Osama bin Laden, Mother Teresa and Harold Camping

THEOLOGY HAS CONSEQUENCES

What we believe about God bears fruit in the way we live our lives and how we treat other people. Take as an extreme example Osama bin Laden and Mother Teresa. Both were passionate believers. They had radically different visions of what God is like. Each lived and acted in ways consistent with their vision of God.

I know that there is something of a chicken-and-egg question here. It might be appropriate to ask whether one’s idea of God is shaped by one’s personality. Do our actions and our theologies arise from a common source? I have no way to answer that. I think it is enough, for now, to recognize that our vision of God generally accords with the way we live and behave. Theology has consequences.

I have read other blogs dealing with Harold Camping’s failed prediction that the “Rapture” would occur on May 21, a date that he has now revised to October 21, 2011. Comments on those blogs sometimes warn against lumping all Rapture believers together with Mr. Camping. Fair enough. Harold Camping has his own kind of kookiness. Most rapture believers distance themselves from his eccentric, numerological interpretations of the Bible. Most rapture believers object to setting a specific date for the Rapture or the end of the ages.  Most rapture believers take Jesus at his word, “no one knows the hour or the day.”

So, let me be clear that I disagree not only with Harold Camping, but with the doctrine of the Rapture in general.

I hesitate to call belief in the Rapture “unbiblical” for two reasons. First, “unbiblical” is not a helpful term. Second, the doctrine of the Rapture is derived (or at least proof-texted) from the Bible. Perhaps it is best to say that the doctrine of the Rapture is not what the writers of Scripture intended, nor is it what their original audience understood. The Rapture is a thoroughly modern doctrine with its origins somewhere around the year 1800 C.E.

My main objection to the doctrine of the Rapture, however, is the fruit that it bears. A few days ago I mentioned A Thief in the Night, a cheesy old Rapture movie from 1972, to a friend. She said, “That movie scared the heck out of me.” The doctrine of the Rapture frightens people. I do not think that a spirituality based in fear is healthy.

The doctrine of the Rapture also leads to divisiveness and triumphalism.   It creates a “we’re going to heaven and you’re not” mentality.

Because the doctrine of the Rapture places all of a believer’s hope in the next life, it leads to a disregard for this life. It paints the world--which God made and which God loves--as an evil place to be escaped. It creates disdain for God’s good creation.

If you have not seen it yet, Kyle Roberts and Adam Rao have an excellent piece in the Washington post about the consequences of Rapture theology. Read it here.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

CONTEXT IS KEY

I used Jan Luyken’s illustration of the Rapture in connection with this post. It is meant to illustrate Matthew 24:40. That verse and the one that follows it are often used to support the doctrine of the Rapture, the idea that Jesus will take the righteous out of the world before subjecting the wicked to a time of tribulation.

⁴⁰ Then two men shall be in the field, the one is received, and the one is left; ⁴¹ two women shall be grinding in the mill, one is received, and one is left.

Luyken’s illustration shows an angel taking a blessed field hand off to heaven while his unrighteous partner falls to his knees, covering his face in misery. So what is wrong with the picture?

These verses can only be used to support the doctrine of the Rapture if they are taken out of context.  Reading them in context, we find that it is not those taken who are blessed, but those who are left. Matthew 24:37-39, the verses immediately preceding these:

³⁷ and as the days of Noah--so shall be also the presence of the Son of Man; ³⁸ for as they were, in the days before the flood, eating, and drinking, marrying, and giving in marriage, till the day Noah entered into the ark, ³⁹ and they did not know till the flood came and took all away; so shall be also the presence of the Son of Man.  (Emphasis added).

I have quoted these verses from Young’s Literal Translation, not because I have any great fondness for that version, but because, in this case, it preserves the fact that “taken” in verses 4-41 and “took...away” in verse 39 are forms of the same verb. In Noah’s case, those “taken” were the wicked who drowned. Only by reading verses 40-41 apart from their immediate context can one conclude that the ones “taken” are the blessed!

Historical context also argues against the idea that this passage describes a “rapture” of the righteous. In her excellent book The Rapture Exposed, Barbara Rossing reminds us that Jesus preached in Palestine during Roman occupation. When the Roman troops rode into town and took some people away, it was those “left behind” who were the fortunate ones.

Lessons Unlearned

In my last post, I reflected on some of the lessons that we all should have learned from Harold Camping's failed rapture prediction. The first lesson was that setting dates for Jesus' return is a waste of time. Harold Camping himself doesn't seem to have learned that lesson.

Camping's former claim was that the rapture would occur on May 21 and the end of the world would come on October 21, 2011. He now says that his math was right but his interpretation was wrong. The rapture and the end of the world will both take place on October 21. He has been wrong twice before. He is wrong again. I hope that no one is listening to him anymore.

Someone calling himself "Max" submitted a comment on that last post. I have chosen not to publish the comment largely because I think it constitutes spam for a website promoting a different end of the world scenario. Sorry, Max. My blog; my rules.

Max is another who did not learn that date-setting is a waste of time. He's promoting the notion that the world will end on December 21, 2012.

Sigh.

Among the proofs adduced for this date are the fact that an ancient Mayan calendar ends on 12/21/12. I have read that the Mayan calendar is cyclical. It does not end on 12/21/12. It starts over.

I have a calendar on my wall right now that ends on December 31, 2011. I don't for a second think that 12/31/11 will be the end of the world. It will just be time to get a new calendar.




The picture came from wiki. Where else?

Lessons from Harold Camping's Rapture Fiasco

WHAT WE LEARNED; WHAT WE SHOULD LEARN

May 21, 2011 has come and gone without apocalyptic event. This leaves Radio Preacher and Doomsday Prophet Harold Camping "flabbergasted." It affords the rest of us an opportunity to ask "What lessons do I take away from this?" Let me suggest a few:

We all ought to learn that Date-setting and speculating about the Apocalypse is a waste of time and money. Some of Camping's followers have apparently been left destitute because they took the man at his word. In the meantime the money and work-hours poured into spreading Camping's false message might have been used to do some real good in the world--feeding the hungry, healing the sick, comforting the afflicted. You know, the stuff Jesus' followers should be doing. And while I think that Camping's failed predictions should warn us all off of setting dates for the judgment day ever again, I doubt that we will learn this lesson. After all, we didn't learn it in 1844, 1992, 1994,  1998, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Judy Henske sings it: "You learn from history, you learn nothing from history."

We should also learn that saying "the Bible guarantees it" doesn't make a thing true. Camping assured us that the Bible said that there is a rapture, and that it would occur on May 21, 2011. Of course, the Bible says no such thing. It was Harold Camping's interpretation of the Bible that said this. In this case, the Bible was not wrong. Camping was.

I've said several times in these blogposts that the most rigorous logic will yield false conclusions if it begins from false premises. Harold Camping's predictions had a sort of mathematical logic that may have seemed convincing, but he started with false notions about the Bible and how it works.

We ought to learn that there is a difference between believing and knowing. Let me quote Dr. James McGrath,

"The feeling of certainty is easy to acquire. Actually being right is much harder to accomplish, and having good reasons for feeling confident that you are right is harder still."

We are all well served by a healthy sense of doubt concerning even our own most closely cherished beliefs.

Finally, I have learned that using the right search terms in the title of a blog post can yield big results. This blog usually gets a dozen or so hits each day. On Friday, May 20, it was viewed 676 times. On Saturday, May 21, it scored 873 hits. Most of that traffic went to a post titled "The Rapture Will Not Happen May 21, 2011." For certain queries, that post was the first result for a Google search. Perhaps the more significant take-away from my sudden traffic surge would be: The apocalypse is big business.






The quote about learning from history was from the song "Master of Love" on Judy Henske's brilliant 1999 album Loose in the World. I think maybe God didn't end the world in 1998 so that the album could be made. The picture of the billboard came from this website.

May 21, 2011

JUDGMENT DAY

The cat woke me up at 2:30 a.m. I gave him a fistful of kibble and listened to the radio for about 3 minutes. There was no news of Judgment Day. I went back to sleep.

At 4:15 a.m. I heard a strange noise in the kitchen. Going to investigate, I found a "thief in the night" at work. The cat was on the counter trying to get into a bag of sandwich rolls. There were no other signs of apocalypse. I threw the cat off the counter, put the bread in a cupboard and went back to bed.

When I awoke this morning, there were birds singing outside my window. I checked the weather radar. It shows storms heading this way. Spring storms, not apocalyptic storms.

There was no worldwide earthquake last night. No rapture. The judgment is in: Harold Camping was wrong.

I wanted to see what Family Radio, Camping's outfit, had to say about this. As of this posting, their website is down.



Google  "Thief in the night" and you find all kinds of images, including the one I took from this website.

There Will Be No Rapture Tonight

 GET A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP

I am writing this post on Friday, May 20, at about 8:00 p.m. local time which, if I'm not mistaken, makes it about 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21 at the international date line. In a little less than 4 hours, according to Harold Camping, the rapture will begin. A huge earthquake will start moving east, crossing each time zone at 6:00 p.m. standard time, leaving open graves in its wake. The righteous dead will be raised and taken to heaven. The corpses of the unrighteous will be left exposed. The righteous living will be taken from this world directly into heaven. The rest of us will be "left behind" to face horrible tribulations.

I will be asleep.

I fully expect to wake up in the morning to find that none of Mr. Camping's predictions have come true. I don't believe in the rapture.

The doctrine of the rapture is based in a faulty reading of Scripture. Those who believe the doctrine live either in fear or false hope. It encourages speculations like those of Harold Camping. It distracts from the real and vital work that Christians should be about in this world.

I've mentioned the Scripture Principle ("Scripture interprets Scripture) several times in these blog posts. The Scripture Principle means that we should not be troubled by the difficult parts of the Bible. Rather we should cling to those that are clear.

If you, my reader, are worried by Harold Camping's strange interpretations of parts of the Bible that are not clear to you, cling instead to this:

 Psalm 46:1-11
¹ God is our refuge and strength,
     a very present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear,
     though the earth should change,
     though the mountains shake
        in the heart of the sea;
³ though its waters roar and foam,
     though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
                  Selah
⁴ There is a river whose streams
      make glad the city of God,
        the holy habitation of the Most High.
⁵ God is in the midst of the city;
     it shall not be moved;
         God will help it when the morning dawns.
⁶ The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
        he utters his voice, the earth melts.
⁷ The Lord of hosts is with us;
     the God of Jacob is our refuge.
               Selah
⁸ Come, behold the works of the Lord;
     see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
     he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ "Be still, and know that I am God!
     I am exalted among the nations,
          I am exalted in the earth."
¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us;
      the God of Jacob is our refuge.
               Selah



Good night and God bless you.




Scripture quotation is from the New Revised Standard Version. I found the picture of the cross here.

Rachel Held Evans's Kind of Kookiness

Yesterday, I blogged about Harold Camping's kookiness and my own. Author, Speaker, Blogger Rachel Held Evans makes much the same point on her own blog, but she does so much more eloquently:

"Like it or not, Harold Camping and his followers make us laugh because we see a small piece of our faith in theirs. They are exaggerated caricatures of ourselves. 

We too are guilty of projecting onto God our expectations and desires.

We too can get overconfident in our interpretations of the Bible.

We too expect God to judge the way we think he should judge, act when we think he should act, be who we think he should be.

And, you gotta admit,  there’s a chance that we too might be absolutely, devastatingly, irrecoverably wrong."

Read the whole thing here.



The graphic came from Rachel Held Evans's website.

Harold Camping's Kind of Kookiness

AND MY KIND OF KOOKINESS

I have a friend who was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. As an adult, he spent some time living among Mormons. He says, "Observing their kind of kookiness made me face up to my own kind of kookiness."

As May 21 has grown closer, I have been blogging about and critiquing Harold Camping. It has never been my intent to mock Mr. Camping and his followers. I hope that nothing I have written here has been taken that way. There are plenty of others willing to mock Camping. I don't see the point. Mockery only causes hard feelings and alienation.

Until I have convincing proof to the contrary, I will assume that Mr. Camping is sincere in his beliefs. I believe that he is mistaken, but I will concede that he is sincere. I do not want others mocking my sincere beliefs, so, in keeping with the "Golden Rule" I try to treat Camping as I wish to be treated by those who disagree with me.

Besides, I know well that my own kind of kookiness is just as easily mocked as Camping's.

Which brings me to a link: Amy Frykholm has a short blog post about feeling that she does not belong at a "post rapture party." Read it here.

And if you are interested in knowing more about Harold Camping's beliefs, Jason Boyett has a longer, but easy to read post: 21 Things You Should Know About Harold Camping.

I found both of these links at James McGrath's generally excellent blog Exploring Our Matrix.





If you would like a reference for the Golden Rule cited above, you can use Stephanus's verse numbers to find it at Luke 6:31.

Moby Dick, John Nelson Darby, Harold Camping

AND WHY WOULD ANYONE BELIEVE THIS STUFF ANYWAY?

When I think about Harold Camping’s prediction that this Saturday, May 21, will be “Judgment Day,” I cannot help but wonder how anyone could be convinced of its truth. Of course, some people will believe anything, and having a media presence like Camping’s “Family Radio” somehow lends weight to one’s words. It may be more significant though, to notice that a lot of what Camping says sounds familiar. Camping takes ideas from the orthodox mainstream of Christianity and presses them to an extreme.

A friend of mine says that any truth taken to the extreme becomes heresy.

Robert Estienne gave us a handy way to navigate around the Bible when he added verse numbers to the New Testament. Harold Camping uses those numbers to mine the Scriptures for verses which, divorced from their meaningful context, can be made to mean what he believes.

Martin Luther, and his fellow reformers gave us a high view of the authority of Scripture. Camping makes hay of this claiming that “every Word” of the Bible “was from the mouth of God.” He can then go rooting around for coded messages hidden in the Scriptures.

That coded messages can be found in the text of Moby Dick does not deter Camping and his ilk.

Camping also builds on a thread of apocalypticism that all Christians have inherited from Jesus himself, from the Apostle Paul and, to a greater or lesser degree, from all the writers of the New Testament. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. Paul believed that Jesus’ return was imminent. Later in the New Testament period, writers began to back off on their end times fervor and in writings like 1 and 2 Timothy, we can see the nascent Church beginning to trench in for the long haul. This was the period of what Norman Perrin called “emergent catholicism.” Even in this later time, there was an expectation of the end.

Still, neither Jesus nor any of the writers of the New Testament dared to set a date for “Judgment Day”

Other influences on Camping include John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) “the father of dispensationalism” who preached that history was divided into a series of time periods called “dispensations.” In each dispensation God related to creation in a different way. When Camping says that “the Church age” has ended. He is using language borrowed from Darby. Darby either invented or popularized the idea of the “rapture” which is, of course, the event that Camping predicts for May 21. Darby’s ideas, though outside the historic mainstream of Christian thought, have seeped into our American cultural consciousness.

These are just some of the precedents that give Camping’s message an aura of familiarity and, I think, make his strange biblical interpretations and outlandish predictions seem more credible to some people. In every instance--even in the case of John Nelson Darby’s teaching--Camping has taken his forebear’s ideas to eccentric extremes.

 The picture of Moby Dick came from this website and I found the photo of John Nelson Darby here.

 

I have heard that, as the day approaches, some of Camping’s followers are backing off on their claim that the rapture will be May 21. Apparently they are claiming that it will be sometime between May 21 and October 21, and may be even further delayed because of their prayers for the “unsaved church.”  So much for “the Bible guarantees it.” Can anyone confirm this?

The Rapture Will Not Happen May 21, 2011

BECAUSE THE RAPTURE WILL NOT HAPPEN AT ALL

We shook hands as we were introduced. “And this is Pastor Brant.” His big fist engulfed my hand. “Pastor,” he said, not letting go, “do you believe in the Rapture of the Church?” It was a test. I was about to fail.

The Rapture is that strange doctrine, which, in its most widely held variation, says that before the end of the ages Jesus will come partway down from heaven. Hovering above the earth, he will call all true believers to himself. They will caught up together in the air with Jesus who will take them back up into heaven. The rest of humanity will be “left behind” to suffer a period--usually seven years--of horrible tribulation.

In some sectors of Christianity, belief in the Rapture is considered a mark of orthodoxy.

Radio preacher Harold Camping has made the news by claiming that the Rapture will occur next Saturday, May 21, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. In Camping’s version Jesus will apparently hover in earth orbit rapturing the faithful to himself in each successive time zone as  intense earthquakes follow in his wake. The subsequent tribulation will be briefer than in most Apocalyptic systems: a mere five months. On October 21, 2011, as Camping tells it, the earth will cease to exist.

While Camping is convinced that the Rapture will occur on May 21 (“The Bible guarantees it,” he says.) I am equally convinced that it will not. You see, I don’t believe in the Rapture.

The doctrine of the Rapture is not a part of the historic teaching of the Church. It is an innovation, thought up some time in the late 18th or early 19th century. It is patchwork doctrine stitched together from disparate Bible verses combined in ways that their original authors would not recognize. Those verses, each taken in its own context, can be interpreted in other ways and for most of Christian history, they were. Some Christians today make belief in the Rapture a test of orthodoxy, but it was not a part of the faith of Jesus, his disciples, the Apostle Paul, the Church Fathers, the Reformers or anyone else before about the year 1800.

Most of all, I do not believe in the Rapture because it is directly counter to what Jesus taught. He never said that he would spare his followers from tribulation. On the contrary, he warned his would-be disciples to count the cost of following him. He told them to take up crosses. He promised them persecutions, not escapism.

I found Jan Luyken's illustration of the Rapture at wikipedia.

I Will Never Own A Harold Camping Bobble Head

IN WHICH WE EXAMINE SOME OF THE WAYS THAT HAROLD CAMPING HAS PERVERTED THE INSIGHTS OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER



I’m a big Martin Luther fanboy. I admit it. I even have a Martin Luther bobblehead and a Martin Luther beer stein. Dr. Luther was a history-changing spiritual genius.

He was also a rather problematic personality and a product of his times. When Luther got things wrong, he got things spectacularly wrong. His stance in the Peasants’ War, for instance, or his advice to would-be polygamist Philip of Hesse. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Then there were the hateful, hurtful things that Luther said about the Jews. Every responsible Lutheran church body has publicly repudiated Luther’s statements about the Jews.

Luther, however, never claimed to be anything other than “saint and sinner.” In that way, I relate to him. Sometimes I, too, get things spectacularly wrong. So in spite of his clay feet, I can admire Martin Luther for his theological and spiritual brilliance, and for the courage of his conscience. Luther’s understanding of justification by grace through faith is the cornerstone of Lutheran theology and the bedrock of my own understanding of God.

So, it chagrins me to say that, like Robertus Stephanus, Martin Luther (and his fellow reformers) in some ways set precedent for the bizarre apocalyptic speculations of Harold Camping.

Luther’s doctrine of Sola Scriptura (“Scripture Alone”) meant that the Bible was the sole source and norm of Christian doctrine. This effectively got Luther out from under the thumb of the Pope. Harold Camping has taken the idea of biblical authority to an extreme that Luther would never have recognized or countenanced:

“At Family Radio,” according to Camping’s website, “we emphatically teach that the whole Bible is the Word of God. We believe that, in the original languages in which the Bible was written, every Word was from the mouth of God, and consequently, is never to be altered and must be obeyed. The Bible alone, and in its entirety, is the Word of God.”

Luther’s vernacular translation of the Bible took the Scriptures out of the hands of ecclesiastical “experts” and made them the possession of every Christian. This is a good thing. I think that Luther fully expected the people to read their Bibles with an understanding of sound, historic Christian doctrine as taught in the community of the Church. An unfortunate consequence of all this is that someone like Camping can take the Bible, unmoor it from good doctrine, and claim its authority for the most outlandish and idiosyncratic ideas.

Then there is the Scripture principle, “Scripture interprets Scripture.” By this Luther meant that the troubling parts of the Bible are to be understood in light of the parts that are clear. The story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac should be understood in the light of the cross of Christ. The accounts of genocide in the Old Testament should be tempered by 1 John’s statement that “God is love.” Camping and company have taken the idea that “Scripture interprets Scripture” to mean that odd bits of the Bible can be grafted together to create new meanings that the original writers never intended.

I hardly have to say that Luther would not have approved of the strange lengths to which Camping has taken some of his teachings. In fact, I believe the good doctor would have had some intemperate words for Camping’s brand of biblical interpretation.







If you would like to be a Martin Luther fanboy or fangirl, you can get your own Luther bobblehead from OldLutheran.com

The beer stein, which I also purchased from Old Lutheran is based on this anecdote from Roland Bainton’s classic Luther biography Here I Stand:

“A word may be said at this point also about Luther's drinking. He imbibed and took some pride in his capacity. He had a mug around  which were three rings. The first he said represented the Ten Commandments, the second the Apostles' Creed, and the third the Lord's Prayer Luther was highly amused that he was able to drain the glass of wine through the Lord's Prayer, whereas his friend Agricola could not get beyond the Ten Commandments. But Luther is not recorded ever to have exceeded a state of hilarity.”

A Rabbi, A French Printer and Harold Camping....

OR, WHAT DOES ROBERT ESTIENNE HAVE TO DO WITH AMERICA’S FAVORITE DOOMSDAY PROPHET?

Harold Camping is the radio preacher who has predicted that all true Christians will be raptured out of the world next Saturday, May 21, 2011. His interpretations of the Bible are idiosyncratic to say the least, but they are not unprecedented. Guys like Camping don’t arise out of nowhere.

The elaborately bearded gentleman pictured here is one Robert Estienne  (1503-1559) whose name is often latinized to Robertus Stephanus. Stephanus was a classical scholar and printer of books. He published four editions of the Greek New Testament. The fourth of which, published in 1551, contained an innovation that concerns us here: verse numbers.

Stephanus was not actually the first person to divide the New Testament into numbered verses, but his system of numbering was the one that caught on. It is still used in our modern New Testaments. The Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament) uses an even older numbering system which is attributed to Rabbi Isaac Nathan ben Kolonymus, who employed  it in a concordance published in 1523.

Verse numbers are immensely helpful for students of the Bible. They give us an easy way to navigate through the Scriptures. They make it possible for persons using different versions of the Bible to find the same spot in reading. For this we owe Stephanus and Rabbi b. Kolonymus a debt of gratitude.

Useful as they are, Stephanus’s verse numbers are sometimes strange. For example, he occasionally divided sentences at odd places. Legend (well, joke really) has it that he marked out his verse numbers while riding on horseback. Occasionally the horse would stumble and Stephanus would drop the pen at a random spot on the page. My Greek New Testament reading group has cursed Stephanus’ horse more than once.

The worst thing about verse numbers is that they make the Bible seem to be a collection of verses. Verse numbers break up sustained thoughts. Verse numbers make it seem that every verse is of equal weight and importance. They make it possible to take a fragment of a thought from Jeremiah and combine it with a completely unrelated verse from James as if it made sense to do so.

And this is the stock in trade of Harold Camping and others of his ilk.

There is an old joke about a woman who opened her Bible to a random verse each day to learn God’s will for her life. One day she opened to Matthew 27:5, “ [Judas] went out and hanged himself.” Thinking there must be a mistake she tried again and found Luke 10:37, “Go and do likewise.”

I found the picture of Robert Estienne here.

My favorite Bible verse to read out of context is 1 Chronicles 1:25. Know it from memory? Anyone?

Reading Someone Else’s Mail

PAUL’S EPISTLES ARE HIGH CONTEXT DOCUMENTS

If you found this letter tucked away in the pages of an old Bible, what would you make of it?

12/3

Dear Pat,

Do you remember that place by the lake--the one we visited back when Sam was in so much trouble? I visited it again last week. It hasn’t changed a bit, except that the old German woman is gone, of course.

Being there made me think of you. The place seemed smaller, somehow, and lonelier.

As ever,

Jim

Is Pat male or female? What is Pat’s relationship to Jim? What kind of trouble was Sam in? Was it legal, financial, medical? When was this letter written? Where was Jim when he wrote it? Where was Pat? What clues does the letter furnish that might help answer any of these questions? What more information might you need?

This letter is what scholars call a “high context” document. It assumes a great deal of shared knowledge between author and reader. Outsiders can speculate about the letter’s meaning, but, without more information, they can not draw many firm conclusions.

There are high context letters like this one tucked away in the pages of every Christian Bible. They are the Epistles of Paul. When we read Paul’s letters we are outsiders. Paul and his intended audience had a pre-established relationship. They shared some common history and common knowledge that are not spelled out in detail. Sometimes Paul’s meaning may be clear to us, but very often we are left to speculate.

When we read the letters of Paul, we are reading someone else’s mail. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t read Paul’s letters. Nor does it mean that we can draw no meaning from them. It does mean, however, that we should recognize that we are often left to speculate about the Apostle's meaning, and we should always be a little hesitant to draw firm conclusions.

A  "low context" document is one that provides a lot of the information required to understand it. Think of a newspaper story. The 16th c. painting of St. Paul writing a letter to someone else was found here.

Happy Birthday, King James Bible

 YOU DON'T LOOK A DAY OVER 300!

Today marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. The KJV was not the first English translation of the Bible, nor is it the best, but it is, beyond question, the most influential.

Not the First. Large portions of the Bible had been translated into Old English as early as the 7th century. John Wycliffe published two different versions of the complete Bible in English in the 14th century. When King James I ascended to the throne of England in 1603, he authorized the translation that is now commonly called after his name. Published in 1611, the KJV was intended to replace the Bishops’ Bible, then in use in the Church of England. It was also hoped that the new translation would supplant the Geneva Bible, then popular among English Protestants. The Geneva Bible, so-called for the city in which it was printed, featured footnotes of a Calvinist, Puritan, anti-ecclesial and anti-monarchical bent. The King James Version was authorized for largely political reasons.

Not the Best. Despite the extravagant claims made for the KJV from some quarters, the fact is that it is not the best English translation. In the 19th century many ancient New Testament manuscripts were discovered. These have made possible better critical editions of the Greek New Testament than what was available to the KJV’s translators. Also, the English language has changed significantly in the last 400 years. I have a copy of The King James Bible Word Book by Ronald Bridges and Luther Weigle (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994) which defines, in 400 pages, many of the “curious and archaic” words used in the KJV. Newer translations are rendered into the English that we speak today.

The Most Influential. For 300 of its 400 years, the King James Bible reigned as the English Bible. It was often the only book a household owned. Many generations of English speakers learned to read from the KJV. It has left its stamp on the way we use English and has contributed many idioms and phrases to our everyday speech. So strong has its influence been that even the latest and newest translations are measured against the KJV’s standard. Most importantly, it was through the KJV that countless people were introduced to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Though I prefer more modern translations of the Bible for everyday reading, I think that I will always hear the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm in the lyrical cadences of Jacobean English.

Happy birthday, KJV!

Another Note to the Followers of Harold Camping

CONCERNING MAY 22, 2011--THE DAY AFTER JUDGMENT DAY

Last July I wrote this post  about Harold Camping’s prediction that May 21, 2011 will be Judgment Day. Almost immediately I got replies from some of Camping’s followers. Not wanting to get involved in a protracted, ugly and pointless debate, I wrote this post stating that I would not allow comments from Camping’s defenders. When I check my blog stats, I’m surprised to see how many hits those two posts get. Yesterday, I added yet another post touching on Camping’s end time prediction.

I will, at least tentatively, allow May 21sters to comment on this post. I will be moderating  carefully, however. Please keep your comments short and try to address a single point. No matter where you stand on Harold Camping, please be polite and do not impugn anyone’s motives.

If you believe Harold Camping’s teachings, I imagine that you are getting pretty excited about now. May 21 is close at hand. I know that you are convinced that you will be raptured out of this world on that day. I am equally convinced that you will not. We don’t need to debate this. A very short time will show who is right.

I am concerned for you, though.

If you find yourself still on earth on May 22, please don’t panic. Don’t assume that you have been left behind. Don’t worry that the horrible tribulations that Camping has predicted are going to fall upon you. They won’t. You will still be here because there will have been no rapture. There will be no tribulations. So, first don’t panic.

Don’t despair either.  The world will go on and you can go on. You can start over. The God of Jesus is a God who gives second chances. Read Luke 13:6 ff. Pick up. Bear up. Move on.

Remember that you are only human. Human beings make mistakes. You made a mistake in believing Harold Camping. That’s all it was: a mistake. Forgive yourself. God forgives you.

Remember, too, that Harold Camping is only human. I know that their is a certain mathematical logic to his teachings, but the most rigorous logic will yield false conclusions if it begins from false premises. Harold Camping has made a mistake. Forgive him, but don’t follow him. And don’t get fooled again.

Give up speculating about the end times. It is fruitless. It always has been. Everyone who ever set a date for the end of the world has been wrong. Jesus warned his followers against such speculation. Begin to live in the now. Love God and do good.

Finally, go back to church. I know that Harold Camping has told you that salvation is no longer available in the churches. He is wrong about that, too. In a good church community, you will find welcome and forgiveness. You will hear the good news that God loves even human beings who make mistakes.

God bless you.




I borrowed the photograph of a Judgment Day billboard from this website. 

Tomorrow's Headlines Today

MAY 21, 2011 -- JUDGMENT DAY?

When I lived in the city, I would sometimes buy my Sunday paper late on Saturday afternoon. That’s when the first Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune hit the streets. Inevitably I would make a pathetic joke about reading the paper to find out what would happen tomorrow.


Some Christians read the Bible as if it contained tomorrow’s headlines. Typically this involves taking a verse or two from Daniel, a couple more from Revelation, a dash of the Psalms, a pinch of 1 Thessalonians, some current events, a little speculation and combining them in ways that the Bible’s original writers would never be able to recognize. In other words, it involves reading the Scriptures without regard to their historical context, their canonical context, or even the context of a specific verse within a book of the Bible.


The photograph above shows a religious tract that I have kept on my bookshelves for about 19 years now. It is in the form of a newspaper, 20 pages long. It was mailed to me by a group called the Mission for the Coming Days. They claimed that Jesus would “rapture” all true believers out of the world on October 28, 1992, leaving the rest of us behind to face 7 years of tribulation.


They were wrong.


But you knew that, didn’t you? Everyone who has ever set a date for the rapture, the return of Jesus, the end of the world or what-have-you has been wrong. It’s because they have misused the Scriptures. The Bible doesn’t work that way.


The Bible contains a lot of prophecy, but very little in the way of prediction. Prophecy is God’s word spoken to a specific set of circumstances. The prophet’s goal is usually to inspire repentance. Only occasionally do the prophets foretell future events and even then it is in vague terms. Jesus himself refused to set a date for the end and discouraged his followers from speculating about it.


There were allegedly suicides on October 29, 1992. Members of the Mission for the Coming Days thought that they had missed the rapture and took their own lives in despair. Maybe some of them had given their life savings to the group’s work and were now left with nothing. I don’t know. The group’s leader allegedly went to prison, charged with fraud, when it was discovered that he held investments that did not mature until after October 28, 1992. Again, I don’t know for sure.


I do know that the whole story is a sad case of deception, whether intentional or not.


Now radio preacher Harold Camping and his followers are predicting that May 21, 2011 will be Judgment Day. Camping arrived at that date by using a verse or two from Daniel, a couple more from 1 Thessalonians, a dash of personal revelation, a pinch of speculation...you know the recipe. They are convinced that they are right. I am equally convinced that they are wrong.


In that sense, May 21 will indeed be "Judgment Day." It is the day that Harold Camping will be proved wrong. I am confident of this because the Bible doesn’t work the way Camping claims.






To paraphrase one of my mentors, the Bible does not reveal the shape of the future, but it reveals the One who shapes the future. More to come.

Noli Me Tangere

THAT'S LATIN FOR "DON'T TOUCH ME."

This woodcut, titled Noli Me Tangere, by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) has been a longstanding favorite of mine. It depicts the sunrise scene from the Gospel of John where Mary Magdalene meets the risen Jesus in the garden outside of his empty tomb.

Mary turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" (John 20:14-17 NRSV).

This story is poignant and full of mystery. Why does Mary not recognize the risen Jesus? Why is she forbidden to touch him?

Dürer shows Mary, kneeling before Jesus, her left hand resting on a jar of oil which she has brought to anoint his corpse. Her right hand reaches to touch him. He extends a nail-pierced hand to forbid her. Balancing the composition, the background features the morning sun dawning over a hillside and a small group (more women come to visit the tomb?) approaching on the garden path.

It is a beautiful picture and it makes me laugh. To explain why Mary mistook the risen Lord for a gardener, Dürer has dressed Jesus in a floppy hat and slung  a garden spade over his left shoulder. Whether the humor was intentional on Dürer's part--and I suspect it was--it is nevertheless appropriate. What better day to enjoy a little holy hilarity than Easter day?

Blessed Easter!




It is because Mary Magdalene was sent to tell Jesus' disciples the good news of his resurrection that she has been called the "Apostle to the Apostles." I found the copy of Dürer's woodut here.

God's Calling Card

OR THE DEVIL'S TRUMP CARD?

Feeling a bit put out at the way the Bible is too often (mis)used, I once wrote:

I believe that the Bible is God's calling card, an invitation to conversation. Why do so many people use it as a trump card to end conversation?

In my last few posts, I have argued that the discrepancies in the Bible, especially the Gospel accounts, are due to the fact that the writers have different theological agendas. We do the Bible, and ourselves, a grave disservice if we try to "moosh" its varying viewpoints together into a sort of "Gospel of St. Cuisinart" as John Petty so nicely put it.

This morning on his Exploring Our Matrix blog, Dr. James McGrath linked to two items worth reading. Both highlight the diversity of voices to be heard in the Bible.Thanks, Dr. McGrath!

The first is Kristin Swenson's article at CNN's Belief Blog, "Read the Bible, Even If You Don't Believe It."  Dr. Swenson writes:
 

If you're not biblically literate, you can get along all right, but you're missing out. It's like a cocktail party with raucous conversation. You're invited, but until you know something about the Bible, you'll be stuck talking about the weather at the punch bowl.

Read the entire piece here. It is well worth it.

Also worth the read is Timothy Beal's piece "The Bible Is Dead; Long Live the Bible" at the Chronicle of Higher Education website. A quote from Dr. Beal:

Bible debunkers and Bible defenders are kindred spirits. They agree that the Bible is on trial. They agree on the terms of the debate, and what's at stake, namely the Bible's credibility as God's infallible book. They agree that Christianity stands or falls, triumphs or fails, depending on whether the Bible is found to be inconsistent, to contradict itself. The question for both sides is whether it fails to answer questions, from the most trivial to the ultimate, consistently and reliably.

Dr. Beal goes on to cite Dostoevsky and  Blind Willie Johnson. Intrigued? Read the whole article here.

Maundy Wednesday

REALLY?

I have been blogging about some of the discrepancies found in the Bible, particularly the ways in which the Gospel of John diverges from the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). I believe that those differences are due mostly to the fact that John has a different theological agenda than the other Gospels. John has a higher Christology. So, where the other Gospels say that Simon of Cyrene carried Jesus' cross to the place of crucifixion, John tells us that Jesus, always self-sufficient and in control, carries the cross by himself.

Those who hold that the Bible contains neither errors nor contradictions typically explain away this discrepancy by saying that Jesus started out carrying the cross alone, and later, Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service, thus eliminating the contradiction. Unfortunately this kind of harmonizing also eliminates a clear understanding of John's unique theology.

Let John be John, I say. And let each of the Bible's writers speak for themselves. They all fall within the spectrum of orthodoxy, but each proclaims the message in their own way. Rather than explain away their contradictions, let us attend to them and so learn each writer's unique perspective.

A few days ago, a friend emailed me a link to this article.  It seems that Colin Humphreys, a physicist from Cambridge has written a book in which he claims to have resolved another discrepancy between John and the Synoptics. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus' last supper with his disciples is a Passover meal that apparently takes place on a Thursday. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is actually crucified on Passover, which means that the Last Supper must have taken place a day earlier.

In all fairness I have to say that I have not read Humphreys' book and honestly, don't think I will. So, I am not in a position to assess the strength of his arguments. According to the article referenced above, Humhreys resolves the difference between John and the Synoptics by arguing that Jesus used a different calendar than the one that “was in widespread use at the time of his death....” By that calendar, Passover would have fallen on Wednesday.

This may account for a one day difference in the date of the last supper, but it does not explain the three year difference in John's account of Jesus chasing the money-changers out of the temple as compared to the account in the Synoptics.

Nor does it explain some other, significant differences between John's account of the last supper as compared to those accounts in the Matthew, Mark and Luke. For instance, in John's Gospel there is no mention of the bread and wine that Jesus shared with his disciples; there are no “words of institution.” Instead, John's Jesus gives a lengthy “farewell discourse” and washes his disciples' feet. In short, there is no indication in the Gospel of John that the Last Supper was a Passover meal.

In John's Gospel, Jesus is referred to as the “Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36) None of the other Gospels uses this title. The exact meaning of the term is hard to pin down (that was probably John's intent) but it is a symbol of sacrifice and salvation and echoes the account of the Passover in Exodus 12. That Jesus, the Lamb of God, would die on the Passover, at the same time that lambs were being slain in the temple at Jerusalem is symbolic, significant and fraught with meaning.

Some may want to explain away every contradiction in the Bible. Not me. John was not writing a history; he was proclaiming the gospel. Rather than conflate the four Gospels and lose their unique character, I think we should let each speak for itself.





 The Lamb of God graphic came from good old wiki.

Intellectual Camels

DOCTRINAL GNATS

I just counted. There are 38 Bibles in the bookcase beside my desk.* Most of them are different translations. There are several other Bibles around the room and more in my office at church. I also have several electronic Bibles on my desktop computer and a few more on my iPod.

I love the Bible. I read from it every day.

In my last blogpost I raised the question “Who carried the cross?” According to Matthew, Mark and Luke it was a certain Simon of Cyrene. The Gospel of John says that it was Jesus himself. Over at the Progressive Involvement blog, John Petty picked up on my post and expanded upon it. I think he says some of the things I said better than I did. Thanks, John!

In previous posts I have dealt with the questions “How did Judas die?” and “How many angels did the women meet at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning?” These are just a few of the discrepancies found in the various books of Scripture. Some others: Did Jesus chase the money-changers out of the temple on his last visit to Jerusalem before his crucifixion (per Matthew, Mark and Luke) or was it almost three years earlier (per John)? Did James and John ask Jesus to give them the seats of honor in his kingdom (Mark 10:35 ff. ) or was it their mother who made the request (Matthew 20:20 ff.) ? Did the risen Jesus instruct his followers to return to Galilee (Matthew 28:10) or to wait in Jerusalem (Luke 24:49)?

I could go on at some length, but I think this suffices to make my point. The Bible is not a single book. It is a collection of ancient literature written by a variety of people who sometimes disagree about points of fact and even about theology. We understand the Bible best when we read the books as the writers intended instead of trying to conflate them into a single narrative or force a single theological framework upon them. In fact, the points where the writers disagree are usually the most instructive, for it is there that we learn each one’s distinctive theology.**

I once had a discussion about the Bible’s discrepancies with a man who proudly described himself as a Fundamentalist. I think he was rather frustrated with me when he said, “You just read the Bible looking for errors.”

I don’t.

Maybe these guys do, but I don’t. I read the Bible expecting to encounter God’s word. The contradictions are just there.

I also had a conversation with an inerrantist pastor who told me “The ELCA teaches that the Bible is errant.” I had trouble convincing him that we don’t. I don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant, but neither do I believe that it is errant. The Bible does not mislead. Its writers just sometimes disagree.

Then there was the layperson who told me, “If you just accept the Bible as the inerrant Word of God you will know peace.” I explained to him that I was quite at peace. Peace doesn’t come from reading the Bible uncritically. Peace is a gift of God given through the cross of Christ. I suppose I could try accepting that the Bible is without error or contradiction, but it would not bring me peace. The cognitive dissonance would likely kill me.

So why am I telling you this? It is because I want you to know that you can be a faithful Christian without surrendering your intellect. You can be a believer without denying the evidence in front of your eyes. No matter what some may tell you, you don't have to shut off your brain when you read the Bible. You don’t have to swallow intellectual camels and strain at doctrinal gnats. Jesus loves you.








*That’s English Bibles, not including 6 Greek New Testaments and a Septuagint.

**If you want to follow my thinking a little further, this means that Christian orthodoxy, as defined by the canon of Scripture, insists upon a few basic points but beyond that allows for a range of theological possibilities. So, e.g. Matthew’s Jewish Christianity and Paul’s Gentile Christianity are both orthodox but Docetism and Gnosticism are out of bounds.

Props to Annie Salness who drew the cartoon that accompanies this post. I found it on her blog, here. She has some beautiful artwork. Check it out!

Who Carried the Cross?

JESUS OR SIMON OF CYRENE?

The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) agree that the Roman soldiers who led Jesus to the place of his crucifixion compelled a certain Simon of Cyrene to carry Jesus’ cross. Cyrene was a city in what is now Libya. Mark’s Gospel mentions that this Simon was the “father of Alexander and Rufus” which raises the intriguing possibility that Mark expected his original audience to know who these men were. Luke adds the detail that Simon carried the cross behind Jesus.

It is never surprising that Matthew, Mark and Luke agree with one another. They are called “synoptic” (Greek for “seen together”) because they follow the same outline. Scholars have good reasons to think that Matthew and Luke both used Mark’s Gospel as one of the sources for their own writings. I find it much more interesting and instructive to examine the points at which these three works disagree, because it is there that each one’s unique theology can be discerned.

The Gospel of John is quite different from the synoptics. It follows its own outline and narrates many events and teachings of Jesus that are not found in the other gospels. John 19:17 says quite plainly that Jesus carried the cross “by himself.” Simon of Cyrene is never even mentioned in John’s Gospel. How shall we account for this difference?

Roman Catholics, and anyone else who has participated in the devotion of the Stations of the Cross, will be familiar with the tradition that Jesus fell three times on his way to be crucified. In this tradition, Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross after Jesus fell the first time. Although the tradition is widely known, it has no basis in the Scriptures. None of the Gospels mentions Jesus falling.

Still, the idea that Jesus started out carrying the cross and that only later Simon was compelled to carry it is one way to explain the apparent discrepancy between John and the Synoptics. It is much the same sort of explanation that my hypothetical Church of Deadwood Dick used to account for a man lighting a cigar and tapping the ashes out of a pipe. As in that thought experiment, though, it might be wise to ask if this is the most reasonable explanation.

The Gospel of John has a high Christology. That is, it presents Jesus as and powerful, much more so than the Synoptics. In John 1:1 ff. Jesus is described as the pre-existent Word of God and as God incarnate. John’s Jesus possesses divine knowledge (2:25). Repeatedly in John’s Gospel (and only in John’s Gospel) Jesus makes “I am” statements which echo the divine name revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14. (Some of the “I am” statements can be found at John 6:48. 8:12, 10:11, and 11:25, but read the whole Gospel to find them all).

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is depicted as being in charge of every situation. Even when he is arrested, the armed crowd that comes for him falls “to the ground” when he speaks and he is able to demand that his disciples be let go (18:6-9). In John, Jesus’ crucifixion is described as a “lifting up” (3:14, 8:28, 12:32) and “glorification” (17:1). These are all signs of John’s high Christology, as is John’s plain statement that Jesus carried the cross “by himself.”

It is possible to harmonize John’s account with that of the Synoptics’. It is even plausible to say that Jesus carried the cross “by himself” and that Simon of Cyrene also carried it, though I think that this denies the plain meaning of the texts. If one wishes to maintain that the Bible contains no errors or contradictions, then it may even be necessary to resort to such an explanation.

The problem is that explaining away this difference between John and the Synoptics obscures John’s wonderful high Christology. To me the most reasonable explanation for the difference is that John and the Synoptics have different theologies.




I like Gwyneth Leech’s painting of Jesus and Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross in tandem for many reasons, among them Simon’s north African clothing. I found the picture here.

The Church of Deadwood Dick

A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

When I was in college I read a book titled Deadwood Dick on Deck; Or, Calamity Jane, the Heroine of Whoop-Up, by Edward L. Wheeler. It was a reprint of a story originally published in 1885 as an entry in the Beadle's Half Dime Library (hereafter, BHDL).

I no longer have the book and cannot find the text online, but as I recall it, there was a scene in which a character told a story beside a campfire. As he began his speech he lit a cigar. A few pages later he concluded the story and tapped the ashes out of his pipe.

The BHDL was a disposable entertainment, a pulp magazine marketed toward boys. The stories were hurriedly written, hastily edited and rushed into print. Apparently Edward L. Wheeler made a simple mistake, forgetting what kind of smoking material his character was using. It slipped past the editors and made it into print. It was all quite inconsequential.

Now, I invite you to join me in a thought experiment. Imagine that there is a cult of people who worship Deadwood Dick. We'll call them “Dickians.” It is ridiculous, I know, but bear with me as we further imagine that the Beadle's Half Dime Library is the sacred scripture of the Church of Deadwood Dick. The Dickians read the BHDL to learn about the words and deeds of their idol. They seek to discern Deadwood Dick's will for their lives in the BHDL's pulpy pages.

Next, let us imagine that there is a subset of Dickians who believe that the BHDL is not only inspired, but also inerrant. Their reasoning goes something like this: Deadwood Dick is a straight-shooter, honest and true. Deadwood Dick would not lie. Since Deadwood Dick inspired the writing of the BHDL, and since it is, in very fact, the word of Deadwood Dick, then it must be true, free of error and without contradiction. Given the premises of this thought experiment, this seems reasonable. Doesn't it?

How then, might these inerrantist Dickians explain the apparent contradiction of the character in Deadwood Dick on Deck who lights a cigar and taps out a pipe? I could suggest a few strategies.

For one, they could argue that the word of Deadwood Dick is infallible, but human beings are not. Edward L. Wheeler's original manuscript of Deadwood Dick on Deck was, therefore, inerrant, but error crept in somewhere along the line, perhaps in the process of editing or typesetting. If Wheeler's original manuscript was lost or destroyed, this assertion could not be falsified.

Or, a Dickian inerrantist might argue that there is no actual contradiction in a character lighting a cigar and tapping out a pipe. Perhaps the character finished smoking his cigar in the midst of telling his story, took out his pipe and smoked it until he finished the tale. Or, maybe he had a cold pipeful of ashes in his pocket and was, in fact, still puffing away at his cigar when he emptied the pipe into the campfire. You have to admit that it could be.

These are two possible ways that an inerrantist Dickian might explain the seeming contradiction of the cigar and the pipe. Both explanations are possible and even plausible. So the point of this (admittedly silly) thought experiment is to ask, which explanation makes the best sense of the evidence before us? Is it to say that there was no error in a non-existent original manuscript of Deadwood Dick on Deck? Is it to deny that there is actually a contradiction in lighting a cigar and tapping out a pipe? Or does it make the most sense to say that Edward L. Wheeler simply made a mistake?

More to come.




If any of my reader's owns a copy of Deadwood Dick on Deck, I would appreciate a little fact checking. What was the name of the character who lit a cigar and tapped out a pipe? In which chapter did this occur? Etc. The picture of Beadle's Half Dime Library No. 138 came from this website.

Merry Christmas

Some of us never tire of puppets singing parodies of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Okay, to be precise I never tire of puppets singing parodies of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. And so...

Blessed Christmas to you!

More on the War on...

CHRISTMAS

I will not name him as I do not have his permission. I am probably quoting him inaccurately anyway. The point is that this thought is not original to me. It comes from a member of my social network, a friend who has been described as "sarcastic and wise." He said,

People forget that "Happy Holidays" includes both Christmas and New Year. So when I wish someone "Happy Holidays" and they say, "No, you mean "Merry Christmas'" I tell them "Fine. Have a *****y New Year."

Yesterday Chris "The Lutheran Zephyr" Duckworth wrote a snarky blogpost about The War on Christmas in which he said:

Even though the Gospel of Luke reports that Jesus brings good news to the poor and sends the rich away empty, to fully participate in Christmas America-style, an upper-middle class income or higher is really necessary, because Christmas in America is about the gifts.  (Frankincense, gold and myrrh didn't come cheap, bucko.)  And so Christians established Christmas as a holiday that can truly be shared in its ideal form only by those who are well-off, further thrusting Christ into the center of the American yearning for wealth and material goods.

Read the entire post here, and don't miss the comments. Snark begets snark.

Today, Chris posted again. This time his words are more measured. A sample:

And so by the mid-to-late 19th century Christmas was widely celebrated in America, with a growing emphasis on gift-giving and elves, a large man in a red suit and reindeer.  Washington Irving's popular writings made celebration of the home and hearth central to our understanding of Christmas.  Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, widely read in America by the 1860s, further sentimentalized Christmas as a holiday of kindness and compassion.

This is not all bad, but it ain't Baby Jesus, either.  The imperative to care for the poor and to share gifts surely has roots in Christian tradition and teachings, and Christians should be glad that the wider culture promotes works of charity at this time of year.  But it is hard to deny that in the 19th century Christmas - the Christ Mass - was branded by a variety of cultural traditions and emphases that had less to do with explicitly religious celebrations of the birth of Christ and more to do with good cheer, generosity, and the comfort of the hearth.

Again, the entire post is worth reading. Find it here.






The detail from Giotto's fresco of the Nativity was found here.

The War on Christmas: Take Two

TWO OTHER TAKES

Dr. James McGrath is a prolific, and frequently brilliant, blogger. Last Sunday, in a post titled "Christmas: The Christian War on Solstice," he wrote:

Today in my Sunday school class I decided to turn our attention to seasonal matters. Soon, the topic of being wished "Happy Holidays" as opposed to "Merry Christmas" came up. And so I took that opportunity to talk about what I consider one of the great Christmas miracles: the fact that long ago Christians managed to "hijack" the already-existing solstice festival, and turn it into a Christian celebration so thoroughly and so effectively that, more than a millennium and a half later, cultural Christians can complain about the "hijacking" or "secularization" of Christmas without any sense of irony.

Read the rest of his post here.

Meanwhile, over at the Huffington Post, Father James Martin has an article titled, "The War on Christmas is Over...And Christmas Lost." Father Martin advises:

So what's a Christian to do?

For one thing, surrender. Stop fighting. Enough with the embarrassing and endless "War on Christmas." It's embarrassing because we've lost. It's a waste of time because corporations have more financial firepower than churches, and the consumerism will only to get worse. Get ready for Santa to show up around Labor Day. (You laugh now; you won't in a few years.) Can't fight City Hall? Much less can you fight Madison Avenue -- which has more money than City Hall. Give it up.

Capitulate Christmas? Read the rest of his article here.




The Solstice Card illustration came from Dr. McGrath's site.

Keep X in Xmas

THE HOLIDAY SEASON WOULDN'T FEEL THE SAME WITHOUT PEOPLE GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY TO BE OFFENDED BY NOTHING. --Jon Stewart

My friend is a PhD now, a church consultant, but a little over a quarter century ago, she was one of my fellow students in seminary. And I remember one December when she jokingly admonished me to "Keep X in Xmas."

This was well before the talking heads had trumped up an imaginary "War on Christmas" to keep the culture warriors on alert. Back then there was only a vague concern among Christians that the celebration of Jesus' birthday was being obscured by Santa, Rudolph and Frosty. Some worried that a  cultural accretion of tinsel and sleigh bells was deafening us to the angel's announcement: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord." I am all for keeping Christ in Christmas, but...

There was no "War on Christmas" then. There isn't one now.

It is time we all faced the fact that we live in a pluralistic society. No one is keeping Christians from keeping Christmas. Ours is not, however, the only religion in town. Many people of many faiths celebrate holidays around the time of the Winter Solstice. It is not an insult to wish someone, whose faith you may not know, "Happy Holidays." If you take offense at a kind wish, it only reflects badly on you.

There is a drug store in my town with a marquee sign out front. This time of year they advertise special prices on "C-MAS CARDS" and other "C-MAS" merchandise. I think I see what they are doing. The sign is only so large. An abbreviation for the word "Christmas" is useful. They are a retail establishment. Offending customers is not a wise business practice. They worry that some Christians will take umbrage if they use the abbreviation "Xmas." So they have taken the "X" out of Xmas and replaced it with "C" for "Christ."

I wonder, though, if they realize the "X" in Xmas is not the English letter "Ecks" at all. It is not a mathematical symbol. It does not signify the unknown. It is, rather, the Greek letter "Chi," the initial letter of "Christos" from which we get our word "Christ."  The cruciform letter Chi, which is written "X," has been used for centuries as an abbreviation for "Christ." The abbreviation "Xmas" is not blasphemous. It no more takes Christ out of Christmas than does the abbreviation "C-mas."

Xians who take offense at the abbreviation "Xmas" only show their ignorance of their own faith. Even if "Xmas" were an insult, taking offense would be a betrayal of the Teacher who told us to "turn the other cheek." So this year, I will be keeping "X" in Xmas. My friend was smarter than I even before she got her PhD.





Got 10 minutes? Enjoy Jon Stewart's humorous take on the "War on Christmas" here.