A Few Items of Interest
Image via Catholic News Agency
From the “This is just plain sad” department:
The $15 candles show the president’s haloed head pasted over the body of St. Martin de Porres, the Peruvian-born friar who is one of the first black saints in the Americas. On the candle, the saint is holding a crucifix.
Fr. La Torre said the candle “mocks Jesus” and “depicts our beloved saints in a not so saintly way.” (source)
Next, we have an example of “freedom of speech so long as you don’t offend me.” A college professor called a student a “fascist b*****d” for giving a speech in class in favor of upholding traditional marriage between a man and a woman. College is supposed to be a marketplace of ideas, but it is clear that, at least at this school, only the left-wing ideas will do. Anyone who stands for biblical truth is fit only to be silenced. The student is suing the college for violating his First Amendment rights. We’ll see how that turns out.
Sins of Scripture III: Women
In his book The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong echoes almost every sentiment of detractors of Christianity in his own beliefs, and gives them credence by declaring himself to be a committed Christian. He believes that Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife according to Scripture, and that her place at Jesus’ side is his model for the new place that women should occupy in church leadership. I believe that women have been mistreated not by a literal reading of Scripture (as Spong believes), but by a misreading of Scripture.
Women share with men the distinction of being made in the image of God (according to Gen 1:27), despite Spong’s claim that the Bible subordinates women to men. This was never the original intent. That came after the Fall, which distorts the original intent of God’s creation. Women are now functionally subordinate to men, but they are still made of the same stuff and therefore ontologically equal to men.
Women were not the source of sin, as Spong proclaims. The Bible teaches that it was man who was that source: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12, emphasis added). It was no sin for Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, it was only a sin when Adam ate the fruit, since God gave the command not to Eve but to Adam.
I am not going to dispute Spong that there is a history of sexism in the church, nor am I going to dispute him that some of the Mosaic laws make no sense in regard to women. But we are not bound to the law anymore; we are free in Christ. Spong hits on the one verse that is very important for this discussion–Galatians 3:28. This verse means that the arguments over gender and sex roles are worthless, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
It isn’t necessary to cast Scripture aside in order to arrive at these conclusions; instead one only has to read the Scriptures for what they say. Spong isn’t doing that. But one wonders why Spong attempts to recast Scripture at all since he is on record as believing that it is not the Word of God.
The Sins of Scripture II: Ecotheology
John Shelby Spong’s first sin of Scripture is the environmental havoc that we have wrecked on this planet. I agree with him here that it is a tragedy how we have treated our fragile environment, and share with him a desire to see humans correct this awful behavior. What I don’t share with Spong is a conviction that the Bible as it stands encourages this sort of behavior, nor do I believe that an entirely new concept of God is necessary to effect this change.
Spong believes that the Bible’s command to be fruitful and multiply is at the heart of the overpopulation. I think not. I think that the heart of the problem is irresponsible sexual behavior, a thing which Spong shows no desire to curb in human beings. Instead, he’d rather throw birth control at the problem.
Now don’t get me wrong. Birth control is a part of the solution in my point of view. But only when combined with solid morality. That means that sex is reserved for marriage. Spong seems to join critics of Christianity in believing that the only solution to this problem is to surrender to our urges because of better available birth control technology.
Spong wrongly believes that a solution to the pollution problem lies in reinventing God. As commenter Bradford pointed out:
To him [Spong] the bible is sexist and homophobic, and we should not judge sin or reprove the sinner; no, we shouldn’t judge at all just love and tolerate and never say sin is wrong especially if it disagrees with anything a woman wants to do with her body or any alternative lifestyle one wants to live.
Spong has already created an idol for himself; a deity who doesn’t judge anyone and for whom sin is not a problem. Reinventing God is Spong’s solution for every problem. So what sort of deity does Spong conceive of? The answer is a nature deity, or rather, Nature Itself. Spong would worship Nature Itself as a deity rather than a deity outside of nature. In Spong’s mind, a deity outside of nature–in whose image we are made–creates the impression that we are somehow above or around nature. That we owe the environment no allegiance since we are above it.
This is a wholly false picture of Christianity. True, we are created in teh image of God, and therefore outside of nature. But God owns everything; ultimately we are just stewards. Therefore, in that frame of mind, we should be responsible stewards and turn the planet over to him in the same condition that he gave it to us.
It isn’t necessary to invent an entirely new concept of God that denigrates him to become part of his own creation. He transcends creation according to his Word, and we should revere him that way. It is only necessary to properly frame our understanding of God’s relationship to man–that we are stewards over his creation, and that he is coming back and expects to find it in the same condition it was left in.
With Spong’s weak and judgment-impaired deity, it is no wonder that he needs to create a new concept of God to give us incentive to control the environment. They say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of both knowledge and wisdom (Ps 111:10; Prv 1:7). Since no one can fear Spong’s “god,” it is no wonder that Spong has neither knowledge nor wisdom.
The Sins of Scripture
It wasn’t long ago that I tossed aside my copy of Why Christianity Must Change or Die after reading only to chapter three, never to pick it up again. Author and former Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong remains a person of interest to me, if only to answer the question, “Why does he still call himself Christian?” Spong denies all of the essential truths of the Christian faith, yet calls himself a passionate believer.
I’ve started to read another Spong book, The Sins of Scripture, figuring (incorrectly) that I would agree with Spong on a few points. I’m curious to see how he presents the Bible, because the inside flap promises a new way to read Scripture. It is this curiosity that will keep me reading to the end, even though I already have the desire to throw the book into the fire where it belongs.
In chapter two, a chapter that would make any atheist proud of Spong, the former bishop dissects a claim that cannot continue to stand: the claim that the Bible is the inspired word of God. He says:
My religious critics say to me that there can be no Christianity apart from the authority of the scriptures. They hear my attack on this way of viewing the Bible as an attack on Christianity itself. I want to say in response that the claim that the scriptures are either divinely inspired or are the ‘Word of God’ in any literal sense has been so destructive that I no longer want to be part of that kind of Christianity! I do not understand how anyone can saddle God with the assumptions that are made by the biblical authors, warped as they are both by their lack of knowledge and by the tribal and sexist prejudices of that ancient time. Do we honor God when we assume that the primitive consciousness found on the pages of scripture, even when it is attributed to God, is somehow righteous? (18)
He goes on to ask a few questions between pages 18 and 19 that I thought I’d address, as they are seriously misguided. I wonder how someone like Spong can study the Bible so much and yet learn so little about it, or the claims of the religion that he claims to hold dear.
The questions, along with my answers:
- Do we really want to worship a God who plays favorites, who chooses one people to be God’s people to the neglect of all others?
- When we portray the God of the Bible as hating everyone that the chosen people hate, is God well served?
It is true that God preserves for himself a people out of each generation, and he lovingly predestines those people to conform to Christ’s image (Eph 1:4-5, 11; Rom 8:29-30). It is further true that God chose the Israelites first, and that he hated others.
But this fundamentally misunderstands the Biblical definition of “hated.” In the sense the word was used, it described only people that God did not have a covenental relationship with. It revealed nothing of his disposition toward such people.
The rest of the Bible is pretty clear that God loves all people; cf. Jn 3:16; Acts 10; Gal 3:28, 5:6.
- Will our modern consciousness allow us to view with favor a God who could manipulate the weather in order to send the great flood that drowned all human lives save for Noah’s family because human life had become so evil God needed to destroy it? Can we imagine human parents relating to their wayward offspring in this manner?
This question betrays Spong’s concept of sin. Spong obviously doesn’t view sin with the same seriousness that God views sin. Sin isn’t just a sickness. Sin means death for the human race. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23).
The verses preceding the Flood story paint mankind as corrupt and vile. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). In light of this, I don’t see how any serious student of Scripture can see the Flood as anything short of a deserved punishment that man brought upon himself.
- Can we really worship the God found in the Bible who sent the angel of death across the land of Egypt to murder the firstborn males in every Egyptian household in order to facilitate the release of the chosen people?
- Can the Bible still be of God when it portrays Joshua as stopping the sun in the sky for the sole purpose of allowing him the time to slaughter more of his enemies, the Amorites (Josh 10:12-15)?
- Can the Bible be the “Word of God” when it has Samuel order King Saul in the name of God to “Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Sam 15:3)?
The God that Spong is describing has no absolute right to judge his people as guilty of sin, and therefore no absolute right to pass judgment on his people.
- Is it the “Word of God” when the Psalmist writes about the Babylonians who have conquered Judah: “Happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rocks” (Ps 137:8-9)?
All I have to say to this question is: Just because it is in the Bible, doesn’t automatically mean that it is condoned by God. The Psalms express the full range of human emotions, from happiness to despair, from joy to sadness. But that’s just what they describe-human emotion. This isn’t divine righteousness like the passages described above; this is a very human emotion. Anyone should be able to see the distinction.
In all, I think Spong paints God as a lightweight. One who doesn’t sit in judgment over sin, but instead tolerates and accepts it as human behavior. This isn’t the God that I worship.
Why Magick is Forbidden
According to Exodus 22:18, we are not to permit a practitioner of witchcraft to live. This verse causes some well deserved tension from the community of pagan sorceresses. Many pagans have the chapter and verse memorized, and I’ve seen websites throw it out there as an example of the Bible’s intolerance toward unbelievers.
I’m not here to advocate the death penalty for witches. Instead, I’m here to remind everyone that what was written in former days exists only for our instruction (Rom 15:4), and that we are not to take the penalties outlined in the Bible on ourselves to enforce (cf. Rom 12:19). Instead, I want to use that verse as we are meant to now, for instruction, and expound on why I think that magick is a sin.
Let’s take a look at a spell:
I adjure you, Evangelos, by Anubis and Hermes and all the rest down below, attract and bind / Sarapis whom Helen bore, to this Herais, whom Thermoutharin bore, now, now; quickly, quickly. By her soul and heart / attract Sarapis herself. . . . (Love spell to help a woman attract another woman, from Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1986, 266.)
Let’s set aside the issue that this is from one woman to another woman. I don’t want this to turn into a gay/lesbian debate. We’ll focus on the magick itself and why that is offensive to God. First of all, the idea of a magic spell is to accomplish some end by appeal to a supernatural entity. The desired time frame for the effect is now. This creates two offenses to God: appealing to another deity (Ex 20:3; Deut 5:7) and seeking your own will above his (Lk 22:42).
Spells often contain exhortations to pagan deities or other spirits. This is in direct violation of Exodus 22:20 and 20:4-6, which forbid invoking any deities but Yahweh. At first, the Bible seems to put the stamp of approval on the existence of other deities, but making it clear that God only is to be worshiped. However, the book of Isaiah tells us in at least two places, 43:10 and 44:6, that there are no other deities in existence. God is the first and the last. That means that these appeals to other deities actually go to thin air.
What if a sorceress invokes the name of God in her magick? Is she in the right? I say no for a few reasons. First, God has made it clear that prayer is the vehicle by which to contact him. If the preferred method of contact was magick, God would have made that clear in his word. Instead, he has made sorcery and necromancy clear violations of moral law. Second, true prayer seeks the will of God above the will of the seeker, as Jesus prayed in Luke 22:42. If Jesus, the Son, prayed for the will of the Father, how much more should we, servants of the Son, pray for the will of the Father? Third, spells often contain phrases like “now, now; quickly, quickly.” The obvious aim of the spell is to accomplish something right now. Prayer, on the other hand, seeks to accomplish God’s will in his time, which often means having to wait for the desired effect until God is ready to grant it. It may be months or years before a prayer’s effect manifests, and even then it may not be exactly what you want. Like my second point, prayer seeks God’s will and not the will of the seeker.
God wouldn’t want us to put a sorceress to death anymore; as I’ve outlined above. So what are we to do? Preach the gospel and pray for her. God will work it all out (Rom 8:28).
The Nature of Sin
I’ve been reading on the nature of sin in John Stott’s Basic Christianity, and it has set me thinking. Then I read this post by a good friend, and I knew that I must post something on the nature of sin.
Sin is fun. Let’s face it: sin is more fun than the Christian lifestyle. But the pleasure sin brings is only for a season; and then the consequences set in. Yes, there are consequences for every sin, some more severe than others. No matter how much fun sin might be, it never outweighs the consequences.
At its heart, sin is loving self more than loving God. A healthy life is lived to please God, a selfish life is lived to please yourself. Only others-centered people are able to please God. The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are the servants, after all.
Despite what atheists think, good works are a central tenant of Christianity. The love of God will manifest in the life of the believer, and it will do so as the fruits of the Spirit, and inevitable good works will follow.
Which brings me to an interesting point. Why do some people draw close to God, while others don’t? It is a simple matter of lifestyle choices. The closer that one draws to God, the more aware of sin one is. This can become extremely uncomfortable for the sinner who loves his sin more than he loves God. As the sinner exposes his sin to himself, he becomes squeamish, realizing that in order to continue the journey closer to God, he must rid his life of this sin that he loves so much. Either he must continue down this road, shedding the sin, stall where he is and keep the sin, or turn tail and run the other direction, away from God.
The third option is what the atheist does. He invents 1000 intellectual objections to God, while the real reason he rejects God is that he couldn’t stand to see himself from God’s point of view. He couldn’t part with his sin.
Why are some able to draw near to God? Because they love God more than they love their sin. Those that can’t draw near to God love their sin more than they love God. These people want to live life their way instead of God’s way, assuming (pridefully) that their way is better.
Make no mistake: living in sin is much more fun than the Christian lifestyle. However, the long term consequences spell disaster for your life. It will lead to an early grave, for the wages of sin is death. Scientific studies prove that religious people have less stress, less depression, and more self-discipline than the nonreligious. Maybe this God guy knows what’s best for us after all!
Stumping Pro-Lifers
Daniel Florien from Unreasonable Faith has a question that stumps pro-life demonstrators:
If abortion is illegal, what should the punishment be for women who have illegal abortions?
Florien thinks that this question will win any debate with pro-life people:
Now watch their faces as the cognitive dissonance sets in. They believe abortion to be murder. Murder deserves severe punishment. Thus, women who have illegal abortions should receive severe punishment — like life in prison or the death penalty. That’s the logical conclusion.
But they can’t accept this conclusion. They know it’s absurd and unfair — which means they know abortion is not really murder. (source)
Florien mistakenly believes that all pro-lifers are as inconsistent and uninformed in their views as the ones on the YouTube video that he accents this post with.
Why the inconsistency? Why are pro-lifers afraid to say that life in prison would be a reasonable punishment for a woman who has an illegal abortion? I’m not afraid to reveal that that is my position, after much soul-searching and prayer. Abortion is murder, and it should be punished as such.
However, to prove the copus delicti in these cases would entail proving both that the woman was pregnant, and she had an abortion. A careful woman would be able to conceal the fact that she was pregnant from everyone if she planned to have an abortion. There may be little evidence to prove that she was ever pregnant in the first place, and a back alley abortion clinic would have every reason to avoid admitting that they knew she was pregnant to protect themselves.
The mens rea would be a difficult process, too. You’d have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she intended to take her baby’s life, which means proving that, at the time the crime was committed, she understood that the baby was alive inside of her. Here it may be easy to feign ignorance or to muddy the waters by introducing medical data proving that the baby was already in danger of dying.
Conclusion: abortion is murder. Murder merits severe punishment. The punishment should be life in prison, as for any murder. But making a prosecutable case would be extremely difficult. But the possibility of such a sentence would still give anyone pause before committing the crime, and would make any law-abiding citizen consider an option better for the baby, like adoption.
It Worked for James White…
It worked for James White, I’m going to see if it works for me!
James White posted his Amazon.com Wish List on his website, and within hours, everything on it was purchased. I’m going to see if that works for me. Probably not, but…
If you have been blessed by the work of this ministry, and God leads you to give something back, then please consider an item off of this wish list. Thank you!
Chapter Two of Velvet Elvis
I’m reading Velvet Elivs: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell, one of the leaders of the Emergent Church. Bell brings up several problems with sola scriptura in the second chapter of the book, titled “Yoke.”
At first, I wondered why he chose such an unusal name. As I figured, it’s named after Matthew 11:30 where Jesus tells his disciples that his yoke is easy and his burden light. But there’s a deeper meaning to the name. The Bible, Bell argues, is a very difficult book to grasp. When you’re wrestling with it, you bring your own experiences and interpretations to it. No one reads the Bible for what it says, Bell insists, all you’re doing is giving your interpretation of the words. It was no different in ancient times.
Every rabbi had his own interpretation of the Bible. This was called his “yoke.” Every once in a while, a rabbi would come on the scene with a brand new yoke. Before anyone would take the new yoke seriously, the rabbi would have to have hands laid upon him by two established rabbis. That, Bell argues, is the significance of the passage where Jesus has both John the Baptist baptize him, and the voice from Heaven declares that he is the Son of God.
That, Bell says, would be recognized as the two established rabbis laying their hands on Jesus, and that Jesus’ new yoke was legitimate. The problem inherent in this Bell’s interpretation of the facts is that this seems to relegate Jesus to the role of teacher or role model. It doesn’t declare that Jesus’ “yoke” is the yoke; instead, this description allows for it to be one yoke among many.
Scary!
I just stumbled onto an article from the Christian Science Monitor that scares me a little bit. It appears that most Americans define their own theology.
According to a recent Barna survey, 71% of Americans are more likely to form their own religious beliefs rather than follow an established tradition. The number rises to 82% for those under the age of 25. These “cafeteria Christians” pick and choose beliefs from among various denominations, and even from non-Christian religions.
Some might argue that this isn’t bad. Many Catholics, and even some Protestants, would see this as the natural outgrowth of sola scriptura–without the authority of the Church, everyone is free to create their own doctrine. This, however, is a corruption of sola scriptura. The corruption of something good should never be confused with the thing itself.
Why is this a scary thing? Look at what people believe: half don’t believe in Satan, a third believe that Jesus sinned, and two-fifths don’t see an obligation to share their faith. These things are clearly contradicted by Scripture. Satan is an established fact, as is Jesus’ sinlessness, and the Great Commission from Jesus himself makes sharing our faith obligatory.
In a point of irony, more Americans believe that right beliefs lead to eternal life than right behavior. Ironic becuase there is no check or balance on what people are believing these days.
But should we expect that to be the case? After all, let’s look at the leading Christians of today. Joel Osteen preaches the centrality of man. T.D. Jakes preaches the prosperity gospel. Look at the Emergent Church leaders and their desire to redefine every doctrine of Christianity for a modern audience. None of these men place any emphasis on the proper discipleship of new Christians, leaving them free to decide what is right for them rather than what is true.
Divorcing Scripture from the tradition used to interpret it is dangerous. How many people are going to read Scripture carefully, and read the history behind it, consult commentaries and set aside the daily study time and devote a large portion of their lives to getting their doctrines right? Few, if any, I’m sure. Instead, they are going to find what makes sense to them and run with it, without ever finding out the history or philosophy behind each doctrine. Few people are going to develop their theology that carefully.
The problem inherent in a concept like sola scriptura is that it puts too many cooks into the kitchen. This isn’t what sola scriptura was ever meant to be.
Biblically speaking, not everyone is called to be a teacher. But we are all called to be disciples of Christ. Like the Bereans, we should search the Scriptures daily to see if what our teachers tell us is true. But we should hesitate to become our own teachers, lending instead some credence to those who have devoted their lives to studying the Scriptures and history of the church, those who understand sound doctrine and teach it. Everyone becoming their own teachers, as is the trend, fosters spiritual anarchy.
Back Rome Again 