Good Read

I've made my case, off and on, against the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. Today, John Petty blogged Ten Reasons Why Literalism Makes No Sense. Here is his tenth reason:

Tenth, one of the biggest problems with inerrancy is that it gives too much support to hierarchical authority.  The Bible is a complex book.  Sometimes it seems contradictory.  Sometimes it seems abstruse and esoteric.  Sometimes it seems conflicted.  Fundamentalist interpreters claim to understand it all, which gives the interpreters themselves an aura of inerrancy. 

The preceding nine reasons are equally cogent. Read them all here.

The Biggest Dandelion in the World

A PARABLE OF THE KINGDOM (for J. H.)

When I started this blog, I deliberately chose not to use it to post my sermons. That has never been its purpose in my mind. Today I had to cancel church because of a vicious storm that knocked out power and phone service and toppled a tree across a road that I have to travel to get from home to church. What follows is a part of the sermon I would have preached this morning. I post it only because a friend requested that I do so. First the relevant passage of Scripture:

[Jesus} put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”

It may have been the largest dandelion in the world. If it wasn’t, you couldn’t prove it by me because it was certainly the biggest dandelion that I’ve ever seen. And it was growing in my backyard right next to the air conditioner.

It was massive. The leaves were about 2 feet long and 8 or maybe 10 inches across at the widest point.

We have one of those two-pronged weed pullers on about a 4 foot handle. It’s good for uprooting regular dandelions without bending over. We tried it on the giant mutant dandelion and the tool began to bend!

So I got out the garden spade and started to dig it out. I got about 6 inches down before I broke the root. I’m not kidding when I say that it looked like a tree root. It was almost an inch in diameter. I have no idea how deep it actually went.

If I told you that I broke the shovel, well, then I’d be exaggerating. Or, if I said that there were birds nesting in this dandelion, then I’d be exaggerating too. But it is no exaggeration to say that it was the biggest dandelion I’ve ever seen, maybe the biggest in the world.

So, how would you feel about it if I told you that the Kingdom of God is like that giant dandelion? What if I said that where God holds dominion, it is like the biggest dandelion in the world?

I suppose it might depend on how you feel about dandelions. Do you think they’re pretty? Do you like dandelion green salads? (You could have fed a family of five on this one). Or do you like dandelion wine?

Or, do you, like most of us, think that dandelions are noxious weeds? That they need to be rooted out or they will take over our lawns?

* * *

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed and, yes, Jesus was exaggerating when he said that it is the smallest of all the seeds. He was also exaggerating when he said that it grew into a tree and birds could nest in its branches. Mustard seeds are small and they grow into a substantial shrub, but still, Jesus was exaggerating.

And if his point was that the God’s dominion starts small and grows big then he made his point. But using mustard as a parable for the Kingdom is something like comparing God’s reign and rule to a giant dandelion.

On the one hand, mustard is useful. It can be used to season food. It can be used medicinally. (You’ve heard of mustard plaster, right?)  But on the other hand, mustard grows like a weed in Palestine. It has to be rooted out of wheat fields and barley fields. It has to be pulled up or it will take over your garden.

So when he compared the Kingdom to mustard, well, Jesus was saying that God’s dominion is like a lowly, humble, even noxious plant...which God makes good of. Perhaps Jesus was even saying that the Kingdom of God is made up of lowly, humble, and even noxious people...whom God makes good of.

* * *

And Jesus told another parable. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is like yeast. A woman added a lump of it to three measures of flour. By one estimate that’s enough flour to make 100 loaves of bread.

Now I don’t know about you, but I think of yeast as a good thing. Last night I made a pizza on the grill and the crust was all crispy and bubbly and good because I put a packet of yeast in three cups of flour.

But if Jesus meant that yeast is a good thing in this parable, it is the only place in Scripture that I know of where yeast is considered good. Usually it’s a negative thing.

Campus pastor Scott Alan reinterprets the parable of the yeast this way:

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a bad apple that a woman took and mixed in with three bushels of apples until all of them were spoiled.”

In other words, all of these parables are telling us that God’s Kingdom comes into this world in surprising, unexpected, humble, maybe even noxious ways. The Kingdom does not come in glory. The King does not come riding on a white charger or sitting on a golden throne.

The King comes humble and riding on a donkey. The King comes nailed to a cross, dying between two thieves.

The Kingdom comes by means of a cross. And just like yeast leavening 3 measures of flour, or mustard growing wild in the fields, or a giant dandelion taking over my backyard...the cross changes everything.

The Scripture quotation is from the New Revised Standard Version. The image of the dandelion came from this website.  Some of the thinking that went into this sermon was inspired by, or perhaps stolen from Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman’s commentary at the always excellent Working Preacher website.

A Confession, a Thank You Note...

AND A STATEMENT OF FAITH

Last June, voting members at the Northern Illinois Synod’s Annual Assembly were given a gift, a book titled The Word of Jesus. It is a beautifully made little hardcover book with a dust jacket and a sewn-in ribbon marker. The pages are heavy slick stock. The book contains 60 quotations of Jesus’ words from the Gospels illustrated with 33 lovely photographs. It was compiled by Douglas Koons and Gideon Devanasen. I had the pleasure of meeting Pastor Devanasen once when he visited the United States. At that time he was bishop of the Arcot Lutheran Church in India. The Arcot Lutheran Church has a companion synod relationship with the Northern Illinois Synod.

A charming and intelligent man, Bishop Devaesan had a stroke in 2008 and had to resign  his position with the church. The book was, apparently, a project that he and Douglas Koons undertook while the Bishop was making recovery.

Which brings me to my confession: When I picked up my copy of The Word of Jesus, I thought, “This is an extravagant gift” and it crossed my mind that the Arcot Lutheran should be receiving gifts from us, not giving them.

As soon as I thought it, I realized I was wrong. I like to think I’m an enlightened guy, but my own thoughts convicted me of a certain bigotry, an unwarranted assumption of cultural superiority.

This stuff runs deep in us.

So to my note of thanks: I used The Word of Jesus as bedtime devotional reading for about two weeks, contemplating the quotations, getting lost in the photographs and praying that Jesus’ words might take flesh in my own life. I am grateful for this generous gift from the Arcot Lutheran Church. I intend to write thank you notes both to our companion synod and to Douglas Koons.

I won’t mention, but I am no less grateful for, the gift of having my eyes opened to the deep-seated flaw in my character, my assumption of cultural superiority.

And the statement of faith: At the end of the book there are two sections of “Commentary,” one by Douglas Koons and the other by Gideon Davenasen. This quote from Koons’s commentary struck me as particularly trenchant and insightful:

“Faith is a surrendering of ourselves unto God as God has surrendered unto us in Jesus Christ. It is not about sets of belief systems created by various Christian communitines that must be seen as correct ways to think of Jesus. For there is no idea or creed, doctrine or theology that can adequately express the grace that is faith. When we are scattered, disbelieving and distracted by all of life’s intensity, God is present in our lives. As there is light even in the shadows of the earth, God’s grace is present in our doubt. An early follower of Jesus was a man named Paul. In one of his letters to the disciples at Corinth he writes, ‘For now we see though a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but t hen shall I know even as I also am known.”

The illustration accompanying this post is a page from The Word of Jesus. The image was found at the publisher's website, here.

Did Abraham Lie?

PATRIARCHS WITH THE BARK STILL ON THEM

I recently finished reading Rachel Held Evans’ book Evolving in Monkey Town. In it she relates the story of her crisis of faith. Raised with the certainty of a Bible Belt Fundamentalist and trained to defend biblical inerrancy, she came to question the doctrines she held dear. In the process, she grew into a new faith, one that embraces ambiguity and mystery. If this sounds the least bit interesting to you, I can recommend the book.

There may be a certain irony here, or it may just be a testament to my eclectic reading habits, but the same shipment that brought me Rachel Held Evan’s book also contained my copy of the Apologetics Study Bible. The notes to this Bible harmonize discrepancies  among the various writings of Scripture and provide allegedly logical reasons to believe. For example, there are footnotes to Matthew 27 and Acts 1 that give a familiar explanation for the differing accounts of Judas’ death.

Regular readers of this blog may wonder why I spent the money on the Apologetics Study Bible. Curiosity is part of the answer. I generally feel that apologetics, as it is presented in this Study Bible (and as Rachel Held Evans was taught it) is a waste of time. But, I once heard someone say “I want to understand my opponent’s view well enough to teach it.” So, that is the rest of the answer. I may not agree, but I want to understand.

On Monday, I was reading chapter 22 of Genesis which tells the fascinating, horrifying, difficult and ultimately important story that the Jews call the ‘Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. In this tale, God asks Abraham to offer his beloved only son, Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham then travels with Isaac, two servants and a donkey to a remote place. Abraham leaves the servants at a certain place saying,

"Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you." (Gen. 22:5 HCSB)

Abraham and Isaac go a little farther. Abraham builds an altar, places wood upon it, ties Isaac up hand and foot, and raises the knife to kill him. At the last moment, an angel of the Lord stops Abraham from killing his son and God provides a ram for the sacrifice.

A footnote in the Apologetics Study Bible raised (and answered) a question that had not occurred to me: Did Abraham lie? The note in question reads:

“22:2,5 Since God wanted Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice (v. 2) some have charged that Abraham lied in telling his servants, ‘The boy and I will ... come back to you.’ (v.5). However Hebrews 11:17, 19 clarifies that Abraham’s response to God’s test of his faith was to believe that, if necessary, the Lord would raise Isaac from the dead.” (Apologetics Study Bible, p. 37)

And in fact, that is what the book of Hebrews says. Reading the New Testament backwards into the Hebrew Bible is a suspect strategy, but, in this case, if one wishes to defend Abraham against the charge of lying, it may be effective.

Interestingly, the Jewish Study Bible offers a similar explanation (which I have bolded below) of Abraham’s apparent lie as one possibility among others:

“5. Abraham may be concealing the truth from his servants (lest they prevent him from carrying out God’s will), from Isaac (lest he flee) and from himself (lest the frank acknowledgment of his real intention cause his resolve to break). Alternately, he may be expressing his profound trust in God’s promise, casting his faith and hope as a prediction.” (Jewish Study Bible, p. 46).

I like to think that I am a careful reader. Still, it never occurred to me to question whether Abraham lied to his servants. I simply assumed that he did. After all, he had a track record as a liar. In Genesis 12, Abraham (then known as Abram) tells the King of Egypt that  his wife Sarah (called Sarai at this point) is actually his sister. In chapter 20, Abraham tries the same stunt with King Abimelech of Gerar. Abraham “was practiced at the art of deception” as Mick Jagger sang.

For about 10 years of my ministry, I served as chaplain to a home for troubled children. We had 60 kids in residence, most of them adjudicated to us by the courts, and all of them from dysfunctional homes. As I told the stories of the Patriarchs to these children, I realized just how messed up the home lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob really were. These were not paragons of virtue. They were fallible, sinful and all-too-human. They could (and did) lie, cheat and steal. And I love them the more for it, because I too am fallible, sinful and human. The kids at the home related to the Patriarchs and their families in very real and profound ways.

I understand the temptation to sanitize the character of Abraham. Who wants to believe that God would choose a liar to be the recipient of promises and to become the “father of nations?” But God did not choose Abraham because Abraham was better than anyone else. God chose Abraham for God’s own reasons. Perhaps it was for Abraham’s outrageous faithfulness, which included a willingness to sacrifice even his beloved only son. It certainly wasn’t becausw he always told the truth.

You may reduce the Patriarchs to Sunday School flannel-graph cut-outs or make plastic action figures of them. Me? I’ll take my treasures in earthen vessels. I like my Patriarchs with the bark still on them.

The Scripture quotation is from the Holman Christian Standard Bible because that is the translation used in the Apologetics Study Bible. The Mick Jagger quote is from the Rolling Stone’s 1969 hit “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” I took Chagall's painting of the 'Akedah from this website. I loves me some Chagall.

A Nod To Ekklesia

DON’T GIVE MARGARITAS TO PIGS

A friend who calls himself “The Classicist” left a comment on my last post. He wrote:

“I like your nod Εκκλεσια [sic] there at the end!”

While the comment is perfectly transparent to me, I’m sure that most of my readers will find it impossibly cryptic. Allow me to clarify. 

Eκκλησία (which I will hereafter transliterate into English as “Ekklesia”) is a Greek New Testament reading group which meets weekly at Augustana College, Rock Island during the school year. The group is comprised of instructors from the Classics and Religion departments, students, clergy and various other members of the community. The group is interdisciplinary and interdenominational. Through the years, the membership has included inerrantists and agnostics and people in the middle, like me.

We have read the Johannine literature, the book of Philippians, the Q parallels from Mathew and Luke, and most recently, in a departure from the New Testament, the early Christian book called the Didache. In the fall, we plan to begin reading the Acts of the Apostles.

Our procedure is this: We take turns reading a sentence or so from the text in Greek. The reader then translates the sentence. Next we discuss it, paying attention to grammar, textual variants, and, of course, the meaning of the text. Some members of the group do not read Greek, but come for the discussions.

The group is neither as dull nor as disputatious as you might imagine. In fact, we laugh a lot. The subtitle of this post is a pun that Ekklesia has chuckled over. The Greek word μαργαρίτας (which is transliterated “margaritas”) means “pearls.” The word is found in Matthew 7:6, where Jesus says, “do not throw your pearls before swine.” I like to translate it as “Don’t give margaritas to pigs.”

Okay. Reading that over I realize that it is Greek nerd humor. What can I say? It makes me laugh.

Ekklesia has come to be an important part of my life. So much so that I drive 140 miles round trip each week to attend.

Last year, one of the students, a politically conservative non-Greek reader from an inerrantist tradition, had other obligations that kept her from attending for a school term. When she came back, she told me that she had missed the group. She said, “I really didn’t do anything spiritual last term.” I would not have expected her to use the word “spiritual” to describe Ekklesia, but it is spiritual.

 The word “Ekklesia” means something like “assembly.” It is usually translated into English as “church.” My friend the Classicist has his own blog called Penned House, in which he discusses another of our common interests, pens and inks. Read it here. I borrowed the picture of the drunk pig from Linzi at deviantart.com. To see it in its original context, click here.

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.