I'm likely overgeneralizing here, but why does it seem like whenever I point out what I see as the bad behavior of conservatives (whether theological or political) one of the first responses I get is usually "Well, your side does it too!" I can't recall how many times I've said something here about the close-mindedness of evangelicals for instance (which after all, is my own tribe), only to have someone respond, "Yeah, well, mainline liberals aren't any better." Or the number of times I've posted something about the dirty politics of the Republicans on Facebook, only to have someone reply, "Well, the Democrats do the same thing."

There are a number of things that bother me about this response:

1) It doesn't actually deal with the issue at hand. It's an evasion tactic that shifts the focus of debate from whether or not said behavior is actually acceptable, to "who started it". As such, it seems like basically a way of avoiding responsibility for one's own actions. So what if the other side does it? Does that thereby excuse your side from doing it too? Do two wrongs make a right? It's especially ironic when conservatives do this. I mean, aren't they supposed to be all about "personal responsibility", not just passing the buck?

2) The "your side does it too" response falsely assumes that I am actually on the "other side". This is not a safe assumption, whether theologically or politically. For instance, while I may be "post-evangelical", evangelicalism is still my heritage and the tribe I most easily identify with, so when I point the finger at the short-comings of evangelicals, it's not pointed at "them" so much as "us". And to be sure, I'm definitely not standing on the side of the mainline "liberals" either. Just because I've moved somewhat beyond evangelicalism doesn't mean I've therefore become a mainliner. That has become abundantly clear to me the more time I spend at my mainline Presbyterian seminary. I respect, love, and am intrigued by my mainline brothers and sisters here, but in many ways I still feel like an outsider looking in. So when folks tell me that "the mainliners do it too", my first thought is "Great, so what? I'm not a mainliner so what does that have to do with me?"

Likewise with politics, just because I no longer identify with the Republicans (though at one point in my life I was, literally, a card-carrying member) doesn't mean I therefore am a Democrat. I'm just as happy to criticize their antics as well (as I did, for instance, just the other day when I posted a Facebook complaint about how the Dems need to just let this Joe Wilson thing just drop.) Thus, when folks respond "The Dems do it too!" again my response is "Yeah? So what? They suck too. But shouldn't you be worried about your own side?"

Of course, I'm sure some might wonder why, if I don't consider myself either conservative or liberal in either of these spheres, why my critiques are usually directed primarily at the conservative side (which, I'll freely admit, they typically are). The answer is because, as I said above, the conservative side of things is where I come from and what I know. I can critique evangelicals because in some ways I still am one. And I can criticize Republicans because not too long ago I was one. However, not having ever been a mainliner, nor a devoted Democrat, I have a harder time pointing out their faults simply because I'm not as familiar with them. Indeed, it feels somewhat unfair and inappropriate for me to criticize them without fully understanding them. It's the whole "nobody better criticize my momma except me" thing. When you're part of (or have been part of) the family, you have a right to point out its faults. But when you're an outsider (and always have been), one has an obligation to understand before critiquing. (Which is one of the reasons I'm here at a mainline Seminary - in order to understand what makes mainliners tick so that I can better understand the critiques of my mainline Emergent friends.)

Anyhow, I'm sure I'll get flamed for this post, though of course it would be extremely ironic if the response to it was "well, liberals use this same evasion tactic too!" So let me be the first to say it, yes of course they do it too, and more than that, I'm sure I've done it too at times - I'm certainly not perfect. So why don't we all commit to dealing with the actual issues from now on, and not try to avoid seeing them in our own side (whichever side that is) by only ever pointing them out in the other. Let's all agree that "well, your side does it too", is never a valid counter-argument, especially when you haven't yet dealt with the fact that your own side is also doing it.

Labels: politics, theology

I've been reading Mark Noll's The Old Religion in a New World recently, and he cites the following quotation by a 19th century American Catholic, Orestes Brownson, which I found interesting:

"Catholicity is theoretically compatible with democracy..., but practically, there is, in my judgment, no compatibility between them. According to Catholicity all power comes from above and descends from high to low; according to democracy all power is infernal, is from below, and ascends from low to high."

I can certainly see how this issue would be a problem for Catholic Christians, most of whom would agree with Brownson's assertion that power descends from high to low, even if they don't necessarily make the connection that this thereby validates a hierarchical political order (from God to Pope to King to the People) as much as a hierarchical spiritual one. However, I think there are probably many other Christians besides just Catholics that would likewise agree with the basic premise that power and authority descends from high to low, from God to human authorities, and thus might recognize a conflict between their faith and the basic premise of democracy. On the surface it seems a persuasive argument. After all, most Christians, I think, would affirm that all power ultimately comes from God.

However, it occurs to me that affirming God as the source of power and authority does not necessarily imply anything about its direction, whether ascending or descending. Indeed, if what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 about God choosing the lowly, the foolish, and the weak things of this world, and what he says in Philippians 2 about Christ giving up his power and condescending to the weakness of humanity is true, then one could argue that God-given power does not filter down from high to low among human beings, but rather that it begins with the lowest, the least, and the common. In that sense, God's power is very compatible with the essence of democracy: the idea that legitimate power derives from the will of the governed - those on the bottom of the social pyramid - not from the will-to-power of those on top. God empowers the weak, not the strong - those on the bottom, not on top. Power, in God's kingdom, descends all the way down, so that only then can it begin to filter back up.

Not being Catholic, I can't say whether this conception of power is compatible with "Catholicity", though I would think that it would have much in common with the kenotic theology of Saint Francis for instance. However, I do think it is a legitimate and profoundly Christian conception.

Labels: politics, theology

Tony has some good thoughts up about why he doesn't like the "package deal" among liberal Christians, where it is assumed that if you support GLBT rights (as Tony does, as do I) and other similar causes, you must therefore also reject the historical, physical reality of the Resurrection of Jesus (which Tony does not, nor do I). He writes:

Why is that important? Because I'm a real person. Because the people to whom I have ministered in Jesus' name are real persons. We're not hypotheses, fables, or legends. And we need real healing, all of us. While our realities may be largely socially constructed, we have real DNA, real physical, material properties.

Thus, since the resurrection of Jesus is his defeat of death, evil, and grief, it's important to me that it really happened. Without a resurrected Jesus, Christianity is impotent. (Exhibit A: liberal Christianity) And I don't mean a Jesus who was "resurrected" in the Disciples' hearts, and in my heart. I mean a real resurrection in the space-time continuum by a physical being known as Jesus of Nazareth, as 99.99% of Christians for the last two milennia have believed.

Read the whole post here.

Labels: theology, Tony Jones

I found this interpretation unique and compelling:

What is unique in the Hasidic approach to reconciliation is that it points the way to seeing justice and love as necessary complements of each other rather than as alternatives between which one must choose... The large majority of people in our culture hold the distorted view that the God of the Old Testament is a harsh and wrathful God in contrast to the loving and merciful God of the New... An "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is not the expression of a vengeful God but a primitive statement of basic social democracy in which no [one] is held of greater worth than another, because each is created in the image of God... Throughout all history, indeed, the natural inequality of man has justified razing a whole city to revenge the murder of one privileged man. Countless others have been exterminated with impunity because they were slaves or serfs or members of an "inferior race." "An eye for an eye" is a fundamental conception of social justice.

~ Maurice Friedman, "Hasidism and the love of enemies" in Peace is the Way

Labels: social justice, theology

I still don't have a lot of time to blog, so instead I'm going to re-post (with some modifications & updating) a comment I made in response to a question about alternative Christianities in the early centuries of the church (e.g. Gnosticism, Docetism, Arianism, etc.) and why "orthodox" Nicene Christianity eventually won out. I've been studying this stuff even more thoroughly in recent seminary classes (especially my "Early Church and Roman Society" class where we're actually reading a lot of the primary texts from way back then), so I have even more insight to this than I did then, though for the most part what I said has simply been confirmed.

Anyway, based on these studies, my feeling is that the prominence or legitimacy of alternative early Christianities is sometimes over exaggerated. I've often heard it presented as if groups like the various types of Gnostics or their collections of books were merely alternate but equally legitimate interpretations of the Jesus tradition - as if the difference between them and what became orthodox Christianity was no more significant than the difference between say, Methodists and Baptists.

In reality however, many of these sects were not just alternate Christianities, but really radically different religious belief systems that merely borrowed certain Christian texts and terminology and combined them with other mystical philosophies or religions. For instance, when I read the Nag Hammadi texts I am struck by their utter dissimilarity from anything you find in the Hebrew scriptures or the canonical New Testament writings. The closest analogy I can find is the difference between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity these days (though even that's not perfect since even the Mormons are probably closer to mainstream Christianity than most of the Gnostics were). Maybe an even better analogy would be some of the New Age-y cults out there that try to paint Jesus as some type of Higher Consciousness guru or swami, but with almost zero connection to the Jesus of history.

The other point to remember is that many of these early sects are much later developments. While all of the canonical gospels and the letters of Paul, John, and Peter can easily be shown to have been written in the first century, and usually within a generation or two of Jesus' ministry; most of the Gnostic gospels and other non-canonical texts cannot be shown to be any earlier than the mid to late second century (i.e. over 150 after Jesus) and most from he third or fourth century. It is for this reason primarily - i.e. the historical proximity to Jesus and the first apostles - that the canonical writings were preferred by the early church and were listed as such by many early Christian writers.

Of course, groups like the Gnostics, whose theology was so far different from orthodox Christianity as to be a different religion entirely, are somewhat different than early Christian groups like the Arians, Nestorians, or Copts (to name just a few) who were not outside of the mainstream of the Christian church, but who had differing ways of understanding the divinity and humanity of Christ. While I wouldn't say that these differences are unimportant, I would say that the disagreements between these groups were more akin to the denominational differences we have today, than they were to the radical differences between gnostics and Christians.

So why did the Nicene view triumph? I'm not entirely sure. There is the traditional answer, which is that it is the correct view, so the Holy Spirit directed the church to accept it.

Then there is the cynical, DaVinci code type answer, which is that political pressures by Constantine and powerful bishops conspired to suppress alternative views. While there is some truth to the fact that political interests had some influence over the process (especially in regards to the Emperor's desire for uniformity among Christians), this answer also conveniently ignores the facts that 1) Constantine himself preferred Arianism, and 2) that there really weren't any such thing as "politically powerful" bishops at the time of Nicaea, as Christianity had only recently gone from being a persecuted minority religion to being at least permitted (though not yet officially endorsed) by the Edict of Milan.

Personally I take a different view than either of these, which is simply that this is how the church decided things back then, through these sorts of ecumenical councils, and this is what they decided. There was a lot of argument and disagreement but in the end they reached a statement that most, if not all, could agree to. In fact, much of what was agreed on at Nicea (and at later councils like Chalcedon) was a kind of both/and compromise position that did its best to reconcile varying opinions. Since almost all currently existing churches today are descended from those who accepted the creed formulated at Nicaea, that statement is still held in high regard today. Though I suppose if someone wanted to make an argument that the Arians or Nestorians or whomever actually had a better way of looking at the dual nature of Christ than Nicene Creed does, and suggest that we ought to adopt that instead, they could certainly attempt to do so.

Indeed, that's my approach for all of these early "Christianities". I don't just engage them just on the historical level, trying to figure out who believed what, when. I also consider them as "live options" for my own belief. In other words, the question for me is not just whether Gnosticism was or was not an authentic expression of Jesus' teachings, the question is also whether or not Gnosticism is a persuasive view of the world to me. Would I want to be a Gnostic? Do I agree with their beliefs? Likewise, with other Christological views, do I think any of them are more right than the one expressed by the Nicene Creed? Nicaea isn't unquestionably right just because it's what became dominant, but it's not necessarily wrong for that reason either. As much as possible I want to evaluate each of these theologies and worldviews on their own terms and see which make the most sense to me. Speaking personally, when I do that, more often than not I do find myself landing on the "orthodox" option in the end. But I'm also glad that I've arrived there by my own effort and not just because I felt compelled to blindly accept some creed (nor compelled to disbelieve it simply because I can see the historical/political factors that influenced it).

Labels: Gnosticism, history, theology

Today is International Women's Day, a day dedicated to the celebration of women’s social, economic and political achievements worldwide, and I'm celebrating by participating in the IWD Syncroblog my wife is organizing. She specifically asked us to write about women in the Bible, and I couldn't help but think of some of the things I've been learning in the "Early Church and Roman Society" class I'm currently taking at Austin Presbyterian Seminary. It's a fascinating class all around, and, fortuitously enough, we've actually just started discussing the roles of women in first-century cultures. Understanding this context is essential, I think, to understanding how the New Testament addresses the role of women in society and especially the early church. We have to know what it stands in contrast to in order to understand how revolutionary the Bible was for its day in regards to women.

First off, it's important to recognize that when talk about the cultures of the New Testament, we're not just talking about one monolithic thing. In our class we actually distinguished four different sets of cultural expectations that could have provided the setting for the New Testament writings about women: Jewish, Roman, Classical Greek/Athenian, and Macedonian/Hellenistic (I was intrigued to discover that Hellenistic - i.e. post-Alexander Macedonian -attitudes towards women were somewhat different than the older, Classical Greek ideals.) We also distinguished between upper and lower class gender norms, as well as cultural ideals versus actual practice.

I can't get into all of these here, but for this post at least, I did want to focus specifically on Jewish attitudes towards women in setting of the gospels. While of course we can't just disregard the Roman, Greek and Hellenistic contexts either since 1) many of the gospels were shaped within those settings, and 2) Roman and especially Hellenistic norms were certainly an influencing factor on Jewish culture in first century Palestine, when we look at the context of Jesus' teachings the Jewish cultural setting is primary and provides the baseline for everything else. The most intriguing thing I discovered in my class discussion was that there was apparently a pretty sharp divide between theory and practice among the Jews of Jesus day. Textual evidence (mainly from the rabbis) rarely talks about women except in regards to cleanliness laws, and, unlike other ancient Mediterranean cultures, there were no special festivals or days dedicated to women, or any specifically female civic or religious societies in first-century Judaism. When women are mentioned by the rabbis, it is basically just to recommend that they be kept separate from the men both in the synagogue and at home, and that they not be seen in public any more than necessary.

Archaeological evidence (e.g. tablets, inscriptions, architecture, etc.), however, shows that most of these rabbinical restrictions were rarely (if ever) enforced in actuality. For example, while the early rabbis wanted to have a separate "women's section" of the synagogue, archaeologists have yet to uncover any first century synagogues with such a partition. Likewise, while the rabbinical writings generally restrict theological training to men, ancient inscriptions indicate that in actuality many women did receive instruction in the Torah. Or consider the gospel narratives themselves. While written norms wanted to keep Jewish women indoors and away from the public sphere, in the gospels we see Jesus frequently encountering women out and about in society. The inevitable conclusion, as my professor pointed out, is that the picture of first century Jewish women as cloistered and segregated is not much more than an unrealized "ideal" created by a small handful of influential (male) rabbis. It may have been what the religious leaders thought "ought" to be the case, but the actual lives of real people were far different.

We also pointed out that a lot of this discrepancy probably had to do with socio-economic realities. Whether we're talking about Roman, Greek, or Jewish culture, the rules that apply to upper-class women are often simply impossible for the working class poor to abide by. When you're barely making it (as most people in this time period were) everyone, male or female, does whatever is necessary to survive. The rabbi can talk all he wants about how women shouldn't be out in public, but when your family's very survival depends on a wife or daughter going and selling your wares in the marketplace, religious ideals are usually going to take second place to economic realities.

Looking at it in this light, I can't help but draw a comparison with the situation in a lot of conservative churches these days. I can recall sitting in very culturally and theologically conservative churches and listening to the pastor tell his rural, working-class congregation that God's ideal for the family is for women to be stay-at-home-moms and for the men to be out working in the world as the breadwinners. And I recall looking around at the wives and mothers actually present as he said this and realizing that the vast majority of them didn't have any choice but to work outside the home. Given the hard realities of a depressed rural economy, most families simply can't survive on a single income anymore. What this pastor was preaching had no relevance to the actual lives of his people, and did little more than create guilt complexes for those women who were being told that they were disobeying God by doing what was necessary to provide for their families.

In these sorts of contexts then Jesus' teachings and example in the gospels is truly liberating. Rather than laying heavy burdens on his listeners by agreeing with the unrealistic ideals of the Pharisaical rabbis, Jesus stepped into the reality of women's lives and affirmed them where they were at. Never do we see Jesus telling a woman to retreat from engagement in society or to simply stay in their place as women. In fact, when Martha rebuked Mary for leaving her feminine role and daring to go receive rabbinical training along with the men, it is Martha, not Mary, that Jesus chastises. Likewise, we see Jesus out in public engaging in theological dialogue with women (e.g. the Woman at the Well, the Canaanite woman, and Martha herself after the death of her brother Lazarus), welcoming their presence as followers and disciples, and enlisting them as the very first witnesses to the resurrection. Jesus countered the dominant ideology of his day by dignifying the roles women were already playing in society and expanding their roles as participants in his mission. Rather than seeing themselves as victims of economic circumstance falling short of God's ideal, women could see their active, productive roles in public society as valuable assets for the kingdom of God. As my own experience in the aforementioned church bears out, this is a message that still needed for many women today.

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Click here for the rest of the IWD Synchroblog posts.

Labels: feminism, history, theology

An off-hand remark in my New Testament textbook got me thinking the other day. Speaking on the Gospel of Matthew, it noted that Matthew seems to have retrospected the conditions of late first-century Christianity into Christ's teachings. Specifically it notes that Matthew repeatedly has Jesus talking about "the church", and points out that the church didn't exist yet when Jesus was preaching, and thus these sayings couldn't have been authentic.

But is it a safe assumption that there were no "churches" in existence while Jesus was still preaching? What about people who responded positively to Jesus' message and yet didn't leave their homes to wander around with him? Wouldn't his ministry have resulted in clusters of disciples, or maybe even whole villages, that had committed themselves to Jesus as the messiah? (Richard Horsley agrees this is likely in his book Jesus and Empire.) And if so, did these people ever gather to discuss what they had received? Whether they gathered in the synagogue or elsewhere, wouldn't it be appropriate to consider these sedentary communities as a kind of "church"? And if such communities did exist, then why couldn't Jesus have had them in mind in those passages where he talks about how to conduct the communal life of the "church"? Sure, the term "church" itself may have been retrospected back by Matthew, but I'm not sure it's a safe assumption to think Jesus didn't plant stable communities of followers, or that his teachings would have never referred to such communities.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's very possible, even likely, that Jesus was a church-planter of sorts.

Labels: New Testament, theology

Perhaps being at a relatively liberal reformed seminary myself and listening in to their discussions about the effect of sin on human nature is why I resonated so much with my friend Troy Bronsink's reflections on the subject. In an Emergent Village Cohort Leaders Discussion he offered the following thoughts:

It's wierd. In the liberal reformed seminary i went to the difference is between Barth (we are desperately unable to reach God without his interrupting revelation) and Tillich (we are created as beloved, co-creators with God, called to have the courage to return to our ground of being). But now I see it less either-or. At Neighbors Abbey last night we were reading Luke 5 when jesus says "its the sick that need a doctor." and I was surprised to hear myself reflect that i'd rather be a collection of the sick, the lost, and the blind, than a group who "has no need of a doctor" "has been found" or "now can see comprehensively and objectively." Even the zen/integrationist-est in
our group agreed that following a LIberator-Jesus includes knowing we stand in need, queued up for liberation.

So I still say that I'm over the "you're shit until you meet Jesus" pitch, while maintaining that meeting God in Christ gives us courage to be lost, blind, broken with the rest of the God-loved-world.

Right-on man! I agree that we're all created good, and in God's image, and nothing sin can do will ultimately destroy that. Nonetheless, there is something desperately missing if you only ever focus on human goodness. There needs to be room for lost, broken, messed up people to say so and find healing. Maybe the difference from a pastoral perspective, is between telling people they're screwed up, and giving them the freedom to admit when they feel like they are and offering them love, grace and healing anyway. And quite honestly, I too would prefer to be part of a humble community of the broken who know they need help than a self-righteous community that thinks they already have enough of the Spirit (or the divine-spark or whatever) that they don't need any more.

Labels: theology

Conversation at bedtime tonight:

Emma: "Where is God?"

Me: "God is everywhere. He made everything and is in everything."

Emma: "But God can only be in one thing."

Me: "Why?"

Emma: "If God is in a tomato then he can't be in a carrot, so there has to be lots of gods."

Apparently I'm raising a polytheist. :)

Labels: Emma, theology

Nic Paton, an emerging guy from South Africa, has an excellent article up at the Emergent Village blog about questioning the value of "sola scriptura". Here's just a tidbit:

While I love scripture, and see myself to hold a high view of it, I question the doctrine’s modern application. In essence, I see it as excluding and reducing truth, as reactionary, and ironically, as unscriptural. But before we detail these objections, we need to look at a few background assumptions: what we understand as the “word of God”, the canon, the scriptures as “law” not narrative, and the taints in this view of enlightenment rationalism.

• While today we see the “Word of God” as synonymous with the “book” called the Bible (it’s more of a library of books between 2 covers), in the vast majority of cases in scripture itself, it refers to a breathed, and spoken word. If scripture is made to mean the written or printed word of God, then it represents only a subset of God’s greater expression.
• Regarding that library, we have received by tradition what is known as the canon. For Protestants this means 66 books in total. This was “finalized” between 393 and 419 CE at the synod of Hippo, under the aegis of St. Augustine.
• Despite the canon being considered “closed”, Martin Luther in his reforms rejected the apocryphal books, still part of the canon for much of the church. While Luther emphasized scriptural authority, he rejected scriptures then current. And while he rejected Church authority, he accepted the rest of the canon which had been ratified by the church and passed on by that authority.
• In the wake of rationalism and scientism, we tend to view scripture as a book of law, a textbook, or a set of logical propositions, rather than a book of story. Our post enlightenment view has caused us to require scripture to be “perspicuous to reason”, and non-contradictory.

A closed canon, a rejection (or fear) of contradiction, a literate culture where the oral and non-written is set against and over what is printed, and the static and deterministic worldview of modernism has caused us to close down and defend the bible. When Jesus said “You have heard it written … but I say to you …” (Mt 5:39) he might have been addressing us. We still fail to see revelation as evolving, despite the fact that Jesus and his ministry was founded upon a progressive revelation of God.

I don't have much to say about it except that I totally agree with Paton and he expresses my thoughts on the matter better than I could. I'd definitely recommend reading the whole article.

Labels: theology

Note: This is going to be a very long post. This was the theology paper I had to write for my Systematic Theology class a few weeks back. I thought I'd post it here so you can enjoy/rip me apart for my heretical neo-Pelagian reinterpretation of original sin. :) BTW, the focus on Calvin and Aquinas was due to the requirements of the assignment, not because I was exceptionally interested in their views on the subject, though I suppose they're as good representatives of the Western church's theology of sin as any.



Both Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin fundamentally define sin as a breaking of relationship. For instance Calvin declares in his Institutes that “Unfaithfulness [to God], then, was at the root of the Fall.” Furthermore, both highlight sin as having both individual and social aspects. In other words, the brokenness is both within us and external to us. We are sinful people born into a sinful world. I think contemporary theologian and biblical scholar Scot McKnight does the best job of elaborating on this multi-faceted character of sin in his book A Community Called Atonement, where he describes sin as broken relationships between ourselves and God, self, others and the world. Likewise, Jesus himself said that the whole of the Law can be summed up in two commands: love God and love others . If God’s desires for humanity are thus all about love, then sin, in the teachings of Jesus, would have to be defined as a failure to love, which is another way of saying, once again that it’s about broken relationships.

However, I want to suggest that if this is the case, if we agree with Thomas, Calvin, McKnight, and Jesus that sin ought to be primarily understood as a break in relationship between ourselves and God, self, others, and the world, then it has further implications for how we understand original sin, sin’s effects on us as human beings, and also what it means to be saved from it. I also want to suggest that while Thomas and Calvin get this basic definition of sin right, their subsequent conclusions about the nature and transmission of original sin, and its effects on human beings are out of sync with this definition. After asserting the relational character of sin, both Thomas and Calvin then proceed to describe sin’s effect on us in primarily ontological terms. For instance, Thomas speaks of sin as “disorder in the disposition of the parts of the soul”, and Calvin likewise talks of a “hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul”. Sin thus quickly moves beyond the relational sphere into a more individualistic problem of our corrupted natures. While neither Calvin nor Thomas neglect the relational and corporate effects of sin in their writing, I would argue that these balancing themes often appear to be subordinated to individualized questions of forensic righteousness and personal sanctification because of their understanding of sin as an ontological condition. Salvation thus becomes primarily about personal forgiveness, individual sanctification, and post-mortem reward rather than relational reconciliation and healing. These emphases often become even more pronounced in the theology of their later followers, even when Calvin or Thomas themselves appear more balanced. I would suggest that we instead need to back up and keep the definition of sin as relational brokenness wholly in our vision as we explore the effects of sin and what it means to be saved from it. Sin as relational brokenness will have very different implications than sin as a corruption of human nature.

Let us first consider the implications of this view of sin as relational brokenness on our understanding of original sin. What does this definition of sin imply about how the original sin is “passed down” to us? Again I would suggest that both Thomas and Calvin’s views stem more from their ontological descriptions of sin, rather than a relational definition. Thomas said it was an “inborn” (i.e. biological) inheritance from our first parents , and Calvin (quoting Augustine) said it was an “inborn defect from our mother’s womb” and that we are “born infected with the contagion of sin.” I would argue, however, that neither Thomas’ nor Calvin’s views seems to have much to do with the definition of sin as relational brokenness. How can a relational situation be transmitted through genetics or “infection”? I suggest instead that a relational condition would have to be passed down through a relational/social process.

More specifically I want to suggest that the relational brokenness which we call sin is primarily the result of what sociologists would call “socialization”. It seems to me that both Thomas’ and Calvin’s views reflect an “essentialist” view of human nature wherein we are born with a fixed identity that determines who and what we are. To put it in more familiar (though potentially misleading) terms, they would argue for nature over nurture as the chief determinant of our sinfulness. In contrast to this, I would suggest a “constructivist” view of human nature wherein biological inheritance (nature) plays a role, but is not wholly determinative. Rather we become who we are through a complex interplay of nature and nurture, and especially through the process of socialization, that process of social interaction by which we learn the moral norms, attitudes, values, motives, social roles, language and symbols of our culture and through which our personalities, self-identity, and inward character is shaped. In other words, we become who we are in relationship with and through the influence of others.

If this is the case, then sin as relational brokenness would be as much, and probably much more, a product of socialization as it is of any natural inheritance. We are raised by and formed by broken people who exist in broken relationships with each other, both inter-personally, communally, and societally. Recalling McKnight’s description of sin, we’d have to say that this brokenness also extends to their relationships with God, with the created world, and within themselves as well. This being the case, we cannot help but become broken ourselves. Who we are and who we become is shaped by broken people in a broken society. Humans are inherently social/relational beings and it is impossible for us to exist apart from relationship. Therefore it is not possible for us to avoid being affected by relational brokenness. Original sin is thus “inherited”, but socially, not biologically. Sin is not “inborn”, but neither is it strictly “willful”. We are “sinners” before we ever consciously choose to sin, because even before we’ve become aware of our brokenness it has become a part of us. Thus my view is similar to Pelagius’ idea of sin as passed down through “imitation”, though not entirely since I do not imply willful imitation. Calvin mentions Pelagius’ view, though offers little by way of counter-argument to his position except to rail that if sin is propagated by imitation then Christ’s righteousness would also be communicated to us by imitation, and, according to Calvin, this is “sacrilege” and “well known” not to be the case. In my opinion Calvin’s critique of Pelagius simply begs the question and is not convincing to me in any case.

I want to turn now to the effect of sin on the human person. If sin is about broken relationships, and if it is passed down socially, not biologically, what does that imply about the extent of sin’s effects on us and whether or not we are capable of overcoming it? Calvin’s view was that our depravity was total. We are wholly corrupted by sin. “The heavenly image was obliterated in him, ” according to Calvin. However, in my opinion, this view doesn’t match up well to an idea of sin as relational brokenness, especially if we pair it with an understanding, suggested by Scot McKnight along with many others, of the imago dei as having to do with our being created in relationship with God, self, others and the world . Yes, all of our relationships are broken to one degree or another, but they are not wholly destroyed, nor are they wholly corrupted. Nor does this brokenness happen totally and immediately in all instances, as a doctrine of total depravity would seem to require. Rather, brokenness tends to be gradual and degenerative (we can all likely think of good relationships in our past that have slowly gone sour for one reason or another). Things tend to get progressively worse, but not all at once. If this is the case, then there must have been some original goodness in our relationships that is being degraded, and thus they cannot be said to have been totally depraved.

In this instance I think Aquinas’ view was that we are still good in our natures, but habitually inclined towards sin fits better with the definition of sin as relational brokenness . We are still relational beings. We are still capable of loving God and others, just not perfectly. The good and the bad end up getting all mixed up together. The imago dei, which I do take to be fundamentally about our nature as relational creatures, is not “obliterated” by sin. We still exist in relationship. But those relationships have a tendency to become broken and degrade with time because of the socialized effects of sin in our lives.

However, it is also important to recognize that, even if we retain some basic capacity for healthy relationships, because of the complex social nature of sin, we are still incapable of overcoming relational brokenness on our own. If we attempt to fix our own personal brokenness, we still have to exist within a broken society that continues to shape us and drag us back into unhealthy patterns and relationships. On the other hand, if we attempt to fix society, our own personal brokenness usually tends to thwart our efforts. Both things need to happen at the same time, but the long history of failed utopian efforts suggests that this ultimately impossible for broken human beings in a broken society. We can’t fix everything needs fixing all on our own.

I want to suggest that this inability to heal our own brokenness is why we need Christ. His life, teachings, death, resurrection, and ongoing ministry through the Spirit and through the church begin to heal the personal and corporate brokenness that keeps us trapped in cycles of sin. The life and teachings of Jesus provide us with a model of how to live life to the full in service of God and others, thereby moving us towards both personal and corporate wholeness. The death of Jesus demonstrates God’s forgiveness of our sins, thereby restoring relationship between us and God, and also provides a model of how we ought to self-sacrificially forgive others sins against us so as to break the cycle of revenge and violence and restore our relationship with others. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates God’s ability to ultimately triumph over sin and its effects, thereby giving us the hope to continue on in his mission to restore broken relationships in the world, even when it requires personal suffering and sacrifice. Furthermore, the inner work of the Spirit, aided by our practice of spiritual disciplines and sacramental means of grace (which I personally extend far beyond the traditional “sacraments” – all of life is potentially “sacramental” inasmuch as God can communicate his grace to us through any variety of physical means), begins to heal our personal brokenness. And finally the church as the body of Christ is intended to be a community of reconciliation where we can begin to be re-socialized into new patterns of behavior and then sent out as agents of reconciliation in the world. The church as a healing community begins to transform individuals with God’s love, and the church as a missional community seeks to transform the world with God’s love.

However, it should be recognized that this process of inward and outward healing and reconciliation is an ever ongoing process. The inward work of the Spirit doesn’t immediately eradicate all of the influence of sin in our lives, nor does the church always live up to its calling to be a community of reconciliation; thus none of us succeed in imitating Christ perfectly. Just as the influence of sin is gradual and degenerative, likewise Christ’s work of relational healing and reconciliation is a gradual process of restoration.

Nevertheless, I believe that keeping the relational nature of sin in front of us is vitally important so that we don’t get so sidetracked into focusing on notions of personal forensic righteousness that we forget what the problem is that we’re trying to fix in the first place. As I’ve only briefly alluded to in the last few paragraphs, understanding the nature of sin directly affects our understanding the nature of the atonement, of the Spirit and of the church. In other words, if we misunderstand the nature of the problem, then we are bound to misunderstand the nature of the solution, and I am afraid that, too often, this is precisely what ends up happening to those who follow a Thomistic or Calvinistic theology too uncritically.

Labels: theology

I'm getting into the end of the semester, with all the big papers and exams coming up. Because of this, I don't have a lot of time or mental energy to think about blog posts. So instead, here are a few of the school-related things that have been on my mind in the past week (several of which will remain on my mind for the weeks to come:

1) Finding resources for an annotated bibliography on early Christianity as a counter-imperial movement. Funny how all the older (20+ years) resources I found claimed that early Christians were perfectly happy to accommodate themselves to the political power structures of the Roman Empire, whereas all the resources I found that were less than a decade old recognized that this was only one stream of the church (the one that became "normative" after the church finally did accommodate itself post-Constantine), but that there were also many other streams in the first few centuries that saw themselves engaged in active, subversive, non-violent resistance to the Empire.

2) The doctrine of original sin and whether it makes any sense to say that it is a biological inheritance. My contention is that if sin is a relation dysfunction (i.e. broken relationships between ourselves and God and others) then it would have to be passed down through relational, not biological, means - which I identify mainly as the process of socialization.

3) How some conservative evangelicals (especially among certain Southern Baptists and the new Reformed Radicals) are moving back towards fundamentalism. Specifically I'll be researching and writing about how some conservative evangelicals are having the same sort of reaction to postmodernism that the fundamentalists of a century ago had towards modernism.

Labels: theology

One of my favorite musicians is folk-singer/songwriter David Wilcox. His music expresses just so many things that seem true to me. He's not a "Christian" artist (though he is a Christian), but quite honestly, whenever I need a reminder of what it is I really do believe in and why (and why, in the end, I can't merely be a skeptic or an atheist), I listen to his songs. Whether it's "Out of the Question", "Native Tongue", "That's What the Lonely is For", or my all-time favorite, "Show the Way", his songs express truths that are both simple and profound at the same time.

I especially like how well he expresses what can only be called "postmodern" insights about life and reality. For instance, his song "(What Happened to My) Modern World" is a humorous, yet dead-on-the-money expression of the death of modernity's myth of progress. However, I was most struck by "No Telling Where", which beautifully expressed the limits of our language to capture the depth of reality, and how when we try to bring deep truths to the surface with our pale words, they die. Here are the lyrics:

No Telling Where
from Airstream

It will change you like a lover
when you dive below the reef
And see the phosphorescent colors
shimmer way beyond belief
But when taken to the surface,
all that color fades away
‘Cause when lifted out of water,
living coral turns to grey

But down deep - it’s so bright -
that the light won’t leave you
You’ve seen - this sight -
and they can’t believe you
‘Cause your words - go dull -
and they never could explain
There is just no telling where you’ve been

On the map it shows the mountain,
but I’d never seen a glimpse
Of the hundred miles of vista
represented by an inch
That was just a trail of bread crumbs,
all their words set out so clear
But there’s nothing they could tell me
that could ever take me here

To this view - this height -
that the heart remembers
It’s proof - It’s life -
It’s the burning ember
My words - go cold -
and there’s nothing to explain
There is just no telling where I’ve been

When this sunrise sees me
The first light burns brand new
Seems so easy
To tell what I’ve been through
But my little camera can’t keep up
with panoramas all around
There’s just too much view to capture
when we stand on sacred ground
Though my mind cannot explain it,
my heart’s filled up to the sky
I know words could not contain it,
but I’m fool enough to try

Then you smile - at me -
and my heart is listening
Your eyes - they speak -
and there’s nothing missing
It’s quiet - up here -
we can listen to the wind
‘Cause there’s just no telling where we’ve been

Labels: David Wilcox, philosophy, theology

I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago about how I feel caught in-between the liberal and conservative Christian worlds at seminary, especially in my Old Testament class. My OT prof is a great guy and very knowledgeable, however, he can occasionally come across rather condescending in the way he assumes that the only reason one would have to doubt the critical scholars' views or methods regarding the Hebrew Scriptures is because one holds a traditionalist/literalist view of the Bible, and that it's just too disturbing to one's faith to consider that, for instance, the events related in the Pentateuch are not entirely historical, or that the book of Isaiah was not all written by the same guy. And granted, there are a few people in the class like that who are having some strong reactions to these "liberal" readings of the Bible; but that isn't me.

The strange position I find myself in is that, on one hand, it doesn't shake my faith at all to consider these alternative ways of understanding scripture. Taking Isaiah for instance, what difference does it make whether one prophet in the 8th century BC wrote all of it, or whether it was written by several different people over 3-4 centuries and eventually collected as reflective of a particular "Isaianic" school of prophecy. The Holy Spirit is just as capable of inspiring multiple authors and editors as she is of inspiring just one guy. Thus I have no existential "need" to reject any of these critical theories simply out of hand. I'm completely open to new ideas and find that they generally strengthen, not challenge, my faith.

However, on the other hand, I do have some scholarly criticisms and doubts about the assumptions and methods that underlie some of the particular conclusions of the critical theories. Again, let me use Isaiah as an example. The literary-critical theory that the book of Isaiah is actually at least three distinct books (First Isaiah, chapters 1-39; Deutero-Isaiah, chapters 40-55; and Trito-Isaiah, chapters 56-66), and each book itself is composed of many different segments composed by different authors, is based on four observations about the text:

1) Differences in the language (e.g. syntax, grammar, vocabulary, morphology, etc.) between the different sections. The analogy given in class was that it was like taking poems by Shakespeare, Yeats, Jack Kerouac and Maya Angelou, mashing them all together and trying to pass them off as coming from the same author. It wouldn't take a scholar to figure out that something wasn't quite right. So, just as there would be a noticeable difference in the language of a 16th century Shakespearean sonnet versus a 20th century poem by Maya Angelou, we can infer a similar difference of time period and authorship between the various segments of Isaiah.

2) Differences in literary genres between different sections of the text. The book of Isaiah frequently switches between poetry, prophetic oracles, personal narratives and historical accounts. The assumption is that different genres should be attributed to different authors.

3) Differences in the content of the oracles. Parts of Isaiah are very doom and gloom, prophesying destruction and judgment, while other parts offer hope of deliverance and salvation. The assumption is that each of these must be the work of different persons.

4) Specific prophecies about events (such as a Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and subsequent exile of the Jews in Babylon) which post-date the historical Isaiah by a century or more are assumed to be by later writers. The reasons for this are two-folds: first, it is unusual for Hebrew prophets to address situations that didn't relate to their immediate audience at all. In Isaiah's time, Judah was being threatened by the invasion of the Assyrians. Why then would any of his contemporaries pay attention if he started warning them about a Babylonian threat that wouldn't materialize for over a century? Second, critical scholars generally operate on the naturalistic assumption that predictive prophecy is impossible, and thus any specific prophecies about future events must have actually been written reflectively, after the fact.

Again, I have no fundamental resistance to the suggestion that Isaiah was composed by multiple authors, however, of the reasons for this that I just mentioned, I don't find all of them very convincing. The first one is the most solid, IMHO. It does seem likely that significant linguistic differences would be the result of multiple authorship. Unfortunately, without a personal knowledge of Hebrew, I can't say for certain how many of the divisions of the book are based on these sorts of differences.

The next two reasons, differences in genre and content, are entirely unconvincing to me. It's not authors are incapable of writing in more than one style, or of writing about more than one thing. To take the Shakespeare analogy again, he wrote both plays and poems, and he wrote about countless themes and ideas, some of which conflict with each other. Why assume that Isaiah is any less capable of literary diversity? In the absence of other supporting evidence, positing multiple authors based on these criteria alone seems unnecessarily complicated and unconvincing to me.

The final reason, predictive prophecy, is only partially convincing to me. I fully agree that it makes more sense for the Babylonian oracles to have been written around the time when Babylon was an actual threat, and not a century before hand. In this regards it's important to remember that the biblical definition of "prophecy" isn't primarily about "predicting the future". Rather it's about communicating God's will and intentions to God's people as they try to navigate the circumstances they are in. Thus it makes sense that God's words would have been first delivered at a time when they were most relevant.

On the other hand, if the rationale is primarily based on a naturalistic assumption that predictive prophecy absolutely cannot, and therefore does not happen, that seems illegitimate to me. I say illegitimate not as a supernaturalist (though I am one) but as an (aspiring) historian. Naturalistic assumptions about history are just that, assumptions - i.e. preconceived philosophical biases that get in the way of the more fundamental historical question of "what, in fact, happened?" The historian should make no judgment one way or the other about whether supernatural phenomenon can occur. Our question should simply be: "what is the evidence we have for what actually did occur?" And if the evidence supports the possibility of a supernatural occurrence, we shouldn't be so quick to rule out that interpretation of the events out of hand. And there have been a least a few instances in my OT class, and especially in the primary text book, where that presumption of naturalism has been the driving motivation for a particular interpretation of a passage.

At any rate, I guess in the final analysis I'd say that the more of these factors that come into play, the more likely it is that the text is the product of multiple authorship. However, not being a full-fledged Old Testament scholar, I can't exactly say how often there actually is more than one factor in consideration. My impression, especially given the wide disagreement even among literary-critical scholars about how exactly the text should be broken down, is that these divisions are not always so clear cut and that our commitment to this way of reading the text should therefore be held fairly tentatively. And I guess, ultimately, that's my biggest complaint about the "liberal" scholarship and this class in general: I have no problem with considering all of these theories as possibilities, but it's when they get passed off as nearly certain truths (and therefore anyone who raises questions about them must simply be a conservative reactionary) that it rubs me the wrong way. I'm starting to gather during my time at a liberal seminary that this is one of the defining differences between liberal (or conservative) moderns and emerging postmoderns like myself - not the content of our views, necessarily, but the relative degree of certitude with which we hold them.

Labels: seminary, theology

I meant to post my review of Jesus for President, the new book by Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw, a few weeks ago, but I got distracted. Anyhow, it is, on many levels, a simply amazing book. Before even getting into the content and themes, I should say that the whole layout and design is a work of art (much of it by my friends Chico & Tatiana Fajardo-Heflin, Paul Soupiset and Holly & Ryan Sharp - you can click here for examples of a few pages.) I've literally never seen a book like this before. The images found on nearly every page are evocative and unusual and add to the total experience.

In the book Shane and Chris set out to show how the biblical narratives, from Genesis through revelation, are decidedly anti-imperial, and how we as followers of Jesus must likewise resist being co-opted by the imperial systems of our own day by pursuing a counter-movement of simplicity, generosity, self-sacrifice, non-violence, and radical love for others and for one's enemies. In this, it is nothing new for me, as these are themes that I've been pondering for the past year or so myself (though much credit for that should go to Shane's earlier book). However, this is the first place I've seen it laid out so systematically and accessibly. I agree with this basic premise, and I think Shane and Chris do a great job of weaving in biblical analysis with issues of contemporary relevance. For this alone (and for the amazing artwork) I highly recommend this book.

However, I have to admit that the whole way through something was nagging at me. While I agreed with 95% of what these guys were saying, I kept feeling like there was something I couldn't quite go along with in their approach. Eventually I determined that it came down to two things:

1) Their critique of empire and the systems of this world, and their suggested solution that we ought to withdraw (as much as possible) into the contrast community of the church, is too "either/or". At times it seemed as if they saw almost nothing good out in the world, and likewise perhaps had too high a view of the goodness of the Christian community (for instance their suggestion that Christians ought to reinstate the practice of excommunication, without really addressing how to keep this practice from quickly becoming abusive) - though to be fair, this either/or dichotomy was far more implicit than explicit throughout most of the book. Quite honestly, it reminded me too much of the separatism of the conservative, borderline fundamentalist, Christian sub-culture of my youth. While the fundamentalists recommend separation from the world to avoid being corrupted by sexual immorality and false doctrine, Shane and Chris' neo-anabaptism recommends separating from it to avoid being corrupted by materialism, violence, and power.

But while I might resonate more with Shane and Chris' concerns than those of conservatives, I've still found the doctrine of separation itself to be flawed. What I eventually discovered when I was a conservative separatist was that "the world" is not always as bad as it it made out to be - that there is much truth and beauty and goodness even among non-believers. God is still at work, even outside the walls of the church. Likewise, I suspect that God is similarly at work for goodness and justice, even among the structures of empire. I guess what I found lacking in this book was a sense that God can work redemptively, not just outside of and in spite of the empire, but even sometimes in it and through it.

2) I also agree with Zack Exley's critique that this neo-monastic/neo-anabaptist movement of which Shane and Chris are stereotypical is in danger of "making an idol out of smallness and slowness". The book highlighted many fantastic stories of lone individuals or small groups of people living counter-culturally to the empire, and I am all about celebrating such stories. However, this were the only examples that were given, and I was left wondering "But, if all we ever engage in are these small, symbolic acts of resistance, are we ever really going to change anything?" and more importantly "What about justice for those who really are oppressed by the empire on a large scale?" I mean it's all well and good for the privileged children of white suburbanites to decide they're going to sell all their possessions and live among the poor and oppressed, but I can't help but think that some of those poor and oppressed might prefer it if we used our power and wealth to help them out of their poverty and oppression.

Besides which, there are some injustices that simply cannot be dealt with on the small, local scale. The Jubilee Campaign is a perfect example. International debt relief for impoverished nations can be advocated for by individuals and communities, but ultimately it has to be enacted on the national and international levels. Similar arguments can be made regarding the enormity of problems like the AIDS epidemic, global climate change, and extreme poverty, just to name a few. Something can and should be done about these problems, but they will not get done if we only ever insist on doing things small and apart from the existing structures of power and wealth. If we insist on maintaining our own self-righteous "purity" from the empire, we will be guilty of neglecting justice.

However, these critiques should not be taken to mean that I didn't appreciate and enjoy the book. There is still much here of value; and even these areas of disagreements are useful in provoking thought and conversation. In the end Claiborne/Haw and I agree that the way of Jesus - not the way of Caesar, or America, or Wall Street, etc. - ought to be our sole guide to how we live and act in the world. However, we perhaps disagree on the scale of those actions, and on whether it is possible to actually practice the way of Christ in midst of Wall Street or Washington or wherever.

Labels: book reviews, politics, Shane Claiborne, theology

Most of you will have heard the Serenity Prayer at least once or twice. It's the one Alcoholics Anonymous uses:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

What many of you probably don't know is that it was written by the highly influential 20th Century American theologian Rienhold Niebuhr. I was listening to a Speaking of Faith podcast on Niebuhr today while mowing the lawn and was surprised to learn that this simple prayer was actually an encapsulation of Niebuhr's whole approach to Christian involvement in politics and social justice. Niebuhr was a "Christian Realist" when it came to how we ought to engage in the world, which means, in the words of his biographer Richard Wightman Fox, "He exhorted his readers and listeners to take responsibility for their world while warning them against the temptation to try to perfect it." Niebuhr realized that while action for social justice was good and necessary, even the best of people will end up doing a certain amount of evil in the process of attempting to do good. In other words, we can never get it completely right, but that doesn't mean we should just give up and do nothing. The important thing is to stay engaged, but to do it in a self-critical way, to always be on guard against self-righteousness and fanaticism.

What I also find fascinating is this idea that the Serenity Prayer is originally about social justice. The basic idea is that engaging in social action requires us to do what we can, but to also be realistic about what we cannot to - to not overestimate our own efficaciousness or come at it with a naive optimism that believes we ourselves can solve every problem or bring heaven on earth. I find that this is a good reminder and an important balance to find, especially for those of us who have begun to see the kingdom of God as a present reality and something which we are trying to put into practice in the here and now. Even as we do so, it is important to remain humble about our limitations as flawed and finite human beings, and remember that ultimately it is God, not us, that establishes his own kingdom. We simply have the privilege of contributing our small part to it if we are willing.

Labels: Speaking of Faith, theology

Debbie Blue's book From Stone to Living Word is an excellent deconstruction of how our penchant for idolatry infects our readings of the Bible. (I especially like that she regularly quotes from multiple postmodern philosophers on the subject, including my former professor, Bruce Benson and his book Graven Ideologies.) This quote here captures much of what the book is about:

The Bible doesn't supply us with a neat package of timeless wisdom and moral certitude. It witnesses to what it is like to be living beings in relationship to the living God, what it's like to encounter the Word of a God who speaks rather than statically exists, a God who continually creates life and resurrects it, who seems interested in growing shoots from stumps, not cutting them off, making possibility where there was impossibility, loving more than fixing. It's maybe more like a love that is new every morning than something you can carry around, stand on, or use to fight duels. The Word remains open and vulnerable, and that's nothing to be afraid of. Maybe the Word in all its crazy uncontrollableness can be let loose and trusted, not to do what the church necessarily expects or even wants, but in some way slightly unfathomable to us, to break, save, love, and redeem the world.

The belief that the Bible contains the absolute truth of God, set in stone, is something that has permeated popular evangelical culture. People who are not Christians seem to think that part of being a Christian is to believe that the text is coherent and that we would be disturbed to know it does not say the same thing throughout, that it contradicts itself, that it is garbled and weird. I wish we could all be out about that, that we could say yes, we know it's garbled and weird. We have a very strange text as our scripure. Isn't that wild? Doesn't that say something interesting about faith? Religion? Idolatry? They are fairly predictable and orderly, but faith? In the radically alive, relentlessly loving, having-nothing-to-do-with-death-God? What a crazy, beautiful thing.

That last bit about non-Christians expecting us Christians to be shocked to find out that the Bible is weird and contradictory (i.e. "multi-faceted") reflects well a conversation I recently had over at Friendly Atheist. And it's funny, they sometimes seem almost offended if you do acknowledge that fact openly and then declare that you still have faith in that kind of Bible. Personally though, I don't know how to do anything else. If that's what the Bible is, then I'm going to take it for what it is - a crazy beautiful thing.

Labels: theology

I seem to regularly hear these criticisms of progressive Christians like myself that we are merely regurgitating Christianized versions of Marxism, or liberalism, or environmentalism, or pacifism, or multi-culturalism, or whatever other "-ism" you happen to not like and think you can apply as a blanket dismissal. The major flaw in these accusations is that in order to "regurgitate" something, you have to have swallowed it first, and quite honestly, on most of these issues I have not. Prior to becoming more "progressive" on issues, I honestly did little reading of authors in any of these areas, and even less wholesale "swallowing" of what I did read. My opinions were instead formed primarily through biblical reflection and subsequent conversation within the body of Christ. In other words, I came to these as "Christian" views, not as secular views that I was trying to "Christianize".

I think what is missed by those who want to label and thereby dismiss, is that we (meaning Jesus and followers of Jesus throughout the centuries) were there first on many of these issues. Marx may have talked a lot about liberating the oppressed, but Jesus talked about it long before he did in Luke 4:18-19. (And the prophets too, before Jesus.) The first statement of multi-culturalism I'm aware of comes not from 20th century Civil Rights activists, but from Revelation 7:9, and the first statement in all of human history on the inherent equality of human beings regardless of race, gender, or socio-economic status, came 1700+ years before the Declaration of Independence (which of course didn't even include all of these categories), in Galatians 3:28. And Moses told us to treat immigrants as part of our own, long before immigration ever became an issue in America.

Or take the separation of church and state. As I pointed out the other day, that was invented by Baptists, not secular atheists. Or environmentalism and animal rights - rabbis and theologians have been talking about the need to care for God's creation for centuries before Earth Day was ever invented, and people like C.S. Lewis and JRR Tolkien were anti-vivisectionists before Peter Singer was even born. And while pacifism, for instance, might be associated these days with the 1960's counter-culture, the early Christians, at least until the time of Constantine, were the original pacifists. Until the '60s, "conscientious objectors" were almost always Anabaptists, not hippies.

And of course, these are just a few examples. So again, we were there first. I don't care what Marx did or didn't say, I'm going to keep talking about liberating the oppressed, because Jesus talked about it. I don't care if caring for the environment is associated with New Agey tree-huggers, because God told us to do it anyway, way back in Genesis 1. I don't care if following Jesus makes me sometimes look like a "liberal" or a "Democrat" even. I'm simply trying to follow where he leads. If that occasionally brings me in line with the values of other movements, great, I'm glad to share common purpose and work together for shared goals, but one shouldn't assume that any movements which share similar values and goals necessarily spring from the same well.

Labels: politics, theology

This weekend is the official "Blog Against Theocracy" blogswarm. The idea is to post reflections supporting the separation of church and state.

Having grown up in a conservative evangelical background, I had always assumed that the separation of church and state was one of those "liberal" ideas used by our atheistic secular culture to persecute Christians like me (totally ignoring the fact that with 75% of the American population claiming to be Christians, I really didn't have a right to consider myself a persecuted religious minority). I thought that we really were a "Christian nation", or that if we weren't, we ought to be. I used to fight about whether the Founding Fathers really meant to keep religion out of government, or whether they were simply trying to protect religion from government interference (never considering that perhaps it was both). I even knew that the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" was not actually in the Constitution, but had come from something Thomas Jefferson once said, and since everyone knew that Jefferson was really a deist that had cut out all the parts of the Bible he didn't like, that just reinforced my assumption that "separation" was an anti-Christian atheistic ideal.

However, the great irony is that I didn't realize until much later that the idea separation didn't originate with Jefferson at all. In fact, that "wall of separation" phrase was written by Jefferson in a reply to a group of Baptists in which he was simply agreeing with their views on religious liberty. In other words, separation, far from being a secularist, atheist idea, actually originated among Christians, and among Baptists no less! I had been raised a Baptist and attended Baptist churches for most of the the first 26 years of my life, and yet I had never been given the slightest inkling that separation of church and state had always been one of the primary theological distinctions of the Baptist tradition. In fact, we invented it!

The concept dates back at least to Martin Luther's "doctrine of two kingdoms", but was more significantly promoted by the Anabaptists, who faced intense persecution from both Catholics and Protestants wielding the power of the State against them. Founding leader of the Baptists in England (the Baptists were a fusion of Anabaptist and Puritan views), Thomas Helwys, actually wrote one of the earliest statements on religious liberty in 1612 in a note to King James, which subsequently landed him in prison where he died a few years later. And later, in the early days of the United States, we have Baptist preachers like Isaac Backus and John Leland to thank for their vociferous support of separation for the freedoms we now enjoy.

What many conservative Christians, and ironically most Baptists in America these days don't realize is that the separation of church and state is a good thing for them. When you are in the majority in a nation, as Christians now are, it may seem like an annoyance, but in the early days of nation, evangelicals like the Baptists were very much in the minority and were rightly fearful that interference by the church in government affairs would mean the sanctioned persecution of smaller sects like themselves by established churches like the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Roman Catholics. To understand the importance of not allowing any establishment of religion by the government, evangelicals need only to imagine how they would feel if official government sponsored religion meant Roman Catholic religion (as is often the case in Latin America) or perhaps even Mormonism (as is sometimes the case in parts of Utah). For those Baptists who gripe about taking prayer out of the public schools, I wonder how they'd feel if such school sponsored prayer included a prayer to Mary or the saints. For those who want the Bible taught in the public schools (and not simply as a work of literature or history, but as something "more"), I ask, whose interpretation of the Bible? Would they be as happy if the Bible is taught with a liberal mainline spin, or a Pentecostal spin, or a Calvinist spin, or a Catholic spin?

Two hundred years ago conservative evangelicals were smart enough to realize that keeping direct religious influences out of the government was in everyone's best interests, including their own. It's sad to see how much has changed. However, not all hope is lost. For instance, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty is a coalition that represents over 10 million Baptists and is active in upholding the traditional Baptist distinctive of church-state separation. And beyond the Baptists, there are still many, many Christians in both conservative denominations and elsewhere that are increasingly wary of the theocratic rhetoric of the Religious Right. There is a massive shift that is occurring right now among evangelicals, and I am hopeful that support for church-state separation among conservative Christians is one of those ideas that will soon become more of the norm than the exception.

Labels: politics, theology