We had our Mother’s Day service at church this morning. I appreciated my pastor’s point that, in a world that is often a cold and lonely place, it’s good if we have a mother who cares for us. I find that to be true in my own life. In the outside world, I’m liked if I’m brilliant or witty or meeting people’s expectations. But I don’t have to earn my Mom’s love, for I already have it.
Newt on the Environment in Real Change
Today is Earth Day! Over the course of this month, I have been blogging through A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple. For today, I will blog about two chapters on the environment in Newt Gingrich’s Real Change. They are Chapter Sixteen, “Green Conservatism Is the Real Answer to Environmental Challenges”, and Chapter Seventeen, “Energy Strategies for National Security, the Environment, and the Economy”.
Regarding Chapter Sixteen, there were some differences between that chapter and A Contract with the Earth. Not contradictions, but differences. Whereas A Contract with the Earth was for America weeding itself off of fossil fuel, Chapter Sixteen of Real Change included building more oil refineries under the rubric of Green Conservatism. Chapters Sixteen-Seventeen also promote nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emissions, something that did not strike me as a prominent theme in A Contract with the Earth. Chapter Sixteen of Real Change was also more partisan. It criticized the Superfund and an approach to the environment that emphasizes “lawsuits, paperwork, litigation, and bureaucracy” rather than encouraging the development of new technology that will help the environment (page 191). Chapter Sixteen also disapproves of Al Gore’s contention that all humankind and posterity, not just individuals, have rights, for Newt interprets this as “some collectivist and non-democratic elite’s interpretation of what is needed” (page 194). In A Contract with the Earth, by contrast, Newt is not partisan but focuses on the good that people are doing to help the environment.
I learned about the polar bear Knut in Chapter Sixteen of Real Change. See here for wikipedia’s article. According to Newt, Knut’s mother did not feed him, and so human caretakers at the zoo did so, and that outraged animal rights activist Frank Albrecht, who thought that the zoo should kill the bear because it would have died in its natural habitat. I found it sad that an animal rights activist would support killing an animal, for the idea behind animal rights should be the preservation of animal life. As I read some about Albrecht’s position, however, I saw that he was concerned that keeping Knut alive would not be in Knut’s interest, for Albrecht did not deem it appropriate for humans to feed Knut by hand, in light of animal protection laws, plus he thought that Knut was dying a slow death because he was separated from his mother. Albrecht probably saw killing Knut as a form of mercy-killing. When Knut demonstrated that he could live on his own, however, Albrecht reversed his position that the zoo should kill the bear.
A feature of Chapter Sixteen that I appreciated was Newt’s discussion of how the Trust for Public Land will give Atlanta twenty-two miles of parks and trails. Newt did not mention how nature can spiritually edify us, but that’s what I thought about when reading that passage: that walking on trails and observing nature will remind us of how small we are and allow us to see nature’s beauty, things that Newt discusses in A Contract with the Earth.
Chapter Seventeen of Real Change surprised me because I was expecting a lot of “Drill, Baby, Drill”, but that’s not what I encountered. Rather, Newt focused on green technology and hydrogen. He even argued that nuclear power could support our conversion to hydrogen power, saying that “Nuclear power has an additional bonus in that nuclear power plants can produce hydrogen for a hydrogen-powered automobile system at night when the electricity grid does not need the power” (page 200-201).
My overall reaction to Newt’s discussion on the environment is that green technology should be encouraged and promoted, by government and within the private sector. I would not, however, dispense with government regulations, for those keep businesses accountable. I’m for the regulations being sensible, however, and the focus should be on results: Are the air and water cleaner, and have CO2 emissions been reduced?
The Resurrection of Jesus, Apologetics, and Wanting to Believe
In the comments section of Rachel Held Evans’ post, So how was your Easter…really? , hjk states the following:
“Rather disappointed in the whole sermon being devoted to proving the resurrection, rather than proclaiming and explaining what the resurrection means for the world, the church, and individuals in their respective vocations. Why not proclaim the resurrection in such a way that makes people WANT to believe in it, even if they [do] not presently – rather than scientific and historical arguments.”
I’d like to ramble on about this insightful comment.
1. hjk’s comment reminds me of what George MacDonald said in some of his books: that God is one whom people would actually want to worship, if they knew him. After all, who among us does not want to be loved unconditionally? Who among us is not attracted to the concept of love? MacDonald was probably implying that a reason that so many people do not want to worship God is that they do not truly know God, for they have been presented with a picture of a God who is far from loving and kind, a picture that is inaccurate.
I can envision many conservative Christians recoiling from what MacDonald is saying. After all, the New Testament (particularly Paul) presents human beings as alienated from God, for they love neither God nor his standards for human conduct. They desire to do their own thing. How many people would prefer a God who did not have that “no sex outside of marriage” rule?
But, if we truly knew God, would we become so drawn to him that we would not want to violate his standards? Or would God conditioning his favor on our conduct be a turn-off at the outset, since such a God would not be unconditionally loving?
What I like about MacDonald is that he presents God as unconditionally loving, and yet as one who disciplines sin and purifies us—-even if that discipline and purification must occur after death.
2. Last Easter, my pastor recommended that we read an apologetic pamphlet that attempted to defend the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The pastor also told us why we should want to believe in the resurrection of Jesus—-because it is an example of God’s power bringing a new beginning and new life, which God wants to do for us today. But the pastor sought to give us material defending the historicity of the event.
This year, the pastor did not recommend that pamphlet. Rather, in his sermon, he said that the empty tomb baffled the disciples, and that they only rejoiced when they experienced the risen Christ. This was interesting, because so many Christian apologetic spiels argue that the empty tomb is the proof that Jesus rose from the dead. But the empty tomb did not do a whole lot for the faith of the disciples. Rather, their experience of Jesus was what brought them the conviction that Jesus was alive.
3. What is my stance towards Christian apologetic defenses of Jesus’ resurrection? One argument that apologists have made is that the disciples would not have died for a lie—-for something that they made up. N.T. Wright has similarly argued that Messianic movements back then died after the death of their founder, but that Christianity was unique because it went on after Jesus’ crucifixion. For Wright, that’s because Jesus rose from the dead.
Someone was using the “disciples would not have died for a lie” argument, and I asked him for proof that the disciples were indeed martyred for their Christian beliefs. He referred to Josephus’ account of James the brother of Jesus being put to death. James was not one of the Twelve, but I think that by itself does not disqualify this guy’s argument because James was still an eyewitness to Jesus who was put to death, in part because of his religious beliefs.
I do not think that the disciples would have died for a lie. In my opinion, they truly believed that Jesus was alive. Does that prove that Jesus rose from the dead? I think that Jesus’ resurrection is one way to account for their belief that Jesus was alive, and for their continued belief in Jesus. Others have offered other explanations: hallucination, for example.
Those who think that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection reflect eyewitness testimony to the empty tomb and Jesus’ appearances—-such as Richard Bauckham—-may conclude that we have good reason to hold that Jesus rose from the dead. Those who regard the characters in those stories merely as characters rather than as named eyewitnesses, and who believe that the stories of the empty tomb are late and reflect development (i.e., Matthew puts guards at the empty tomb, whereas guards are not in Mark’s story), will argue that these stories are not evidence that Jesus rose. And then there are those who contend that there was an empty tomb, but they do not think that proves Jesus’ resurrection. The body could have been moved, as Mary Magdalene thought! See the late Ken Pulliam’s posts on this topic.
4. Why should I want for Jesus to have risen from the dead? If that event proves that Christianity is true and that all non-Christians are going to hell, then I’d have problems accepting it. But if it’s about a new beginning or the renewal of an imperfect world, then that is attractive to me. I think that one agenda of apologists is to show that there is good reason to believe in renewal, for Jesus historically rose from the dead. Otherwise, what evidence is there that renewal will come? Often, it’s hard for people to look at the world around them and to think that anything will get better!
“So How Was Your Easter…Really?” My Responses
In this post, I’ll be using as a lauch-pad Rachel Held Evans’ recent post, So how was your Easter…really? I’ll quote Rachel’s post, then I’ll discuss how her thoughts resonate or don’t resonate with my own experience of Easter this year.
“I had my moments of faith: at the little Catholic church down the road on Good Friday, pressing my forehead into the wooden cross at the front of the sanctuary and silently praying, ‘God, I don’t understand this, but I believe, and I am thankful.’”
I went to a Catholic service with my Mom and her husband on Saturday night. Were there elements of the service that I could believe or identify with spiritually? Well, one piece of the liturgy talked about restoring fallen people to innocence. I do not know if the story of the Fall in Genesis 3 is historical—-certainly many scientists and historians do not think so! But I cannot escape the fact that the world is imperfect, and that includes me. We have all done things that we shouldn’t, and we crave wholeness, or innocence.
I felt a little put-off by the part of the service in which we were asking saints to intercede for us before God. For one, after watching the depiction of St. Cyril of Alexandria in the movie Agora last week, I have my doubts that all of the saints were really that saintly! Second, as a Protestant, I have a hard time talking to anyone in prayer except for God, plus I am leery about praying to any intercessor except for Jesus Christ. But, as I thought some more, I could appreciate the ritual of talking to the saints of the past. Many of us want people to pray for us. We ask for other Christians to pray for us and to show us that they care. What’s wrong, then, with thinking that our Christian family goes back many centuries, and that saints in the past pray for us? I’m not sure if I buy that, but I can understand how such a concept would give Catholics a feeling of connection.
There was a baptism at the Catholic church, and the initiate was asked if he renounced Satan with all of his lies. I wondered if I did so. Christianity essentially portrays sexual desire (“lusting after a woman”) as adultery of the heart, but I have a hard time renouncing that. It just seems unnatural to ask any man to do so! But does Satan lie to me? When I am taught to look to people and things for my sense of self-worth, is that not a lie of Satan? When I am tempted to disregard the dignity of others, am I not being accosted by one of Satan’s lies?
“I had my moments of doubt: in the evangelical church of my childhood on Easter morning, struggling to listen to the familiar resurrection story that suddenly strikes me as a rather inventive way to escape our fear of death.”
I especially felt this way at the Catholic service: I wondered if Jesus truly rose from the dead, or if that were merely one religious story amidst a host of religious stories that are in the world—-many of which Christians would consider untrue because they fall outside of Christianity. I decided to just kick back and observe what other people believe, and I found that I was especially moved by the music of the service—-how it was loud and powerful, and thereby majestic.
My Mom has struggled with Christianity, and, after the service, she remarked that she believes that something happened on Easter morning to give people hope. To that, I say “Why not?” I believe that there are things that occur in all sorts of religions or in life that give people hope—-hope that the future will be brighter, or that they can have a new beginning. It’s even built into nature, as spring follows winter. Perhaps that sort of event occurred for the early Christians.
“I had my moments of connection: holding hands with my neighbors during the Lord’s prayer, sharing a meal with family, watching the lady in the wheelchair in the pew in front of me pull herself up, determined to stand through ‘Christ the Lord Has Risen Today,’ seeing fellow Christians raise their hands in joy.”
I especially felt connected during the passing-of-the-peace part of the Catholic service. I often dread that part of the service. In fact, I was thinking of staying home specifically to avoid that part of the service! I fear being ignored, or extending my hand at the wrong time and getting rebuffed. But the people at the Catholic service were friendly, and so I felt connected.
“I had my moments of disconnect: sitting out the Eucharist because I’m not Catholic, hearing the gospel reduced to salvation from hell, welcomes that felt patronizing from people who have been praying that I come to my senses and go back to believing, behaving, and voting just like them.”
Probably the only time I felt this was when the priest was saying that Christ brings forgiveness to believers. I thought, “What about everyone else?” And what about someone like me, who is not even sure what he believes?
Passover Links
I have some good links for Passover, from a variety of perspectives.
1. Laura Baum is a Reform rabbi, who was a classmate of mine at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. She has an excellent article at the Huffington Post about the role of Elijah in Judaism. She discusses different eschatological views about Elijah, how they do not resonate with many religious Jews (who believe that people should make the world better themselves rather than hoping for a Messiah to do so), and how Elijah can still play an important role in liberal Jewish seders.
2. Bob MacDonald shared with me a post yesterday by the Velveteen Rabbi. I appreciated the following passage:
“This festival comes to tell us that we can experience liberation in our own lives! Liberation from sorrow, liberation from despair, liberation from our constrained and broken spirits, liberation from whatever constrictions have been part of our story. What a glorious promise. And yet. There will be people who feel — there will be times when each of us will feel — that mitzrayim is ongoing, that we cannot break free. That God doesn’t lift people out of anywhere with a mighty hand or an outstretched arm anymore. To those caught in a constriction which will not let go, I offer this prayer: that this Pesach may offer you an expansive breath through that tiny open space which turns hametz into matzah. A glimpse of freedom, a foretaste of the world to come. May it give you the space you need in order to cry out, as tradition tells us the Israelites cried out in our agony. May you find meaning in the story, the prayers and the songs, the familiar tastes, even though your liberation is not yet complete. And may those of us who do not (currently) feel bound remember you at our seder tables, and offer you every kindness we can.”
3. Derek Leman is a Messianic Jewish rabbi, and he has a post entitled Passover: For Jews and Non-Jews. The opening of the post especially stood out to me: “The old way of thinking: Judaism and Christianity are separate faiths based on contradictory premises. The historically correct way of thinking: Second Temple Judaism left two heirs, sister faiths, and one of them morphed into rabbinic Judaism while the other morphed into Christianity.”
4. I’d like to share a post I wrote a couple of years ago: Is the Seder about Christ? I critique different sides in that post, as well as wrestle with scholarship about the seder.
What Am I Doing for Lent?
What am I doing for Lent? Zilch! I don’t like giving things up for forty days. Right now, I’m in the process of getting away from a religion that tells me what to eat and not eat and on what days, when to rest, etc. I may return to that structure at a later point in my life, but, right now, I choose not to be inconvenienced by it. Although I fasted on the Day of Atonement in the past and benefited from that spiritual activity, for example, I chose not to do so this year. And, in my opinion, God does not love me less just because I choose to enjoy the pleasures of life rather than giving them up for a set period of time. My personal spirituality consists of believing in God’s love for me, trying to get through each day with a fairly positive attitude, and showing love to those around me. There are days when I am fairly successful at this, and there are days (in fact, most days) when I can do better. While I don’t deny the benefits of Lent to people, I don’t feel that I have to observe it to be a spiritual person.
Franklin Pierce
Three years ago, on President’s Day, I randomly selected a President, read the wikipedia article about him, and wrote a blog post commenting on what I read. That President was Chester A. Arthur, and you can read my blog post here.
For this year’s President’s Day, I will do the same thing for another President who is not overly well-known: Franklin Pierce.
Where was Franklin Pierce’s Presidency in history? Pierce was President from 1853-1857. Go two Presidents back from Abraham Lincoln, and you arrive at Franklin Pierce. The issues of Pierce’s day were American expansionism and slavery, and the guy who would become President of the Confederacy years later, Jefferson Davis, was Pierce’s Secretary of War.
Here are four things that stood out to me in the wikipedia article on Pierce:
1. Pierce was good friends with author Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, and First Lady Barbara Pierce Bush is a distant cousin of Franklin Pierce.
2. Pierce served in the Mexican-American war over who would have Texas. His leg was wounded when he fell from a horse, and during a battle the pain was so intense that people carried him off of the field, which later political opponents cited as an example of cowardice on his part. But Pierce returned to battle and led his brigade to capture Mexico City.
3. Pierce experienced a lot of tragedy in his life. He lost his three children before he officially served as President. He saw one of his kids become decapitated in a train accident. This event put Pierce’s wife into a state of severe depression, and she thought that God was punishing her family for her husband’s political aspirations.
4. Pierce was a Northerner in that he had strong roots in New Hampshire and served and represented that state politically. But he was considered to be a “doughface”, a Northerner who sympathized with the South. Like the term RINO (Republican in Name Only) today, “doughface” was a pejorative term in those days. Abraham Lincoln accused his political opponent, Stephen Douglas, for instance, of being a doughface. Doughfaces tended to alienate the South on some issues, too, for they were usually supporters of popular sovereignty, the notion that white males in states should vote on whether or not their states would be slave or free. When the anti-slavery movement grew, popular sovereignty looked less attractive to white Southerners, who feared that the free states would outnumber the slave states, which could give free states more representation and thereby threaten the institution of slavery.
In the 1852 general election, Pierce ran against Whig candidate Winfield Scott, who was Pierce’s superior officer in the Mexican-American war. Both were war heroes, and so being a war hero did not help either candidate. But Scott was anti-slavery, which alienated Southern voters. Pierce, by contrast, was not anti-slavery.
As President, Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which stipulated popular sovereignty for Kansas and Nebraska. That proved to be disastrous because it elevated tensions over slavery, and Pierce was not renominated by the Democratic Party for a second term. Historians Philip B. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt state that Pierce “has been criticized as timid and unable to cope with a changing America.” At the same time, people still held out hope for a political comeback on the part of Franklin Pierce. Because he was a Northerner with Southern sympathies, some thought that he would be a good Democratic candidate in 1860, one who could unite the Northern and the Southern factions of the Democratic Party. But Pierce chose not to run.
What interested me most was Pierce’s post-Presidential life. Pierce continued to live in New Hampshire, which is in the North. But Pierce was critical of President Abraham Lincoln for suspending Habeas Corpus, for Pierce did not believe that civil liberties should go out the door during wartime. Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, accused Pierce of belonging to a pro-Southern group known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. Pierce responded and wanted Seward to include Pierce’s response in the State Department’s official files, but that did not happen, and so a supporter of Pierce in the U.S. Senate read the correspondence between Seward and Pierce. The wikipedia article states (whether accurately or inaccurately, I do not know) that “Nearly every Seward biographer has since considered the Pierce-Seward exchange as a blot on the Secretary’s otherwise notable career.”
When Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ plantation was captured by Union soldiers, it was learned from Davis’ papers that Pierce was a friend of Davis and was critical of Northern abolitionism and the Civil War, whose purpose Pierce said was to “to wipe out the states and destroy property” (Pierce’s words). Abolitionist author Harriet Beecher Stowe had long disliked Pierce, and she now referred to him as an “archtraitor”.
When Lincoln was assassinated, an angry mob gathered outside of Pierce’s home, demanding to know why his house was not decked with black and with American flags in mourning of President Lincoln’s death. Pierce responded that he, too, was saddened by Lincoln’s death, and that he (Pierce) was a loyal American who fought for his country. He also appealed to the service of his father, who fought in the Revolutionary War. The mob quieted down and some even cheered Pierce as he went back into his house.
When Pierce died, President Ulysses S. Grant (who, as many of you know, was a general in the Union Army) declared a day of national mourning. Grant also defended against detractors Pierce’s record of service in the Mexican-American War (perhaps because political opponents called Pierce a coward for having to leave battle due to his hurt leg).
Pierce is considered to be a talented politician but an inept President. It was especially interesting to me to learn how he, as a Northerner, received criticism for his anti-Lincoln views and his Southern sympathies, especially during and after the Civil War. I cannot condone his views on slavery, but I can somewhat understand his opposition to the Civil War and his concern about civil liberties. The Civil War may have been a good cause on the part of the North, but so many lives were lost. That’s not to say that I’m against the Civil War, but rather that I understand why there were people who wanted to prevent it.
Martin Luther King Day 2012
For my post today on Martin Luther King, Jr., I will use as my starting-point something that David Marshall says on pages 113-114 of True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture:
“American magazines like Time and Atlantic Monthly have followed the lead of these [skeptical] scholars with cover articles on the ‘historical Jesus.’ If you’d lived by the Sea of Galilee in the First Century, the articles within implied, life would have proven tamer than the Gospels say. Storms would have risen and fallen with the prevailing winds. The blind stayed blind, and the dead, dead. As for the charismatic young teacher, Jesus…It seems he was a sagacious young radical who stirred up some scientifically-preliterate peasants. As the years passed, his disciples garbled and exaggerated his deeds. One gathering of scholars called the Jesus Seminar voted on Jesus’ ethical teachings: the few which were his, and the greater portion, which they say got thrown into the mix by later enthusiasts.”
I have not been a fan of evangelical apologetics, with all of the arrogant chest thumping that accompanies them. But, when I read this passage from Marshall, my immediate thought was “How sad!” In my opinion, it would have been sad had Jesus not performed those miracles—-miracles that healed the brokenness of this world and gave people happiness and hope.
What’s this have to do with Martin Luther King, Jr.? King himself held some pretty liberal views theologically—-and I would not be surprised if some of them overlapped with the sorts of approaches that Marshall critiques. But King still believed in the power of God to help him to heal a broken world. He believed that the words that the Gospels attribute to Jesus could somehow challenge people and be a means to make the world a better place. King had a dream. Has that dream been fulfilled, or disappointed? A little of both, I think. But, in the end, I hope that his dream does not fall flat.
I remember hearing Pastor Tim Keller say that the Gospel gives the hope to people working for social justice that they are on the winning side—-that their dream for justice would one day be realized. Martin Luther King was motivated by this hope. I think that whatever justice we achieve in this society will be imperfect and incomplete, for we are flawed human beings. But I also believe that there are areas in which society progresses, and that justice, whenever and wherever it exists, is right, important, and beneficial, and is thus worth the effort to promote, effect, and protect.
2011 on My Blog and Other Blogs
Some bloggers I know have been listing their top posts for 2011, or their favorite posts from other blogs. I’ll be doing something like that in this post.
My Blog
On my blog, my focus this year was largely on my reading for my comprehensive examinations in rabbinics and Hebrew Bible. I like a lot of the posts that I wrote for that, especially the ones about John Van Seters’ work. Van Seters, in my opinion, is not always the easiest author to read, but there was a sense of satisfaction that came to me when I took a look at some of his arguments and broke them down so I could understand them, and my process for doing that was blogging. I am also glad that I got to write some posts that can be a source of information for anyone interested. For instance, I had long heard that the camel was not a domestic animal in the time of Abraham and that Genesis is thus inaccurate on this issue, and I also knew about scholars who disagreed with that claim. But I did not know what the evidence was, pro or con. As a result, I did some research and I wrote a post about it: The Domestic Camel.
Also in 2011, I have done a weekly blog post on the Book of Psalms. Before I got into this project, I was afraid that blogging through the Psalms would be rather boring, since many of the Psalms say the same sorts of things. Well, so far, I have blogged about Psalms 1-57, and I’m not bored yet! Each Psalm, in my opinion, has its own eccentricities. There are hard verses, and interpreters have different views about what those verses mean. The whole experience of researching the Psalms and their interpreters has been satisfying, and it’s gotten better with time.
Other posts have been a pleasure for me to write. I have enjoyed reading about Second Temple and rabbinic views about the Torah, and whether or not Gentiles had to observe it. I was glad to finally read Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois for Black History Month, since I heard about them on one of my favorite miniseries, Roots: The Next Generation, but I did not know precisely where they differed. Women’s History Month was also good, for I learned about feminist and womanist Christology, as well as feminist constructions of history. In the process, I have taken a look at my own theology and approach to the Scriptures—-Do I pick and choose what I will believe in the Bible, and, if so, what is my criteria?
Starting in 2011, I began to attend a Presbyterian Church (USA), which is walking distance from where I live. I have appreciated the hospitality of the people there. I think that blogging through my church’s Bible study on Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God helped me to get more out of it. My favorite post from that experience was The Am Ha-Aretz, Sinners, and the Prodigal Son.
My blog has gained new readers and commenters this year, and I have appreciated their insights, as well as the insights of long-time readers. I’d like to highlight one interaction that I had that taught me a valuable lesson. In my post, Childs on the Covenant Code and Exodus 24, I said that Exodus 21:21 says that if a master beats his slave and the slave gets up after a day or two, then the master will not be punished. I had long assumed that the law was saying that the master would not be punished if the slave survived the beating, but he would be punished if the slave died. Paul D., however, brought to my attention translations that said that the law is saying something different: that the master is not punished if the slave lives for a few days and then dies. I checked out the Hebrew, translations, the Septuagint, and Jewish and Christian commentaries and learned that there was a strong tradition that interprets the verse as Paul does, but there were a few that read it my way. I guess my lesson there was that what I assume the text means is not necessarily what the text means, or the only way that the text can be interpreted.
I did not blog as much about entertainment as I have in previous years, but there were a few posts that were meaningful to me: my post on my favorite 15 Smallville episodes (which I posted on the day of the final episode), and my post on the Temple Grandin movie. I also enjoyed writing about Terra Nova (see here).
Other Blogs
I read a lot of blog posts, but I did not always pay attention to who was writing them. One controversy this year was over Rob Bell’s Love Wins, which has been accused of promoting universalism (the view that all will be saved in the end). I really appreciated one post that I read (whose author I forget) that argued that there are different ways to interpret the Bible on this issue, which contradicts the claim of my conservative Christian friends that Rob Bell and his supporters were neglecting the plain words of Jesus and were preferring their own wishes instead. I think that there are different ways to interpret passages in the Bible. Universalists choose to take Paul’s statements about Christ saving all or reconciling all literally, and they harmonize what the Bible says about eternal punishment with that concept—-by noting that eternal punishment can be a temporary period of correction, since eternity in the Bible is not always forever and a Greek word for punishment can mean correction. Other Christians, by contrast, believe that eternal punishment is literally eternal punishment, and so they harmonize the passages about God saving or reconciling all with that particular concept—-by saying that God is offering to reconcile all but that people still need to believe, that all does not necessarily mean every single person but rather people from every group, or that salvation does not always mean eternal salvation. In my opinion, none of these groups is being unfaithful to the Bible. They’re just prioritizing different things, and harmonizing other elements of Scripture with what they choose to prioritize.
I’ve learned of new blogs this year, which I really enjoy: JohnShore.com, Fallen From Grace, Think and Wonder. Wonder and Think…, Respectful Atheist, and The Screaming Kettle. Some of these are from atheists, and some are from unconventional Christians. I have appreciated their honesty and also their tactfulness, which sometimes coexists with their edginess.
I’d now like to highlight some of my favorite posts or series for this year:
Rachel Held Evans had some excellent posts in her “Ask A…” series. Ask a Gay Christian, by Justin Lee, was my favorite, for Justin struck me as a person who recognized and respected that people (including himself) are in different places on their spiritual journeys, and so he did not look down on gay Christians who chose celibacy. Justin Taylor’s post, Ask a Calvinist, was also good. I did not expect to like it because I hate Calvinism and find a lot of Calvinists to be self-righteous and annoying. But Taylor was quite judicious and tactful in his presentation.
From Rachel’s blog (see here), I learned about David Nilsen’s blog, and I really appreciated his series on teaching children about the Bible and his family’s reasons for leaving one church to search for another.
Finally, I have enjoyed some of Rodney Thomas’ posts. His critique of William P. Young’s The Shack was excellent. I liked it because I consider The Shack to be an overrated book, and it was interesting to see how the book actually reinforces stereotypes. Rodney’s thanksgiving post was also good because it sought to transcend the usual patriotic and politically-correct narratives about that holiday.
I’ve enjoyed 2011, and I wish you all a Happy New Year!
Christmas 2011
Last night, I went with my Mom and her husband to Christmas eve mass at a Catholic church. This morning, I went to my Presbyterian Church (USA).
As those of you who have read my reviews of David Marshall’s works can probably tell, I can easily become skeptical when it comes to the Bible and religion. I had some of that skepticism last night, as I wondered how exactly I should feel during the service, when I was not even certain that we were celebrating a real event in history! But some things in that service, and in this morning’s service, and in my reading of Marshall made me more of a believer in Christianity. I thought about the stories about Jesus doing good for people, as well as what David Marshall says about Jesus’ humility (even though Jesus also made quite exalted claims about himself in the Gospels, as Marshall points out), and how that has inspired many followers of Jesus to love the sick, the oppressed, and the marginalized, and to do so with humility. The priest last night talked about the light of God and virtue, and prayed that these things might subsume the vice that is within us. I thought about John Calvin’s assertion that all people bear the image of God, which may mean that we all are like God in possessing the capacity to love, morality, a degree of intellect, etc., even though Calvin would say that the image has been defaced by sin. Then, there was this morning, when the pastor talked about the restoration of God’s full image in us through Jesus Christ.
I didn’t think much about the atonement or who is going to hell or heaven. I thought more about Jesus manifesting a divine sort of benevolence, and the hope that Christianity offers that we can become good, too. I think that everyone has a degree of light when it comes to God, for all people realize that there is some standard of goodness (whether or not it is “absolute”). This is true for those who believe in Jesus, and also for many who do not. I prefer to think about how Jesus fits into that light, rather than focusing on how those who don’t believe in Christianity will go to hell.
One more thought: I grew up in an Armstrongite denomination that did not keep Christmas, and I used to talk with Jehovah’s Witnesses, who also did not observe it. Both decried how Christmas reduces Christ to the status of a baby every year, when Christ is a king. I have to admit that I was puzzled by some statements that I heard in both church services: when we prayed to the infant Jesus last night, and when the pastor this morning asked in his sermon what our gift will be to the newborn Christ. I mean, Jesus is not a baby anymore! But I also found a great emphasis on Jesus’ kingship in Christmas—-in the services, with the songs that we sung and the Scriptures that we read. Contra Armstrongites and Jehovah’s Witnesses, we were celebrating Christ as king in our telling of the nativity story.
I’m glad to be with my Mom, her husband, and our kitty cats this Christmas. It’s much better than the years I was alone during the holidays! I hope that, whether you are alone or with people, you will have happy holidays this year.
