.  I had to read it twice to make sure I was not missing anything.  After all, just a few pages into the introduction, Bishop Spong declared that if he is successful in his task, then  "I believe I will have set the stage for the emergence of a new burst of Christian energy and power that has not been seen for hundreds of years.” (xiii)

Wherever this new burst of energy and power has been hidden, I have not found it here.  What would allow the dam to burst and this new force of Christianity sweep the world?  He argues that we will do this by seeing the Jewishness of Jesus and ridding ourselves of theistic concepts and language which are merely evolutionary leftovers.  We are, it seems to Bishop Spong, a species of beatnik poets, struggling against existential "anxiety" like footnotes in a Freudian textbook.  The only supposed cure for this anxiety is the illusion of a God conceived and portrayed as something other than ourselves.  By freeing Christianity from outdated concepts and language, we can see the Christ-experience and embrace the real Jesus.  In order to do this, it is necessary to demythologize the narratives which have grown up around the person of Jesus.  Gone are any notions of a virgin birth,  Mary and Joseph, most of the disciples (even Judas is historical fiction - which now saves me the trouble of addressing the Gospel of Judas) any form of the miraculous, any notion of a supernatural intervention in a purely materialistic existence.  Anything else is fundamentalism - a general term for any other possible understanding, although it would appear that only the straw man makes an appearance:  a "God" who does miracles is capricious (54), ascension is not possible because "one does not exit this world by rising into the sky without jet propulsion" (67);

This is the foundation:  Bishop Spong claims to be aware of something called "our postmodern scientific world".   That statement in itself tells us something of Spong's limited attention to the shift from modernity and its religion within the limits of reason alone (to borrow from Kant), to a post-critical reading of sacred texts, and a postmodern critique of the limits of the scientific worldview and method.  Spong's entire approach has not moved beyond the limits of empiricism, and so he fails to grasp how there can be a Being beyond Tillich's ground of being.

It is the presuppositions which hinder what still can be a number of helpful commonplace observations.  Spong goes to great length to point out that events in the Gospels have antecedents in the Hebrew Scriptures. Nothing new here for someone familiar with basic biblical studies.  Making such connections can be helpful for people who have never grasped any continuity in the biblical narrative.

But then Spong argues that such having antecedents are themselves evidence against the historicity of almost all the Gospel events (88ff et al).  "...[T]his would also mean that this intervening God would have to micromanage the world in order to guard those scriptures" (113).  Given that there can be no "God" cooperating with humanity in order to produce a sacred text in the first place, the rest of the conclusions are easily drawn.  We need to rid ourselves of this "superstitious way of reading the scriptures".

Still 2/3 of the way into the book, and I still have not met this Jesus for the non-religious.  When he is finally introduced, he is going to cause a revolution by calling us to embrace tolerance, diversity, reject prejudice and stereotypes, and in the end, we will all become contemporary Episcopalians.  Or something like that.

So what is good in this book?  The connections between the Gospels and the Hebrew scriptures should generally be helpful to novices.  The dismissal of the caricature of Christianity is something that most could agree with.  The only problem is that it is a dismissal of a caricature.

Where does the book fall short, apart from the thoroughly modernist assumptions about humanity and reality?  First, Spong offers no compelling reasons, within his framework, as to why in the world all of this mythology should have been built up around the person of Jesus in particular.  As someone who has some familiarity with the classical world, I can tell you why a mythology of divinity arose around the Caesars.  But there is no convincing reason in Spong's book explaining why it should have arisen around Jesus.  Unless, of course...

When Jesus for the non religious is finally introduced, he does not appear to me to be a compelling figure in any way.  If I were to give an introduction of Jesus to a non religious friend, I would much rather go with works by someone like Brian McLaren.  Even though I don't agree with everything McLaren writes, at least his presentation of Jesus is a truly human Jesus, a Jesus who radically challenges and a Jesus who, as a character, comes alive.  Spong's Jesus will be left in modernity, where he was created.

related posts:

John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

Review: McLaren: The Secret Message of Jesus

John Spong - Jesus for the Non-Religious

I do not believe that anyone can, with supernatural power, cause the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the mute to sing and the lame to walk in any literal way.  If that were possible, the development  of medical science would have been quite unnecessary.  That development, however, was necessary, because the discovery of both the causes and the cures of illness or the lack of wholeness is now and has always been a human, not a divine, responsibility.

Jesus for the Non-religious, p 12

The weekend's reading is going to be John Spong's latest offering.  In his introduction to the book, Spong reiterates a number of points he has discussed before in other works:  the Jewishness of Jesus, non-interventionist deity, his rejection of traditional forms and liturgy, his problems with language and his reaction to his fundamentalist upbringing.  One thing remains.  For someone who talks about "a 21st century Christianity", he seems awfully stuck in the paradigms of hubristic modernity.  Only those things which fall under the explanatory power of modernity can be credibly held:

We know death to be a permanent state, and to be so total a shutdown of bodily function that the brain is irreversibly destroyed if it is without oxygen for a very few minutes... Certainly a crucified man, executed and buried on Friday, cannot walk out of his tomb resuscitated and alive on Sunday...  I must reject all these things as not possible.  (12)

Woo-hoo - hang on for the ride, kids!

What We Can't Not Believe

In 2003 J. Budziszewski published What We Can't Not Know: A Guide.  The work was Budziszewski’s apologia for a recovery of natural law, by returning to those sources of natural or moral law which our culture has lost, but which nonetheless are entirely proper to the human creature and society.  In his more recent critique of the significant evangelical political influences (Evangelicals in the Public Square), he argued for natural law as a bridge between Christianity and the culture in which it presently finds itself.

In June 2007 the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada passed resolution 186.  The Saint Michael Report suggested that “10. We are agreed that blessing of same-sex unions is not a matter of core doctrine in the sense of being credal.5  The determination of this question will not hinder or impair our common affirmation of the historic creeds.”  The resolution which passed declared that SSB’s are not in conflict with the core doctrine of the AC of C (in the sense of being creedal).  What I want to focus on is the little phrase in parentheses, never mind that it has been consistently and repeatedly omitted from the subsequent discussions, reporting and communications.

I want to ask whether the “historic creeds” can now function in a way similar to Budziszewski’s view of natural law.  Can we now unapologetically say that the historic creeds constitute “What We Can’t Not Believe”?  More than that, can they function as bridges between cultures within the Church?  I suppose that would be the case only if they are commonly held to convey a common meaning.  They are, after all, specific statements in response to specific questions and problems.  As such, their meaning is intended to be clear on certain questions.  The semantic range is limited – one cannot say the creed “with fingers crossed”.   Likewise, will they begin to function as "enforcable" boundaries? Or to put it another way, is there a conservative element in that resolution which the average Anglican has not yet appreciated, because the church was and is so caught up in the first phrases? 

To those questions, as Legolas said, the elves do not have an answer.

Johnny Cash - on biblical interpretation

"I discovered that the Bible can shed a lot of light on the commentaries"

from the intro to "The Man in White", Cash's 1986 novel about the life of the Apostle Paul,

Budziszewski on Carl FH Henry, Evangelical Politics and The Uneasy Conscience

Coffee and a book...

The influence of Carl FH Henry on contemporary evangelicalism is undisputed.  He was a founder and first editor of Christianity Today, and one of the first faculty members of Fuller Theological Seminary,   He authored more than 30 books, and is, in the words of Budziszewski,“if not the father of the new evangelical movement – for it had no single originator – at least one of its uncles.”  [40] 

In 1947 Henry published “The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism”, a book which is his “most influential contribution to evangelical political reflection”.  [40]  Budziszewski devotes the first part of Evangelicals in the Public Square to critiquing both the book and its legacy.  What Henry saw in his own day was a movement away from the Fundamentalists to the “new evangelicals”, and with it Henry framed his lament over a misguided and hopeless modernity, and a challenge that Fundamentalists had ignored the social imperatives of the redemptive Gospel.

Henry argued broadly that redemption (like sin) is not only individual, but is also social [Henry, Conscience, 32, 37, 51-52].  He sought to correct the pendulum swing of the Fundamentalists, who in their reaction to a social gospel movement which seemed to downplay the divinity of Christ, had “seemed to revolt against the social imperative of the gospel itself” [41].  The underlying doctrine to drive this was the Incarnation, which has implications for wider social involvement and responsibility. Budziszewski summarizes Henry’s implications of the Incarnation for a redemptive social evangelicalism: “[Christians] should withdraw only from movements whose means or goals are explicitly anti-evangelical” [42].  What this means is that Henry was calling evangelicals and Fundamentalists to a wider engagement with the range of institutions – social, political, educational, economic. 

As Budziszewski points out, Henry’s strategy for engaging these institutions is not a developed Christian theory of education, politics, sociology or economics.  Rather, it is by populating these institutions with Christian individuals that the institutions will be transformed and redeemed. Here, I think, is the first question to be leveled in relation to contemporary “evangelical politics”:  Is it only through populating the institution with individual Christians that the institutions can be “redemptive”?  On one level, we see this played out in the elect-ability of candidates whose personal faith is agreeable to a set standard.  Fill the parliament, or congress, with individual Christians, and the rest will look after itself.  But is this the case?  Arguing from natural law, Bud holds that such an approach is short – it fails to call us to the task of thinking through a Christian economic and social philosophy, a Christian jurisprudence, a Christian philosophy of state and governance.  Christians need to have a notion of how the institutions can function redemptively.  For example, can we understand and enact just laws even if we do not have “Christians” in government? And conversely, will electing "Christians" lead to more just public institutions?

Another point to be considered in the (non) development of evangelical political philosophy is eschatology.   Budziszewski looks at three streams of eschatology in evangelical circles – streams which are still with us today.  Think of the “Left Behind” series which has populated Christian bookstore shelves and fattened publishers’ bank accounts.  Henry lamented the state of division and the amount of energy devoted to eschatology in his day, and Budziszewski looks at the legacy of these streams [44ff].  There is a large section of evangelical political thought which does not seek to transform the surrounding culture, but merely is content to be protected from it.  It is an escapist ideology which becomes merely defensive.  With shades of Kuyper, such evangelicals are happy as long as their own spheres are protected:  “we don’t think we will change the direction of public education, but don’t try to force that stuff on MY children.”  Budziszewski astutely observes that the “rise in fundamentalist political activity therefore reflects not a shift from a protective goal to a redemptive goal, but an increase in the perceived level of threat.” [46ff]

What Henry called evangelicals to do was engage the wider culture with the redemptive Gospel.  But what he failed to do was articulate a way in which evangelical Christians can think about those institutions apart from simply populating them with Christian individuals.  As Budziszewski points out, “Surely it would be naïve to think that better laws eliminate the need for God’s grace.  But it is equally unrealistic to suppose that conversion cancels out the need for better laws.” [47]

This whole area is a fascinating one.  One of the biggest charges brought against Henry and other evangelicals is that they failed to provide a “cultural apologetic”.  That is, they failed to explore if there is any basis on which to engage and cooperate with non-Christians in the pursuit of the public good.  This is a question which will have different answers from different quarters.  Is there any commerce between the City of God and the city of man?  Can there be a common notion of public “justice” among Christians and non-Christians?  Budziszewski argues that a great failing of evangelicalism is the absence of natural law as a bridge to a non-Christian culture.  This is the flip side of the Incarnation – all humans are made in the image of God, and as such, there are points of contact between all.  In their zeal for special revelation, they have neglected the tools of general revelation.

An interesting read so far.  Think I’ll have to pull out the Meno again…

related post:  J. Budziszewski: Evangelicals in the Public Square

Q, Walter Bauer, & more Bock and the missing gospels

A bit of continual meandering around some themes introduced by Darrell Bock, with previous posts here and here...  Tonight's stroll looks at some questions raised by Bock in chapters 4 & 5 of this book.

So we have a variety of viewpoints all claiming to lead us to the roots of the true Jesus, and the true teaching or faith which he left to his followers.  Was the variety of viewpoints found in the the 2nd C also present in the 1st C?  Or was this variety a novelty, a subsequent development?

There are a few things to consider as we look at competing claims.  One is the nature of the claims.  So someone might say, “Jesus was just a first C wisdom teacher, nothing more and nothing less”.  Now anyone can hold such a view.  The question is rather do the sources hold out evidence for such a view.  I might hold that Napoleon was an 18th Century watchmaker.  But do historical records point me in that direction?

If one is using only the alternative texts (such as the Gospel of Thomas), is there evidence to support such a claim?  Elaine Pagels is persuaded that Thomas is old, at least as old as John’s Gospel, and that it presents us with a non-divine, non-exalted Jesus.  But looking at things like saying 77, where Jesus claims he is “above all”, tells us that these texts do not simply provide a us with a picture of Jesus as a simple wisdom teacher. And people in the pews or in the news who claim that Jesus was a mere teacher also tend not to: a] be familiar with such texts; b] quote such texts if they know of them. 

Whatever happened to Q?

A lot of weight has been placed on “Q”. Q is thought to be a source for some of the material in both Luke and Matthew.  Think of it this way:  my brother and I are both writing family histories.  We each draw on a collection of notes which came from our great uncle.  And we also include our own observations, first hand accounts, and stories from other family members.   So parts of our stories would be quite similar (drawing from the same source) and other parts would be unique to each of our writings. 

New Testament scholars have looked at Luke and Matthew and said “It looks like these writers have, at some point, been drawing from the same pool of material – either something written down, or particular stories handed on orally.  That is why the two gospels share similar stories at certain points.”  And so they hypothesized that there must be a source from which Luke and matthew both draw.  The name for this source is Q.  Now a few points are in order.  First is that “Q” has never been found.  That in itself presents a bit of a difficulty for historical accuracy, doesn’t it?  Second, accepting or rejecting the idea of Q does not put one inside or outside any circle of orthodoxy or heresy.  After all, Luke says that he used sources. 

The difficulty comes when you try to reconstruct Q, and then come up with a reason for its “disappearance”.  First, you have to assume that it was a thing in existence.  Second, you have to come up with a description of it.  Was it merely a collection of handed on teaching which was then incorporated into the gospels as authentic?  Or, as some suggest, was it a larger body of material which was suppressed because it gave an alternative picture of Jesus?  So someone like Ehrman makes the claim that it presented a different picture of Jesus, and so it was suppressed by the powers that be.  Perhaps there was an early tradition which told the truth about Jesus – that he was a wisdom teacher and nothing more, that all the things and teachings we now associate with the word orthodoxy were later additions, that “we have missed the truth about Christianity” (cf NT Wright in this book).  The key question about Q has to do with what one thinks was in Q.  Was it a body of sayings and material that was circulated in the tradition, and because of its authenticity (and hence orthodoxy) was simply absorbed into the writing of the evangelists?  Or did it have a lot of other things which contradicted the traditional gospels on certain points, and so it was “disappeared” by the orthodox religious mafia of the day?

In chapter 5 Bock gives us a brief tour of the influence of Walter Bauer.  Bauer published a work in 1934, which was republished 30 years later in 1964.  The English title of his work is “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity”.  Bock helpfully points out both positive and negative in Bauer’s work.  First, Bauer introduced some methodological considerations:  how far can one trust the church fathers in assessing the views of those they were writing against?  True enough, yet when one looks at Irenaeus against the sources there is great consistency:  he represented the views of his opponents quite well. (Bock 48).  A second insight had to do with geography:  as Bock states, ideas travel across time and place at different speeds. (49)

So what was Bauer’s thesis?  It basically had two pillars:  [1] there was a variety of views as to what the original form of the Christian faith was, which could be seen if one looked across the geography at the time;  what we call orthodoxy was a later construct;  [2] Rome was in control and imposed its version of orthodoxy across the church, that’s how and why “orthodoxy” came into being.

Bock devotes a good deal of energy (see Bock 48-55) referencing subsequent scholarship debunking Bauer’s thesis, although he notes that Bauer’s contribution to method are important.

Bock & the Missing Gospels: an intro to the questions

Picking up from here.

For a number of years I’ve had an interest in older things.  Probably explains why I ended up in Classics.  Old texts, old thoughts, old ways of looking at things – all of these capture imagination, both mine and those of others.  Over the past number of years we’ve seen the publication of things like the Qumran scrolls, the discovery of the Nag Hammadi material, and if you recall, the most recent “discovery” of the Gospel of Judas.

Often what one encounters is a sound bite of such ancient texts, in the form of an interpretive summary.  Sort of “I’ve looked at the material and can now say X about the historical Jesus/ the early Church/ Judaism/ Paul/ insert item here.”  I’ve encountered many people in bible studies, discussion groups and in conversation who have heard of these kinds of documents and about a particular interpretive school of thought.  One hears about these texts and their interpretation, significance or meaning from religious studies courses, local study groups and lectures, and from the more popularized works of theologians and would-be theologians.

I was an undergraduate in Classics a few years after Elaine Pagels published  “The Gnostic Gospels” (Princeton, 1979).  The book was an instant success.  Bock introduces his work with a quote from the back cover of Pagels’ work: 

…to illuminate the world of the first Christians and to examine the different ways in which both Gnostics and the orthodox Christians constructed God, Christ, and the church.  Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Whether you have studied or read in this area, or simply picked up a newspaper around Easter every year, you will have heard names like Bart Ehrman, Crossan and the Jesus Seminar.  The inside jacket of Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities:  The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew” (Oxford: 2003) makes the claim that:  “…these spectacular discoveries reveal religious diversity that says much about the ways in which history gets written by the winners.”  Bock looks at the announcements surrounding the more recent work by Marvin Meyer (The Gnostic Gospels of Jesus):  “an image of Jesus as the ultimate wisdom teacher.”  Students and laypeople alike will recognize (and have differing opinions of) what Bock refers to as the “new school”.

So where do we start?  In a sense we are starting ahead of ourselves:  we really need to look at what we understand by revelation and Scripture.  But for the time being, I want to take a walk through Bock’s work – looking at the Nag Hammadi texts at some depth.  This is really the most fruitful way of discovering any ancient way of thinking.  Read the text.  The same principle is true of the gospel of John and the letters of Seneca:  read the text.  It is great and helpful to read commentaries and interpretive materials, but they are no substitute for immersing yourself in the text.

Bock calls himself a “tour guide” for the reader.  No doubt he has his positions and beliefs, as we all do, and so one might be skeptical as to whether or not he will simply point out his favourite portraits of Jesus and early Christianity.  Yet I think overall he does a fair job of presenting the texts, the various interpretations, and giving the reader enough context to draw conclusions.  He limits his study to

“the period before Irenaeus, that controversial church father of the late second century.  The new school claims that Irenaeus ‘won’ and was the key architect of orthodoxy.  The claim is that this orthodoxy … emerged even more clearly in the third and fourth centuries.  So the new school argues that the Christianity we know has roots that do not really go back to the time of Jesus or even to the apostles in a way that precludes other alternative views of Christianity.” (xxv)

In chapter one, Bock gives the reader some basic historical background to the time period of the second and third centuries.  The first context of “Christianity” is the Jewish setting in which it arose, with the Jewish beliefs about God, and the broad category of the covenant and the promises to Israel.

It is helpful to think about some rough timeline in early Christianity, although one should remember that there are not abrupt jumps from one time period to the next.  Bock gives a brief overview of three:

1]  The time Jesus and the Apostolic period – up to the end of the first century.  This is the period in which Jesus and his immediate followers (apostles) would have been active.  The latest date for New Testament writing puts us in the 90’s AD, so with the death of the Apostles comes the end of the Apostolic age.

2]  The age of the “Apostolic fathers” covers the time the time of the first few generations after the first period, roughly up to 150 AD.  The Apostolic fathers were those “who had contact with the apostles or fit in the period just after them.” (9)  In this period you will encounter texts like 1 Clement, the letters of Ignatius (a bishop of Antioch), the “Martyrdom of Polycarp”, the Didache, the “Shepherd of Hermas”.  It is in this time period that one can certainly see the rise of “alternative” views of Christianity, particularly some Gnostic texts.  We will talk about the Gnostics below.

3]  The age of the Apologists goes from the previous period through to Nicea (325) and beyond. (10)  In case you are confused by the term “apologist”, it isn’t someone who is sorry for Christianity, it is one who writes a defense of Christianity, or makes an argument in its favour.  Apologists often wrote with specific “opponents” in mind.  In this time period you will see names like Justin Martyr (100-165; who, by the way, predates Irenaeus), Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and Origin.

So why is the history important?  Well, it is argued by the new school that these later apologists are the ones responsible for forming what we might call orthodox Christianity.  It is claimed that earlier on, there were:   [A] competing views and interpretations, or [B] an entirely different understanding of Jesus and Christianity, and that [C] these later apologists pushed out the other views and imposed ‘orthodoxy’ on the church.  Some questions which come to mind:  did these “orthodox’ beliefs exist in the early Christian communities?;  was there suppression of such beliefs?  Or, as NT Wright asks in his work, have we missed the truth about Christianity?

A word about the Gnostics.  While Bock gives us a brief overview, I would also point you to part one of Jaroslav Pelikan’s work, “The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition” from his five volumes on the history of Christian doctrine.  It is a more thorough and presents the reader with the “next step up” in terms of indepth history of the period.  It is worth getting.  But back to Bock’s overview.

When we think of possible “alternatives” to orthodox Christianity in ancient times, the term “Gnostic” always rises to the surface.  The term comes from the Greek words for knowing or knowledge.  In modern scholarship, Gnostic or Gnosticism is used to refer to those who held that belief was rooted in a “special knowledge”.  As Bock summarizes, “those in the know are called Gnostics”.(15)  In chapter two Bock looks at some of the discussion and difficulties around the term.  It is a term, which was used both positively and negatively in early Christian circles.  We can see both uses as we read the scriptures:  many Christians will be able to quote a text like “you shall know the truth…” and yet we have Paul writing “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Bock points us to the work of Kurt Rudolph, who has listed five traits of Gnosticism (19ff):
1]  Dualism – the belief that creation and humanity are a mix of good and evil, based upon the view that there is a distinction between the true “God” who is above all, and a lesser “God” who created the material world.  Often the “true God and the Creator God of Genesis are not the same thing.”
2]  Cosmogony, or how the universe is set up.  There is a contrast between light and dark, soul (or spirit) and body or flesh, knowledge and ignorance – things exist in pairs of opposites.  If point one shows us a dualism in God, then this point shows us a dualism in the created world and how we live in this dualism.
3]  Soteriology, or what we mean by salvation, and how it is brought about.  Salvation is by knowledge of the true state of things, and it is salvation of the non-material part of humanity.  There is a saving of the mind/ soul or spirit, but not of the body.  Because the body and flesh belong to the darkness, there is generally no resurrection of the body.
4]  Eschatology, or what the end-times of all things will be like.  Think “Left Behind”, but with panache.  There is a restoration of the spiritual to the Spiritual, and not much interest in having a re-newed creation.
5]  Cult and community, in which cult means not the people who sell peanut brittle at the airport and live on a commune, but the way the believers or adherents practice their faith in worship and liturgy and ritual.  For instance, the Gnostics had practices like baptism, and other liturgical ceremonies.

So Gnosticism and Orthodoxy – which came first?  Did Gnosticism give birth (by opposition) to what we call orthodoxy, or was it a derivative set of beliefs, a parasite upon orthodox belief and practice?

That’s it for tonight.

warming up for St. Augustine's day

The commemoration day of Saints Augustine is drawing near.  You might say his feast is fast approaching.  The only reason I am posting this is so I could make that horrible pun.

But for some real fun, how about a warm up to the festivities?  Something I've been poking away at for a little while when the time allows.  Not all the notes and refs are there, but I'll put them in at some point.

It will probably only be of interest to folks like Mind Your Maker, but you know, we all have our own idea of fun.

Wittgenstein thrice quotes from Augustine's Confessions in the Philosophical Investigations .  He began his Philosophical Investigations with a quotation from book one of the Confessions, where Augustine described how he learned to speak.  His critique of the "Augustinian Picture theory" of language, which extended to paragraph 64, provides "a convenient focus to present (in his new idiom) points of agreement as well as disagreement with his earlier thought."  At paragraph 89, he quotes from book XI, and Augustine's famous dilemma about understanding temporality.  We know what time is, but if we ask "what is time" we seem not to be able to explain it.  And at paragraph 436, we find Wittgenstein again quoting from book XI.  Concerning words, they are "manifest and ordinary, and yet the things themselves are too deeply hidden, and discovering them is new".  As Augustine's description of language from the Confessions seemed a good point of departure for Wittgenstein's further investigations into the nature of language, so I propose to continue the relationship. 

Wittgenstein, in his preface to the Tractatus, tells his readers the meaning and method of his work:
       

Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows:  What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent...  The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather--not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts... (TLP, Ogden translation; Routledge, 1992, p 27)

From the outset of the TLP, Wittgenstein was convinced that the problems of philosophy stemmed from a "misunderstanding of the logic of our language" , a misunderstanding which was to be cleared once one understood that logic.  Thus a correct understanding of his work will take into account both the meaning and the method of the TLP.  How we arrive at the union of the two is done through an examination of language, or more properly, through language itself. 
   
Wittgenstein further elaborated on the purpose of his early work in a letter to his publisher, Von Fricker:

Robert Gagnon & the case of the missing chapter:

The following chapter was written for my first book "The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics" (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001) back in 1999. Because the powers-that-be at Abingdon Press were predominantly supportive of homosexual unions, they did not want me to become “too practical.” They disagreed strongly with the policy decisions that I took in this chapter and so refused to publish it. I did nothing with the chapter because I was headed for a tenure decision and knew that my stances on these policy issues would further jeopardize my tenure—a tenure already (and ironically) jeopardized by publishing a book on the Bible’s view on homosexual practice that supported the official stance of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (with which my seminary was and is affiliated). After being awarded tenure in 2002 I more or less forgot about the chapter. However, a recent editorial in Presbyweb.com by the moderator of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. labeling as “A Deeply Pernicious Heresy” (Aug. 4, 2007) any attempt at withholding membership from persons who repetitively and unrepentantly engage in homosexual practice has served as a catalyst for me to release this chapter. It’s long overdue.

link to the "lost chapter" (pdf)

CHURCH POLICY AS REGARDS HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE: MEMBERSHIP AND ORDAINED MINISTRY

A 'lost' chapter of my first book

(written 1999; publicly released Aug. 2007)

This particular sentence caught my eye:  "They disagreed strongly with the policy decisions that I took in this chapter and so refused to publish it."  A full and open dialogue needs to be full and open.  During my time as a campus chaplain, I've had conversations with academics who have had similar encounters with publishers.

with a good translation, who needs Greek & Hebrew?

I have to confess that one of my goals in taking Introduction to NT Greek during my course of studies at seminary was rather low.  At the time I was also involved in a doctoral level seminar on Hellenistic Greek.  I had done a number of years of Greek through my previous programs in Classics.  However, the seminary also offered a convocation prize for the student with the highest mark in NT Greek.  Meh, so maybe the competition was fixed, but I won the prize...

Tyler over at Codex has posted a few brief thoughts on the state of language study, in a post entitled Raising the Language Bar for Seminary Studies (follow his links for some very good articles).

The sad reality is that even those seminarians who take biblical languages end up not using them — obviously with some exceptions — and if you don’t use it, you lose it. There are probably many different reasons for this state of affairs. Most seminaries appear to have lower academic standards than in the past and minimal language training. There is also a fear of language learning among seminarians. I don’t know how many times I have heard students worrying about taking Greek or Hebrew. Perhaps the biggest problem is that many consider it irrelevant — and if you look at what is considered acceptable preaching in many churches today then a psychology degree is probably more relevant than any language training!

When I take folks on pilgrimages throughout the Holy Land, my knowledge of Arabic has been an invaluable tool.  With a knowledge of the language I can have an experience of the people, the culture, the landscape, which I believe is deeper than that of those who do not speak the language.  I can translate for the group.  I believe it is the same with biblical languages:  with a knowledge of the languages we can have a richer and deeper understanding and experience of the people, the culture, the landscape of the Scriptures.

should Jews build the Third Temple?

Traditionally the Temple Mount Faithful attempt to set up a foundation stone for the Third Temple on Tisha Be'av, and the police routinely prevent them from doing so. The occasion for this street theater is the anniversary of the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and that of the Second Temple in 70 CE, both said to have occurred on the same calendar date.

It is certainly right that the date be commemorated; but would rebuilding the Temple be an appropriate act for the State of Israel today?

Assuming there were no Dome of the Rock and no Muslim presence on the Temple Mount, no Wakf and no Aksa Mosque, the pressure to rebuild the Temple would be enormous - but would it, in historical terms, be sound?

An interesting story from the Jerusalem Post.