Is Biblical Eisegesis Ever Permissable?

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

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

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!!!

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

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

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

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

Bohemian Star Wars Rhapsody

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

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

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

Mainstream Baptist: Showing Solidarity with Muslims

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

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

China's Female Imams

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.

See also: China's Female Imams and NPR: Female Imams Blaze Trail Amid China's Muslims.

A Bunch Of Quotes: Quotable Quotes

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?

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

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

(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

...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.
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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

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

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

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

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

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!


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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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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.