Avalos article

Hector Avalos is an interesting fellow, as an article in the Iowa State Daily demonstrates. Avalos is professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State, a former child evangelist and a Harvard graduate. He's also the bete noir of many who find it hard to believe that you can be involved in fields like biblical studies without being a committed church member. Such a view was recently expressed by Jim West on his influential blog while commenting on something written by an obscure, minor figure in the Reformed tradition whose name escapes me.

The idea that (to quote Jim) "only those who have faith can explain faith" is one I first encountered a couple of years ago in a course at Otago University. It seemed a peculiar stance at the time, flying in the face of both reason and reality. I believe I countered that some of the best current biblical scholars came from Jewish backgrounds (Geza Vermes, Amy-Jill Levine and Mark Nanos spring immediately to mind), but it was lost in the Presbyterian fog.

My own Christian narrative has always been as an outsider to the mainstream, whether as a Lutheran in a country where Anglo Reformed churches dominate, as a misguided sectarian biblicist Christian, or as a post-Enlightenment progressive Christian. From where I sit Barth's insistence that only Christians can handle theological questions adequately seems like towering arrogance. The outsiders - and that certainly includes Jews and agnostics - may have a far clearer view than those who are closer to the torpid centre. Could it be that we can actually learn from people like Hector Avalos (which doesn't mean we always have to agree with him of course), if only we peel away the clinging apologetic goo that so easily binds us.

Congratulations Lester

Jim West posted an item earlier today about former Ambassador College professor Lester Grabbe, who has just turned 65.

Grabbe left AC, if memory serves, shortly after the putsch of 1978 when anyone with active brain cells, integrity and intellect was purged in the wake of Garner Ted Armstrong's final ouster. He has gone on to carve out a formidable academic reputation in the field of biblical studies.

While I doubt Grabbe would be pleased to be reminded of the "Ambassador years," his example has certainly been an inspiration for others. Many happy returns Professor!

Wisdom from Big Sandy

Quote from Reg Killingley (in the latest Journal):

"Churches should not be in the business of micromanaging members’ lives."

Preach it, brother!

Babies bushwack Barth

At the risk of oversimplifying, Karl Barth and his disciples maintained that humankind is basically bad to the bone. Admittedly Barth was writing at a dark time in history, but his pessimistic assessment of humanity has hardly improved matters, then or now.

Neo-orthodoxy holds than [humanity] is self-centered and therefore tyrannical, bent on destroying others, even at the risk of self-destruction. [Humanity] is evil.

Mayer, The Religious Bodies of America, 1961.

This cold, Calvinist creed is convivial to those who view the human enterprise with a jaundiced eye, but how would you demonstrate that it is horribly flawed? Isn't it just a matter of perspective or opinion? The Barthians would say no, it's a matter of 'revelation.' Which is a convenient ruse, for it puts the whole question safely outside the realm of rational debate.

And naturally, 'revelation' - "supranatural truth" - takes on a distinctly Reformed flavour for Reformed writers. If the logic isn't circular, then it's certainly curved in on itself.

Enter Paul Bloom, a developmental psychologist who has been studying how small children judge right and wrong. His article, That warm fuzzy feeling, appeared in the October 15 edition of New Scientist.

When babies hear crying, they cry, and if they see someone suffer, even silently, they become distressed. As soon as they can move, babies will try to help. They'll stroke the person, or hand over a toy or bottle.

Bloom investigated further using a set of short plays with puppets.

In one, a character would struggle to get up a hill. One puppet would help him; another would push him down. We then presented each baby with the two puppets. Even those as young as 6 months old tended to reach for the "good guy", suggesting that this is who they prefer. We also created plays in which one puppet does neither good nor bad, and we found that babies reach for a good guy over a neutral guy, but would rather reach for a neutral than a bad guy.

The kindness of babies suggests that we as a species are not bad to the bone after all, whatever Augustine, Calvin or Barth might have thought. Most of us knew that anyway. Evil does exist, people can behave selfishly and maliciously, humans are indeed corruptable, but this is hardly our essential nature.

Barbarian horde swoops down from Copenhagen

Oh my goodness, who let the minimalists out? Thompson, Lemche and Boer. Boer! Quick Abigail, pack up the emergency provisions, we're heading for the hills.

What, they're coming in from the other side too? Price, Crossley and - oh surely not - not Grabbe! Forget the bags Abigail, run for your life!

Eek, too late: that's Jim West, menacingly clutching Zwingli's blood-stained rapier and already standing at the door and knocking. [Camera's fade out.]

Yes, I might have to remortgage the house to afford it, but Equinox Publishing is scheduled to unleash a volume entitled Is this not the Carpenter? The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus, edited by Thomas Thompson and Thomas Verenna.

Thompson is the guy who was hounded out of the field of biblical studies and into the wilderness as a house painter because he refused to bow to the gods of the status quo (thankfully to later return and smite the Amalekites from Copenhagen.) Price apparently has a similar story, but with a less satisfying ending. Boer is recently famous for his socialist sausage sizzles, Crossley is the biblical studies equivalent of Damien in Omen II according to some of his critics, Grabbe once taught at a certain college in Pasadena which some of us are acquainted with - before finding much better things to put on his CV. West is the skinny Southern Baptist dude who is undisputed shock-jock Archblogger of Biblioholics.

All this in less than 250 pages? C'est incroyable!

With this lot as contributors, there's bound to be a wide range of opinions offered, as there was in the The Historical Jesus: Five Views, to which Price also contributed. Sadly, this new volume is the more expensive of the two by a long way.

Is this not the Carpenter is to be released in December next year, and therefore hasn't hit the radar at Amazon yet, but I'm willing to speculate that when the time comes both James McGrath and Neil Godfrey will be tucking copies under their respective pillows.

Tug of the forelock to aforementioned Jim West

666 - are you conCERNed?

Dr. Bob Thiel, who holds a ThD from a mail-order degree mill in India, and has self-published a book on 2012 in prophecy, has made a startling observation: "the logo of CERN is basically composed of what some consider to be 3 sixes."

Further, according to Dr. Bob, "there is potential that something developed from the CERN Large Hadron Collider could help the coming European Beast power fulfill biblical prophecies such as Revelation 13:3-4."

In the Thiel belief system, there's a "United States of Europe" in the offing which will take the English-speaking nations into captivity. What's that you say? Great Britain is part of Europe? Well, Bob has never been one to let the facts get in the way of a choice bit of eisegesis.

"The European empire is rising up. And it has many indications of being the final Beast power of Revelation. The CERN logo of itself is not significant, yet it is one more item to consider, as I still believe that CERN and/or its Large Hadron Collider are likely to develop a unique military capability for the Europeans."

You have all been warned!

The Apostle of Slick Apologetics

Yup, we're talking William Lane Craig. I've never understood why thinking evangelicals (yes, there are a few of them) could possibly take this guy seriously. He has the chutzpah of an insurance salesman and a voracious capacity for memorising 'cue-card' responses to any objection he's likely to encounter. Put him up against someone who, unlike himself, is in contact with reality, and he puts on quite a performance.

Performance is the key word. There are true believers in the audience and an apologist has to score points early and often in order to cover up the fact that he's way out on a limb. Get 'em laughing, get 'em nodding, pull in some applause and then ride the wave of "stuff the details you'se smart-arse heathens, I'm in denial and ya can't get me!" If all else fails, muddy the waters and get them to think, "hey, wow, this guy is so smart I have no idea what he's talking about!"

Slick Willie appears all over the place. Dear lord, I believe the guy was even in New Zealand a while back. An upcoming engagement will find him in Atlanta at a conference sponsored by something called the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Also present will be current number four on the biblioblogger hit parade, Matthew Flannagan. Flannagan, a Kiwi who writes for the local right-wing monthly magazine Investigate, displays less showmanship but greater substance, but the tune is inevitably the same. At the end of the day all apologetics amounts to the same hill of beans, though it's wise to especially avoid those that have been contaminated with Reformed ketchup. At least Slick Willie can be mildly entertaining... the more cerebral Calvinista are just plain scary.