Capitalism

No economic system is perfect. If you really want a great critique of capitalism, read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s warnings about its vulgar materialism and soulless consumerism. For me, the biggest problem with capitalism is how successful it is in reducing poverty, raising the standard of living, creating wealth across the spectrum of society. Many of the problems, temptations, and trappings that use to only affect the “super wealthy” are now accessible to the “poor” and middle classes.

Nevertheless, capitalism has been the most successful economic system ever devised – by far! As a Christian, my main concern when it comes to economics is how it affects the poor and how it affects freedom. The overwhelming, self-evident conclusion is that free-market capitalism reduces poverty, creates jobs, increases wages, raises the standard of living, creates wealth across the board, funds charity, leads to innovation, reduces work hours, improves the environment, reduces inequality, increases cultural diversity, increases choices, promotes democracy, increases life expectancy, improves quality of life, eliminates many diseases, promotes family, decreases crime, increases mobility, and gives people the opportunity to pursue more meaningful work.

That people don’t see this constitutes a serious intellectual and moral blind spot.

POLITICS

I don’t like politics. I find it’s a highly ineffective way of reaching Kingdom goals. It disturbs me when Christians focus so much upon it. It grieves me to see non-Christians who invest so much in politics as to make it their religion. It annoys me that everything from economics, to art, to food, to weather, to crime, to football must be politicized in order to advance particular agendas.

At the same time, I’m very interested in how people think, how they arrive at their conclusions, and why they believe what they believe. I find politics and people’s reaction to politics to be one of the best arenas in which to study these processes.

It’s like looking at a cluttered and disarrayed house through the window from outside. Politics is like people attempting to put the house in order by focusing on methods of cleaning the window. The methods proposed and the reaction to those methods tell you a lot about how people think and process information even if it doesn’t tell you much about cleaning the house.

The Aeneid, Teleological Meta-Narratives, and the Hope of Israel

I’ve been reading The Aeneid by Virgil recently. My main reason in doing so is because of my reading of N.T. Wright’s Paul and the Faithfulness of God. In the latter work, Wright argues that The Aeneid was the first work in world literature (outside of the books of the Bible) to present a teleological meta-narrative. The running theme of The Aeneid is that history was building itself towards the establishment of Rome, specifically the Augustine reign. Elsewhere, such a view of history was not to be found … that is, outside of the Biblical worldview of God’s redeeming work in history through Israel leading up to the coming of Christ. Wright uses The Aeneid to compare and contrast it with Paul’s understanding of Israel’s teleological meta-narrative.

Much of philosophical modernity from the 19^th and early twentieth centuries focused on teleology. Hegelian philosophy argued an evolutionary, dialectical, mediatory approach to history in which the contradictions in society are resolved through their synthesis. This leads to inevitable progress.

Liberal theologians of the 19^th century (particularly the German history of religions school) applied this philosophical idea to Christianity to argue that the Kingdom of God was advancing through society as a gradual process of improvement and continued revelation to the point in which the world would eventually arrive at a perfect state. In most cases, the state was considered the mechanism by which God worked out his will to advance what became a more secularized Kingdom. Much of this thinking by liberal Christians favored post-Millennialism. World War I put an end to much of the post-Millennial, happy advancement movement, as well as the emergence of the neo-orthodox movement by Christian liberals (Bart, Brunner, Niebuhr) who embraced Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel and the state and who began to take seriously the problem of evil. Now the teleological thrust of history and its meta-narrative was no longer an inevitable, and gradual development of the Kingdom but a progress of fits and starts, advances and retreats that wrestled with the evil of the world and human nature, particularly as it worked itself out in the individual’s relationship with God. The Kingdom of God was inevitable not by evolutionary progress of state control over society and the individual but by God eventually breaking into history.

On the purely secular and materialistic level, Marx embraced Hegelian dialectics as a political-economic struggle of history in which the state was an expression of cold immutable forces and a tool of the progression of society from a capitalistic system to a communistic system that eliminated all societal contradictions. In Marx’s teleological thinking, the meta-narrative of history is the inevitable collapse of capitalism based upon its internal contradictions. However, contra Marx, capitalism continued to thrive unabated leading to self-evident societal progress while socialism continued to destroy and disrupt advancement in the societies in which it was applied. Indeed, in the places where Marxist philosophies were most strictly followed … well, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, post-Revolutionary Mexico, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, etc. speak for themselves. Furthermore, the philosophical developments of the 20^th century, particularly in the 1960s, led to a rejection of the Marxist teleological view of history as an economic meta-narrative. We now entered post-modernity.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of post-modernity is the abandonment of the meta-narrative as philosophical discipline, particularly as a cultural-societal phenomenon that might be considered hegemonic to other cultural narratives. It is interesting and ironic that the current U.S. President – our most post-modern to date – frequently asserts a teleological meta-narrative as rhetoric. “The arc of history bends towards justice.” “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Whether it is his naiveté of Hegelian-influenced Marxism or the influence of post-Millennial classical Christian liberalism, our current commander ‘n’ chief seems to hold to a teleological meta-narrative worldview. Though I’m not sure it is the right one.

As I’ve written and stated elsewhere, a meta-narrative is essential to Christianity. God’s redemption of creation through Man, Israel, and Christ is central to the Faith. All the teachings of the Bible, the moral codes, life lessons, and church functions are pointless unless there is an over-arching narrative purpose towards which such things are directed and in which contextualized. Indeed, both 1^st century Palestinian Judaism as advocated by the Pharisees and Jesus and the post-Resurrection morality teachings of Paul were teleological in purpose and understood with Israel’s meta-narrative. Both drew from Israel’s Scriptures and similar strains of interpretation of Yahweh’s blessing to Abraham:

“I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore … In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 22:17-18; cf. 12:12).

This is the core of the Jewish teleological meta-narrative. It is expanded upon in Deuteronomy, the Psalms, Deutero-Isaiah, and Daniel. The idea understood in Jesus’ time is that Yahweh would return to his people, defeat Israel’s enemies, and establish and eternal kingdom that renewed creation.  This was the great hope of Israel. In all this, the teleological meta-narrative was that history was building towards something. It was the special proclamation of John the Baptist and Jesus that the history of Israel was about to reach its climax: Yahweh was returning to Zion, Israel’s enemy was about to be defeated, the Kingdom of God was about to be inaugurated. It was/is the Christian contention that the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus brought about this historical climax, though in a completely unsuspecting way. Jesus is seen as the first fruits of the resurrection (1Cor 15:20, 23), fulfilling the God’s promise to Abraham (Rom 4:13; Acts 7:17; Gal 3:29) and inaugurating New Creation (Gal 6:15).

This is why Christianity cannot abandon a teleological meta-narrative as a worldview. Israel’s history was building towards the climax of Jesus and his resurrection, while the results of that resurrection builds the rest of history towards its consummation and the resurrection of all believers in new creation. Indeed, a Paul himself wrote, “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14; cf. v.17).

So it’s been interesting to read how Virgil in his The Aeneid writes the history of Troy, Carthage, and Italy to legitimize the Roman Empire and Augustus as its ruler. The difference from the Biblical narrative of course is that Virgil lived at the end point and was writing “prophecies” into this one work, while the Biblical writers had numerous prophecies that they were waiting centuries to see fulfilled. Still, Paul and the other early Christian writers, living 50-60 years after Virgil, are pointing towards Israel’s Scriptures and common Jewish strands of interpretation to make their teleological point. That The Aeneid was well known in the first century Greco-Roman world in which Paul was writing is what makes this interesting.

The Proverbs and Contemporary Moral Relativism

The Book of Proverbs may be one of the most accessible books of the Bible insomuch as it speaks of the general wisdom and common, practical knowledge that is readily available to all peoples and all cultures at all times and places, as opposed to the specific and special revelation that came more directly from God to Israel through the prophets.

The Proverbs are proverbial. They are simple and concrete sayings, popularly known and repeated, that express general truths based on common sense or the practical experience of all humanity.

They are not special to the Bible and many of them can be found in the wisdom teachings of all cultures. Indeed, other Ancient Near Eastern cultural literature, such as that of the Egyptians and the Assyrians, contain proverbs like those found in the wisdom literature of the Israelites. This should not surprise us. One does not have to be a follower of Yahweh to know that adultery (5:3-4), lying (12:17-20; 19:9), drunkenness (20:1), jealousy (6:34), pride (11:2), gossip (20:19) causes problems in one’s life. You do not need to be a Christian to comprehend the benefits of friendship (27:10), respecting parents (6:20; 15:5), and raising children properly (22:6). Such ideas are endemic to human experience because they have been generally found to be true amongst all people, in all places, and at all times.

And for thousands of years amongst every culture, when one fell foul of these general truths, there were typically two cognitive responses:

1)      Either recognize your error and choose whether or not to adapt your actions

2)      Or consider the whole issue a matter of fate/chance

Post-modern culture has thrown us a third option in which culture and society have quickly embraced as they continue to abandon Judeo-Christian morality.

Today when individuals commit selfish, prideful, indolent, and sexual errors in their lives that result in the inevitable, harmful outcomes, they are all too quick to blame what they consider to be social construction and artificially moral codes that are institutionally endemic. The idea here is that, in truth, in reality, there is no moral truth that everyone should prescribe to, only variable, personal social habits dependent upon the individual. But how is it then that there seems to be an apparent moral cause and effect relationship between violations of, say, sexual moral codes and the problems that inevitably follow? The contemporary answer to this vexing question is the belief that society and culture have been constructed over hundreds and even thousands of years so that the followers of a particular moral code are privileged while those who reject that moral code are disadvantaged. In this view, there is nothing absolute about morality that reflects genuine reality; only the social construction of the powerful imposing their morality upon the powerless. Thus, what has been deemed sexual immorality only leads to disaster, heart break, disease, suicide, destroyed relationships, jealousy, tears, poverty, depression, etc. because powerful people of a particular moral code have constructed all of society to make it so. Thus, the negative results of immorality are the fault of society and the not the individual who violates that moral code. Thus, those who promote that moral code as an absolute morality are partially culpable for the disasters that effect moral violators.

This is the contemporary thinking of too many in our culture today. Why do criminality and poor choices lead to poverty? Society is to blame! Why can’t I commit crimes and attack police officers? Institutional injustice! We’re even at the point where biological facts are deemed social constructions and not accurate reflections of scientific reality.

This is not to say that the structures of government, culture, and society cannot be the conduits of evil and negative outcomes. Paul of Tarsus speaks about this (Ephesians 6:12). Certainly, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Marxism, Nazism, and Progressive Liberalism have all shown to be capable of creating structures which cause massive evil and tremendous casualties in society. However, such power structures are shown to be evil because they support, condone, and perpetuate the immorality that transgresses the codes found in the Proverbs and elsewhere.

Yes, it is the height of hubris to suppose that the proverbial morality found in every culture, at every time, and every place is now to be willfully abandoned in order to assuage the guilt of individuals frustrated by the fact that their moral choices lead to disastrous outcomes.

So what are we to do? How do we address this hard-headed refusal to recognize reality?

Intellectual argument and rational thought won’t work. The immorally defiant are neither intellectual nor rational. You can’t persuade those who refuse to be open to persuasion.

Instead, I submit that we continue to be the light of the world, the city on a hill, the salt of the earth. Clichés, yes, I know, but they are the purpose and mission of the people of God. We need to be true, authentic humans, living like mirrors reflecting the image and light of God in this world. We must continue behaving morally and lovingly, following the proverbs and commandments, and proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. When people see our faithfulness and love, a portion will be come. The rest will continue in their self-imposed misery until God gives them over.

Daniel 3 and Christian Conscience

I’ve always thought that the Book of Daniel is the single greatest work that deals with the subject of state/culture vs. religion.

In chapter 3, the Babylonian government creates a new law requiring all officials in the government to fall down and worship a new state idol. To not do so would be against the law and perceived as disloyalty to the state. Jewish exiles who are a part of the Babylonian government - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – choose not to fall down and worship this idol, instead choose to follow their consciences and the commands of God regarding the worship of idols.

Now Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had several choices in front of them. They could have chosen to fall down and worship the idol in earnest. They could have chosen to fall down and only pretend to worship the idol. They may or may not have had the option of stepping down from their positions in the Babylonian government, but they could have run away. Instead, the three public officials chose to publicly ignore the law and follow their conscience. Really, why should they cower before the state? Let the state try and make them go against their conscience. Naturally, they were arrested and thrown in prison.

All well and good. Great story. Five stars. The feel good chapter of the summer. How does it play out in real life?

We can all sit and read about the great consciences of individuals like Daniel, Paul, Thomas Beckett, Martin Luther, Sir Thomas More, Eric Liddell, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. We admire them and we hold them on a pedestal. We do that.

Yet, in all practicality, the vast majority of most Christians are cowards. They talk a big game, but, when the rubber meets the road, they will bend to the will of the state like limbo champions.

Peer pressure will get most of them … and the fear of being associated with THOSE Christians. Others are conditioned by the artificial structures of power and authority that make up society and cannot conceive of going against them. Still others might exercise their right to sue and proceed along the avenues of the judicial system until they exhausted all legal remedies. Yet, when they lose, they choose to kowtow to the holy cow. In the end, almost all of them fear losing reputation, possessions, status, and their physical freedom. Yep, Olympic gold medals for Christians on the balance beam.

But when they aren’t bending it like Beckham, they are talking a good game, aren’t they? They are morally outraged by the thing that they must be morally outraged about today. I know because I saw it on Facebook. Yet how often do we see Christians in our own churches cower at the first sign of intimidation. If they break when they have nothing to lose, do you think they will refuse submission when they could lose almost everything?

And, yet, there is a sublime simplicity in alternative: “No.” “Make me.” The words are pure though their consequences are ugly. Yes, you could lose everything – even go to jail – but Christians are supposed to give up everything anyway. Besides, the freedom of one’s conscience is more important than the freedom of one’s body. I’d rather have a free conscience than a mind imprisoned by an unwillingness to embrace the truth. Indeed, Christians have done some of their best work in prison (Paul, Luther, Bonhoeffer, King).

Talk is cheap. Moral outrage is unpersuasive in the calming patience of God’s victory. We’re about to enter a very interesting era of history. Let’s see who bends towards the idol and who remains standing.

Hunting the Urban Hipster

(Whispering, intoned sotto voce) Today we are at Wegman’s on the hunt for the lone Eastern Pennsylvanian Hipster or Coolus obscurus.

Our guide is big game hunter, Mookie Robinson. Mookie is a tough, white, fearless hunter who has chosen to live in the violent, unrelenting world of millennial, urban life, where only the ironic survive.

We are currently established in the organic food isle of the Wegman’s grocery store. It’s quiet. We first see a beatnik pass.

Suddenly, Mookie crouches to examine some hipster spoor. Chuck Taylor All-Star tracks and a Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle cap. The hipster is close.

Mookie puts out a box of organic gluten-free grains with the label “sustainability” printed on it to lure the hipster out into the open.

We hide behind crates of imported cheeses and wait.

Suddenly, Mookie spots the hipster we’re after.

And there it is! A truly magnificent specimen. The hipster looks to be about six feet tall, with a plaid shirt, bowtie, tight jeans, Sylvia Plath cardigan, and Buddy Holly glasses. The beard weighs two pounds and is easily capable of sopping up a bowl of lintel soup. From the looks of the hipster, it’s probably into knitting, veganism, urban beekeeping, and bookbinding classes. The real embodiment of postmodernism as a spent force, revealing what happens when pastiche and irony exhaust themselves as aesthetics.

The hipster slowly approaches the box of organic food. Two more strides and the hipster could reach out and touch someone with its beard.

Mookie raises his rifle. For the past few months, he’s been rehearsing this moment in his bedroom closet in Brooklyn, aiming, reloading, aiming again. He shoots. The rifle’s thunder is somehow insigni­ficant. The shot catches the hipster in the appropriate place, in the iPod.

But a hipster iPod is a big piece of equipment—it can include thousands of songs from obscure 80s and 90s bands that you’ve probably never heard of, all on continuous shuffle.

Mookie’s bullet did not apparently disrupt the iPod enough to take down the hipster in a single shot. It shakes its head, as if to wag away the pain of distorted indie music. There is a second shot that strikes it in the earbuds. It turns to flee, probably towards its fixed gear bicycle, but its right foreleg has buckled. It drops its iPod. It strives to stand. It steps on the iPod. The earbuds pull it down. Right in the middle of Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up”. The hipster falls without realizing the irony. It’s a success. The hipster is dead. But Mookie must make sure. He fires a final shot. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded hipster.

But the hunt is not over. With well-practiced skill Mookie skins the hipster. The beard of a full grown male hipster can in fact fetch anything up to $4 on the open market.

The long day is over and it’s back to base camp for a night’s rest.

Jesus and the Shema

The most important prayer in all of Jewish life from its conception down to today is the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 which begins in verse 4 with “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

This was the central prayer of Judaism in the time of Jesus and Paul and the defining statement of Jewish monotheism. Yahweh was the one and only god. He is the creator god. There is no other gods except him. In the world of paganism, this was what defined Jewish worship and was their central theological point.

Now when we come to Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 8, he is addressing the issue of whether or not Christians should eat food that has been sacrificed to idols. To make his point, he references the Shema in verse 6a: “for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him.” His point is twofold.

First, because there is only one God (Yahweh), don’t worry about such pagan sacrifices because there are no gods to be sacrificed to.

Second, because God is the Creator, what he created was good and all food is good to eat.

But in making his point with reference to the Shema in verse 6a, he immediately follows it with 6b: “and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”

Let’s put this together now:

“For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”

This is the most amazing and earth shattering statement anyone could make. Paul has put Jesus into the Shema, the supreme Jewish prayer, and equated him with God the Father (Yahweh). This is a reformulated Shema to include Jesus within the Godhead.

As I researched this passage, I found many scholars argue that verse 6 may not even been original to Paul but may be an early Christian confession that Paul is citing to make his point.

The odd thing though is that Paul is not having to argue this concept at all. In his letters, he is arguing about food, circumcision, Torah, and inclusiveness, but just 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul (and the rest of the New Testament writers) don’t have to argue to either Gentile or Jewish Christians that Jesus was the embodiment of the Israelite god, Yahweh. This is a statement of fact that everyone seems to agree upon and from which other issues either spring or by which issues are answered.

Two points to be made from this:

First, the idea that Christians (including Jewish Christians) only recognized the divinity of Jesus centuries later with a succession of ecumenical councils does not hold water. Indeed, the first church councils were formed in order to affirm Jesus’ humanity, not his divinity.

Second, this early recognition of Jesus as embodying their creator god, Yahweh, by Jewish Christians lends additional historical evidence to his resurrection. Without the resurrection it’s historically implausible that a group of Jews who knew better would say to themselves, “You know that guy who the Romans crucified in the most shameful way possible? I think that that guy was our creator god. Let’s include him in the Shema.”

Mark 1:1-3 - Who Can Endure the Day of His Coming?

“The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, [the Son of God], as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ –  ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’” (Mark 1:1-3)

In this surprising introduction to Mark’s Gospel, the writer begins by establishing that this work is about Jesus. The phrase “the Son of God” is here placed in brackets because the oldest and best manuscripts do not contain it. This phrase was some many centuries later by some scribe who correctly understood one of Mark’s primary themes: Jesus is the Son of God (1:11; 3:11; 5:7; 9:7; 12:6; 12:37; 13:32; 14:61; 15:39).

Mark launches his Gospel with two Old Testament quotes, one from Malachi 3:1 and another Isaiah 40:3, though oddly attributing both of them to Isaiah.

Both of these verses concern the coming of Yahweh back to his people after the long spiritual exile that began with the Babylonian Captivity of 588 BCE. Following the destruction of the Temple of Yahweh built by Solomon in Jerusalem, Yahweh was seen to have departed from it and abandoned his people to their sins. Even when the physical exile was over and the construction of a lesser, second Temple in Jerusalem began in 538 BCE, the Jewish people still believed that Yahweh had not properly returned to his Temple and had yet to properly forgive the sins of the people. They knew that Yahweh had saved them from the physical exile but that a further step was needed. In the first century CE, the Jews were still eagerly waiting for Yahweh to return and doing so under the rule of the conquering Roman Empire. When Mark cites these two verses he is specifically stating that Yahweh is returning in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.

Ominously, the verse in Malachi is followed with the warning “But who can endure the day of his coming?” (3:2). The rest of the book of Malachi deals with the eventual return of Yahweh to his people … but states that this might not be a good thing for everyone, particularly for those who rob and thieve from God (vv. 8-9).

The second part of Malachi 3:1, notes that “Yahweh will suddenly come to his Temple.” This particular verse finds its fulfillment in Mark 11:15-17 when Jesus “cleanses” the Temple and cites Jeremiah 7:11 about the Temple becoming a “den of robbers”. In Jeremiah, this is a warning that if the people do not change their ways, exile is coming. Both the Greek version of Jeremiah 7:11 and in Mark 11:17, the word used for robbers is lestes (λῃστής).

This all comes together in Mark with the realization that Yahweh has returned to his people and to his Temple in the person and work of Jesus. However, though Jesus is offering the end of exile through repentance and the forgiveness of sins, he is also warning everyone that failure to follow his way would lead to another, permanent exile. Who can endure the day of his coming?

Now if we want to go even further down the rabbit hole, we have to ask what this exile was going to look like. What form was it going to take?

For the entirety of his ministry, Jesus had been enacting a grand prophetic parable of what it meant for Yahweh to return to his people, the “Cleansing” of the Temple being only a part. As he closes his so-called “earthly” ministry, Jesus has one more prophetic parable to enact.

In Mark 14:48, when the crowds come to arrest Jesus and take him to be crucified, Jesus says, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me, as you would against a robber (lestes)?”

In Mark 15:27, it is recorded that “They crucified two robbers (lestes) with him, one on his right and one on his left.”

The Romans put Jesus to death between two robbers or brigands, all deemed revolutionary by Roman authorities and deserving of a death reserved for those who went up against the Empire and were to be made an example to everyone else (Mark 15:7). This was the same death that Roman meted out to the Jews who revolted during the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE) when Roman soldiers were crucifying upwards of 500 Jews a day and when the Temple was permanently destroyed. It was general and future Caesar, Titus, who refused to accept the wreath of victory for winning the war, saying, “There is no merit in vanquishing a people forsaken by their own God."

In Jesus’ final parable, he showed what the final exile would look like. It was Rome destroying the Temple and the Jewish people as a nation and crucifying them like revolutionary robbers (lestes). It was Yahweh forsaking his people to their own devices. The people were waiting to be saved from the spiritual Exile but were making the same mistakes that caused the original physical exile. Yahweh was returning to his people and while some would be released from exile, others would find punishment via crucifixion by Rome. Yahweh is coming, who can endure the day of his coming?

It is interesting that it is one of the Roman soldiers crucifying Jesus that sees his death and remarks that “Truly this was a son of a god” (Mark 15:39).

The Satan in the Modern Setting

The Satan emerges in the Jewish religion sometime after the Exile of 587-538 BCE. Possibly of Persian influence, The Satan emerged as an angelic figure whose chief responsibility was the legal accusation of sinners before God. At some point, The Satan began to enjoy his role so much that he set himself against the purposes of God to accuse and conquer humanity for his own purposes. He began to create the problems by which he could accuse humanity before God.

In many ways, the Hebrew mind wrestled with the problem of evil and concluded that the coincidences that come with a close examination of the subject only point to a personal embodiment at work.

In this sense, the Jews and Christians could see The Satan and his daemonic cohorts at work in three areas:

First, The Satan could be at work in individuals.

Second, The Satan could be at work in whole communities.

Thirdly, and most diabolically, The Satan could be at work within the authorities and power structures that dominate a culture, society, nation, government, and local church,

Each of these three areas requires a greater difficulty of prayer and supplication. Yes, I’m afraid that I do not have an antidote for two and three yet apart from the continuing work of the work that God has called the average Christian to do.

Praying for Our Leaders

“First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men,  for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

Why do you think Paul tells the Church to pray for kings and those in authority – and, by logical extension, the nation a Christian finds himself or herself in?

One reason is that God desires that all men and women should be saved and that we should pray that our national leaders come to a saving relationship with God and under his authority.

I think another reason is more practical.

The Roman Empire that ruled the Mediterranean world at the time of Paul and the early Christians had unsuccessfully attempted to force the Jews to pray to Caesar. The monotheistic Jews refused and proved to the Romans that they were willing to die before they would pray to anyone other than Yahweh. The Romans, ever the practical conquerors, wisely decided to offer an exemption to the Jews from participation in Emperor Worship and only asked that they pray for Caesar and pray for Rome. The Jews agreed to this compromise and prayed to Yahweh for Caesar and Rome so that they could lead tranquil and quiet lives and avoid the wrath of Rome.

For quite a while, Roman authorities did not make a distinction between Jews that followed Christ and Jews that didn’t. They realized that there was some controversy among the Jews about a certain “Chrestus” but that it was all and intra-Jewish conflict.

It wasn’t until the Romans began to make that distinction between Jews and Christians that Christians lost the protective exemption from Emperor Worship that Jews enjoyed. That was when the persecution really began.

It’s quite possible that Paul is encouraging the Church to pray for the national authorities so we do not face the persecution that comes from being at odds against the national culture.

The Use of Zakar in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

The use of zakar is important in both Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. By using it, the OT writers were not simply saying that it is wrong for men to have sexual relations with other men, but that it was wrong for men to sleep with anything male, including male children. That's explicit in Lev. 20:13 that uses both 'isyh and zakar. The OT writers were not just considering consensual male adults but any male-male sexual act. It was an overarching term forbidding all homosexual acts. This is how Paul and others in the first century CE understood these verses. The Greek translation of the OT uses arsenos koite for the translation of " sexual acts with male" in Leviticus 20:13. These two words eventually came together as arsenokoitai which refers to sex acts between males of any age. Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 6:9 but it's used elsewhere outside of the NT.

Happiness, Joy, and Truth

I’ve often noted that people confuse the concepts of Joy and Happiness. God, who is the author of all things, created a distinction between Joy and Happiness in humans. Too often, humans will experience Happiness in the wrong things and consider it Joy. People can be Happy that some event has occurred and falsely associate it with the Joy that life can offer.

Christian Joy is not synonymous with any form of Happiness to which most people are accustomed. True Joy – Christian Joy - is Happiness with Truth. With Truth. It is Happiness in the knowledge that one is in sync with the reality of the universe, i.e., God. Indeed, it is often a Happiness that exists even in times of persecution, suffering, and death because it is grounded in the reality of God.

Happiness without Truth is ultimately joyless. It is usually deceitful. It is frequently consummation of all one thinks they want followed by bitter disappointment. It is like finally dating that one person you’ve always wanted to date only to realize that the initial Happiness is followed by pain, disappointment, and sometimes the realization that it was never meant to be. And it was never meant to be because it was never grounded in reality to begin with. One problem is that people associate love with emotion and lust (or sexual attraction) … but not with Truth. Truth is just as an important factor in love as emotion and sexual attraction. The Truth of who we attach ourselves to – whether it conforms to the Truth of reality – is just as important as the emotion and sexual attraction involved. Someone might say, “I love this person.” To that I say, “Good. You are supposed to love that person. You’re supposed to love everyone. But how you are to express that love depends upon the Truth of reality and not solely upon subjective emotions and sexual attraction.”

In the same way, Happiness without the Truth is fleeting because it is without foundation, without Truth. It is a lusting for life but not a connection to the reality that is life’s foundation (apologies to Iggy Pop: good song). It is sucking on the foam but not drinking in the latte … and then being angry and disappointed that the coffee doesn’t taste that good. Unfortunately, most people in such a situation do not respond with self-reflection and repentance but a further, bitter fist-shaking at reality, characterizing it as society being constructed against them.

Thus, Happiness without Truth is joyless and ends in bitter disappointment. Christian Joy is Happiness with Truth that endures even in persecution, suffering, and a society constructed against Truth.

Thinking in Plato

I started re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia last week. I’ve usually read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe about twice a year since I was about seven years – it being one of my top ten favorite books. In recent years, I’ve started reading the other six books in the series at least once in the year. I find that like the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, and Joyce, the Chronicles has the ability to expand one’s consciousness and imagination and, therefore, deserves repeated readings over a lifetime.

While reading these books I often find it helpful to consult Paul F. Ford’s Companion to Narnia and Michael Ward’s definitive work on the subject, Planet Narnia. Both of these works help the reader dig deeper into the construction and design of the series, as well as the theology and philosophy that undergirds the work.

The night before last I was reading Ford’s companion to the series and saw this entry on the Platonic philosophies inherent in the work:

“Plato saw the Socratic method of questioning as a necessary consciousness-raising antidote to the human tendency to shrink back from the fullness of reality into a superficial existence. In such a reduced state the human spirit will mistake the most immediate appearances for reality itself. Self-deception is a recurring factor in this constriction of consciousness since it is easy enough to hold an opinion but hard work to actually know what one is talking about.”

Options for Bible-Believers with Difficulties in Interpretation of ANE

One of the difficulties of interpreting the Bible in the post-Enlightenment age is comprehending how ancient cultures communicated reality to one another. And the farther back you go the more bizarre the cultural communication can seem to modern minds.

One example of this is how Jewish religious authors from 200 BCE to 100 CE used apocalyptic literature. This ancient genre uses symbolism, poetic language, cataclysmic imagery, fantastical creatures, and both a truncated and an expanded and even an overlapping account of history in order to give a spiritual interpretation of historical events. More often than not modern minds will respond in two ways: 1) they will accept this genre but interpret it too literally or 2) they will reject it because they can’t interpret it literally.

But if we go back even further into ancient near eastern literature things get even more bizarre.

The Egyptians, as well as the other cultures of the Ancient Near East (ANE), often exaggerated, allegorized and symbolized certain aspects of their concrete world in order to make important points. Often these non-literal techniques were applied to religious and historical reality to make important theological, political and ethnic points.

Such methods of interpreting reality were common in all the cultures of the Ancient Near East. In fact, they appear to be common to most ancient cultures from the Chinese to the Mayans. To this end, we have Egyptian, Mayan, Chinese, Sumerian, and Assyrian kings with exceptionally long reigns.

Here are some examples from the Early Dynastic I period of the Sumerian kings list:

• Alulim of Eridug: (28800 years)
• Alalgar of Eridug: (36000 years)
• En-Men-Lu-Ana of Bad-Tibira: (43200 years)
• En-Men-Gal-Ana of Bad-Tibira: (28800 years)
• Dumuzi of Bad-Tibira, the shepherd: (36000 years)
• En-Sipad-Zid-Ana of Larag: (28800 years)
• En-Men-Dur-Ana of Zimbir: (21000 years)
• Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppag: (18600 years)

Now when we turn to the Bible we read of the exceptionally long lives of people like Adam, Enoch, Noah, and Methuselah. How are we to interpret and/or understand something that seems so foreign to our contemporary understanding or reality? I think believers who hold the Scriptures to be high authority have three options:

1)      They can say, “I don’t know what other ancient cultures were doing, but I believe what the Bible says is true and people used to live hundreds of years.”

2)      They can say, “I understand there is something quite culturally foreign to my understanding going on here. People probably did not live hundreds of years but that’s not the point the Bible is trying to make. I still believe what the Bible says is true, but I’m going to interpret in light of its contemporary culture and not my own.”

3)      They can say, “I have no idea what is going on here. I don’t know what to believe. However, I trust God and believe the Bible. I don’t have to make a definite decision on something like this in order to be a fully formed follower of Christ.”

I’m not advocating any particular option above the others. I think all three of these are perfectly acceptable approaches for the purposes of personal growth and Kingdom expansion. My point was just to point out one of the difficulties of Biblical interpretation and how different Bible-believing Christians can approach this problem.

Modern Church Growth

The modern church growth movement began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when Christian researchers and scholars (prominently with the Fuller Seminary School) began to study the apparent numerical decline in mainline dominations and the beginnings of decline in evangelical churches. The result was a scientific approach to what made some churches grow and other churches decline. The results of numerous studies and subsequent how-to-books led to the explosion of church plants, contemporary churches, and the rise of the megachurch in the late eighties and through the late nineties. The results of this was (in my opinion) a tremendous church revival and refocus on the cultural execution of the church. Hence, we began to see seeker-sensitive services, contemporary worship services, topical preaching, multiple services, the proliferation of ministry programs, emphases on entertainment/recreation, corporate/business models, marketing, and the extreme focus on numerical growth. These techniques were adopted by many Boomer generation and a few Gen X pastors.

The tide began to turn away from such approaches in the late 90s and through today. Many of the megachurches that pioneered these earlier methods began to find that while their attendance grew numerically, the spiritual growth of their members had not grown. Other contemporary pastors also began to react against the focus on numbers, programs, and perceived shallow teaching. We then began to see the growth of the Emergent Church, which is a both an extension of the contemporary church movement and a reaction against it, and the focus on more authentic religious experiences. At the same time, later born Gen Xers and Millennials began to similarly cry not only for a more authentic religious experience but a more outward focus of church purposes (i.e., the Missional Church). It seemed that the work of such missional scholars as Bosch, Nida, and Hesselgrave became extremely relevant to modern church growth. The focus has now become intentional mission work outside the church in the neighborhoods, affecting both the spiritual and physical needs of the community.

Some of the techniques of today’s contemporary church growth include more authentic and integrated forms of worship, narrative preaching, diversified understandings of corporate worship/church attendance, emphasis on missional living, creative spirituality, small groups, and an even greater reliance on technology and social media. Certainly some of these techniques existed in various ways in the past, just as many past techniques continue to work (contemporary worship, multiple services, marketing, etc.).

As America further becomes a post-“Christian” nation and the Biblical worldview becomes even more foreign to the culture, more missional methods of church ministerial work will become necessary. We can no longer regard the church as an institution to which outsiders must come in order to receive a certain product, namely, the gospel and all its associated benefits. Churches can no longer exist for the members and depend on pastors and staff to evangelize the lost. The local church and its members will need to define and organize themselves in terms of mission – each as body and member being sent to take the gospel to and incarnate the gospel with their specific community and culture. Thus, the local church must redefine its nature and create a new paradigm in which it is seen as missional in nature, instead of attractional in nature. Instead of churches attempting to attract people to churches through church programs, churches must instead take the gospel outside of the church and engage society with the gospel, often by being involved not only in missions and evangelism but also in social justice movements. How we do “church” will need to be more embedded in the community.

Authenticity will be important. There are millennial aged people who are even embracing more liturgical churches because they have the appearance (justified or not) of being more authentic. Contemporary churches can have the bad reputation of being more flash, fluff, buzz, and pre-manufactured and less substantive. But contemporary, traditional, liturgical, charismatic, and emergent can all be useful models of ministering to whomever God is directing you, provided there is that authenticity (though you might not necessarily receive numerical growth).

Right along with the need for greater authenticity, in a post-“Christian” culture, the need to reeducate people about the Biblical narrative is essential, primarily with children but also with adults. Learning the grand narrative of the Bible is essential to creating a proper worldview. At the same time, grounding a believer in the grand narrative also provides him or her with a mission, THE mission, on which to fully participate as a member of the Church.

Just like in the nineties, contemporary churches are going to have to change and adapt to the culture in order to achieve Kingdom goals. What worked 20 years ago may no longer do so. For such churches to continually rely on nineties methods of church growth is simply to become another traditional church embracing the inevitable decline into religious irrelevance.

Majors and Minors

Christians often distinguish between the Major prophetic books of the Bible (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel) and the Minor prophetic books (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi).

A mentor of mine once said that there is no such distinction between major and minor, greater or lesser. All prophecies (i.e., communication from God to his people) are major. Each prophetic book fits a specific situation that needs to be addressed. Each book is performing a specific function necessary to achieve God’s goals in this world for his Kingdom.

In the same way, there is no major or minor, greater or lesser position in the church – only the position to which God has called you to serve. Each position is equally important because God is using each position to achieve his goals and grow his Kingdom here on earth.

At the same time, while there is no important or unimportant position, there are right and wrong positions. Are you serving in the right position? Are you serving in the wrong position? Are you serving at all?

God expects every Christian to serve in some capacity. Figure out what that position is and know that it is just as important as any other position in the church.

“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

You’ve all heard about one of the Ten Commandments that states: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

Most people have inherited the traditional assumption that this commandment means to not speak God’s name in specific ways such as “Oh, God!” and “[gosh darn it]”.

The problem with this particular, traditional interpretation is that it doesn’t line up with what the Scripture actually says. If the verse meant that we should not speak God’s name “inappropriate” ways it would say “speak” (דָּבַר) and not “take” (נָשָׂא). The Hebrew word for “take” here is nasa' and in the Qal Imperfect means “to carry”, “to bear”, and “to lift up”.

In actuality, the meaning of this commandment is that no one who is a believer, a follower of God, should take the name of God, should say they are a follower of God, and then behave in a manner which suggests they are not. For us it means, “Don’t say you are a Christian and then behave in an un-Christian-like manner.” Don’t lift up the name of God if you are going to live your life like someone who doesn’t know who God is. Don’t bear the name of God in public if you’re going to act like a pagan in public. As my Old Testament seminary professor said about this the meaning of this verse, “Don’t make God look bad.” To do so is to be a believer in vain (שָׁוְא, shav'), which means in “emptiness” or “futility”. To say you are a believer and to act as an unbeliever is to be a believer in absolute futility. You might as well then be an unbeliever.