Red State/Blue State

Eric is memorizing the book of Romans. Last time we talked, before he went to Campus Crusade's Christmas Conference in Greensboro, he was able to recite chapters 1 through 3:10. He expects to be able to get through chapter 4 by the time he goes back to school for the spring semester. He is following the memorization techniques of his pastor, Andy Davis, pastor of First Baptist Church, Durham, North Carolina, known for being able to recite whole books of the Bible verbatim from memory.

He's expressed some eagerness to get past chapters 1 and 2 to get to the "good stuff" about justification by faith in chapters 3 and 4. I've tried to encourage him to linger over these chapters. Their message is vitally needed today. I've probably read these two chapters more than any others in the book of Romans even though I was converted through Romans 5:5.

In trying to convince him of the relevance of these two chapters, in which Paul argues that all human beings are without excuse before God and in need of His righteousness, I told him to think of chapter 1 as Paul's indictment of blue states and chapter 2 as his indictment of red states.

As I've thought about this, I've realized just how relevant this analogy really is. Chapter 1 indicts blue state thinking in many ways. For example, blue state thinking detaches any discussion of ethics from religion. Basing political ethics, especially, on religious commitment is automatically invalidated. However, according to Paul, it's all ultimately about religion, responding to the one true God who constantly reveals himself to us with worship and thansksgiving. Ethics is secondary in the sense that unrighteous behavior follows from rejecting God; it is the means used to suppress (distract from) knowledge of God; and, it is God's punishment for irreligion. Because, "they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done." (v. 28) Religion comes first, ethics second.

Blue state thinking prides itself on religious tolerance, so long, of course, as you believe everything or believe nothing. If you believe some things and not others, you yourself are intolerant and hateful. All religions are equally valid except for those that claim validity for themselves. Religion arises out of a sincere seeking after truth. Paul, of course, demolishes this view of religion, arguing that the religious impulse is indeed a response to God's continual self-revelation, but most of it arises out of a concerted effort to substitute our own futile speculations about God, which we prefer, for his revelation of himself.

Finally, blue state thinking turns moral judgment inside out, calling good "evil" and evil "good." Forming moral judgments is itself to be despised as wicked and evil; it is hateful intolerance. Blue state thinkers not only indulge in immorality, but "give hearty approval to those who practice [the things God condemns.]" (v. 32) Blue state thinkers see themselves as having progressed beyond the old fashioned, provincial traditionalism of red staters.

But in chapter 2, Paul turns to those who do pass judgment. (2:1) Paul indicts those who believe that forming accurate moral judgments is enough, thinking correctly, about God and ethics, is sufficient. He indicts those who rely merely on asserting the exsistence of moral absolutes and objective truth and locating the basis for human rights in God's ordaining, as though this exempts them from scrutiny of their practice.

This is red state thinking. We* emphasize virtue, with a capital V, and character. We adhere to traditional values. Yet, our practice is not significantly different from blue states. We have the same divorce rates. We are as materialistic and worldly. Though our moral judgment is finely tuned, this only serves to aggravate our self-condemnation.

Red state and blue state thinkers are alike without excuse and in need of God's righteousness. Paul's indictment, culminating in Romans 3:10-18, is intensely relevant today.

*My town in Connecticut is red, though just barely.

Fact Fundamentalism

Marcus Borg suggests that there are 4 different possibilites with regard to Jesus' own self-awareness and whether he was the messiah: 1) Jesus thought he was the messiah and he was right, 2) Jesus thought he was the messiah and he was wrong, 3) Jesus did not think he was the messiah and therefore he was not, 4) Jesus may or may not have thought he was the messiah and he is.

Borg says that the third possibility "sounds like common sense but is actually 'fact fundamentalism' or 'fact literalism' ... [that is,] if something isn't factually and literally true, it isn't true." (p. 55, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions)

Now, I am sure I am betraying my naivete and lack of sophistication when I say this, but this still seems like a very odd thing for one who claims to be a diligent historian to say. What does it mean for Borg to assert that something is historically true? Why does he spend so much time distinguishing between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of tradition? Can't he just make blanket assertions of truth about the Jesus of history without regard to facts? Doesn't he presuppose that the difference between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of tradition is that one is the factual Jesus and the other is the metaphorical Jesus? Isn't this an irrelevant distinction if all truth is metaphorical anyway? And what does it mean to assert the truth of anything? When Borg says something is true, doesn't he really mean just that he gets a warm, fuzzy feeling when he makes the assertion?

I'm just grateful that the mechanic at the Granby Garage is a fact fundamentalist. When he works on our broken down cars and asserts that they now run, they actually do run. I'm not sure how we could operate in a world where a mechanic's assertions are dismissed not as common sense, but fact fundamentalism, and therefore ought to be disregarded. If a mechanic tells me my car runs like a charm but it doesn't run at all, do I still have to pay him?

To me, Borg is playing an astonishing word game -- a game that seems fundamentally dishonest. Some of the old religious existentialists asserted that Christianity was historically false yet we could affirm meaning in spite of it. Because existential meaning trumps all other concerns, historicity is irrelevant. Christian history is false; but who cares! Borg, on the other hand, still asserts that existential meaning trumps all other concerns, but also claims the history is true. It's just that he's redefined "true" to mean "gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling." I'm not sure what he gains by asserting "truth" when he clearly does not mean "truth" as anyone could apply it. It seems this is simply a more effective guerilla strategy to undermine Christian faith.

At least Robert Funk, the founder of the Jesus Seminar is more upfront on his agenda, (quoted from markdroberts.com)

"Robert Funk’s opening remarks at the first meeting of the Jesus Seminar in 1985:

What we need is a new fiction that takes as its starting point the central event in the Judeo-Christian drama [Jesus] and reconciles that middle with a new story that reaches beyond old beginnings and endings [creation and eschatology]. In sum, we need a new narrative of Jesus, a new gospel, if you will, that places Jesus differently in the grand scheme, the epic story.

Not any fiction will do. . . . The fiction of Revelation keeps many common folk in bondage to ignorance and fear. We require a new, liberating fiction, one that squares with the best knowledge we can now accumulate and one that transcends self-serving ideologies.

This doesn’t exactly sound like the beginning of an objective quest for the historical Jesus, does it? In fact in that same lecture Funk said this about what his Seminar fellows would experience:

What we are about takes courage, as I said. We are probing what is most sacred to millions, and hence we will constantly border on blasphemy. We must be prepared to forebear the hostility we shall provoke."

Redefining "truth" is a ploy to appease "common folk" -- the "ignorant" and "fearful" superstitious -- while surreptitiously substituting blasphemous new ideas for the old gospel.

Woman Charged in Grisly Theft of Fetus

This headline is an example of the AP's pro-abortion bias run wild! The fetus is a baby girl named Victoria Jo. I wonder if the AP has a policy to distinguish kidnapping from "fetus stealing."

Yahoo! News - Woman Charged in Grisly Theft of Fetus

UPDATE: see article by Rich Lowry about this "linguistic confusion"

Rich Lowry on National Review Online

Virgin Birth

Today's installment of Mark Roberts's response to Newsweek is especially good.

The Birth of the Virgin Birth Story

I'm looking forward to his next post in which he will list resources for additional study.

Knowing Jesus and Newsweek

Motivated again by Newsweek’s Christmas Story, I decided to read the discussion (it’s not really a debate) between Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright about the Jesus of history.

As with so many of those Jesus Seminar scholars, Borg’s statements are not at all clear even when they seem to be: “[the historical] Jesus is dead and gone—a claim that does not deny Easter but simply recognizes that the ‘protoplasmic’ Jesus isn’t around anymore’” But the post-Easter Jesus is around, that is, “what Jesus became after his death. More fully, … the Jesus of Christian tradition and experience.” What he of course means by this is not that Jesus the historical person really became anything; the post-Easter Jesus is a character in a work, or works, of fiction. But by labeling fiction as metaphor, and claiming that metaphors are true because they are meaningful, he tries to assert the “truth” of Easter, and the possibility of “seeing Jesus.”

By contrast, Wright is the model of clarity. His description of the “hermeneutic of paranoia” embraced in New Testament studies almost refutes, by itself, Jon Meacham’s nonsense in that Newsweek article.

I’d love to post Wright’s entire chapter, “Knowing Jesus,” but this would violate copyright laws. However, I can’t resist quoting excerpts from four paragraphs defining what it is to know Jesus by faith.

… It has been inherent in Christianity from the beginning that the believer “knows Christ”; Jesus, as the good shepherd, knows his own sheep, and his own know him. This is regularly described in terms borrowed from ordinary personal relationships: believers are aware of Jesus’ presence, his love, his guidance, his rebuke, and even perhaps his laughter. They are aware of being in touch with a personality that is recognizable, distinct, frequently puzzling and unpredictable, always loving and lovable, powerful and empowering, loyal and calling forth loyalty …

… It is not just “belief.” It is natural to say “I believe it’s raining” when indoors with the curtains shut, but it would be odd to say it, except in irony, standing on a hillside in a downpour. For many Christians much of the time, knowing Jesus is more like the latter: being drenched in his love and the challenge of his call, not merely imagining we hear him like raindrops on a distant windowpane. (For many, of course, the latter is the norm; hinting, promising, inviting.)

… When we “know” a person (as opposed to, say, knowing the height of the Eiffel Tower), we imply some kind of relationship, some mutual understanding. We are used to each other; we can anticipate how the other will react; we accurately assess their wishes, hopes, and fears …

When someone claims to “know” Jesus of Nazareth in this sense, they are making a claim about other things as well: the existence of a nonspatiotemporal world; the existence of Jesus within that world; the possibility of presently alive human beings having access to that world, and of this being actually true in their case. They are claiming, more particularly, to know one person in particular, a distinctive and recognizable person, within that world, and that this person is identified as Jesus. This knowledge is what many people, myself included, are referring to when we say we know Jesus “by faith.”

From N.T. Wright’s chapter, “Knowing Jesus: Faith and History,” (pp. 24,25) in Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, (New York, HarperCollins, 2000)

Against Meacham’s assumption that history and faith are completely at odds, Wright asserts that this way of knowing Jesus is reinforced by history, “history comes to the help of faith. The Jesus I know in prayer, in the sacraments … is the Jesus I meet in historical evidence—including the New Testament … as I read it with my historical consciousness fully operative … History, then, prevents faith from becoming fantasy. Faith prevents history from becoming pure antiquarianism.” (p. 26)

(Note: Meacham claims to be summarizing a scholarly debate. However, at first I simply couldn’t find more than one side. His article is much like a presidential debate where the microphone for one of the candidates is turned off every time it’s his turn to speak and then the only candidate who’s heard is pronounced the winner.

I finally realized that Meacham probably thinks he did represent both sides of the debate. The two sides are not, as I would expect, critical historical scholars who conclude that the gospel narratives are reliable vs. those who conclude that they are not; but critical, historical scholars who assert meaning in the Jesus stories despite their lack of foundation in history vs. simple believers who know nothing about history and don’t care to. He either is not aware of scholars like Wright, or he doesn’t like them. Either way it’s lousy journalism.)

Newsweek on Christmas

I've intended to write a response to Newsweek's feature on Christmas, The Birth of Jesus, Faith and History: How the Story of Christmas Came to Be, in which Jon Meacham claims that a critical, historical assessment of the gospel narratives leads to the conclusion that the Christmas stories are works of fiction and propaganda. Meacham cloaks his extreme skepticism by affirming that the story is still meaningful even if it is false. This, of course, is just plain old Christian liberalism. Meacham completely ignores those scholars who use the tools of crtical, historical investigation and believe that the gospels are historically reliable.

Today I found an excellent series of posts written by Mark Roberts, a pastor in Irvine, CA, who has a Ph.D. in Christian Origins from Harvard. Rather than write a response myself, I will just link to his series.

markdroberts.com

Christian Investment Strategy: A Meditation for Businessmen

Philippians 3:7-8

⁷ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

Peter T. O’Brien begins his comments on this section in his commentary on Philippians by pointing out that Paul is using accounting terminology when he speaks about gains and losses (p. 383.) Paul is dealing with the issue of valuation; that is, assigning values to objects. His conversion to Christ involves a re-valuation (O’Brien, as a theology professor, rather than a financial analyst, doesn’t quite get the accounting terms right, but the concepts are there.) I agree. Gains, losses, and reckoning – or counting, as the ESV has it – all seem to point to commercial transactions and investment strategies.

But there is a very important investment concept implicit in this passage that O’Brien doesn’t comment on. I doubt that Paul was enough of a specialist in finance to be able to put a label on it. Certainly, professor O’Brien is not. And, even most senior executives ignore it when selecting investment projects. But it is clearly included in Paul’s logic: opportunity cost.

Wikipedia defines opportunity cost as “the cost of something in terms of an opportunity foregone (and the benefits that could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable foregone alternative.”

So, when Paul reviews his previous privileges and moral accomplishments in the absence of Christ he sees gain. But, having discovered the surpassing value of knowing Christ, he recognizes that there is an opportunity cost associated with the things that he previously valued. Relying on his own personal righteousness and moral accomplishment – that is, investing in his own righteousness – causes him to forego investing in a righteousness from God making him miss out on knowing Christ. The cost of this is the value of knowing Christ: infinite. To call that a loss is an understatement; it’s rubbish! “I count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Internet Browser

On a very different note: I am very impressed with Mozilla Firefox. I only use Internet Explorer as a last resort. The performance is much better with Firefox, and the tabs feature is wonderful.

I've organized all my bookmarks into folders: political blogs, Christian sites, and newspapers and news weeklies. At the beginning of the day, I open a folder and select the option to open all of my bookmarks in that folder in tabs. So for example, my newspapers and news weeklies folder will open the LA Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, National Review Online, the Washington Times, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Drudge, and World Magazine, each in its own tab. Once I've scanned through all these I then select one of my other bookmark folders and replace these tabs with new ones.

I have far too many blogs bookmarked in my political blogs folder. The ones I really look at throughout the day are: the Belmont Club, Instapundit, RealClearPolitics, Powerline, Little Green Footballs, and Diplmad. I have many, many more bookmarked, but I scan them very cursorily. Of course, scrappleface.com is in a class by itself, and deserves its own separate bookmark.

This routine would be unwieldy without Firefox!

Contemplating My Career Change

Philippians 3:7-8

⁷ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

I am still waiting to hear whether I have been accepted into the M. Div. program at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I called this past Tuesday to check on the status of my application, to make sure they had received my three personal recommendations and the church affirmation. The admissions assistant was just then forwarding my application to their admissions committee. I am very eager to hear and, hopefully, get moving on this next phase of life.

Though I can’t wait to get going, I am, frankly, very aware of the lifestyle we will be leaving behind. At times I am tempted to chastise myself for this. It seems so unspiritual to think about what we are giving up. If I were truly mature, and less materialistic or worldly, it just wouldn’t matter to me. But, that is a false view of spirituality. We often make ourselves most miserable when we require of ourselves what the Bible does not require, when we set unrealistic, unhuman expectations of ourselves.

For example, we often falsely think that Christianity requires us to act against our own self-interest, or even to be entirely disinterested. But that is completely false. Jesus assumes that human beings are always motivated by self-interest. His command to love our neighbor as ourselves assumes that we do love ourselves. The parables comparing the kingdom of God with finding a pearl of great price or discovering buried treasure teach not abandonment of self-interest but more zealous and wise pursuit of it. The promises of eternal reward contrast what is permanently in our interest against what will disappear.

Or we buy into false dichotomies, thinking, for example, that true spirituality means full-time Christian ministry even though we find more joy in biomedical engineering, robotics, music performance, or management consulting. We ignore the fact that one of the qualifications for an elder is to “aspire” to the office (1 Tim 3:1) and to fulfill its responsibilities “not under compulsion, but willingly” and “eagerly.” (1 Peter 5:2) We forget that because God is at work in the Christian “to will … for his good pleasure,” (Php 2:13) what we delight in is often a reliable indicator of God’s will for us, our vocation.

The disciples were very aware of what they had left in order to follow Jesus. “See, we have left everything and followed you” they reminded him. (Mark 8:28) Jesus didn’t chastise them; instead he said that the one who has left house … or children … or land will receive much more in this life and in the next (along with suffering.)

It simply would be false, and ungrateful, to deny that I have enjoyed our big, beautiful house. I have enjoyed the status and position that came with my secular job. I have enjoyed being a member of a country club with so few members that I never had to make a tee time. God gave these things to us. They are good. But, they do not compare to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It is the comparison that counts! The joy to be found in following Christ, and in doing what he has called us to do, overwhelms any attachment we have to things that are good in themselves. It is unnatural not to appreciate all that we’ve had; but it would be foolishness not to exchange them for something infinitely more valuable.

I hope I hear soon.

Bible Translations

I am making a second concerted effort at switching from the New American Standard, which I have used for over 31 years, to the English Standard Version. My first effort failed. I could not get past being distracted by slight differences in translation. At first the distraction was useful because it forced me to pause to truly understand the meaning of a passage, but it ended up slowing me down too much.

I was also disappointed with some of the translation choices the ESV makes. For example, the ESV will often translate participles as finite verbs; long, complex sentences with subordinating participial phrases are broken into several simpler sentences with finite verbs. Though this strategy makes the translation much more readable, it hides the relationship among these sentences.

However, as much as I love my New American Standard I recognize that it will never become the dominant American translation. And, I believe that the NIV needs to be displaced as the translation of choice among evangelicals.

John Piper has good reasons for embracing the ESV.

http://www.desiringgod.org/library/topics/word_god/esv.html

I am not sure, though, that I will be as successful as he has been in switching to the ESV. John used the RSV, which was the base for the ESV, for much of his adult life. The ESV and RSV are very similar. I only used the RSV on occasion when leading InterVarsity Bible and Life seminars. The NASB is much more deeply ingrained for me.

(I also wish Crossway would produce an ESV without the two column format. I much prefer a single column of text with cross references or alternate readings in the margin or as footnotes at the bottom of the page rather than in a center column between two columns of text. With the center-column reference format, I have to use a magnifying glass to read the references, and I am far too young to buy a large print edition!)

Update as of April 17, 2005

I am still using my ESV, and recently purchased the Reformation Study Bible, which is very good. One of the main advantages of the ESV is that it is an acceptable alternative for my college-age son and his friends -- in a way that the NASB for some reason is not. It has made it much easier for us to have substantive discussions about the meaning of a text without the distraction of first squaring up the translations.

The paragraphing in the ESV can be very helpful. It often highlights the flow of an argument, especially in the epistles, in a way that the NASB's line-by-line formatting does not. When analyzing a text I outline it with a line-by-line format more akin to the NASB's.

I still do not like the two-column/center-reference-column format! I wish Crossway would do something about this. I also still think we lose important information about the relationship between propositions when participles are replaced by finite verbs. But I'm starting to get used to this translation.

The Necessity of a Firm Faith

If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all. (Isaiah 7:9 ESV)

Our highest priority when faced with disappointments and dangers that threaten to dismay us is to fight for a firm faith. If we lack that we are easily demoralized and will be overcome.

Church Bashing Ad

A number of news commentators have characterized the UCC's mean-spirited, church-bashing, race-baiting ad, "Night Club," as "all about tolerance." What a novel use of a word!

The ad shows two bouncers outside the entrance to a church manning a velvet rope. A gay couple comes up to the rope seeking to enter the church and they are turned away. Then a white, heterosexual couple comes up and they are let in. The camera then shows those who have been turned away, a multiracial mix of straights and gays. A voice over then says something to the effect that the UCC is the only church that follows Jesus' example in welcoming everyone.

Of course, it is true Jesus does invite everyone to come to him. He is extravagant in his welcome, as the ad claims. However, in explaining himself to the religious hypocrites of the day, he said he had not come for the righteous but to "save sinners." He challenged the crowd to judge the woman caught in adultery but then turned to her and said, "go and sin no more." What the UCC leaves out of their ad is their view that any use of the word "sin" or the biblical concept behind it is itself unwelcoming. The UCC's Jesus is half-a-Jesus who never addresses or deals with sin. Apparently his only mission was to make people feel good about themselves, no matter what. I am curious what their view of the purpose of the cross is. Does he accomplish anything a good dose of prozac couldn't do?

As for the "tolerant" implication that all other churches are racist, this is outrageous! It is absolutely true that the Congregational church, expecially in Connecticut, has a stellar history of civil rights activism. This was a center of abolitionism and integration. The UCC is justly proud of that heritage. And, they are certainly right to assert that as one of their historical distinctives. But, it is a libel to imply that other churches today are turning African Americans and others away and barring entry into church. This is a slander.

As an aside, this is the same denomination whose representative, Davida Foy Crabtree, says, "we take the Bible too seriously to take it literally." I'm curious what their correspondence with the networks refusing to show their ads looks like. Do they write letters seeking to persuade the networks to change their position? Do they seek to explain the intent of the ads? What if the networks take these letters too seriously to take them literally and freely read into them any meaning they choose? Does the UCC get upset? ... Why?