Calvinist Heresy Hunters

Well, some heresy hunters are at it again!  Calvinist Justin Taylor wrote a judicious and diplomatic explanation of Calvinism on Rachel Held Evans’ blog (see here).  But, on Justin’s own blog, some Calvinists are saying that Justin used poor judgment by promoting Rachel as a Christian teacher, for they do not consider her to be a Christian (see here).  One of the commenters says, “Rachel Held Evans makes a mockery of the Scriptures, which 5 minutes on her blog will make clear, and I am opposed to granting her views any legitimacy or insinuating that she is a Bible-believing Christian; she is not.”  He then presents a list of quotes from Rachel’s blog that he deems to be objectionable.  One of them is:

“But even our notion of what constitutes ‘biblical principles’ is selective and profoundly affected by our culture, our tradition, our projections, our experience, and our biases…Let’s not forget that, technically speaking, it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father to pay off debt, biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist, biblical for her to remain silent in church, biblical for her to cover her head in prayer, and biblical for her to be one of many wives…There is no single ‘biblical’ lifestyle, and we must regard any claims to such a thing as inherently selective.”

This commenter does not respond to Rachel’s point, however.  Instead, her Calvinist critics accuse her of picking and choosing from the Bible, but (as far as I could see) they do not address her point that they themselves pick and choose.  It’s apparently easier to call someone a non-Christian, than to wrestle with the points that the alleged non-Christian is making.

The commenter later says, “Ms. Evans, whether I consider you a ‘sister’ depends on what definition of ‘sister’ we’re using. If sister means someone who I would feel comfortable being in fellowship with, then the answer is no…”  Personally, I wouldn’t fellowship with this guy unless my life absolutely depended on it, and even then I’d be reluctant.

My Calvin Memories

I want to share with you some of my Calvin memories for this 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth.

1. I first heard of Calvin at a church I attended as a kid. It was the Church of God (Seventh-Day). There was a character there who liked to ramble on about Tolstoy. “Tolstoy” this, and “Tolstoy” that. Well, there was also an elderly gentleman who once referred to John Calvin. So that’s where I first heard the name.

2. I first heard about Calvin’s doctrine of predestination in my freshman high school history class. One of the students (not me) asked, “Don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe something like that?” I took what this student said as Gospel truth and asked the teacher, “Well, if Jehovah’s Witnesses believe God already chose who would be saved, why do they go door-to-door trying to convert everybody?”

The student was wrong about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, since they don’t believe God predestined people for eternal damnation. But the question about why Calvinists witness is asked by a lot of people. Usually, Calvinists tell me that we don’t know who is elect, so we may be a means God uses to bring the elected person to Christ. Perhaps. Personally, I wouldn’t be obsessed about people going to hell if I thought God predestined everything a long time ago.

3. In my sophomore and junior years of high school, I read John MacArthur’s works and listened to his sermons. That’s when I was exposed to the Scriptural rationale for the Calvinist view on predestination. “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9). “[A]s many as were ordained to eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48 KJV). “Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). Or, to quote John MacArthur, “It’s all Christ, and none of you!”

4. In my senior year of high school, I made a picture of John Calvin for my art class. It’s still hanging in my dad’s computer room, even though he’s not a Calvinist. Why’d I make it? I guess I just liked the way he looked (but it wasn’t a “man crush”).

5. In my first semester at DePauw University, my New Testament professor was saying Paul thought Christians didn’t have to keep the Old Testament law. That went against my Armstrongite heritage, so I referred her to the pro-law passages of Paul (e.g., I Corinthians 9:9). She then told me that there is a pro-law strand of Christianity, since Calvin believed in three uses of the law for Christians: (1.) to convict us of sin, (2.) to morally guide us, and (3.) to serve as a guide for society. I never heard this explicitly, but I think I knew some of it from other things I read. I had seen movies and read books about the American Puritans, who were big on the Sabbath and stoned people for bestiality, in accordance with the Old Testament law.

6. In my second semester at DePauw, my Christianity professor taught us about Calvin. She tried to explain predestination using her keys. “I have these keys,” she said, “And only I decide who uses them. I only choose a few of you to use my keys. Is that fair?” After much discussion, one student finally said, “It’s your keys. You can do what you want with them!” And that’s the Calvinist position on election: God doesn’t have to save anybody, for we all deserve his everlasting punishment. If God chooses to save some while leaving others in damnation, then he’s not being unfair, according to this logic!

My professor also told us about Calvin’s Geneva and how it cracked down on bars, replacing them with tea-houses. The evangelical tee-totalers thought it was because Calvin opposed alcohol, but my professor said, “No, Christians then thought alcohol was a gift from God. He just didn’t like disorder.”

7. I heard from someone Calvin’s explanation for why God is not unjust to pick certain people for damnation: “That’s like saying the sun is unjust for revealing a rotting corpse.” I still don’t get that! But I identified with Calvinism on some level. I told a professor that it’s “biblical,” to which she replied that Paul contradicts James.

I guess predestination didn’t bother me a great deal at the time because I fell back on the Armstrongite notion that God will save most people in the afterlife, even if they died before receiving Christ. As a Church of God (Seventh-Day) teacher said, Armstrongites taught “Calvinism now, Arminianism hereafter,” since Armstrongites believed God in this present age had to open a person’s mind to the truth, or “call” people. I also liked the Calvinist idea that God must change a person’s heart for it to be regenerated, maybe because I thought that took responsibility off my shoulders, or I myself had difficulty being righteous. Now that I’m unsure about the Armstrongite “second chance” doctrine, Calvinist predestination strikes me as unfair and unloving on God’s part. But I still think that God wants to help people change.

8. I read Calvin’s Institutes that summer, or at least I finished the first volume and ended up in the middle of the second one, when Calvin was going through the ten commandments and was showing that Christ’s ban on swearing in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:34) was not a prohibition of all oaths, since there are righteous biblical characters who swear them. I read this at a Rich Mullins concert. I don’t know why, but that’s the point at which I stopped reading the Institutes.

9. I learned from a documentary that Calvin had extreme migraines. How he could accomplish so much with migraines is beyond me! When I have a headache, that puts me out of commission.

10. I joined a Christian dating site when I started at Hebrew Union College. On it, I encounter Calvinists. One woman states that she became a Calvinist after reading Acts 16:14, which says that God opened Lydia’s heart. Some of the Calvinists actually defend or minimize Calvin’s role in the burning of the heretic Servetus. Eventually, I got tired of Calvinists’ obsession with Calvinism. A man asks, “What is the essence of Reformed Theology?”, and I respond, “I’m chosen, most people aren’t, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.” And that is how I perceive Calvinism today!

So that’s my journey with John Calvin through the years. I couldn’t include everything, but hopefully that gave you a taste of my experience.

Calvin on Daniel 4:27: Alms and Atonement

Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. II: The Ante-Nicene Literature After Irenaeus (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1990) 358.

Cyprian was an African bishop in the third century. He states the following about God’s forgiveness of sins:

As in the laver of saving water the fire of hell is extinguished, so by almsgiving and works of righteousness the flame is subdued. And because in baptism remission of sins is granted once for all, constant and ceaseless good works, following the likeness of baptism, once again bestow the mercy of God…those who after the grace of baptism became foul, may once more be cleansed.

Cyprian affirms that alms and good works can atone for a Christian’s sins. His view was not radical, for other early Christian authors make this same claim. The apocrypha/deuterocanonical writings also present alms as a path to atonement. See my post, Legalistic Christians?

I say in that post: “And, to the Protestants who will say, ‘That’s one reason we don’t like the apocrypha–it promotes salvation by works,’ take a look at what Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:27: ‘atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged’ (NRSV). I do believe that Daniel is part of the Protestant canon.”

On my Christian dating site, I once got into a discussion about Daniel 4:27 with some Protestant believers. Actually, I was the one who brought the verse up. A lady was saying that the apocrypha is bad because it promotes false doctrines, like alms atoning for sin. That went against her Protestant belief that we receive forgiveness only by trusting in Christ’s death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead (sola fide, sola gratia, etc.). So I pointed out the Daniel passage to show her that atonement through alms is also in the Protestant canon.

In response, a Calvinist brother posted a link to John Calvin’s lengthy interaction with Daniel 4:27. I much prefer for people to speak in their own words than to refer me to a book or article, but I guess I should get used to the latter, being in academia. In this post, I want to discuss John Calvin’s treatment of Daniel 4:27, largely because July 10 will be the 500th anniversary of his birth.

Here’s the passage: Daniel 4:27.

Calvin is all over the map in his treatment of Daniel 4:27. He does not agree with Catholics, who appeal to this passage to argue that good works can atone for sin. And so he offers the following alternatives:

1. Calvin treats the word translated as “atone” (peruq) as “break off,” which is one meaning of the word. In this interpretation, Daniel is exhorting the king to free himself from his wrongdoing by performing good deeds. “Cease doing evil, and learn to do good” is what Calvin interprets this passage to mean. This is consistent with the Protestant view, which wants sinners to make a clean break from their sinful lifestyles. This may be what the King James Version has in mind when it translates the phrase, “break off thy sins.”

Regarding the phrase that the NRSV translates “so that your prosperity may be prolonged,” Calvin renders it as “this medicine may be suitable for the error.” Calvin interprets this to mean that practicing righteousness is a cure for habitual evildoing. I have no idea where Calvin is getting this understanding of the phrase. The Aramaic reads “and they will be length for your prosperity” (or so my BibleWorks translates the words). Calvin states that the Greek carries the idea of “cure,” but what I see in the Greek is this: “so that kindness may be given to you and you may be many days on the throne of your kingdom…” I have difficulty translating the rest of the passage, and I can’t find any English translation of the LXX for it, since most translations seem to use another manuscript. But I can’t find anything about “cure” as I put my mouse over the Greek words.

2. Another possibility that Calvin raises: Daniel is basically saying to Nebuchadnezzar, “Repent, and God will forgive you.” True repentance occurs in the heart, and yet it is made manifest in good works. According to Calvin, the Hebrew prophets often describe repentance in terms of doing good for one’s fellow human being, so Daniel is following that custom. One thing is evident, as far as Calvin is concerned: the “good works” that Daniel promotes are not the sorts of things that Catholics promote as means of atonement (i.e., fasting, rituals, pilgrimages); rather, they are acts of genuine righteousness.

3. In his third interpretation, Calvin acknowledges that peruq can mean “redeem,” but he denies that the redemption is God’s forgiveness of sins, which cannot be earned by good works. Rather, Calvin applies peruq to Nebuchadnezzar’s forgiveness by human beings: Nebuchadnezzar makes restitution to those he hurt, thereby receiving their forgiveness.

I’m not sure what to do with Calvin’s interpretations. When I first read them a while back, they looked like a stretch, but now they seem fairly reasonable. Overall, I think that Daniel was telling Nebuchadnezzar to start a new kind of life: one that was humble and kind rather than proud, selfish, and harmful to others. Then, God would take notice and grant Nebuchadnezzar long life and prosperity. Whether that accords better with the Protestant or Catholic view of forgiveness, I have no idea.

Iamblichus and Grace

G. Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy: The Schools of the Imperial Age, trans. John R. Catan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990) 416-417.

Let us see in the first place what is the exact definition Iamblichus had of theurgy. In the De mysteriis it is presented as a practice and an art with which, by means of appropriate acts, symbols, and formulas not understood by human reason but understood by the Gods, man can join himself to the Gods himself and benefit from their influence and power…

Hadot clarifies these concepts very well: “If we could achieve the perfect union with the Gods by means of contemplation, then it would be by our powers that we could reach the divine. The God would be then moved by lower beings. On the contrary, if they themselves choose the practice, incomprehensible to men, by means of which it can be hoped to be united to them, they remain immobile in themselves and maintain their initiative.”

Reale often states that the concept of grace was radical in the philosophical schools of this period (second-fifth centuries C.E.). After all, Plotinus, believed that human beings could reach God through things that they did.

At some point, however, there emerged the belief that the gods were impassible, or unresponsive to humans. But advocates of this view did not go the route of the Epicureans, who thought that the gods didn’t care about us and so we shouldn’t care about them. Rather, they still craved union with the divine. And so they concluded that the gods are the ones who take the initiative to bring us closer to them, meaning that we don’t climb up to them through our own efforts. The belief in the gods’ impassibility led Neo-Platonists to embrace a notion of the gods’ grace.

At the same time, they acknowledged means of grace: mysterious rituals that the gods have devised to bring us closer to them. That’s called theurgy, and it doesn’t always accord with our human reason.

Christianity has a lot of these same issues. Calvinists like to emphasize God’s sole part in bringing us to believe, since that is their definition of God’s grace. In their eyes, if a relationship with God is based in any way on our efforts (e.g., believing, good works, etc.), then we are climbing our way up to God, which leads to self-righteousness rather than a humble reliance on God’s grace. But believers in predestination do believe that there are means God has commanded that are conduits for his grace: baptism, the Lord’s supper, the preaching of the word, etc.

Moreover, Iamblichus’ view that theurgy can conflict with our reason reminds me of what Paul says in I Corinthians 1:18ff.: God used an outwardly foolish means to save human beings. In Paul’s day, the cross of Christ made sense to neither Jews nor Gentiles. But that was how God chose to save humanity. And Paul stresses, like Hadot, that human wisdom did not bring people to God.

One would think that God would meet us at our level, by giving us revelation that makes sense and accords with our reason. In many cases, he does. But maybe he’s more interested in the type of people that we become than in whether something makes perfect sense to us. Perhaps God wants us to be humble and dependant on his grace, not proud of our ability to climb up to him.

FSE: Knowing

Yesterday, I saw Knowing, which starred Nicholas Cage.

Knowing is a science fiction movie. At its beginning, we’re in the 1950′s, and we meet an odd little girl named Lucinda, whose special idea is selected by her school. Her idea is for the school to create a time capsule, which would be opened four decades later. While the other students are putting in pictures they drew of what they think the future will be like, Lucinda puts in a page of numbers.

Four decades later, a little boy is handed Lucinda’s page of numbers, and his father, an MIT professor, learns that it details a series of disasters from the 1950′s until the end of life on earth, which is imminent. The professor gets in touch with Lucinda’s daughter and granddaughter. His son and Lucinda’s granddaughter both hear messages from strange whispering people, who give them visions of the coming destruction of earth by a solar flare. These whisperers turn out to be aliens, who are trying to get the kids off of earth. Guided by the aliens and the numbers, the two kids go to a place where a spaceship can take them away, allowing them to start life anew on another planet. We see from the other spaceships leaving the earth that these kids were not the only ones chosen to survive.

The movie puzzled me at first. Why would Lucinda need to write the numbers, if the aliens offered the kids direct guidance, making the numbers apparently superfluous? And how did the other children know the way to leave earth, since they did not have an MIT-professor father who could decode the numbers?

For the first question, I concluded that the numbers represented the aliens’ attempt to involve the professor in the whole process–of getting the kids off the planet. If the kids were just relying on visions from the aliens, then the professor probably wouldn’t have believed them, or he would have resented the aliens for trying to take away his son. But the numbers involved him in the process of gradually learning about the earth’s imminent destruction, so he was more at peace with the aliens’ agenda at the end of the movie, since it didn’t come out of the clear blue sky.

For my second question, I concluded that the aliens guided other children off of the planet in different ways. The numbers were their way to help Lucinda’s granddaughter and the professor’s son, but they could have used other means to get the other children off of earth–in a manner that respected the kids’ free will and the parents’ reluctance to be separated from their children.

This reminds me of a few things. First of all, the movie makes a big deal about determinism vs. randomness. On his blog, Roger Ebert states that the movie assumes everything that happens has been determined in the past and thus cannot be changed. For Ebert, such a notion undermines human free will, which is a key component of many theistic religions. But, in my opinion, the aliens work with human free will rather than against it. None of the human characters are robots, but they have their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions as human beings. The aliens respect humanity, which is why they resort to guiding the professor and the children to the right conclusions by giving them puzzles to work out. Similarly, even Calvinists assert that God uses means to bring the elect to Christ, meaning that (for them) it’s not just a matter of God pre-programming people towards the Christian religion. Those who believe in fate and predestination do not erase from the equation the human ability to make choices, to feel, to experiment, to have opinions–in short, to be human.

Second, I thought about James McGrath’s recent posts on Jesus’ resurrection on his blog, www.exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com. McGrath dismisses a lot of Christian apologetics for the resurrection of Jesus. Christian apologists say we know Jesus rose because of the empty tomb and the mass sightings of the risen Jesus. According to McGrath, such an argument does not coincide with the Bible. In John, when Mary sees the empty tomb, she does not conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, but rather that someone moved the body. That means that the empty tomb didn’t necessarily prove the resurrection, in the mindset of the early Christians. And Matthew’s Gospel states that some people doubted when they saw the risen Jesus. For McGrath, there were a variety of reasons that the early Christians concluded that Jesus rose from the dead. McGrath does not list them (as far as I know), but possibilities include seeing the risen Jesus and the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Similarly, in terms of the movie Knowing, the aliens use a variety of means to bring the children to the truth: the numbers, direct guidance, their connection with their family, etc. That may be how God interacts with Christians today. Sure, he gives us a book that contains his general will, and it fulfills a role similar to that of the numbers in the movie. But he also guides us through his Holy Spirit and other people (or so Christians claim).

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. See Knowing, even though my post just gave you a lot of spoilers!

Intelligent Quote of the Day: Brett

My friend Felix has a feature on his blog called “Intelligent Quote of the Day.” I also have an intelligent quote for you: this is under BryanL’s post, Changing Your Mind, and it’s by Brett:

“I used to be a cessationist until I witness healings taking place and saw the gifts worked out. So the experience changed my stance. I used to be a Calvinist until I had people in my life who had horrific tragedies, and until I had somebody from the other side explain their perspective to me, and I changed my mind. I just couldn’t accept the ‘It’s all for God’s glory and good pleasure’ crap that I always heard [John] Piper say. It was just too barbaric and my conscience would not allow me to believe that it was as simple as this.

“I would like to say, though, that I think when you’ve been on one side of the coin and you switch to the other, chances are you’re probably not going to switch back. I was once a Calvinist, and I honestly do not ever see myself ever going back. Scripture is just too gray and my experience will not allow me to, even if someone I respected changed their views on it.

“But, my opinion still stands, an extremely respected individual and one you look at as a leader changed his mind about a doctrine you believe in, and personal experience are two key factors. Evidence (scriptural/exegetical) is another one, but I don’t believe it’s as strong as the first two. For me personally, at the bottom of my list is historical theology. This is the first on many people’s lists (they act like the church fathers already have everything figured out so we should just believe them, and none of them are really consistent with this but they talk like they are). I frankly could care less what the most important (or popular) church history fathers said about something. I actually think the extreme zeal many in my life have had towards historical theology has led me to disrespect it greatly. There is too much darkness and sin behind the curtains (Augustine was a jerk, Luther was a jerk, Calvin was the biggest jerk of all…why would I want to get all my theology from jerks?)”

Micah’s Search for an Honest Man

In the fourth century B.C.E., Diogenes the Cynic carried a lamp in the streets of Greece in search of an honest man. Similarly, about four centuries earlier, the prophet Micah was looking for at least one honest person in Judah. Unfortunately, like Diogenes, he could not find any. Micah 7:1-7 states the following:

“Woe is me! For I have become like one who, after the summer fruit has been gathered, after the vintage has been gleaned, finds no cluster to eat; there is no first-ripe fig for which I hunger. The faithful have disappeared from the land, and there is no one left who is upright; they all lie in wait for blood, and they hunt each other with nets. Their hands are skilled to do evil; the official and the judge ask for a bribe, and the powerful dictate what they desire; thus they pervert justice. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of their sentinels, of their punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household. But as for me, I will look to the LORD, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me” (NRSV).

According to this passage, Micah is hungering to find just one righteous person in Judah, but he can’t, for everyone around him is murderous, conniving, and skilled in evil. Justice is perverted, as corrupt judges accept bribes and allow the rich to run roughshod over the poor. And things are so bad that people cannot trust their friends, even the people in their own immediate families. Micah concludes that God is the only one he can really trust.

Psalm 14:2-3 presents God himself as failing in his search for an honest person. The passage states, “The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.”

The apostle Paul quotes Psalm 14:2-3 in Romans 3:10-11 to support his argument that all people are sinful. In Paul’s thought, that reality sets the stage for the coming of Jesus, who died to redeem and transform corrupt humanity.

My reaction to Micah 7:1-7, Psalm 14:2-3, and Romans 3:10-11 is mixed. Can I truly say that I’ve never met a righteous person, not even one? No. Not everyone I meet is bloodthirsty, dishonest, or thoroughly selfish. Sure, there are times in my alienation when I have a “nobody loves me” attitude and feel that all human beings are cold and uncaring. When I am in this state of mind, I scoff whenever I hear the word “community,” for I have a hard time developing warm feelings towards other people. “What have they ever done for me?” I think. But my impression is not entirely accurate, for there actually are good people out there who really do want to help others. And these people can be found among both Christians and also non-Christians, so I have a hard time accepting the notion that unredeemed human beings are more corrupt than those who have been transformed by Jesus Christ. There are good people and there are bad people in both camps.

I know how many evangelicals would respond. “Sure, there are unbelievers who do good things, but they are not perfect, and God only accepts perfection.” Part of me can see their point on this, since God in Leviticus only accepts unblemished sacrifices. At the same time, however, Paul does not present human beings as slightly less than perfect. Read what he says about the human race in Romans 3:12-18: “All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one. Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Can you honestly say that you have never met one non-Christian human being who shows kindness to others? Is every human being you encounter a liar who is quick to shed innocent blood?

Also, how would the idea that all human beings are corrupt affect my interactions with them? I think it would do so rather negatively. How are you around people you cannot trust?

Did Micah or the author of Psalm 14 figure that all human beings are inherently corrupt and incapable of goodness? Would they agree with the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity? I am hesitant to answer “yes.” Why would Micah and God even look for a righteous person if they thought that human nature precluded the existence of such a one? Psalm 14:5 says that “God is with the company of the righteous.” So now there are righteous people, Mr. Psalmist? And there was a time when God was not completely unsuccessful in his search for an upright person: he spared Noah because he alone was righteous in his generation (Genesis 7:1).

But I said that my reaction to Micah 7:1-7, Psalm 14:2-3, and Romans 3:10-11 was mixed, so there is a sense in which I can identify with those passages’ utter despair about humanity. For one, Jonathan Edwards noted in his book, Original Sin, that virtually every historical attempt to reform society has failed. Like Edwards, I attribute this to inherent flaws in human nature, such as selfishness and greed.

But I also think that human beings are getting worse. One of my favorite blogs, Things on Bryan’s Mind, has an interesting post entitled, “Does this Mean that Patristic Writers Disconnect Human Redemption from the Cross of Jesus?” In the “Comments” section, Bryan states that “humanity has grown more and more corrupt, in Athanasius‘ view, subject to a kind of epidemic of evil.” In many respects, I agree with that assessment. Humanity has become worse and worse as time has progressed. At one point in American history, there was a greater sense of community, as people actually looked out for one another. But that does not exist as much today. In their desire to make more and more money, insurance companies often deny coverage to certain individuals, showing a lack of concern about whether they live or die. Marital infidelity is rampant, to the point that it is glamorized on television and in movies. School shootings have occurred with greater frequency over the last decade than they ever did before.

A counselor of mine once told me a story that further confirmed my belief in the degeneration of humanity. He said that he has a granddaughter who is bullied in school because she is overweight. One time, she made an unsuccessful attempt to kill herself. Shortly afterwards, she received a number of messages from her classmates expressing their wish that she had succeeded.

That is shocking. There were bullies when I was a kid, but I can’t think of anyone who wished for another person to die. Things are worse now than they were when I was a kid, and I’m only 31. Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, “And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.” Are we seeing that today?

I have a hard time saying that human beings are totally bad, but I’m not about to suggest that they are inherently good. I’m not like Anne Frank, who could actually write that all people (even her Nazi captors) were good at heart. And I see both good and bad in myself. The question that faces all of is us, “To which will I yield?”

Naughty, Naughty

In Joel 3:21, God says that he will treat Israel’s blood as innocent, something he had not done before. As a result, God will regard Israel’s Gentile oppressors as if they had shed innocent blood, which is a big “no no” in God’s sight. In effect, God will punish the sinful Gentile nations through destruction, even as he preserves sinful (yet repentant) Israel.

How should Israel feel in this chapter? Here are the Gentile nations, getting their just deserts. And here are the Israelites, who also deserve destruction yet receive God’s presence and favor. And the reason for God’s activity is that the Israelites are his chosen people. God values Israel, so he shows justice with respect to her enemies and mercy with respect to her.

If I were Israel, I’d be humbled. I’d feel grateful. It would be like being the sole survivor of an automobile accident or a burning building, only I’d know that my survival was due to God’s favor rather than blind chance. Would I mourn over the destruction of my enemies? I’d probably feel the same way I did as a child when I no longer had to deal with a bully (or, in one case, my grandparents’ vicious dog): relieved at my newfound safety. I’d be at peace. I know that sounds selfish, but that’s how I’d feel.

I’m sure you’ve seen the bumper sticker that says, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.” According to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, all people are sinners who deserve God’s wrath. Christians are no different from anyone else, for they too have sinned in the past. Maybe their behavior is better now, but all it takes is one crime to get a criminal record in today’s justice system (though, of course, many crimes can be expunged). In the eyes of God, Christians have a criminal record and deserve punishment, just like every other person on the face of the earth.

But God chooses to treat Christians as innocent, even though they technically are not. Calvinists say this is because God chose them before the foundation of the world, and Arminians contend that salvation is based on a decision to receive God’s free gift. But both sides agree that Christians are getting something that they don’t deserve.

So why do a lot of Christians act like they’re better than non-believers? Not all, or most, but a lot of Christians seem to have that attitude. Maybe they forget where they came from. We as Christians should remember that we too are sinners who deserve God’s wrath. We’ve been plucked from the fire. We should feel relieved and grateful, not smug and superior in the confines of our Christian cliques.

That’s why I get annoyed when I hear the cliche “Hate the sin but love the sinner” in today’s debates on homosexuality. I suppose that I agree with the slogan on some level, for I believe that homosexuality is wrong yet maintain that all people should be loved (though my love for others is far from perfect). But the slogan strikes me as rather patronizing, as if we righteous Christians should condescend to love those lowly sinners. Hate the sin but love the sinner? Christians are sinners. Not to mention the fact that I’m sick of hearing the cliche all the time, as if it’s the definitive answer to the homosexuality debate.

At the same time, I also don’t like the other extreme, which says that we can’t make moral judgments because all of us are sinners. I’ve heard homosexuals say to Christians, “Who are you to judge me? You’re not perfect!” But there has to be some room for moral judgment and outrage. And I’m not speaking primarily about homosexuality here. If I’m a criminal who stole a few pieces of candy from a grocery store, and I hear about a man who raped a child, killed her, and threw her corpse into a nearby dumpster, don’t I have a right to be mad about his actions? Sure, I’m not perfect, but does that mean I can’t have any moral outrage?

So there has to be a balance between humility and moral outrage, though I’m not exactly sure where the right point of balance actually is.

I want to make a transition to the next book that I’m reading for my daily quiet time: the Book of Amos. On at least one occasion, Amos discusses the same issue, only, in his scenario, the Gentiles are the ones evaluating the Israelites’ behavior. In Amos 3:9, we read, “Proclaim to the strongholds in Ashdod, and to the strongholds in the land of Egypt, and say, ‘Assemble yourselves on Mount Samaria, and see what great tumults are within it, and what oppressions are in its midst’” (NRSV).

God is putting the Israelites on display before two sinful Gentile nations: Egypt and Philistia. I wonder what the Gentiles’ reaction is when they see the Israelites’ sin. Here are some possibilities:

“Naughty, naughty. Look at that oppression! Those Israelites are always strutting around, acting like they’re better than the rest of us. But we’d never have oppression like that in our nation.”

“Yeah, the Israelites oppress people. So what? We do that in our own countries. It’s part of our culture.”

“The Israelites have sinned, and God is punishing them. Let us take that as a warning and an exhortation to ourselves. Let’s stop oppressing people in our midst and outside of our borders. Let us pursue justice!”

Of the three responses, I’d venture to say that the third is closest to the attitude that God would like us to have. And, of course, it should be mixed with compassion for the sinners, yet a compassion that is not patronizing and does not compromise moral outrage.

Calvinism, Arminianism, and Joel

The new Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh renders Joel 3:21 as follows: “Thus will I treat as innocent their blood, which I have not treated as innocent; and the LORD shall dwell in Zion.” According to this understanding of the verse, God will regard Israel as innocent, even though she is actually guilty. Meanwhile, God will destroy Israel’s sinful enemies.

That doesn’t exactly sound fair. Israel is sinful, yet God treats her as innocent. Israel’s Gentile enemies are sinful, and God punishes them. Sounds like a double standard to me!

There are at least two ways to answer my qualm. First of all, one can argue that Israel did not get off scott free, for most of the prophetic writings are vivid descriptions of God’s wrath upon Israel. That is true, but God definitely gives Israel preferential treatment. Jeremiah 30:11 says, for instance: “For I am with you, says the LORD, to save you; I will make an end of all the nations among which I scattered you, but of you I will not make an end. I will chastise you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished” (NRSV). While God destroys other nations for their sins, he merely chastises Israel. Granted, he makes her endure all sorts of hell, but he does not put an ultimate end to her. She’s his chosen nation.

Second, one can say that God is fair because the nations are getting what they deserve. Just because God lets Israel off, that doesn’t mean that he’s treating the other nations unfairly. They are simply experiencing God’s fair justice, whereas Israel is not. There is Scriptural support for this position, for God affirms in Exodus 33:19, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” At the same time, there are other passages that condemn preferential treatment and uphold the same standard of justice for all, rich and poor (Exodus 23:2-3; Deuteronomy 16:19). And God asserts that he himself is impartial (Deuteronomy 10:17). In at least one strain of the biblical tradition, fairness means treating everyone according to the same standard, which excludes preferential treatment.

Calvinists and Arminians divide on this very issue. For Calvinists, God chose the people he wanted to save before the foundation of the world, while he condemned everyone else to their just punishment in hell. If you say to them that this is not fair because God is showing preferential treatment to one group and not another, they will inevitably respond, “God can save anyone he wants. He’s not obligated to show mercy to anyone. We all deserve to go to hell. If God chooses to spare one group of people and not another, then that is his prerogative. It’s his free gift to give.” Arminians argue, by contrast, that salvation is available to everyone, but one must repent and believe in Jesus in order to receive it. In the Arminian scenario, God is impartial in that he offers to all people the opportunity to avoid hell. Those who choose not to receive God’s gift will experience damnation, and they have only themselves to blame.

The Book of Joel has both Calvinist and Arminian elements. On the Arminian side, the Israelites must repent if they want God’s wrath to cease. “Rend your hearts and not your clothing,” God exhorts Israel. “Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing” (Joel 2:13). On the other hand, God does appear to prefer Israel. In Joel, does God grant the other nations an opportunity to repent and avert their destruction? Not that I can see. In fact, God encourages the Gentile nations to fight so that he can demonstrate his strength and destroy them. Israel seems to have privileges that the other nations lack.