TheoPoetic Musings

Is Biblical Eisegesis Ever Permissable?

2010-09-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Old Testament scholar Gerhard von Rad's reading of Deuteronomy bordered on eisegesis rather than sound exegesis:

In his hands, Deuteronomy became not a law book demanding obedience, but rather a collection of sermons pervaded with a spiritual, even a "'protestantische' Atmosph�re."4 Written laws became homiletic sermons meant to encourage and inspire. Israel's obligation under YHWH's covenant treaty for obedience to his statutes and ordinances became Israel's unconditional election to salvation. On that basis, any sections of Deuteronomy that seem to make salvation dependent on works, i.e., obedience to the law, were deftly and systematically explained away. Either their significance was deemphasized, or they were relegated to later exilic or post-exilic expansions of the text, like the blessings and the curses of Deut 28.5 The support for these claims is often absent, so that von Rad's analysis of Deuteronomy, particularly the legal corpus of Deut 12-26, comes closer to eisegesis than to exegesis.

To be fair von Rad was trying to buck up against the Nazi idealogy that was so prevalent in his day---in his reading of Deuteronomy, von Rad was trying to reclaim the Old Testament from Nazi corruption and return it to it's rightful Jewishness:

From 1933 until 1945, the Hebrew Bible and the connection between Christianity and Judaism came under attack in Nazi Germany. Gerhard von Rad defended the importance of the Old Testament in a courageous struggle that profoundly influenced his interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy.

Gerhard recognized the importance of his work for:

(he) kept returning to Deuteronomy throughout his career, beginning with his doctoral dissertation in 1929, Das Gottesvolk im Deuteronomium, and continuing through Das formgeschichtliche Problem des Hexateuchs (1938), Deuteronomium Studien (1947), and his commentary on Deuteronomy for the prestigious series Altes Testament Deutsch (1964).2 Perhaps more striking than his preoccupation with this pivotal text, however, is the way von Rad characterized its textual content, its priorities, and its theology. His rhetoric frequently took the form of a series of antithetical formulations: Deuteronomy is not X but is Y.3 At times it seemed that von Rad was concerned just as much to establish what Deuteronomy is not as to show what it is. As is well known, von Rad argued that Deuteronomy is not law but rather a series of sermons by traveling Levites preaching a renewed message of redemption. He maintained that Deuteronomy's law code is not a dead text but live instruction, not demands for obedience to incomprehensible requirements, but spiritual exhortations to remember God's grace.

So do you think what he did was right or not?

The Church In A Time Of War

2010-09-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

Several thoughts from around the web:

The UCC on becoming a Just Peace Church:

The Just Peace Church vision is a hallmark of United Church of Christ theological identity.

For nearly two decades, the Just Peace Church program has been a grassroots movement of UCC congregations committed to corporately naming and boldly proclaiming a public identity as a justice-doing, peace-seeking church.

The movement traces its history to the 1985 General Synod, when a Just Peace Church Pronouncement called upon all settings of the UCC to be a Just Peace Church, underscoring the words of Dr. Robert V. Moss, the second president of the UCC, who wrote in 1971, "We now need to put as much effort into defining a just peace as we have done in the past in defining a just war."

The General Synod defined "just peace" as the interrelation of friendship, justice, and common security from violence. The pronouncement called the church to a vision of shalom rooted in peace with justice and placed the UCC General Synod in opposition to the institution of war.

From the official Pronouncement on affirming the United Church of Christ as a Just Peace Church:

Biblical and theological foundations
A Just Peace is grounded in God’s activity in creation. Creation shows the desire of God to sustain the world and not destroy. The creation anticipates what is to come: the history-long relationship between God and humanity and the coming vision of shalom.
Just Peace is grounded in covenant relationship. God creates and calls us into covenant, God’s gift of friendship: “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore” (Ezekiel 37:26). When God’s abiding presence is embraced, human well-being results, or Shalom, which can be translated Just Peace.
A Just Peace is grounded in the reconciling activity of Jesus Christ. Human sin is the rejection of the covenant of friendship with God and one another and the creation and perpetuation of structures of evil. Through God’s own suffering love in the cross, the power of these structures has been broken and the possibility for relationship restored.
A Just Peace is grounded in the presence of the Holy Spirit. God sends the Holy Spirit to continue the struggle to overcome the powers ranged against human bonding. Thus, our hope for a Just Peace does not rest on human efforts alone, but on God’s promise that we will “have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
A Just Peace is grounded in the community of reconciliation: the Just Peace Church. Jesus, who is our peace (Ephesians 2:14), performed signs of forgiveness and healing and made manifest that God’s reign is for those who are in need.The church is a continuation of that servant manifestation. As a Just Peace Church, we embody a Christ fully engaged in human events. The church is thus a real countervailing power to those forces that divide, that perpetuate human enmity and injustice, and that destroy.
Just Peace is grounded in hope. Shalom is the vision that pulls all creation toward a time when weapons are swept off the earth and all creatures lie down together without fear; where all have their own fig tree and dwell secure from want. As Christians, we offer this conviction to the world: Peace is possible.

Shuck and Jive on Imperial Religion: Shuck and Jive: Our New Imperial Religion.

The Christian Conscience and Nuclear Escapism:

It is correct to say, as Robert McAfee Brown does, that the possession and manufacture of nuclear weapons are immoral. But if the alternatives are also immoral, as the bishops suggest, it hardly follows that Christians should say an "unequivocal no" to participation in nuclear weapons development. Brown believes that such an unequivocal stance is "risky." Granted, it carries the risks of job loss and accusations of disloyalty. These risks are significant, but they pale before an even greater risk which they reduce. This is the risk of unfettered thinking whereby the human mind, as Augustine said, is stretched and stretched until eventually it encounters something that transcends and judges it, which is Truth. We try to avoid divine judgment and the anxiety it brings by refusing to think, by permitting our prepossessions to prevent the emergence of new insights, as the late Bernard Lonergan wrote.

This is part of the appeal of unequivocal stances. Because they are unambiguous and devoid of irony and paradox, they allow us to suppose that we are righteous. The result is that on the peace issue, we come to sound like those fundamentalist churches that call people out of a sinful world to a holy place of painless. personal salvation. If, however, we resist what Flaubert called "the mania to conclude," we are bound to fathom finally that for the moral problem of deterrence, there is no sanctified ground on which to stand. We learn instead, as London’s G. R. Dunstan writes, that there is only a choice between evils and "everlasting mercy for those who, in good faith, are driven to choose"

At first, Ramsey seems directly opposed to Brown, who rejects deterrence altogether. Actually, Ramsey and Brown are closer to each other than either is to Dunstan or the bishops. Both believe that nuclear morality involves choosing between good and evil. This is what Dunstan and the bishops deny, saying that we choose only between wrongs.

The stark honesty of such a view calls to mind a response to war known as "agonized participation," which is associated with the names of Reinhold Niebuhr and Roger Shinn. and which is described by Edward Long, Jr., in his 1968 book War and Conscience in America (Westminster). This position is not to be confused with statements of just-war theory. The agonized participant believes war is never an act of justice, but that it may sometimes be necessary to prevent an even greater evil. The agonized participant accepts the necessity of war without obscuring its tragedy.

I do not think that a person can have a role in the wartime firing of a nuclear device, or even in the development or production of a destabilizing weapon, as an agonized participant. Those would be acts devoid of conscience. But workers on projects that make the world safer should develop the mind of agonized participants. Their work can be justified, but it provides no cause for patriotic self-congratulation. It is necessary, but it is still immoral. When these defense workers ask how they can resolve the conflict between their religious principles and their participation in nuclear weapons projects, the churches need to tell them that there is no resolution. As Niebuhr said, God’s forgiveness enables us to live with moral dilemmas, but it does not make our deeds righteous.

The churches must speak these things without pointing fingers, as though nuclear defense workers constitute some special, reprehensible class. Their dilemma should be felt acutely by any Christian who lives under the nuclear umbrella and enjoys the prerogatives that come from a military security bought at an awful moral price.

In "Ethics and Tragedy" (Explorations in Theology [SCM, 1979]), D. M. McKinnon recounts a story about the duke of Wellington. An admirer said to the great man: "A victory must be a supremely exhilarating and glorious experience." The duke, by then an old man, replied: A victory, Madam, is the greatest tragedy in the world, only excepting a defeat." Today, living with nuclear deterrence is the greatest tragedy in the world, only excepting what might result from its alternatives. Since there is no handy exit from this tragedy, we may be forced to learn the wisdom of another generation -- that Christian ethics is not a deus ex machina to extricate us from our predicaments. Instead, in the words of neo-orthodoxy’s most systematic thinker, ethics exists "to remind us of our confrontation with God, who is the light illuminating all actions." In a nuclear age, we confront a sorrowful God whose righteous anger boils over in the face of our folly. The miracle is that this weeping, angry God still graces us to hope and to labor for peace. But hoping and peacemaking, we must see, are very different things from indulging in one form or another of nuclear escapism.

Matthew 5 Project - Evangelicals for Nuclear Reduction:

1. As Bible-believing Christians, we recognize Christ’s lordship over all areas of life. The end of the Cold War and the rise of global terrorist networks call for a renewed application of Jesus’ lordship and our own best moral convictions to meet the challenges of our time.
2. Jesus Christ Commands Us to Go, Make Peace with Our Adversary: Matthew 5:21-26 is a command, not an option; the apostle Paul followed it; so must we. This is the central theme of our statement.
3. Jesus Christ is Lord Over Every Area of Life, in Our Relations with All the World: The sanctity of all human life created in the image of God includes all persons. The Holy Spirit empowers us to make our witness to even the remotest part of the earth. God is revealed in Christ and sovereign over the whole world.
4. Overcoming the Nuclear Threat Requires International Cooperation: Our church experience of getting adversaries to talk together, as well as the historical examples of North Korea, Libya, Iran, and sixteen nations that were persuaded not to develop nuclear weapons, show the realism in our context of Jesus’ command to go talk with an adversary to make peace while there’s time.
5. Governments Need International Checks and Balances: Government is part of God’s good creation, but is also fallen and therefore in need of checks and balances, and respect for law. This applies also to governments that have the power to create enormous destruction. We honor our elders, who saw the devastating destruction of World War II, and dedicated themselves to creating international networks so that the scourge of war might be prevented.
6. Nuclear Weapons are a Physical and Moral Threat that Need International Agreement: Nuclear weapons are a physical threat to the survival of human life on earth. They are also a grave moral threat. Prominent national security experts have recently called for reducing and abolishing reliance on nuclear weapons, by verifiable international agreement, in order to enhance national security. This cannot be accomplished unilaterally; it requires international cooperation and verification.
7. A Call for Action: In order to safeguard life, liberty, community, and security for its own citizens and for the world, the United States must demonstrate moral leadership in protecting the human rights of the most vulnerable, strengthening the rule of law in the international community, and seeking diplomatic negotiations with allies and enemies alike. Christians should pray for our leaders and leaders of other nations. We urge churches to teach members ethics for discernment, including just peacemaking practices based on the teachings of Jesus, so they are well prepared to meet today’s challenges in ways faithful to Christ. We encourage church groups to consider engaging in interfaith dialogue and witness, and in building international partnership with fellow Christians around the world. We call for governmental action to oppose the rise in global terrorism by working for international justice and peacemaking. We call for verifiable international reduction of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. We affirm that overcoming the threat of global poverty, global warming, global terrorism, regional insecurity, and nuclear war requires international cooperation. We call for obedience to the Lordship of Christ in all that we do, including talking with an adversary and seeking to make peace.

Patriotism, Nationalism, and the Christian Life:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my
heart is;
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy
shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as
mine.
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too, and
clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, O God for all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.
Tune: “Finlandia”
The New Century Hymnal 591

CBF-NC Foundational Document Revisions

2010-09-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Apparently the Baptist blogosphere has been a-buzz about the proposed revisions of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina's “foundational statements." Bruce Prescott weighs in:

Cooperative Baptists in North Carolina are revising their “foundational statements” to delete traditional references to liberty of conscience and “soul competency” and assert the priority and authority of the community in matters of faith. Like the fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention, communitarians within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship are determined to effect change within Baptist churches by redefining the traditional Baptist understanding of the “priesthood of the believer.”

Fundamentalists redefined “priesthood of the believer” to mean “submission to pastoral authority.” Communitarians are redefining “priesthood of the believer” to mean “submission to the authority of your church.”

Both are weary of the conflict of interpretations that are inevitable when finite and fallible human beings are passionate about reading scripture and living faithfully in accord with a revelation whose meaning is inexhaustible.

Both believe they are authorized to replace the Holy Spirit in the mind and heart of the believer. Fundamentalists replace the Holy Spirit with the authority of the pastor. Communitarians replace the Holy Spirit with the authority of the community. Either the pastor or your community serves to legitimate or delegitimate interpretations of scripture.

Neither fundamentalists nor communitarians make allowances for human imperfections. In the real world, both pastors and church communities often oppose valid interpretations of scripture and legitimate movements of God’s Spirit. That is why Baptists, historically, have been the Christian faith’s staunchest advocates for “liberty of conscience” or “soul competency.” Baptists, at their best, have always left room for the “prophets” – those who seem to be born out of due time because they are responding to a divine summons to serve the community in ways that challenge its consensus.

Read the full post: Here.

Abandon Image: The Scariest Verses in The Qu'ran!!!

2010-09-13T23:06:00.000-07:00

Abandon Image: The Scariest Verses in The Qu'ran!!!

The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: A Recent RD Article, and Some Further Thoughts on Qur'an Burning

2010-09-13T23:02:00.001-07:00

The Piety That Lies Between: A Progressive Christian Perspective: A Recent RD Article, and Some Further Thoughts on Qur'an Burning

Grace and Truth to You - Wade Burleson: KOKH FOX 25 :: Special Reports - Pastor strip club investigation

2010-09-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Grace and Truth to You - Wade Burleson: KOKH FOX 25 :: Special Reports - Pastor strip club investigation

Toyohiko Kagawa (賀川豊彦 Kagawa Toyohiko) And The Transnational Church

2010-09-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I just read about an interesting Japanese Christian reformer Toyohiko Kagawa who always seemed to buck the system as he was always getting arrested for critiquing the Japanese State in the same way the Confessing Church did the Nazi Church. One of the most courageous incidents which he was arrested for of note is the following scenario:

In 1940, Kagawa made an apology to the Republic of China for Japan's occupation of China, and was arrested again for this. After his release, he went back to the United States in a futile attempt to prevent war between that nation and Japan.

Kagawa was definitely a man of deep conviction and conscience who took the call to Kingdom living seriously. It is said that "he believed that Christianity in action was the truth of Christian doctrine which he used the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of a socially active Christianity." Toyohiko Kagawa's Christian journey was certainly one rooted in Christ-centeredness:

he met and learned English from Henry Myers a Presbyterian minister. He learned more than that—he learned about Christ and Myers baptized Kagawa unto Christ. Horace Shipp said, “Young Kagawa became a Christian. He did a rarer thing: he began to practice Christianity.” He was a pacifist to the core, at times he literally turned the other cheek and he insisted on giving away all his possessions and often his food. In 1904 Japan without warning attacked the Russian ships at Port Arthur and destroyed their whole Baltic fleet. Japan as a nation hailed this as a great triumph and justified it on the basis of less obvious but threatening developments in Russian foreign affairs. At the seminary where he now attended Kagawa dared to speak against Japan’s act of war and the students would take turns to beat him up. Finally he was expelled, he fell ill (tuberculosis) and went away to die in a little fishing village. But a boat was wrecked on the coast and Kagawa worked until he was absolutely exhausted helping to rescue people. This experience made him determined to live and later his stated aim was “The salvation of 100,000 poor, the emancipation of 9,430,000 laborers and the liberation of twenty million tenant-farmers.”

He took a header into the infamous slums at Shinkawa and for nineteen years he lived in a cubicle six feet by six feet, with one side open to act as door and windows. As one of the lowest of the low even by Shinkawa standards he shared his living quarters and for four years he held the hand of a murderer that couldn’t sleep alone. He got a little income from a Training school and he doubled it by working as a chimney sweep and gave it away or gave away all the food and clothes it bought. It was from one of his ceaseless stream of visitors that he contracted a fierce eye disease that moved him closer and closer to blindness. The slum bullies robbed him with violence, burned down his shack, knocked his teeth out and challenged his faith by demanding that he give away his clothes. He did that on more than one occasion and had to wear a woman’s robe until he could replace them. Once he was on the verge of taking on a jeering and threatening bully who was going to stop his preaching but instead he turned and ran. The crowd roared with laughter but he was back the next day in the same place preaching Christ.

It’s no surprise then that when the earthquake hit and Japan was in awful need that they let him out of prison and asked him to be Chief of Social Welfare. Once when he visited an American University two students went to hear him speak but when he was done, unimpressed one said to the other, “He didn’t have a lot to say, did he?” A woman behind them leaned over and said, “When you’re hanging on a cross you don’t need to say a lot.” He died in 1960.

Venerated by both the ELCA and the Anglican Church alike, Toyohiko Kagawa stands as an influential figure within the Transnational Church and one that should be read within Emerging/Emergent circles as well as the larger Church as illustrated here:

Kagawa’s Alternative Vision: Christianity as a Social Movement

Although Kagawa maintained cooperative relationships with missionaries and was an ordained minister in good standing in the Presbyterian Church, he was extremely critical of the established churches on a number of grounds. Several points should be considered here. Like other Japanese minor founders, Kagawa was critical of the theology of the established churches, which he considered to be too abstract and disconnected from the realities of everyday life. He did not abandon the institutional church and reject the sacraments and ordained clergy as did Uchimura KanzØ, for example, but did insist that preoccupation with specific creeds, catechisms, and denominational traditions was not what Jesus intended for his followers. In a message addressed to young foreign missionaries at a Language School Retreat in Tamagawa some years after the formation of the Friends of Jesus, Kagawa reaffirmed his stance: “I want to say, let us start from Christ, not from Pharisaism, nor the Nicene Creed, nor from the Westminister Catechism, but from Christ himself.”9

A second problem Kagawa had with the established churches was their individualistic interpretation of the faith – something he thought was due to the excessive influence of European and American thought on the Christian faith. As Sumiya (1995: 168) points out, there was a tendency at the time for Christianity to be interpreted in most Japanese churches as an individualistic spiritual movement (seishin undØ). While Kagawa agreed that individual salvation was one important dimension of the faith, he maintained that for Christianity to be faithful to its founder’s vision and example it must also be a social movement.10

-------------------------------------------------
9 This message is reported in a Friends of Jesus publication (estimated date, 1928 or 1929).
10 It is interesting to note that Kagawa’s perspective – though somewhat unique in the Japanese Christian world at the time – has parallels within the larger world of Japanese religions. A number of other Japanese new religions (OmotokyØ, for example) similarly emphasized both kokoro naoshi and yonaoshi or the healing of the heart and the world, which is sometimes referred to as yo no tatekae tatenaoshi or the “rebuilding and renewal of the world.” (See Shimazono 1993: 223; Mullins 1994)

-Mullins: Christianity as a Transnational Social Movement 77

In 1919, about two years before the formation of the Friends of Jesus movement, Kagawa published Seishin undØ to shakai undo (Spiritual and Social Movements), a title that captured his concern for both individual and social transformation. This vision was also central to his lectures published as Seisho shakaigaku no kenky¨ (Studies in the Sociology of the Bible) in 1922.11 The person of Jesus is at the center of Kagawa’s faith, but it is faith in one who taught the path of redemptive love and formed a movement to bring about God’s kingdom and rule of peace and justice on this earth. The whole of scripture, he argues, points to the conclusion that a biblical religious movement is a social movement of emancipation. Some years later Kagawa offered the following commentary on Luke 4: 18-19, which is surely the locus classicus for his view: “Jesus’ understanding of the Gospel included economic emancipation (preaching to the poor); psychological emancipation (healing the broken-hearted); social emancipation (preaching deliverance to the captives); physical emancipation (recovery of sight to the blind); and political emancipation (setting at liberty them that are bruised). The Gospel of Christ means not merely individualistic mental healing. It means a healing of everything. It means an emancipation from all sorts of evil.”12

Kagawa never abandoned the church and continued to serve as a pastor, but he was extremely critical of a church that failed to practice redemptive love (shokuzai ai no jissen 贖罪の実践), which for him meant moving outside the walls of the church to live and work with those in greatest need. The membership composition of established churches tended to be dominated by the educated or white-collar classes and those groups of people who were in most critical need – the “underside of modern Japan,” to borrow a phrase from Mikiso Hane (1982) – were largely missing. Kagawa reasoned that clergy were failing to cultivate lay leaders and mobilize them for ministry to the poor and the larger work of the Kingdom. It was Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God that captured Kagawa’s imagination and commitment, and for him this was an inclusive notion that not only included the preaching and evangelistic work of the church, but all of those social movements that addressed the needs of humankind.13 While some critics accused him of being nothing more than a social activist, the corpus of his writings make it clear that he

---------------------------------------------
11 These lectures were given to Sunday School teachers in Osaka and originally published by Nichiyo Sekaisha in Osaka. The volume is included in the Kagawa Zensh¨, Vol. 7, 8-83. See Muto (1966: 117 ff.) for a helpful synopsis.
12 “Following in His Steps,” Friends of Jesus, Vol. 4, No. 1. January 1931, 6.
13 Kayama (2004) makes a convincing case that the “Kingdom of God” was the central concept in Kagawa’s thought, which enabled him to integrate his understanding of the individual and social dimensions of the Gospel. For Kagawa, in other words, the scope of the sacred extends to all spheres of life and is not confined to the institutional church.

-78 Japanese Religions 32 (1 & 2)

never abandoned the conviction that individual transformation was also required. The improvement of material conditions alone, Kagawa maintained, does not eliminate the need for spiritual transformation.

(Read more here: Mark R. Mullins *Christianity as a Transnational Social Movement:
Kagawa Toyohiko and the Friends of Jesus.)

Find Kagawa's writings on: Amazon.

Bohemian Star Wars Rhapsody

2010-09-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

Bohemian Star Wars Rhapsody

Exploring Our Matrix: Read a Qur'an Day (an Alternative to Burning)

2010-09-08T23:52:00.000-07:00

Exploring Our Matrix: Read a Qur'an Day (an Alternative to Burning)

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

2010-09-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

Sze Zeng: John Locke's theology of toleration in the public square

2010-09-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

Sze Zeng: John Locke's theology of toleration in the public square

China's Female Imams

2010-08-31T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here is something we don't hear about often when we hear about Islam in the media:

As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), the faithful had set up female Muslim schools around the country. These turned into female mosques operated by women imams in late Qing dynasty (around the 19th century). The practice of female imams then spread to all the Chinese Muslim societies, said Shui Jingjun, a Henan Provincial Academy of Social Sciences researcher. Currently, Ningxia has more than 80 female imams. There are more than 3,600 registered mosques and 6,000 ahongs in the region, he said.

NPR also reports:

This city in central China's Henan province has an Islamic enclave, where Muslims have lived for more than 1,000 years.

In an alleyway called Wangjia hutong, women go to their own mosque, where Yao Baoxia leads prayers. For 14 years, Yao has been a female imam, or ahong as they are called here, a word derived from Persian.

As she leads the service, Yao stands alongside the other women, not in front of them as a male imam would. But she says her role is the same as a male imam.

"The status is the same," Yao says confidently. "Men and women are equal here, maybe because we are a socialist country."

China has an estimated 21 million Muslims, who have developed their own set of Islamic practices with Chinese characteristics. The biggest difference is the development of independent women's mosques with female imams, something scholars who have researched the issue say is unique to China.

Yao studied to become an imam for four years, after being laid off from her job as a factory worker. First she studied under a female imam, then with a male imam alongside male students.

Her main role is as a teacher, she says.

"When people come to pray, they don't know how to chant the Quran, so my job is teaching people about Islam, helping them to study one line at a time and leading the prayers," she says.

However there is still opposition against this more Progressive breed of Islam wherever Fundamentalist Islam holds influence:

Opposition Still Exists To Women's Roles

In central China, most Muslims support the female mosques, but there is some resistance closer to China's border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, closer to the harder-line Wahhabi and Salafi influences.

"Historically in northwestern China, there were no female mosques," says Shui, the researcher. "There was resistance because people thought that building female mosques was against the rules of religion. But in central China and most provinces, people think it's a good innovation for Islam."

In the past decade, some women's mosques have been established in northwest China. The phenomenon appears to be spreading, helped politically by the Islamic Association of China, a state-controlled body that regulates Islam and issues licenses to practice to male and female imams alike.

A Bunch Of Quotes: Quotable Quotes

2010-08-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

The Church as Contrast-Society:

“The idea of church as contrast-society does not mean contradiction to the rest of society for the sake of contradiction. Still less does the church as contrast-society mean despising the rest of society due to elitist thought. The only thing meant is contrast on behalf of others and for the sake of others, the contrast function that is unsurpassably expressed in the images of ‘salt of the earth,’ ‘light of the world,’ and ‘city on a hill’ (Mt 5:13-14).

Precisely because the church does not exist for itself but completely and exclusively for the world, it is necessary that the church not become the world, that it retain its own countenance. If the church loses its own contours, if it lets its light be extinguished and its salt become tasteless, then it can no longer transform the rest of society. Neither missionary activity nor social engagement, no matter how strenuous, helps anymore. …

What makes the church the divine contrast-society is not self-acquired holiness, not cramped efforts and moral achievements, but the saving deed of God, who justifies the godless, accepts failures and reconciles himself with the guilty. Only in this gift of reconciliation, in the miracle of life newly won against all expectation, does what is here termed contrast-society flourish.”

—Gerhard Lohfink, Jesus and Community: The Social Dimension of Christian Faith (SPCK, 1985) as quoted in Eckhard J. Schnabel, Early Christian Mission: Paul and the Early Church (IVP, 2004), 1577-1578.

George W. Bush on Islam:

...days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush had much to say about the need for religious tolerance even after Islamic extremists carried out the worst foreign attack in history on U.S. soil.

"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said at the Islamic Center of Washington in a speech that set the tenor for when he later sent U.S. troops to fight on Muslim soil in Afghanistan and later Iraq. "That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace. They represent evil and war."

N. T. Wright on Idolatry and Community:

One of the primary laws of human life is that you become like what you worship; what’s more, you reflect what you worship not only back to the object itself but also outward to the world around. Those who worship money increasingly define themselves in terms of it and increasingly treat other people as creditors, debtors, partners, or customers rather than as human beings. Those who worship sex define themselves in terms of it (their preferences, their practices, their past histories) and increasingly treat other people as actual or potential sexual objects. Those who worship power define themselves in terms of it and treat other people as either collaborators, competitors, or pawns. These and many other forms of idolatry combine in a thousand ways, all of them damaging to the image-bearing quality of the people concerned and of those whose lives they touch. ---Surprised By Hope (HarperOne, 2008): (pg. 182).

Mark Driscoll on Idolatry and Commmunity:

If we idolize our gender, we must demonize the other gender. If we idolize our nation, we must demonize other nations. If we idolize our political party, we must demonize other political parties. If we idolize our socioeconomic class, we must demonize other classes. If we idolize our family, we must demonize other families. If we idolize our theological system, we must demonize other theological systems. If we idolize our church, we must demonize other churches. This explains the great polarities and acrimonies that plague every society. If something other than God’s loving grace is the source of our identity and value, we must invariably defend our idol by treating everyone and everything who may call our idol into question as an enemy to be demonized so that we can feel superior to other people and safe with our idol. ---Doctrine (Crossway, 2010): (pgs. 350-351).

Thomas Merton on Christian Non-Violence:

Christian non-violence is not built on a presupposed division, but on the basic unity of man. It is not out for the conversion of the wicked to the ideas of the good, but for the healing and reconciliation of man with himself, man the person and man the human family.

The non-violent resister is not fighting simply for "his" truth or for "his" pure conscience, or for the right that is on "his side." On the contrary, both his strength and his weakness come from the fact that he is fighting for the truth common to him and to the adversary, the right which is universal and objective. He is fighting for everybody. ---Faith And Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice, pg. 15.

Why Theology?

2010-08-16T12:28:00.000-07:00

Shawn Warnsley has an excellent posting over at his blog entitled "Everything is Theology." Here is the list of reasons he gives for why theology is important:

So, what’s so great about theology? I’ll ditch the research paper format in favor of the homily, and let you have it in three parts like any good preacher would. If you behave, I’ll even throw in a poem and alliterate the points. Deal?

1) Theology Inspires Curiosity
Theology didn’t earn the moniker ”Queen of the Sciences,” because church leaders needed some impressive sounding nom de guerre for the culture wars. The title was bestowed upon her, because theology in its true form drives the curiosity of the human mind. In the Middle Church, theology inspired churchmen from all walks of life to pursue knowledge of God through His creation. Tony Hunt rightly points to the fact that, “Theology is uniquely equipped to speak to most academic and truth-seeking conversations in an infinitely inter-disciplinary way.” I would offer that this is so precisely because theology predicates most of these conversations, in at least intent. Many early breakthroughs in math, science, et al were had at the hands of men who studied their respective fields alongside theology. Theology properly derived and rightly practiced will fuel the human imagination and temper the ego of men in a way that lends to the discovery of truth in other academic fields. It offers peace in the fear of new and unknown discoveries, it offers creativity and inspiration in the midst of traditional worldviews, and it offers boldness in the face of disputation. In fact, I would say that theology demands we seek out truth through every means available. This quality, I believe, is precisely what some (again, both within and without) are trying to avoid in disavowing theology. Theology drives us to the heart of who God is and that “heart” is irrevocably tied to the nature of truth. However, it is truth that stands apart from humanity – a truth that extends from the transcendent God and encompasses humanity as a member of the very creation it seeks to understand.

2) Theology Initiates Response
I reject most complaints that theology is necessarily flawed, due to its reliance on human reasoning as an intellectual endeavor, because this view misunderstands genuine theology in a fundamental way. Theology, correctly conceived and accurately applied, will necessarily lead to action. In fact, everyone lives out a theology every day. Whether they can articulate that theology in a meaningful way is another issue entirely. This, I suspect, is the real issue behind those that want to attack theological inquiry from without. There seems to be a rampant assumption that an unrecognised or unsophisticated theology is no theology at all. Sadly, our world is full of examples that demonstrate how dangerous bad theology is to all of creation. Before I go into full rant, though, let me just back up and reiterate the important point: you are not really a theologian unless the theology you talk is the theology you walk. Unfortunately, many opponents of religious faith understand this dynamic better than many Christians. There is an inherent national interest at stake in any religious expression by people – namely, the Church of Jesus Christ is a theological entity that transcends nationality and crosses government borders. It demands allegiance from its adherents, and is united (or at least it should be) under one Lord and one agenda. It stands at once in favor of all life, virtue, and truth and against human vice of all varieties, especially those commonly perpetrated by governments. While this is a deep mine to explore, it will have to suffice to say that we should bother with theology, because theology directs the hearts and actions of people.

3) Theology Infers Necessity
The problem with rejecting Theology on the basis of its intellectual nature lies in the fact that such a rejection requires not only intellectual reasoning but also a clearly defined Theology. How deliciously ironic, no? And so, it seems, there exists no prospect to opt out of theology. There is no possibility for the absence of theology; there is only good theology and bad theology. Consequently, I am of the opinion that theology is a kind of self-perpetuating phenomenon. The burden, then, lies with those obtuse wizards of the Word that have hidden in libraries and universities for too long. If the Church has lost contact with theology, it is our fault. It is time for the incarnation to inform our theology again. God’s greatest expression of himself to humanity was in an embodied form. Does anything in life get any more beautiful or nuanced than the loving relationships we have with family and friends? What better way do we have than to live out, to participate in the Church’s theology with those friends and family?

Christianity And Non-Violence: Several Views

2010-08-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

Several thoughts on Christian non-violence and pacifism:

Complete non-violence is a religious teaching, not a political one. I am not a pacifist. But a Christian grappling with politics will nonetheless, I think, seek a system where violence is minimized, and a free space is given for faithful non-violence to flourish. That's why the civil rights movement was, in my view, a religious movement at its core, and was never better illustrated than by the choice of its participants to submit non-violently to the hatred and fear directed toward them, to resist it but not to counter it with more of the same.

For me, Christianity can lead to a certain form of political conservatism, one dedicated to law and tradition and civility and conversation, not tyranny and ideology and warfare and violence. This conservatism is just as accessible to atheists as well - and was perhaps best expressed by Hobbes. It will require an effective monopoly of violence by the state, but will henceforth do everything to restrain its manifestation in the civil and international sphere. (Source)

Do not be deceived. The Pope's recent words of truth concerning how violence is not pleasing to God apply also to so called "Christian civilization" as well as Islam. Both our scriptures and our history books depict the widespread prevalence of sin, injustice, abuse, and domination which are deeply woven into the social fabric of not only the world at large, but America throughout its entire narrative. Though the twentieth century began with waves of unbounded hope- the trust in "progress” soon gave way to disbelief and despair. Technology has allowed us to build bigger and better weapon systems to kill more people, industrialization allowed us to mass produce those weapons as well as the material trappings of the "market driven economy"; mass media allowed the propaganda- driven mobilization and indoctrination of entire populations to both use and defend that technology and industrialization in service of killing their enemies...in contravention of the biblical edict to love enemies and never return evil for evil because vengeance belongs to God.

Hitler's anti-Semitic Holocaust remains an indescribable horror of our age. But, Paul reminded his Roman readers that they ought not judge others when they thereby condemn themselves: in response to the injustice of others, and in the name of utilitarianism, United States forces likewise decimated Japanese men, women and children in our firebombing of Tokyo and our nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...We did likewise in Dresden and Hamburg Germany. In our Cold War wake and mindless rush toward mastery and domination we created a world where total destruction by nuclear conflagration is a constant and impending threat right up until this very moment. We napalmed children and innocent adults in Viet Nam to "make the world safe for democracy". We have created a world in which MAD- mutually assured destruction- is no sci-fi acronym but stated government policy in response to any threatened attack or affront to our idol, democracy. We have held policies toward the Middle East for decades that oscillate between neglect and reactionary bombing... we have exploited the poor and pumped wealth and weaponry into the hands of tyrants and the men we now call enemies throughout the Mediterranean basin...including poison gas, bombs of every sort and all other sorts implements of death and destruction...We have backed Israel unfailingly even when they have also been outside of God's plan for mankind. In the last decade, according to U.N. estimates, we have contributed to the deaths of at least half a million children in Iraq through sanctions and shock and awe tactics...before "Operation Iraqi Freedom" commenced....and then wax innocent and pious when we recieve blowback in the form of "terrorism". "Terrorism" being noted as what one does with carbombs as opposed to laser guided bombs and televised "shock and awe" glory.

Someone will undoubtedly tag these assertions as "liberal-America- hating -blasphemy and pie- in -the-sky- touchy-feely- lovey-dovey- denial of realities.... an assertion that I will openly challenge. In the light of the sobering reality of ongoing rebellion to God's purposes, Christians cannot naively assume that "niceness" will necessarily entail "niceness" in others. The political "realists" are quite right on that score: pacifism is naive if it assumes that it will bring about easy victory over one's enemies. Christians must realize that walking in the Way of the Cross, may indeed lead to a cross. If you are "nice to people", the possibility exists that one may be killed. The Way of the Cross is indeed a costly way of dealing with injustice, conflict, and rebellion against the ways of God. It is certainly NOT for the weak of heart. To be a disciple that follows in the non- violent- way- of- Christ that harbors no fear of death in the midst of a culture that thrives on fear and worships domination is no easy work... in the Middle East or the West.
BUT, it is not the true Disciples who naively believe they can cure the world of war. Very often, it is the purveyors of warfare and "peace through superior firepower" who exhibit a utopian trust in the power of violence! Thus, World War 1 was called "the war to end all wars", wars are always characterized as good versus evil, and America's most recent campaign has been too often suffused with the rhetoric of "ridding the world of evil," of "getting rid of terror," and other such utopian dreams. This is of course nonsense. War IS terror after all.
SOOO, Disciples of Christ, actual followers, refuse to fight wars not because they naively believe they will thus rid the world of war, instead we do not fight because the Kingdom of God HAS come, in which war is banished, in which it is possible to order our lives according to the justice, peace and assurance of the primacy of God. (Source)

The Kingdom Alternative

But there is an alternative to this ceaseless, bloody, merry-go-round: it is the kingdom of God. To belong to this kingdom is to crucify the fleshly desire to live out of self-interest and tribal interest and to thus crucify the fallen impulse to protect these interests through violence. To belong to this revolutionary kingdom is to purge your heart of “all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice” (Eph 4:31)—however “justified” and understandable these sentiments might be. To belong to this counter-kingdom is to “live in love, as Christ loved you and gave his life for you” (Eph 5:1-2). It is to live the life of Jesus Christ, the life that manifests the truth that it is better to serve than to be served, and better to die than to kill. It is, therefore, to opt out of the kingdom-of-the-world war machine and manifest a radically different, beautiful, loving way of life. To refuse to kill for patriotic reasons is to show “we actually take our identity in Christ more seriously than our identity with the empire, the nation-state, or the ethnic terror cell whence we come,” as Lee Camp says.

Hence, while I respect the sincerity and courage of Christians who may disagree with me and feel it their duty to defend their country with violence, I myself honestly see no way to condone a Christian’s decision to kill on behalf of any country.(Source)

Nazism could not have flourished if the German churches had been peace churches. The movements of Gandhi and King and Jesus, as well as a multitude of other examples of successful nonviolent resistances throughout history, are proof that nonviolence can work, but it is only for the faithful and the courageous. Far more courage is needed by unarmed nonviolent resisters who may be forced to jail or to their deaths, than is asked of modern patriotic warriors who do battle using high-tech weaponry that almost guarantees their safety.

Is post-Auschwitz Christianity still ignoring Christ's teachings on nonviolence? Knowing that essentially no mainstream seminaries teach courses on Christian nonviolence, the Just War Theory or the morality of war, I would have to say yes. Seeing the silence of the churches in the face of massive Iraqi civilian suffering since the Gulf War, I would have to say yes. The nonviolent gospel message of Jesus was again not preached, and the blood of the 1,000,000 Iraqi dead are on our hands. The killing was at the hands of Christians and the vast majority of victims were innocent civilians -- mostly children. Numerous American war crime atrocities against Iraqis occurred in that war, but none were prosecuted.

Are we, like the church after Constantine, so entwined in the power, wealth, prestige and privilege granted by our secular rulers that we don't even recognize the betrayal of Jesus? Are we so frightened of losing the good graces (e.g. tax-free status) of our secular rulers that we are willing to participate in, or bless, the homicide? Are we so afraid of losing church members that we cannot proclaim the radical Gospel that sometimes asks sacrifice and suffering? Are we so certain of our own righteousness that we are unwilling to leave judgment up to God? Is our violent hatred of "the other" so ingrained that we don't recognize it as un-Christ-like -- or even demonic?

When will American Christianity recognize and repent of the immorality of militarism, racism, and excess luxury wealth in the face of grinding poverty all around it? When will we start believing that mercy is what Christians are supposed to be all about? When will we start reversing injustice nonviolently -- what Jesus taught and what the world must do for real peace? The churches must be the ones to start, for we can hardly expect the world to do justice if we in the churches do not.

The implications for the Christianity are complex, and solutions won't come easily. Leadership on nonviolence issues will apparently have to come from the laity. But if we stop the betrayal and begin again to teach what Jesus taught -- and live that way -- unexpected things will happen. People who have given up on a "hypocritical" church rejoin. Some of the answers for our violent times may suddenly come clear. Apathetic church members may be re-energized by this forgotten message of peace. And the unchurched will eventually notice.

Christian nonviolence seems to not interest those whose faith systems are based mainly on personal salvation, "believing in" (as opposed to "imitating") Christ, and "glory to God" religiosity, all of which are valid practices. But the modern "non-peace" churches obviously don't trust the Sermon on the Mount either. Most don't know that Jesus commanded the love of friends and enemies. Most churches even seem agnostic about the Last Judgement passage in Mt. 25: that mercy offered (or not) to the least of God's children is mercy offered (or not) to Jesus, with radical consequences for the unmerciful. When we are apathetic about human suffering, we fail Christ.

The Gospel is supposed to be good news to the poor, the children of God who are the most oppressed and who suffer the most in wartime and in peace. But before peace can come, the oppressed need to see real justice from their rulers and Christ-like love from the churches; otherwise there will be no peace.

The earliest Christians who knew Jesus and the apostles understood nonviolent love, lived it, and Christianity thrived. How a message of such clarity in the New Testament could be a nonissue in the modern churches is a wonder, but it has indeed been ignored for 1700 years.

Do we have the courage to confess and repent of our faithlessness to the clear nonviolent teachings of Jesus? Do we have the courage to start anew and live and love the way Christ and his earliest disciples lived and loved? Can we adopt the Peace Plan of God as revealed in the Sermon on the Mount? Can we start living lives of Christ-like/Agape love -- the love that is unconditional, merciful, forgiving, nonjudgmental, non-retaliatory, sacrificial and nonviolent?

The survival of an errant church demands it. (Source)

A common misunderstanding of Christian pacifism is that its goal is to provide an alternative solution to physical violence. Stanley Hauerwas, following the tradition of Mennonite John Howard Yoder and Reformed theologian Karl Barth, believes Christian pacifism is not to be understood as a ’solution,’ but as the only response appropriate for those attempting to follow the life of Christ. Consider this quote from his interview with Sojourners:

The sacrifice to end sacrifices was made by God through the sacrifice of his son, and the ending of sacrifice means that we don’t continue to sacrifice other people to make the world come out all right. Justice has been done. We’ve been given all the time in the world to announce that God would not have God’s kingdom wrought through violence. That’s good news. It’s hard news, but it’s good news.
Interview with Stanley Hauerwas. (Source)

Interesting News

2010-08-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

(Aug. 11) -- For centuries, an astronomy observatory in Greenwich, London -- the namesake of Greenwich Mean Time -- has been the reference point for lines of longitude, ships' navigation on the world's seas and the time zones used today.

But Saudi Arabia wants to change that. It's building what it calls the largest clock in the world, atop the second-largest skyscraper in the world, in the Islamic holy city of Mecca -- in hopes of replacing GMT with "Mecca Time."

Source: Saudis Want 'Mecca Time' to Replace GMT

(Aug. 11) -- At least 80,000 people, including about 60,000 Jews, died at the Majdanek Nazi concentration camp in Poland. And now up to 10,000 pairs of shoes, which served as a memorial to the victims who wore them, have perished.

A wooden barrack housing the shoes and other artifacts was nearly destroyed by a fire that broke out just before midnight on Monday.

Source: Fire Destroys Shoes Worn by Nazi Victims

Warsaw, Ohio, just got way more interesting than it has any right to be: A local strip club recently launched an all-out offensive against the town menace, the New Beginnings Ministries Church.

Sources say that for the past four years Pastor Bill Dunfee has been harassing Tommy George and his Foxhole strip joint. What's worse is that Dunfee and his ilk are a full seven country miles from the private business, yet bother to show up every weekend to block traffic, take photos of customers' license plates to upload to their shaming site and just generally condemn and insult George.

Source: Strip Club Goes to War Against Neighboring Church

LONDON (Aug. 6) -- Ever engaged a freegan in nonversation, or does the very idea make you want to precuperate? If you haven't a clue what we're talking about, don't worry, you're probably not xenolexic.

The bizarre terms used in those last two sentences are "non words": Words that have allegedly been submitted to the Oxford English Dictionary -- the gatekeepers of the English language -- but rejected on the grounds that too few people currently use them. Some of these non words are hyper-local slang, while others briefly spring in and out of existence when they're deployed to describe short-lived phenomena. A freegan, for example, is an eco-campaigner who hunts for goodies in other people's trash; a nonversation is a vapid, pointless chat; to "precuperate" means to get ready for an oncoming illness; and, perhaps most appropriately of all, a xenolexic is someone who suffers intense confusion when faced with new words.

Source: Unused but Useful: Oxford English Dictionary's Reject List

(Aug. 5) -- Writing an award-winning book is hard to do for an adult, much less a teenager.

It's even more difficult when you have problems reading books.

But twin sisters from Orange County, Calif., who just turned 15 aren't letting little things like age, dyslexia or attention deficit disorder keep them from becoming acclaimed authors.

Source: Reading Problems Don't Stop Twins From Being Acclaimed Authors

Islam And Non-Violence

2010-08-09T19:23:00.000-07:00

...Whoever killed a human being should be looked upon as though he had killed all mankind; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind...(Surat Al-Mā'idah (The Table Spread) - سورة المائدة).

The cold-blooded murder of 10 medical aid workers -- six of them Americans -- working in Afghanistan for a Christian group, the International Assistance Mission, has raised new concerns about the safety and viability of Western missionary work in a time of growing resentment among many Muslims toward anything connected to the U.S. or Europe.

American Christian missionaries and even aid workers who, like those representing International Assistance Mission (IAM), do not proselytize, can represent Western imperialism or "crusader" Christianity to militants like the Taliban, which has claimed responsibility for the killings.

The Taliban on Saturday charged that the traveling medical team was "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity" even though the group, which has operated in Afghanistan since 1966, does not preach or seek converts as it delivers medical assistance.

Source: Taliban's Killing of Christian Aid Workers Could Chill U.S. Missionary Impulse

"He knew the laws, he knew the religion. He respected them. He was not trying to convert anybody," Tim Grams said. "His goal was to provide dental care and help people. He knows it's a capital offense to try to convert folks."

Source: Friends of Slain Doctors Deny They Pushed Religion

"We object to this senseless killing of people who have done nothing but serve the poor. Some of the foreigners have worked alongside the Afghan people for decades," the IAM statement said, noting that the charity has worked in Afghanistan since 1966, making it the longest-serving NGO there.

Source: Militants Kill Medical Aid Workers in Afghanistan

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Now would be a good time for more non-violent Islamic resistance groups to rise up in protest against the militant fundamentalist factions that have co-opted the normative rule of Islamic faith: peace and submission to Allah (God). Islam has in the past had a history of non-violent resistance groups akin to those within the Christian tradition as Maulana Wahiduddin Khan says:

Non-violence should never be confused with inaction or passivity. Non-violence is action in the full sense of the word. Rather it is more forceful an action than that of violence. It is a fact that non-violent activism is more powerful and effective than violent activism.

Non-violent activism is not limited in its sphere. It is a course of action which may be followed in all matters.

Whenever individuals, groups or communities are faced with a problem, one way to solve it is by resorting to violence. The better way is to attempt to solve the problem by peaceful means, avoiding violence and confrontation. Peaceful means may take various forms. In fact, it is the nature of the problem which will determine which of these peaceful methods is applicable to the given situation.

Islam is a religion which teaches non-violence. According to the Qur’an, God does not love fasad, violence. What is meant here by fasad is clearly expressed in verse 205 of the second Surah. Basically, fasad is that action which results in disruption of the social system, causing huge losses in terms of lives and property.

Conversely, we can say with certainty that God loves non-violence. He abhors violent activity being indulged in human society, as a result of which people have to pay the price with their possessions and lives. This is supported by other statements in the Qur’an. For instance, we are told in the Qur’an that peace is one of God’s names (59:23). Those who seek to please God are assured by verse 5 of the sixteenth surah that they will be guided by Him to "the paths of peace." Paradise, which is the final destination of the society of God’s choice, is referred to in the Qur’an as "the home of peace" (89:30), etc.

The entire spirit of the Qur’an is in consonance with this concept. For instance, the Qur’an attaches great importance to patience. In fact, patience is set above all other Islamic virtues with the exceptional promise of reward beyond measure. (39:10)

Patience implies a peaceful response or reaction, whereas impatience implies a violent response. The word Sabr exactly expresses the notion of non-violence as it is understood in modern times. That patient action is non-violent action has been clearly expressed in the Qur’an. According to one tradition, the Prophet of Islam observed: God grants to rifq (gentleness) what he does not grant to unf (violence). (Sunan, Abu Dawood, 4/255)

The word rifq has been used in this hadith as an antithesis to unf. These terms convey exactly what is meant by violence and non-violence in present times. This hadith clearly indicates the superiority of the non-violent method.

God grants on non-violence what He does not grant to violence is no simple matter. It has very wide and deep implications. It embodies an eternal law of nature. By the very law of nature all bad things are associated with violence, while all good things are associated with non-violence.

Violent activities breed hatred in society, while non-violent activities elicit love. Violence is the way of destruction while non-violence is the way of construction. In an atmosphere of violence, it is enmity which flourishes, while in an atmosphere of non-violence, it is friendship which flourishes. The method of violence gives way to negative values while the method of non-violence is marked by positive values. The method of violence embroils people in problems, while the method of non-violence leads people to the exploiting of opportunities. In short, violence is death, non-violence is life.

Both the Qur’an and the hadith have attached great importance to jihad. What is jihad? Jihad means struggle, to struggle one’s utmost. It must be appreciated at the outset that this word is used for non-violent struggle as opposed to violent struggle. One clear proof of this is the verse of the Qur’an (25:52) which says: Perform jihad with this (i.e. the word of the Qur’an) most strenuously.

The Qur’an is not a sword or a gun. It is a book of ideology. In such a case performing jihad with the Qur’an would mean an ideological struggle to conquer peoples’ hearts and minds through Islam’s superior philosophy.

In the light of this verse of the Qur’an, jihad in actual fact is another name for peaceful activism or non-violent activism. Where qital is violent activism, jihad is non-violent activism.
....................
The greatest problem facing Islam today is, as I see it, that Muslims have almost totally forgotten the sunnah (Prophet’s way) of non-violence. In latter times when the Ottoman and Mughal empires disintegrated and problems like those besetting Palestine have had to be confronted by the faithful, Muslims all over the world have fallen a prey to negative reaction on a colossal scale; they have failed to remember that the policy of Islam is not that of violence but of non-violence. It is the result of this deviation, that despite almost a 100-years of bloody wars, Muslims have achieved no positive gain. Rather whatever they already had has been lost by them.

According to Imam Malik, later generations of this Ummah (Muslim community) settled matters at issue in the same way that earlier generations had done, i.e. non-violent methods. Similarly, Muslims of modern times must likewise resort only to non-violent methods. Just as no gain could accrue from violent methods earlier, no gain can accrue from violent methods today.

The state of affairs of Muslims in modern times resembles that which prevailed at the time of Hudaybiya. Today once again — only on a far larger scale — this hamiyat al-jahiliya prejudices prevailing in pre-Islamic Arabia (48:28) is being displayed by the other party. In the first phase of Islam its solution lay in Muslims sedulously avoiding an equivalent display of prejudice, and in holding firmly kalema at-taqwa they became entitled to the succor of God and were granted a clear victory (48:26).

At the time of the Hudaybiya peace treaty, the Quraysh, who had secured the leadership of Arabia, were bent on waging war. The Kaaba was in their possession. They had expelled the Prophet and his companions from their home town. They had taken possession of Muslims’ homes and other properties, and spared no effort in disseminating negative propaganda against Islam.

Given this state of affairs, there were only two options before the believers. One was to attempt to put an end to tyranny and launch an outright war on the other party in the name of securing their rights. The result of such a move would certainly have been further loss in terms of lives and property.

The second option was to remain patient in the face of immediate loss, be it political or material, and, in spite of the losses avail of whatever opportunities are already available. The Prophet of Islam and his companions chose this second course. The result was that in just a few years time the entire history of Arabia was altered for the better by an Islamic revolution.

The same state of affairs is widespread in modern times. Although today Muslims have suffered great losses, political and material, at the hands of other nations, there still exist a great number of opportunities only for self-betterment and for dawah work on a far larger scale. If availed of wisely, we can rewrite the history of Islam in magnificent terms.

The "Just" War Theory From The Context Of The Civil War

2010-07-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

No Peace for the Wicked: Northern Protestants and the American Civil War examines Northern Protestants' religious worldview, their motivations for fighting, and why the most religious generation in U.S. history fought America's bloodiest war. In the spring of 1861, young men throughout the Northern states rallied around the Union flag, eager to punish the Confederate renegades who had brazenly inaugurated civil war by firing on Fort Sumter. Often driven by their Protestant religious beliefs, many northern soldiers believed they were enlisting in a just war to save their Christian government from a "wicked" Southern rebellion.

These Protestant soldiers' faith was severely tested by the hardships and tragedies they experienced in the Civil War. The vast majority easily justified their wartime service by reminding themselves and their loved ones that they were engaged in a holy cause to preserve the world's only Christian republic. Others were genuinely haunted by the horrific violence of a seemingly endless civil war, and began to entertain serious doubts about their faith.

The first comprehensive work of its kind, David Rolfs' No Peace for the Wicked sheds new light on the Northern Protestant soldiers' religious worldview and the various ways they used it to justify and interpret their wartime experiences. Drawing extensively from the letters, diaries and published collections of hundreds of religious soldiers, Rolfs effectively resurrects both these soldiers' religious ideals and their most profound spiritual doubts and conflicts. No Peace for the Wicked also explores the importance of "just war" theory in the formulation of Union military strategy and tactics, and examines why the most religious generation in U.S. history fought America's bloodiest war.

Source: A Just War, Just A War, Crusade or Jihad?: Yankee Soldiers and Their Motivations for Sacrifice.

Mainline Baptists Are Not Without Their Problems

2010-07-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

Moderate/Liberal Baptists are not without their problems of using the Pulpit to wield political influence over congregations and individual believers as this recent Associated Baptist Press article demonstrates. Quote:

Carter credited Allen's help in an address to about 260 guests at a Georgia event introducing a new biography by McAfee School of Theology professor Larry McSwain titled Loving beyond Your Theology: The Life and Ministry of Jimmy Raymond Allen. The former president said he came to the realization years later as he listened to his long-time minister friend respond in a meeting with African-American Baptist leaders to the question, "When did you first meet Jimmy Carter?"

"I began to realize that when I first came to Texas -- I had won in Iowa and New Hampshire and Florida -- that I was a forlorn, woeful, forgotten, hopeless candidate for president," Carter said. "Until I met Jimmy Allen -- he was pastor of the First Baptist Church in San Antonio -- and he took me under his arm."

"He was reluctant to get involved in politics," Carter said, "but he remembered that I said I was a born-again Christian."

"He pointed out that he wasn't really supporting me," Carter said. "He was supporting the right of somebody to say they are a born-again Christian. So he endorsed me."

Although Allen wasn't an official spokesman for Texas Baptists, Carter said, "because of the introduction and endorsement I got in San Antonio, Texas turned around."

For all the grief we've given about the political influence within the SBC---we are capable of being guilty of the same.

Models Of Atonement

2010-07-29T11:36:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article critique of some of the major Atonement Theories. Excerpt:

When systematic theologians get their hands on such questions, they utter
big words. The big word here is Atonement. How should we understand the
atoning work of Jesus Christ? In the theological brief that follows we will examine
six conceptual models or theories of atonement:
1. Jesus as the Teacher of True Knowledge
2. Jesus as Moral Example and Influence
3. Jesus as Victorious Champion
4. Jesus as Satisfaction
5. Jesus as the Happy Exchange
6. Jesus as the Final Scapegoat

Read full article here: Models of Atonement By Ted Peters.

Progressive Islam And Reform

2010-07-25T18:30:00.000-07:00

Progressive Muslims have produced a considerable body of liberal thoughts within Islam[1][2] (الإسلام التقدمي or "progressive Islam"; but some consider progressive Islam and liberal Islam as two distinct movements [3]). These movements can be classified best according to their methodology of reform to two groups, a group which depends largely on Re-interpreting the traditional texts which constitutes Islamic law (ijtihad)[4], and a more liberal approach of a group that even questions the authoritative status applied to texts by the Traditional Islamic Scholars, resulting in the case of Quran Alone Muslims in rejecting the islamic nerratives of the sayings of Muhammad (Hadith) completely.

The most liberal muslim intellectuals who focussed on religious reform include Sayyid al-Qimni, Nasr Abu Zayd, Abdolkarim Soroush, Mohammed Arkoun, Mohammed Shahrour, Ahmed Subhy Mansour, Edip Yuksel, Gamal al-Banna, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, and Faraj Foda, the last two were killed after Apostasy claims.

Liberal Muslims generally claim that they are returning to the principles of the early Ummah and to the ethical and pluralistic intent of their scripture, the Qur'an.[5] They distance themselves from some traditional and less liberal interpretations of Islamic law, as they consider these to be culturally based and without universal applicability. The reform movement uses monotheism (tawhid) "as an organizing principle for human society and the basis of religious knowledge, history, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as social, economic and world order."[6]

H/T: Liberal movements within Islam See also: Anarchism and Islam

Some Interesting Thoughts From Turkish Anarco-Islamists

2010-07-25T18:23:00.000-07:00

NEITHER SECULAR NOR THEOCRATIC STATE DICTATORSHIP!

In a free society without the state, neither the secular nor the religious ideology can govern. Because the people have destroyed the armed state and began to govern themselves. In this society believers live according to their beliefs and non-believers live as they want to

NEITHER SECULAR NOR THEOCRATIC STATE DICTATORSHIP!
FREE SOCIETY WITHOUT THE STATE!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discussion about religion and secularism is indeed complex; it is a subject which has deep philosophical roots. It is impossible to consider all the arguments in such a short article (I hope I will be able to do this in a later date). However, in this article I will explain why I am against both fronts.

The defenders of secular state say that the defenders of theocratic state would build a totalitarian state and would repress all thoughts and beliefs which do not comply to the rules of religion.
THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH.

The defenders of theocratic state say that the aim of the defenders of secular state is not only to repress religion and religious people but also to repress all thoughts and beliefs which do not comply to the "supreme" ideology of secular minority.
THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH.

The defenders of secular state say that secular state does not mean repression but freedom.
THEY ARE NOT TELLING THE TRUTH.

The defenders of theocratic state say that "their" state does not mean repression but freedom.
THEY ARE NOT TELLING THE TRUTH.

In short, to arrive at truth, we only need to see that what they say against each other is true and what they say of themselves is not true.

Top 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn't Be Ordained As Pastors

2010-07-17T01:07:00.000-07:00

10. A man’s place is in the army.

9. For men who have children, their duties might distract them from the responsibilities of being a parent.

8. Their physical build indicates that men are more suited to tasks such as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do other forms of work.

7. Man was created before woman. It is therefore obvious that man was a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment, rather than the crowning achievement of creation.

6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. This is easily demonstrated by their conduct at football games and watching basketball tournaments.

5. Some men are handsome; they will distract women worshipers.

4. To be ordained pastor is to nurture the congregation. But this is not a traditional male role. Rather, throughout history, women have been considered to be not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more frequently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.

3. Men are overly prone to violence. No really manly man wants to settle disputes by any means other than by fighting about it. Thus, they would be poor role models, as well as being dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.

2. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep paths, repair the church roof, change the oil in the church vans, and maybe even lead the singing on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the Church.

1. In the New Testament account, the person who betrayed Jesus was a man. Thus, his lack of faith and ensuing punishment stands as a symbol of the subordinated position that all men should take.

H/T: Jesus Radicals. Originally posted at: http://christianfeminism.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/top-10-reasons-why-men-shouldn%E2%80%99t-be-ordained/.

Do we really get Romans?

2010-07-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

Do we really get Romans? A little Badiou and Žižek can help.

It's been said that reformations and revolutions in Christianity begin with a re-reading of Romans.

That is certainly true of the Protestant Reformation with Luther's epoch-shaking insight into the meaning of the phrase "the righteousness of God."

It is true as well of Barth's commentary The Epistle to the Romans, which in the words of a Catholic commentator "burst like a bombshell on the playground of the European theologians." Barth's leveraging of Paul's argument in Romans served, in the shocking aftermath and disillusionment of the First World War, to turn the scholarly, cozy, and complex arguments of 19th century Protestant thinkers on their head and usher in the relatively long era that we today know as Neo-Orthodoxy.

The long-tenured regime of Neo-Orthodoxy collapsed - quite quickly really - in the mid-to-late 1960s with the cultural revolution of that period, which coincided with the rise of both religious studies as an "alternative", at least in America, to the intellectual cartel of Barthianism and the Barth-based mainline Protestant establishment and the emergence of so-called "secular theology," which gradually morphed into a new establishment with its own signature and features. Much of today's Christian postmodernism has this latter development as both its source and heritage, although it is also fair to say that its initial impulse in the form of applied Derrideanism was derived from the sense of a thoroughgoing "gappiness" in conventional liberal constructions of God along with the realization that there was room for postulating a "holiness" that could be glimpsed in all the holes of the not-so-monolithic text. That is the genealogy of all "religion without religion."

Secular theologies, whether they be grounded in the grand narratives of 19th century bourgeois progressivism or the "apocalypse now" and "destruction of metaphysics" themes of the post-Sixties decades, are always the products of good economic times and social stability. The varieties of "crisis" theology" - the original terminology for Neo-Orthodoxy - find fertile soil in political or economic anxiety and social upheaval. All the current discussion of what may be coming "after postmodernism" may be setting the stage for the emergence of a 21st century crisis theology, though one completely and obviously unlike what reigned from the 1930 up to the 1960s.

Besides Romans, crisis theologies - if that's really the word we want to use - always turn out to carry the genetics of a previous and hitherto marginalized philosophical movement. Luther relied indirectly on nominalism for his critique of Thomism, indulgences, and Catholic sacramental theology. Barth "discovered" Kierkegaard. If a new crisis theology is in the making - most likely with its own re-appropriation of Romans - what might that be?

H/T: THE CHURCH AND POSTMODERN CULTURE: Conversation .

Balthasar Hubmaier On Romans 13

2010-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

From The Radical Reformation By Michael G. Baylor pg. 206:

But if an authority is childish or foolish, indeed even unfit to rule, it is always good to get rid of him and accept another ruler. This is good because God has often punished a whole land on account of an evil authority. But if that removal cannot be undertaken legally and peacefully, without great harm and rebellion, then unfit rulers should be tolerated because God has given them to us in his wrath and wants to plague us thus, as being worthy of no better rulers, because of our sins.

---Balthasar Hubamaier,On The Sword- The last passage: to sanction government among Christians.

I Return

2010-04-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

So I didn't finish my Easter posts as I was spending time with family and friends. I was working my way up to the Resurrection but got sidetracked. I've been spending my time elsewhere online.

Maybe I'll finish some of my unfinished post series eventually whenever I'm motivated enough to return to them. I have to Blog some on CBF's 20th annual General Assembly as well.

Anyways here's a link to an interesting post by Bruce Prescott: How Albert Mohler Became the Baptist Pope.

Meditations For The Cross

2010-04-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

Leonard Cohen Story Of Issac:

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.

Leonard Cohen The Butcher:

I came upon a butcher,
he was slaughtering a lamb,
I accused him there
with his tortured lamb.

....

I saw some flowers growing up
where that lamb fell down;
was I supposed to praise my Lord,
make some kind of joyful sound?

A few thoughts from Harry Emerson Fosdick:

Must we, then, go on forever, using the analogy of bloody animal sacrifice to express our interpretation of Christ’s death? I answer emphatically, No! Here, once more, some clergymen confuse those whom they would persuade by using an obsolete, contemporaneously meaningless vocabulary.

....

I take it that the way I have just put the matter is at least understandable. It states the meaning of Christ’s cross in familiar words. So, age after age, Christians, feeling the necessity of explaining Christ’s sacrificial death, have thought and spoken about it in the terms of their own generation. As the Eskimo houses his family in igloos of snow and ice because they are the materials at hand, while a dweller in the tropics uses bamboo and palmwood for the same reason, so different generations have enshrined their explanations of Christ’s death in terms of thinking peculiar to their times. The result we call theories of the atonement. Isn’t it a paradox that some of the most controversial words in Christian theology -- "Trinity" and "atonement," for example -- are not to be found in the New Testament? In the King James Version "atonement" occurs only once -- Romans 5: l l --but the revised versions correct that translation and use "reconciliation."

At any rate, what we call theories of the atonement have been many and varied. I must not undertake to give you a course in theology, but just to relieve your mind of any suspicion that there is one orthodox doctrine of the atonement, which a Christian is expected to accept, let me give you a sample or two.

The earliest Christian literature, deeply and gratefully impressed by the fact that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself," and that the cross was the indispensable factor in that reconciliation, did not at first theorize about how the death of Christ saved men. Analogies from current life were used: Christ’s death was a ransom, by which slaves of sin were freed from serfdom, or the paying of a debt, which released the debtor from his prison. But then the theologians began to speculate -- Origen, for example, in the third century. His theory was that man’s sin had put man in thralldom to Satan, so that Satan owned mankind. But Satan bargained with God that he would surrender his lordship over fallen man, if God would give him his Son in exchange. So Christ came to earth and was crucified, and man was set free, but the bargain turned out to be a "pious fraud" on God’s part, for by his resurrection from Sheol Christ escaped from Satan after all. Believe it or not, that theory of the atonement, in one form or another, was orthodox doctrine for centuries!

Then, in the eleventh century, Anselm came and started off on another tack. His thinking was thoroughly saturated with Roman legalism. "Every sin must be followed either by satisfaction or punishment"-- that was his basic principle. God to him was the infinite Feudal Lord. Every man, being the Lord’s vassal, owed him perfect obedience. For a man to sin is to defraud God of his due, and so by dishonoring the Infinite to acquire infinite guilt. But infinite guilt demands infinite punishment, in man’s case his eternal doom in hell. There is only one way out: the infinite price must be paid. Man, being finite, cannot do this, neither can anyone not human do it, for because the sin is human the reparation must be made by the human. Therefore, only the God-man, both deity and humanity, can make the necessary sacrifice. This Christ does in his death on Calvary. He pays the adequate ransom, not as in Origen’s theory to Satan, but to God.

....

How pitifully inadequate all our analogies are to explain what the ancients rightly called the mysterium crucis, the mystery of the cross! We face there one of the basic principles of creation, vicarious sacrifice: any salvation from human need dependent on someone, who does not have to do so, voluntarily caring enough to identify himself with the needy and give his sacrificial all for their help. That principle is surely at the very heart of Calvary’s meaning. But, the older I grow, the more I think that I understand the cross best when I stop trying to analyze it and just stand in awe before it.

Richard Beck On A Christus Victor Reading Of Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ

2010-04-03T09:23:00.000-07:00

Christus Victor and Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Christ:

Last night Jana and I watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. We had seen the film when it first came out. And as you know, there was a lot of conversation swirling around the movie's release. So it was hard then to watch The Passion independently of the controversy surrounding the film. Everyone wanted to know "What did you think about it?", "Was it too violent?", "Was it anti-Semitic?". So I knew then I'd want to wait a few years to watch the movie one more time to revisit my feelings about the film. So we got the movie on NetFlix and watched it, purposefully, on Good Friday.

.............

All in all, then, although there are overtones of penal substitutionary atonement in the film, one could approach the film from a Christus Victor perspective. All the physical trauma is from Satan who is intent upon breaking Christ's will and body. The only view of God the Father is a single tear, a symbol of sympathy and sadness not judgment and wrath. The climatic moment of the film is the defeat of Satan and the military drumbeat of the resurrection.

And there is another interesting point in the movie that hearkens back to early church thought regarding Christus Victor and ransom theory. If Satan knew that the death of Jesus would redeem the world why would Satan allow Jesus to be crucified? Some of the church fathers posited a bit of cosmic trickery. God was hidden inside the human Jesus. And, like the Trojan Horse, after Jesus' death Satan takes Jesus into hell thinking he's won the fight. Unfortunately, Satan has brought God Himself into hell! God in Christ then cracks open the gates of hell and sets Satan's captives free. What is interesting in The Passion is that in the confrontation in the garden Satan seems unsure about who, exactly, Jesus is. Satan seems to get his answer when Jesus crushes the head of the snake, but Satan's initial uncertainty about Jesus' true identity is interesting in light of church history. It highlights, once again, the Christus Victor themes, the confrontation between God and Satan in the person of Jesus.

Does any of this rescue The Passion on theological grounds? I have no idea. Mainly I wanted to see if another view, one other than penal substitutionary atonement, could rehabilitate the film. My conclusion is that a plausible Christus Victor reading does work for the film and may, in fact, be a better fit for the film than penal substitutionary atonement. We can read the violence in the film as Satanic in origin rather than coming from the Father. This doesn't remove the penal substitutionary overtones in the movie, but those overtones come from biblical themes and Gibson can't be faulted for including them. But my take is that the penal substitutionary overtones are more subtle than the consistent, beginning to end, Christus Victor themes.

Read the whole post: Here.

The Atonement Wars: Whose Atonement?

2010-04-03T00:14:00.000-07:00

The Atonement Wars rage on in a blog post from last month of Ken Silva's on Al Mohler. It seems that Ken Silva and Al Mohler would divide the church over their pet theory of the Atonement: The Penal Substitution theory of the Atonement. (Yeah you heard me right Ken, I just called the Penal Substitution model of the Atonement a theory and it is. It is just one theological theory of the Atonement out of many---so get to cracking on calling me out as a heretic because if you don't I'm sure these guys or these guys will. This post was written just for you and with you in mind).

Al Mohler goes so far as to blasphemously with idolatry proclaim:

Let’s get this straight; [in the penal substitutionary atonement] we’re either seeing the truth, or a lie. This either is the Gospel, or, it is not. The dividing line is abundantly clear; we either believe that the sum and substance of the Gospel is that a holy and righteous God—Who must demand a full penalty for our sin—both demands the penalty and provides the penalty, through His Own self-substitution in Jesus Christ—the Son—whose perfect obedience, and perfectly accomplished atonement, has purchased for us all that is necessary for our salvation—has met the full demands of the righteousness and justice of God against our sin.

We either believe that, or we do not. If we do not, then we believe that the Gospel can be nothing more than some kind of message intended to reach some emotive level in the human being, so that the human being would think better of God, and might want to associate with Him. Or, we would transform all of these categories in the theological into the merely therapeutic, and argue that the whole point of the atonement is that we would come to terms with our own problems, and come to understand that there are resources for the repair of our troubled souls beyond which we previously knew.

Dr. Mohler gets it quite wrong actually as Jesus Himself is the Gospel period not someone's pet and favorite Atonement theory. Dr. Schreiner correctly states that The Penal Substitution theory of the Atonement is not the only teaching in scripture regarding Jesus' death. Although I believe that The Penal Substitution theory of the Atonement is one of many valid theories of the Atonement, I don't believe it is the only theory. In fact I believe that those who hold up The Penal Substitution theory of the Atonement as the only theory of Atonement grossly misrepresent God's character as revealed in Christ and therefore distort the true meaning of the Gospel. Harry Emerson Fosdick my personal hero under Jesus of course said it best when he stated:

Were you to talk to that fundamentalist preacher, he doubtless would insist that you must believe in the "substitutionary" theory of atonement - namely, that Jesus suffered as a substitute for us punishment due us for our sins. But can you imagine a modern courtroom in a civilized country where an innocent man would be deliberately punished for another man's crime? … [S]ubstitutionary atonement … came a long way down in history in many a penal system. But now it is a precivilized barbarity; no secular court would tolerate the idea for a moment; only in certain belated theologies is it retained as an explanation of our Lord's death… Christ's sacrificial life and death are too sacred to be so misrepresented.---Harry Emerson Fosdick, Dear Mr. Brown (Harper & Row, 1961), p. 136.

I also believe Brian McLaren raises a good point as well:

Theory of Atonement
Could you elaborate on your personal theory of atonement? If God wanted to forgive us, why didn�t he just forgive us? Why did torturing Jesus make things better? This is such an important and difficult question. I�d recommend, for starters, you read �Recovering the Scandal of the Cross� (by Baker and Green). There will be a sequel to this book in the next year or so, and I�ve contributed a chapter to it.

Short answer: I think the gospel is a many faceted diamond, and atonement is only one facet, and legal models of atonement (which predominate in western Christianity) are only one small portion of that one facet.

Dallas Willard also addresses this issue in �The Divine Conspiracy.� Atonement-centered understandings of the gospel, he says, create vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else. He calls us to move beyond a �gospel of sin management� � to the gospel of the kingdom of God. So, rather than focusing on an alternative theory of atonement, I�d suggest we ponder the meaning and mission of the kingdom of God.

This is why these two theories need their proper place along side of the Penal Substitution theory for a more holistic understanding of the Atonement:

The Moral Influence theory

This view of the atonement limits Christ's death to a radical example of His love that influences sinners morally but does not pay any price on their behalf. God's justice demands no payment for sin. First Peter 2:21 is the primary text for this view. "Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example." But just a few verses later (v. 24) Peter refers to the subsitutionary aspect of the cross, "He Himself bore our sins in his body on a tree…" Even in this primary passage regarding the moral influence of Christ's death, it can't stand alone without the central message of substitution.

Christus Victor

This view attempts to limit Christ's work on the cross to the defeating of the powers of evil. Indeed, Col. 2:15 assets; "He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him." Indeed Christ's death defeated the powers of darkness. But directly preceding this statement in verse 14, Paul points to the substitutionary aspect of the cross by stating, "By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross." Here as in other contexts, PSA stands in the central place.

These two views (Christus Victor and the Moral Influence Theory) are indeed presented in scripture. But they can't stand alone. These views are only complementary to the sacrificial death of Christ. Someone over the course of my studies referred to the various presentations of the cross as a choir in which all the biblical references to the cross are harmonious. I would like to adjust the metaphor and suggest that the sacrificial death of Christ is the "soloist" and the other biblical references to the cross are "background singers" that enhance the soloist's voice.

Good Friday: How The World's Biggest Hate Crime Leads To Hope

2010-04-02T23:48:00.000-07:00

Drew Tatusko on Good Friday:

the triumphal entry turned into a blood-thirsty mob

Good Friday is evil. There is nothing "good" about it. After all what do Christians say in their confessions about the crucifixion? This is what Protestants all over will say on Esater Sunday about the crucifixion as a confession of faith:

(Jesus) suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell.

There is a strange fascination with many Christians that looks at the cross as a gift. It is the punishment of sin that we don't have to endure because God decided to do it to his Son. For that we are to be thankful. Thankful? For a God who kills off his only son? We are to be thankful for a God who commits human sacrifice after stopping Abraham from killing Isaac?

....

Jesus came as a human being who sacrificed his human will fully in order to observe the will of God. When the two wills have been so intertwined this becomes the true son of God. His true divinity is his true humanity. One would think that this would be a good death on the cross. Of one who fought the good fight to reveal the Kingdom of God as a hero. But it's not. As Brandon Mouser says today:

He’s hanging on a cross and asks God, why he’s doing this to him. Why, in this hour when it would be tops to have the one person he should be able to count on to be there and offer comfort, why has God left him?

And God responds with a most deafening silence.

Crickets.

This is not a good death. It's an horrific death. The only people to blame are people; the same people who welcomed him as an ironic king demand his death and torture under Roman law. And it gets worse. Even with Jesus, the only one who had fully conformed to the will of God, hanging in torture on a cross as a result of his obedience, God still despises the sacrifice. It is the logical result of sin.

Good Friday is not good. Good Friday is the day when the holy becomes grotesque.

We now have to sit in somber mediation for the evils that we do that continue try to kill off God and place humankind above who God is.

Jesus is dead. God is dead.

If we cannot love Jesus dead, we cannot love him when he rises on Sunday.

To put this cart before the horse is perhaps the greatest blasphemy in the history of the Christian church.

Read the whole post: Here.

Was Judas The Beloved Disciple?

2010-04-02T22:28:00.000-07:00

The recent special issue of US News & World Report titled “Secrets of Christianity” has an article on the Gospel of Judas which argues this case. The article in question is entitled Judas Agonistes: An Old Text Claims Jesus Chose His Most Beloved Disciple To Betray Him and is an interesting scholarly article written on the Gospel of Judas by Karen L. King and Elaine Pagels two of the foremost scholars of the Gnostic Gospels of our time.

Now of course the Gospel of Judas is a controversial text as:

The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic gospel purported to document conversations between the apostle Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ. The document is not claimed to have been written by Judas himself, but rather by Gnostic followers of Jesus. It exists in an early fourth-century Coptic text, though it has been proposed, but not proven, that the text is a translation of an earlier Greek version. The Gospel of Judas is probably from no earlier than the second century, since it contains theology that is not represented before the second half of the second century, and since its introduction and epilogue assume the reader is familiar with the canonical Gospels. The oldest Coptic document has been carbon dated to AD 280, plus or minus 50 years.

First page of the Gospel of Judas (Page 33 of Codex Tchacos)

According to the canonical Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Judas betrayed Jesus to Jerusalem's Temple authorities, who handed Jesus over to the prefect Pontius Pilate, representative of the occupying Roman Empire, for crucifixion. The Gospel of Judas, on the other hand, portrays Judas in a very different perspective than do the Gospels of the New Testament, according to a preliminary translation made in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society: the Gospel of Judas appears to interpret Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. This assumption is taken on the basis that Jesus required a second agent to set in motion a course of events which he had planned. In that sense Judas acted as a catalyst. The action of Judas, then, was a pivotal point which interconnected a series of simultaneous pre-orchestrated events.

This portrayal seems to conform to a notion current in some forms of Gnosticism, that the human form is a spiritual prison, and that Judas thus served Christ by helping to release Christ's spirit from its physical constraints. The action of Judas allowed him to do that which he could not do directly. The Gospel of Judas does not claim that the other disciples knew gnostic teachings. On the contrary, it asserts that the disciples had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas Iscariot.

Pagels' and King's article is just a more condensed version of their book: Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity. Pick up a copy of US News & World Report's special issue: Secrets of Christianity in their Mysteries of Faith series if you can. Other topics of interest in the issue include:

Who was the real Jesus?

Why do scholars still debate the Resurrection?

What happened during the Crusades and Inquisition?

Are miracles real, or a figment of our imagination?

Why are scientists making the case for a Creator?

What do the Vatican’s Secret Archives reveal?

Will there be an Apocalypse, and when will it happen?

The Resurrection article in this issue is by N. T. Wright and John Dominic Crossan. All the best of mainstream biblical scholarship is represented so check it out.

More Baptist Sexism In The News

2010-03-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

A more than 95-year-old church in Atlanta Georgia is about to be ousted from the Southern Baptist Convention because they have a woman pastor on staff. This is nothing new as it is regular Southern Baptist policy now since The Baptist Faith and Message (2000 version) unabashedly states:

VI. The Church

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.

Audrey Barrick of The Christian Post reports:

The Rev. Mimi Walker has been serving as co-pastor at Druid Hills Baptist Church with her husband, the Rev. Graham Walker, since 2003. But earlier this month, leaders of the Georgia Baptist Convention recommended cutting ties with the local congregation.

"It seems sad that they decided to go backwards in time," Mimi Walker told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I'm not sure what the value is of trying to go back in time when women were held in subservience."

Ironically Fundamentalists in their zeal for biblical inerrancy and biblical literalism do not take the bible literally enough---as one of the main verses so often abused to forbid female pastors can also be used to forbid single, childless, divorced and remarried male pastors as well as male pastors with one child or adopted children if the text of the verse is stretched enough. The main verses used against female pastors are:

1 Timothy 2:9-14 (King James Version)
9In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; 10But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. 11Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

1 Timothy 3:1-5 (ESV)
Qualifications for Overseers (Bishops/Elders/Pastors)
3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer [1] must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, [2] sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

1 Timothy 3:1-5 of course can be used to forbid single, childless, divorced and remarried male pastors as well as male pastors with one child or adopted children---but all of these have been ordained within SBC churches without question. Also notice that in 1 Timothy 2:9-14 it is the author's or authors' opinion that women cannot teach men not God forbidding female pastors. Looking over 1 Timothy 3:1-5 again a lot of men who are pastors now should be disqualified based upon their failure to uphold any and/or all of these qualifications. So why shouldn't/can't females be pastors now if even males can't keep these so-called "Absolute and literal biblical standards?"

If Jesus Had Anything To Say To The SBC What Might He Say?

2010-03-31T20:39:00.000-07:00

Wade Burleson ponders this question in a recent post Grace and Truth to You: Jesus Pronounces Eight Woes on the Southern Baptist Convention (Matthew 23):

It's easy to preach texts when we think Jesus is talking about others in the abstract. It's not near as easy to preach texts when we believe Jesus could be talking about us. This modern edition of Matthew 23 is adapted to cause me to look within myself.

Then Jesus spoke to the Southern Baptist Convention saying: (2) The pastors and self-proclaimed leaders of the SBC have seated themselves in positions of authority; (3) Do not imitate their actions; for they say things that they themselves will not do. (4) They create heavy burdens and lay them on the peoples' shoulders for them to carry, but they themselves are unwilling to even lift a finger. (5) What they do in terms of acts of service they do only to be noticed by the world; for they lie on their resumes and take great pains to dress as the epitome of success.

(6) They love the place of honor at national events and want to be seen next to the powerful politicians, (7) and they cherish being respected and powerful in the eyes of others, even demanding that they be called "Dr." by those who know them. (8) But you, do not allow yourself to be called "Dr." by others, for One is your Teacher and you are all equal in honor. (9) Do no call anyone on earth your "Father" for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. (10) Do not consider yourself a leader; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. (11) But the greatest among you shall be your servant. (12) Whoever promotes himself will one day be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will one day be exalted.

(13) But woe to you, SBC pastors and self-proclaimed SBC leaders, hypoocrites, because you emphasize the building of your own kingdom and shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. (14) Woe to you SBC pastors and self-proclaimed SBC leaders because your love for money causes you to devour the widows' income for your own gain and yet for pretense purposes you act as if your motivations are all spiritual; therefore, you will receive greater condemnation.

(15) Woe to you SBC pastors and self-proclaimed SBC leaders, hypocrites, because you travel internationally to share your global causes and urge others to partner with you; but when you convince someone to join the efforts of the SBC you make him twice as much a recepient of God's judgment as yourselves.

Read the rest: Here.

Karl Barth On Easter

2010-03-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Jesus as Victor:

The war is at an end – even though here and there troops are still shooting, because they have not heard anything yet about the capitulation. The game is won, even though the player can still play a few further moves. Actually he is already mated. The clock has run down, even though the pendulum still swings a few times this way and that. It is in this interim space that we are living: the old is past, behold it has all become new. The Easter message tells us that our enemies, sin, the curse and death, are beaten. Ultimately they can no longer start mischief. They still behave as though the game were not decided, the battle not fought; we must still reckon with them, but fundamentally we must cease to fear them any more. If you have heard the Easter message, you can no longer run around with a tragic face and lead the humourless existence of a man who has no hope. One thing still holds, and only this one thing is really serious, that Jesus is the Victor. A seriousness that would look back past this, like Lot’s wife, is not Christian seriousness. It may be burning behind – and truly it is burning – but we have to look, not at it, but at the other fact, that we are invited and summoned to take seriously the victory of God’s glory in this man Jesus and to be joyful in Him. Then we may live in thankfulness and not in fear.

(Dogmatics in Outline, p. 123)

Romans 13 And Communism

2010-03-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

Resuming my Romans 13 series on a tip from Dr. McGrath---here are some thoughts on the Communists' use of Romans 13:

First off communist states developed differently from theocratic states as atheism seemed to have been a larger underlying principle of communism. This is not to say that there were not religious elements within Communist movements and that all atheists are evil but the facts speak for themselves. Any clear reading of history demonstrates for the most part that communist regimes were hostile to religious expressions. Now atheism in and of itself is the belief that no gods truly exist---but just like all systems of thought, there are extremists---such was the case with communistic atheism. Communist atheists were more or less anti-theists and anti-religion than persons who just happened to believe atheism. Put differently communist atheists were fundamentalist militant atheists in the sense that they were using the civil government to bring about a religion and god-free society---a society that functions without the use of god(s) and religious expressions.

Anyways moving on despite the communists' hostility towards religion, they knew of the potency of religion and the power that it had of control over people. Karl Marx is quoted as saying:

Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.[1]

We commonly hear this quote as being: "religion is the opiate of the masses." This just goes to show that even in their hostility towards religions communists recognized the motivational force of religion and in this way the Communists like the Nazis used and abused religion for their own glory. And in the same way that Nazis used and abused Romans 13 Communist regimes did the same:

By then, the Russian people had the moral right to do whatever they could get away with, like the German people under Hitler, like anyone living under a totalitarian dictatorship. The dictators had cancelled the law, which is a contractual agreement, so the people who had been defrauded no longer were required to perform. If you sign a contract to buy a house, and the owner refuses to vacate, you don't need to make payments.

.........

A word should be said about Romans 13. For many years, pulpit pansies in the pay of the powers that would like to be have preached that Romans 13 teaches unconditional obedience to government. Whatever government does, according to this teaching, we have to endure it, because God has installed government for good.

Yes, He has, but since the men who run government are men, the chance is great that they will go bad. That is why God did the job Himself, through His judges, until His children demanded a king. Through Samuel, He warned them what a king would do. He would eat out their substance, etc. When stiff-necked Israelites would not yield, He gave them Saul. Guess what? God was"is"right. Scripture is full of cases of government run amok. When that happens, God sends someone to overthrow it.

King Jabin, the government, was oppressing the people. Jael lulled Sisera, his commanding general, to sleep and then nailed that old boy to the ground with a spike through his temples. Scripture says Jael is "blessed above women." The children of Israel sang about her in celebration of her exploit.

Eglon, king of Moab, oppressed the people. Ehud parked a knife in his belly. His majesty was so fat his belly closed around the knife, so that for a while the coroner couldn't find the cause of death until crime scene investigators showed him the weapon. Scripture says Ehud was a deliverer whom the Lord had raised up.

Wasn't Paul a notorious jailbird? Wasn't Peter? Wasn't Jesus a criminal? He must have been, according to today's pansy preachers, because the government"the Sanhedrin and the Romans"said He was. Didn't He destroy property and use violence when He kicked the moneychangers out? Didn't He break the law Himself?

If you preach that the government can do no wrong and must be obeyed blindly whatever it does, that is where you must wind up. Romans 13 means that you must obey and defer to government as long as it does what God installed it to do. When government stops doing what God installed it to do"stops clearly and incontrovertibly"your obedience is no longer required. Weren't our Founding Fathers criminals?

Is God a Nazi? That is the question. If you subscribe to the preaching of today's pansy preachers, you believe He is. You believe you must obey Hitler because he is the government. You believe you must defer to whatever crimes the government commits because of what some pansy preacher says about Romans 13.

So you see, pal, the fact that you may put your collar on backward or have three first names, etc., cuts you no slack here. And by the way, those pansy preachers revere Martin Luther King, Jr. Wasn't King in the Birmingham jail when he wrote his famous letter from Birmingham jail (if he wrote it)?

Wasn't he there because he defied the government? Which governments does Romans 13 say we must obey? Regular readers will also remember that today's Christianity has been infiltrated from top to bottom by Communists, starting even before World War II. Could that be the reason today's pansy preachers pervert Romans 13? Are they deliberately trying to neutralize the faithful?

Romans 13 was also used against Christian anti-communist resistance movements:

“While the troops of Mahomet II surrounded Constantinople in 1493 and it had to be decided if the Balkans would be under Christian or [Muslim] dominion for centuries, a local church council in the beseiged city discussed the following: What color had the eyes of the virgin Mary? What gender do the angels have? If a fly falls in sanctified water, is the fly sanctified or the water defiled? It may only be a legend, as concerns those times, but peruse Church periodicals of today and you will find that questions just like this are discussed. The menace of persecutors and the sufferings of the underground church are scarely ever mentioned. Instead, there are endless discussions about theological matters, about rituals, about nonessentials….In formerly Communist Russia, no one remembers the arguments for or against child baptism, for or against papal infallibility. They are not pre- or postmillenialists. They cannot interpret prophecies and don’t quarrel about them, but I have wondered very often at how well they could prove the existence of God to atheists.”

—Richard Wurmbrand, Jewish Lutheran pastor from Romania who spent fourteen years in a Communist prison, quoted in Jesus Freaks: Volume II, page 208

See also: The Suffering Church in Russia, Fr. Popielusko and Communist Poland, A New Religion, Minority Rights Abuse in Communist Poland and Inherited Issues*, Martyrs in the History of Christianity and Is Religion Evil? Secularism's Pride and Irrational Prejudice.

My next posting in my series on Romans 13 will be on Romans 13 and the Religious Right and Left...

The SBC And The Social Gospel

2010-03-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

Tim Rogers of SBC Today waxes eloquent about the SBC's possible movement toward a return to the Social Gospel. Here is an excerpt from that post:

Before I articulate my thesis I want our readers to understand a couple of things. First, I am not against doing social ministry. I believe that every church must involve herself in reaching out to community projects and other secular ministries in order to help meet the needs of the poor. Second, I do not discount the power of meeting the needs of someone that is in need of help. It certainly opens a door that otherwise would not be opened. Third, I am by no means insinuating that the ministries mentioned below are pushing for a Social Gospel. With that said, allow me to reveal my concern that we may be heading down a road in a return to a Social Gospel movement within the SBC.

Interesting prospects---one can only hope that there is a future for social ministries within the SBC. Others are worried that the SBC is moving beyond Fundamentalist positions since the Fundamentalists won the war to drive the Moderates/Liberals out of the state and national Conventions. The battle for biblical inerrancy---the hill on which the Fundamentalists set their stakes to die on is no longer an issue within the SBC as they've already fought that battle and declared their self-victory. Inerrancy is pretty much set in stone within SBC life---what with the advent of the revision of the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000.

Because of this new battles have sprung up within the SBC---which causes great and major concerns for all Baptists---some Baptists such as the Southern Baptist Peter Lumpkins are worried that the SBC is moving too closely in the direction of legalistic confessional Dortian Calvinism/Semi-Hyper-Calvinism. Critics within and outside of the SBC are wondering what the future of the SBC holds. Can all the competing factions within the SBC ever stabilize? They must learn to in order for the Great Commission Resurgence to move forward. And what of the relationship between Southern and non-Southern Baptists---how will competing factions within the larger Baptist world effect our relations? Only time will tell how all of this will play out---so what are your thoughts?

Christian Terrorists' Plot Discovered

2010-03-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from the article:

(March 29) -- Nine alleged members of a Michigan-based Christian militia group were indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit in an alleged 17-month plot to attack and kill local, state and federal law enforcement officials.

On the heels of weekend raids in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, the FBI unsealed an indictment today revealing charges of seditious conspiracy, attempted use of weapons of mass destruction and teaching the use of explosive materials. The charges were filed against nine alleged members of the Hutaree militia, which writes on its Web site that it is preparing for battle with the anti-Christ.

Read the full article here: Militiamen Plotted to Kill Officials, Authorities Say.

2010 CBF-NC General Assembly

2010-03-29T14:17:00.000-07:00

Our General Assembly this year was a blast. This year marked the 16th year of CBF-NC. This year is also the last year that my mom helped with the setup of exhibits as she is rotating off of that committee next year.

If you haven't read them yet Tony Cartledge has two excellent postings on the 2010 CBF-NC General Assembly. Here is a snippet from the main posting---Baptists Today Blogs: CBFNC at "Sweet Sixteen":

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina (CBFNC) celebrated its sixteenth year March 19-20 by affirming core partnerships, approving a record budget, and looking to a hopeful future. More than 950 persons packed the ornate, historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem for the opening session on Friday night, and the house was comfortably filled for the closing worship on Saturday morning.

Built on the theme "Generations Connected: One Family, One Faith, Many Journeys," the annual assembly recognized the founding generation of the CBF movement by hearing from from Cecil Sherman, CBF national's first coordinator, and gave attention to emerging generations with a closing message by Craig and Jennifer Janney, a young couple who serve as both ministers and instructors at Chowan University.

Sherman noted that the national Fellowship movement is now approaching 20 years of organized existence, and reflected on the importance of remembering how CBF emerged from a conflicted Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), even though some younger people "don't want to hear our war stories." Sherman related both the "face of conflict" from in an SBC overtaken by conservatism and credalism, and the "face of growth" that emerged as moderate Baptists coalesced around the historic principles they believed had been violated.

Although some early participants wanted CBF to focus on single issues, Sherman said, its early and continuing focus has been to provide a "missions delivery system for the churches" that defined missions as more than evangelism and church starts, to support Baptist theological education, and "to teach Baptist polity to people who have forgotten it or never knew it."

Sherman acknowledged that his generation will be off the stage as the next generation of CBF leadership emerges, but he advanced three ideas "that I hope some of you will keep in mind" as future decisions are made. "I hope you stay in touch with mainline Baptists," he said -- not just an elite group and big churches, but Baptists across the spectrum of size and locality. "If the decision makers know Baptists, they'll make good decisions," he said.

The second posting is about the presence of female ministers and female ministries within the CBF world in NC. Here is a snippet from that post:

There may be more, but the number of Anglo Baptist churches in North Carolina I know of who have women pastors can be counted on my fingers with some left over. A few others have women serving as co-pastors. There is no question that churches would be well served if there were more. The eleven moderate seminaries established in the past two decades have helped to train and prepare a number of God-called women for ministry roles -- including that of pastor -- but the churches willing to call them are few and far between. I know several women who are convinced of their call and standing ready to serve, but most of the churches willing even to consider them still conclude "We're just not ready for a female senior pastor."

In my more cynical moments, I think they're just chicken. There's no guarantee that all women pastors will be pulpit stars or effective leaders, but there are some real gems out there who could be, if they were just given a chance.

I've seen, and I believe.

Présente: Remembering Romero

2010-03-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

March 24, 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the martyr-ship of Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated while giving Mass on March 24, 1980. Romero:

As an archbishop who witnessed ongoing violations of human rights, Romero initiated and gave his status to a group which spoke out on behalf of the poor and the victims of the Salvadoran civil war. In many ways Romero was closely associated with Liberation Theology and openly condemned both Marxism and Capitalism.[2] In 1980, as he finished giving his homily during Mass, Romero was assassinated by a group headed by former major Roberto D'Aubuisson.

Romero was a champion for the Poor all the way up to his assassination.

Some of his last few words spoke directly to the violent conflict and bloody civil war that shattered families and the country of El Salvador. On March 23, 1980 these stinging words of condemnation by Archbishop Romero rang out from radio airwaves hitting the ears of El Salvadorans on both sides of the conflict including those who shot Romero the next day:

Archbishop Romero made the following appeal to the men of the armed forces:

"Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, 'Thou shalt not kill'. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. ...In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression"

The day following this speech, Archbishop Romero was murdered. -- Archbishop Oscar Romero - Caracen

Here is a video of Romero's actual last words:

And here is the English translation of his last words:

God's reign is already present on our earth in mystery. When the Lord comes, it will be brought to perfection.

That is the hope that inspires Christians.
We know that every effort to better society,
especially when injustice and sin are so ingrained,
is an effort that God blesses,
that God wants,
that God demands of us.

Archbishop Oscar Romero, March 24 1980

Archbishop Romero is not only a Salvadoran National hero but a true Christian hero who spoke out on behalf of the Poor, the marginalized, the defenseless and the voiceless. His commitment to justice against injustice, dignity against human rights violations, pacifism/non-violence against violence, the way of the Cross and suffering against materialism are commendable. This is why every March 24th Christians everywhere remember and pay respect to the great man and great Christian soul Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez. His legacy lives on---Viva Romero!---Présente!

I'll leave you with one last video to contemplate Romero's legacy---U2's Bullet The Blue Sky:

Off To The CBF-NC General Assembly

2010-03-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

This year there is a heavier emphasis on Social Justice issues. We should have invited Glenn Beck, Todd Friel and John MacArthur to come knowing they wouldn't accept the invitation...haha.

Anyways it should be fun as this year's keynote speaker is Cecil Sherman who was the face of Moderate Baptists during the Conservative Resurgence/Fundamentalist Takeover.

More to tell when I get back.

Romans 13 And Conscientious War Objectors

2010-03-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

John 18:36- Jesus answered, "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world." (RSV).

Recently John Armstrong blogged on Christian conscientious objection to war---here's a snippet:

Most of what we know about the early church suggests that, at least generally, Christians did not serve in the military. Over time the church developed what is called a “Just War Doctrine.” This doctrine is rather complex and has been carefully thought out over the course of centuries. But this doctrine is not of one type or expression. There are variations within it and every single Christian should think carefully about what they believe and why.

Modern complexities often create new challenges to traditional just war thinking. I have retained a modified just war position but I admit it is sometimes hard to retain. I have admitted, in public and private, that I have a great deal of respect for those who wrestle with this issue and embrace a different viewpoint than my own. The stance of Christian conscientious objection is not the way of cowards or of anti-Americans. Whole traditions of Christians respect and hold this point of view. Other churches have adopted modern positions that do not reject all combat but challenge the development of a “war mentality” that predominates so much of the world we live in today.

A fatal mistake, often made by many evangelicals, is to assume that only liberal, or politically left leaning, Christians embrace these positions about war. This is a gross over-simplification. When I was at Wheaton College in the late 1960s pacifism was embraced by more than a few students and some on the faculty. At first I found this shocking but I began to read the literature and ask some hard questions. As I say, I am still not a complete convert to pacifism and doubt that I ever will be. But I am persuaded that the current U.S. position on conscientious objection is not right. Our government allows for conscientious objection to all war but not to particular wars. I discovered this in 1968 when I began to question the moral rightness of the Vietnam War. I soon realized that I had to oppose involvement in all war or I could not take a position against this one war. I still feel that stance of our government on this matter is morally wrong. I understand “why” it has been taken, and how it evolved, but I simply do not think that it is right.

This is another issue with Romans 13 as Romans 13 has been used against conscientious war objectors/war protestors to blindly uphold the status quo of the State and support wars at all costs to the detriment of others. My friend John is right that the Early Church was generally against war. Their reasoning was that war was a worldly pursuit and since they were called from the world why would they go back to the ways of the world. Here are a few quotes from the Early Church Fathers themselves on the subject of war:

Marcellus, ?-298 A.D.

“I threw down my arms for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military service to the Lord Christ, should render it by earthly injuries.” “It is not lawful for a Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration.”

Ignatius of Antioch, approx. 35-110 A.D.

“Take heed, then, often to come together to give thanks to God, and show forth His praise. For when ye assemble frequently in the same place, the powers of Satan are destroyed, and the destruction at which he aims is prevented by the unity of your faith. Nothing is more precious than peace, by which all war, both in heaven and earth, is brought to an end.”

Irenaeus, approx. 180 A.D.

“Christians have changed their swords and their lances into instruments of peace, and they know not now how to fight.”

Justin Martyr, approx. 138 A.D.

“The devil is the author of all war.” “We, who used to kill one another, do not make war on our enemies. We refuse to tell lies or deceive our inquisitors; we prefer to die acknowledging Christ.”

Tertullian, 155-230 A.D.

“But now inquiry is being made concerning these issues. First, can any believer enlist in the military? Second, can any soldier, even those of the rank and file or lesser grades who neither engage in pagan sacrifices nor capital punishment, be admitted into the church? No on both counts—for there is no agreement between the divine sacrament and the human sacrament, the standard of Christ and the standard of the devil, the camp of light and the camp of darkness. One soul cannot serve two masters—God and Caesar…But how will a Christian engage in war—indeed, how will a Christian even engage in military service during peacetime—without the sword, which the Lord has taken away? For although soldiers had approached John to receive instructions and a centurion believed, this does not change the fact that afterward, the Lord, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier.”

“Under no circumstances should a true Christian draw the sword.”

Origen of Alexandria, 185-254 A.D.

“We have come in accordance with the counsel of Jesus to cut down our arrogant swords of argument into plowshares, and we convert into sickles the spears we formerly used in fighting. For we no longer take swords against a nation, nor do we learn anymore to make war, having become sons of peace for the sake of Jesus, who is our Lord.”

The Early Church was also antagonistic towards holding political office as well. It wasn't really till Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas came up with and developed a Christian concept of the "Just War" theory that the idea of military service for Christians was deemed to be ok and then it wasn't until the Anabaptists came around that a strong sense and urge for Christians to be pulled towards pacifism over war came back. Anabaptists reignited the long tradition of Christian pacifism and Christian conscientious objection to war in several ways:

Pacifism is one of three historic attitudes of the church toward war. In some form it has existed throughout the entire history of the Christian church. Since the fourth century it has often been overshadowed by the just war theory and the concept of crusade, or aggressive war for a holy cause. The early church was pacifist. Prior to A.D. 170-80 there are no records of soldiers in the Roman army. Following that epoch there are both Christians in the army and also writings which opposed the practice from church fathers such as Tertullian. Some Christian writers sanctioned police functions and military service, provided these did not entail bloodshed and killing. Under Emperor Constantine, who closely identified the interests of the empire with the interests of Christianity, Christian soldiers were common. During the rule of Theodosius II only Christians could serve as soldiers.

When confronted by the barbarian invasions that seemed to threaten Roman civilization and thus the Christianity identified with it, Augustine of Hippo developed the idea, rooted in Roman Stoic philosophy and first given a Christian formulation by Ambrose, which has come to be called the just war theory. It intended not to advocate war but to limit the conditions under which Christians could participate in war, accepting it as an unfortunately necessary tool for preserving the civilization to which Christianity belonged. Since Augustine some form of the just war theory has been the majority position of most Christian traditions.

In the Middle Ages the idea of the crusade developed from another attempt by the church to limit warfare. The peace of God and the truce of God limited times for fighting and banned clerical participation in war. To enforce these limitations the church itself came to conduct warring activity. This act associated war with a holy cause, namely the enforcement of peace. This association developed into the crusades, the holy cause of rescuing the Holy Land from the Moslems. Pope Urban II preached the first crusade in 1095. In either religious or secular versions the crusade has been a part of the church's tradition ever since.

During the Middle Ages it was the sectarians who kept alive the pacifist tradition. Groups of Waldensians and Franciscan Tertiaries refused military service. The Cathari were pacifist. The Hussite movement developed two branches, a crusading one under blind general Jan Zizka and a pacifist one under Peter Chelciky.

The period of the Renaissance and Reformation saw assertions of all three attitudes toward war. Renaissance humanism developed a pacifist impulse, of which Erasmus is one of the most important examples. Humanist pacifism appealed to such philosophical and theological principles as the common humanity and brotherhood of all persons as children of God, the follies of war, and the ability of rational individuals to govern themselves and their states on the basis of reason.

All Protestant churches except the Anabaptists accepted the inherited tradition of the just war. Luther identified two kingdoms, of God and of the world. While he rejected the idea of crusade, his respect for the state as ordained by God to preserve order and to punish evil in the worldly realm made him a firm supporter of the just war approach. The Reformed tradition accepted the crusade concept, seeing the state not only as the preserver of order but also as a means of furthering the cause of true religion. Zwingli died in a religious war; Calvin left the door open to rebellion against an unjust ruler; and Beza developed not only the right but the duty of Christians to revolt against tyranny. Cromwell's pronouncement of divine blessing on the massacre of Catholics at Drogheda illustrates the crusade idea in English Puritanism.

Alongside the wars of religion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries arose the pacifist traditions which for the most part have preserved their opposition to war until the present time. Pacifism emerged as the dominant position of the Anabaptists, who rejected not only the sword of war but also refused to engage in political life. Although their identification of two kingdoms paralleled Luther's analysis closely, the Anabaptists denied that Christians could in any way exercise the sword of the magistrate in the worldly kingdom. When Alexander Mack organized the Church of the Brethren in 1708, Anabaptism was the major impulse in dialectic with pietism. While Quakers, who emerged in the midseventeenth century, distinguished the kingdom of God from that of the world, they did not utterly despair of the world and involved themselves in its political processes up to the point of war. Appeals to individual conscience played an important role in Quaker nonviolent political activity on behalf of justice and peace. Anabaptists, the immediate predecessors of the Mennonites, were the most withdrawn from participation in government, with the Quakers the least separated. The Brethren occupied a median position.

Wars in North America, from Puritan conflicts with the Indians through the Revolutionary War to the world wars, have all been defended in religious and secular versions of the just war theory or the crusade idea. For example, World War I, fought "to make the world safe for democracy," was a secular crusade. Throughout the North American experience Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers maintained a continuing if at times uneven witness against war as well as a refusal to participate in it. In the twentieth century they have come to be called the historic peace churches.

The nineteenth century saw the formation of a number of national and international pacifist societies. The Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded as an interdenominational and international religious pacifist organization on the eve of World War I and established in the United States in 1915. It continues today as an interfaith activist force for peace. In reaction to the horror of World War I and buttressed by an optimistic belief in the rationality of humanity, the period between the world wars saw another wave of pacifist sentiment, both inside and outside the churches. These efforts to create peace included political means such as the League of Nations and nonviolent pressure such as the activities of Mohandas Gandhi to influence British withdrawal from India.

Spurred by the growing possibility of a nuclear holocaust and the realization that military solutions do not fundamentally resolve conflicts, the era begun in the late 1960s is experiencing another round of increasing attention to pacifist perspectives. In addition to the historic peace churches, denominations which have traditionally accepted the just war theory or the crusade idea have also issued declarations accepting pacifist positions within their traditions. Two significant examples are Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, which for the first time endorsed pacifism as compatible with Catholic teaching, and the declaration of the United Presbyterian Church (USA), Peacemaking: The Believer's Calling.

There were violent Anabaptists as well but the vast majority of Anabaptists were characterized by their strong commitments to pacifism and non-violent resistance. Here is an excerpt from one of Menno Simons' correspondences on on the issue of peace and violence:

. . . they say that we are seditionists and that
we would take cities and countries if we had the power.

This prophecy is false and will ever remain so; and by the grace of God, time and experience will prove that those who thus prophesy according to the Word of Moses are not of God. Faithful reader, understand what I write.

The Scriptures teach that there are two opposing princes and two opposing kingdoms: the one is the Prince of peace; the other the prince of strife. Each of these princes has his particular kingdom and as the prince is so is also the kingdom. The Prince of peace is Christ Jesus; His kingdom is the kingdom of peace, which is His church; His messengers are the messengers of peace; His Word is the word of peace; His body is the body of peace; His children are the seed of peace; and His inheritance and reward are the inheritance and reward of peace. In short, with this King, and in His kingdom and reign, it is nothing but peace. Everything that is seen, heard, and one is peace.

We have heard the word of peace, namely, the consoling Gospel of peace from the mouth of His messengers of peace. We, by His grace, have believed and accepted it in peace and have committed ourselves to the only, eternal, and true Prince of peace, Christ Jesus, in His kingdom of peace and under His reign, and are thus by the gift of His Holy Spirit, by means of faith, incorporated into His body. And henceforth we look with all the children of His peace for the promised inheritance and reward of peace.

Such exceeding grace of God has appeared unto us poor, miserable sinners that we who were formerly no people at all and who knew of no peace are now called to be such a glorious people of God, a church, kingdom, inheritance, body, and possession of peace. Therefore we desire not to break this peace, but by His great power by which He has called us to this peace and portion, to walk in this grace and peace, unchangeably and unwaveringly unto death.

One other Anabaptist example is Dirk Willems who:

was a martyred Anabaptist who is most famous for, after his escape from prison, turning around to rescue his pursuer, who had fallen through thin ice while chasing him...After his harrowing escape and recapture upon turning back to save the life of his pursuer, he was burned at the stake near his hometown on 16 May 1569.

Today, he is one of the most celebrated martyrs among Anabaptists, which includes Mennonites, Brethren, and Amish, becoming part of their history[1]. A historical drama based on his life, Dirk's Exodus, was written in 1990 by James C. Juhnke.

Thanks to Pastor I. Todyaso for pointing Dirk Willems' story out to me as he was an Anabaptist that I had never heard of before. Anyways read more documents on Christian Nonresistance and Pacifism from Anabaptist-Mennonite Sources: here.

The Protestant Reformers' Social Gospel: Calvin And Luther On Social Justice

2010-03-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

Calvin the social justice advocate:

Calvin was also a strong promoter of social justice—the idea of bringing one’s faith to bear on the inequities in the world.

Calvin on who our neighbors are:

“We cannot but behold our own face as it were in a glass in the person that is poor and despised . . . though he were the furthest stranger in the world. Let a Moor or a barbarian come among us, and yet inasmuch as he is a man, he brings with him a looking glass wherein we may see that he is our brother and neighbor.”

The social activist meets John Calvin:

Activist: All people think about today is themselves—oh, yes, and their possessions. Our lives are tangled up with economic forces that reduce us all to players—mere pawns—in the game of global market. So many—particularly women, children, and refugees—continue to be marginalized, impoverished, and exploited. Don’t these people matter in the overall scheme of things?

Calvin: Our neighbor includes even the most remote person. We ought to embrace the whole human race without exception in a single feeling of love; there is no distinction between uneducated and educated, worthy and unworthy, friend and enemy, since all should be contemplated as bearing the image of God.

Activist: Our communities need social programs! Both in North America and around the world, international financial institutions are influencing economic decisions that set the stage for our governments to cut social programs and public services.

Calvin: During my time in Geneva, what mighty works were done! The City Council organized ministries to care for the needs of all people: the poor, the sick, the aged, those unable to work, the widows, orphaned and abandoned children, those suffering the plague, and refugees who had fled persecution in France and Northern Italy.

Activist: We don’t need tax cuts paid for by reducing social and educational services! We don’t need tax cuts that benefit the “haves” of our society! We want a fairer system of taxation. We need to find ways for lower income people, not for higher income people, to have more.

Calvin: In my mind wealth possesses dangers and involves serious responsibilities. Let us then that have riches . . . consider that their abundance was not intended to be laid out in intemperance or excess, but in relieving the necessities of the brethren.

Activist: The debts of poor countries must be cancelled! In these countries the poor are paying for most of the country’s debt. They are oppressed by stiffer taxes, higher prices, removal of subsidies on staple foods, and the lack of basic health and educational services.

Calvin: I can accept lending money for risk capital, provided one charges no more than 5 percent interest, but one must not charge any interest when lending to the poor. Indeed, it would be better, in the face of the distress of the poor, to give them the necessary money outright. And I don’t care what society may say is legal by way of lending rates; if it’s unjust, then it is prohibited to the Christian.

Activist: We need less talk and more action on the issue of homelessness! The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the homeless are joined by more homeless.

Calvin: What with the social hardships of the day and the influx of refugees, there was a major housing shortage in Geneva when I was there. If someone with a large household uses a large house, he cannot be blamed; but when people, swollen with ambition, make superfluous additions to their houses so they may live more comfortably, and when one person alone occupies a habitation that would be enough for several families, this would be empty display and must be condemned.

Activist: Consumerism is killing humankind and the earth! Twenty percent of the world’s population consumes over 80 percent of the world’s resources. The gap between rich and poor has more than doubled in the last twenty years.

Calvin: I believe it is a major plague ruling the world that people have a mad and insatiable lust for possessions. Like Martin Luther, I relate this to the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” We will duly obey this command . . . if we are zealous to make only honest and lawful gain; if we do not seek to become wealthy through injustice, nor attempt to deprive our neighbor of his goods to increase our own; if we do not strive to heap up riches cruelly wrung from the blood of others; if we do not madly scrape together from everywhere, by fair means or foul, whatever will feed our avarice or satisfy our prodigy.

Activist: Look around us. This world is divided into “haves” and “have nots.” The disparity is increasing daily. Who with power really cares? Who will advocate for justice? Who will stand firm against oppression?

Calvin: We must recognize that God has wanted to make us like members of one body. Our Christian faith must invade every avenue of life—money, property, work were all meant to be used not to deprive our neighbors, but to serve them. The economic life of the world is bound up with our faith. We Christians and our churches must give ourselves to ministries of social justice. We must be compassionate advocates of justice for all! The church must be the implacable foe of tyranny!

Activist: Right on! Let’s begin! The time is now!

[John Calvin and the social activist walk up to each other, “high five” each other or shake hands. The activist gives out placards; Calvin gives out pages of his writing to those nearby. Then they exit together, arm in arm.]

Protestant theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, as well as Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, saw the call to social justice as inherent in the Scriptures. Catholic theologians Augustine and Aquinas noted that there was a social component to God's call to righteousness.

Luther published tracts on social justice:

Luther’s name was becoming well known throughout Germany and Europe. By the end of 1520, he had published at least 81 pamphlets calling not only for religious reforms, but also for more political and social justice. Translated into many languages, Luther’s words found resonance with people who were suffering under the unjust social and econonomic conditions of the time. There was also growing tension between the various principalities and the central powers of Europe.

Martin Luther bringing the monastery to the world:

Luther taught that working in the service of God was the moral duty of all Christians, not just those called to serve the church in the clergy or Holy Orders. Where work was traditionally viewed simply as a means to worldly ends (i.e., survival), Luther argued that individuals must treat their labor as a gift to God. Thus, claims Weber, Luther brought the "monastery into the world," motivating ordinary believers, whatever their worldly occupation, to work hard in the service of God.

The Reformation brought social empowerment:

Once the Reformation is under way the common people perceive it as a means of social empowerment. The peasant class senses the potential for secular, though not necessarily spiritual, freedoms. The Peasants War, which begins in 1524, is a response to Luther's urgings of democratic reform and a reaction to an unbalanced social system. Luther, initially sympathetic to the peasants, is eventually appalled by the war and angrily addresses the warring faction in his pamphlet, Against the Thieving and Murderous Gangs of Peasants. To Luther the sectarian groups represent an attempt not at spiritual elevation, but at an easy redemption. The social revolt has unfortunate consequences for Luther's reformation. The humanist view that human beings might be brought to higher spirituality through education and innate ability, is a source of contention for the Reformers. Instead the Reformers depend on the concept of man's embodiment of original sin and his incontestable need for redemption and the Grace of God.

Luther against "big banks:"

Interestingly, Fuggerei was established by Jakob the Rich as a settlement for the indigent, upon criticism by Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, claiming that the banker's massive fortune was somehow sacrilegious. Clearly that was not God's will, not to mention the fact that charging any interest during that time was considered usurious. Luther would've been pleased to know that Fugger's empire took a serious hit over the next 150 years or so, thanks in large part to a string of wars and significant loan defaults. Even so, over the centuries, the family has ensured that Fuggerei remains, a symbol of the benevolence which has eluded far too many for far too long. I'll eat my words if anyone can apprise me of an investment banker in these parts worth praying for.

Glenn Beck Attacks Jim Wallis

2010-03-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

Jim Wallis invited Glenn Beck to engage in civil dialogue about the issue of social justice. Here is Beck's threatening response to Wallis:

"So Jim, I just wanted to pass this on to you. In my time I will respond — my time, well, kind of like God’s time, might be a day, might be a week to you, I’m not sure. But I’m going to get to it in my time, not your time. So you go ahead and you continue to do your protest thing, and that’s great. I love it. But just know — the hammer is coming, because little do you know, for eight weeks, we’ve been compiling information on you, your cute little organization, and all the other cute little people that are with you. And when the hammer comes, it’s going to be hammering hard and all through the night, over and over…"

[H/T] Wes Ellis.

Read the whole story at Sojourners.

Romans 13: Patriotism Vs. Nationalism

2010-03-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

Henry Neufeld quoting from David Black Online:

*True patriotism is love of country, not love of government. Neo-patriotism is mindless worship of the state.

*True patriots refuse to honor government above God. Neo-patriots gladly deify government.

*True patriots understand loyalty as adherence to the ideals upon which the country was founded. Neo-patriots believe in blind submission to the bureaucrats currently running it.

*True patriots believe that eternal vigilance is necessary to keep politicians under check. Neo-patriots are willing to entrust their lives to politicians thinking this means loyalty to the ideals spelled out in the Constitution.

*Neo-patriots think that if you criticize U.S. foreign policy or the country’s obsession with security you are “unpatriotic.” True patriots believe that the exercise of critical judgment is absolutely necessary to any civilization that is to stand or forge ahead, and that it is both their right and duty to criticize their government.

In the final analysis, I concur with President Theodore Roosevelt who said, “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country.”

Romans 13 is usually used to support Nationalism: blind patriotism rather than upholding True Patriotism which allows for the right to dissent from and critique government positions.

Sex Scandals Not Limited To The Roman Catholic Church Alone

2010-03-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

Sex scandals have rocked Protestant churches as well. Sin and "satanic" influence are all over the board. Here are some Protestant sex scandals:

This one comes from my local paper:

A Leland pastor facing child sex charges recently sent a friend request to his alleged victim on the online social networking site Facebook.

There have been at least 260 Protestant sex abuse cases a year:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members.

The figures released to The Associated Press offer a glimpse into what has long been an extremely difficult phenomenon to pin down — the frequency of sex abuse in Protestant congregations.

Religious groups and victims' supporters have been keenly interested in the figure ever since the Roman Catholic sex abuse crisis hit five years ago. The church has revealed that there have been 13,000 credible accusations against Catholic clerics since 1950.

Protestant numbers have been harder to come by and are sketchier because the denominations are less centralized than the Catholic church; indeed, many congregations are independent, which makes reporting even more difficult.

Here is a link to Lutheran sex crimes: http://www.reformation.com/CSA/lutheranabuse.html.

Sex crimes in the SBC and other Protestant churches:

there is an important story here, one linked to clergy sexual abuse — in Protestantism. To be specific, there are important reasons that it has been hard for activists to gain much traction trying to bring more attention — justifiable attention — to the subject of clergy sexual abuse among Southern Baptists and other free-church denominations.

The problem is real. And there are also very real legal problems facing those who want to clean the situation up, complications that are different from those facing, for example, Roman Catholic reformers. I have been interested in this topic for some time and here is a piece of a Scripps Howard column from five years ago:

“The incidence of sexual abuse by clergy has reached ‘horrific proportions,’ ” according to a 2000 report to the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It noted that studies conducted in the 1980s found that about 12 percent of ministers had “engaged in sexual intercourse with members” and nearly 40 percent had “acknowledged sexually inappropriate behavior.”

Sadly, this report added: “Recent surveys by religious journals and research institutes support these figures. The disturbing aspect of all research is that the rate of incidence for clergy exceeds the client-professional rate for both physicians and psychologists.”

So why is it hard for reformers to attack this problem? Why can’t Southern Baptist authorities crack down?

Ah, there’s the problem. In a free-church movement — one with no bishops, no authoritative central structure — the local congregations are pretty much on their own when it comes to this kind of work. Let’s go back to that Scripps piece:

Where does the buck stop, when sexual abuse hits Protestant pulpits? The Southern Baptist resolution calls on local churches to discipline sex offenders. Yet the most powerful person in modern Protestantism is a successful pastor whose preaching and people skills keep packing people into the pews. Can his own church board truly investigate and discipline that pastor?

Once that question is asked, others quickly follow. If the board of deacons in a Southern Baptist congregation faced an in-house sex scandal and wanted help, where could it turn? It could seek help from its competition, the circle of churches in its local association. Or it could appeal to its state convention. In some states, “conservative” and “moderate” churches would need to choose between competing conventions linked to these rival Baptist camps. Or could a church appeal for help from the boards and agencies of the 16-million-member national convention?

Everything depends on that local church and everything is voluntary. One more question: What Baptist leader would dare face the liability issues involved in guiding such a process? … Some state conventions might have the staff and know how to create a data bank of information of clergy sexual abuse. But for Baptist leaders to do so, they would risk clashing with their tradition’s total commitment to the freedom and the autonomy of the local congregation.

Do you see the point? For lawyers, the goal is to find a structure to sue, yet in the free-church way of doing things, there often is no structure larger than the local church or there are real questions about the authority and clout of the larger regional or national structures.

Everything is voluntary. There is no there, there. Things get even more complicated in the rapidly growing world of totally independent megachurches, both evangelical, Pentecostal and Fundamentalist.

There are activists working on all of this, including a Southern Baptist branch of the SNAP network that has received so much coverage in the Catholic crisis. Also, Southern Baptist journalists have also taken on the topic and you can pay attention to the ongoing coverage of this issue at the EthicsDaily.com site. Check it out.

This is an important — although frustrating — story worthy of more coverage. Let us see if you see stories worth passing along.

Needless to say the list goes on---which is why we need to be careful on the issue of sex abuse and seek to implement tighter restraints towards safety and accountability within churches and denominations.

Satan In The RCC The Vatican's Chief Exorcist Says

2010-03-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

The Chief Exorcist of The Vatican says that Satan is in the Vatican. David Knowles reports:

(March 10) -- The Rev. Gabriele Amorth, the man who has served as the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years, says the signs are there: The devil has infiltrated St. Peter's.

Specifically, Amorth cites recent sexual abuse and pedophilia scandals as well as what he deems a cover-up in the shooting deaths of two of the Vatican's Swiss Guards and one of the guard's wives as proof that the Catholic Church's most famous site is less than pure.

"When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' in the holy rooms, it is all true -- including these latest stories of violence and pedophilia," Amorth was cited as saying by The Times of London. The smoke of Satan references a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI.

The Vatican, according to Amorth, was also home to "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon."

Many of Amorth's claims are made in a new autobiography, titled "Memoirs of an Exorcist."

Giulio Napolitano, AFP / Getty Images
Rev. Gabriele Amorth, who served as the Catholic Church's chief exorcist for 25 years, claims the devil has infiltrated the Vatican.

(Read on: Here).

See also: http://neoorthodoxology.blogspot.com/2010/03/great-catholic-cover-up.html. Anyways Amorth's new book looks like it will be an interesting read. The whole concept of "demonic possession" and the Rite of Exorcism is one that both fascinates and terrifies people at the same time so on that account Amorth's book shall prove interesting---but on the other hand his book is nothing new on the subject of "satanic infiltration" of the Vatican as others (Fundamentalist Protestants excluded as they are obvious in their views) have been making similar claims over the years.

Malachi Martin was one such person and William H. Kennedy (one of Malachi Martin's friends) is another. Most of their concerns are with individual Catholics involvement with Freemasonry given the Vatican's strict anti-Masonry stance. Accusations of involvement in Freemasonry not only include lay Catholics but run all the way from the top to the bottom even including those within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church---infiltrating even the Vatican itself.

There are also concerns that actual "Satanists" have infiltrated the Vatican and that many Catholics have allegedly participated in "Satanic Black Masses" whether a High or Low "Black Mass." Jay Nelson notes:

A most telling clue that seems to confirm this comes from a journalistic peek through the crack between the basilica’s doors. The following is excerpted from a book called Pontiff, a colorful insider’s view of the Vatican from the last days of Paul VI through the assassination attempt on John Paul II. This scene deals with the Pope’s daily paperwork in July, 1978.

Much of the work near the bottom of the tray requires no more than careful reading and initialing. The Apostolic Penitentiary handles complex problems of conscience:... It also advises the penalties a pope may impose for such a dire crime as a priest saying a black mass. Every year there are a number of such cases; they frighten Paul more than anything else. He regards them as proof the devil is alive and well and hiding inside the Church. Cardinal Giuseppe Paupini [the Major Penitentiary]... is the Vatican’s resident expert on sorcery of all kinds. His work is adjudged so important and urgent that he will be the only cardinal allowed during the next Conclave to remain in contact with his office.[9] (Emphasis added.)

This has some very interesting and horrible implications. At the very least it should be rather disconcerting that the Pope, as part of his day-to-day job, is far more aware of the extent of true evil “hiding inside” the Church than even the most cynical outsiders can even imagine, and takes it very seriously.

Since John Paul II has retained such arrangements for the conclave after him, then it seems that it was no co-incidence that Paul’s point man on clerical black magic was the chief pardoner of the Church. It makes sense that the Major Penitentiary would merit such consideration only if the papacy takes the threat of wicked clergy most seriously indeed and believes constant vigilance and total secrecy are necessary. One may further infer from the language used in the anecdote that this is not a new situation at all, and that such “dire crimes” seem to have grown throughout Paul’s pontificate, at least.

Perhaps it is easy to read too much into all this. But if the current clergy sexual abuse crisis has revealed anything about the Roman Catholic Church, it’s that the hierarchy can and will go to great lengths to hide its dirty laundry. It has millennia of experience, and it just may be covering up even more monstrous secrets than anything revealed so far.

Issues of alleged "Satanism" in the Vatican aren't limited to the sex scandals but involve even more bizarre and far sinister abuse: human sacrifices to "the devil." Most of this stuff sounds like the pure scare tactics cooked up by "hellfire and brimstone" Fundamentalists in the 70's and 80's to scare kids away from certain books, toys, games, people, etc. and to scare them into a relationship with Christ albeit an unhealthy one. However there have been cases of "ritualistic" slayings within the RCC. One such case is that of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl who:

was strangled, then stabbed up to 32 times April 5, 1980, in what has been described as a ritualistic slaying in the sacristy of a chapel in the former Mercy Hospital.

Mark Reiter further reports that:

An unidentified woman claims she was the victim of bizarre demonizing ceremonies conducted by the Rev. Gerald Robinson and other clergy nearly 40 years ago in the basement of St. Adalbert Parish on Warsaw Street.
............
She also claims that she identified Mr. Mazuchowski as an alleged abuser after seeing his photograph as part of an article that was published in The Blade on Feb. 20 that reported on the murder investigation and ritual abuse ceremonies involving church clergy.

Mr. Davis said the newspaper report in which Mr. Mazuchowski's admitted his involvement with the group know as Sisters of Assumed Mary, or SAM, stirred memories of conversations in which she recalled her abusers using names of women.

The woman said the abuse included chanting of Satanic verses, cutting her with a knife as a sacrifice to Satan, drawing an upside-down cross on her abdomen, and forcing her to drink the blood of sacrificed animals, such as a rabbit.

She said the men dressed in nun's clothing and performed the rituals while she was on a table. They restrained her if she tried to leave.

In addition to being raped and molested, the woman also alleges that she was forced to perform sexual acts on the men.

She said the abuse escalated dramatically as the sessions continued ,to the point of including putting lighted matches to her feet and the corner of her eyes.

She said the abuse took place in the basement of the church until 1972 when it was moved to an undisclosed wooded area.

Other concerns of the mostly Traditionalist Roman Catholic critics of the Vatican include: the Banda della Magliana and Mafia influence within the Vatican, the Banco Ambrosiano scandal, the mysterious disappearances of Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregori, Propaganda Due, the Swiss Guard Murders and the "mysterious" death of Pope John Paul I among other sordid affairs.

See http://www.renegadecatholic.com/blog/2010/03/06/picture-this/ as well and A Dark History: The Popes: Vice, Murder, and Corruption in the Vatican for further insights into some of the darker chapters of Papal history.

Biblical Inerrancy: From the Bible, or the Enlightenment?

2010-03-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Aaron Rathburn has an interesting post (dated March 14, 2009) on biblical inerrancy and it's connection to the Enlightenment. Here's a quote from that post:

What if a supremely powerful God wanted to reveal himself with a text? Can we give him the freedom to do it how he wants, and not have to bend to our expectations? I mean, he’s the god, not us—right?

If you are expecting the Bible to be a a propositional-style manual of ethics, then it is wildly and completely errant. But similarly, if you are expecting a science textbook, it is wildly errant. If you are expecting it to be a 21st-century history book, it is wildly errant. But is God capable of using human mistakes for his divine purposes? I would say absolutely.

The Bible is perfect, but it is perfect for God’s will and purposes, according to his standards and expectations—not our preconceived notions of how it “should” be. I can’t help but hear the echo of Paul—who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “why have you made our Bible like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay? (Rom 9)

The Bible is not the 4th-member of the Trinity, and the Bible didn’t climb up on the cross and die for our sins. But it is his text that he has used to reveal himself to us—and we should take it very, very seriously, as the fully inspired, fully divine, authoritative and infallible word of God.

I agree with Aaron that the scriptures are very important but only as they point to Christ. However, I'm more partial to ScottL's comment on Aaron's post:

Unfortunately, I feel that, due to the influence of the Enlightenment, scholars and most Christians alike have now tried to push onto the Bible a 20th/21st century idea of accuracy and inerrancy. ‘Inerrancy’ seems to be a word that has only come about in the last 100+ years.

Therefore, coming to the Gospels, we see contradictory passages where there were either one (Matt 28:2) or two (John 20:12) angels at the tomb of Jesus’ resurrection. Some (more liberal) see this and claim the Bible as ‘inaccurate’. Some (more conservative) see this and therefore think of all sorts of explanations so the Scripture can maintain its status of inerrancy. But I can’t see this being a problem in the days that the Scripture was being recorded. But for us westerners who love our empirically based ‘inerrant’ evidence, it becomes a problem.

The Scripture was first and foremost recorded as the story of God’s redemptive acts, summed up in Jesus Christ. To that, I believe it is completely faithful and that God has communicated faithfully through these human authors, though there might be a handful of places which seem contradictory from the perspective of our day and age, but were of no consequence in the day when the Scripture was being recorded.

I’m glad the Scripture authors weren’t dictated to as their eyes rolled back in their sockets and they foamed at their mouths. I am so glad God delights in the personality, historical and cultural context of those to whom and through whom He communicates.

Both are excellent quotes all the same.

Vatican denies celibacy rule led to sex scandal

2010-03-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Nicole Winfield reports:

VATICAN CITY -The Vatican on Sunday denied that its celibacy requirement for priests was the root cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the church in Europe and again defended the pope's handling of the crisis.
Suggestions that the celibacy rule was in part responsible for the "deviant behavior" of sexually abusive priests have swirled in recent days, with opinion pieces in German newspapers blaming it for fueling abuse and even Italian commentators questioning the rule.
Much of the furor was spurred by comments from one of the pope's closest advisers, Vienna archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who called this week for an honest examination of issues like celibacy and priestly education to root out the origins of sex abuse.
"Part of it is the question of celibacy, as well as the subject of character development. And part of it is a large portion of honesty, in the church but also in society," he wrote in the online edition of his diocesan newsletter.

(Read on: Here).

I agree in part with the Vatican that celibacy in and of itself isn't the cause of all the sex scandals within the Roman Catholic Church but it is most likely one of several factors involved. Eventually it would behoove the Vatican to reform it's "celibacy rule" for Priests---but I wouldn't hold my breath just yet.

Homegrown Terrorism

2010-03-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Another "Jihad Jane" found:

(Mar. 14) -- The mother of a second American woman arrested in a terror probe says she's worried her daughter is raising her 6-year-old son on the tenets of terrorism.

Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, a nursing student from Colorado, was arrested in Ireland on Tuesday in connection to an alleged plot to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, her mother told The Associated Press. Her arrest came days after news hit that a Pennsylvania woman, Colleen LaRose, (nicknamed 'Jihad Jane,') was indicted in Philadelphia on a plot to recruit terrorists and commit murder in Sweden.

Irish officials said Saturday that they had released an American woman and three others arrested in the alleged plot, but would not confirm if Paulin-Ramirez was among those released.

Her mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott, is heartbroken and worried about Paulin-Ramirez's son, Christian, who she says is being exposed to her daughter's radical Islamic values.

"He said that Christians will burn in hellfire," Holcomb-Mott told The New York Post of a phone conversation with her grandson. "That's what they are teaching this baby."

Read the rest: Here.

Romans 13 And Civil Religion

2010-03-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

I'll return to the main points of my Romans 13 series soon which I hope to cap off with Romans 13 In Baptist Thought: A Call for Separation of Church and State which is what all these posts lead up to. The past 2 posts on Thomas Jefferson that I posted are related to issues with Romans 13 in some sense. I have a few other short posts dealing with issues with Romans 13 and other things before returning to my Post Series Proper. Thanks to a tip from Dr. McGrath, I'll post next in my Post Series Proper on Romans 13 and The Communists in Romania before posting on Romans 13 and the Religious Right and Left and then finally ending the series off with Romans 13 In Baptist Thought: A Call for Separation of Church and State.

Anyways here's a quote from Bruce Prescott's latest post on Civil Religion---Mainstream Baptist: Make Up Your Mind Al Mohler (revised):

Al Mohler has posted a blog praising the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for affirming the constitutionality of using the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and "In God We Trust" on our coinage. He writes,
This decision is good news, and comes as something of a relief -- especially considering the fact that the Ninth Circuit is involved. There is no substance to the claim that these two phrases violate the Constitution. Furthermore, they represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to such questions. This kind of language pervades official discourse - extending even to the phrase "the year of our Lord" in the dating of many government documents.

Mohler then notes that the court determined that the phrases have "no theological significance:"
The court has ruled, in effect, that the language of these contested phrases represents what is rightly called "civil religion." In essence, civil religion is the mass religion that serves the purposes of the state and the culture as a unifying force -- a rather bland and diffused religiosity -- an innocuous theology with little specificity.

Christians must never confuse civil religion with the real thing. When our fellow citizens recite the pledge, it is not to be taken as a statement of personal faith in God. In that sense, Christians are rightly concerned that we make clear what authentic faith in God requires and means. Confusing civil religion with Christianity is deadly dangerous.

On the other hand, Christians are well aware of the constant danger of idolatry, and no entity rivals a powerful government in terms of the idolatrous temptation. In that sense, it is healthy and good that we employ language that relativizes the power and authority of the state. It is both important and healthy that our motto places trust in God, and not in the state. And the knowledge that the nation exists "under God" is no small matter.
Mohler is obviously obfuscating here. Civil religion is deadly and dangerous. Civil religion fashions a god that is subservient to the State and uses religion to bolster an idolatrous form of nationalism. Mohler clearly perceives that this is what the Supreme Court has done in this ruling, yet he praises it as "good news."

This decision is not good news, it is bad news for people of genuine faith and conviction. It makes Christians not only complicit but active promoters of a sin for which God warns he will not hold us guiltless.

Only a false prophet eager to accomodate the itching ears of an idolatrous people could find anthing commendable in news that one of the highest courts in the land has officially declared that the name of God has no theological meaning.

The 9th Circuit, following the U.S. Supreme Court, has legalized what the third command of the Ten Commandments expressly prohibits: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

This relates to Romans 13 as Romans 13 is often used to support Civil Religion.

Ronald Reagan, Phyllis Schlafly And The NRA More Important Than Thomas Jefferson?

2010-03-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

The ongoing "textbook wars" and the battle for the precept of Separation of Church and State in Texas and elsewhere rages on. A commentator on the blog The Moderate Voice left the following comment:

NotFullyBaked 1 day ago

Interesting that when reading the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEK) themselves, they do not seem all that radical--this coming from someone whose politics have described as "somewhere to the left of Mao. See: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sboe/e_attachment...

To fully understand the changes, I think one would need to compare and contrast the Old TEKS with the New TEKS. But with just the New TEKS to scan, I have two comments:

1. I never knew that Ronald Reagan was such an important HISTORICAL figure, and

2. What is Celebrate Freedom Week, anyway, and why does it occupy such an important place in Texas Schools' History curriculum? (Or, did I miss the establishment of Celebrate Freedom Week as the most important event of the school year?)

Oy.

Politics Daily weighs in with the following information:

In a matter of days last week in Austin, the majority of the 15-member board, insisting they were only trying to offset liberal bias in textbooks, questioned Darwin's theory of evolution and the constitutional principle of separation of church and state; debated hip-hop and genocide in Darfur; deleted Albert Einstein and Thomas Alva Edison from textbooks; emphasized Christian teachings and fundamentalist values; adopted conservative articles of faith like American exceptionalism; promoted right-wing leaders and organizations like Phyllis Schlafly and the National Rifle Association; and refused to give adequate attention to Hispanic and African American contributions to U.S. and Texas history.

To no one's surprise, on the final round on Friday, the conservatives pulled a decisive victory, 10-5 -- a tally that broke along predictable party lines, Republicans to the right, Democrats to the left. Ethnic minority members stood on the losing side. According to published reports, no experts on the social sciences were consulted. Given the conservative cast of the board, whose members are elected, the changes it has proposed will stand when the final vote is taken in May.

Leaving the meeting, a Democratic board member, Mavis Knight, of Dallas, was fulminating, saying, she could not be a party to "perpetrating this fraud on the students of this state." It was not a pretty sight. The board will surely become, or has already become, the butt of jokes on late-night shows and "Saturday Night Live."

But this is not a local squabble or a local issue. It's not a colorful shoot 'em up in the Texas corral. It so happens that the Texas board is perhaps the most influential in the country. Its guidelines will affect not only the 4.7 million Texas public school students but will likely spread to many other states, from kindergarten to 12th grade for the next 10 years. Texas textbook standards are usually adopted by publishers because the state will buy 48 million of them every year, and many other states -- 47 by some counts -- will follow that model. In light of those figures, publishers will happily take their cue from the Lone Star State.

All in all, it has been a turbulent few weeks for public education in America.

Texas Schools Vote To Remove Thomas Jefferson

2010-03-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

Recently the Texas Board of Education voted on a 10-5 margin to remove Thomas Jefferson from their school curriculum or at least demote him:

Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education.

The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers.

Critics of the Board's decision aka Texas Freedom Network note that the Board is replacing Jefferson with religious figures:

According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of Education, the original curriculum asked students to "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present."

That emphasis did not sit well with board member Cynthia Dunbar, who, during Friday's meeting, explained the rationale for changing it. "The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based," Dunbar said.

The new standard, passed at the meeting in a 10-5 vote, now reads, "Explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone."

By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase "separation between church and state."

One wonders if the Fundamentalist anti-Separation of Church and State activist and known Texas Board of Education member David Barton had anything to do with this decision. Barton is known for trying to reinvent American history as being solely the product of "Christian" values. On his site Barton promises to present: "America's forgotten history and heroes with an emphasis on our moral, religious and constitutional heritage." Barton's known historical revisionism has gone as far as calling the Separation of Church and State in America "a myth" much like other Fundamentalists do. He is on record as saying that Thomas Jefferson meant the "wall of separation" concept to be "one directional:"

On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote to that group of Danbury Baptists, and in this letter, he assured them—he said the First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, he said, but that wall is a one-directional wall. It keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government

Anyone who values Religious Liberty and Separation of Church and State not only as Baptist distinctives but as true American values should be appalled by Barton and the Texas Board of Education's antics---not just for Texas' sake but for the sake of the whole of America as Barton's influence extends beyond Texas:

The battle in Texas may be tougher. The State Board of Education is stacked with a vocal cohort of far-right, fundamentalist activists. Fresh from a bruising battle over what to teach about evolution in science class, the board now has social studies and history right in its crosshairs.

The outcome of the battle may reverberate around the country.

“Texas is the second largest purchaser of school textbooks in the country,” Miller told Church & State. “So to avoid spending money on multiple editions, publishers often write their textbooks to meet Texas curriculum standards and then sell those textbooks in other states.”

Barton is also busy trying to slip his perspective into public schools in other ways. He is active in the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, a North Carolina group that works to persuade public schools to adopt a fundamentalist-oriented Bible curriculum under the guise of teaching “about” religion. Barton serves on the organization’s advisory board, alongside several other Religious Right figures.

But Barton hasn’t stopped with phony history. He’s increasingly branching out, working to draft churches into right-wing political machines and brazenly asserting that government must be infused with “biblical” principles. Along the way, Barton has made common cause with some extreme elements of the Religious Right.

Barton’s ongoing crusade to recruit clergy into partisan politics is often under the radar. In 2004, the Republican National Committee sent him to evangelical churches around the country in what was described as a “get-out-the-vote” effort.

David Knowles and USA Today also note:

(During the Jefferson voting scandal) the (Texas Board of Education) also voted to strike the word "democratic" from references to the U.S. form of government, replacing it with the term "constitutional republic." Texas textbooks will contain references to "laws of nature and nature's God" in passages that discuss major political ideas.

The board decided to use the words "free enterprise" when describing the U.S. economic system rather than words such as "capitalism," "capitalist" and "free market," which it deemed to have a negative connotation.

Serving 4.7 million students, Texas accounts for a large percentage of the textbook market, and the new standards may influence what is taught in the rest of the country.

Other critics of the Board's decision have written open letters to them and I suggest you do the same if you value America's Religious Freedom.

Hitler And The Nazis' Use Of Romans 13 Against The Confessing Church

2010-03-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

Romans 13:1-7 (ESV)

[1] Let every person be subject to the Hitler. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. [2] Therefore whoever resists Hitler resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. [3] For Hitler is not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of Hitler? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, [4] for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. [5] Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. [6] For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. [7] Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Thanks to Pastor I. Todyaso for pointing this version of Romans 13 out.

Hitler and the Nazis indeed abused the text of Romans 13 in the same way that the Afrikaner Calvinists in South Africa did. Hitler commanded blind submission and unquestioning Absolute obedience to him and Nazi policies. In this way likewise the Church and State became unseparated as such:

Hitler, the democratically elected ruler of Germany from 1933 to 1945, commanded both Catholic and Protestant Christian leaders to preach ‘unconditional subjugation’ to Hitler under the pretence of the Holy Bible - specifically, the Book of Romans, Chapter 13. When Hitler’s aim was to disarm Germany's citizenry, Christian leadership obediently mollified their congregations with Romans 13. When Hitler’s aim was to abduct dissidents in the dark quite of the night without due process - Romans 13. When the burning flesh of her lawful neighbors manufactured the air unbreathable - Romans 13. Etc.

National Socialism in Germany developed much in the same way as Afrikaner Calvinism did as Nazism was mainly a stream of Social Calvinism mixed with racism, nationalism, theocracy and separatism though there were other things mixed in that formed Nazism as well such as a syncretic mixture of Christian religion, the Occult and Paganism. Nazi Christianity was truly a corrupt and perverted version of True Christianity as it was a civil religion rather than a Christ-centered relationship focused on the righteousness of God in Christ and the obedience to Christ's command for justice for all.

It should be noted here that the Fundamentalist pastor John MacArthur teaches the literalist interpretation of Romans 13:

“Now listen to this. It doesn’t matter whether your ruler is Caesar, Herod, Pilate, Felix, Fetus, Agrippa, Stalin, Hitler, Winston Churchill, Bill Clinton, it doesn’t matter who it is, he says be subject, you teach them to be subject.” — John MacArthur.

And this was exactly the attitude in Germany at first---people were unwilling to criticize/debate the Nazi regime publicly possibly out of fear for their lives; fear for the safety of their families; fear for their future; fear on numerous levels but mainly because the Nazis weren't after them. The Nazis protected the interests of the Status Quo. Gradually within this stifling political climate a reactionary movement within the Church began to spring up known as the Confessing Church led by Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer and many others who followed the Reformed tradition of resisting the State began to speak out against Nazism and Hitler. They also wrote and distibuted anti-Nazi propaganda such as the Barmen Declaration and after the war, the Stuttgart Declaration Of Guilt and also, the Darmstadt Statement.

Martin Niemoller a former Hitler supporter who became another leading figure of the Confessing Church summarized his change of heart in this famous poem:

“They came first for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

- Reverend Martin Niemoller, Lutheran Pastor arrested by the Gestapo in 1937

Hitler tried to quell the Confessing Church's dissent by misusing the Romans 13 passage of course:

The Nazi government led by Hitler used Romans 13:1 against the resistance movements in the German church. Nazi leaders argued that since Hitler was duly elected, opposing him was opposing God's instituted authority. Faithful opposition countered by saying blind allegiance to Hitler was idolatrous and that what he proposed and lived out clearly opposed Scripture: "We must obey God rather than any human authority" (Acts 5:29)...

Romans 13:1 in its proper context says government is to uphold good (godly) behavior and punish bad (13:3). We're to honor this authority, but there are limits beyond which we will not go. This cost many in Germany their lives! - link

However to no avail because for Barth and the Confessing Church not only was Jesus the one and only True Lord for Christians/God the only True King but the Church was neither under nor over the State---but set apart for a Higher Calling which included being a critic of the Status Quo of the State. The Barmen Declaration highlights their points with these statements:

8.10 - 1. "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me." (John 14.6). "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. . . . I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved." (John 10:1, 9.)
8.11 Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.
8.12 We reiect the false doctrine, as though the church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths, as God's revelation.

8.13 - 2. "Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30.)
8.14 As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so, in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God's mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures.
8.15 We reiect the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords--areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.

8.16 - 3. "Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body [is] joined and knit together." (Eph. 4:15,16.)
8.17 The Christian Church is the congregation of the brethren in which Jesus Christ acts presently as the Lord in Word and sacrament through the Holy Spirit. As the Church of pardoned sinners, it has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.
8.18 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.

8.19 - 4. "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men excercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your srvant." (Matt. 20:25,26.)
8.20 The various offices in the Church do not establish a dominion of some over the others; on the contrary, they are for the excercise of the ministry entrusted to and enjoined upon the whole congregation.
8.21 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, apart from this ministry, could and were permitted to give itself, or allow to be given to it, special leaders vested with ruling powers.

8.22 - 5. "Fear God. Honor the emperor." (1 Peter 2:17.)
Scripture tells us that, in the as yet unredeemed world in which the Church also exists, the State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace. [It fulfills this task] by means of the threat and exercise of force, according to the measure of human judgment and human ability. The Church acknowledges the benefit of this divine appointment in gratitude and reverence before him. It calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God's commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word by which God upholds all things.
8.23 We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commision, should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church's vocation as well.
8.24 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.

8.25 - 6. "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Matt. 28:20.) "The word of God is not fettered." (2 Tim. 2:9.)
8.26 The Church's commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of th free grace of God to all people in Christ's stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and work through sermon and sacrament.
8.27 We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church in human arrogance could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of any arbitrarily chosen desires, purposes, and plans.
8.28 The Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church declares that it sees in the acknowledgment of these truths and in the rejection of these errors the indispensable theological basis of the German Evangelical Church as a federation of Confessional Churches. It invites all who are able to accept its declaration to be mindful of these theological principles in their decisions in Church politics. It entreats all whom it concerns to return to the unity of faith, love, and hope.

I'll leave you with one more video on the Confessing Church:

Next I'll post on Romans 13 and the Religious Right...

Romans 13, Afrikaner Calvinism And The Kairos Document

2010-03-11T22:43:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read all about my blogging woes read this first: TheoPoetic Musings: Stupid Blogger Messed Up My Post::John Calvin's View Of Romans 13 In Libertarian, Neo-Orthodox And Baptist Thought Part 1.

It's irritating because my mild cerebral palsy makes it hard enough just to type everything out though I manage---let alone the time it takes to look everything up. Typing with tremors makes my arms get tired easily so I get worn out just by the very act of typing---but here I blog I cannot do otherwise. Anyways recouping my loss I decided to go in a different direction and re-post the main ideas of my former two posts as several sections of short and brief posts as to make sure all the information gets posted this time---even if the exact wording and flow has changed this go round.

Moving on to my Post Proper:

Afrikaner Calvinism is, according to theory, a unique cultural development that combined the Calvinist religion with the political aspirations of the white Afrikaans speaking people of South Africa.

Though there were theological aspects of Afrikaner Calvinism, it was mainly a stream of Social Calvinism mixed with racism, nationalism, theocracy and separatism. The political climate in which these ideas arose was the product of an unseparated Church and State. These views led these so-called Christians to accept the unChristian position of Apartheid much like Southern Baptists in the US supported slavery.

So that's one grouping of Christians in South Africa during the time of Apartheid who had a very Theocratic understanding of Romans 13 as they literally believed that God ordained their racism---God had ordained Apartheid. On the one hand you had the Afrikaner Calvinists who used Calvinism to their own glory and as a means to their own ends contrary to Calvin's views. Let it be noted now that Calvinism as one movement in the whole of Christian tradition in it's truest sense is about glorifying God and following Christ not humanity as is the whole of Christianity. So if Christ God's Word in the Scriptures is attested to being God's Love for us---how can God ordain nationalistic racism? Is hatred and theo-political divisionism truly of God? Can a State built on separatism and racism let alone any government be Christian in any sense of the word?

On the other hand you had a very different grouping of Christians---a group of predominantly black South African theologians of different traditions within the whole of Christian tradition who came together to answer these questions. Utilizing the Reformed tradition of resisting the State and a different understanding of Romans 13---their answer is summarized in The Kairos Document:

The Kairos Document (KD) is a theological statement issued in 1985 by a group of black South African theologians based predominantly in the black townships of Soweto, South Africa. The statement challenged the churches' response to what the authors saw as the vicious policies of the Apartheid state under the State of Emergency declared on 21 July 1985. The KD evoked strong reactions and furious debates not only in South Africa, but world-wide.

The KD is a prime example of contextual theology and liberation theology in South Africa, and has served as an example for attempted, similarly critical writing at decisive moments in several other countries and contexts (Latin America, Europe, Zimbabwe, India, etc.).

One of the main points of The Kairos Document relates directly to Romans 13 as summarized here:

Chapter Two: Critique of State Theology
'State theology' is defined as, "the theological justification of the status quo with its racism, capitalism and totalitarianism... It does [this] by misusing theological concepts and biblical texts for its own political purposes" (p. 3). The government, as well as parts of the church, are accused of using state theology. Four examples are discussed.

[edit] Romans 13:1-7
"'State Theology' assumes that in this text Paul is presenting us with the absolute and definitive Christian doctrine about the State ... and absolute and universal principle ... The falseness of this assumption has been pointed out by many biblical scholars" (p. 4). Reference is made to Käsemann's Commentary on Romans, as well as Cullmann's The State in the New Testament.

The KD authors insist that texts must be understood in their context: within a particular writing (here: Romans); within the Bible as a whole; and within the particular historical context (here: Paul and the community in Rome). Note that, "In the rest of the Bible, God does not demand obedience to oppressive rulers ... Rom 13:1-7 cannot contradict all of this" (p. 4).

The letter known as the Biblical book Romans was sent to an early Christian community in Rome that could be characterized as 'antinomian' or 'enthusiast.' Roman Christians thought that "because Jesus ... was their Lord and King," every authority should be obeyed. Paul was arguing against such an understanding; that is, he is "not addressing the issue of a just or unjust State." Attention is drawn to Rom 13:4 ("the State is there for your benefit"): "That is the kind of State that must be obeyed." The question of an unjust government is not addressed in Rom 13 but, for example, in Revelation 13 (p. 5).

The full statement is worded as such:

2.1 Romans 13:1-7

The misuse of this famous text is not confined to the present government in South Africa. Throughout the history of Christianity totalitarian regimes have tried to legitimize an attitude of blind obedience and absolute servility towards the state by quoting this text. The well-known theologian Oscar Cullman, pointed this out thirty years ago:

As soon as Christians, out of loyalty to the gospel of Jesus, offer resistance to a State's totalitarian claim, the representatives of the State or their collaborationist theological advisers are accustomed to appeal to this saying of Paul, as if Christians are here commended to endorse and thus to abet all the crimes of a totalitarian State. ( The State in the New Testament, SCM 1957 p 56.)

But what then is the meaning of Rom 13:1-7 and why is the use made of it by 'State Theology' unjustifiable from a biblical point of view?

'State Theology' assumes that in this text Paul is presenting us with the absolute and definitive Christian doctrine about the State, in other words an absolute and universal principle that is equally valid for all times and in all circumstances. The falseness of this assumption has been pointed out by numerous biblical scholars (see, for example, E Kasemann, Commentary on Romans, SCM, p 354-7; 0 Cullmann, The State in the New Testament, SCM, p 55-7).

What has been overlooked here is one of the most fundamental of all principles of biblical interpretation: every text must be interpreted in its context. To abstract a text from its context and to interpret it in the abstract is to distort the meaning of God's Word. Moreover the context here is not only the chapters and verses that precede and succeed this particular text nor is it even limited to the total context of the Bible. The context includes also the circumstances in which Paul's statement was made. Paul was writing to a particular Christian community in Rome, a community that had its own particular problems in relation to the State at that time and in those circumstances. That is part of the context of our text.

Many authors have drawn attention to the fact that in the rest of the Bible God does not demand obedience to oppressive rulers. Examples can be given ranging from Pharaoh to Pilate and through into Apostolic times. The Jews and later the Christians did not believe that their imperial overlords, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks or the Romans, had some kind of divine right to rule them and oppress them. These empires were the beasts described in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelations. God allowed them to rule for a while but he did not approve of what they did. It was not God's will. His will was the freedom and liberation of Israel. Rom 13:1-7 cannot be contradicting all of this.

But most revealing of all is the circumstances of the Roman Christians to whom Paul was writing. They were not revolutionaries. They were not trying to overthrow the State. They were not calling for a change of government. They were, what has been called, 'antinomians' or 'enthusiasts' and their belief was that Christians, and only Christians, were exonerated from obeying any State at all, any government or political authority at all, because Jesus alone was their Lord and King. This is of course heretical and Paul is compelled to point out to these Christians that before the second coming of Christ there will always be some kind of State, some kind of secular government and that Christians are not exonerated from subjection to some kind of political authority.

Paul is simply not addressing the issue of a just or unjust State or the need to change one government for another. He is simply establishing the fact that there will be some kind of secular authority and that Christians as such are not exonerated from subjection to secular laws and authorities. He does not say anything at all about what they should do when the State becomes unjust and oppressive. That is another question.

Consequently those who try to find answers to the very different questions and problems of our time in the text of Rom 13:1-7 are doing a great disservice to Paul. The use that 'State Theology' makes of this text tells us more about the political options of 'those who construct this theology than it does about the meaning of God's Word in this text. As one biblical scholar puts it: "The primary concern is to justify the interests of the State and the text is pressed into its service without respect for the context and the intention of Paul."

If we wish to search the Bible for guidance in a situation where the State that is supposed to be "the servant of God" (Romans 13:16) betrays that calling and begins to serve Satan instead, then we can study chapter 13 of the Book of Revelations. Here the Roman State becomes the servant of the dragon (the devil) and takes on the appearance of a horrible beast. Its days are numbered because God will not permit his unfaithful servant to reign forever.

Next I'll post on Romans 13, Hitler, the Nazis and the Confessing Church...

Stupid Blogger Messed Up My Post::John Calvin's View Of Romans 13 In Libertarian, Neo-Orthodox And Baptist Thought Part 1

2010-03-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well stupid Blogger just had to mess up and waste the 3 hrs. or more of typing that I just undertook. My Dashboard clearly shows that part 1 of my 2 part post was posted to my blog:

John Calvin's View Of Romans 13 In Libertarian, Neo-Orthodox And Baptist Thought Part 1
posted by TheoPoet at TheoPoetic Musings - 13 minutes ago
Recently in my study of Romans 13 (since we talked about that verse this past Sunday) I came across this interesting article---here's an excerpt: The Calvinist Connection By Dave Kopel Liberty magazine ...

and I definitely saved my post several times but somehow Blogger decided to erase my post so since I can't remember all I posted in part 1, I went ahead and erased part 2 as I don't feel like typing everything again---besides I can't remember all that I typed in part 1. Looking up all my links would take time as well so sparing you two long posts---here is just the main part of Part 1:

The Calvinist Connection
By Dave Kopel

Liberty magazine

October 2008, pp. 27-31

Many modern libertarians assume that religion and liberty are necessarily in opposition. Many modern people in general assume that religion and revolution are opposed. At times, of course, they are, but the history of the American Revolution indicates that more care is required in making this kind of judgment.

In the American colonies, the hotbed of revolution was New England, where the people were mainly Congregationalists—descendants of the Calvinist English Puritans. The Presbyterians, a Calvinist sect which originated in Scotland, were spread all of the colonies, and the network of Presbyterian ministers provided links among them. The Congregationalist and Presbyterian ministers played an indispensible role in inciting the American Revolution.

To understand why they were so comfortable with revolution, it helps to look at the origins of Calvinist resistance theory, from its tentative beginnings with Calvin himself, to its full development a few decades later.

Born in 1509, John Calvin was a small child in France when the Reformation began. By 1541, he had been invited to take permanent refuge in Geneva, which provided a safe haven for the rest of his life. Geneva was a walled city, and constantly threatened by the Catholic Duke of Savoy and others. Pacifism was never a realistic option for Calvin, or any of the Swiss Protestants.

Calvin always believed that governments should be chosen by the people. He described the Hebrews as extremely foolish for jettisoning their free government and replacing it with a hereditary monarchy. He also came to believe that kings and princes were bound to their people by covenant, such as those that one sees in the Old Testament.

In Calvin’s view, which was based on Romans 13, the governmental duties of "inferior magistrates" (government officials, such as mayor or governors, in an intermediate level between the king and the people) required them to protect the people against oppression from above. Calvinism readily adopted the Lutheran theory of resistance by such magistrates.

In a commentary on the Book of Daniel, Calvin observed that contemporary monarchs pretend to reign “by the grace of God,” but the pretense was “a mere cheat” so that they could “reign without control.” He believed that “Earthly princes depose themselves while they rise up against God,” so “it behooves us to spit upon their heads than to obey them.”

Issues With Religion From The News

2010-03-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

"Apocalyptic" Visions cause a man to abuse his family:

PATERSON, N.J. (March 11) -- A New Jersey man with apocalyptic visions is accused of years of terrorizing his family, raping his five daughters and impregnating three, beating his children with wooden boards and even moving at one point to avoid child welfare investigators.

(Read on: Here).

This is the problem with unquestioned and blind faith though these parents exercised their religious freedom---it still makes one wonder how far one must take their religious beliefs at the expense of others' safety:

OREGON CITY, Ore. (March 8) -- The judge who sentenced an Oregon couple to prison Monday for the death of their son says members of their church must quit relying on faith healing when their children's lives are at stake.

(Read on: Here).

High School Prom canceled because of lesbian couple:

JACKSON, Miss. (March 11) -- A northern Mississippi school district will not be hosting a high school prom this spring after a lesbian student asked to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.

(Read on: Here).

Pope Silent on Uganda's 'Kill-the-Gays' Bill:

Pope Benedict XVI met with the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Uganda at the Vatican last Friday and delivered a speech summing up what he saw as the main tasks of the church in the East African nation -- but made no mention of the draconian anti-homosexuality bill that has prompted an international outcry.

(Read on: Here).

Faith-Based Program Falls Short:

(March 11) -- Why does President Barack Obama support a policy that lets a Baptist homeless shelter take tax dollars and then refuse to hire Jews, Hindus or nonbelievers to change the sheets or ladle out the morning oatmeal? Particularly when it violates a clear campaign promise.

(Read on: Here).

Catholic preschool rejects lesbian couple's child:

Boulder's GLBT community is rallying around a lesbian couple told by a Catholic school that they can't re-enroll their preschooler next year because of their relationship.

(Read more: GLBT community rallies around lesbian couple rejected from Sacred Heart of Jesus preschool in Boulder - Boulder Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_14522872#ixzz0htsSYOJb).

Baptist pastor repents of distributing an ignorant, arrogant, bigoted and unscholarly Anti-Catholic tract:

A Baptist pastor in Tennessee says he now regrets that his church distributed an anti-Catholic leaflet that a local Catholic priest decried as “hate material."

Pastor Jonathan Hatcher, who leads Conner Heights Baptist Church in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., has removed the inflammatory leaflet, “The Death Cookie,” from his congregation. He says he will no longer distribute it.

(Read on: Here).

When Does Debating Theology Become Wrong?

2010-03-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

Arminian Today asks: "When Does Debating Theology Become Wrong?"

I believe his answer to this question is great and worth a look:

So when does debating theology become wrong or sinful?
1) When I lose my zeal for Jesus and become zealous for my theological positions.
2) When I forsake evangelism for debating other believers.
3) When I isolate myself from all others because I think I'm right and everyone else is wrong (Proverbs 18:1 NKJV).
4) When I begin to view the Bible as a textbook to be studied instead of God's inspired Word meant to transform me into His image (Romans 12:1-2).
5) When I fail to be a 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 disciple especially toward those of the household of faith.
6) When I would rather read a theologian above praying and seeking God's face.
7) When the Gospel becomes synonymous with my theological positions or with my favorite Bible teacher.
8) When I begin to filtrate what I see or read by the words of a preacher or Bible teacher instead of with Scripture itself.
9) When I know more quotes by a theologian or by a book I've read than from the Bible itself.
10) When 150,000 people die each day and that doesn't break my heart because I am too busy studying my theological positions.
11) When I treat people in the world with more respect than with my own fellow disciples even with whom I disagree.

Some Thoughts On Mainline Protestantism

2010-03-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

Henry Neufeld has this interesting quote from the Wesley Report:

Mainline Protestant Christianity has become known for leaving people in slavery, because somewhere along the way, our strategy changed from leading people out of Egypt to planting churches along the Nile. And that’s why mainline denominations continue to lose members. People don’t need churches to help them stay in slavery– they can do that by themselves!

Peter Wallace also has an interesting post on Mainliners:

Mainliners, Be a Little Brutal and Divisive | RD Blog: Daniel Schultz| ReligionDispatches: "What does all the quiet good work of Mainline Liberals really come to in a public square dominated by the right?"

Al Mohler Attacks The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) [PCUSA]

2010-03-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Al Mohler notes:

"Liberal Protestantism, in its determined policy of accommodation with the secular world, has succeeded in making itself dispensable." That was the judgment of Thomas C. Reeves in The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Protestantism, published in 1996. Fast-forward another fourteen years and it becomes increasingly clear that liberal Protestantism continues its suicide -- with even greater theological accommodations to the secular worldview.

The latest evidence for this pattern is found in a report just released by The Presbyterian Panel, a research group that serves the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) [PCUSA]. The panel's report is presented as a "Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians, 2008." The report contains relatively few surprises, but it is filled with data about the beliefs of Presbyterian laypersons and clergy.
............
Back in 1994, a team of sociologists considered this phenomenon, looking particularly at the Baby Boomers in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Dean R. Hoge, Benton Johnson, and Donald A. Luidens published their findings in Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Protestant Baby Boomers. They identified the phenomenon of "lay liberalism" in the PCUSA and throughout liberal Protestantism.

As they explained, "This perspective is 'liberal' because its defining feature is a rejection of the orthodox teaching that Christianity is the only true religion. Lay liberals have a high regard for Jesus, but they do not affirm that He is God's only son and that salvation is available only through Him."

The title of their report points to the quandary of liberal Protestantism. As the boundaries between liberal Protestantism and the secular culture vanish, there is little reason for anyone to join one of these churches.

That report explained that "lay liberals who are active Presbyterians do not differ sharply in their religious views from the people who are not involved in a church but describe themselves as religious. There is, in short, no clear-cut 'faith boundary' separating active Presbyterians from those who no longer go to church." The researchers also repeated their point that the defining mark of "lay liberalism" is "the rejection of the claim that Christianity, or any other faith, is the only true religion."

This abandonment of biblical Christianity is a tragedy of the first order. Churches and denominations birthed in biblical orthodoxy have been ransacked and secularized. The crisis has migrated from the pulpits to the pews, and recovery is only a dim and distant hope.

Evangelicals should consider this tragedy with humility and theological perception. If similar trends are allowed to gain traction among evangelical churches and denominations, the same fate awaits. The larger issue here is not the continued vitality of any denomination as an end in itself, but the integrity of our witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Make no mistake -- in the end, vanishing theological boundaries will amount to vanishing Christianity. This report makes that point with devastating clarity.

Do you agree or disagree? What is this "Biblical" Christianity and what does it look like? Do men from the 1500's and 1600's get to decide what this so called "Biblical" Christianity looks like or how about the late 19th century to the early 20th century because they had an agenda---despite the fact that Christianity is much older than either of these centuries and the Christian tradition is much larger than either of these movements as well? Is Christianity a living tradition or not?

All questions aside---yes there are problems with the Moderate, Liberal and Progressive strains of Christianity as sometimes we allow too much of an equally devastating extreme. Sometimes we become just as fundamentalist as our Fundamentalist counterparts about our opposing ends. Sometimes we become so much about what we are against that we forget what we are for.

And what of the worldliness of Conservative and Fundamentalist Christianity? What about the secular ties of the Religious Right---how they are so closely aligned with the worldly and secular policies of the Republican Party? Aren't these paradigms just as equally concerning to Christians as the Moderate, Liberal and Progressive extremes? Oh how a large majority Conservative and Fundamentalist Christians love the worldly patterns of war and injustice; authority and power; greed and arrogance; theocracy and caesaropapism; slander and libel; idolatry and materialism; hate and division, etc.

What also of the worldly way in which the Fundamentalists hijacked and Talibanized the Southern Baptist Convention?

Baptists And Lent

2010-03-09T20:59:00.000-08:00

Dr. Harmon on Lent:

Can Baptists observe Lent? All Baptist congregations observe some sort of calendar in their worship. Though many Baptists may profess that they "judge all days to be alike," in reality they do "judge one day to be better than another" (Rom. 14:5), as many expect certain days and seasons of the year to be recognized in worship services. Some of these, like Christmas and Easter, are the inheritance of the patristic church. Other special dates on the calendar of a Baptist church reflect the secular calendar. If Baptists already observe a calendar without worrying that such observances are unbiblical and hinder congregational freedom, and if they have already granted pride of place in this calendar to two feasts of patristic origin, then they can observe the Christian year, including Lent.

An extreme example of the Baptist neglect of Lent is the longtime celebration by one Baptist college of the week prior to Easter Sunday as "Resurrection Week." Without the observance of Lent, and Holy Week in particular, Easter Sunday fails to keep in proper balance the Cross and the Resurrection as the two main New Testament paradigms for the Christian life. The dominant paradigm for Christian discipleship this side of heaven is "sharing in his sufferings" (Phil. 3:10). Baptists not only can but should observe Lent, because it will help them take up the cross and follow Christ in the midst of a suffering world.

Ken Silva This Video Is For You!

2010-03-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

After critiquing my friend and fellow Campbell University classmate Tripp Fuller as well as my friend John Harrison---I thought I'd send you this video, Ken:

Perhaps it may serve you well!

A Synthesis Of Luther And Barth's Trinitarian Metaphors

2010-02-23T23:36:00.000-08:00

Jack Kilcrease on Luther and Barth's Trinitarian metaphors:

Barth's metaphors have to do with seeing, Luther's with hearing. This makes sense in light of how they understand divine revelation. Barth views divine revelation as the unfolding of a single subject (God) in an act of revealing himself in time. He does this by echoing his eternal decision to be "one who loves in freedom" in the temporal narrative of Jesus. This temporal narrative is "unveiling" is further echoed in "Jesus, Bible and proclaimed Word" which echoes the Father, Son and Spirit, as "revealed, revealer, revealing." Barth's view of revelation is essentially analogical. Analogy has to do with a kind of visible similitude between things and therefore envisions human knowledge (following Aristotle) as a kind of intellectual vision.

Luther's theology works on the basis of hearing. In other words, God's agency manifests itself through the law which is present and visible through all creation. Human can observe how the world works and see what God's legal will is. They can also see this in the horrific act of judgment that God causes to take place in salvation history. Nevertheless, God promises his grace and enacts under his act of judgment and under act of weakness. The supreme one is the cross. We are told that Jesus is God and that the cross is an act of grace. Nevertheless, all we see is weakness (a weak, beaten and dying Christ) and condemnation (i.e. a symbol of Israel's sin and continuing exile). Contrary to this, we hear "surely he was the Son of God" and "today you will be with me in paradise." Consequently, revelation's hiddenness is transcended only by hearing the Word. Proper knowledge of God is set against analogical and visible knowledge of God, and placed in the realm of hearing.

Interesting stuff---I'd have to say that these two views are easily reconciled as the human experience with God's revelation of God's self has always been both visual and audible. And as we know God's fullest and final self-revelation was in Jesus Christ Himself---who was both seen and heard as the Word of God Himself. The Trinitarian implications of both of these views can be seen in these ways: Jesus Christ as the Word of God actualized, the Bible as the encounter in which we realize that Jesus Christ is the One True and Living Word of God and the Kerygmatic preaching of Jesus Christ the One True and Actual Word of God in which our Divine Election of and by God is revealed. This Election is most fully realized in the Cross and can only point to Jesus' self-sacrificial death upon the Cross. In this sense also the Word of God, God's revelation of God's self in Christ is both seen and heard as God in Christ is both the subject and object of our faith: the whole content and character of the Christian revelation.

Karl Barth also said in Credo: Volume IV of his Church Dogmatics:

It can be asserted and proved with the utmost definiteness and accuracy that the great theological-ecclesiastical catastrophe of which the German Protestantism of the moment is the arena, would have been impossible if the three words Filium eius unicum ["his only Son"] in the properly understood sense of the Nicene trinitarian doctrine had not for more than two hundred years been really lost to the German Church amongst a chaos of reinterpretations designed to make them innocuous. This catastrophe should be a real, final warning to the evangelical Churches, and, especially to the theological faculties of other lands, where, so far as trinitarian dogma is concerned, no better ways are being trodden. Christian faith stands or falls once and for all with the fact that God and God alone is its object. If one rejects the Bibhcal doctrine that Jesus Christ is God’s Son, and indeed God’s only Son, and that therefore the whole revelation of God and all reconciliaion between God and man is contained in Him—and if one then, in spite of that, speaks of ” faith ” in Jesus Christ, then one believes in an intermediate being, and then consequently one is really pursuing metaphysics and has ready secretly lapsed from the Christian faith into a polytheism which will forthwith mature into further fruits in the setting up of a special God-Father faith and a special Creator faith, and in the assertion of special spiritual revelations. The proclamation of this polytheism can most certainly be a brilliant and a pleasant affair, and can win continuous and widespread approbation. But real consolation and real instruction, the Gospel of God and the Law of God, will find a small and ever-diminishing place in this proclamation. (49-50 – emphasis mine)

And with that I close---so what are your thoughts?

Is Evolution A Type Of Election?

2010-02-23T22:49:00.000-08:00

Jack Kilcrease a Lutheran Blogger has a post that suggests that Evolution is a type of Election:

Monday, February 22, 2010
Evolution as election?

My favorite seminary prof. at Luther Seminary Steven Paulson gives a lecture to be found here:

http://gnesiolutheran.com/lectures/

(it's the one on sexuality) where he suggests that evolution is a doctrine of election. Since animals compete to see who will survive, it is a doctrine of election based on the law. I make a similar point in my upcoming article on vocation- new creation occurs like old creation, purely by grace.
Posted by Jack Kilcrease at 4:58 AM

It is an interesting view---however since there is more than one theory of evolution---I'd have to point out that the theory above is more or less the theory of natural selection rather than evolution itself. Natural selection of course is just one way of understanding the way evolution works but not the only way. There are other ways of understanding evolution but anyways what are your thoughts?

Exploring Our Matrix: Is "The Bible Alone" an Oxymoron?

2010-02-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

Exploring Our Matrix: Is "The Bible Alone" an Oxymoron?

Interesting post and interesting points. What are your thoughts? Is "the bible alone" an oxymoron? As Dr. McGrath's points out:

Doug Chaplin made [the following statement] recently (even though he called it "a cheap shot"):

“the Bible alone” doesn’t tell us which books should be in it.

Indeed the bible doesn't---in fact, the bible doesn't really have much to say about it's authors though we've deduced them for the most part. One example is the alleged "Mosaic" authorship of the Torah which isn't even supported by the Torah itself but the theory of the supposed authorship of the Torah by Moses comes to us by way of the Apocryphal Book Of Jubilees. It is clear however that Moses wrote some part of the Torah at least as some evidence suggests but the large majority of it was written by scribes through the remembrance of "Oral" tradition.

Wis. Presbytery Approves Ordination of Openly Gay Man

2010-02-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

Here is part of an article about this:

In a closed meeting, a regional body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Saturday voted to ordain a partnered homosexual. John Knox Presbytery commissioners voted 81-25 to approve the ordination of Scott D. Anderson, who set aside his ordination in 1990 when he was outed.

Anderson was ordained in the PC(USA) by the Sacramento Presbytery in 1983. He pastored Bethany Presbyterian Church for seven years until two members of the congregation publicly announced that he was gay.

In 2006, Anderson sought to be ordained again as a PC(USA) minister after the General Assembly – the denomination's highest governing body – approved an authoritative interpretation of the church constitution that would allow gay and lesbian candidates for ordination to conscientiously object the ban against partnered homosexuals. The local ordaining body would discern whether the declared objection is disqualifying.

What great news for Progressive Christians everywhere! The tides seem to be turning in the favor for full inclusion into the church of gays and lesbians for the most part. We still have obstacles to face though as John Shuck and Ken Meunier astutely point out:

The presbytery of John Knox voted that Scott's scruple was just fine with them. According to the executive presbyter of John Knox, Rev. Ken Meunier:
"Not everyone is on the same page with this issue, but a great number of people have been very impressed with Scott Anderson's gifts for ministry. I believe the vote reflects a desire of persons within the Presbytery to make room for a variety of voices and opinions within the church, and to exercise biblical forbearance toward persons with whom they disagree."

Apparently some busybodies think forbearance is not very biblical and will challenge the decision.

John Knox could not be reached for comment.

We can only hope that the issue will someday be resolved.

Baptist Diseases

2010-02-23T02:29:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Pastor I. Todyaso and his band of discerners.

It's funny though clearly whoever wrote the accompanying article doesn't understand what being a Baptist is all about as not all Baptists are alike. Here are the main distinctives that all Baptists hold in common in some form or fashion:

One way of classifying Baptist Distinctives is called the "Four Freedoms," articulated by Baptist historian Walter B. Shurden:[1]

Soul freedom: the soul is competent before God, and capable of making decisions in matters of faith without coercion or compulsion by any larger religious or civil body
Church freedom: freedom of the local church from outside interference, whether government or civilian (subject only to the law where it does not interfere with the religious teachings and practices of the church)
Bible freedom: the individual is free to interpret the Bible for himself or herself, using the best tools of scholarship and biblical study available to the individual
Religious freedom: the individual is free to choose whether to practice their religion, another religion, or no religion; Separation of church and state is often called the "civil corollary" of religious freedom

Or in another form:

[edit] "B-A-P-T-I-S-T-S" acrostic
Another popular list of beliefs shared by most Baptist traditions is expressed in the form of the following acrostic backronym, spelling BAPTISTS:[2]

Biblical authority (Matthew 24:35; 1 Peter 1:23; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Autonomy of the local church (Matthew 18:15–17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-3)
Priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5-9; 1 Timothy 5)
Two ordinances (believer's baptism and the Lord's Supper) (Acts 2:41–47; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32)
Individual soul liberty (Romans 14:5–12)
Saved church membership (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 5:23–32; Colossians 1:18)
Two offices of the church (pastor and deacon) (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1–2)
Separation of Church and State (Matthew 22:15–22)

While Baptists for the most part are Credobaptists not all Baptists are closed-Baptists. The SBC of course are closed off to Credobaptism as being the only valid mode of baptism but remember it's not really the mode of baptism that's really the most important thing but the confession that Jesus is one's Lord before or after baptism at some point. The confession is the most important part because whereas faith is individualistic to some degree; it's meant to be lived out in a communal setting in other words the church. The Baptist tent is big enough to embrace both those who practice Credobaptism and Paedobaptism. In fact, most Moderate Baptist churches accept both Credobaptism and Paedobaptism as valid modes of baptism for the sake of our former Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian brothers and sisters who join our fellowship and come into the Baptist fold. What are your thoughts on the subject?

Is Gnosticism Still Alive Today?

2010-02-23T02:18:00.000-08:00

John H. Armstrong on Gnosticism:

What made Gnosticism so powerful in the earliest era of the church? It was seductive in its appeal. Put seduction with creedless modern evangelical Christianity and you have the breeding ground of modern Gnostic errors. And you have few teachers who recognize this since the Gnostics always insist that they are Christians. Philip J. Lee concludes: "Despite the vast cultural differences between North American Protestantism and ancient Gnosticism, the parallels between the two innovations can no longer be ignored."

American churches adopted an anti-intellectual stance in the nineteenth century. Evangelicals took this to a whole new level of expression. The result has been little concern for carefully thought out orthodoxy married to little or no concern for love and for real people in community. We have majored on saving the soul of a person without making real disciples. The fruit is bittersweet, even heretical at many points. You hear it routinely when we denounce the physical world as bad when Christ came to live in this world and redeem it precisely because the God who created it as good still deeply loves it.

Welcome Back Fred!

2010-02-23T01:32:00.000-08:00

First, I would like to welcome back my friend Fred H. Anderson to the Blogosphere with his new Blog: Neoorthodoxology. Secondly, I'd highly recommend reading his Lenten post: The Desert Will Blossom. Here is a snippet:

Jesus will have as his center God alone.
What Jesus insists on is remaining in relationship with God.

Thus it is appropriate that Jesus does not answer on his own terms alone.
Jesus refutes the devil each time by quoting scripture.
Jesus answers every temptation by a reminder of his relationship with God.
Jesus answers in terms of that relationship.
The desert forces the question,
but Jesus will not isolate himself from God.

The desert where we sometimes find ourselves forces the same question on us:
Will we be faithful
or will we not?

Of course, the question comes to us in more attractive wrapping than that.

The first temptation is to turn stones into bread:

“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”

This is to satisfy our hunger at any cost,
to shrink to become nothing more than appetites,
a partial self
living a distorted existence.

Jesus knew that and responded with Deuteronomy 8:3:

"It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"

The second temptation is to replace God with something else.

"Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, 'To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.'”

Jesus knew that was a lie, and he responded:

"It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"

You see, what we put at our center,
if it is not God,
can never give us satisfaction,
but leaves us open to disintegration and despair.

The words of the Barmen Declaration show us our center:

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death
.

Lastly, I'd like to say Amen! At the center of Jesus is God as Jesus is both fully human and fully God and Jesus is the one Word by which we were created by God and by which we were Elected to New and Eternal Life in Him.

Are You Emerging? Why Or Why Not?

2010-02-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Iggy and Bruce Reyes-Chow for this interesting challenge:

Bruce Reyes Chow sent out this challenge on Twitter: ""I am emergence" post coming today. Want in? In 140 WORDS or less, blog/FB about it WITHOUT defining by what you are NOT and I'll link back."

I am emerging because I believe:

*theology shouldn't be systematized but experienced and lived out
*God is beyond the boxes that we try to contain Him/Her in
*God requires mercy and not sacrifice
*Jesus wants us to live in peace and unity with one another
*the Kingdom of God is here and now but not yet
*God repairs broken communication lines through the Cross
*we were created in the image of God yet through the fall of man that image has been fragmented but through the living example of Christ we have a way of reflecting the image of God again
*there is unity in diversity as God created individuals that experience Him/Her differently and therefore individuals have their on unique ways of expressing their experience with God
*theology is for the Church and the Church is for community/fellowship
*just as Jesus is the Incarnation of God---the Church is to be the incarnation/the Body of Christ to the world
*God's love is beyond the borders, dams and fences we try to build around it
*Jesus should be at the center of all our words and deeds
*we should seek justice everywhere for all God's creatures regardless of culture, class, sexuality, gender, economies, geography, etc.
*at the very root of God is love so that His/Her love should flow through us as we live amongst others
*God is imaginative, creative in His/Her goodness which bears reckless promises and limitless possibilities
*God will not abandon us---His/Her wayward Pilgrim Church---no matter what issues or challenges of the day we may face---God through Christ is always with us

κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα And The Apostle's Creed

2010-02-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

1 Peter 3:18-22--- 18For Christ also suffered* for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you* to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for* a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him. (RSV)

Tonight in our Wed. Night group the subject of The Harrowing of Hell came up in our discussion. The Harrowing of Hell of course being:

a doctrine in Christian theology referenced in the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult), which states that Jesus "descended into Hell". His descent to the underworld has been termed the most controversial phrase in the Apostles' Creed.[1]

The Greek wording in the Apostles' Creed is κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα, ("katelthonta eis ta katôtata"), and in Latin descendit ad inferos. The Greek τὰ κατώτατα ("the lowest") and the Latin inferos ("those below") may also be translated as "underworld", "netherworld", or as "abode of the dead". Thus, sometimes this phrase is translated as "descended to the dead." The first use of the English harrowing in this context is in homilies of Aelfric, ca. 1000. Harrow is a by-form of harry, a military term meaning to "make predatory raids or incursions"[2]. The term Harrowing of Hell refers not merely to the idea that Christ descended into Hell, as in the Creed, but to the rich tradition that developed later, asserting that he triumphed over inferos, releasing Hell's captives, particularly Adam and Eve, and the righteous men and women of Old Testament times.

D. Bruce Lockerbie states of The Harrowing of Hell:

The final clause in this sequence, "He descended into hell," is the most controversial in the Apostle's Creed. Indeed, some denominations consider it optional or refuse to include it at all. The problem with this phrase begins with what it connotes. To some, the descent into hell represents the physical agony of death upon the Cross. It was hellish in its pain. To others, the word hell means Hades or Sheol, the collective abode of the dead, divided into Paradise or Abraham's Bosom--the state of God-fearing souls--and Gehenna, the state of ungodly souls. Thus the descent into hell may suggest that the Son of God carried the sins of the world to hell; or the Son of God carried Good News of deliverance to the godly dead such as Lazarus the beggar and the repentant thief. A third-century Syrian Creed speaks of Jesus, "who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and departed in peace, in order to preach to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the saints concerning the end of the world and the resurrection of the dead."

Still others believe that the descent into hell account for the problem of God's justice by providing an opportunity for all mankind--in eternity as well as in time--to hear the message of redemption from the Word Himself. But whatever interpretation one accepts, the scriptural passages upon which this teaching is based must be studied closely. Some of the standard texts are Job 38:17, Psalm 68:18-22; Matthew 12:38-41; Acts 2:22-32; Romans 10:7; Ephesians 4:7-10, 1 Peter 3:18-20, and 1 Peter 4:6.

Also Apocryphal sources formed Early Christian opinions on the Doctrine such as the Gospel of Nicodemus/Acts of Pilate. The phrase has theological significance considering:

2 Corinthians 5:21 (New King James Version)
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him and Romans 6:23 (New King James Version)
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In light of the above verses and the Christus Victor theory of Atonement for Protestant thought the phrase is understood as:

The Formula of Concord (a Lutheran confession) states, "we believe simply that the entire person, God and human being, descended to Hell after his burial, conquered the devil, destroyed the power of Hell, and took from the devil all his power." (Solid Declaration, Art. IX)John Calvin expressed his concern that many Christians "have never earnestly considered what it is or means that we have been redeemed from God's judgment. Yet this is our wisdom: duly to feel how much our salvation cost the Son of God." Calvin's conclusion is that "Christ's descent into Hell was necessary for Christians' atonement, because Christ did in fact endure the penalty for the sins of the redeemed." [10] On the cross, Christ suffered hell, being separated from His Father and enduring God's wrath for the sins of humanity, but after He died He went to Paradise (Heaven), just as he told the criminal next to Him.

I distinctly remember reading in an edition of The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden that because of the controversy surrounding the phrase: "he descended into hell" that Queen Victoria had the phrase removed from the Apostle's Creed in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer though it is still in some editions. However mention of this is not in the older edition that I have now. It should also be duly noted that:

Apparently the phrase descended into hell offended someone’s sensitivities early on in American Methodism and that clause got left out. The phrase into hell in older translations and the phrase to the dead both translate the phrase into hades in the original Greek of the creed.