Richard Dawkins: Biblical Scholar

In a recent interview with Playboy, the world's most famous atheist, Richard Dawkins, answered a few questions. Couched among the dross of the merely banal or lame was this gem of absurdity:

DAWKINS: The evidence [Jesus] existed is surprisingly shaky. The earliest books in the New Testament to be written were the Epistles, not the Gospels. It’s almost as though Saint Paul and others who wrote the Epistles weren’t that interested in whether Jesus was real. Even if he’s fictional, whoever wrote his lines was ahead of his time in terms of moral philosophy.

PLAYBOY: You’ve read the Bible.

DAWKINS: I haven’t read it all, but my knowledge of the Bible is a lot better than most fundamentalist Christians.

Let's pass over the breathtaking hubris of declaring one's self sufficiently knowledgeable of a book that one hasn't even read in its entirety in withering silence. Well, not in silence.

On one level, it's flatly absurd to suggest that Paul "wasn't interested" in whether Jesus existed -- as somehow evidenced by the Epistles being written before the Gospels -- since Paul's entire ministry is founded on the reality of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, as anyone who has read Paul attentively knows. Everything Paul teaches hinges on this. Over at Uncommon Descent they have an effective little riposte to Dawkins on this count.

On another level, Dawkins is intuiting something true, but not what he thinks. Namely that Paul isn't greatly concerned about proving Jesus' existence because it wasn't in question. Neither in his own mind nor in that of the churches he was writing to. Paul didn't know he was writing something that would come to be called "the New Testament", which would be a document modern inquirers, millenia in the future, would use to examine the "truth" of Jesus' existence -- a truth he took for granted, as did all of his hearers. He was preaching and expounding on who Jesus was, the true nature of the Faith, calling out the errors of misguided followers of Jesus, spreading the Gospel, pastoring Christ's flock etc. Contrary to what Dawkins seems to think, it's not at all surprising that this would be the first order of apostolic business, rather than documenting the narrative of Christ's life which was everywhere around in oral form or in first-hand experiences.

These are exactly the conditions we would expect to be present if there was no question about Jesus' existence because it was taken as a given. How would it come to be taken as a given so widely, so assuredly, and so quickly unless -- at the very least -- Jesus existed?  Of course, even to this day in virtually all serious first-century historical and Biblical scholarship -- even that of a strongly secular bent -- Jesus' existence still isn't questioned -- as it wasn't in the first century -- precisely because such a theory doesn't comport with reason and the evidence at all. You know, reason and evidence, those things that Dawkins follows unwaveringly, wherever they may lead.

Toward an Unapologetic Christian Conservatism

If you remember the "Why I Hate Religion" video, and surrounding controversy, from a few months back, in my critique of it I ignored one line which I found to be dumb, because it was minor compared to the other flaws of the video. Near the beginning of the video there was a cheap shot at Republicans, saying something along the lines of that Christians don't have to also be Republicans. While it's trivially true that Christianity is not synonymous with, or inextricably married to, Republicanism or conservative politics, this line betrays a false equivalency that becomes more and more glaring to me with time, and which I feel the need to rage against now.

Because Jesus' project was -- as He told us time and time again -- about the the Kingdom of God breaking into history, and was not a "worldly" political kingdom of any character, deriving specific political programs from his teaching is treacherous. Surely nothing like that is my aim here. But just as surely as Christ was not a political Messiah primarily (despite the ultimate political consequences his Kingship over Earth entails), political policies can be more or less in line with Jesus' vision for the Kingdom. They can be more or less in line with His injunction regarding the distinctness of the spiritual and political realms (Mark 12:17, Matt. 22:21). They can be more or less in line with his teaching about the just role political authorities have (Romans 13).

For example, a thoroughgoing anarchism would not be compatible with Romans 13. Similarly, but for opposite reasons, a totalitarian worldly authority which forces its subjects to do things that are contrary to God's law would be an illegitimate authority that ought to be opposed, and probably fought and overthrown. These are some of the obvious extremes where our response is clear and determined for us, but within the much more subtle shades of our liberal democracy, being a follower of Christ leaves a considerable degree of freedom for the types of political policies and agendas that are acceptable for us to support. And this is legitimate for Jefferson Bethke to point out.

But freedom doesn't mean that anything is on the table. On certain issues, there are stances that are highly compatible with Christian teaching and stances that -- at best -- strain compatibility wildly. For example, on whether or not to support laws which outlaw abortion, the dictates of Christian premises are difficult to avoid. Even if someone has some doubt about the point at which a fetus should attain the right to have its life protected by the state -- as irrational, and not particularly in line with Christian teaching or doctrines such doubts are -- still, it's difficult to avoid the Bible's relentless affirmation of the inherent worth of human life, and at worst one would have to choose to err on the side of defense of life on the question.

By contrast, when the left attempts to make similar cases that conservative beliefs on the poor or on war are also at odds with plain Christian teaching, the attempts fail rather laughably. Christians on both the left and right believe caring for the poor is of utmost importance for a Christian, they only disagree as to the role the federal government ought to play in that -- a subject on which Christ had nothing to say. As for war, this is closer to being a legitimate "inconsistency", if you will, at least as it relates to extreme hawkishness or imperialism, but not as it relates to support of any war. The Catholic Just War theory can be used to defend some war in a thoroughly consistent and Biblical fashion.

On many other issues such as the proper level of taxation, or the proper judicial philosophy, or the prosecution of the drug war, the dictates of Christian principles are not cut and dry. There is legitimate room for Christians to take a wide range of positions on these, and most, political issues.

But I would contend that the fundamental underlying philosophy of conservatism is much more compatible with Christian principles than is modern liberalism. And this is where simply saying "You can be a Christian and not be a Republican!" too swiftly dispenses with the legitimate question of whether one party, or -- really more centrally -- one side of the political spectrum is more compatible with Christian principles or not. The postmodern Christian assumption would seem to want to affirm a thoroughgoing centrism or moderate position as the best, but this is an illegitimate move. It's the same fallacy that results in people falsely deriving relativism from a postmodern critique of modernity.

Just because there are two sides to an issue or because the answer to the question at hand is not absolutely dictated by revelation, this does not mean that one side can not be much more closely in line with Christian principle, or that one position can not be totally at odds with Christian teaching. We can't let our cultural pluralism blind us to our moral senses, or certainly to our Christian inheritance, which I think is happening en masse. And on this score, I don't let all conservatives off the hook. Certain wings of conservatism, such as the libertarian wing, have elevated the virtue of personal volition so absurdly high, and as so ultimate, that all competing values are rendered subservient and secondary. This is very harmful. Though, with that said, that's just one wing of the right that has something somewhat wrong, whereas I think the left has everything completely wrong, and that most of their fundamental assumptions are at odds with Christian values.

However, if you do happen to be that rare species of Christian Democrat, I'm not going to try to convert you from your left-wing politics. That's surely a quixotic task, at least for a blog post of this length. What I do think should be easy enough for all Christians to acknowledge is that we can't simply rest in the proclamation that "You don't have to be a Republican!" We have to actually do the difficult work of examining our beliefs and actions in the political realm and honestly evaluate whether they are compatible with our Christian beliefs, which obviously are of prior and greater significance. We have to examine the possibility that some cherished political belief is actually sinful and at odds with Christ's teaching, even if that belief enjoys prominence and acceptance in mainstream American culture. We have to be mindful that our cultural prejudices don't dictate our theological inclinations, but that the relationship runs in the other direction.

If you do all that and you still come to the impossible conclusion that being a Christian Democrat is acceptable, well then, God bless you, and I pray earnestly and fervently that you are defeated at the polls regularly and egregiously.

Timothy Brindle's Christ Triad

As a newcomer to the Lampmode records, high quality, Christcentric, lyrical theology rap scene I've recently been blessed with a wealth of recorded material from the last 6-8 years or so with which to occupy my music listening time. The two albums that have dominated my listening time have been Shai Linne's The Attributes of God and Timothy Brindle's Killing Sin. Both immediately struck me as monumental artistic achievements -- easily outclassing any of their anemic secular counterparts from the last decade -- as well as legitimate theological treatises with content so relentlessly focused and sound that it could stand alongside other well-regarded works in the Reformed theology tradition. There's much that could be said about both works, but in this post I want to focus on a triad of songs from the Killing Sin album: The Faithfulness of Christ, The Humility of Christ, and The Excellency of Christ.

Killing Sin is best described an album-length meditation or exposition on the process of sanctification that God performs in the lives of His followers. The focus on sin is intense and Timothy faithfully relates the extent to which God abhors sin, and even moreso in the lives of His followers. As Brindle says on the track The Sinfulness of Sin: "In a sense when a Christian sins / It's more sickenin' than the sins of wicked men  (why?) / 'Cause we've tasted His goodness as recipients of Grace / So every time we sin it's like we're spittin' in His face / If Christians are no longer trapped in its bondage / Why, like dogs, do we go back to our vomit?" Throughout the album Timothy attempts to artfully relate just how detestable sin is to God, while also outlining the ways that Christ's work on the cross and His Resurrection enables us to "put to death our crooked flesh" through the power of the Holy Spirit. None of this really does justice to the depth, breadth, and vibrancy with which the album addresses this topic, and, in any case, Timothy provides us with a kind of  thesis statement that does better than I can at summarizing the album's aim on The Intro.

It's within this context that these three songs are marshaled. The last two tracks -- Humility and Excellency -- are also the last two songs on the album, while Faithfulness comes a bit earlier in the album. The sequencing of the tracks was obviously done purposefully, and I think Timothy doesn't put Faithfulness at the end for two main reasons, though this is obviously speculation. First is that Christ's Faithfulness is mostly manifested in the way He stays by our side through our daily struggles. How He is trudging along besides us amidst the various difficulties and temptations of life, even when we fall and stumble. For this reason I believe the track is sequenced earlier in the progression of songs, placing Christ's Faithfulness within and among (though of course in no way separate from) our battles with sin, as reflected by the surrounding tracks which cover that topic. The second reason I think the sequencing makes a lot of sense is because the slot before Humility and Excellency is filled by the terrific Fix Our Eyes, which serves as a kind of turning point, a signpost to the climactic moments of the album.

Though Christ is strongly present throughout the entire album, the progression of the album is such that it works itself up and out of sin, into the radiant glory of Christ as depicted in the final three tracks where the focus on the person of Christ becomes utterly fixed, even though He was faithfully present all along.

On Humility, the best track of the album, Timothy turns his focus to the incomprehensibly amazing and loving act of God's condescension into finitude on our account. "If you seem confused with this / God passed through His own creature's uterus / I admit this is odd, but the Bible can persuade me / 'An omnipotent God crying as a baby?!'" The track is largely about the Incarnation, focusing on the Christmas narrative and God's decision to rescue humanity from our iniquity by becoming one of us and dying in our place: "What an awesome feat to drop so deep and cop His sheep / He didn't step down; He took a quantum leap / And I'm amazed how God, infinite in wealth / Put aside His fame, and limited himself / To time and space and eyes and legs / He died to save a violent race whose sins would bring em hell."

Lest the intensely, carefully crafted rhyme schemes be forgotten, I will bring attention to them here. As someone who has written rap lyrics -- very poorly I might add -- it's difficult to overemphasize just how well-crafted these rhymes are technically, or how incredibly they're delivered. With that artistic aside accomplished, let me get back to the content of Humility. I think I've said about all that I could about the track that it doesn't say better for itself, so I'll let Timothy's lyrics speak and just transcribe the last 20 bars of the song:

Slaughtered, bleedin', gushin', oozin' blood
The Father pleased to crush Him whom He loved
So He probably didn't even feel the crown and nails
He had to suffer more than that to bring down the veil
Our eyes are haughty and our lies are naughty
The Holy Christ bore our sins inside His body
Yeah His veins they burst, but no one's pain was worse
Cause the one who made the Earth became a curse
And He was one with the Father's essence
But on the cross, the God of heavens cut off His presence
So I can't share any language
That can rightly describe the Christ's despair and His anguish
So forever will I tell
In three hours Christ suffered more than any sinner ever will in hell
He who had infinite joy and pleasure
Became a man of sorrows so we could join forever
He took a cosmic plunge, put on some lungs
On the cross, became to God a sponge
To soak up His wrath
So the wicked wouldn't be sifted and blown into chaff

Um. Wow. It's really difficult for me to listen to this song without beginning to weep, mostly out of gratitude.

Finally we turn to Excellency. While Humility mostly focused on the Incarnation, it culminates with the crucifixion (as you can see from the above lyrics), and, as you might imagine, Excellency focuses on the Glory of the Risen Savior (accompanied by an appropriately triumphal sonic arrangement): "You're the Lion- yet the Lamb / You're divine yet you're a man / You're Messiah and 'I AM'/ You're triumphant in your plan / Resurrected in all power and might / Exalted in all glory and honor- the Father showered the Christ / Full time worshipers- forever we're employed / Christ came to give us the full measure of His joy."

And if you let the album repeat at this point we are brought full circle to the daily battles of believers with sin, which Christ's Resurrection empowers us to overcome. It's sometimes easy to forget that Christ died not only to save us from the penalty of death, but that He rose to give us His life, Eternal life which can begin living now if we die to our old sinful selves. But the real takeaway from the album is that dying to our sins and putting them to death isn't something we do once and are done with, but it is a continuous process in this life which can only be accomplished by fixing our eyes on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If you liked something about this blog, I assure you that anything I've been able to convey is only a faint whisper of what this album has to say. Check it out for free on Spotify or purchase it at Lampmode's online store.

God's Love

'Love' is widely misapprehended because of a cultural tendency to associate it with saccharine sentimentality. Christians understand that God is love in the sense of 'agape' (or a combination of 'eros' and 'agape', depending on who you ask), but if the cultural understanding of love is something else entirely -- which ours is -- then it's important to clarify what it is we mean when we say things like "God is Love." If people think we are saying that God is what our culture understands love to be, they will think that we're saying something very far from what we actually mean.

The cultural understanding of love wouldn't include any space for things like "judgment". And within the social sphere, between and among fallen human beings, this makes sense to some extent. But from the perspective of a perfect Creator God who is far above His creatures in every way, space for righteous judgment as an aspect of love opens up fully, and is in fact logically necessary. The lyricism in the following track by Evangel expresses what God's Love is while being careful to contrast it to our culture's understanding of love. 

God is Love, we don't need proof of it / We see the truth of it in the crucifix / But He's not just the God who's got Love for the lost / But the God who said this world was judged through the cross / Believe it / God was Love, even when He sent His Angel of Death to kill the firstborn of Egypt / Not Casanova / But Love that needs the Lamb's blood for passin' over / The Wrath of Jehovah / With all that in mind / Know God is Love which suffers long and is kind / 'Til we fall into line / While His anger is buildin' / Patiently awaitin' His children / To become the world's strangers and pilgrims

Of course, some people make the opposite mistake and overemphasize His judgment at the expense of His patience, kindness, etc. The first verse of this song ensures it won't make that mistake, giving numerous examples of God's incomprehensible grace. But in our culture, I would argue that the concept of judgment and wrath being facets of perfect Love is almost completely foreign, and so is the much more common misunderstanding in need of correction. 

Christian Response to the "Hating Religion" Video

From my previous post you should be able to infer that I found the viral popularity of the "Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus" video to be discouraging and disheartening. It's one thing for one guy out there to write that poem, and make that video. That event in itself wouldn't bother me so much, because I could just write that person's thinking off as anomalous and not representative of any large swath of Christians. But when my first exposure to the video came via an explosion of praise and enthusiasm from Christians, that makes it more troublesome in two ways: 1) It means that many Christians already had similar thoughts and 2) The fact that it is being spread primarily as a positive thing may influence other Christians to adopt a similar attitude.

Of the four times it appeared on my facebook on the first day, each post only had positive feedback on it. It's possible that those who felt like I did about it just kept their dissent to themselves, perhaps not wanting to offend anyone. But, in any case, there are many, many Christians out there who either agree with the sentiments expressed in the video, or at least don't find them harmful.

To my relief, in the day or two following the appearance of the video, there has also been a substantial number of critical responses to the video from the Christian blogosphere. Many of which echo the criticisms from my post, others that took the video to task for different, but extremely important reasons, and still others that fall somewhere in the middle.

This one by my friend Ron focuses on the misunderstanding of the significance Christ's work displayed in the video, reducing that work to solely "dying for our sins", while failing to emphasize the utterly crucial regenerative aspect of Christ's resurrection. Resurrection which enables Christ's followers to change, not merely to be forgiven.

This post, by a friend of a friend, largely echoes my points regarding conflating one certain mode of religion for religion itself.

This post by my friend Scott wasn't written as a response to the video, but it was something he wrote previously that he thought was applicable in light of the video. It's about how -- despite the sometimes understandable desire to want to do so -- we can't separate Christ from His church, and say we love Him but not it. And if the Church of Christ is not "religion" then there's no such thing as "religion".

This post does an excellent job of highlighting the fact that using religion to erect a false facade to cover our brokenness is not the fault of "religion", but the fault of those of us who sinfully misuse "religion".

Finally, this post does a phenomenal point-by-point breakdown of the inaccuracies and fallacies of the video in a way that I wanted to do, but felt it would require too much effort. Even my post focusing on essentially one aspect of the video was fairly long. So, thank you for picking up my slack, sir.

I'm sure there are many other similar backlash responses out there, and thank God for that. I thought I'd just share a few of them that I found encouraging. While the "spiritual-Christ-follower-but-not-religious" attitude is still seemingly epidemic, it's good to know I'm not alone in opposing it.

Why I Love Jesus AND The Religion He Established

If you are a Christian and use the Internet you may have seen this video titled "Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus":

It has recently gone viral on the Christian-social-media scene, if my facebook is any indication (4 Christians posted or re-posted it today, which is a big number for one day). Since I'm going to expend a rather large amount of time critiquing aspects of it, I felt I should -- in the name of fairness -- list some of the things I did like about it first:

- The affirmation of love for Jesus. This is always a good thing to see and hear, and he mentions multiple  reasons Christ is worthy of praise and Glory. Amen to all of that.
- His honesty about his own struggles being a "Sunday-only" Christian and such.
- His rightful disdain of certain hypocrisies of certain typically religious types of people, such as the erection of a religious facade to mask their brokenness and sin.

The main downfall of the video is its critique of "religion" and the false antagonism it introduces between Jesus and "religion", and this will take some significant unpacking.

Critique of religion is not the exclusive domain of the un-religious. Or at least not of unbelievers. The amount of people who use the phrase "spiritual-but-not-religious" (alternatively, "Christ-follower-but-not-religious") to describe their belief system is staggering. If "spiritual-but-not-religious" was itself an option for checking on religious affiliation surveys, I imagine it would be in strong competition for being one of the top 2 or 3 religions in America, at least.

Whence such disdain for (Christian) "religion"? In largely Protestant America, it can partially be traced back to the Reformation. After all, the Reformation was a rebellion against the established, legalistic, Christian order of the time that resulted in a more individualized, more "free", more enigmatic form of religion. Ultimately this was a movement away from those things we tend to most closely associate with "religion": authority, tradition, ritual, legalism etc. And, in America and within Protestantism, the majority regard this movement to be a desirable result.

Another reason for the hostility toward religion is the historical failings of "religion", or really -- more precisely -- the failings of religious people and institutions. Of which there are plenty. Some of these are common human failings that seem to be magnified in religious people; self-righteousness, pride, "intolerance". Whether this perception of religious people -- or of the Church -- is in fact accurate is debatable, but it's easy enough to admit that many religious people (Christians included) do many wicked things, and certain tendencies are more closely associated with religiosity than others.

But the two biggest reasons for the hostility toward Christian religion specifically are A) sin -- the sinful rejection of Christ and His bride -- and B) the fact that "religion" is so nebulous, multifarious, and imprecise as to make it a perfect scapegoat. It literally has no one to defend it. A Christian has no interest in defending "religion", he will defend Christ or Christianity. A Muslim has no stake in defending "religion", he only wants to defend Islam. And so on.

As for "A)", that problem doesn't appear to be the best explanation for this video. He verifies that he loves "the Church and the Bible." However, in most instances of the "spiritual-not-religious" or "Christ-follower-not-religious" voicing their opposition to religion, it is often motivated by a desire to affirm certain sinful (or at least inaccurate) critiques of (Christian) religion, while attempting to avoid throwing Christ out with the religion. The problem is that you can't separate Christ from his Church as the Church is Christ's Body, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit. His representative on Earth. The move for the "spiritual-not-religious" person at this juncture is to claim that Christ's church is not about "religion", which he (the "spiritual-not-religious" person) implicitly narrowly defines as a certain form of self-righteous, legalistic, Pharisee-ism. The problem is that "religion" is a much more broad, protean phenomenon than that and you can't disassociate yourself from it by redefining it, simply because the word has some nefarious associations for you.

With regard to "B)", this fellow in the video isn't alone in this scapegoating effort. The most visible perpetrators of this scapegoating currently are the New Atheists, a group of scientists and authors who have made penning haughty diatribes against 'religion' their main source of income. One overarching difficulty for their arguments -- and for this video -- is that they fail to distinguish religion as such from religion as practiced by most, or the particular case from the general case. Either that, or they have trouble distinguishing between correlation and causation. While the subject is too large to tackle in this post, David Bentley Hart does a marvelous job of that here and here. Or, as Hart says elsewhere, most of the criticisms lodged against religion are "simple category mistakes or the kind of historical oversimplifications that are either demonstrably false or irrelevantly true."

This is evident in the video when when the poet asks "If religion is so great, why has it started so many wars?", making multiple mistakes at once. The actual number of wars started by "religion" or in the name of "religion" is zero. And this is not (solely) a flippancy; if you're going to make an argument you have to make these critical distinctions between "religion" and "things religious people have done in the name of their religion", for instance. They are not equivalent.

If we're to be charitable and assume he meant something like "many wars have been started by adherents of particular religions for religious reasons", then it becomes a bit of a historical caricature that is true only in a limited sense. Many of the wars traditionally attributed to religious causation were not "religious" wars. The European wars of the 1800s that are commonly referred to as the "wars of religion", for instance, were not religious wars at all but wars waged by the modern secular state. Many other wars throughout history had various political, cultural, and religious tensions which resulted in the eruption of violence, but which were not fundamentally "religious" wars, but sometimes get mislabeled as such (usually because there were religious men fighting in them).

Further, if we narrow it to Christian religion specifically -- since that's the crux of the disagreement as the video claims all religion as such is bad, while I claim all religion is false except Christianity -- then the caricature is even more historically inaccurate. Still, I would happily grant that there have been wars started by religious people for religious reasons throughout history. But this only gets us to the aforementioned "irrelevantly true". What does this tell us about "religion"? It tells us that humans are often wicked, sure, but if the world were purged of religion, would we have more or less war? Does the existence of political wars condemn politics as an illegitimate enterprise? The point of these rhetorical questions is to point out that the existence of religious wars tells us absolutely nothing about the validity or goodness of particular religions, or even religion as such.

The video also claims that "Jesus came to abolish religion." If we consult any dictionary on the matter, we can plainly see that this is factually incorrect. We must assume that by "religion" he means the narrow form of legalistic religion -- along with the sinful, sanctimonious attitudes it engendered -- of the Pharisees. Jesus was indeed opposed to this aspect of religion, and in the light of what He did and who He was, religion was transformed forever. But this is not the same as abolishing religion. Jesus was not a-religious, or anti-religious, He was perfectly religious. In every deed and every thought He never broke the Law of God's covenant with Israel, living the life of a sinless Jew. If Jesus was perfectly religious, and He is to be the example that we follow, how do we conclude that we should be a-religious or anti-religious? How is it even possible to be followers of Christ without being a "body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices"?

The man in the video goes on to point out the fact that religion is man-made, as if this were some strike against it. Art is man-made. Architecture is man-made. Science is man-made. Philosophy is man-made. Christ's work redeems all things -- except sin and death, which He defeats at the cross -- and religion is no exception. It's a logical fallacy to say that since Jesus opposed the religious order of his time, opposed hypocrisy and self-righteousness, or that since he atoned for sin, that therefore he was opposed religion as such. As with everything else, Christ redeems fallen religion and brings it under His righteous rule. He did not come to abolish it, contrary to what the video claims. And He told you as much: "I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." - Matt. 5:18.  He came to fulfill the Law and make the one true religion, the Kingdom of God, accessible to all people (rather than the one true religion being exclusive to God's chosen people, the Jews).

In addition to all this, when you look at the religion of Christ's followers on Earth, and the record of Christian religion -- all of it, pros and cons -- there is absolutely no cause for shame whatsoever, or any indication that Jesus will reject adherents of this religion in the way that he rebuked the Pharisees. Nay, He actually assured the followers of this religion that He would be with them visa vis the Holy Spirit, until his return (John 14). That doesn't mean Jesus co-signs every action of the Church, which is still made up of fallen men, but it does mean that this is the religion He established and that He has no intention of rejecting it.

This -- his hating religion while loving Jesus, his claiming Jesus and religion are on the opposite ends of some spectrum -- is my primary beef with the video. I have others -- Churches do feed the poor, for instance -- but it kind of feels like excessive piling on at this point, so I'll leave it at that.

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UPDATE: It looks as if a friend of mine, Ron, did some of my expounding on other issues for me. He even touched on things I hadn't considered. 

Occupy Jerusalem - 'Who Was Jesus' TV Special

There is a series on the Planet Green channel called Who Was Jesus? It's one of those pop-level looks at "the historical Jesus", which attempt to divine truths about Jesus as a person apart from religious doctrine and dogma. Given that the series appears on the Planet Green channel, I was fully prepared to be offended in some way, and while I only saw one episode of the series, two things were irksome about it. Well, more than two, but two that I felt like addressing in this post.

First was that the language used by the narrator to describe the economic and social conditions of the time were rooted in a particular disingenuous, modern, leftist rhetoric. Not that what they said was wrong per se, but the fact that they chose to say certain things repetitively -- while not saying many other things that could be said about first century Jewish and Roman culture -- revealed the presence of a particular ideology. Specifically, they referred to the "discrepancy of wealth" and "the suffering masses while a few prospered" over and over again. I will reiterate; it wasn't merely that they said these types of things, but that they made similar statements over and over again. The special could easily have been titled Occupy Jerusalem.

The second was some blatant racism by one historian. When talking about Mary when she goes with Jesus to Jerusalem, and Jesus goes to the temple, she says that "Just like a Jewish mother, Mary was worried to death when she couldn't find Jesus." I'm not hypersensitive when it comes to stereotypes, especially true ones, but this is one of those stereotypes that probably has little basis in reality. I'm aware of no evidence that suggests the average Jewish mother is appreciably more concerned about their children than non-Jewish mothers. The historian even reiterates the statement later, in addition to another trait of the Jewish mother that Mary displays after she finds Jesus, which the historian said was, I believe, relief. She was laughing as she relayed this observation of hers.

Again, I'm the last person to be overly politically correct and I certainly wasn't offended, but if they were exploring African history and she declared about some historical figure "he was, just like an African father, a deadbeat dad", I don't expect Planet Green would so readily include that programming on their channel. Even though, in this case, the attributes -- large amounts of worry and relief -- are either neutral or positive things, it's still quite surprising that they blithely include such dubious racial stereotypes.

A Discriminating God

In his debate with William Lane Craig, Sam Harris lodged the forceful objection against Christianity (and Islam) that, according to its doctrines (as he misunderstands them), millions of people will go to hell for being born into the wrong culture at the wrong time. What he means is that those born into, for example, predominantly Hindu or Islamic cultures will be less likely to ever come to accept the truth and forgiveness offered by Christ's redemptive and salvific work on the cross and in His resurrection, than someone who was born into a predominantly Christian culture.

While this is, in a sense, true, it's an incomplete picture of the situation and it is represented with a particular narrow rhetoric that doesn't do justice to reality. Once a few things are clarified, the poverty of this particular representation of the situation becomes clear.

First of all, simply being born into a Christian culture will curry you no favor with the Christian God. Many people who are raised Christian, and even many who consider themselves Christian, in the vaguest sense, are not actually Christian. Then there are many who are born into Christian cultures but reject Christianity. And -- something I sometimes forget about myself but was reminded of when I re-read The Screwtape Letters recently -- even a true Christian can sometimes fall away from the faith (not that that happened in Screwtape, but the simple fact that Screwtape's "subject" was a Christian reminded me).

Secondly, given the global spread of Christianity, there are many people in all cultures who are now Christian. Not to mention that what were once the "right" places for being born Christian, such as France, are increasingly becoming (or have become) places where you're much more likely to be raised secular and godless than many villages in Africa where you are now more likely to be born and raised Christian. So the picture is much more ambiguous and muddled than merely being born into the "right" or "wrong" culture.

Thirdly -- though perhaps this should have been my first point -- according to Christian beliefs, all people are guilty of sin, the wages of which are death. If someone goes to hell it wasn't because of which culture they were born into, but because they sinned against God, and because they rejected -- not didn't hear, but rejected -- the gracious rescue by Christ from sin and death.

Now, as to the supposed injustice of it being easier for those born into a Christian culture to come to knowledge of, and commitment to, Jesus Christ, this is probably true. Christ came to rescue all humanity and open the way to God for all people, yes, but he did this knowing that many people (and cultures) would reject him. If that seems "unfair" to our modern (and perverse) cultural lenses, who ever claimed fairness (in our modern sense) to be a divine attribute? We claim that God is just, and justice for the guilty means death. Death means separation from God and hell. That is what everyone deserves. God would have been perfectly just to leave us in our death. Anything humanity is given that is greater than death and hell for all is an act of Grace. Something no one deserves, but which you may either accept or reject.

The fact that God seems to make the conditions for following him "easier" for certain peoples isn't exactly inconsistent with his character as revealed in the Bible or as understood by Christian doctrine. The God of the Old Testament was the God of Israel, His chosen people, to the exclusion of the other peoples of the world. God also annihilated human life on the whole planet except for Noah and his family. While we may find this act more palatable because Noah was a relatively righteous man in a wicked world, he was still a sinner whom God could have also justly eliminated. But God had mercy on him. The situation is no different from today, only it isn't a "relative goodness" or a "smaller wickedness" that Christians possess, as Noah did, but a perfect righteousness that is imputed to Christians via Christ's substitutionary work of atonement on the cross. The sins of those who trust in Christ are washed by His blood and they are made new in His resurrection. Not because they were born into the right culture, but because they placed their faith in Him and accepted the only salvation available to the guilty. And this way is open to all the people of Earth.

Whether or not one accepts the truth of this narrative, the question that's pertinent here is whether or not it makes sense to impugn God's character as unjust or unrighteous. If it did, then that would be a legitimate objection to a faith that claims that God is just and righteous. And this was Harris' point; if the God of the Bible is real, then He is "unjust" or (really) "unfair", because the God of the Bible doesn't fit our modern American model of fairness. He had a chosen people, and even when He graciously opened the way for all people to Him, it's still a truth that is easier for some to accept than others. Shouldn't he make it equally easy or difficult, to be fair? And if He claims to be just and righteous but isn't (again, according to our faulty model of what it means to be just and righteous), then He either isn't actually real after all, or He isn't worthy of our allegiance because He's discriminatory (and a discriminatory God is unacceptable to our cultural tastes).

Once the objection is seen for what it is, it carries no weight whatsoever against the truth or consistency of Christian belief, although one could see how it might resonate with the values of our culture. If God were actually "playing favorites", that would be his prerogative and we would have no legitimate complaint against it as we deserve nothing but death. But, viewed in the correct light, there's no reason to conclude that anyone is ever treated unjustly, even granting that people born in certain cultures will more readily accept Christ, and others will more readily reject Him.

Our God is a discriminating God. There are things that delight Him and things He finds abhorrent. He bestows blessings and curses. He has a people. He has a Kingdom. He has standards. We all fall short of those standards and must either accept or reject His Gracious offer of Christ's blood as a means of reconciliation. Being born into the "wrong" culture is no excuse.

Tebow Fever: Caught

I tried to resist, but even I have caught a dose of Tebow fever. Though I've followed baseball, football, tennis, and basketball at various times in my life, in the last 4 or 5 years I haven't followed any sports closely at all, and I was fine with this development. With the NBA lockout this year causing even greater disillusionment, I was prepared to write off all sports forever.

Then in the last few months the name 'Tebow!' (always with an exclamation) kept appearing in my social network feeds, even though I don't follow any sports-specific figures on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook, and only some of these posts were coming from friends who were into sports. I knew who Tim Tebow was, that he was on the Broncos, and was aware of his faith, but I didn't know why he kept appearing in my feeds. After a while I finally googled him to see what the fuss was about and learned that, since becoming the Bronco's QB, they had gone 5-1 (at the time of the googling) with many of the wins being 4th quarter, miraculous comebacks. And that his persistent giving of credit to Jesus Christ for all that he accomplished -- in post-game interviews, during the game, in press conferences, and symbolically by kneeling (or 'Tebowing') after big plays -- was adding to the controversy surrounding him, creating vociferous and adamant supporters and detractors. Not only that, but Tebow's statistics at quarterback during this run have been fairly abysmal and his mastery of the fundamental skills of the position leave much to be desired, adding to the strangeness of the run. In many of the wins he seems to play poorly or mediocre for three quarters and then often brilliantly in the fourth. OK, so this is why he was causing such a stir. Interesting.

So yesterday, at home after church, I happened to see that the Broncos were playing and put the game on. The Broncos were down 10-0 with 5 minutes in the game when Tebow engineered a brilliant comeback, which was (providentially?) assisted by a severe mental blunder by Marion Berry -- the running back for the Bears -- when he ran out of bounds with 1:55 left on the clock, when merely staying in-bounds would have won the game for them. Later, in overtime, Berry looked poised to break free on a run for a possible game-winning touchdown, or at least to get into great position for a game-winning field goal, and instead he fumbled the ball and the Broncos recovered. This was another bizarre play in which, at a most crucial moment, eminent defeat was transformed into victory. Are there greater forces (or, more precisely, The Greatest Force) at work here?

Of course the magic isn't being created by Tebow -- or providence -- alone. In yesterday's game, for instance, the Bronco's kicker nailed monster 59 yard and 51 yard field goals late in the game, the former tying the game with seconds left and the latter being the game-winning field goal in overtime. Tebow put them in position, of course, and also helmed a crucial touchdown drive which put them in reach, but his teammates stepped up as well. After yesterday's miracle victory, the Broncos are now 7-1 with Tebow at the helm and poised to make the playoffs.

Whether God is a Broncos fan remains to be seen. It seems a trivial thing for God to care about, on one hand, but on the other hand, having a national figure so publicly and unabashedly proclaiming the power of Christ whenever he is given the opportunity is no small matter.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." - Phillipians 4:13

Clearly Tebow believes this, and if he is always humbly pointing to the One who makes his accomplishments -- to say nothing of his, or anyone else's, existence -- possible, it isn't so hard to imagine that God would dignify that all-too-rare act with recognition.

Surprised by Hope review/response (long)

I'm a little late on this. I just got around to reading Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright, which some people recommended to me a few years ago. I thought it was a good book, with some very good observations on our apparent misconceptions (as both Christians and non-believers) about death, resurrection, and the afterlife. I agree with Wright's interpretation of bodily resurrection, and the hope of a new Earth and a new heaven. I take no issue with the content presented in the book, or the case presented for this interpretation of resurrection and the afterlife. Wright makes an extremely strong case for his perspective, and I believe this perspective corresponds most closely with the truth. Although the bulk of this article will be negative my overall response to the vast majority of the book was positive. I just don't have a lot to add to the stuff I agreed with other than saying that I do in fact agree.

All that being said, I do take issue with one of the central themes of the book. Specifically the issue of 'Does this matter?', and/or 'Is this significant, and if so, how significant?' Wright explicitly answers these two questions in part 3 of the book with a definitive 'Yes', and 'Yes, very', respectively. But I'm not convinced that it is AS significant as Wright claims that it is. It is significant in that it reveals a truth, and that's important enough in itself to justify writing the book and clarifying the issue for people who are obviously confused or uneducated on the subject. However, Wright claims that the significance extends beyond simply knowing what is true. He claims that understanding these truths will, or should, drastically transform how we live our Christian lives. Which I don't necessarily buy, though I understand and appreciate the case that he makes.

To illustrate what I'm getting at, let us take two Christians. Both of these Christians are crystal clear about what the Bible says about who Jesus is, about what his commands are, about how we as Christians are to live and treat each other, about the fact that Jesus died in our place and rose for our sins, conquering death etc. Also, both are at a similar place in their walk with Christ. That is, the 'strength' of their faith at this point in life is similar. The only place where these two Christians differ is that one (we'll call him #1) understands the afterlife correctly, the promise of bodily resurrection, Christ literally defeating death in a physical sense, a new heaven and new Earth joined together etc. while the other (#2) holds some common Platonic misconceptions about the afterlife, such as that of a disembodied soul leaving the body at death, ascending to heaven, leaving behind this doomed Earth forever etc.

Given this, what should we expect to see in the way of 'fruits' from these two Christians? It's my contention that their fruits, the degree to which they live a Christian life, should be roughly exactly the same, with neither bearing any more significant fruit than the other on average. But Wright argues (implicitly) that the latter Christian will most often bear significantly less fruit. That holding the beliefs that the 2nd Christian does will, in most cases, result in the Christian not caring enough about this life, not trying to change this world for the better, and just patiently awaiting the next, completely separate, disconnected and better life. Despite the fact that Jesus directly commands his followers to be concerned with this present world, and clearly lays out the ways to go about doing that. Regardless of the Christian's depth of understanding about the way in which afterlife and resurrection function.

If Christian #2, despite not correctly understanding the promise of bodily resurrection, understands and puts into practice Christ's commands, and follows his example, then his lack of understanding on that issue shouldn't affect his actions. Jesus said to help and care for the poor, so Christian #2 tries to do it as best as he can, end of story. Jesus said to follow him, to spread the good news of him and the salvation that he offers, and to love others, so that's what Christian #2 tries to do. Christian #1 does the same. If both Christians understand the example of Christ, and His words, to the same degree (and they find themselves at a similar node in life, with similar backgrounds, life experiences, etc.) then their actions should be approximately identical. We wouldn't expect to see any more from #1 than we do from #2.

Why then is it of utmost importance that a Christian fully comprehend these truths about the afterlife and resurrection (other than truth for truth's own sake)? If a Christian can live a dedicated, full Christian life under the misapprehensions of a disembodied soul ascending to heaven (which they can, and probably tens-to-hundreds of thousands do), then why is it so crucial? The elevation of the issue to such a level seems like a kind of intellectual elitism. The idea that only those of us privy to specific scholarly interpretations of the Bible can lead a fully realized Christian life. Christ is Lord of all, including the largely dull-witted masses incapable of parsing this issue effectively for themselves. Christ is even Lord of illiterates, for that matter. Which is not to say that rigorous study of the Bible shouldn't be done, of course it should be. But if it requires a working knowledge of multiple languages, historical cultural traditions, cultural differences, rigorous cross referencing of scripture given knowledge of the original language and what various phrases/words meant in different contexts, etc. to divine a particular truth then I can't very well believe God would intentionally make an essential truth relatively esoteric. And when I say 'essential' I mean that it's essential to understand the truth in order to live a full, Christian life. While the truth of the resurrection itself is certainly essential, I don't think it's essential to understand the exact machinations of that truth in order to lead a Christian life.

Let's be clear, Christian #2 still believes in the resurrection, still believes Christ died and rose (literally, bodily) for our sins, still believes that it is only through his work on the cross that we are saved from death and reconciled with God, still believes in and understands the importance of helping the poor and downtrodden, still believes that what he does or doesn't do in this world will have eternal consequences for himself and those around him (thus that this world is very important, and not wholly distinct and separate from heaven) etc. etc. Even if he is not fully cognizant of the machinations of hope, so to speak, even if he is mistaken as to the metaphysics of body-soul duality, even if he doesn't realize that Jesus 'conquering the grave' is not only Christ's literal defeating of death, but also a defeating of literal death for humanity etc. Even if he doesn't understand these things he can still lead a fully realized Christian life and do so just as easily as someone who does understand them.

A second, though not entirely separate, bone I have to pick also occurs in the third part of the book and also has to do with the implications of fully understanding these issues. Wright takes aim at Christian conservatism primarily in the US, and declares that a proper view of the resurrection and the Christian hope necessarily leads to the conclusion that global debt remission is the greatest moral crisis in the world today. Which I find to be a non-sequitur, though, to be fair, he states that he doesn't have space in this book to make that argument fully.

He goes on to straw man Christian conservatives by stating that they are happy about things such as acid rain, pollution and ecological damage. Or at least that they are not worried about them because of the temporary nature of this world. As well as stating that they believe that God must be happy about these things as well.

First of all, the Christian is commissioned to be a good steward of the Earth and all that is in within it even if they hold the false belief that the Earth is temporary and soon to perish. So whether or not they understand the reason why they should be a good steward, if they aren't being good stewards then they simply are not obeying God's commands. So I don't buy the argument that "If only they understood the 'WHY' then they would obey". No, they disobey because they are sinful, fallen humans, and they would disobey whether they understood the 'why' or not. You can be obedient without understanding and you can understand without being obedient. Comprehension is not a prerequisite for obedience.

Secondly it simply is not true that Western Christian conservatives like acid rain, or are ambivalent about pollution in the first place. Our perspective on the issue (if I can be so bold as to speak for us) is that it's an unfortunate byproduct of human progress, innovation, and increased standards of living for all people. And that God has created the Earth in specific preparation for us, fully capable of handling our pollution. Which is not to say that we shouldn't be good stewards and attempt to reduce our polluting activities as much as possible, clearly we are commanded to do just that. Only not at the expense of technological advancements that are, all factors accounted for, good for humans. Even if we could eliminate every trace of pollution from the planet along with every technology that created it, and therefore revert the human condition that has been dramatically improved through such technologies, we emphatically SHOULD NOT do it. It would be an act of supreme wickedness and an infliction of massive death and disease upon the human race if we were to do that. This is the argument that Christian conservatives make regarding pollution, yet Wright acts as though he's never heard the argument or at least hasn't understood it as he interprets the argument to be pro-pollution, or anti-responsibility-for-the-environment when it simply is neither.

Wright also states that, in light of the truth of bodily resurrection and all that goes along with it, somehow the economic policies of the right are also misguided in some way, though, again, this is more or less asserted and not at all supported by any argumentation that he provides. As far as I could see.

I am undoubtedly giving off the impression that I dislike the book or that I disagree with it's fundamental arguments, but I don't really. I very much appreciate the scholarship of Wright and the manner in which he organizes his arguments. I think the truths he reveals have the potential to be powerful apologetic tools as well. Many secularists, or just seeking non-believers, have complaints about Christianity that simply dissolve in the light of many of these truths, so that was also an invigorating aspect of the book, I found. I don't want to downplay the importance of what the book gets right, which, when it comes to the substance, is pretty much everything. I only take issue with some of the supposed implications of the various truths.