Recently I heard on the radio that an adult coloring Bible has been published by Zondervan.
The Babylon Bee has been satirizing the proliferation of "Bibles" for a while (e.g., here, here, and here), but really, satire almost seems to be dead on this subject.
In real life there is the so-called Brick Bible, which is a Bible story book (why does a Bible story book have to be called a Bible, since they aren't the same thing?) done in the style of Lego pictures. They even crucify a Lego Jesus on a Lego cross.
And then there's this one: NIV Wild About Horses Bible. It intersperses photos of horses, inscribed with "short inspirational thoughts and scripture verses on themes of love, peace, friendship, beauty, strength and faith [that] accompany the photos," amongst the pages of Holy Writ.
I was posting about the coloring Bible on Facebook and encountered the argument that "as long as it gets more people to read the Bible, what's the problem?" Well, I beg to question whether, in fact, a coloring book combined with the text of the Bible is actually going to get more people to read the Bible.
In thinking about all the problems with treating the text of the Bible (or even dumbed-down Bible stories labeled as "a Bible") as an opportunity for marketers to make lots of money by selling people irreverent, self-expressionistic kitsch, I got to thinking about this whole notion of reverence.
At first I was tempted to think that the "what does it matter" evangelical tin ear to all matters of tackiness and reverence is a result of an absence of sacramentalism. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that isn't quite right, sociologically.
The old fundamentalists would have had conniptions over a coloring Bible. They carried their Bibles, the actual physical books, with reverence. They even questioned whether you should place your Bible on the floor. And don't get me started imagining what they would have probably said about a fake Lego "Bible" in which Lego Jesus gets crucified on a Lego cross.
Yet they weren't, at least officially, sacramentalists. They may have treated the physical bodies of their Bibles in a quasi-sacramental way, but the only theory involved in general was the theory of being reverent and respectful toward sacred matters, including the Word of God. This meant that there were proprieties that needed to be followed. The Veggie Tales makers showed some of this idea of propriety when they refused to do New Testament stories in which Jesus appeared as a vegetable (!).
Part of the problem with a "coloring Bible," which is in turn a lot less bad than a Lego Bible, is the idea that the things of the Lord exist principally for our benefit. A Bible that you color in encourages the idea that the Bible exists for your entertainment and enjoyment rather than your existing for God's glory. Another obvious problem is history. The Bible is a large, messy, often unpleasant set of books in a variety of historical settings. It's not there to be pretty or soothing.
It would be one thing to have a coloring book, a thin, cheap, paperback thing that made no claim to be a Bible, that had some passages from the Psalms with pictures of flowers to color. Even that would be somewhat kitschy. We pick out the parts that we like, combine them with pretty pictures, and give them to you to soothe your mind and meditate on. But it is much worse to print an entire Bible this way. At least a coloring book using Bible passages is openly, frankly, using biblical passages for some other purpose. The purchaser of a mere coloring book is under no illusion that he's getting the whole Scripture. An entire Bible, printed, is supposed to have an existence in itself, aside from any particular use to which we might want to put it. In this way the whole Bible, or even a printed New Testament, testifies to the fact that man is not the measure of all things. This is an uncompromisingly real set of historical books that exists apart from ourselves and that we cannot make in our own image. We may turn to particular passages in our time of need. That isn't wrong. But if we really want to know the Scriptures, we must be prepared to be judged by the Scriptures. A coloring Bible communicates something quite different.
The old fundamentalists understood that sort of thing instinctively. But perhaps instinct is not enough in the fight against cultural slide. As the culture has coarsened and become aesthetically tone-deaf, as reverence has waned in general, virtually all of the churches that were once quiet, even somewhat bare, testaments to quiet, pious, Protestant prayer have succumbed to the culture of kitsch. Rightly desiring to bring souls to Christ, they have hired more and more number-focused pastors who subscribe to the "what does it matter, so long as..." school of thought. We wouldn't want our churches to be boring, bare, and frumpy, would we? And we wouldn't want to be legalistic and judgemental, would we? And mere aesthetics are just subjective, aren't they?
God doesn't think so. God ordered that even the tabernacle was to be made beautiful. The God who struck a man dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant hardly seems like a God who doesn't care about ceremony. It was our Lord Jesus himself who drove the money-changers from the Temple for showing disrespect for the physical House of God and using it only as a means of profit. Can irreverence send souls to hell? I venture to fear that it can.
Irreverence where there should be reverence takes us away from the awe and majesty of the great God who, miracle of miracles, loves us, and from the glorious, painful seriousness of the Christian faith, rooted in uncompromising historical fact, recorded and revealed in ancient and somewhat alien books. I suggest that we try to teach Christians to confront and meditate on all of that rather than softening and obscuring it with coloring Bible Christianity.
In closing, I leave you with a few words from the inimitable Alistair Begg, on the related subject of worship and feelings:
Showing posts with label evangelicalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evangelicalism. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 06, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Discussion continues concerning gospel harmonization and fictionalization
My blogging time has been dominated lately by discussions generated from my post here on Mike Licona's approach to gospel difficulties. The blog thread discussion there continues and contains a huge amount of relevant material, especially in my exchanges with commentator Christopher McCartney. I strongly encourage readers interested in the subject to read those exchanges.
Meanwhile, at Triablogue, I have had interesting exchanges on the same subject in this thread and this thread.
Whatever else may come of the controversy, one good thing has been that Steve Hays has drawn my attention to (without necessarily endorsing) this article by John Warwick Montgomery. It looks like it is from 1999. I had not read it before. Montgomery, though writing in terms of inerrancy which I would not necessarily adopt, makes excellent points against the neo-inerrantists of that time. Apparently the stylish thing then in attempting to integrate redaction criticism with conservative biblical scholarship was this: Take some theological truth. Say that a later redactor added it to Jesus' words and that Jesus didn't really utter it. (For example, the Trinitarian formula in the Great Commission.) Then say that this is a version of inerrancy because the Holy Spirit guided the redactor only to attribute truths rather than falsehoods to Jesus! The small fact that the claim that Jesus said these words would be a falsehood in the biblical account seems to have been of no account to these theorists.
Montgomery is nearly tearing his hair out in the article (in a scholarly sense of "tearing his hair out") trying to deal with the illogic and poor reasoning of those making these claims, and reading him was like a breath of fresh air to me just now. It rocks. Go read it.
Meanwhile, at Triablogue, I have had interesting exchanges on the same subject in this thread and this thread.
Whatever else may come of the controversy, one good thing has been that Steve Hays has drawn my attention to (without necessarily endorsing) this article by John Warwick Montgomery. It looks like it is from 1999. I had not read it before. Montgomery, though writing in terms of inerrancy which I would not necessarily adopt, makes excellent points against the neo-inerrantists of that time. Apparently the stylish thing then in attempting to integrate redaction criticism with conservative biblical scholarship was this: Take some theological truth. Say that a later redactor added it to Jesus' words and that Jesus didn't really utter it. (For example, the Trinitarian formula in the Great Commission.) Then say that this is a version of inerrancy because the Holy Spirit guided the redactor only to attribute truths rather than falsehoods to Jesus! The small fact that the claim that Jesus said these words would be a falsehood in the biblical account seems to have been of no account to these theorists.
Montgomery is nearly tearing his hair out in the article (in a scholarly sense of "tearing his hair out") trying to deal with the illogic and poor reasoning of those making these claims, and reading him was like a breath of fresh air to me just now. It rocks. Go read it.
Saturday, February 06, 2016
New Post at W4 on Licona and gospel discrepancies
I have a long post just up at What's Wrong With the World on Mike Licona's approach in his forthcoming book to Gospel discrepancies. (I'm agin' it.) I was able to use a long lecture of his that lays out the approach, so I have plenty of material even though the book is not out yet. Comments can be left here or at W4.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Denver Seminary's slightly odd review of John Walton
Readers who follow my writing at What's Wrong With the World know that I wrote a looong, detailed, multi-part, and strongly negative review of two books by Old Testament scholar John H. Walton. Those posts are here, here, here, and here.
Someone sent me the link to this much shorter review of Walton's The Lost World of Adam and Eve by Sara Evans, writing on-line for Denver Seminary. The review is a rather surprising mix of positive and negative, and what concerns me most is the way that the negative intersects with the positive.
First of all, I have to say in passing that I really, really wish that people would not feel that they have to say things like this:
Therefore, this is not a "helpful reminder" of anything, because it's just going to confuse people. For example, in the long, long comments thread on my reviews, various commentators tried to press a view similar to Walton's by arguing that the ancients did not have our concepts of "natural laws." As I pointed out there, however, this does not support Walton's bizarre suggestion that they had no concept of a miracle. Walton's alleged insights into the ANE mind repeatedly take the form of defining some view incredibly narrowly and then arguing that, since the ancients didn't have that highly specific view, they had no concept at all in the vicinity. If they did not know modern chemistry or have a concept of molecules, it does not follow from this that they would never have thought that man was actually made from some other substance, such as earth or the blood of the gods. It isn't necessary to have a modern chemical concept to think that one type of physical thing is made from another type of physical thing. Yet Walton will make that non sequitur. From the fact that the ancient Israelites didn't think that the sun is a giant ball of flaming gas or that they thought of it as a "light," it doesn't follow that they didn't think that it is a physical entity. Yet Walton will make that non sequitur. And so forth. So he is just creating confusion, not giving helpful reminders or offering good insights.
Be that as it may, it may be inevitable that many people who don't feel they can criticize Walton's unusual views (and I stress that his views don't even represent the mainstream of OT criticism, if you care about that kind of thing) because they lack credentials might say such things in a review.
Moving on, the review actually says some very negative things (and rightly so) about Walton's theology:
But there is something strangely diffident in her criticisms in the light of these theological problems with Walton's work. For example, the lead-in to the paragraph about the sin nature and the imago dei is,
But the review ceases to be merely diffident in criticizing Walton and gets really strange at the end.
Now, I find this last implication strange in the extreme. Scholars should not be in the business of offering comfort, for goodness' sake! Nor should scholars be commended for "offering comfort" if their views are tendentious, theologically wrong-headed, and poorly argued. Scholars should offer good scholarship and a guide to the truth about their subject. Truth, remember? It's what we used to be concerned about before sociological categories like "offering welcome comfort" became a motivation for scholarship and for commending scholarship.
So here we have a scholar who, by Evans's own statement, has a flawed anthropology (view of the imago dei), which is a very serious matter (hopefully she realizes that) and a grossly negligent theodicy, but he's to be commended because his book offers "welcome comfort" to Christians who feel unhappy about the clash between Christian doctrines and the consensus of contemporary evolutionary scientists? That is a gravely irresponsible evaluation. Nobody should be evaluated on that basis.
By the way, it might also be a "welcome comfort" to point out to these poor, tense, young Christians that the science is not as settled as they are being told. I recommend the work of Casey Luskin, Ann Gauger, and others not, however, because it offers "welcome comfort," but because I think they are right that the claim of "settled science" concerning human origins owes more to propaganda than to decisive scientific argument. I also point it out because Walton's treatment of intelligent design and of the alleged scientific evidence is woefully inadequate. But the point is that we should pursue the truth about both science and theology.
It is troubling to see anyone commending a book with the problems that Walton's book has on the grounds that it is going to make people feel good. What if it's wrong? As in, incorrect? Then it's making people feel good based on falsehoods. Worse, if it's incorrect and also promulgates bad theology, then the theology of Walton's audience will have been confused on the basis of inaccurate conclusions about human history, but they will now feel more comfortable, so they will be less likely to change their minds or to look at the evidence objectively. This is not the direction that evangelical scholarship or evaluation of scholarship should be going.
Someone sent me the link to this much shorter review of Walton's The Lost World of Adam and Eve by Sara Evans, writing on-line for Denver Seminary. The review is a rather surprising mix of positive and negative, and what concerns me most is the way that the negative intersects with the positive.
First of all, I have to say in passing that I really, really wish that people would not feel that they have to say things like this:
There are many commendable elements to Walton’s work. He offers a well thought out view of how the Ancient Near Eastern mind would have received and understood the story of creation. It is a helpful reminder that the ancient Israelites did not think of the world on our terms, and so the text should not be forced to support views with which it is not concerned. His comparison with other ancient creation narratives (Babylon, Egyptian, Ugaritic, and Assyrian) offers good insight in the similarities and distinctives of the Genesis account.Actually, not. Walton does not offer a well-thought-out view of how the ANE mind would have received and understood the story of creation. He offers a tendentious, exaggerated, and poorly argued view, supported mostly by the Bellman's rule of repetition--If I say over and over again that the ancients wouldn't have understood a creation narrative to have any material meaning, it must be true.
Therefore, this is not a "helpful reminder" of anything, because it's just going to confuse people. For example, in the long, long comments thread on my reviews, various commentators tried to press a view similar to Walton's by arguing that the ancients did not have our concepts of "natural laws." As I pointed out there, however, this does not support Walton's bizarre suggestion that they had no concept of a miracle. Walton's alleged insights into the ANE mind repeatedly take the form of defining some view incredibly narrowly and then arguing that, since the ancients didn't have that highly specific view, they had no concept at all in the vicinity. If they did not know modern chemistry or have a concept of molecules, it does not follow from this that they would never have thought that man was actually made from some other substance, such as earth or the blood of the gods. It isn't necessary to have a modern chemical concept to think that one type of physical thing is made from another type of physical thing. Yet Walton will make that non sequitur. From the fact that the ancient Israelites didn't think that the sun is a giant ball of flaming gas or that they thought of it as a "light," it doesn't follow that they didn't think that it is a physical entity. Yet Walton will make that non sequitur. And so forth. So he is just creating confusion, not giving helpful reminders or offering good insights.
Be that as it may, it may be inevitable that many people who don't feel they can criticize Walton's unusual views (and I stress that his views don't even represent the mainstream of OT criticism, if you care about that kind of thing) because they lack credentials might say such things in a review.
Moving on, the review actually says some very negative things (and rightly so) about Walton's theology:
Perhaps the most obvious of these [problematic areas] is the idea that Adam and Eve were not a “first pair” biologically. Though Walton offers various arguments why this is an unnecessary belief, many will find his views unconvincing especially as they relate to the inheritance of a sin nature. Similarly, Walton fails to adequately examine the doctrine of the imago Dei. When and how humanity came to image God is an essential underpinning for arguments related to human dignity: euthanasia, abortion, or the H+ movement, to name a few. (emphasis added)[snip]
Along this same fault line is the entrance of sin and its results. Walton’s treatment of theodicy is lacking, at best, and at times is grossly negligent. Yes, the world is broken due to sin and subsequent disorder. However, even Walton’s distinction between good and perfect does not seem to allow for hurricanes, violence among humans, and other dramatically destructive forces before the fall. Even the Eastern Orthodox, who believed Adam and Eve were created as immature, childlike-beings with the purpose of growing and maturing, would still affirm immortality and lack of death in the original created order. (emphasis added)To say that Walton's notion of the imago dei is inadequate and that his treatment of theodicy is grossly negligent is a pretty strong indictment, and well-deserved, in my opinion. Evans is to be commended for bringing out these points.
But there is something strangely diffident in her criticisms in the light of these theological problems with Walton's work. For example, the lead-in to the paragraph about the sin nature and the imago dei is,
There are, of course, problematic areas and many things that will make conservative Evangelicals uncomfortable.That wording is ambiguous precisely as to whether the fault in such a case lies with Walton's theology or with the "conservative evangelicals" who would be "made uncomfortable" by his views. Later in the paragraph we get the statement that many will find his views unconvincing. That seems to imply that his views are unconvincing but again is a rather passive and roundabout way of stating this. The paragraph as it goes on eventually seems to criticize Walton in Evans's own voice ("fails to adequately examine"), but there is surprisingly little of such criticism in the review overall. One really has to look hard to find the couple of sentences of criticism that don't have some distancing phrase or concept such as a statement that this will make conservative evangelicals uncomfortable or that this isn't even in line with the somewhat looser Eastern Orthodox views or that many will find this unconvincing.
But the review ceases to be merely diffident in criticizing Walton and gets really strange at the end.
A final and primary point of contention within Walton’s book surrounds the subtitle: the human origins debate. Walton does not make explicit arguments in favor of an evolutionary understanding of human development. However, he in no place takes pains to deny that this not only fits his position but is better suited to it than six-day-creationism. He dances around the issue rather carefully by arguing that the Bible is not a scientific book and so makes no claims related to science. However, his leanings are obvious, despite his attempt to stand on neutral ground by reading “only” the text. Many will find the open attitude to evolution cause for alarm (if they even give the book a chance!). Others, however, will find it a welcome comfort. I think of today’s (Christian) youth especially, such as college students who feel they must choose between a fossil record and their faith. Walton’s book does them a great service by offering another way of believing: one that affirms God’s control, his creative intent, and his consistent working in creation before, during, and after the Fall. Even with its pitfalls, that is commendable. (emphasis added)I find this paragraph extremely difficult to figure out. On the one hand, Evans is completely right that Walton "dances around the issue" of the human origins debate and is less than forthright about his own leanings. No doubt Walton himself (who seems rather good at getting his feelings hurt) will have his feelings hurt by that implication if he reads the review. Good for Evans for saying it. But in the very same paragraph she moves on to implying that 1) those who are more theologically conservative than Walton are too biased to "give the book a chance," 2) Walton's book is "commendable" (she commends it unequivocally here) because it "does a great service" to today's Christian young people. It does this "service" by giving them "welcome comfort," and it offers that comfort by telling them that they can believe what Walton believes about human origins while remaining true to the Christian faith.
Now, I find this last implication strange in the extreme. Scholars should not be in the business of offering comfort, for goodness' sake! Nor should scholars be commended for "offering comfort" if their views are tendentious, theologically wrong-headed, and poorly argued. Scholars should offer good scholarship and a guide to the truth about their subject. Truth, remember? It's what we used to be concerned about before sociological categories like "offering welcome comfort" became a motivation for scholarship and for commending scholarship.
So here we have a scholar who, by Evans's own statement, has a flawed anthropology (view of the imago dei), which is a very serious matter (hopefully she realizes that) and a grossly negligent theodicy, but he's to be commended because his book offers "welcome comfort" to Christians who feel unhappy about the clash between Christian doctrines and the consensus of contemporary evolutionary scientists? That is a gravely irresponsible evaluation. Nobody should be evaluated on that basis.
By the way, it might also be a "welcome comfort" to point out to these poor, tense, young Christians that the science is not as settled as they are being told. I recommend the work of Casey Luskin, Ann Gauger, and others not, however, because it offers "welcome comfort," but because I think they are right that the claim of "settled science" concerning human origins owes more to propaganda than to decisive scientific argument. I also point it out because Walton's treatment of intelligent design and of the alleged scientific evidence is woefully inadequate. But the point is that we should pursue the truth about both science and theology.
It is troubling to see anyone commending a book with the problems that Walton's book has on the grounds that it is going to make people feel good. What if it's wrong? As in, incorrect? Then it's making people feel good based on falsehoods. Worse, if it's incorrect and also promulgates bad theology, then the theology of Walton's audience will have been confused on the basis of inaccurate conclusions about human history, but they will now feel more comfortable, so they will be less likely to change their minds or to look at the evidence objectively. This is not the direction that evangelical scholarship or evaluation of scholarship should be going.
Friday, July 03, 2015
Evangelical watcher news
A couple of developments for watchers of the Baptist and evangelical scene, with regard to the topic that one can't seem to stop talking about these days, unfortunately.
The ERLC of the Southern Baptists has put out a disturbingly insufficient statement about the recent Supreme Court ruling, and Robert Gagnon has some trenchant criticisms here. I especially want to emphasize Gagnon's points I, II, and IV. (Which is not to denigrate his points III and V.) This whole, "Outrage is out of place" approach is plain wrong.
Also, as point IV says, it is disturbing that the Southern Baptists have increasingly adopted the "LGBT" nomenclature and have adopted uncritically the language of loving, respecting, etc., "LGBT persons" without clarifying what that means. For example, does it mean that parents have to subsidize their adult children's homosexual lifestyles? Moore's recent thunderings in various venues about parents who kick out their young adult children for "coming out," without any apparent discussion of the complexities of these situations, might indicate so. If your 20-year-old "comes out," that doesn't mean you have to let him use your home as a hotel from which he goes out and engages in homosexual acts. Nor do you have to continue subsidizing his college education so that he can have sex at college. But all the outrage against parents suggests that Moore might think continuing to do so is part of showing "dignity and respect" to homosexuals.
Gagnon's points are well taken. I also want to stress that I'm quite certain, as Gagnon says, that many of the signatories of the statement did not mean to endorse its flaws but only its good points. So I would not blame someone for signing it (though I would want to point out the flaws). Whoever wrote the statement is responsible for its problems. I haven't, unfortunately, heard any news to the effect that the ERLC has taken Gagnon's criticisms to heart.
In other news, readers who are interested or concerned are invited to look at the public Facebook status of evangelical scholar and author Michael Licona, and the comments beneath, where he raises an extremely easily answered "question" asked by one of his Facebook friends who appears to be an advocate of homosexual civil "marriage." Unfortunately, Licona indicates that this question is a real poser, and even more unfortunately, when people (including yours truly) gave the sensible and obvious answers, Licona said he was unconvinced that these answered this really good question. Even more unfortunately, after having raised this "question" and having endorsed it so far as to say, and repeat, statements such as that it is a "great question," he indicated that he doesn't have the time even to read someone like Ryan Anderson, Robert P. George, or Robert Gagnon in order to clarify and strengthen his own position on the nature and proper goods of civil marriage, which would dissolve this "great question." (Hint: The question had to do with comparing homosexual civil "marriage" to the recognition that Islam is a religion and giving religious liberty to Muslims.) This is all in the thread. Feel free to read through. I submit my characterization here to the judgement of the fair-minded who read the exchange for themselves. Steve at Triablogue has blogged a bit about this and has been accused of gross misrepresentation, so I have summarized the circumstances of the exchange at somewhat more length, making it clear that this was a matter of raising as a "good question" someone else's question, etc., and I encourage anyone interested in getting the facts to read the thread for himself. (It is unfortunate that Facebook now has sub-threaded comments. I have tried to draw attention by the link above to one of the most relevant sub-threads, beyond the early first-level comments on the status.) Speaking for myself, I found this development extremely discouraging and disappointing. Those with influence in the evangelical world should be well-informed enough about this urgent and timely issue that they are able to answer such shallow, slanted questions with one hand tied behind their backs, just to make it fair, not be so arrested by them as to tell the whole world and especially their 5,000 Facebook "friends" what a tough, good question this is. And if you wake up one day and find yourself thrown by such a question, and you are such an evangelical writer and scholar, you should for goodness' sake take the time to read a couple of articles by Ryan Anderson and co. and give it some thought, clarifying your own ideas about what, precisely, civil marriage is, what its purpose and goods are, and whether homosexual "marriage" can be a variety thereof, before you raise these doubts in other people's minds. To first raise such a "question" and then retreat to, "It's not my role to research this further. I'm busy, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I have other research interests" is, quite frankly, gravely irresponsible.
Finally, a small house-keeping question. If you ever comment on this blog, have you run into a problem with your comment utterly disappearing when you press "publish," without any indication that the comment has gone to moderation? I ask, because I've realized that some blogger blogs have the following problem: If you try to publish a comment before logging in, e.g., with a Blogger account, the comment disappears entirely. It does not go to moderation. It just disappears. Then Blogger presents the commenter with a new, empty combox, with the drop-down menu below showing that he is now logged in. If he repeats the comment after this happens, it goes through. I have full moderation enabled, and it may be that this is preventing this problem here at Extra Thoughts.
The ERLC of the Southern Baptists has put out a disturbingly insufficient statement about the recent Supreme Court ruling, and Robert Gagnon has some trenchant criticisms here. I especially want to emphasize Gagnon's points I, II, and IV. (Which is not to denigrate his points III and V.) This whole, "Outrage is out of place" approach is plain wrong.
Also, as point IV says, it is disturbing that the Southern Baptists have increasingly adopted the "LGBT" nomenclature and have adopted uncritically the language of loving, respecting, etc., "LGBT persons" without clarifying what that means. For example, does it mean that parents have to subsidize their adult children's homosexual lifestyles? Moore's recent thunderings in various venues about parents who kick out their young adult children for "coming out," without any apparent discussion of the complexities of these situations, might indicate so. If your 20-year-old "comes out," that doesn't mean you have to let him use your home as a hotel from which he goes out and engages in homosexual acts. Nor do you have to continue subsidizing his college education so that he can have sex at college. But all the outrage against parents suggests that Moore might think continuing to do so is part of showing "dignity and respect" to homosexuals.
Gagnon's points are well taken. I also want to stress that I'm quite certain, as Gagnon says, that many of the signatories of the statement did not mean to endorse its flaws but only its good points. So I would not blame someone for signing it (though I would want to point out the flaws). Whoever wrote the statement is responsible for its problems. I haven't, unfortunately, heard any news to the effect that the ERLC has taken Gagnon's criticisms to heart.
In other news, readers who are interested or concerned are invited to look at the public Facebook status of evangelical scholar and author Michael Licona, and the comments beneath, where he raises an extremely easily answered "question" asked by one of his Facebook friends who appears to be an advocate of homosexual civil "marriage." Unfortunately, Licona indicates that this question is a real poser, and even more unfortunately, when people (including yours truly) gave the sensible and obvious answers, Licona said he was unconvinced that these answered this really good question. Even more unfortunately, after having raised this "question" and having endorsed it so far as to say, and repeat, statements such as that it is a "great question," he indicated that he doesn't have the time even to read someone like Ryan Anderson, Robert P. George, or Robert Gagnon in order to clarify and strengthen his own position on the nature and proper goods of civil marriage, which would dissolve this "great question." (Hint: The question had to do with comparing homosexual civil "marriage" to the recognition that Islam is a religion and giving religious liberty to Muslims.) This is all in the thread. Feel free to read through. I submit my characterization here to the judgement of the fair-minded who read the exchange for themselves. Steve at Triablogue has blogged a bit about this and has been accused of gross misrepresentation, so I have summarized the circumstances of the exchange at somewhat more length, making it clear that this was a matter of raising as a "good question" someone else's question, etc., and I encourage anyone interested in getting the facts to read the thread for himself. (It is unfortunate that Facebook now has sub-threaded comments. I have tried to draw attention by the link above to one of the most relevant sub-threads, beyond the early first-level comments on the status.) Speaking for myself, I found this development extremely discouraging and disappointing. Those with influence in the evangelical world should be well-informed enough about this urgent and timely issue that they are able to answer such shallow, slanted questions with one hand tied behind their backs, just to make it fair, not be so arrested by them as to tell the whole world and especially their 5,000 Facebook "friends" what a tough, good question this is. And if you wake up one day and find yourself thrown by such a question, and you are such an evangelical writer and scholar, you should for goodness' sake take the time to read a couple of articles by Ryan Anderson and co. and give it some thought, clarifying your own ideas about what, precisely, civil marriage is, what its purpose and goods are, and whether homosexual "marriage" can be a variety thereof, before you raise these doubts in other people's minds. To first raise such a "question" and then retreat to, "It's not my role to research this further. I'm busy, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I have other research interests" is, quite frankly, gravely irresponsible.
Finally, a small house-keeping question. If you ever comment on this blog, have you run into a problem with your comment utterly disappearing when you press "publish," without any indication that the comment has gone to moderation? I ask, because I've realized that some blogger blogs have the following problem: If you try to publish a comment before logging in, e.g., with a Blogger account, the comment disappears entirely. It does not go to moderation. It just disappears. Then Blogger presents the commenter with a new, empty combox, with the drop-down menu below showing that he is now logged in. If he repeats the comment after this happens, it goes through. I have full moderation enabled, and it may be that this is preventing this problem here at Extra Thoughts.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Baylor prof. goes all gee-I-don't-know on assisted suicide
The meltdown of Christian stances in the moral fields is happening with head-spinning speed. This post is from a professor at Baylor University. God have mercy. Looks like we need to include assisted suicide in our statements and our witch hunts. (See previous entry.) Gotta love the reference to "enlightened Christians" who think suicide isn't sinful unless done for "purely selfish reasons." Condescend much, Prof. Olson?
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Matthew 18 does not apply to criticizing public articles
This should not need to be said, but I've become aware (most recently through some reactions to a post at W4) that some in the evangelical community are developing the oddest notions about public writings and public refutations. Apparently Jesus' injunctions about how to handle it if "your brother trespasses against you" in Matthew 18 are being applied to criticism of the public writings of people who claim to be Christians or even who simply may be Christians based on some affiliation of theirs. (I even saw it lately applied to a group of homosexual activists who, as far as I know, make no claim to be Christians at all!)
Now, this is a wild misapplication of the verses. Obviously, if someone unknown to me has written something in public, this isn't a matter "between me and him alone." The whole point of Jesus' instruction is that if something is, initially, a private dispute between two Christians, it should be escalated to a public matter involving the opinion of the whole church only by degrees and only if it cannot be resolved at a lower level. But this has no point to it at all if we are talking about the public writings of one Christian (much less a merely possible Christian or putative Christian, still less a non-Christian). There is no dispute between two individuals. The matter is public ab initio. There is no specific person who has been "trespassed against" who might try to "gain his brother" by getting a private apology and resolution. The entire set of instructions is obviously inapplicable.
I have been told that this misuse of Matthew 18 has even been applied to authors like Rob Bell who write arguably heretical books. When pastors and theologians try to criticize them, they are in turn criticized if they did not first go to Bell privately concerning his published books! This, even if they have no independent private acquaintance with Bell. What absurdity.
Moreover, of course, if the principle applies, it should also apply to public criticism of public critics, which would mean that no Christian could be publically criticized for anything at all before "the steps of Matthew 18" were followed. So the critics of public critics, if they have not first "followed the steps of Matthew 18," are subject to their own criticism of acting unbiblically. This is a reductio of the entire application of the passage, though I suppose it's asking too much for those who misuse it in this way to see that.
So, what does this come to? Well, to quote an old Internet friend of mine, the inimitable Zippy: No, we won't shut up.
Now, this is a wild misapplication of the verses. Obviously, if someone unknown to me has written something in public, this isn't a matter "between me and him alone." The whole point of Jesus' instruction is that if something is, initially, a private dispute between two Christians, it should be escalated to a public matter involving the opinion of the whole church only by degrees and only if it cannot be resolved at a lower level. But this has no point to it at all if we are talking about the public writings of one Christian (much less a merely possible Christian or putative Christian, still less a non-Christian). There is no dispute between two individuals. The matter is public ab initio. There is no specific person who has been "trespassed against" who might try to "gain his brother" by getting a private apology and resolution. The entire set of instructions is obviously inapplicable.
I have been told that this misuse of Matthew 18 has even been applied to authors like Rob Bell who write arguably heretical books. When pastors and theologians try to criticize them, they are in turn criticized if they did not first go to Bell privately concerning his published books! This, even if they have no independent private acquaintance with Bell. What absurdity.
Moreover, of course, if the principle applies, it should also apply to public criticism of public critics, which would mean that no Christian could be publically criticized for anything at all before "the steps of Matthew 18" were followed. So the critics of public critics, if they have not first "followed the steps of Matthew 18," are subject to their own criticism of acting unbiblically. This is a reductio of the entire application of the passage, though I suppose it's asking too much for those who misuse it in this way to see that.
So, what does this come to? Well, to quote an old Internet friend of mine, the inimitable Zippy: No, we won't shut up.
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