Children And PhDs

 AND THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE

I was re-posted again over at Living Lutheran. This time they picked up my post titled “Reading Someone Else’s Mail” in which I described the letters of St. Paul as high context documents.

A reader who calls himself “Chemnitz” replied. I am assuming that Chemnitz is male. I am further assuming that he took the name Chemnitz from the Lutheran theologian Martin Chemnitz (1522 - 1586).  At any rate, the modern day Chemnitz wrote:

“Luther said that scripture is so simple a child can understand it. This article seems to say that only experts -- those with the correect [sic] gnosis (knowledge) --can interpret the Bible. If Paul was the author, that might be true. But the Holy Spirit is the real author, and He does not hide anything from us necessary for our salvation.”

When we were children, my brother and I were given wooden plaques by our Sunday School teacher. I honestly don’t remember what mine looked like. My brother’s had a picture of a fluffy white kitten chasing a butterfly and bore the inscription “God is Love.” The words are from 1 John 4:8. I loved that plaque. Its message was formative to my understanding of God.

I am currently reading Evolving in Monkey Town, by Rachel Held Evans. The book is breezily written and easily read. It is humorous and thoughtful by turns. I’m enjoying it. On page 27, Evans writes:

“I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know about Jesus. Stories of his dividing the fishes and loaves, calming the stormy sea, and riding the donkey into Jerusalem were as familiar to me growing up as Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella. I learned them from my parents and from pretty Sunday school teachers who smelled like peppermint and let me call them by their first names. They were more than stories really. They were grand narratives that flowed like streams into my own story, creating the currents that would move me forward and give me direction in life.”

So, Chemnitz is at least partly right. Portions of the Scripture are so clear and simple that even young children can understand them. I think that it takes a certain maturity of mind to comprehend Paul’s letter to the Romans or the book of Hebrews, but parts of the Bible are clear enough even for children. Thank God.

Then again, I think that Chemnitz has misunderstood my original post. I never said, nor did I mean to intimate, that only experts can interpret the Bible. (The term “gnosis” here is both loaded and inaccurate. I am not a gnostic.) I did not say, nor do I believe that the things necessary for our salvation are hidden from us.

My point was that some parts of the Bible, and in particular some parts of the letters of Paul are closed to us. For example, in Philippians 4:2-3, Paul writes:

“I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.”

Who were Euodia and Syntyche? What was the nature of their disagreement? Paul could assume that his first readers knew. Today, no one can say, not an expert with special “gnosis”, nor even a precocious child. This is a simple example of Paul’s letters being high context documents. Because many of the details of Paul’s writings are lost to us, I maintain that we should hold our interpretations lightly.

Though I don’t know the source for Chemnitz’s assertion that Luther said Scripture was clear enough for children to understand, I will take it at face value. I will also point out that Martin Luther was a doctor of biblical theology. He studied the Scriptures in great depth and sometimes struggled to understand them. He was also known, occasionally, to overstate his case.

I will also say that Lutherans have always required their clergy to be educated, at least partly so that they can explain the Scriptures clearly. This is not some special “gnosis.” It is education to be shared.

Finally, while it may not take an expert to understand the Bible, I have benefited many times over from sitting at the feet of those who do have expertise in Scriptural studies. I have found that those with PhDs are often the most cautious in their pronouncements about the Bible, the most tentative in their conclusions, the most careful to understand the Scriptures in their context, and the first to say “I don’t know.”

Scripture is quoted from the New Revised Standard Version.The picture of the young Jesus among the Doctors is by Rembrandt.

Harold Camping Had A Stroke

AND I FEEL BADLY ABOUT IT

Harold Camping is an old man. As of this writing he is a few months short of his ninetieth birthday.

Harold Camping has been the subject of quite a few of my recent blogposts. He is famous for predicting the date of the rapture. First, he said that it might be in 1994. It wasn’t. Then told us that the Bible “guaranteed” that the rapture would happen on May 21, 2011. He was wrong again. Now he says that the rapture and the end of the world will both occur on October 21, 2011.

He will be wrong again, and he will be wrong for the same reasons that he was wrong twice before.

There will be no rapture. Ever. The doctrine of the rapture is based on a convoluted and de-contextualized reading of a few verses of the Bible. It was not what the writers of Scripture intended. It is not a part of the historic Christian faith.

The world will not end on October 21 because Harold Camping reads the Bible in strange, idiosyncratic and nonsensical ways.

I have said that when Harold Camping’s 1994 prediction fell through, he set the date for 2011, never expecting to live to see the day. It was a joke about Camping’s age. It was not a funny joke.

I give Harold Camping this much credit. I believe that he is sincere. He is wrong, but he is not lying. I do not think that Camping is fraudulent, venal or crass. He is just mistaken.

He also has talents for persuasion and publicity. He managed to get his bizarre biblical interpretation widely known.

The news yesterday announced that Harold Camping has had a stroke. His speech is affected. Somehow I feel badly about that. Maybe it is because I made fun of his age. Maybe it’s because I owe a sudden spike in this blog’s popularity to my posts about Camping. Maybe it’s just because he is a fellow, flawed human being whom God loves.

I hope that no one is listening to Harold Camping’s goofy teachings about the Bible and the end of the world anymore. I also hope--no, I pray--for Harold Camping’s recovery.

 A CBS News story about Camping's stroke, and the source of the photograph accompanying this post can be found here.

Contemplating Camping's mortality, and my own, puts me in mind of Psalm 103:14-18, quoted from the New Revised Standard Version:

The Lord knows how we were made;

     he remembers that we are dust.
As for mortals, their days are like grass;

     they flourish like a flower of the field;
     for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

        and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

     on those who fear him,

     and his righteousness to children's children,
      to those who keep his covenant

          and remember to do his commandments.

What The Word "Biblical" Means

THE BIBLE AS I INTERPRET IT SUPPORTS WHAT I SAY OR DO

It was a conversation with a pastor of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) that convinced me, years ago, that the word “biblical” is not helpful. It does not foster an open exchange of ideas. In fact, the use of  that one word, and its antonym “unbiblical,” shuts down meaningful conversation. As James McGrath put it:

"I’d much prefer that we jettison the term 'Biblical' in its popular usage, since it is at best meaningless and at worst deceitfully misleading."

The LCMS pastor whom I mentioned, repeatedly and insistently referred to “the biblical practice of close Communion.” Close, or “closed” Communion means that a Missouri Synod pastor will not give Communion to someone who is not known to be in doctrinal agreement with their synod. This practice is based largely on the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29:

“Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”

According to the LCMS’s interpretation, “discerning the body” means acknowledging the real presence of Christ in the bread of Communion.  My Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) also teaches the real presence of Christ in the elements of Communion, but we have a much more open Communion practice.

In his explanation to the eighth Commandment in the Small Catechism, Martin Luther taught that Christians should explain their neighbors’ actions “in the kindest way.” Following this instruction, I will say that the LCMS policy shows a genuine concern for the Sacrament and for the eternal fate of those who receive it.

I disagree, however, with the idea that the practice of closed Communion is biblical. In fact, I would argue that the idea of closed Communion is the exact opposite of what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote to the church at Corinth. As always, context is key.

It is interesting to note that 1 Corinthians provides the only evidence we have that the Apostle Paul’s churches practiced a form of the Eucharist (Holy Communion). The only reason that Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the Eucharist is that there were problems in the way they practiced it.

1 Corinthians is a high context document. Paul and his first readers shared details of knowledge that are not available to us. It seems clear that their practice of Communion was not identical to the practices of twenty-first century American Lutherans. It would appear that the Corinthian Eucharist took place in the context of a full meal in which the entire community partook. Some of the Corinthians were hogging food and getting drunk while others went hungry (1 Cor. 11:21). This may have reflected the common practice in first century Roman society where a host provided the most honorable guests with the best and most plentiful foods, while “B-list” guests were provided with lesser quantities of inferior food and drink. At any rate, Paul objected, saying that the Corinthian meal was not “the Lord’s Supper.”  (1 Cor. 11:20).

In every other context in which Paul speaks of “the body of Christ,” he means the Church, that is, the assembly of believers (See, e.g. 1 Cor. 12:27). In 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, Paul makes a connection between the Eucharistic bread, which Christ called “my body,” and the body of believers who partake of it.

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

I am convinced that when Paul talks about “discerning the body” he is referring to the body of believers. That some Corinthians were selfishly disregarding, disrespecting and  ignoring the needs of other believers at their Eucharistic meal meant that they were, in Paul’s terms, eating and drinking “judgment against themselves.”

The issue in Corinth was not about recognizing the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament. It was about some believers failing to recognize other believers as fully members of the Body of Christ which is the Church. At least, that is how I see it. I leave it to you, my reader to decide for yourself whether I am right. But if I am right, then the practice of closed Communion is in fact the opposite of what the Apostle Paul advocated, because in closed Communion one part of the Body of Christ denies access to the Lord’s table to another part of that same Body.

Returning to my original point, the use of the word “biblical” is not helpful. By speaking of the “biblical practice of close Communion” my LCMS interlocutor was claiming for his position a high ground that did not exist. The Bible nowhere says “Thou shalt practice close Communion.” As with anyone who uses the word “biblical” to describe their doctrine or practice, what he meant was “the Bible as I interpret it supports what I say or do.”

And that is not helpful.

Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version. I "borrowed" the graphic from the Facebook page of something called the "Closed Communion Underground Supper Club." I can't vouch for the club or its members, but I like the graphic!

Good Quote

 FROM DR. DAVID LOSE

David J. Lose is the Marbury E. Anderson Chair for Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary. He says succinctly what I believe:

"Claims that the Bible is 'inerrant' or 'infallible' probably say more about the need of the persons making those claims to try to prove their faith than they do about the Bible itself. The Bible, keep in mind, is fundamentally a collection of the confessions of faith of people over the centuries who have experienced God in a particular way and seek to give voice to their faith. But faith, as the Letter to the Hebrews says, is 'the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen' (11:1). You can confess your faith, you can give good reasons for your faith, and you can allow your faith to shape your life. But you cannot prove your faith (or it is no longer faith!). When we try to prove that the Bible is true by ascribing to it a divine status that it doesn’t claim itself, we risk fundamentally misunderstanding the nature and purpose of the Bible."

Read the entire article here.





Marc Chagall's painting of Moses accompanies this post just because I like it. I found the image here.

Biblical? Unbiblical?

UNHELPFUL, MEANINGLESS, MISLEADING TERMS

In my last post, as elsewhere in this blog, I said that "'unbiblical' is not a helpful term." Over at his blog, Exploring Our Matrix, Dr. James McGrath makes the point better than I could hope to. He writes:

"I’d much prefer that we jettison the term 'Biblical' in its popular usage, since it is at best meaningless and at worst deceitfully misleading."

 Please go immediately to Dr. McGrath's blog and read this post. Enjoy the clever cartoons that illustrate it and follow some, if not all, of the links.

The lovely photograph of a 1611 King James Bible was found on this website. You can actually buy it, and any number of other antique Bibles there...if you can afford them!

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.