Faith is extrapolation...

I started writing this post ages ago, following an Unbelievable show featuring Peter Boghossian and Tim McGrew. It languished in a semi-finished state for a few months. I thought I may as well finish it and post it now. Apologies if it seems half-baked. It probably is.

I'm not going to say too much about that show as it was simply annoying, Boghossian (the atheist) grinding his axe the whole time, while McGraw repeatedly pointed out that it wasn't an axe, it was something else. Or something. Anyway, the discussion was fairly pointless, as it never really got beyond a dispute about what the word 'Faith' actually means.

Boghossian asserted (without evidence) that faith really means "believing something even though it is not supported by evidence"and "pretending to know things you don't know".

McGrew pointed out that the dictionary definition was more along the lines of absolute trust, and made a few examples of faith that is basically putting your trust in something where you have no control of the outcome, but choose to trust someone or something; for example taking a parachute jump - you trust the guy who packed the parachute, with your life... you get the idea.

Anyway, I don't think that the majority of believers use the word 'faith' the way that Boghossian claims, but neither do I think that believers generally use the word the way that McGrew claims either. The truth is somewhere in the grey area in between.

So what is faith? Or rather, what is religious faith? 

I'm currently putting my faith in the chair that I'm sitting on. But that doesn't tell me much about religious faith. When I go to the dentist I put my faith in his ability to detect decay in my teeth, and occasionally have to put faith in his ability to fix the decayed bits. But that doesn't tell me much about religious faith either. One of the problems here is that we have the same word used in different contexts and there are nuances to the word that we miss if we assume it means exactly the same in all instances. It doesn't.

"Faith", without a given object of faith is not a useful concept to debate. If someone says "I have faith" or "I'm a person of faith" it means nothing without saying what it is they have faith in. Even saying "I have faith in God" doesn't help much, because to understand your meaning for that phrase, I have to understand your concept of God, or more importantly, your interpretation of what your God has apparently promised to do.

Most of the Christians I know (so we're talking about British evangelicals, for the most part) use the word faith to mean something like this:

In situations where I do not know what the outcome will be, I will act in a way consistent with my past experience and my understanding of what the biblical promises say the outcome will be.

That is, the believer essentially extrapolates from their understanding of the bible and their understanding of reality and, if exercising faith, will behave as if this extrapolation is true.

Of course, a good many Christians would omit 'past experience' and 'reality' from that if you asked them. The promises of the bible should trump experience. In theory, given enough faith, they can move mountains or walk on water - the bible explicitly says that they can do this - but experience and reality tend to temper those biblical principles, so nobody really expects mountains to fall into the sea if commanded to do so.

So its not a question of believing without evidence, its a question of deciding to take a particular course of action, when there is no evidence (or, perhaps, when the evidence is not known by the person taking the 'leap of faith').

Occasionally Christians use the word faith to mean this:

I will obey the commands of scripture, as I understand them, even though my past experience and understanding of the situation would suggest that this isn't the best course of action, from a human perspective.

This is, of course, what most Christians mean by living by faith, even if few Christians actually exercise this kind of faith regularly. Note that this version of faith doesn't claim to know anything without evidence, it just seeks to trust a promise of God more than an expectation. And even if the expected outcome happens, and the action leads to loss of respect, loss of money, or loss of something else, the Christian may still feel that it was the right thing to do because God may be at work in some hidden way.

Problems arise for the believer when evidence or experience suggests an outcome that is contrary to biblical promises and there is no divine hidden agenda apparent. I guess this is most apparent in the 'snake handling' churches in the USA. Mark 16v17-18 says:

"And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

So there are some minority churches who practice handling poisonous snakes as part of their church services. And you know what, most of the time, the snakes do not bite the people. And sometimes when a snake bites a person, they don't die. All of this confirms the promise of scripture. Of course, occasionally someone is bitten and they do die - does this disconfirm the promise of scripture? No. It shows that the person who died didn't have enough faith! And so the snake handling continues.

Here its easy for a person with even a vague understanding of snake behaviour, venom toxicity and probability to realise that when you do all the calculations, there's pretty good odds of survival from handling a poisonous snake. Faith doesn't need to come into it at all. I've commented on this before. For the believer, there is no negative feedback loop (here and here). Failed promises are explained away or reinterpreted. But if this happens again, and again, and again, then the honest believer will end up having to question the promises. When the evidence consistently goes against the faith, then faith will begin to erode. Of course, probabilistically speaking, faith will sometimes be validated and sometimes not. It really comes down to how often faith 'gets lucky'.

The thing is, faith works. I know plenty of folk who live 'by faith' and get by just fine. Along the way, some of them have experienced some very fortuitous situations, and their faith is boosted. But even to those who didn't get unexpected windfalls of cash at "just the right moment", living by faith seems to work. I'm just not sure that there needs to be a God behind it, sending 'good luck' at all the right moments. When you consider every fortuitous event as a blessing and every hardship as character building and a challenge, the net effect is a faith boost and a confirmation that living by faith is the right thing to do. 

Bow or rainbow?

I've blogged before about the problems inherent in the story of Noah and the flood (indeed, it was my very first doubt on this blog). But when thinking about the difference between the scientific method and the religions method the other day, I found myself thinking about the rainbow after the flood. Science does a pretty good job of explaining why there is a rainbow when the sun comes out, after the rain.

What I find interesting about the religious explanation is that the majority of Christians these days don't seem to understand the symbolism that is in the original text, and so they misunderstand the original intent of the story, as far as I can tell.

Modern translations tend to say something like this: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth" (Genesis 9:13 NIV).

Older (and more literal translations) say something more like this: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth" (Genesis 9:13 KJV).

Not much of a difference, you're probably thinking, 'bow' and 'rainbow' are basically the same thing, aren't they? Well, no. A rainbow is a rainbow, but a bow can mean a rainbow, or it could mean a weapon, as in a bow and arrow. Indeed, this appears to be the primary meaning of the word as used in the OT Hebrew.

What has just happened in the biblical story? God has warred against humanity and pretty much wiped it out. The appearance of a rainbow is explained as being a symbol (or maybe the real thing) of God putting down his weapon as a token that he is at war with us no more. So whenever we see the bow in the sky, we know that it is not in his hands, ready to unleash death on us again.

But by translating Genesis with the word 'rainbow', the entire message of this verse is lost. The bow switches from being a sign of war (albeit war ended) to being a sign of peace.

A very minor thought, but I thought I'd share it... I wonder how many other subtleties like this have been lost in translation?

"Truth" and liberal interpretation...

Was he?

I've just been listening to a recent Unbelievable podcast featuring a discussion between an evangelical Christian and a liberal Christian on the subject of the Christmas story. The question was basically are the nativity stories historically accurate? But I'm not going to look at that question in the current post.

What interested (and frustrated) me more in the discussion was the repeated claim of the liberal Christian that the gospel stories were not intended to be understood as factual, but were created as a teaching tool to convey truth.

In other words, the intent of the gospels is to use fiction to explain truth in a way better than mere facts can.

Now this is all well and good if the fiction is used to explain a philosophical or scientific concept which is otherwise evident, though hard to explain, but an allegorical explanation cannot be used as the basis for an otherwise unattested belief. That just makes no sense. If something is true, give me evidence for it. Saying that something is true and explaining it by fictional analogy gives me no access to real truth.

For example, the claim that Jesus was the "offspring of a virgin's womb". Here the liberal Christian dismissed the suggestion that this was historically true, but spoke of the deeper meaning that Jesus was both human and divine. Now I can see why such a story could have been created to explain how a human-divine being could have originated, assuming that there is other, attestable, evidence (or at least an established pre-existing belief) that there really was a divine-human being, but this story is of no evidential value in itself. If it is fiction and there is no other reason to suppose that Jesus was born of a virgin, then this story conveys nothing. It might be true, but it is highly, highly probable that it is false. Yet the majority of Christians believe in the virgin birth precisely because the gospels claim this. If this claim was not in the bible I am sure that far fewer folk would hold this belief. It is only because this claim is in the bible and is presented as fact that people believe it.

And surely the same goes with all other assertions in the gospels. They only have value if they are claiming to be true. The gospels claim that Jesus walked on water. If - in actual fact - he did not and could not do this, then the story contains no truth, allegorical or otherwise. The story is often expounded to mean that if you have faith (keep your eyes on the Lord) then you can overcome anything the world can throw at you. But would it not be better to demonstrate this by some example that actually happened, rather than by fiction? If this story isn't true then the message is: Faith can overcome anything, even the force of gravity; well, actually no, faith can't overcome the force of gravity; but it can overcome some other things, honest; no, really, it can... surely you believe me...? If this story is understood to be fiction, it loses all power.

But liberal Christians seem to be able to derive meaning from fiction. I just can't see how you can do that with any honesty or integrity. This effectively reduces "truth" to anything claimed in a compelling manner. If you can convey truth by analogy, then anything which is sincerely believed by someone and expressed in a meaningful way becomes "truth". Whether this "truth" corresponds to reality is another matter entirely.

I was going to stop here, then had this other thought:

A further problem this raises for me lies with the parables of Jesus as recorded in the gospels. The majority of Christians I know fundamentally base their God concept on the "truth" of God, expressed by analogy in the parables. Jesus doesn't present any evidence that God is like these claims, he simply explains his God concept in parable form. Now, IF the gospels are an accurate account of the things that Jesus said, AND Jesus really is/was the Son of God in such a way that did not limit his divine understanding of reality, THEN we could accept these claims as being an accurate representation of God. But given that there is reason to doubt the accuracy of the gospel reporting, and there is reason to doubt the extent of divine knowledge that Jesus had (even working under the assumption that he was God incarnate!), then we really shouldn't take any of these claims about God as, erm, gospel truth... We should use the analogies for explanation if (and only if) we have external evidence that supports the claims.

Hmmm. That means that it is reasonable to accept the claim that God is like an absentee landlord, but not to accept the claim that he will return and expect an explanation from his unfaithful servants...  

Belief and knowledge

I've touched on this subject before, but I'm back at it from a different point of view. What can we claim to have 'knowledge' about and what is only 'belief'?

The distinction I'm making is that I think knowledge is the subset of beliefs which can be validated by experience or logical deduction, whereas non-knowledge beliefs are those which is is not (currently) possible to validate or verify.

Unfortunately, for the Christian, I think that the balance is something kind of like this:

That is, the stuff we can know about God by experience is heavily dominated by the stuff that is belief by deduction (and our logic may be wrong, of course) and belief by doctrine (i.e. what comes directly from the Bible or what we're taught in Church, but which is impossible to test).

For example, I think that it is possible to know that:

Prayers are sometimes answered.

And from that, with some piled up experience we can deduce that:

God (sometimes) answers prayer.

But to go beyond that and say that the God who answered your prayer is the same God who created the world, is to go into the unverifiable realm of doctrine.

As I see it, only things that relate to the present can be experienced and hence verified, anything relating to the past (creation, events in biblical times, etc.) is mere belief, as is anything relating to the future, in particular anything relating to the 'age to come' (heaven, hell, eternal life, etc.).

Importantly, I don't see any way in which experiences in the present can validate beliefs about the past or the future, although Christianity (and presumably other faiths) more or less relies upon the assumption that the one can validate the other. The common reasoning seems to go like this: Christianity asserts N things, you can have experiences that validate M of them (where M << N), but because M are validated, then we can assume that the remaining N-M assertions are also validated. Sorry, I just can't accept that anymore.

Often we insert false correlations into our deductions. Such as we make the logical jump from:

God speaks to me through the bible

to

The bible must be the Word of God.

But I'm not sure that logically follows. Maybe God speaks to you through the bible simply because that's the book through which you expect him to talk. Maybe he could speak through the morning newspaper, but you're not looking for guidance there, so its easier to speak through the place you're looking in.

I just read through the 'statement of faith' of the church that I attend. Well over 90% of the statements in it fall into the (unverifiable) belief category, and the few remaining statements are all deductions (relating to the Holy Spirit) which may be partially tested based on experience.

As you can no doubt tell, I'm having a big problem at the moment justifying (to myself) making life choices that are based entirely on unjustified and untestable doctrine. Especially when some of the doctrinal assertions appear to be flawed or simply false. If some are false, my confidence in the others is greatly diminished.

I'd like to have a reasonable, rational faith. But it seems to me that in order to get there I need to jettison over 90% of my beliefs and put them into the 'I simply don't know' category.

Did God create the world: I simply don't know...
Is there only one God: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus born of a virgin: I simply don't know...
Was Jesus fully man and fully God: I simply don't know...
Did he have a bodily resurrection: I simply don't know...
Is there life after death: I simply don't know...
Is Christianity the only path to God: I simply don't know...
and so on.

Truth and filters

Continuing from my previous thought...

Is Christianity the 'truth' or is it a lens/filter through which we see the 'truth'?

How can we discern the difference?

Of course, here I am assuming that there is something which is reasonable to call 'truth'. Basically what I'm aiming for here is some way of assessing to what extent our presuppositions and cultural filters modify the way we perceive our interactions with (what, for lack of a better, all-encompassing phrase, I will call) the supernatural realm. Of course, this presupposes a supernatural realm.

But let's start with that supposition, that the supernatural realm is a reality and that there is at least one god or supernatural being within it, and that we are able to interact with it/him somehow.

Is Christianity the best way of accessing the supernatural realm? Is it the only way of getting access to it? Does the Christian world-view in any way filter or distort the way we perceive the supernatural realm? And, most importantly, is it possible to know the answer to any of these questions without actually trying out alternative filters?

Christianity makes a very strong, exclusive claim: "[Jesus is] the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by [Jesus]". The claim is not only that Christianity is the best way to access the supernatural god, but it is the only way. All other ways lead elsewhere. Or, to use my current imagery, no other filters or lenses allow us to see the truth.

There's a couple of parables which suggest that once you have found 'the truth' you should do anything to keep hold of it - the parables of the pearl of great price and the treasure buried in the field. But even if you have found treasure in a field, how do you know there's not more treasure buried in a different field? I suppose one pot of buried treasure aught to be enough for anyone, but I think I'm losing the track here, the point is, even though you've found something, how can you know that it is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth unless you keep looking in other places?

Maybe there's other sets of presuppositions that actually give a clearer picture of the truth?

Unless you consider the other viewpoints, you can never see just how skewed a picture of reality your own viewpoint actually gives...

What I'm wondering is this, does our Christian worldview completely colour our understanding of our interactions with the spiritual realm? We see all our interactions through a 'trinitarian' lens (for example), so we see God the Spirit at work in certain events. But maybe if you view the exact same interactions through a Hindu filter, you see Vishnu (or whatever) at work. Maybe we all just interpret events through our cultural filters and interpret meaning into them which validates our presuppositions.

Can we actually know God? Or do our presuppositions completely distort his reality?

Across the Spectrum: Chapter 1 - The Inspiration Debate

I'm currently reading 'Across the Spectrum' by Greg Boyd and Paul Eddy. The book is an overview of 'Evangelical' belief on most of the primary areas of belief in the Church today. Basically, for each topic covered, the book aims to describe each of the beliefs and justifications for holding to those beliefs, as if that section was written by a proponent of that position. Its quite interesting stuff and not as 'text book' as it sounds. Its certainly food for thought.

But, of course, the reason I am reading it is to figure out what I believe, and my reasons for believing what I believe, and whether my beliefs are justifiable and reasonable. And, of course, to have a critical look at the beliefs of others expressed in this book.

There's a lot in here, so I'll split this discussion across several posts. Here I'll look at the first chapter...

Chapter 1: The Inspiration Debate
Position 1: Without error of any kind (inerrantist view)
Position 2: Infallible in matters of faith and practice (infallibilist view)

I suppose I was raised with the 'inerrantist' belief, but I think I must have slid into the other camp as a fairly young Christian, possibly the first time I ever considered the issues. To me, the 1st position seems a bit blinkered, it basically says that the bible is right on all matters and if reality appears to disagree, then it is reality that has it wrong. Or rather, our perception of reality (whether through scientific or historical study, etc.) must be wrong.

The basic thing I find to be wrong with this point of view is that it does not allow you to question your pre-suppositions. It takes 'the bible' as its starting point, never questioning how that particular combination of 66 books came to be, or indeed, how those individual books came to be written or compiled. So all books in there are equally valid, and any excluded books are not at all valid. And yet the books of Revelation, James and the pastorals only made it into the canon by the skin of their teeth. And what about the Shepherd of Hermas? It was only just excluded.

The position is defended by asserting that Jesus had a very high regard for 'Scripture' - this is certainly the case, but what was Jesus calling scripture? Certainly not any of the 27 books of the New Testament which hadn't even been written yet, possibly not even large chunks of what we now call the Old Testament. Jesus's quotes of scripture are fairly limited to Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy and a couple of prophets. There is good evidence that the 'canon' of the OT hadn't actually been settled upon by the time of Jesus, so we can't use this as evidence for a blanket acceptance of the 66 books we now have.

Also, the position tries to explain away some minor 'apparent errors' by blaming them on scribal and transmission errors. It is only the original manuscripts (which we don't have) that were inerrant, so what we are left with is a 'mostly inerrant' book. Hmmm. I'm not sure I can reconcile that. If God went to all the trouble of giving mankind a perfect book, why didn't he then take the trouble to make sure it was kept perfect. Surely he could have saved at least one copy for posterity?

But that's not to say that I hold to the infallibilist view either. This view has its problems too. Of course, given the nature of this book, these are discussed, but I'm still not left very satisfied. Here, at least, I think the inerrantist view is more defensible. The inerrantist view is internally consistent, if you accept the unquestionable presuppositions, the whole thing works. You have clear cut lines of guidance. Not so if you consider the bible to only be infallible with regard to matters of faith and practice. How does that work? Did God inspire part of the work and then, effectively, say to the authors "you fill in the blanks"? That's not very satisfying. What criteria do you have for deciding which bits are infallible and which aren't?

So what about me? What do I believe? Well, I guess if all of Evangelical Christianity falls into one or other of those positions, then I have fallen out of Evangelical Christianity.

What I find myself believing is that believers in God have honestly written what they believed to be right about their experiences of God and the way he dealt with his people. In some cases these writings have been taken by later believers and compiled into the documents we have, which may have been modified in relatively minor ways during transmission.

So what we have is a record of belief. It may contain factual errors, it may contain misunderstandings, but it also contains the honest beliefs of people like you and me, who encountered God in some way. This makes reading it both more interesting and more tricky as sometimes you have to read between the lines and search elsewhere for context that will make the meaning clear. There's an element of detective work in trying to piece things together.

God speaks through people. He has always spoken through people. None of them were perfect and some of them wrote things down. But don't worry, God can still speak to you through imperfect people, even the ones who wrote thousands of years ago.

Post-evangelical?

I've just read 'The Post Evangelical' by Dave Tomlinson. I read it on holiday in the space of 24 hours, its a short book.

Its a good book, on the whole. Like many of the people on the Amazon reviews page, and elsewhere online, I read it with a sense of relief - there are other people out there like me. And yet, it still leaves a slightly odd aftertaste and a slightly uncomfortable feeling that I can't quite put my finger on.

So what is a 'post evangelical' you might be wondering?

Well, the book is making a case for a third flavour of modern Christianity. Like the author, I was brought up in an 'Evangelical' church where it was believed that there were only really two types of congregation - 'evangelical' or 'liberal'. If you weren't evangelical, you were liberal by default. Evangelicals are the ones who take the bible literally as the Word of God, while liberals are the ones who critically question (i.e. doubt or disbelieve) almost everything in there...

The book makes the case that there are a number of people (the book is based on a number of interviews, we are told) who don't really fit into evangelical churches, who question beliefs and doubt bible stories, but still hold to the 'evangel' - the gospel. These people are not, and do not want to be liberals, but they're not really evangelicals either - they just don't hold the same certainties about the bible or God as most evangelicals do. There is a lot more uncertainty and mystery in post-evangelicalism than there is in evangelical churches.

So there are many good points, well made in this book. And then you realise that the book was written 15 years ago and surely the post evangelical 'movement' it was describing the start of should have come to something by now...? Where are the post evangelical churches? Have I missed it, or did the movement just never happen?

While the main emphases of the book are good and well presented, it does occasionally stray off the path - it goes too far into its discussion of aspects of 'post modernism' and sociology at times, and sometimes there is no clear reason why the author holds so close to some evangelical beliefs whilst drifting so far from others. For example (and, to me this was the most clanging mis-step in the book) early on the author questions the place of marriage for the Christian - basically asking the question 'is it OK for Christians to live together before / instead of marriage?' - and coming to the out-of-place conclusion that the actual marriage ceremony is not that important to the post evangelical! And this without much justification. And then a few paragraphs further on he asserts that the post evangelical will agree with all of the Apostles Creed. Dunno about most people who the book resonates with, but I get those the other way around.

It was a good book. Not a great one. It'll only take you a couple of hours to read and it does contain some gems. Definitely recommended, despite the flaws.

Hell

I've recently discovered the 'Unbelievable' podcast from Premier Christian Radio. Its quite good, if a bit biased, and cheesy. The basic format is to have a Christian guest and a non-Christian guest on each week to debate the issue of the week. Occasionally they break from this format to have, for example, a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim on the show to debate some topic. On other occasions they have Christians with different viewpoints debating the issue.
I've just listened to the podcast on 'Hell' (from August last year). On the show they had three Christians representing two different viewpoints: James White was defending the "eternal conscious torment" position while Roger & Faith Forster were defending the "conditional immortality" position, that is, that at some point the people in hell will be utterly destroyed and will not live forever.

I found the whole debate to be a bit pointless, quite annoying and, to be honest, the in-built beliefs of both sides were pretty distasteful at points.

Its amazing what you can end up believing if you build your world view and your belief of God on certain selective verses.

The most distasteful (in my opinion) belief that the "conditional immortality" camp put forward was this: that the sinner cast into hell would experience suffering and torment for a period of time, more or less proportional to the amount of sin, after which they would be annihilated and would cease to exist. In other words, they believe in a God who tortures people before killing them. There is no love in that picture. Sorry, but I can't reconcile that with an awful lot of statements about God which are in the bible.

However, I have to say that on the whole, if I had to ally myself to one side or the other in this debate, theirs was the more agreeable position. I found much more to disagree with in the other opinion.

The other opinion seemed to rest on this assumption - that any sin committed against an infinite God requires infinite punishment. Sorry, what? How do you come to that conclusion? The bible never paints God as being infinite for a start (infinity is a mathematical concept that cannot be applied to real things; if God were infinite, there would be no room in the multiverse for anything else except God, so if its true, then we're all God, and so is the devil, and so is the internet, etc. - this is clearly not the case), but beyond that, the bible is quite clear that the punishment should always fit the crime. There is no logic in this deduction, a finite crime should always have finite consequences.

Where the debate really broke down, for me, was when they came to the subject of the Cross. Somehow - in the mind of James White at least, and in the others to a lesser extent - Jesus was able to pay for all the sin of all those who believe in his name in a period of suffering and death that lasted about a day, followed by up to three days in hell (according to some). Meanwhile, it is not possible for one sinner to atone for his own sins in an infinite eternity of suffering in hell. Sorry, I just can't go along with that view of the atonement.

If sin can be atoned for by suffering & death, then finite sin can be atoned for by finite suffering and death. Therefore hell should not be eternal.

If sin cannot be atoned for by suffering and death, then an eternity of suffering counts for nothing, and a loving God would not impose this on anyone. Therefore there should be no hell.

Am I missing something here? Or over-simplifying it?

Personally I hold to the opinion that 'hell' is the destroying fire where the rubbish is thrown. The fire may be eternal, but the rubbish is consumed and destroyed. It is not a place of consciousness, but of annihilation. Anyone cast into hell will cease to be. But this is not a belief that is foundational to my belief system, and I admit that I may be wrong on this. Its just what I currently believe. Listening to this debate has not provided me with any compelling evidence or reasoning to change my stance on this belief.

Speaking the truth in love...

Inspired by last week's sermon from The Meeting House... It was a good one, why not download it?

Ephesians 4v14-16

[14] Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. [15] Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. [16] From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

[Back in June I commented on the verses immediately preceding these. I'm not that slow a reader to just be getting to this now...]

What does it mean to "speak the truth in love"?

So often I've come across folk who're prepared to use that verse as a justification for pointing out the errors of others: "Brother I love you, so its my place to point out that your behaviour in this area of life is not good, and you need to change your ways..."

That's speaking the truth in love, isn't it?

But how does that fit with Jesus's words in Matthew 7v3-5?

[3] "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? [4] How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? [5] You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Here, speaking the truth would involve the admission that "I've got a whopping big log in my eye". In other words, my problems are bigger than yours, I can't claim the moral high ground. And the 'in love' bit only comes into it because I'll only speak the truth about me in the context of a love relationship where I know I won't get abused because of it...

Also, how about James 5v16?

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

That's more speaking of truth in love. Wow. Does anybody do this in church these days? Not confessing your sins to the priest in the confessional, but to each other.

That's speaking the truth, in love.

Quote / Misquote

Ephesians 4v7-13

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says:

"When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."

(What does "he ascended" mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

We looked at this passage in housegroup this week. I've read it before, but don't think I'd ever checked back to the OT passage that Paul quotes here. This time I did and found it says this:

Psalm 68v18

When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men, even from the rebellious—that you, O LORD God, might dwell there.

Now hang on! Paul says that God gave gifts to men, but the original says that God received gifts from men. This is really bad. If I heard a preacher making such a mistake today I wouldn't rate them very highly! Paul has a point to make about God giving gifts, but he can't find an OT verse to support his claim, so he misquotes one... entirely changing the sense of the verse.

Oh, and there is nothing in the original passage about descending either. The image is of the triumph of a conquering king receiving tribute from his enemies.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm bamboozled.

Premillennial

A few people I know are in the process of planting a church. They're doing this under the banner of an American church-planting organisation (I hadn't realised that such things even existed), and I'm totally supportive of the plant. But I had a read through of the 'statement of faith' of the parent organisation (on their website) and it managed to include the word 'pre-millennial'...

Why?

I'm not an expert on the theology of Revelation, but as I understand it, there are four reasonably common interpretations of the text (see below), two of which include the 'pre-millennial' return of Christ. However, the text isn't totally clear. Any of the four readings of the text(s) are plausible.

For what its worth, on the basis of this graphic presentation of the four options, I'd probably fall into the 'amillennialism' camp. But that's not really the point here.

The point is, why make this statement?

By specifying 'premillennial' in the basis of faith, the organisation is drawing a line in the sand that I do not believe has to be there. By making that statement they are -effectively- saying "only certain types of Christians get to be part of our church". And by making the statement they are acknowledging that there is another opinion; and rejecting it.

There are certain things that should be part of a statement of faith. "Jesus is Lord" is kind of central in all streams of Christianity, the bible is unambiguous on that. But why should a church take a definite stance on one side of an issue on which the bible is ambiguous?

Can we not have the grace to say "we don't know" on certain issues? Can we not graciously allow differences of opinion on non-central issues to exist within our churches? Can we not be a bit less dogmatic on our statements of faith?

The disciple whom Jesus loved

Regular readers of this blog (six that I know of, perhaps more) might remember a string of posts about Lazarus in May/June last year [post 1, post 2, post 3].

I had a comment on the first post from a guy called Jim Phillips who has studied the 4th gospel in detail and the story of Lazarus in particular and has come to the conclusion that Lazarus was the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' who wrote the gospel, not John. He has written a book called 'The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved' which can be read in its entirety online.

I don't like reading long things (even, in this case, short books) online, so I tried to buy the book. But Amazon marketplace sellers in the UK charge an awful lot for a short, second-hand book, so I didn't buy it. In the end I printed out the online version and read it... eventually.

So, having now read the book, am I convinced by its reasoning?

Well, reasonably yes.

The (entirely biblical) evidence presented in the book is compelling. Certainly, it makes a very good case that the disciple John - one of "the twelve" - was not the author of the 4th gospel. It also makes a very good case for the belief that Lazarus wrote the gospel.

I am convinced.

That's not to say that I couldn't be convinced out of this belief if other evidence were presented, but for now I am content to believe that the 4th gospel was written by Lazarus. Or written by someone else from the point of view of Lazarus.

That second possibility there is one that is not considered in the book, yet still remains a possibility. Just because the book is written from the point of view of 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (TDWJL), doesn't actually mean that it was that disciple who wrote it. But that is a minor point.

The one issue that the book hasn't addressed to my satisfaction is the question of why the other three gospels make no mention of Lazarus at all (except in the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus). Indeed, while the 4th gospel has Peter and TDWJL going to the empty tomb on the day of resurrection, Luke has Peter going alone (Matthew & Mark don't have Peter going there at all).

What's going on there? That't not just a case of two people remembering the event in different ways, this particular event was the one, central event which defined their whole belief system. This was the most important event they were writing about. If Peter had gone to the tomb alone every one of the disciples would have known. If he was accompanied by TDWJL (whoever that might be) they would have known it too.

So, as I see it there are two possibilities:

1. The authors of the other gospels deliberately removed TDWJL from their accounts, or
2. TDWJL wasn't there and his insertion into the 4th gospel is a fabrication.

The author of the book cannot conceive of the 2nd option as being a possibility as he starts from the premise that all the gospels (along with the rest of the bible) are both inspired by God and infallible (therefore factually accurate, in all details).

However, I don't think that even the first option is completely compatible with the same premise. If the other gospels are factually accurate then TDWJL (whoever he might be) would not have been removed from the story. Sure, they might have recorded it as Peter going with an un-named disciple, but not as Peter on his own.

But let's face it, if the 4th gospel is true, then the other three gospels deliberately miss out the telling of one of Jesus's greatest miracles and the one which appears to have set the ball rolling towards his inevitable crucifixion. In the 4th gospel account it is the resurrection of Lazarus that brings about the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday.

If all gospels are inspired by the same God, then it is clear that he wants the story of Lazarus to be recorded, so why would the others - under the inspiration of the Spirit - omit this crucial story?

All of the possible reasons for omitting Lazarus from the other three gospels are human in origin. Not down to inspiration. Indeed, this whole issue is good evidence for the fallibility of the gospel accounts. Now I'm not saying they're not inspired, I'm just saying they're not infallible. Someone can be inspired to write something and then produce something flawed. Neither the inspiration or the intention is in question.

But why miss Lazarus out of the first three gospels? Re-reading the stories, I wonder if there might be a little bit of jealousy going on here. From the 4th gospel, we get the impression that TDWJL/Lazarus was more than simply a disciple. Jesus refers to him as 'friend' and he is the only one singled out as being 'loved' by Jesus. Perhaps Jesus was closer to Lazarus than to 'the twelve' and perhaps they were jealous.

I think there's a lot more still to uncover in the story of Lazarus and I'll continue pondering it in the weeks and months ahead. It'll certainly make me view the 4th gospel differently next time I read it...

Nailed?

Was Jesus nailed to the cross?

This may sound like a strange question to ask, as the crucifixion is central to Christianity. But I'm not asking "was Jesus crucified?" - all the gospels agree on that point - I'm asking was he nailed to the cross or could he have been tied on it?

You see, while we know from history that some folk were nailed to crosses when crucified, we also know that others were not, some were tied on. This generally resulted in the victims having to endure longer on the cross as blood loss was less.

It may surprise you (it surprised me when I first heard it) to learn that none of the gospel accounts of Jesus's crucifixion mention nails being used.

Well, that's not strictly true. Reading John's account of the crucifixion in the Contemporary English Version (CEV) this morning I noticed it described Jesus as being nailed to the cross. The CEV actually says this for all four gospels. But that's sloppy translating, none of the other translations I have speak of nails. They all just say he was crucified, without going into any bloody detail.

How many sermons have I heard that do go into all the bloody details of how the nails were hammered in and where the nails were hammered in, and none of it is biblical?

There's only one verse in the bible that speaks of the nails. And that is in John 20v25:

[24] Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. [25] So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

Now I'm reasonably happy to believe that this account is based on actual events, but there are some who see the whole 'Doubting Thomas' episode as being a later invention added to the story, expressly there so Jesus can go on to say:

[29] Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Given that (at the time these words were allegedly spoken) nobody who had not seen had yet believed. So why would Jesus say such a thing? So it is supposed that this could be a later fabrication. But if it is, then we have no evidence that Jesus was ever nailed to anything.

There are probably loads of things like that which we assume the bible says when it doesn't. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled and will post others here when I find them.

Prince of Peace: God of War

I watched the documentary "Prince of Peace: God of War" yesterday. It was clearly a low budget film - just 'talking heads', a few still photos and some simple text graphics - but it was interesting and thought-provoking enough to be quite watchable for its entire running time of just over an hour.

The film is basically various theologians on both sides of the debate giving their opinions on 'just war' theory. Just in case it wasn't clear from what they said, each time a new interviewee appeared it would give his (all the theologians were male) name, affiliation and say either "(Just War)" or "(Pacifist)" - although most of the time it was totally clear from what they said anyway.

At one point the film director / producer lets his bias be known when he describes himself as a 'moderate pacifist' (although he then goes on to say that interviewing all the 'just war' theorists made him a lot more pacifist than he had been at the outset; I suspect it will have the same influence on the viewer).

The most striking difference between the two sets of theologians was their point of reference. All the 'pacifist' theologians used Jesus as the basis of their position, all the 'just war' theologians used the Bible as their basis. This, once again, made me consider the way believers approach the bible - is the whole thing the equally valid Word of God, or is Jesus himself the Word of God and the bible merely the book that points to him?

Certainly if you start with Jesus, it is clear that violence and war is never the answer (even in the clearing of the temple story, the apparent violence was never directed at people, but only used to overturn tables and disperse livestock), whereas if you start with the bible (especially if you start at the start) then war and violence are apparently acceptable - and even commanded - in certain circumstances. I think I'll stick to the red letters...

The film does have a bias, but even given that, I still think the 'pacifists' come over a lot better than the 'just war' people. Fundamentally, the pacifists seem like nicer people and the just war folk come across as being a bit smug and arrogant. The worst instance of this comes in the 2nd last scene of the film when the just war proponent 'Dr Victor Shepherd' (Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Tyndale Seminary, Toronto, Canada) makes the following statement:

"I myself want to be a pacifist with all my heart, and I'm almost there, until once again I see film footage of a five year old, an eight year old, a nine year old, Jewish children huddled on a railway platform in eastern Europe, three days away from their execution [...] When they arrived in such places as [...] Auschwitz, their parents were gassed first and then their bodies were fed into crematoria. The children were fed live into crematoria. Now at this point I have to tell you my pacifism evaporates. I fail to understand how anybody could not intervene, for the sake of those children, regardless of what that intervention entailed in situations like that."

He then sat back with the most smug smile on his face that seemed to say "there, I've won, I've played the Nazi card and nothing can trump that...".

The final scene of the movie is a story told by Tony Campolo which absolutely does trump it. But you'll have to watch the film to find out what it was - unless I blog about it in a future posting.

But the attitude expressed seems to be this: Faced with the horror of the holocaust, there is no alternative but to resort to violence. Pacifists cannot intervene. There are no peaceful actions that can be taken. Things like that make me so angry I want to kill someone...

Sorry, but I don't buy it. As I say, Tony Campolo's story does trump it anyway, but even without that story, the message of Jesus remains clear: Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, be willing to die but not to kill.

Anyway, its a thought provoking film and the issue really should be one that is talked about in Christian circles, but in my experience it never is properly addressed. Recommended.

Red Letter Christianity

Rabbi Hillel once famously said "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the whole Torah; the rest is just commentary. "

I've begun to view the bible in somewhat similar terms - the stuff Jesus said is the real important stuff; the rest is just commentary.

The church was founded on the teachings of Jesus. Some years later the apostles Paul, Peter, John and others wrote letters to some bits of the church and said other stuff. But that was supplemental to the basic gospel that the churches already knew. So (as I've said before) how come most 'confessions of faith' or equivalent are based on the supplemental writings?

I came across the term "Red Letter Christian" a week or two ago. I like the sound of it - its a group of Christians who seek to base their lives primarily on the teachings of Jesus ('cos in some bibles, the words spoken by Jesus are highlighted in red text). But I was slightly annoyed that when I looked into it further (Wikipedia, Google) that the term seems to be being exclusively used of certain politically active Christians in the USA, who stand against some of the policies of the Republican party, even though something like 4 out of 5 'evangelical Christians' tend to vote Republican.

Can we not divorce the idea from politics and just all pay more attention to the things that Jesus actually said?

ps I'm currently (and slowly) working my way through the gospels - to look again at what Jesus actually did (and didn't) say. Its taking me a while, but I'll have some thoughts to post on it eventually...

Lazarus: The saga continues...

You should probably read this post: "Lazarus" and this one: "Lazarus part two: the gospel" before you read on...

In the second of those posts, I prefaced the main post with this statement:

"Before I summarise this big doubt, I'll state up-front that this is one of those fantastic doubts that it really doesn't matter what you end up believing on the issue. If conventional belief is wrong on this point, nothing changes, nobody loses salvation and we don't really get any new revelation of understanding about God or Jesus. But maybe we get an interesting bit of detective work and a little bit more truth than we had before."

You know, on reflection, I figure that it actually does matter who wrote the fourth gospel. Reading the gospel possibly not according to John with the thought that it was written by Lazarus himself makes you read it in a totally different light... Probably more thoughts to come on this once I've considered the implications a bit more...

Lazarus part 2: the Gospel

Its amazing what one small doubt can lead to. A couple of days ago I posted an article about Lazarus, and someone called Jim replied. But his blogspot ID had a link to a web page, a web page about Lazarus. And it turns out that he's written a book, a book about Lazarus. And the web page and the book both contain one fantastic doubt, so I simply have to blog about it here.

Before I summarise this big doubt, I'll state up-front that this is one of those fantastic doubts that it really doesn't matter what you end up believing on the issue. If conventional belief is wrong on this point, nothing changes, nobody loses salvation and we don't really get any new revelation of understanding about God or Jesus. But maybe we get an interesting bit of detective work and a little bit more truth than we had before. But anyway, on with the doubting...

Who wrote the gospels? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John? Where does it say?

Nowhere does it say that Matthew wrote the gospel that we attribute to him, although the character of Matthew does feature more in that book than in any other.

The gospel of Mark makes no mention of anyone called Mark. Indeed, he only appears briefly in Acts chapters 12 and 15.

We know that both the books of Luke and Acts were written for someone called Theophilus, but they don't say who wrote them (although the narrative in Acts occasionally switches from 'them' into 'us' language, so it is clear that the author of Acts was one of Paul's companions at some points, and so Luke, who he names in a few epistles, is a pretty good guess).

And nowhere does it say that the gospel of John was written by John. All we know is that it was written by 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', whoever that may be.

Does it matter who wrote each of the gospels? Well, yes and no. It matters because we need to have some assurance that whoever wrote these books had some connection to Jesus and to the events they describe. If the books were simply made up by someone who knew very little about Jesus a long time after the events, then they would be of little value. But it doesn't matter if the books were written by someone named in the story, they could have been written by someone who was there on the periphery, who saw things but never really played a role. That would be fine.

Convention has it that the second gospel (which may have been the first to be written) is, essentially, the Gospel of Peter. But as Peter was mostly illiterate, it was written through his young friend John, also called Mark. But then again, maybe 'Mark' was just a pure guess and named thus because Mark (or Marcus) was simply the most common name in that part of the world at that time. Oddly enough, Luke was the second most common name, so maybe that was a guess too. Maybe these were named this way to be 'everyman' gospels - the gospel according to Joe Bloggs or John Smith. But anyway, I digress, this post concerns the gospel commonly attributed to John.

Why do we think this was written by John? Well, we have three epistles by John, and the dominant theme of these epistles is love. God is love. They really sell the love angle. And what is one of the main features of the 4th gospel? It was written by someone whom Jesus loved. It really sells the love angle. So, unless other evidence is presented, it is not unreasonable to believe that John wrote the 4th gospel. (By the way, the argument that the John who wrote Revelation is the same John who wrote the epistles is les compelling. Revelation never claims to be written by any particular John, and the style is quite different from the gospel or the epistles, but I digress again...)

So, who wrote the 4th gospel? Who is the disciple whom Jesus loved?

Well, only two characters in the 4th gospel are referred to as being 'loved' by Jesus. Guess who? Yes, its the author of the book and Lazarus. And furthermore, the 'disciple whom Jesus loved' isn't mentioned in the narrative until the chapter after Lazarus is raised from the dead. He wasn't part of the story until then. And, oddly enough, Lazarus is never mentioned from there on in either. You'd think he might hang around with Jesus after being resurrected wouldn't you, I mean, he literally owed his life to Jesus. And that's not all. This 'disciple' whom Jesus loved is occasionally referred to as 'the other disciple', not part of 'the twelve', but John was clearly one of the twelve.

The web page and the book (which you can read in its entirety online) both go into this in far more detail than I have done here. They make a compelling case. It could be that Lazarus wrote the 4th gospel. Of course, that doesn't change my faith in any way, the gospel istelf is still the same, but its an interesting idea.

But one final question (which I don't think is adequately answered by the book; although I only skimmed it and didn't read the whole thing in detail) remains:

Why is the story of the raising of Lazarus not in the three other gospels?

Surely this is one of the most amazing miracles? Yet Matthew, Mark and Luke (or whoever) make no mention of it at all. Why?

The Westminster Confession of Faith

I was raised in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. This and a few other denominations hold the Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) as their basis. I just read through the thing online. Its longer than I remember from my youth.

And I certainly don't base my faith on it anymore.

I went to the document with an agenda. I have been listening a lot lately to teaching from The Meeting House church in Canada. They are an Anabaptist church and consider themselves neither Catholic nor Protestant. They have a different perspective. And I must say, the more I hear, the more closely aligned to my perspective their views seem (except the actual baptism issue, but maybe we'll get there in the end). Anyway, they as Christians point primarily to the teachings of Christ as a basis for faith and lifestyle. They had previously pointed out (and I blogged about) that many of the Creeds of the church jump straight from the (virgin) birth of Jesus directly to his death and resurrection, completely missing the things that he said during his ministry. I wanted to see if the WCoF did the same thing.

It does. As far as this confession of faith is concerned, Jesus may as well not have had a ministry at all. His only role on this planet was to die.

I can't subscribe to that. The message of the gospels is that the one eternal God somehow incarnated himself as a man and walked among us for years. He had a 'gospel' to share - good news for all men.

Wow. Just think about that. This wasn't some prophet bringing the message of God to us second-hand. This was God himself speaking. And we have four different accounts of the things he said and did - a pretty good account of his teaching. Should we not listen primarily to what he had to say? Apparently not, for many who claim to follow him, his words have become something secondary. Indeed, if the WCoF is to be taken at face value then the words of Paul carry so much more weight than the words of Jesus - the majority of citations in there are from the epistles, not from the gospels.

A Christian should follow Christ... right? That's what the word means. So why don't we follow his teachings?

There were plenty of other issues raied by my reading of the WCoF, but I'll hold the rest back for another posting. That's enough for now.

Faith that moves mountains...

(Wow. Post number 100. I must have too much spare time on my hands...)

Mark 11v12-14 & 20-25

[12] The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. [13] Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. [14] Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it.

[20] In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. [21] Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!" [22] "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. [23] "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. [24] Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [25] And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

This is a familiar passage. We've all heard it used and abused and taken totally out of context. This is the passage (in parallel to one in Matthew) which speaks of moving mountains... Except it doesn't. It speaks of 'moving this mountain' - one specific mountain, not a general principle.

I mean, Christian history isn't full of stories of people moving geography by faith, is it? I can't actually think of any instances of people moving mountains or even hills without some serious earth-moving equipment. So what's Jesus talking about here?

Which mountain?

In the context of the story, the only mountain that Jesus could be referring to is the Temple Mount - just across the valley from where the fig tree stood. The in-between verses in that story (which I missed out above) are about the clearing of the temple.

Now contextualise things and think about what the Temple Mount meant to the disciples. The temple was the very home of God, the place where God's Spirit rested and the place where the people could get close to their God. It was also the place of sacrifice and atonement. What Jesus says here is actually far more earth-shattering than simply moving geography about. The Jewish disciples were probably comfortable with the idea that God could move mountains about, but this mountain? It was probably the only immovable object in their world view.

Now think about what Jesus says - "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him." - where does the 'action' take place here? With the person, 'in his heart'. Might the actual meaning of this statement be something more like this?:

"...not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done in him."

I think Jesus is saying that the only way to get rid of the mountain of religious baggage that the disciples were carrying is to live by faith; faith in Him. His way is the only way to be free of religion and actually live the unfettered life that God intended for them.

I'm sure for some, the idea of being totally free from all that was far more impressive than merely the ability to move geography about.

Before creation...

Genesis 1v1-5

[1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. [3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. [4] And God saw the light, that [it was] good: and God divided the light from the darkness. [5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (KJV)

I came back to these verses the other day and something that I had never noticed before jumped out at me. The first day of creation is the creation of light. After that he creates the 'firmament' (day 2), which he calls 'heaven', then he creates 'earth' (day 3). So verse 1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" is the preface to what follows on the 2nd and 3rd days of creation. Creation starts in verse 3 with the creation of light.

But what about verse 2? Before the creative process starts, there is something; 'the deep', 'the waters' - these seem to pre-exist before creation. The bible does not tell us that God creates these.

So where did they come from?