That's How the World Works

Exegesis is not Neutral

2007-02-09T22:51:00.000-08:00

Recently a community mate took a class that was held at the Sundance festival. It was a Fuller class so naturally they focused on the movies that addressed religious issues. Two of the movies were about homosexuality and took a very liberal stance on the issue. The producers and some of the actors from the movies came to their class and discussed it with them. The movies obviously made the "conservatives" look like asses that nobody in their right mind should even come close to agreeing with. His question, as we were talking, was "Can we be theologically substanitive and not assholes at the same time?" He was dealing with how to disagree with the exegesis of the movies and yet honestly deal with homosexual Christians in love.

(Note here I did not qualify "homosexual Christians" with quotation marks because I think if we are so sure that homosexuals cannot be Christians then we must be equally sure that adulters and divorcees cannot be Christians; not to mention those who habor anger towards another or those who lust after a member of the opposite sex. I know this is a shock but I am just trying to take the words of Jesus seriously though I can rarely live up to them. :)

The following is an email I sent to him as I did not have a developed answer when he posed the question. This is not a thesis project so it is not as thorough I as I would like, but it is from the heart.

I've been thinking since hearing you discuss your time at Sundance and now I can't sleep without getting this out, so please bear with me. Earlier when you were explaining the homosexuality discussion I had a lot I wanted to say but at the time I thought it better to simply listen. However, I am a bit concerned with the liberal ethical shift among certain strains of Christians (some who even label themselves as Evangelical). I am concerned because their "exegesis" and reasoning can seem appealing to young postmodern students who all to often are ready to throw off their perceived constrictive conservative upbringings in order to embrace something "liberating." This goes to the core of many issues, not just homosexuality. Many are ready to shed their denomination, the political party of their parents, and otherwise traditional belief structures that formed them into the people they are today. I think one of the areas where this is readily apparent is in the issue of sexuality.

A brief history of sexual morality in America may be in order here. Protestantism in America has been trying fervently to rid itself of its puritan past which hangs around like a younger sibling despite liberalism's best efforts to do away with it. In rejecting the puritan position of sexual relationships between individuals the church had to attach to another sexual ethic as it was theologically incapable of creating a "new" one as that would be an historically impossible task. Thus, it attached to the American romantic ideal of "falling in love" and "living happily ever after." This was not the traditional Christian view of relationships but it worked for the church early on in American history because it was still heterosexual and remained largely family oriented since birth control was yet to be invented. However, as times began to change and the American romantic ideal shifted to romanticism’s inevitable outcome of sexual narcissism the church in America was impotent to combat the cultural norm due to the fact that it had abandoned its traditional theological framework for thinking about sexuality. The American ideal worked as long as it was Little House on the Prairie but it failed the church when it became Sex and the City. With the church left impotent to defend its traditionally held views which it had rejected, where was it going to turn for a "new" theological perspective on sex? It turned naturally to the Scriptures. This turn should be praised, yet the new exegetical shift was still using the Enlightenment notion that the truth of the text was attainable from a position outside the text. In other words, the text was not enough in itself but the truth had to be determined from sources outside the text. This usually came from history which developed into a historical criticism of the text but much of this "history" is based on the myth that it is possible to understand purely the author's intent if we simply know what was going on historically at the time. And these historical situations are often presented as certain when the vast majority of what we know historically about the text is in fact located in the text itself. I would contend that it is impossible to know exactly what the author of the law codes in the Torah actually meant when writing the text.
The best approach, in my opinion, is a literary approach in which we test our hypothesis (in this case, "homosexuality is not a sin") by examining texts for themselves. In other words, if historically the author was not intending to say that homosexuality was not a sin but simply a part of a culturally dependent law code then do we have other biblical texts in other cultural contexts that either approve of homosexuality explicitly or tell stories in which two members of the same sex are living in a sexual relationship to one another. Thus, even if the text can be explained away historically (I don't think it can but more on that later) then we must ask, "Why is all the literary evidence in support of homosexuality being outside of God's will?" We never have one positive portrayal of homosexuality in the canonical text. All historical criticism must necessarily negate the text rather than affirm the text.
Back to historical criticism. You stated that one of the arguments was that of a holiness code in which many things were condemned unclean that we now have no problem with, i.e. clothes being made of two different fibers. However, just because these are in the same list of prohibitions does not necessitate that they are prohibited for the same reason. For example, the reason why one could not eat lobster was because lobster is a scavenger and, thus, a dirty animal; a pig could not be eaten because it could kill if not cooked at the right temperature for the required length of time while beef is fairly safe raw (I'm not saying they didn't cook it). However, homosexuality could not be condemned for these reasons. Thus, we must have a more substantial view of why homosexuality made a person unclean than simply because God said so in his holiness code, which presumably no longer applies.
I think we must exegete these texts in light of Jesus' hermeneutic. Jesus, when questioned about divorce, referred back to creation (Paul also takes this hermeneutic when explaining the actions of Jesus in light of creation which will be restored in the eschaton). Jesus' says that marriage is one woman and one man because that is how God created them. If certain practices were allowed, such as polygamy and divorce, it was not because God had intended it but because of sin. Thus, we must ask what purpose God had in creating us as sexual beings. Dr. John Goldingay states that there are two biblical testimonies to this. First, in Genesis God created male and female and gave them the command to procreate. God's creation of them would be short lived otherwise and, thus, we cannot cut procreation away from God's intended purpose for making us sexual beings. Homosexuality fails in this appeal to creation. Second, Paul refers to marriage in Ephesians as the imaging of God in the world. God's image is complete in the unity of male and female and not in same sex unions, presumably. Here again homosexuality fails the test (These arguments are both from Goldingay but I think the first argument is much stronger). Thus, in appealing to God's created purpose of marriage and sex as our guiding hermeneutic instead of a radical historical nullification of holiness codes I have provided a counter exegetical method which I believe is more faithful to the witness of the text and of the interpretation of the Church throughout history.
This brings me to another point. It is interesting to me that if the homosexual position of interpretation is correct then why did God wait until now to reveal it to the Church? This position has no historical precedent among orthodox interpretation. As I see it, one of the most sexually liberal societies in world history has found an interpretation that makes it feel comfortable with itself. The interpreters approached the text with the conclusion already in hand. Despite the fact that the historical criticism school believed it was attaining the "truth" behind the text without the biases of Church tradition, it was in fact simply using its own biases over against the vehicle by which the Spirit had chosen to interpret scripture for the last 1900 years.
This issue digs deeper at the Protestant problem than I desire to go into here. Yet, suffice it to say that Protestantism, especially in the U.S., has the problem of understanding tradition and authority in light of its radical individualism. For instance, the problem underlying the statement "Just accept us and let us work out our own sexuality" is that this takes the moral authority away from the Church and places it on the individual. This also assumes that the individual will necessarily come to a correct understanding of sexuality or truth simply by being left alone to think about it. As Hauerwas aptly says, "The Church has the authority to tell us what we can and cannot do with our penises." Furthermore, without an authority structure, or governing body, to help with distinguishing what is and is not God's call in a person's life we are only left with our interpretation of their individual testimony. Thus, if the homosexual says, "I'm alright with God because I have had such and such religious experiences" then we are left having to agree because who can argue with God? However, if the Church, as Paul says, is the body of Christ on earth we then have an authority to appeal to for the will of God. It is from within the authority of Christ given to the Church that we have the ability to say that certain statements or callings cannot possibly be from God even if the individual claims that they are. We may also need to rethink the way in which the Spirit works, mainly on the individual level or through the community. Currently I think we tacitly believe there are a whole bunch of Holy Spirits that indwell each one of us individually and give us direct control over the correct interpretation of the text (this is what I call the popehood of all believers). It should also be noted that this view of sola scriptura is as antithetical to the Reformers as it is to the Catholic Church. Modern liberal evangelicalism in its radical priority on the individual is on a theological island by itself.
Lastly, I think it is interesting what Dr. Roebeck said in class today about this very issue. The Anglican Communion is in a dilemma concerning the American Episcopal church. Bishop Spong has said statements about how Africans need to catch up to the times and stop being so traditional when it comes to sexuality. The African response has been that when missionaries came to Africa they told them that polygamy was wrong. This was part of the African culture but after studying the text they came to the conclusion that the text was needed to correct the culture on this issue. Now the West is telling the Africans to forget the text and acclimate to the culture. Now it is probably time for the text to critique our culture just as it once did the African culture. The point here is larger than simply this story. Again, modern liberal evangelicalism is on an island. It is interesting that God has not revealed this "correct" interpretation of scripture, not only to traditional orthodoxy, but God has also failed to reveal it to the vast majority of Christians alive today. Is the most sexually liberal society on earth simply finding the "truth" in the text? Or is it imposing its "truth" on to the text?

I don't know if this will be helpful to your own dialogue with yourself, but I feel much better now and can probably sleep.

Peace be with you,

Greg

Though we have desegregated we have yet to integrate

2007-01-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

In “The Ethical Demands for Integration” Martin Luther King Jr. states eloquently in 1962 what he could still offer today with little revision. He starts by stating, “The problem of race and color prejudice remains America’s greatest moral dilemma. When one considers the impact it has upon or nation, internally and externally, its resolution might well determine our destiny….How we deal with this crucial situation will determine our moral health as individuals, our cultural health as a region, our political health as a nation, and our prestige as leader of the free world. The shape of the world today does not afford us the luxury of an anemic democracy.”
King goes on to discuss how desegregation is not enough. Desegregation as a law can be enforced but the love of our neighbor cannot. Today in America we have a façade of justice which is still challenging the moral center of our communities, both Christian and non-Christian, corporate and individual. Allowing other races to eat in our restaurants, ride our buses, drink from the same water fountain is not justice in and of itself. Justice demands love. Holiness demands love.
Being from the South (Arkansas to be exact) I have experienced first hand desegregation without integration, a façade of justice without love. I must admit, I have no close African American friends. I have several acquaintances whom I respect, but no friends who I know their struggles so intimately that they have become my struggles. The South begrudgingly accepted court ordered desegregation. It took armed escorts in my home town of Little Rock, AR to allow nine African American students the opportunity to enter Central High School where they could be educated alongside us White folks.
The problem still lingers. It is often said in the South, though it is probably equally true here, that the most segregated time of the week is Sunday morning. In the town I went to college in there was an African American Baptist church a block from a White Baptist church. Why is this? It is a prime example of desegregation without integration.
Do not assume, however, that it is merely a White problem. From what I gather the African American church is perfectly happy not having any Whites in it, just as the White church is glad the African Americans stay on their side of the street. Dr. Bill Pannell once said as a guest lecturer in a Systematics class that he does not see many White people worshiping with their Korean brothers and sisters in the Fuller community. There was this sudden awe which if audible would have said, “Those White folks, they need to be more racially diverse.” However, Dr. Pannell followed by noting that the Koreans do not seem to have much of a problem with the situation.
The amazing thing about Dr. King was his insistence on justice for all. He was not a black nationalist, he was not cut from the same block as Malcolm X; the only way King understood justice was through the person of Jesus Christ. Justice was not a tit-for-tat making right of the wrongs, it was a new way of being. A way of being that was more than mere toleration of the other, rather it was a deep profound love of the other. He hoped desperately that we would no longer see black or white but that we would see brothers and sisters.
If we have any hope of reorienting our moral center in the way that Dr. King speaks about we must learn to love. Love is not learned by desegregating buses and restaurants. Neither is it learned by merely tolerating the other because we have no choice. Love is learned by integrating our lives and stories into the lives and stories of the other. It must come to the point that other people are no longer viewed as others but as people. Integration is not only a race issue, it is Kingdom of God issue. It is not a problem that only white people need to solve, it is a problem that every race working together must solve.

An Advent Post

2006-12-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

As Advent is upon us I thought it may be appropriate to post a paper that I wrote for my Gospels class. It is rather lengthy but good nonetheless.

The Canticle of Mary: Mary Sings to the World (Luke 1.46-56)

The canticle of Mary, or the Magnificat, has been treasured by many church traditions for the last two millennia. It is arguably the best poetry in the New Testament, and definitely stands out for its sincerity, longing, and obedience to God. The church has rightly treasured Mary’s words for good reason, but first we must examine some critical questions surrounding the canticle.
First, even a quick reading of the gospels reveals that this passage is particular to Luke. This is odd to note because Luke is probably the only Gentile writer of the four gospel writers and this canticle is very much Hebrew in origin. Why would Luke, who most scholars understand to be writing to a Gentile audience, include a passage that follows in the tradition of the psalmody of the OT, which the ears of his readers (if in fact they were Gentiles) would be unfamiliar with? Also, why would Luke who is concerned with the universality of the gospel of Jesus, more so than the explicitly Jewish connotations of Matthew and Mark, be interested in relaying to the audience the musings of a particular Jewish woman?
Second, since this passage is particular to Luke we must ask about its origin. Is it part of the Q material that Matthew failed to record? If so, why did the Jewish author leave out a particularly Jewish passage? Is it from another gospel tradition which has been lost through the passing of time? Or is it possible that Luke or the early church created the hymn? All of these possibilities have been suggested and the answer depends greatly on which group of scholars are writing on the subject.
I believe that Luke has included the canticle because it was historically spoken by Mary. Some of the early Latin manuscripts have Elizabeth as the author but most scholars have rejected these due to textual issues. Some, however, do favor Elizabeth as the author because the canticle is a variant of Hannah’s song found in 1 Sam 2.1-10. In this canticle Hannah praises God because she was barren but is now having a son. Thus, some take “lowliness” or “afflicted state” to mean that the author was a barren woman and was seen as afflicted due to this fact. However, these words can be explained in other ways. It is possible that the words refer to Israel as a whole because Israel is often referred to as God’s servant and at this point in history, as at most points, they were in an afflicted state.
It is probable that Luke either had special knowledge of the source of this canticle or he adapted a similar well known canticle to suit the purpose of his gospel. In either case I do not think it is derived from Q. Also, Luke, if he indeed was a companion of Paul, would be very familiar with the importance of the OT and its fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, he knew the importance of including Mary’s prophecy to illustrate that the Jesus tradition finds its foundation in the OT.

The Magnificat as prophecy
More importantly I believe Luke includes the canticle as a prelude to his gospel’s major themes. Up until the canticle is spoken, the reader knows of the way in which Jesus was conceived and the importance of John the Baptist. Yet, the reader at this point does not have any idea of the ramifications of Jesus’ life and its meaning for the communities to which he is writing. As most assumed, the Messiah would be a conqueror who would restore the kingship of David in a tangible way. What Luke portrays instead is a God who is remembering his promises to Abraham and to his descendants which reflects the ethical demands of the prophets.
There are many similarities between how Mary views God acting through her and the kingdom that Jesus proclaims. Mary could have easily used other OT motifs that claimed the power of God to restore a strong ruling dynasty. However, her canticle speaks of filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich away empty and of bringing down the thrones of power that are currently afflicting Israel. If we remember back to Israel’s demand for a king and God’s reluctance to accept their demand, we will also recall what Samuel declared would happen when a king ruled:
He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen…He will take the best of your fields and vineyards…and give them to his courtiers…He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers…And in that day you will cry out because of your king. (1 Sam 8.4ff)

Now Jesus is going to rescue his afflicted people and restore God as king, who the people rejected. We must not think of this passage as merely a beautiful spiritual hymn, but also as stating the reality that Jesus brings a revolution unlike any the world has seen before. He is going to show mercy and scatter the proud while lifting up the lowly. This is the message of the prophets which the rulers had always rejected. Now Jesus will establish God’s kingdom which will contain role reversals from the world’s kingdom.

The Magnifact and the church
It is continually important that the church sings the words of Mary in their prayer and worship services. Coming from an Evangelical background and then converting to Catholicism I have realized the importance of this canticle. For the same reasons that Luke uses the canticle as a prelude to the ministry of Jesus, the church needs to sing it as a continuing prophecy that is already among us but not sufficiently fulfilled. We often forget about the life of Jesus while focusing on the death. I find the Magnificat a great way to start our time of worship by reminding us of the importance of God’s saving activity in that he is the God who does fill the hungry and sends the rich away empty. He is the God who flips the social norms of the world in order to show the might of his arm to every generation.
Typically the Magnificat is used in a solemn individualistic way. I think there are many positives to this way of praying the canticle. First, in this way we are reminded that just as Mary was chosen because of her lowliness, we too are chosen when we are broken before God, our savior. Second, it reminds us that God is our savior and it is his name which is holy. Third, often when praying the canticle in an individual way we still are attune, just as Mary, that these promises are for us individually and also extend far beyond what we can even see being fulfilled. As Mary could proclaim that God will have mercy on every generation that fears him, we too know that God will be merciful now and in the future to those who fear him.
However, I think we need to incorporate the canticle into our politics and liturgy, remembering that Mary also proclaimed a very real change which was incarnated in Christ and must now be incarnate in his church and in his disciples. Just as Jesus blessed the poor, we also must proclaim that God is filling the hungry with good things and sending the successful in the world’s eyes away empty. This canticle can bring us together in unity as we proclaim that these are the promises God made to our ancestors and Abraham’s descendents. We are not alone in magnifying the Lord, generations past, present and future join with us in our song of praise.
We should begin any telling of the gospel of Jesus Christ exactly where Luke begins, by proclaiming what God will do among us in the person of Jesus. It is fitting that Luke also ends where he began. In 24.44 Jesus tells his disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you- that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” I read this as a parallel and conclusion to Mary’s canticle. For Mary rejoices in the form of a psalm that God has done great things by helping his servant Israel, surely an illusion to the exodus is in mind here, and she proclaims the promises of the prophets that God would restore his kingdom.
Lastly, the Magnificat shows the importance of the OT for any sound understanding of the NT. For the true division in the bible is not between the OT and the NT but between Genesis 11 and 12. At the tower of Babel, God scattered the proud and then calls forth Abraham and promises to reunite every tribe, tongue and nation through the blessing of his children. Mary knows all these things and ponders them in her heart until she, in a sense, explodes with a song of joy which reminds us all of the merciful promises of God to never forsake his people.

My New Endeavor...Sex

2006-11-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

I have decided to take a special interest into sexual morality. Why? I don't know. Maybe I just like the idea of sex and this seems to be the most moral way to be surrounded by it. In any case I am starting with three basic hypothesis.

First, it is my opinion as of now that the reason divorce rates are virtually the same within and without the church is because Christians in the U.S. simply accept the culture's view of what sex should be. There is too much emphasis on pleasure instead of love and procreation. When we seek sex merely to satisfy an urge, be it within or without of marriage, we reduce the other person to simply an object of our own use. Love requires us to treat the other as a person that must always be treated morally as an end and never a means. Sex is supposed to be pleasurable but pleasure should not be sought in and of itself. For it is fleeting and highly subjective. Surely not a quantity that can be measured in any tangible way as to make it the end of one of the most important acts humans can participate in.

Second, Christians too often have misguided ideas pertaining to the usefulness of sex. Typically when I ask a group at a dinner table discussion what sex is for I get a wide range of answers. Some say that sex in marriage completes us or makes us whole, in a sense more human. This is ridiculous, for this denys that Jesus was fully human for he was never "complete" or "whole" by this definition. Others will give the NIN answer and say that sex within a Christian marriage brings the couple into closer communion with God. Really? As if God is such a sexual being that he revels in delight as if our sex is incense offered up to the throne of God. Not that God doesn't like sex, he created it but not for the purpose that he could revel in our intercourse. Plus, again this means that Jesus as a human was not as close to God as he could have been had he been married. It boggles my mind that the idea that sex is for children hardly ever exits the mouths of those Christians I usually ask this question to. You mean God created sex for us to have children? What a novel idea.

Third, Christians too often believe that they understand all there is to know about sex. Not from an act standpoint but from an ontological standpoint. We enter into the marriage bringing with us our preconceived ideas of what sex is which has been more influenced by Desparate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy than by any substantive theological discourse. One of these misconceptions is that sex is always supposed to be fun. It simply isn't and if that is our expectation then we are in trouble. Not that I am talking from experience but I'm sure through the life of a marriage sex has its ups and downs. When sex fails to live up to the Hollywood standard we assume that either something is biologically wrong or that our partner doesn't love us enough or they would be a better sexual partner.

My concluded hypothesis is that we nee to revisit the idea of sex. Just as most people accept the norms of their culuture as right and good without examining the underlying ideological presuppostion, so we do with our culuture's view of sex and marriage. We typically think that the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian marriage is that one takes place in a church and the other doesn't. As Christians we need to ask ourselves, "Why did God create sex and why are we sexual beings?" Along with that we need to ask, "Why do we marry?" Most Christians if asked would say that they believe sex outside of marriage is wrong, but most would not be able to answer the question of why we live this way instead of another.

In other news, it seems that the universe's expansion is accelerating. This could possibly change a lot of what we assume about gravity and physics. At the same time I still put my pants on one leg at a time.

The Fine Line

2006-09-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

Warning: this post is being written by a very irrate person.

If you have watched the news recently then you probably know that some Muslims have decided to prove the Pope wrong by killing Christians in the Middle East.

This is completely ridiculous. Several months back when Danish papers published cartoons of Mohammad being portrayed as a terrorist many Muslims did the same thing. "We're not terrorists and to prove it we are going to blow up churches."

The fine line I walk is that of the position somewhere left of a blanket "War on Terror" and somewhere right of "Islam is a peaceful religion." Islam is not a peaceful religion in any history we know. They have tried on several occasions to invade Europe only to be stopped at the last minute. Once in the Pyrenees, where their fast horses could not out flank the stocky European horses. And once at Vienna, where supply lines failed the Muslim advance.

It also does not make much sense to me as to why Muslims are allowed to still hold a grudge publicly against the West for the Crusades but the West is not allowed to hold a grudge for the Muslims taking the land in the first place. Islam did not peacefully convert the thousands of Christians living in Asia Minor, Palestine, and North Africa they slaughtered them. Obviously I don't think we should hold a grudge as we should forgive seventy times seven, but it is obvious that Islam remembers history much more vividly than Christians. (This is typified by most "evangelism maps" that repeatedly show no Christians living in the Mid East because western Protestants do not remember their historical ties to the Orthodox, Coptics, and Roman Catholics still living in the region).

The other thing I love is that the news always finds that Imam from Orange County who says that "true Islam" preaches peace and love. Really? That is true Islam? So you are telling me that those living where Islam originated and has thrived for the past 1400 years have it wrong and this white skinned Californian guy has it right? Maybe so but it is hardly convincing.

This Imam will go on to say things like, "Islam is not responsible for suicide bombers, they are derranged individuals." Maybe, but it sure seems like Islam has many more derranged individuals than any other religion in the world. What other force outside of Islam has so influenced Mid East culture that they strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up while no other culture in the world is doing it? Maybe it is the drinking water.

The fine line I walk as a Christian must love our enemy as ourselves but still have the capacity to label the enemy as an enemy. I don't want to go on a rampage against Muslims or support military action against Muslim countries. Neither am I going to pretend that the message of Isalm is not dangerous. I am not going to pretend that they have the same truth and worship the same God has I do, because they don't. Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and the Father is God and together they are one God. Any understanding of God that falls short of this triune representation is inherently lacking a full picture of God.

We must develop a sense of unity with our Christian brothers and sisters in those regions where they are persecuted by Islam. Three Christians were killed today that were reported by the news. These are martyrs. Martyrs have always been venerated by the church sense the earliest times and yet we care more about our jobs, our houses, our cars, and our "way of life" than we do about them.

Sure, Islam preaches peace and love and cooperation, until they rule your country. I don't believe America is as directly threatened by this as our president would like for us to believe, but Europe is. Indonesia is. Africa is.

Are Muslims upset because the Pope was lying? Or were they upset because what he said was true and Islam wishes it wasn't? Muslims can say all the bad things they wish to say about the Pope, the president, Billy Graham, etc. but as soon as anyone in the West voices a concern about the dangerous ideology of Islam all hell breaks loose.

Islam is dangerous but I won't retaliate. The God I worship in the person of Jesus Christ is stronger and more powerful than the contingency of happenings on earth. Our King is already victorious and our battle already won. It is not wrong to feel anger, hurt and frustration over the loss of our fellow Christians' lives at the hands of a false religion. But I let that anger in for just a period of time, then I regroup and refocus in order to preach the peaceful kingdom of God through the person of Jesus Christ.

As Augustine taught so long ago as Rome fell, the goal is to make our enemy our brother in Christ not to annhilate them. I'm not going to apologize because I believe the only way to be truly human, to be truly peaceful, to be truly united to the one true God is through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Possibly the Imam from Orange County is speaking on behalf of most Muslims. Perhaps Islam as a culture does wish to be truly peaceful. Yet it will be forever impossible as they only have their own good intentions to rely on and good intentions never reshaped a lost culture.

I Agree With Martin Luther

2006-09-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. I agree with what he actually says but not what he thinks he is saying. In The Freedom of the Christian Man (I assume he is including women also, but he may not be I can't really tell) he starts off by making two paradoxical statements. These are commonly mentioned in the church and most Christians have heard them at one time or another. He states that a Christian is both free from all and a slave to all.

The main theses of the article is that Christians are free from obedience to the law and doing good works for justification. We are saved by faith alone (see bottom for a blurb on this topic) and thus we do not need works. He then goes on to say that because we are free from works does not mean that we should not do works. Man is free in that he is not bound by the law and works, but a man does these works as far as he is a slave to others.

It is interesting to note that he says that a Christian is not only free but also a slave to all to begin his work. Luther defines a Christian as one who is both free and a slave. This means, by deduction, that one cannot be a Christian unless one is both free and slave. Here Luther says that as a slave to all one must perform the good works which are necessary to bind neighbor to neighbor. Therefore, Luther contradicts himself by saying that works are not required for justification yet it is required that a Christian be both free and slave. Without being a slave to others a person cannot be a Christian and one cannot be a proper slave to others without performing good works. Thus, in the end Luther’s position is phenomenalogically the same as the Catholic position because it takes works to be a Christian. We are justified by faith apart from the law but this justification is not true, or the faith is not real, if the person does not bind themselves as a slave to all thus performing works.

Luther would not agree with my assesment of his position, but he said it not me (though the summation is mine). He even goes on to defend my point by stating: “We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor.” So, my point is that for all intents and purposes works are necessary to Luther's own definition of what it means to be a Christian. That begs the question, is Luther saying it is possible to be justified by faith without being a Christian which, as I have shown, means being a slave to the neighbor and thus perfoming works that benefit the neighbor therein?

I assume he would answer in the negative which makes his basic argument logically inconsistent. However, I would still argue that this does not make the entire work or even the main points useless. I found Luther's insights helpful due to his emphasis on faith, which we all, Catholic or Protestant, often neglect.

A note on Luther's view of faith:

Two things. First, we are all aware of Luther's doctrine of faith alone. What we often do not realize is that when translating the bible into German he added the word "alone" into the text. The bible never mentions "faith alone" as a doctrine that should be obviously apparent to every reader (Unfortunately, the German princes and layity read Luther's version and thought the doctrine was on the very pages of the scripture. How could he be wrong?). Luther believed that the doctrine was so foundational in scripture that he did not think he was changing the meaning of the original text by adding the term "alone" where he thought it should appear. He was simply helping Paul out a bit since he obviously forgot to add it in himself.

If the doctrine holds up to scrutiny or not, that is not my concern here. It is my concern to illustrate only that Luther made the text say what he thought it should say and not what it actually said. This is probably why Luther was not a big fan of the book of James. Most understand that Luther belittled the "Epistle of Straw" because of its emphasis on faith and works. A more important passage may have been, and is often looked over today, the very last verse of James which says that anyone who brings back a sinner from erring in their ways "saves his (the bringer back) soul from death and covers a multidude of sins." Luther would not have enjoyed this verse as it implies that someone's good deed, helping a sinner return to Christ, will save his soul and cover his sins instead of faith alone.

Second, I think Luther misses the full meaning of faith. Luther associates faith (fides in Latin and pistis in Greek) with belief which does not have a correlative word used in scripture. Faith in Latin and Greek had a much fuller meaning than simply believing something. When we use the term "believe" we often use it in a way such as, " I hold the view that..." Luther does not use it on quite this elementary level but he does not use the whole biblical meaning either.

Luther states that by having faith in Christ we are putting our trust in his promises. This is definately a critical aspect of faith, but faith also means being faithful to the person which we put faith in. This is where Luther fails to give a full understanding of faith. By coorelating faith and belief it would seem that all it takes to be faithful is to continue to have a belief about the person and promises of Jesus. But the faithfulness of Christ (pistus Christou) to the Father meant that he acted in certain ways. Could God come to earth and not heal the sick, care for the poor, and perform physical as well as spritual acts of mercy on suffering?

Absolutely not, for God had revealed himself in the OT, in the law and the prophets, as this type of God. Thus, if we are to have faith in Christ we must also be faithful to Christ which encapsulates a lot more than simply believing in certain promises. We must also act in the way that Christ acted. We must perform acts of mercy to the poor (maybe we should even be poor ourselves), widowed, orphaned, and suffering. Faith cannot be a get-out-of-hell-free card that relinquishes us of our responsibility to act in ways which attest to our faith in and, thus, our faithfulness to Jesus Christ.

Luther's emphasis on faith over against works was a result of his reaction to the Catholic Church of the early 1500's. It was a solid critique of the practices of the church of that time but in principle it was a bit off. The Catholic Church agreed with Luther that an act of grace must proceed faith and any works resulting from that faith. The Catholics as well as Luther and his followers believed that this happened at baptism (both groups baptized infants) but Luther had marked down the Catholic score before the game ever started by arguing that Catholic baptism was not a true sacrament (see The Babylonian Captivity of the Church). Thus, if Catholics said we aren't trying to earn our justification through works because we have already received faith at baptism, Luther said "Ah, but you didn't." To which Catholics responded, "Ah, but we did."

It should be noted that Aquinas, the premier Catholic theologian in the era prior to Luther, agreed wholeheartedly that virtue was possible only after faith. There were virtues that everyone could acheive, such as temperance and prudence, but for truly Christian virtues one had to have the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love which were only obtainable by grace through faith. Thus, when reading Luther's view of medieval Catholicism and its view on faith I keep two things in mind. One, Luther wasn't making up the theological abuses which he saw. And, two, he is a little bias in his portrayal of Catholic theology.

Edit:

In short, Luther says that a person is justified by faith alone. He then claims that to be a Christian a person must have works which testify to the faith. Thus, I conclude from this, that without works a person is not a Christian by Luther's definition. If a person is not a Christian by definition a person cannot be justified. So in the end, Luther's position only makes sense if a Christian needs works to be justified, not that a person is justified by works but works are necessary for justification (if that makes sense).

Israel Typology

2006-08-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

Most Christians in the U.S. revel in the fact that God has blessed them with this wonderful and righteous country. Most are basically convinced that God has blessed us with the promised land and delivered us from our enemies (the Native Americanites, the Spanishites, the Frenchites, the Britishites, and the Mexicanites) in order to fulfill his promise to us of possessing a land filled with milk and honey.

This belief in turn allows us to justify all types of atrocities by a simple reference to a seeming parallel of God acting on behalf of his people in scripture. However, little exegesis is hardly ever done in relation to what those texts actually say. First, it is rather difficult to make a parallel between the covenant people of Israel in the OT and any nation at any other point in history. The promise had been since the Tower of Babel that God would bless all "tribes, tounges, and nations" through his chosen one, Abraham. If we agree with Paul and claim that this promise was fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, then we have little room in our theology for a God who plays ethnic favorites. Though we, like Jonah, still can't reconcile ourselves to believing that God is merciful to all people. Also, like Jonah, maybe it is that we know God will be gracious and forgive those we hate and this just pisses us off even more.

Second, one thing that is usually bypassed in our parallel of modern America and OT Israel is that before Israel headed into the Promised Land, after forty years in the wilderness for their disobedience, God specifically told them that they were not getting the land because they were a righteous people. No, they were sinful and unfaithful but God was faithful and God had made a promise to Abraham and to Moses and God was going to make good on it. In our country we often assume that God has chosen us and given us this land because we deserve it ("God helps those who help themselves"). Even our president speaks in terms of "crusade" and "good vs. evil" and being righteous. And as a politician he has been trained to say words that resonate with the ideals of the people. It has worked supremely well.

Thrid, we as Christians must interpret the OT in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ. If we claim that Jesus was God in his full revelation, then we cannot read any other aspect of God's revelation as if Jesus never happened. If we desire to read the OT without viewing it through the lens of Jesus Christ we might as well be Jewish (I'm not antisemitic, they aren't bad people but they aren't Christians either). However, if we are to remain Christians then we need to interpret the OT in light of the revelation of Jesus Christ in two ways in particular.

The first thing we must do is look at the exact words and actions of Jesus to discover what he said and did. From here we must assume that these things are normative for Christian behavior. If Jesus says turn the other cheek and then acts upon this teaching by submitting to the authorities even if it means he is executed unjustly, then it means we should act in a like manner. We should be people willing to die rather than to kill.

The second thing is that we must develop a Christological hermenutic (a way to interpret scripture). We must look at how Jesus himself approached and interpreted the OT. Jesus did not touch on every aspect of the OT but I think that we can discern his approach to the extent that we can interpret scripture with his methodology. For example, some Pharisees tried to trap Jesus on the question of divorce. The OT says divorce is okay but Jesus says that from the beginning God created them male and female and this should not be separated.

Therefore, we have a type of hermenutic. Jesus appeals to creation and how things were at the beginning. This makes sense according to Paul because Jesus was the second Adam and "reversed the curse" or, for a big theological word, he recaptitulated humanity. We can use this hermenutic for other cases as well that Jesus does not specifically address. For instance, is polygamy okay? Not according to this appeal to creation by Jesus. God did not create male and females, God created male and female.

So how does this apply to our topic of Israel Typology? I claim that if we appeal to creation as the norm by which to understand Jesus' purpose (after all John claims that it was Christ who created in the first place and, thus, it should be him who creates everything new), then we can understand why we should not use books like Joshua to justify our Christian violence. God's promise to Abraham was esentially this: After the first eleven chapters of Genesis humanity had gone from good, to bad, to worse. The unity of man and woman had been destroyed, families (tribes) began to fight with one another, as the tribes grew bigger nations began to war with each other (Noah's curse of Ham ensured that this would be the way of nations in the future), and finally at Babel the tongues were divided. Therefore, the unity that God had created had been increasingly more and more hidden under the sin of humanity. God essentially promises Abraham that God will put things back the way they were before all of this happened by blessing every tribe, tongue and nation all of which were removed from their original created purpose.

The violence between nations was never the way God intened the world to work. God had intended unity and peace yet humanity destroyed that. In Joshua and other places throughout the OT God works within the human realm to acheive God's ultimate purpose, the blessing of every tribe, tongue and nation. When the messiah came the world would work differently as Jeremiah claims a new heart would be put into humanity and human nature would be changed. As of now we as Christians claim to live with this new heart but it doesn't always playout that way in our politics or in our society. The reason we cannot use the violence of Israel in the OT as a parallel to justify our violence in modern America is because in the person of Jesus God has sent the world spinning back to the beginning. We are to live for the purpose for which Christ came, namely to restore that which humanity destroyed. We cannot continue to actively live an existence contrary to the purposes of why God created the world, as a peaceful unity, and at the same time claim to follow the one who was God revealed in the flesh.

That's How the World Works.