Romans 13 And Civil Religion

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

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

Al Mohler has posted a blog praising the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for affirming the constitutionality of using the phrase "under God" in the pledge of allegiance and "In God We Trust" on our coinage. He writes,

This decision is good news, and comes as something of a relief -- especially considering the fact that the Ninth Circuit is involved. There is no substance to the claim that these two phrases violate the Constitution. Furthermore, they represent only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to such questions. This kind of language pervades official discourse - extending even to the phrase "the year of our Lord" in the dating of many government documents.

Mohler then notes that the court determined that the phrases have "no theological significance:"

The court has ruled, in effect, that the language of these contested phrases represents what is rightly called "civil religion." In essence, civil religion is the mass religion that serves the purposes of the state and the culture as a unifying force -- a rather bland and diffused religiosity -- an innocuous theology with little specificity.

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

On the other hand, Christians are well aware of the constant danger of idolatry, and no entity rivals a powerful government in terms of the idolatrous temptation. In that sense, it is healthy and good that we employ language that relativizes the power and authority of the state. It is both important and healthy that our motto places trust in God, and not in the state. And the knowledge that the nation exists "under God" is no small matter.

Mohler is obviously obfuscating here. Civil religion is deadly and dangerous. Civil religion fashions a god that is subservient to the State and uses religion to bolster an idolatrous form of nationalism. Mohler clearly perceives that this is what the Supreme Court has done in this ruling, yet he praises it as "good news."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interesting Links

OutsideTheBox: John MacArthur: "The evolutionary lie ..."

http://drjimsthinkingshop.com/2009/10/23/whats-so-bad-about-the-conservative-bible-project/

Biblia Hebraica: Creation in Rabbinic Literature

A God-Sized Puzzle: Dr. Seuss Bible

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/1918/the_conservative_bible_project%3A_looking_for_conservative_diamonds_in_a_liberal_dung-hill/

http://juliamobrien.net/index.php/blog/the-sacrifice-of-isaac-in-visual-art-and-poetry.html

Sandwalk: Are You a Descedant of Charlemagne?

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/10/human-sexuality-and-the-image-of-god-text-and-context.html

Ponderings on a Faith Journey: The Early Preaching of Karl Barth -- Review

Abandon Image: Sometimes It's Easier to Worship at a U2 Concert Than At Church....

Thanks to Dr. McGrath for sharing these on his Google Reader.

A Canadian Response To The Conservative Bible Project

Here's a nod to all the Canadian readers of this Blog.

Read this: Exploring Our Matrix: A Canadian Perspective on the Conservative Bible Project.

See also: TheoPoetic Musings: The Bible=Too Liberal; Jesus Followers=Anti-American Neo-Marxists.

Death Star/9-11

[H/T] Exploring Our Matrix: Remembering the Death Star Tragedy

Scripture as History?

Here's an interesting excerpt from the latest post of the Blog---Awakening:

Scripture as History.

Recently April DeConick posted some excellent thoughts on 10 commandments or operating principles for engaging a text from the historical-critical method. Her post is well worth the time to read and ponder. Once of her points struck a chord with some of the things we've been wrestling with in Community of God, namely to what degree are certain texts communicating "history." Here's one thing she had to say:

The text is not reporting history, it is reporting theology and it is using story to do so. This makes recovering history extremely difficult because all is not as it seems. We need to ask questions such as why is the author reporting his history and his theology this way? What other histories and theologies does the author know about? What traditions has the author received? How has the author shaped those traditions? Why has he shaped them in the manner that he has? Who has something to gain by this view of history and theology? Who has something to lose by this view of history and theology? What are the author's assumptions and how do these impact the author's narrative? How is the author's narrative related to other narratives? How is the author's narrative related to history? Etc.

Concerning the quote above, I tend to agree with James McGrath [see the comment section of her post] that certain texts may not be communicating what we would define as "history," as we have come to embrace it in our post-enlightenment mindset. As I've said before here, I think we need to temper our vision of "history" when we approach the text of the scriptures.

Read on: Here. I have to add these are good thoughts especially when dealing with inerrantists and bible literalists. And these are questions we must all ask as we seek the context of the text. Scripture is truly not history in our sense of the word history but rather the spiritual history of the people of God.

Exploring Our Matrix: Quote of the Day (Julia M. O'Brien)

Exploring Our Matrix: Quote of the Day (Julia M. O'Brien):

Quote of the Day (Julia M. O'Brien)

"A lot of verbage gets thrown around about the Bible (its perfection, its authority, its goodness) that makes sense only if you don't read it--or read it seriously. I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't say something about the Bible that isn't true about all of it. If you're going to talk about the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice, then you should be prepared to explain why you don't live your life by all of it.

I spend my energies trying to get people to spend less time spouting claims about the Bible and more time actually reading it, being honest about it, and valuing it for what it actually is."


-- Julia M. O'Brien, "Claims about the Bible Work Best if You Don't Actually Read It"

Why Biblical Criticism Is Important For The Church

Here are some quotes from James F. McGrath's recent post: Exploring Our Matrix: Review of Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted:

In his latest book, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them), Bart Ehrman seeks to introduce a wider audience to important aspects of the New Testament. The contradictions, tensions and diversity of viewpoints in the Bible which Ehrman highlights, and the historical-critical approach he outlines, are common knowledge to Biblical scholars, as well as to anyone who had studied in a mainline seminary in the past half century or so. Yet more often than not, such information seems to fail to filter through to the wider populace. The information Ehrman presents is not at odds with Christian faith, although it is at odds with the claims that some Christians make about the Bible. Yet ironically, those Christians who affirm the Bible’s importance seem to put no greater effort into familiarizing themselves with the details of the Bible’s contents, much less scholarship that might aid in understanding it.

Ehrman recounts in the book how he entered seminary as a conservative Christian, ready to resist the attacks liberal scholars would wage against the Bible. Instead, he discovered that this scholarly way of viewing the Bible in fact made better sense and did more justice to what one actually finds in the Bible (p.6). And so Ehrman, like many other students of the Bible from conservative backgrounds (including myself), found his view of the Bible being challenged by the evidence itself (p.xi).

Because of his experience of conservative Evangelicalism, Ehrman is able to address not only the New Testament and other ancient writings from the same period, but also the strategies some Christians have developed for avoiding the natural implications of the Biblical evidence – for instance, “harmonizing”, which usually involves creating one’s own Gospel out of the four found in the New Testament, combining them so that one ends up with a version that isn’t what any of the canonical Gospels say (pp.7, 69-70).

Through the chapters of his book, Ehrman shows how the view of Jesus evolved with time in early Christianity (pp.73-82, 245-247, 260), showing in the process what is wrong with C. S. Lewis’ famous “trilemma” that Jesus must be either “liar, lunatic or Lord”: it assumes that Jesus made the claim to be divine attributed to him in the Gospel of John and only there among the canonical Gospels. A historian cannot have this confidence, and thus must add a fourth option, namely that this claim attributed to Jesus is a “legend” (pp.141-142). The nature of historical study, and its inability to affirm miracles as probable since they are by definition improbable, is also explained (pp.175-177).

In relation to this here is a post by Tony Cartledge: Baptists Today Blogs: Biblical criticism, when the new becomes old. My friend Justin's comment is of particular interest here:

Joshua Brown said...
Dr. Cartledge,

I'm looking forward to class today to hear how you handle the issue of biblical criticism. Those of us fortunate enough to study Religion, specifically Christianity, are well aware of the true nature of biblical criticism. However, as you stated, today's negative connotation of "criticism" makes it difficult to bring such scholarship into the church. Perhaps today's church often feels that scholars desire to tear down their faith instead of enlightening it. Whatever the reason, it's clear that the "older" (and newer)critical methods are lost on the largest population of Christianity: the congregation members. In a time where we give the people in the pews such power by telling them they can read and interpret the Bible for themselves, many ministers have made our congregations fear the very tools meant to help them in their task. Shame, shame, shame.
January 12, 2009 12:02 PM

Justin said...
Joshua said:
"it's clear that the "older" (and newer)critical methods are lost on the largest population of Christianity: the congregation members."

You have captured perfectly why I have feel called to the Church and to education (in the broadest sense of the word). There needs to be more and more people helping bridge the gap in responsible Bible Study!!! You've hit the nail on the head. Its not that they CAN'T do it, its that no one has (will) teach them how!

good comment!
j
January 12, 2009 1:43 PM

Anyways, while I agree with my pastor that from a pastoral level---historical criticism isn't helpful when dealing with congregational needs---however, I do believe that on an instructional level that pastors that are aware of biblical critical methods should at least make clear how these critical methods are of no danger to the congregations' faith and how biblical criticism can inform our faith. Also, I believe this is necessary to prevent the kinds of bibliolatry and abuses of the bible that is rampant in all types of churches, nowadays. This is also one of the reasons that I like Justin "have feel called to the Church and to education (in the broadest sense of the word)" and another reason why I started blogging. Also like Joshua, I have experienced first hand how "today's negative connotation of "criticism" makes it difficult to bring such scholarship into the church" when I tried to inform a small group I participated in about biblical critical methods. Most wouldn't hear of it as they believe the bible is clear and literally says what it means in a literal/face value sense. Most in the laity are also unaware of all the complexities and subtle nuances of the transmission/collation/translation/interpretation processes within an academic/scholarly hermeneutical framework of the bible. I think this all goes back to something Justin once said that there seems to be a disconnect between academic theology and the church. I agree and that's why we need more people like William Barclay and Bart D. Ehrman to make academic theology accessible to the church.