Disarmed Apologetics

Tags

Apologetics, Bible, Faith, Scripture

Continuing ruminations about musician Jon Steingard’s departure from the faith, I want to draw attention to the methodology used by one apologist, Robin Schumacher, in trying to appeal to Steingard. In a piece in the Christian Post, Schumacher invited Steingard to consider the evidence for God and Christ, specifically without reference to Scripture.

This is a tricky matter, and I want to be clear that I’m not wholly out of sympathy with what Schumacher is saying. It’s true that the world is sufficient evidence for men to conclude that God exists; it’s true that the life of Jesus is historically attested; it’s true that the non-biblical evidence for the reality of the resurrection, via the witness of the disciples and the rapid growth of the church, should be taken seriously. These are real apologetic claims in defense of the reasonableness of Christianity, and have their value.

What I find problematic is the wisdom of appealing to someone with such pronounced exclusion of the Bible from the discussion. Again, I understand, we want to reach people where they’re at, and Steingard doesn’t seem like someone who’s going to see the Bible as very authoritative. But there is a sense–and I think Schumacher misses this–that the authority of Scripture abides even when someone is deliberately resistant to it.

For Schumacher says of belief in God, “you don’t need to reference the Bible to have confidence in this fact”, “You heard me right–you don’t need your Bible for this one”, and “you don’t need to open your Bible to reach a conclusion” on the evidences for a Creator. Three times he hammers the point in the space of a short article. This runs the danger, I think, of pursuing a disarmed apologetic.

In the first place, we may question how much understanding man is capable of apart from the illuminating work of the Spirit. While the world IS adequate testimony to the existence of God, sin has so corrupted mankind that we suppress the truth (Rom. 1). That the cosmos justifies belief in God, and that fallen humans will see that justification apart from the gift of faith, are two different things.

But, even more, Scripture is the greatest weapon in the apologetic arsenal, the sword of the Spirit, God’s testimony to Himself. How can we possibly set it aside and try to persuade men without it?

For the Bible is the Word of God written. God has spoken, by the Holy Spirit, through the inspired writers. And God’s Word is authoritative, powerful, transforming. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Going into battle without your sword is an obvious tactical mistake. Disarmed apologetics is not the approach we should take towards a lost and dying world.

Really Urgent

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America, Christianity, Culture, Episcopal Church, Faith, God, Gospel, Humanity, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Life, Progressive Christianity, Redemption, Salvation, Theology, Truth

Writing a couple days ago about the call of the gospel involved expressing that the gospel call is urgent.  It matters whether or not people hear the message of Christ, and whether or not those who hear believe; it matters because there is judgment to come, and where you stand in the day of judgment depends entirely on whether or not you are in Christ.

This is the perennial scandal of the Christian faith.  True Christianity will always be scandalous to the world, though different aspects of the faith will be scandalous in different times and places and cultures.  But the exclusivity of the gospel message is a perennial scandal, because it stands against every worldly ideology and religion, and because it is at the irreducible core of the Christian message: eternal life is found in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone.  You have to place your faith in Him if you are to be saved.

This claim is denied not only by avowed secularists, but by some who claim to be Christians.  I came upon the website of a liberal Episcopalian church in San Francisco, noteworthy (among other things) for how they use their sanctuary for a popular yoga program–the sentence “Colorful mats cover the labyrinth, the aisles and even the altar” has a certain resonance with 2 Kings 16.  I saw that they had sermons online, audio and transcripts; I wanted to see what their preaching was like, but didn’t want to give it a lot of time.  I needn’t have been concerned; my sampling suggests that, in keeping with typical liberal practice, their sermons range from fairly brief to very brief.  Given their beliefs, brief is probably for the best.

So here is a sermon from “The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clements Young.”  He’s the dean of the cathedral and has a Doctorate of Theology from Harvard, so no one can say I’ve chosen a straw man.  His text is John 3:16-17…and if you say, ‘Why just through verse 17? …aha, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

John 3:16 is quite understandable a beloved passage, a one-verse encapsulation of the gospel.  Dr. Young, in his short message, says a number of things, some of them good.  But things get particularly suspicious about halfway through–manuscript page 3, that is–when he turns to examine Jesus’ reference to the bronze serpent, a story detailed in Numbers 21.

The Israelites were complaining against God, and the text says, “Then the LORD sent venomous snakes among them” (Num. 21:6, NIV), but Dr. Young says “God allows poisonous snakes to come among them”; perhaps the change from God’s direct action to divine permission is unintentional.  But stranger is Dr. Young’s assertion that “In both this exodus story and the Gospel of John sin is less a punishment from God than it is a self-destructive human choice.”  Well, yes, the sin of the Israelites is a self-destructive choice–and if that’s all he meant, that’s one thing, but we’re still going to have to grapple with Romans 1–but the punishment from God is clearly present: they chose to grumble against God, but God sent the venomous snakes.

Dr. Young brings this back to John 3, which is good, and Jesus’ statement that “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14).  But this is Dr. Young’s comment:

“In this world which is poisoned by envy, greed, fear, betrayal and death – Jesus promises that we can be healed by experiencing him near to us in our suffering, and the hope that we have for the resurrection”.

Is that all Jesus promised, His nearness in our suffering?  Why no mention of the atoning significance of His death upon the cross?

After this suspicious beating-about-the-bush about the wrath of God and atoning work of Christ, Dr. Young makes his last point quite clearly:

“My last point has to do with what my friend Matt Boulton calls the “anti-Gospel.” Gospel means good news and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news for all people, not just Christians. It is the message that God does not condemn the world, but always reaches out to save us even when our choices have led us disastrously astray. But somehow many Christians warp Jesus’ words into an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”

The Gospel, for Dr. Young, appears to be a message of universal salvation.  Faith in Christ is not necessary, and those who say that it is are guilty of promoting “an anti-gospel which is a message of contempt and exclusion.”  This is the rhetoric of the religious left, where ‘inclusion’ is good and ‘exclusion’ is bad, and where the other side is regarded as showing hatred or contempt.  But how does this message square with the very text of Scripture being expounded?  Dr. Young quotes John 3:16 in its entirety, so he has right there before him that the verse says “whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It does not say that Christ gives life to everyone; it says He gives life to those who believe in Him.

How does Dr. Young deal with this?  He doesn’t, really.  He emphasizes that the text is saying this is a demonstration of the way God has shown His love:

“The Greek doesn’t mean to emphasize “how much” God loves us but instead shows us the character of God’s love, that God loves us in this way, through not even withholding his own son. The point is not that Jesus only saves the few who believe, but like the Israelites looking at the snake, everyone is healed by God through Jesus.”

Like the Israelites looking at the snake?  But it wasn’t all of the Israelites who were healed by the bronze serpent–it was only those who looked at it.  In the same way, it isn’t all people who are saved by Jesus, but only those who believe in Him.  The parallel seems to work rather against Dr. Young than for him.  Can he really justify such a shaky interpretation in the face of the clear teaching of the biblical text?

He can try.  Here’s the clincher:

John confirms this interpretation and writes, “God did not send his son to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3).

He’s quoting John 3:17, a wonderful verse about God’s love.  Jesus came to save.  God sent His Son to be our Savior.  And, if this verse was all we had to work with, we might conclude that it teaches a universal salvation, regardless of whether people know Jesus or not.

But this verse doesn’t stand alone, and a basic principle of biblical interpretation is that verses must be interpreted in context.  The verse before it, verse 16, says that it is those who believe who are saved.  What about the verse that follows?

And this is why it is so interesting that Dr. Young stopped with verse 17.  Now, I can’t read his mind.  Maybe he forgot what verse 18 said.  Maybe he just didn’t have time to bring it up.  But it is awfully interesting that he didn’t mention the verse that says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (Jn. 3:18).

So we have an Old Testament parallel and two clear assertions that a response of faith is required in order to receive the life Christ offers, sandwiching the ambiguous verse that Dr. Young tries to use to nullify the clear message.  It is overwhelmingly obvious that Dr. Young has misinterpreted the Scripture, and has done so in a way that shows either a remarkably careless disregard for the context or a deliberate desire to twist the message of the gospel.

He wants to do away with the exclusivity of the gospel.  In the process, he has thrown out the urgency of the gospel, for a message of universal salvation is not a message that anyone needs to hear; and, if heard, it is a message that perfectly suits the individualistic self-determination of the (post)modern west, because it means that how you choose to live your life doesn’t really matter in the end.

Can Dr. Young’s own charge be reversed?  Is he guilty of teaching an anti-gospel?  I think so.  Maybe he teaches that people should repent of their sins and place their faith in Jesus, but he doesn’t preach that such is necessary in order to be forgiven and receive eternal life.

The true gospel is urgent, because it proclaims that God’s gracious offer of life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ, is received exclusively by faith in Jesus Christ.  You need this gospel, and you need it now.

And you may have it, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done.  Turn from your sins and place your trust in Jesus Christ, who died for your sins and rose from the dead to bring you life.  Accept His mighty hand reaching down to draw you to Himself.  Be cleansed, forgiven, made whole, adopted as a child of the Most High.

The time is now.

 

Imagine that (again)

Tags

Atheism, Celebrities, Celebrity Culture, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Eschatology, God, Ideology, Naturalism, Secularism, Socialism, Society, Theism, Theology, Worldview

…a postscript to my ruminations a few days ago on the celebrities singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”, and the song’s message of despair.

In that earlier post, I noted in passing the hypocrisy of super-wealthy celebrities singing a song that contains the line “imagine no possessions”. Upon further reflection, I think that dissonance reflects one of the basic fallacies of the song and its misunderstanding of naturalistic, materialistic ideology.

For the song suggests that embracing a naturalistic and materialistic ideology—rejecting religion, with its metaphysical notions of heaven and hell, of transcendent morality and judgment and eternal hope—thus “living for today”, will help us break down the barriers and “live as one”. This is, ostensibly, the future that those promoting this ideology dream of.

Now, let us assume that the celebrities singing this song hold to such a naturalistic and materialistic ideology—they are atheists, who believe that this world is all we get, and intend to live for today. This may not be true; I’m not very knowledgeable about celebrity news, and for all I know Gal Gadot et al may claim to believe in God; but the public testimony of this song is that they don’t, so let us suppose that to be the case. Ostensibly, they are “living for today”, they dream this dream.

But they are not sharing their possessions. Oh, I don’t doubt they give to charitable causes; but they keep vast amounts of personal wealth for themselves. They make no effort to “live as one” with the people of the world. Apparently “a brotherhood of man” is not their dream, after all?

Why should it be? This is not a simple matter of hypocrisy—singing the song is, but living a lavish lifestyle isn’t. Naturalistic materialism provides no moral impetus. “Living for today” is perfectly consistent with living selfishly. Transcendent morality and eschatological hope, on the other hand provide a profound foundation for charity.

Of course, many Christians fail to live out the faith, sometimes infamously; because our sanctification is incomplete, we are all hypocrites to a greater or lesser extent. Still, we should see clearly, and here is the key difference: selfishness and greed are hypocrisy in Christians, but are perfectly consistent with an atheistic worldview.

Therefore, if in fact selfishness and greed are bad, then atheism is wrong. If there is good, there must be God.

What Did You Think a Sword was?

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America, AOC, Bible, Celebrities, Christianity, Church, Cultural Engagement, Culture, Culture War, Freedom, God, Gospel, Hope, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Scripture, Sin, Society, Tolerance, Truth

…or, “AOC, Theologian?”

From Christianheadlines.com, “AOC Says Religious Liberty Advocates Are ‘Weaponizing Scripture’ to ‘Justify Bigotry’ against LGBTQ Community“:

In a House Oversight Committee hearing to discuss LGBTQ rights, Ocasio-Cortez called out those who use Scripture to take away rights from gay people. She also compared religious freedom advocates to white supremacists.

“It’s very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using Scripture and weaponizing and abusing Scripture to justify bigotry,” she said. “White supremacists have done it. Those who justified slavery did it. Those who fought against integration did it, and we’re seeing it today.

The most foundational problem in the congresswoman’s analysis is buying into the whole framework of the LGBTQ movement, in which matters of ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ are treated as fundamental identity characteristics on par with race and sex.  That is the great con in this whole business, which has taken in all too many people.  It is only through that ruse that activists are able to regard sensible people as bigots, to put advocating religious freedom in the same category as white supremacy, and to paint their sexual revolution as a civil rights movement.

But the most interesting problem in the congresswoman’s analysis is her understanding of religion, and particularly of the Bible.  For her, religion would seem to be interpreted through the lens of secular liberation ideology; good religion, true religion, is as tolerant and non-judgmental (of liberal agendas) as she is.  And the Scriptures are supposed to be a benign message of tolerance.  For AOC, maintaining the Bible’s view of LGBTQ+ ideology, and wanting to live consistently with it, is somehow an abuse of Scripture.

Most interestingly, the congresswoman derides the use of Scripture in promoting sexual morality as “weaponizing” Scripture.

What?  Weaponizing the sword of the Spirit?

“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17, NIV).

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:12-13).

One cannot weaponize a sword.  A sword is already a weapon.  The Scriptures cut us to the heart, exposing all of our wickedness and sin.  The Bible is not a feather that strokes our self-esteem.  It is not a tolerant cushion that accepts and affirms us just as we are.  It is a sword that cuts through all lies and convicts us of sin–greed, pride, hatred, sexual immorality, all of it.  The Bible speaks of God’s holiness and our wickedness, it speaks of the wrath of God upon the ungodly, it tells us what is good for human flourishing, and it points us to the only means of forgiveness, wholeness, and life–Jesus Christ, our crucified and risen Savior.

“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).

The problem in American Christianity is not that we are weaponizing the sword of the Spirit, but that we are neglecting it.  We take it out for our quiet time, and then put it back in its sheath, as though we could tackle our desperate social issues without it.  We blunt its edges, as though our soft words were wiser than God’s pointed conviction; it must be admitted that the Bible speaks more directly and severely of sin than many a Christian–and many a pastor–is willing to do.

Christianity calls for conviction.  God gave us a sword, and He expects us to wield it.  The stakes are higher than whether or not religious liberty will be preserved in this nation for awhile yet.  The eternal destinies of men and women are at stake.

Let’s Get Real

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Christianity, God, Gospel, Homosexuality, Jesus Christ, Journalism, LGBTQ+, Media, Politics, Religious Left, Righteousness, Salvation, Same-Sex Marriage, Sin, Society, Truth

As a postscript to “Pete Buttigieg, Theologian?“, I want to note something on the other side of the interview–because it really was more of a dialogue, not just questions and answers.  Jim Wallis is a theologian, though not a faithful or trustworthy one, as the interview exemplified.

After all, in the article in question Wallis is interviewing a man engaged in persistent and publicly acknowledged immorality of a kind that God declares detestable (Lev. 18:22).  That is a key piece of context for any Christian viewing this discussion.

Towards the beginning, Wallis says:

The lawyer, says to Jesus, “How do I inherit eternal life?” And he says, “Love God. Love your neighbor.” Simple as that.

The reference is to Luke 10:25ff.  Wallis follows that on the question of loving our neighbors, which is quite right because that’s where the text follows.  But something has been left out: what about this love for God business?  What does that look like?

According to Scripture, love for God involves obedience (Jn. 14:23).  Indeed, the most interesting parallel to note is that in Luke 18, Jesus is asked the very same question, but this time He points the inquirer to the commandments of the Old Testament law (Lk. 18:20).  This isn’t Jesus giving two different answers; He’s giving the same answer in two different ways; after all, as Jesus Himself says, the two commandments to love God and love neighbor are a summary of the law (Matt. 22:37-40).

The failure of the social gospel has always been that it taught love of neighbor but neglected love of God.  For loving God requires not only that we love our neighbor but, first and fundamentally, that we turn from our sins and receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.  There is no gospel without the call to repentance and faith.

To talk about eternal life with someone who is living in persistent sin, without calling them to repent and believe, is a mockery of the gospel.

But there is a real gospel, a good news of eternal life for all who will turn from sin and trust Jesus.  God sent His Son to save sinners from all their sins; Jesus Christ died upon the cross and rose again so that we can have life in Him.  And yes, this has inescapable implications for what we do with our lives in this world.  But the real gospel is good not only for human flourishing in this present world, but for human flourishing in the kingdom of God through all eternity.  And a real theologian must declare the real gospel to people who really need it.

Pete Buttigieg, Theologian?

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America, Anthropology, Christianity, Culture, Culture War, Humanity, LGBTQ+, Politics, Same-Sex Marriage, Society, Truth

I wrote a post the other day titled “Tom Steyer, Theologian?”, and now have encountered a liberal religiousinterview with a much more prominent Democratic candidate, Pete Buttigieg.  This transcript appeared in Sojourners Nov. 19, 2019, but I only came across it the other day.  No doubt there are similar articles out there, as Buttigieg has been quite vocal about his claim to Christianity.  While a thorough dissection of this interview could be instructive, I want to highlight two things I find especially noteworthy.

1. Human dignity/divinity(?).  At one point, Buttigieg says,

…so the radical message of the gospel includes this idea that every single person is of equal concern; it has the divine in them.

There is an initial difficulty in reading this remark because of the grammatical tangles that result from the sexual revolution.  I think Buttigieg is saying that every single person (“it”) has the divine in him or her (“them”).  That grammatical confusion is significant because you can see how depersonalizing–thus, ultimately, dehumanizing–the sexual revolution is.  People cease to be men and women, and they become objects and plurals–‘it’s and ‘them’s.  And this comes in the midst of a comment where Buttigieg is trying to promote the dignity of every person; but you can’t do that while promoting the sexual revolution.  You can only have one or the other.  Trying to have both is one of the impossible tensions of contemporary American society.

But when we move past the grammar and its implications, the statement is problematic for what Buttigieg is deliberately claiming.  Every person has the divine in them?  No doubt there are some religions that teach that, but Christianity isn’t one of them.  We are God’s creatures; we are made in the imago Dei, the image of God; but only those who belong to Christ and have come to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit may be said to have the divine in them–and, even then, it needs to be understood in the right sense.

2. The source of truth.  Concerning the elephant in the room with Buttigieg, part of what he says is:

…on an issue like LGBTQ equality, I really believe this is also a battle within people. I think it is sometimes a battle between what they have been told and how they have been brought up, and something very good inside them, which is compassion.

Notice what’s on each side of this debate in the way he wants to frame it: on the side of Christian sexual ethics is ‘what someone has been told’, and on the other side is the goodness inside them, in the form of ‘compassion’.  This is a twisting of the truth, which is why it’s so effective.  What’s true is that revelation stands on one side, and that feelings are used to pull people to the other side.

But the most important question is, for Christians who have been told that sexual immorality is sin: who told you that?  If the answer is that God tells us that, in His holy Word, then no emotional appeals should move us.  God is true, and His Word is truth.

And, of course, it is only by acknowledging the truth of the gospel that we can repent and believe and come into a saving relationship with the one true God; only by submitting to God’s truth do we come to have ‘something very good inside’ us, the Spirit of the living God.

Gone Bananas

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Art, Beauty, Culture, Media, Postmodernity, Society, Truth

I know, I know, but I just couldn’t help myself.

You have perhaps already read that a banana duct-taped to the wall has been declared a sculpture and sold (in three versions) for $120,000 or more each.  This is only the latest demonstration of the farcical level to which the art world has sunk in the (post)modern era.

There is an absurd pretentiousness about it all.  Consider the words of the gallery’s founder, Emmanuel Perrotin:

Prior to the reported sale, Perrotin told CNN the bananas are “a symbol of global trade, a double entendre, as well as a classic device for humor,” adding that the artist turns mundane objects into “vehicles of both delight and critique.”

Such is the vacuous defense of the debasement of art in a culture that has lost sight of truth and goodness.  Those are the three characteristics classically referred to as the “transcendentals”: the true, the beautiful, and the good.  It makes sense that our cultural elites, who have so constantly twisted the truth and perverted goodness would develop a debased sense of beauty.

The ready reply is that, by seeing foolishness here instead of brilliant artistic satire, I only show myself to be a Philistine who doesn’t understand art.  Ignorance is why someone like me rejects modern art.  This is the paradox of our educational system; somehow, adequate education and enlightenment is supposed to produce people who think a duct-taped banana is art, and that eating that banana is “performance art.”

Yet there is a comfort in the observation of common grace.  I think that this story is so widely publicized because most people see this situation for what it is.  Only those initiated into the nonsense of (post)modern art are deceived by this; only the elitists are buying it–figuratively and literally.

Speaking Truly About Mary

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Advent, Angels, Christianity, Christmas, Discipleship, God, Jesus Christ, Liberalism, Life, Mary, Progressive Christianity, Truth

The Patheos Progressive (i.e., liberal) channel has, for some bizarre reason, highlighted an article written in 2015 by Nancy Rockwell entitled “No More Lying About Mary.”  It’s hard to think how they could more effectively show that they needn’t be taken seriously; the article is one of the most striking demonstrations of bad biblical scholarship I have ever encountered.

Rockwell brings an aggressively feminist reinterpretation of the story of the Annunciation, accusing more standard (and faithful) accounts of lying about Mary.  The irony, of course, is that Rockwell’s account is full of untruths; I do not accuse her of lying, for lying requires that one know what one is saying to be untrue.  That distinction is one she would do well to bear in mind, but slandering Christian interpreters is among the least of her offenses.

On Rockwell’s read, the Annunciation as traditionally understood, with its picture of Mary humbly submitting to God’s will, is a piece of patriarchal propaganda that has resulted in a millennium (why only one?) of “female subjugation.”  Rockwell, on the other hand, sees a very feminist Mary:

there is nothing submissive nor immature about her.

Already the problems in Rockwell’s preconceptions emerge.  Submission to God is connected with immaturity?  The biblical picture is quite the opposite.  Mature believers, men and women alike, submit wholeheartedly to God, whereas submission is a great struggle for the immature and worldly.  It is precisely in her ready submission to God’s plan that Mary’s deep and beautiful spirituality shines.

Rockwell proceeds to badly misread Gabriel’s approach.  Instead of recognizing that Gabriel’s message is that God has favored Mary, Rockwell understands the message to be that God has been impressed with Mary because of “the grace that is distinctly hers.”  In Rockwell’s eyes, “This is a courtship scene.  The angel is wooing her, on bended knee, a suitor–not a constable bringing a decree.”  Maybe in some artistic renderings, but Scripture paints no such picture.

It is Mary’s grace that has attracted God’s attention.  And what is this grace?  It is what Luke shows us in her conversation and her actions–courage, boldness, grit, ringing convictions about justice.  Not submissive meekness.  Grace is not submission.  And the power of God is never meek.

It takes some pretty serious eisegesis to arrive at all that.  But, more importantly, our willingness to submit to God is indeed a work of His grace; and Christmas is all about God showing His power in meekness.  Such might also be said about the cross.  Rockwell’s misreading of Mary ends up showing the profound contrast between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of feminism: the former is about submission to the will of God and God’s power paradoxically displayed in the cross; the latter, in its normative contemporary expression, is about refusal to submit even to God.

Rockwell follows with an assertion of Mary’s boldness and the odd conjecture that she should be associated with adventure rather than domesticity.  Having mislabeled the Magnificat a “political manifesto,” Rockwell goes on to deny that the text claims Mary is a virgin–despite the fact that this is the unmistable meaning of Mary’s response to Gabriel.

Probably the most misguided element in the whole piece is Rockwell’s umbrage at the idea that Mary was in her early teens.  The text does not give her age, but biblical scholars usually suggest that she was around the typical marriage age for Jewish girls at the time; and when your life expectancy is in your 30s-40s, it makes sense to marry young.  But to this standard impression, Rockwell says,

Luke does not assign her a specific age.  And to insist she is under sixteen is to ascribe to God a pedophilic attraction to underage women.

This badly misconstrues not only the situation, but the nature of God.  God is not attracted to Mary–not in that way.  There is nothing sexual about the Incarnation.  But, once again, the feminist impulse appears to underline this gross misinterpretation:

Such details twist Mary’s story and burden Christian women with a sense of selfishness if they postpone childbearing, a psychic demand to put childbearing first in their hearts, for God who seems to want nothing from them but pregnancy.

The anachronism and eisegesis continues apace:

Mary is unmarried when the angel comes.  The angel’s invitation and her independent decision tell us Mary does not need permission of clergy–or her parents–to become pregnant.  God knows Mary owns her own body.  And there is no shame in her decision.  Mary is good news for unwed mothers everywhere.

Questions of clergy and parental permission really have no place in the story.  But probably the most telling statement is “God knows Mary owns her own body”–as though women are independent of even God; but isn’t that the overarching theme?

In the story as actually presented, Gabriel is making an announcement, not a request.  Mary does assent, but there’s no suggestion that she could have really refused; it was a question of her attitude, not of whether or not God’s plan would go forward.

You may read the end if you wish.  It is as sacrilegious as the rest.

This whole piece is a strong example of what can happen when we let our own ideology guide our interpretation instead of listening to God’s Word.  Mary became a feminist, and God became something much less than God.  That is the nature of sin–an effort to dethrone God and take His place.

But all such efforts are doomed to failure.  God cannot be thwarted.  His plan will unfold, and His reign will come in its fullness.  Maranatha.

In the meantime, when we refuse to hear His Word, we lose the opportunity to take His gracious message to heart.  The saddest thing about this article is that the Annunciation is a beautiful story with much to teach us, and if you manipulate it you miss out.  The true Mary is not the feminist icon of Rockwell’s imagination; she is, instead, a shining example of submission to God that all Christians should imitate.  It is in the very submissiveness that Rockwell so denounces that Mary has and will continue to point true Christians to the path of obedient discipleship and devoted allegiance to God.

May we aspire to such faithful submission before the Almighty.

That To Which We Are Entitled

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Abortion, Christianity, Culture, Humanity, Jesus Christ, Life, Media, Rhetoric, Society, Truth

A recent salvo from the cultural left comes this article describing 350 members of the legal profession who filed an amicus brief regarding a supreme court case, in which they share about their abortions.  The basic goal, as even stated later in the article, would seem to be the normalization and de-stigmatization of the horrendous evil of abortion.

One may wade through the typical and deceptive jargon that attempts to make personal determination the central issue, rather than the lives of all the vulnerable innocents these women have killed.  This is the standard lie, and it needs no more comment than that.

What I did find interesting was a statement at the beginning of the article, where one lawyer says,

I was smart and I deserved my career and I deserved to be able to give it my all and to become a mother when I was fully, emotionally, psychologically, and in terms of resources prepared to become the best mother I could be.

The rhetorical and political success of abortion comes substantially through framing it as a right, something that is deserved.  It is connected with personal autonomy and flourishing.  And notice how positively everything is put: she does not say, ‘I deserved to decide whether to kill or give birth to my baby’ but ‘I deserved to focus on my career and defer motherhood until I was ready for it.’  It just so happens that deferring motherhood came at the price of an innocent life.

There are curious comparisons of this attitude with the story of the Fall.  We’re not told Eve thought she was entitled to the forbidden fruit; but she was given the idea that it was something good which God wanted to withhold from her, and she decided to reach out and grasp it.  Abortion advocates tell women that the God-given fruit of their womb is theirs to reject, if they decide it is not good.  In both cases, the basic lie is that we know better than God, and we can make our own path to flourishing.

But the attitude of entitlement moves us even further from the truth.  We don’t deserve to actualize ourselves at the expense of others.  We’re not entitled to kill people who stand in the way of our careers.

When you put it that way, it sounds absurd that anyone could think otherwise.

But add to that a true perspective on what we do, in fact, deserve.  We are sinners, and the judge of the universe is absolutely righteous.  We deserve the wrath of God.  The good news is that if we come to Christ, we receive not the just sentence we deserve, but mercy instead.

We shouldn’t be too quick to demand what we’re entitled to.  There’s no life that way.  But a society that trades the pursuit of righteousness and mercy for self-actualization and the pursuit of an increasing list of supposed rights is prime soil for a culture of death.

Christ is the answer.  Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

Blame It on the Greeks

Tags

Academia, Christianity, Hellenism, Postmodernity, Rhetoric, Scholarship, Truth

Reading Donald Bloesch’s God the Almighty has been quite engaging so far, although (or perhaps because) I often would raise a quibble or more with the author.  Many of my quibbles would coalesce around a single central quibble, which centers on a peeve I long ago adopted as a pet.

This pet peeve is Hellenephobia.  Bloesch’s got it.

Hellenephobia is my own tongue-in-cheek term for the tendency by (post)modern theologians to dismiss things they don’t like by blaming them on the Greeks.  ‘X idea is an infiltration of Hellenism (Greek thought) into Christianity, and therefore dispensible.’  This has been used in all kinds of ways.  Biblical scholars who don’t believe in the soul (you read me right) love to do this, as though the Bible’s teaching about life after death (and before the Parousia) were so easily dismissed.  Once you get used to identifying Hellenephobia, it becomes a pet peeve, and causes quibbles.

In its own way, I think that a parallel can be drawn between the (post)modern Hellenephobe and the scholars of the Renaissance–an ironic parallel, to be sure.  The Renaissance scholars pooh-poohed the Middle Ages in their desire to go back to the glories of the Classical era.  They liked the Greeks.  The (post)modern scholars maintain that the scholastics of the Middle Ages were captive to the Greeks, and the Greeks were interlopers, and we will get back behind all of them to the truth.  So, whereas for the Renaissance scholars the Medieval scholars weren’t Greek enough, for the (post)modern scholars, they were all far too Greek.

But what if the Greeks gave us some wonderful conceptual tools and should not be rejected just because they were Greeks?  And what if the scholars of the Middle Ages and the Reformation and pretty much everybody before us were more biblically faithful than some people give them credit for?

It’s at least worth considering.