Category Archives: Theology and Religion

Can Religion Be Reproduced?

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I saw this quote from famed magician/atheist/television personality Penn Jillette‘s new book on kottke.org:

There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

Now, this might be true or it might not be true – it’s a thought experiment with no way of verification. It’s an assertion, not an argument. Thus, from the very beginning, the appeal to empiricism is weakened.

But this claim – “it would never be created exactly that way again” – is true of anything rooted in the passage of time: history, art, literature, even the progress of science itself. Continue reading →

Noll and Enns on Theological Diversity and Christian Unity

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This quote expresses some of my recent thinking to an eery extent:

So if we find ethical, theological, and historical diversity in Scripture, we begin with the assumption that what the Bible intends for us to learn is not primarily concerned with textual unity or precise moral consistency as construed by modern ethicists, theologians, and historians. Rather, “The unity of the Bible is more subtle but at the same time deeper. It is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living Word…”

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 139, quoting Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Of course, this leads to several important questions: How much theological or historical disharmony can be tolerated? How much unity should we require for fellowship or organizational structures? What do we do with ethics or theologies that oppose each other? Nonetheless, I think Noll and Enns are on to something important here.

Two Notes From an Anglican Foster Child

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I am not Anglican, but Elizabeth and I greatly value our time as visitors at St. John’s (Shaughnessy) Anglican Church while living in Vancouver. The most recent Regent College Anglican Studies Program newsletter includes two items from the past and the future of St. John’s (Shaughnessy) that I find interesting. First, a fine remembrance of Harry Robinson, longtime rector at St. John’s, who passed away earlier this year. Though not as well as known as his good friends J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott, Rev. Robinson left a legacy, of which I have been a beneficiary.

Second, the assistant rector while we attended St. John’s, Felix Orji, is now Bishop Felix Orji in the Anglican Church in North America. What wonderful news – congratulations, Felix!

Mark Noll: The Atonement Points Us to Morally Complex Stories

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Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, the best narratives will not be simplistic (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles). Rather, the best narratives will be morally complex, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Paradise Lost, and Crime and Punishment — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, they are most true to life.

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 71. Emphasis added.

Mark Noll on Why the Atonement Matters for Christian Scholarship

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If, then, the act of substitution is a primordial human reality, the seriousness of sin is the essential human dilemma, the divine initiative in salvation is the basis for human hope, the narrative movement of grace is the primary shape for human knowledge, and the complex nature of reality is the inescapable challenge for human understanding — then the human study of the world should reflect these realities.

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, pp. 70-71, emphasis added.

By “complex nature of reality,” Noll refers to the multiplicity of the atonement. Who put Jesus on the cross? Judas? Pilate? The priests? God? Jesus himself? Yes — they all did. Does God love sinners or punish them? He does both. Was the cross the worst moment in human history or the best? It was both at the same time.

Andy Crouch compares Steve Jobs and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

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Andy Crouch on Steve Jobs, The Secular Prophet

Mr. Jobs’s final leave of absence was announced this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And, as it happened, Mr. Jobs died on the same day as one of Dr. King’s companions, the Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, one of the last living co-founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr. King, too, had had a close encounter with his own mortality when he was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a book signing in 1958. He told that story a decade later to a rally on the night of April 3, 1968, and then turned, with unsettling foresight, to the possibility of his own early death. His words, at the beginning, could easily have been a part of Steve Jobs’s commencement address: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now.” But here Dr. King, the civic and religious leader, turned a corner that Mr. Jobs never did. “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”

Plastic Church

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10 Ways to Become a Plastic Church

6. Care more about your agenda than about honoring and loving people. Push, push, push your church-centric agenda. Don’t respect and honor the role your people have in the community, in their neighborhoods, in their workplace, and in their families. Make it all about the four church walls. This has Plastic Church written all over it!

Not to mention their roles within the church. Ouch.

Was the Norway shooter a Christian?

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, Feisal Abdul Rauf (of Cordoba Initiative fame) begins his column “A Call to All Religion Moderates” by writing:

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was right when he insisted that Abders Behring Breivik [sic], who committed mass murders in Norway in July, is not a Christian. Even though Breivik referred to himself often as a Christian, Mr. O’Reilly noted, no one who slaughters innocents can be a follower of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace. (emphasis added)

First of all, you should never get theological opinions from Bill O’Reilly.

Second, I agree that Breivik was not a Christian, but it has nothing to do with the murders he committed. It has everything to do with how he defined his own identity. Here’s how Breivik himself described his “Christianity”:

A majority of so called agnostics and atheists in Europe are cultural conservative Christians without even knowing it. So what is the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians? If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do however believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian. (emphases added; via GetReligion)

Christianity as a “cultural, social, identity and moral platform” is meaningless without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. In fact, I would argue that “Christianity” as a ”cultural, social, identity and moral platform” – without the accompanying relationship with Jesus – is responsible for many of the greatest crimes against humanity of the past two thousand years. Christianity is, first and foremost, about the person of Jesus Christ. If you exclude him, then all you have left is one more godless ideology.

Rauf goes on to say that no murderer can be a “true Christian” (or a “true Muslim,” for that matter). I disagree strongly with this idea. As I wrote above, Christianity is, first and foremost, about the person of Jesus Christ. It’s not about how righteous, holy, or moral we can be, or whether we can simply avoid (through care or luck) making terrible decisions.

Could someone have a personal relationship with Jesus and still commit horrific crimes? Tragically, I believe the answer is yes.

I see two important implications of this sobering idea:

1) We should not be quick to reject someone as a brother or sister in Christ. Whether a historical figure or one of our contemporaries, we shouldn’t base our opinion of them or their faith on their misdeeds.

2) We should never assume that our own actions are right, simply because we’re Christians. Perhaps our descendants will judge us as harshly as we judge our misguided ancestors, for some blind spot or crime that never even occurred to us to be wrong.

Why You and I Could Not Write the Book of Revelation | Don’t Eat The Fruit

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Why You and I Could Not Write the Book of Revelation

The book of revelation has about 400 verses, and scholars say those verses contain around 550 allusions to Old Testament passages. But here’s the thing, John doesn’t include a single quotation of the Old Testament. He only uses allusions. This means that his writing, his thoughts, his spirituality literally bleeds with an deep, abiding knowledge of the Scriptures.

via John Dyer