felix hominum

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.