Prosperity Gospel?
June 28, 2009
I really enjoyed this video clip. What do you think?
A Fast
June 26, 2009
I’m sick of hearing myself talk and think. I think I may be full of myself. I feel like my brain and my soul have hit a brick wall. I’m taking a two week break from blogging to salvage a bit of myself. I hope some of the other contributors will write a couple pieces to maintain an output.
Thanks, may the peace of the Lord be always with you.
Tony
An Apology, and clarification
June 26, 2009
I’m a hothead. I have been as far back as I can remember. My wife and friends can surely attest to this. Perhaps it is my fake red-dyed hair, perhaps it’s genes; whatever it is, I’ve been known to fall headlong into being an ass.
Michael Spencer, the famous “internetmonk,” recently wrote a piece about the new Anglican Church in North America. Somehow, what started on my part as a mere clarification on matters of fact turned into a rather confusing exchange that can only happen on the comment thread of a blog. The kind where it gets exceeding difficult to properly preface and explain and there is a two-way confusion as to the tone of the other people. By the end I was left exasterbated, feeling that I had both not communicated clearly and not been understood generously.
In a delicious piece of irony, just as I was feeling ‘ok’ about it, I gave my twitter feed one last check before I went to work the night shift. Low and behold I was mentioned there and I left angry.
In the end it doesn’t really matter. As I made a fool of myself in public I might as well do it again.
Michael, for being uncharitable, rude, arrogant, and confusing I apologize. In the end I have massive amounts of respect for you and am concious of the fact that you have been preaching probably about as long as I’ve been alive. It’s not the first time I’ve been stupid, and it won’t be the last.
Some Authors That Were There for Me
June 23, 2009
Up until the time I was 19 I was a resolved anti-intellectual. I thought that those who “thought too hard” about things just muddied the clear waters of the Christian life. But then a kind professor at North Central University recommended that I give C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity a stab. Well, everything went downhill from there. Here are a couple that sealed the deal.
I - C. S. Lewis – Mere Christianity was the first book of his that I read, and it sent me into a Lewis frenzy. I ravenously read up anything of his that I could get my hands on. Perhaps this was the seed that eventually precipitated my drifting into Anglican arms. Whatever it was I had never felt more terrified. I really thought that I was losing my faith, and getting it back again in an alien form. Perhaps this seems extreme to some, but that is how it was. From there I especially was influenced by The Great Divorce . . . how terrifying that we should find gracious and open arms on the other side of grace and be so blind as to turn it down. And how splendid to think of not being obsessed with hellish pictures of real fire and worms. The Problem of Pain was the final in a trifecta of Lewis books that cemented my love of this “simple layman of the Church of England.”
II – William Barclay – Some might be surprised to find out that I have never taken an introductory class to the New Testament. What happened is that not too long after I read my first Lewis book, as a sort of “graduation (from Master’s Commision) present” from my father gave me a complete, blue leather, hardcover set of William Barclay’s “Daily Bible Study Series” commentaries. I started with Vol. I of St. John’s Gospel and I very quickly read through every one. Barclay is often scorned at Bible Colleges and Seminaries, and I understand why; but Barclay is no wuss. He defininitely knew his Greek and was abreast of all major scholarly winds then available. And if not for his pastoral touch and his manly encouragement to holiness, I’m not sure I would have survived the encounter with the academic community. As with Lewis, I began to read any available book I could get my hands on.
But probably the greater gift was that William Barclay blew open all my quaint assumptions as to who could “be a Christian” and who couldn’t. Here was a man who so enlivened the Scriptures to me, whose love of Jesus was so powerfuly greater than my own, but he generally dismisses the miracles of the NT, who has problems with certain aspects of traditional belief, and who is a self professed Universalist! It made me very uncomfortable; and I still don’t know why so many Evangelicals love this guy; or rather I do, but it is strange. Barclay opened up the Church for me to include so many that I thought were certainly out, and for that if nothing else is something that I am eternally greatful for.
III – N. T. Wright – He hardly needs to be talked up these days. Everybody has an opinion on him, but his Christian Origins Series has absolutely transformed my reading of the New Testament. His open Evangelicalism is inspiring, his scholarship is exacting, and more so than any other NT scholar I have ever met, is fully informed in the latest philosophy – when you hear more “liberal” scholars call his work apologetic, it is just them feeling ashamed that they cannot match his potent critiques – Wright interacts with ALL the liberal works, whereas Crossan barely even touches anybody that doesn’t agree with him, both in his Historical Jesus work, and his work on Paul. I am practically wetting myself with anticipation for the rest of his Series.
IV – Walter Brueggemann – If Wright is the NT scholar informed by modern philosophy, Brueggemann is the OT one, there is not a “post-modern” work that he hasn’t conversed with. After having interacted with the scholarly work in NT, I needed someone brave for the OT. Obviously there are a plethora more critical problems for understanding the OT, and overcoming them and getting the OT to speak for the Church is a daunting task. His Old Testament Theology is powerful and unsettled my tepid reflection on the relavence of the OT; his Introduction is also very helpful in this regard. Add to that his award winning Prophetic Imagination, his books on preaching, and many others as well; and we’ve got one of our great treasures in the Church.
Holiness & the Credibility of Faith
June 18, 2009
As so often happens, I’ve been running several new posts around in my head, but I wanted to throw this out because of a number of disparate posts and discussions I have gotten in around the interwebs. I understand this first post will not have a ton to say to our Mainline audience; but we have as many Evangelical readers I’m going to post it anyway, and in the next post we’ll open the conversation up to include the broader Christian community.
Having been raised in the AG, I happen to know a thing or two about the “holiness movement.” Of course we inherited it from Methodism, in a sadly degenerate form (poor Wesley, so many misunderstand him).
The wonderful thing about evangelical holiness is how gloriously simple it is, and how easily it fills one with a sense of deep piety. It can easily be summed up in a few hard and fast rules.
- Whatever you do for God’s sake don’t drink alcohol. Never mind that if you really press most conservative evangelicals they will grudgingly admit that drinking is not a “sin” (though of course within a fraction of a second they will practically scream: “BUT BEING DRUNK IS!!!@#$!”); none of that matters, it is bad
- Don’t smoke . . . anything . . . ever . . . Jesus doesn’t like smoke. Don’t chew either. Just nothing to do with that plant tobacco and its more insidious cousins.
- Don’t Swear Jesus isn’t really a fan of any bad word
- Don’t have sex before you’re married (man Christians like to talk about sex)
These are the big four, especially if you’re a teenager. These are the ones that will put you in the “your salvation is in doubt” category if you do them. There are, of course, minor rules that flow out of these.
- Don’t watch rated R and most PG-13 movies, unless Mel Gibson is in it or directed, produced or wrote it
- Don’t listen to “secular” music (you hear that Beethoven you sinful ass!)
Of course there were in living memory other marks of true Christian holiness, our parents remembered them, but conveniently forgot to tell us how they managed to not live by these rules anymore.
- Don’t go to movie theater’s at all.
- Don’t go bowling
- Don’t play with facecards
- Don’t dance – unless it’s in the Spirit (for charismatics only)
- Don’t spend any time with a non-Christian unless you are trying your darndest to convert them because they participate in the aforementioned unmarks of Christian holiness
We laugh, rightfully so, at these rules, or at least most of them. But should we? I suggest we should be appaled and disgusted by them. A couple of things to note:
1- They are all rules in the negative. There is not a single positive command here. The fruits of the Spirit and the characteristics of love as found (for example) in I Corinthians 13 are conspicuously missing
2- For all the talk of evangelicals about the Bible, these commands are strangely found nowhere straightforwardly in the Bible.
When I slowly made the transition out of conservative evangelicalism, I liked to talk about alcohol. In fact I still do. This frustrated a lot of my friends who agreed with me about alcohol. I like to pester on about it, how stupid it was that it was ever an issue. They would accuse me of making it as big a deal as conservatives, just from the other side. I still like to mention alcohol around conservatives. This is not because I still think about it; I mean I think about beer a lot, but not about its moral or spiritual ramifications or the opinions of conservatives on the topic. And I’m not doing the same thing only from another side. I think that the pre-occupation on these and similar rules within Evangelicalism is a sign of a deep problem and I want to tease some things out of this pre-occupation.
The lived Christian life in a community, and the emphasis’ thereof, create a sort of primary theology of Christian spirituality.
In simpler terms, while on the theoretical level, Conservative Evangelicals (from now on CE’s) may conform to standard evangelical orthodoxy, these and similar “rules of life” confirm unspoken theologies that are heretical mutations of true doctrine. A few of these are
- The replacement of baptism and faith as ONLY necessary marks of inclusion in the Christian community. When these and similar rules are enforced, implicitly or explicity as the true marks of Christian holiness and inclusion, the Gospel is trodden underfoot.
- The creation of a caste system of Christian worth based on the observance of shallow rules. So that while people might be a Christian if they do these things, they are not as good a Christian as X is or those who obey X’s rules. The subtle intrusion of a theology of “works righteousness” (for lack of a better term)
- The replacement of scriptural fidelity and Christian tradition’ing with strange and unscriptural rules. I just read something about this in Matthew today
These result in a plethora of problems, too many of which to write about. But, if I’m right, and I think I am, regardless of the fact that these rules may not be “evil” in themselves, when they are emphasized – and don’t underestimate how emphasized they are – they result in a community of marginalization and estrangement, of pride and failure. Rather the opposite of what the narrative of Jesus opens up.
But, far from holiness not being important, in the next post I would like to explore just how very important it is. But I will argue that Christian holiness will look VERY different than it does in many communities (not that I am excluded from such critique, far from it)
This is another Onion-style satire piece from my archives. I wrote this around the time the 7th HP book came out. It was another time then–a time of bubbled real estate and safe bets in hedge funds, a time of a successful surge in Iraq when no one had heard of a charismatic junior senator from Illinois. It was a time when fundamentalists had nothing better to do then target their righteous anger (for to be a soldier of God is to, of course, always be angry) at a pre-teen wizard from the suburbs of London. I hope you enjoy it.
AMERICA’S INNOCENCE, MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Confirming the worst fears of many Evangelical Christians across the nation, Harry Potter Book 7 The Deathly Hallows, uncovers the boy wizard’s true identity to be none other then the Morning Star, Satan himself, reincarnated on a broomstick. Apparently, J. K. Rowling’s multi-billion dollar book/movie/toy/candy/fake tattoo franchise was nothing other then an attempt to prepare impressionable childrens’ minds for the Apocalapse.
“If you look at the facts, this revelation was unavoidable,” said a professor of Eschatological Studies at North Central University in Minneapolis, MN. “Harry Potter has a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. There are 11 letters in his name. In 1997, [the year HP was first published] there was a .666% chance a child or someone in his immediate family would be struck by lightning before the age of 11. 666 is the number used by the Antichrist to mark his minions in the Bible. I believe this is a clear indication Harry Potter was meant to represent the Antichrist from the beginning.”
“We knew that boy was up to no good. What with all that magicing, wizarding, and confounded quiditching.”
- Focus On The Family
Despite this unsuspected conclusion, Deathly Hallows [which sold 8.3 million copies its first 24 hours in the US alone] shows no sign of slowing in world circulation, causing an outcry from Christian interests groups across the country.
“We knew that boy was up to no good. What with all that magicing, wizarding, and confounded quiditching,” said Roy Slabstone Focus On The Family representative yesterday morning. “Right from the beginning, that there witchcraft was a subtle attack on the moral fabric of our society.” When asked what his stance was on simply not reading the books if their content made him uncomfortable and leaving everyone else alone, Slabstone frowned quizzically and responded, “but then what would I do all day?”
Yesterday afternoon, Rowling delivered a press release via owl from her Edinburgh home in response to these allegations. “When Mephastophilis first appeared to me 10 years ago and offered to provide me with a bestselling storyline in exchange for my soul, I never thought it would end up like this.”
Hit hardest by the news is Harry Potter publisher Arthur A. Levine Books who were disappointed to discover that in this age of electronic media, nothing less then a black curse cast within the pages of a book will get kids to spend time reading.
I Couldn’t Pass It Up, Either
June 13, 2009
~signed, Martin Luther
Hah, what a joke, right? I mean, Martin Luther didn’t actually say that.
Right? Guys? …. Bueller?
*Cue the pin-drop sound effect.
I was doing some seemingly unrelated reading about Martin Luther a couple days ago when I came across the very quote we were joking about a little while back right here on theophiliacs. It makes for a funny sign (almost), until you discover the guy who penned this little phrase was Martin Luther himself, and that he actually meant it.
So unfortunately, it’s not a joke, and even more unfortunately, it doesn’t end there.
Luther follows that up with things like:
“There is, on earth, among all dangers, no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason. Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.”
So apparently I’m a huge danger since I use my brain-meat to make rational choices. And so are you guys.
*Cue the Oh-no-he-didn’t sound byte.
* * *
A rather conveniently placed, uh... chicken.
You know, quite frankly, I’m sick of feeling like this. It’s like I’m one of the people in the crowd as the Emperor walks by with his cash and prizes hanging out for all to see, and some little kid is saying, “He’s naked, he’s naked! The Emperor is naked! Why won’t anybody listen to me?”
And I reply, “What are you talking about, kid? That’s best looking outfit I’ve I’ve ever seen!”
Then I come across some blasphemous headline in the paper the following week. No doubt shocked that the story says the emperor was, in fact, buck-naked, I take it upon myself to do some research of my own and prove that the article is a lie.
At which point it only gets worse.
In fact, as I am writing this, an article over at Unreasonable Faith posted yesterday morning came up in my keyword search for Martin Luther quotes, and that article happens to be along the same lines as what I’ve been finding out for myself the last few days.
Turns out Martin Luther was also quite anti-Semitic;
“Perhaps the Jews sent their servants with plates of silver and pots of gold to gather up Judas’ piss with the other treasures, and then they ate and drank his offal…”
“They [Jews] should be knocked to pieces, strangled and stabbed, secretly and openly, by everybody who can do it.”
Not surprisingly, based on those quotes and scores of others, but quite surprisingly to myself and doubtless many of you reading this now; the Nazi Reich Church of Hitler’s Germany based a lot of their anti-Semitic ideals on Luther’s writings and belief’s. The Protestant Bishop Martin Sasse lauded Luther as the “greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews.”
*Cue the jaw-hitting-the-floor sound effect.
Honestly, I couldn’t believe that this anti-intellectual “Reason is the greatest enemy…” quote was really something Martin Luther would preach, not when I first read it. And so, like a good, (brainwashed?) Christian boy I assumed it was the work of some paranoid, doubt-mongering atheist trying to smear Luther’s good name. I mean, the man who prompted the translation of the bible into readable languages? The Father of the Reformation? The man who gave us A Mighty Fortress is Our God? (Okay, bad example.) You mean to tell me that guy was a Jew-hating, reason-bashing masochist. Oh, I won’t even go in to the masochism stuff, suffice it to say I’m blown away by the fact that anyone ever followed this guy in the first place.
And I’ve also been reading about how the Lutheran church has historically been doing their best to keep more racists from using these ideas of Luther’s against Jews, especially since WWII. So, it’s something they just want to keep quiet?
Isn’t that like saying, “Well, our founding father was one of the biggest Jew haters of his time, and apparently an inspiration to the likes of Hitler and, ipso facto, a post-humous sponsor of the Holocaust…. but hey, some good came of it, too. Our priests can drink.”
*Cue the dramatic montage, set to cheesy I-don’t-know-what’s-right-anymore music.
Did Martin Luther do some good things? I’d still like to think so. I mean, the church would not look the way it does today were it not for his questioning of Catholicism. But I also have to reassess all of those things light of this new information. (New to me, that is.) He represents the primary historical branch from the Catholic church, which I’ve always believed was a good thing, but also represents a primary historical advocate of violence against the Jewish people, which I’ve always believed was a bad thing.
Sadly, it seems like the only way to avoid this sort of ongoing disappointment for a critical thinker like me is to stop reading anything that isn’t written primarily as a defense of Christianity. But once I turn my mind off to the other side of the argument and opposing viewpoints, haven’t I stopped reasoning and began looking only for support for belief simply because I want to believe? And wouldn’t I be doing exactly that which I took issue with just days ago, as spelled out in that anti-intellectual quote itself?
Or is reason truly faith’s greatest enemy, after all?
I’m dying here, guys. It’s just killing me. Honestly, I don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath. But I wonder, are we sure the baby’s even there to begin with?
* * *
(If you want a pretty decent and ‘relatively’ unbiased synopsis of his life, writings and thoughts, check the article over at wikipedia, which cites almost 200 references. A lot of it was familiar, even to me, a non-Lutheran, until I got down to the anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism section.)
Tony Hunt
jstambaugh
Shawn Wamsley
