Gird up now thy loins

The Good Book contains the exhortation to "gird up thy loins", but what does that mean? Thankfully, The Art of Manliness hath the answer in the form of a step-by-step illustrated guide.

First, though, if you want to make like Jeremiah (1:17), Job (38:3) or other biblical worthies, you blokes will need to don a long skirt...

To view the full graphic, complete in six easy steps, click the link above.

Remember, practice maketh perfect!

Would you give your kids this book?

James Pate has been clearing out a mountain of book reviews on his blog. One caught my eye, a children's picture book with the title Yes Dear, There Really is a Devil. James gives it a kind review.

I was curious as to how a book would explain spiritual warfare to children, in a manner that they can understand... Overall, the message that they were trying to communicate was that we should make right choices, that God loves us, that the devil wants to disrupt our peace and joy, and that we can overcome the devil’s temptations by depending on God.  These are good lessons. 

I've got to admit, I took a double take. The devil? Satan, Shaitan, Ahriman, Lucifer? Seriously??

My first reaction is that anyone giving their children this as a gift would be committing a form of child abuse. It's not that kids should be wrapped up in cotton wool. There is tragedy, injustice and pain out there in the world they're growing up in. There is exploitation, poverty and bigotry. These are indeed real forces to be overcome. But a personal devil? Not only is it a trivialisation, it puts the onus back on guilt-laden individuals and redirects people of good will away from working for systemic change.

It's here where I definitely part way with the literalists. Satan, as commonly portrayed, is an import into Judaism from Persian religion, from where 'he' was subsequently mainlined into Christianity (those magi - the wise men in Matthew's birth narrative - were probably Zoroastrian priests). John Milton did a great job of tying up the loose ends and slotting the Ultimate Bad Boy into Protestant meta-narrative with his brilliant Paradise Lost. Holy Heilsgeschichte! It's great literature and fantastic poetry, but theologically it's a pastiche. A thousand imitators have followed, not least Ellen White in The Great Controversy. Reality check: if God is indeed omnipotent, there is no Che Guevara-style fallen archangel tempting ten-year-olds to raid the cookie jar.

Satan is a rebel, a revolutionary with ideas above his station. That's a useful portrayal for those who, down the centuries, have been defenders of the status quo. God is on the side of Kaiser, the Tsar, the Emperor, the King. Just look what happens when people start questioning the proper way of things!

No dear, there really is no Devil. But sit down and let's talk about what we can do to make our world a better place.

Political Prophets

Those of us who have come out of a fundamentalist background tend to associate Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah with prediction. In certain circles, those predictions are not only inerrant but aimed at our own times which are declared to be the End Times. Prophecy, we were told, comes alive in today's world news.

To illustrate this bit of myopia, here's a quote illustrating this perspective.

An exciting, pulsating, vital third of all the Bible is devoted to PROPHECY! And approximately 90 percent of all prophecy pertains to OUR TIME, now,...

I'd don't know where the author pulled his stats from - though an anatomical explanation may be apt. This particular 'expert' then goes on to shoot himself in the foot by adding;

... in this latter half of the twentieth century!

A quick check of copyright date: 1967.

In more enlightened circles this is all old hat. Of course the prophets weren't talking about today, they were forth-telling, not foretelling, and so on.

The trouble is, those circles of enlightenment are set on a very narrow beam, and they've yet to pierce the darkness down the road at the neighborhood church. The almost complete lack of "trickle down" to the pews is a major failing of modern biblical studies.

So what were the prophets on about? It's not saying anything original to suggest that they were more often than not the political activists of their day. Many of the soaring passages in Isaiah are not only reminiscent of political rhetoric, they are political rhetoric. Did Jeremiah have a political agenda? You bet! You don't have to read very far into the prophets without this reality leaping out at you. You're not always reading sublime spiritual insights; sometimes it's more Martin Luther King, other times it's just a Donald Trump speech.

Ronald Clements, a fairly conservative scholar, writes:

From the very beginning of modern study of these figures it was evident that their messages had a strongly political content.

Not so evident to the good folk who watch Tomorrow's World on TV, or trawl through the shelves on 'prophecy' at their local Christian bookstore.

In the course of this engagement with a specific set of political judgments and policies they [the prophets] clearly intended to influence the policies adopted and thereby the outcome of events.

Ever wonder why the powers-that-be, in most cases the royalty and priesthood of Israel and Judah, were so thoroughly hacked off with the prophets? (One memorable example is Jeremiah 36, the story of King Jehoiakim burning Jeremiah's scroll.) Was it because they were predicting events yet to unfold in the far distant future? Where, in practical terms, was the threat in that?

Of course, there is poetry and theology in the Prophets. They wrote in a world where there was little separation between secular and sacred, no concept of democracy and no political parties. If you wanted to beat the king over the head for his questionable alliance with Egypt which is, after all, a very political thing to do, you picked up the club of prophecy, gathered your mantle about yourself, and whacked him with a word from the Lord.

There is apocalyptic writing as well, which does present itself as peering through the mists of time (usually with the advantage of hindsight!) but this is largely a niche genre restricted, in the Old Testament, to the book of Daniel.

The incredible thing is that so many Christians, invariably good people with fine motives and an unquestionable commitment to their faith, are still being led down the garden path by the manipulations of modern prophecy pedlars with their arcane calculations and lurid fantasies about what will happen sometime very soon (and would you please send in your generous tithes and love offerings so they can raise the alarm!)

Back to the source of that first 1967 quote. Boldly, boldly, thus did the man of God proclaim:

Events of the next five years may prove this to be the most significant book of this century.

Buzz.

A staggering turn in world events is due to erupt in the next four to seven years.

Buzz.

By God's direction and authority, I have laid the TRUTH before you! To neglect it will be tragic beyond imagination!

Buzz, buzz, BUZZ...

But he did get the last sentence right.

The decision is now YOURS!

Sources:

Armstrong, Herbert W. The United States and British Commonwealth in Prophecy. Pasadena, Ambassador College Press, 1967 [The same points could easily be made with Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth.]

Clements, Ronald E. Old Testament Prophecy: From Oracles to Canon. Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.


(Adapted from a 2011 post)

Some further thoughts on the art of apologetics

Stephen Bedard graciously responded to my previous post by making a number of very fair points. Here are a few quotes worth repeating (you'll find the full post here).

My statement about sheep is not a judgment about the intelligence of people in my congregation. We have doctors and lawyers in our congregation who are far smarter than I am. What I was saying is that the chosen image for ministers is that of pastor, which means a shepherd. The connection is that pastors have a group to care for just as shepherds do.

Why would people in our congregations need the pastor’s help if they are already well-read and educated? The fact is people specialize in certain fields. I am well educated but when I pastored a small country church and the people discussed farming, I was lost because that is not where my knowledge is. Education in one area does not mean the person is knowledgable in another.

My goal is for people in the congregation to read on these subjects for themselves, find where the resources are and be able to interpret statements in their proper context.

So how could you disagree with that?

'Pastor' is an interesting word, simply meaning shepherd. This morning I took my morning constitutional at the local reserve which happens to border on the sale yards. As I walked the shaded area beside the trees, the sheep on the other side became jittery. Sheep are not bold creatures. The gruff voice of a farmer, the yap of a dog, and they do what they're required to, quickly moving into another fenced area. Within hours they'll be at the abattoir. Shepherds were never intended to guard the long-term interests of their flocks. They're there to make sure that things are okay until the killing knife comes out.

You can only press the "good shepherd" metaphor so far.

The reality is, of course, that the people who sit in the pews are not sheep. A compliant "go ask the pastor" congregation is no credit to the minister. Stephen wants to play the "expert card". He's a specialist. How good a specialist can you be when you misrepresent someone like Bart Ehrman? Let's take an example. A parishioner approaches their pastor, disturbed by a popular article that quotes Ehrman. What to do? Demonize Ehrman, or suggest they actually read one of his books for themselves, find out what he's saying and see what they think, then invite them to come back and discuss it?

This whole "expert card" is a bit of a con, in my opinion. Most apologists (and I exclude Stephen simply because I don't know whether he does this himself) feel free to judge on a wide range of scientific and ethical issues which impinge on their paradigm. Astrophysics, paleontology. anthropology, genetics, intertextuality... the list goes on and on. Are the apologists experts in these fields? Do they, at least, give credence to the academic consensus?

As far as I can see, only when it suits them. They're all too often dilettantes with poorly formed views, which is why they get little respect from real experts.

What about expertise in genuinely related fields like biblical criticism? Same thing. When scholarship comes up, it's all too often a game of "pick a scholar": N. T. Wright? Yes. Tillich? No. Craig Evans? Yes. Bart Ehrman? No. The impressively full shelves in the pastor's study (and they should be impressively full!) are more often than not lined with imprints like IVP, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. Like attracts like.

Nurturing Christian belief in the twenty-first century is a struggle. It's not a struggle because of any imagined secularist agenda or the wiles of Old Nick. It's a struggle because, in part, the pastors haven't been honest with their flocks, settling for playing apologetic games rather than honestly confronting the issues.

Have you ever met an open-minded apologist?

The Curious Case of the Commonwealth Covenant Church

Today British Israelism in New Zealand is overwhelmingly associated with a few outlier sects largely made up of former Worldwide Church of God members, but that wasn't always the case. Lying out on a parallel trajectory is the curious story of the Commonwealth Covenant Church.

(Full article at Ambassador Watch)

Mere Apologetics

(With the recent exchange on apologetics, here's a post on that topic that appeared in 2011. I'll be commenting specifically on some of the recent points Stephen Bedard has raised in a day or two.)

Apologetics is another name for self-delusion. What can be sadder than to see an otherwise intelligent adult 'cooking the books' to suit their comfort zone? But what do we make of Alister McGrath's 2011 book, Mere Apologetics?

McGrath is no intellectual slouch. He has an impressive CV and a string of well-regarded publications to his name. And yet, here he comes, skipping down the apologetics aisle with a book title punning on C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity).

C. S. Lewis may have been a tad strange, but he was, at least by all reports, a decent and compassionate kind of bloke. This is not true of too many other apologists, whether ancient or modern. The publicity blurb mentions other "great and articulate defenders of the faith" throughout history, from Augustine and Aquinas to Jonathan Edwards, G. K. Chesterton, Francis Schaeffer... Talk about a rogue's gallery! Who in their right mind would count someone like Schaeffer among the 'great'? Certainly not his son who has lucidly portrayed his father's feet of clay, mired as they were in a near-fundamentalist form of bog-Calvinism, despite pretensions to the contrary. Augustine? Anyone who has read James O'Donnell's biography of the bishop of Hippo will likewise realise what a thoroughly toxic dead end his legacy has been down the centuries - craven hagiographies notwithstanding.

Nor is the publicity made any more convincing when it carries an endorsement by Paul Copan, whose weak (and arguably misleading) attempts to rescue Yahweh from charges of genocide have been so thoroughly savaged by Thom Stark.

But back to the blurb:

Mere Apologetics "seeks to equip readers to engage gracefully and intelligently with the challenges facing the faith today while drawing appropriately [selectively?] on the wisdom of the past. Rather than supplying the fine detail of every apologetic issue in order to win arguments, Mere Apologetics teaches a method that appeals not only to the mind but also to the heart and the imagination. This highly accessible, easy-to-read book is perfect for [those who want easy reassurance?] pastors, teachers, students, and laypeople who want to speak clearly and lovingly [with no intellectual rigour?] to the issues that confront people of faith today."

So these are the folk in the target market. Speak unto us smooth things Alister, prophesy porkies...

And yet, this may all be highly uncharitable. McGrath does have a reputation for honest, credible writing, despite an on-the-sleeve evangelical slant. Whatever the identified demographic above seems to be, the subtitle boldly proclaims "How to Help Seekers and Skeptics find Faith."

Skeptics? Really? Well if McGrath can pull that rabbit from his hat, we should all be impressed. That'll be the acid test, determining whether this is just another crooning lullaby to keep the peasants dosed and dozing ("there, there, never you mind your silly little head about those nasty questions") or something more. Perhaps McGrath really can lead the backsliders back to Zion with shouts of hosanna, though I probably shouldn't get my hopes up.

Apologetics and Predators

This post responds to one by Stephen Bedard called Why Apologetics is Essential to Being a Pastor. To be fair, you should read it first before going to the comments below. (Update: Bedard has since posted a response to this post, which you can find here.)

***

And now for my sermon...

Mr Bedard is a Baptist pastor. It seems he's also a proud apologist. His reasoning is that he's protecting the sheep from predators. He equates predators with people like Bart Ehrman. Wicked, wicked Bart!

There's a problem with this line of reasoning. The people who sit in churches are not actually sheep, they're people, just like their pastor. They're not illiterate, as were most folk in centuries past; they read, they think, they question.

Apologetics is the art of stopping people from doing this by conning them with often specious arguments or, if that doesn't work, scaring them with the threat of heavenly judgement. An apologist is seldom open to new thinking; he (not so often she) has it all worked out in advance, and the evidence is carefully massaged to fit. The wagons have already been drawn up. An apologist is an intellectual police officer armed with easy answers, delusions of competence and misinformation.

There are a lot of assumptions that go with the role. The people in the pews are dummies. They need to be treated as spiritual juveniles. The pastor is a heroic figure, a compassionate patriarch. Apologetics goes hand in hand with spiritual authoritarianism. Apologists are rarely good listeners; they're too eager to burst out confidently with their pre-packaged responses.

Mr Bedard says he wants to protect the 'sheep' from the wolves and coyotes. I get the impression he wants to protect them from asking questions he isn't competent to deal with. It's an arrogance that's hard to understand in a world where we increasingly encourage our kids to develop and exercise critical thinking and learn more about their world than we were able to. "Trust me, I've been to Bible College" just doesn't cut the mustard.

A good pastor is not a control freak. Nor is it their job to patronise the members of their congregations. No, apologetics is not essential to being a pastor. Maybe that was the way it was in pre-Enlightenment times when a tonsured priest was often the only educated person in the village, but I doubt that's true in St Catharines, Ontario in 2016. If this is Mr Bedard's position, it seems unlikely he's doing his congregation any favours.

So, who is the real predator here?