People often get up-tight when they first learn of the existence of
variations in the text of the Greek New Testament, but their concerns
are baseless. The text of the New Testament is far-and-away the most
attested and stable text of any ancient document. In fact, if you
question the stability of the text of the New Testament, you probably
ought to disregard just about everything you think you know about
ancient history since almost all the important historical manuscripts
from which such history is derived are from copies that are far later
and of far poorer quality than are our New Testament manuscripts.
I recently discovered a convenient way to demonstrate this!
For my birthday this past year my wife gave me the recently published: The UBS Greek New Testament: Reader’s Edition with Textual Notes. I
was delighted to finally own a Greek Bible that included definitions of
infrequently used Greek words alongside of textual notes (notes that
display variations among Greek manuscripts and that list some of the
important manuscripts that form the basis for the text we use for
translating). But when I opened the book for the first time, I was
surprised (and, I’ll be honest, somewhat disappointed) to find only a
few textual notes—far fewer than I expected. It turns out that the
editors made a conscious decision to only include variants that they deemed important for the meaning of a text. I’ll let them describe what they did in their own words:
“Compared to the NA27 and the UBS4, the edition at hand focuses on
places where variants from the reading of the USB4 signifantly impact
the meaning of the text” (p. 11*).”
Before I make my big point in this post, please allow the sentence I
just cited to teach you something about textual criticism. Some of you
think that I just made two scribal mistakes while typing in that quote.
(Did you catch them?) No, those two mistakes are actually in the printed text of the volume—a
volume published by text critics no less! (Ouch…) The two printed
mistakes are “USB4” (instead of “UBS4”) and the spelling of the word
“signifantly” (instead of “significantly”).
But to read that sentence, you yourself had to do a bit of impromptu
textual criticism! So at this point let me ask you a question: How
much did those two variants impact your understanding of the meaning of
the sentence? You probably understood the sentence without difficulty
(and perhaps didn’t even notice the UBS4/USB4 difference the first time
you read it). The types of changes found in this English sentence are
analogous to the vast majority of textual variants found among New
Testament manuscripts.
Now to the main point of this post… The editors of the Greek New
Testament my wife bought me for my birthday (and there are no better
editors than this group!) claim that the only variants that they
included are the ones that significantly impact the meaning of the
text. In other words, they don’t think that other variants
significantly impact the meaning of the text. So they have gathered
together in this volume the ones they consider the important ones.
And what do you discover when you actually look at the “significant”
differences? You discover how stable our text really is! Following is a
list of every variant found in 1 Corinthians that the editors of this
volume deemed important for determining the meaning of the text. (I
have translated them into English for you.)
1:14 “I give thanks to God that…” / “I give thanks to my God that…” / “I give thanks that…”
2:1 “while proclaiming to you the mystery of God” / “while proclaiming
to you the testimony of God”
(“mystery” and “testimony” look very
similar in Greek)
5:5 “in the day of the Lord” / “in the day of the Lord Jesus” / “in
the day of the Lord Jesus Christ” / “in the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ”
7:15 “God has called you in peace” / “God has called us in peace” (“you” and “us” are extremely close in Greek)
10:9 “Nor let us test Christ” / “Nor let us test the Lord” / “Nor let us test God”
11:24 “This is my body that is for you” / “This is my body that is
broken for you” / “This is my body that is broken [different word] for
you”
13:3 “And if I give my body that I might boast” / “And if I give my
body that I will be burned” / “And if I give my body that I might be
burned” (The difference between these three variants is a single
letter.)
14:34-35 These two verses are sometimes included after verse 40
instead of in the position found in most manuscripts but there is no
significant change to it.
14:38 “But if anyone disregards, he is disregarded” / “But if anyone
disregards, let him be disregarded” (same word, different tense)
15:49 “we will bear the image of the heavenly one” / “let us bear the
image of the heavenly one” (one letter difference, and they sound almost
identical)
That’s it! That’s every significant variant in 1 Corinthians. I
remember my father coining the word “underwhelmed” when I was a child.
Are you feeling underwhelmed at this moment? You should be. That’s the
point.
If you exclude from the wider discussion the two longer passages that
seem to create the most discussion among my students (John 8 and the
ending of Mark), and a handful of other passages in the New Testament
that are a bit more important, you have just gotten for yourself a
glimpse into the kind and quality of the so-called “significant” New
Testament variants.
So when maverick scholars attempt to convince you that the Greek text
underlying the New Testament that you read, love, and strive to obey is
unstable, you probably shouldn’t take them very seriously. God has
marvelously preserved His Word. The UBS Greek New Testament: Readers Edition with Textual Notes offers us a convenient way to demonstrate that such a claim is true.
It was my pleasure this week to interview Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, whose book, The World is Not Ours to Save,
is really rocking some boats. Some of my most conservative friends, as
well as some of my most progressive friends, have really enjoyed the
book, so I was eager to talk with Tyler. Patheos is also featuring an
extended discussion on the book here – and you can see the first part of this interview here.
To set the stage, Tyler argues that many amongst the younger
generation are eagerly rushing into a cause-oriented evangelical
activism that quickly burns out and tunes out. Instead he calls for a
more richly theological conception of calling that can provide meaning,
strength and courage through the hard times. This is where the next
question picks up:
*
5. Is it mostly a matter of perspective, or are there tangible practices we canintegrate into our lives to be faithful servants for the long haul?
That’s
a great question. It’s significantly a matter of perspective, but that
perspective must be lived out in tangible practices.
The second
half of the book is really all about the shape that “welcoming the
kingdom from a distance” will take. I interpret the kingdom vision of
Micah 4.1-5 as a description of three interrelated forms of peace: peace
with God, peace among the peoples or nations, and peace in community.
And in my read of Micah’s portrayal, each of these has three facets.
Peace with God entails worship, discipleship, and evangelism. Peace
among the peoples is justice, industry, and nonaggression. Peace in
community requires dignity, prosperity, and security.
So I tell
stories about what each of these looks like when lived out. For example,
how the architecture of Coventry Cathedral speaks to the centrality of
worship. Or the amazing way that an unassuming CEO named Dave
Kiersznowski has formed his business as an exemplar of biblical
industry. Or how my wife’s grandfather garbed black skin with dignity in
Apartheid South Africa.
Telling such stories of fidelity is maybe
as much as I can do. I’m not sure that I can tell readers that they
should be doing X, Y, and Z – like, oh, the secret to lifelong activism
is daily quiet time or regular communion. If the book does its work,
readers will write their own final chapters with their lives. I hope I
get to read some of them.
6. You’re known for your work on
the global abolition of nuclear weapons. When did that become a calling
for you, and not “just” a cause?
Well, it’s never purely
one or the other. I think there are two competing logics or spirits at
work in any activism – in any do-gooding, really. One is control, and
one is faithful service. The former is my desire to have the world look
the way I want it to – even if that desire is for good. And that logic
of control, or mastery, was shot through my earliest anti-nuclear
activism. I wasn’t a Christian then. I’d say that the cause started to
become a calling for me at my conversion. That’s when I heard the voice
of God say “The world is not yours, not to save or to damn. Only serve
the one whose it is.” That’s when I began to surrender the goal of my
activism. I began to give up efficacy as my benchmark and strive for
fidelity instead. On my best days, it’s the latter spirit that animates
my work.
One other thing on this point: I’d never want to
dichotomize “cause” and “calling,” because I do think it’s both possible
and desirable to strive for excellence in causes. The International
Justice Mission exemplifies this. There’s no doubt in my mind that
IJM is an authentic outgrowth of Gary Haugen’s calling. I look at how he
lives his life, the accountability to which he submits himself, the way
he describes IJM’s work, and I think: this guy is submitting to his
vocation. But that organization is also a phenomenal cause. They do
amazing, disciplined, strategic, patient, goal-oriented work.
7.
It’s become rather common for books from young evangelicals to bash
the earlier generation of the Religious Right. Yet you see both the
Religious Right and progressive evangelicals having some positives and
negatives in common, right?
A very cautious yes! I should
say up front that I do not align with the Religious Right. One side of
my spiritual family tree runs through folks like John Stott, Ron Sider,
and Jim Wallis; the other comes from the African-American Baptist
congregation that brought me up as a new convert and ordained me.
Nevertheless, I’m leery of bashing the Religious Right because it smacks
of an entirely unwarranted generational smugness. Just because we’re
later doesn’t make us better or smarter.
Also, as you say, the
Religious Right and progressive evangelicals are both committed
to systemic change. Their difference is in content, not method. Mainline
Protestants trace this systemic commitment to the Social Gospel
movement at the start of the twentieth century, and Roman Catholics have
their own history of social teaching. But the Religious Right and
progressive evangelicals together represent a sea change in
earlier twentieth-century evangelical approaches to public life. And
they share, in my view, the blessings and curses that come with a
systemic paradigm.
Finally, I have to admit that as a professional
organizer I stand in awe of the Religious Right’s discipline and
commitment. Think about it. They worked for a quarter-century to build a
base, getting folks active in school boards, local political parties,
etc. That meant their national power wasn’t empty rhetoric, but grounded
in their capacity to reach a huge number of people.
Maybe most
important, they understood that activism is not about enthusiasm or good
intentions, but power and its exercise. That’s a lesson that makes many
on the left uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. Consider William
Wilberforce, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Faith-based activists have to be
willing to fight, and they have to be willing to win.
8. If you could speak to the 22-year-old faith-inspired activist right now, what advice would you give?
Embrace
this very moment the possibility afforded by your position in life.
You’ve got audacious commitments, huge passions, and unfettered
imagination. So think, dream, and act big. Move to India. Move to your
inner city. Stay exactly where you are and live radically.
If
you’ve got the spiritual stomach for it, live into the status quo as
Jesus’ own Manchurian candidate, and seep grace throughout its cracks.
Love with everything you’ve got, wherever you are.
On the flip
side, refuse mediocrity. This means: don’t just live the cultural script
written for you by your class, gender, race, sexuality, or education.
This means: don’t treat Facebook likes or Twitter followers or the pithy
gems of contemporary Christian books and speakers as a substitute for
real activism. If it isn’t costly, it’s not commitment.
As you
look to the future, know what it is you are working for, and why. Is it
worth fighting for? Are you willing to win? Are your tactics
commensurate with and oriented toward your goals?
Be suspicious of
activist jargon, like “raising awareness,” “spreading the word,”
and “joining the movement” with the hopes that these things will “make a
difference.” These are means, not ends. And unless such words describe
concrete activities that lead to the strategic, concerted effort and
commitment of large numbers of people – a goal which requires foresight,
intention, planning, and discipline – you will waste everyone’s
time, including your own.
Don’t be too serious, at least not all the time. Life is not a checklist. It is funny, and fun, and beautiful.
Recognize
that enthusiasm is not a substitute for excellence, and most people are
not excellent professional activists. Early in my activist career all I
had was a B.A. and good intentions, and that got me an entry-level job
at a non-profit. But everyone I saw who did genuine good had been deeply
formed in another discipline – business, law, politics, religion, etc.
Non-profit work is its own sphere of excellence, and most are not suited
for it. So discern as early as you can where your professional gifts
are and commit yourself to that field. You will stand out in an age of
dilettantism. And excellence, regardless of the discipline in which you
achieve it, will multiply your contribution to the causes you care about
by an order of magnitude.
If you aspire to be a leader, remember that you cannot lead those whom you do not love.
Build
for the long haul by cultivating balanced habits, because the
architecture in which you live your life will define the parameters of
the decisions available to you. To carry your cross is to live in the
freedom of condemnation. In that vein, build around personal holiness.
Receive
the Sabbath as a gift; I dearly wish I had done this earlier in my
life. It lets the world get on without our oversight. It is our arrabon
of divine rest.
Look up arrabon. Read more classics and history
than you do new releases (including mine). Read them with a heart that
is at once generous and critical. But above all, read.
Wherever
you are, whether you’re light-footed or firmly rooted, prioritize a
local church that lives the gospel – preferably one that is
intergenerational, interracial, and mixed economy. Commit to its
unglamorous, inefficient life. Learn from those who are different from
you, especially the elderly. Make informed, responsible, and lasting
political commitments in your community.
You are not the hero of
the story. The worst problems you face cannot be fixed. It’s your job to
be on God’s side, not the other way round. And remember that you (and
I, and everyone) are what’s wrong with the world: as Solzhenitsyn wrote,
the line between good and evil runs straight through each heart, not
between “us” and “them.”
Nevertheless, in Jesus Christ the peace of the Lord is with you. Mull on this and accept it.
And then get back out there and turn your flesh, blood, and breath into fidelity, for as long as God gives you.
It was my pleasure this week to interview Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, whose book, The World is Not Ours to Save,
is really rocking some boats. Some of my most conservative friends, as
well as some of my most progressive friends, have really enjoyed the
book, so I was eager to talk with Tyler. Patheos is also featuring an
extended discussion on the book here:
*
Congratulations on the new book. The reception I’ve seen so far has been highlyenthusiastic, across the political spectrum. Why is this the right time for a book likeThe World Is Not Ours to Save?
I
think we’re at a transitional cultural moment for Christianity in
public life, particularly in the US, where a rising generation of
Christians is emerging from a certain initial innocence with activism
and causes.
Over the last ten to fifteen years, the generation
that grew up in the 1960s reached the apex of its power, on both sides
of the political aisle. Conservatives elected one of their own in
President Bush and enjoyed the fruit of that influence. Progressives
successfully made the case that this politically lucrative label,
“evangelical,” entailed a broader set of public commitments than those
held by the Religious Right.
At the same time, the next generation
of younger Christians – those who had no memory of, say, the tumult of
1968 – was coming of age, having internalized the message that faith
ought to take shape through public engagement. The resulting
proliferation of causes was compounded by technologies like Facebook and
Twitter, which created the sense that anyone could become a sort of
micro-activist, “spreading the word” and “raising awareness” about
whatever he or she cared about.
But now the older generation is
passing on – as the 2012 election shows, the Religious Right has been
demoted from a national to a regional power, at best – and the
younger generation is ending what I see as a sort of initial “age of
innocence” toward the causes it cares about.
This waning innocence
has three aspects and the first two are negative. First, friends in
campus ministry tell me about younger Christians’ increasing incredulity
toward the sweeping goals promised by movement Christianity – like
“ending poverty in a generation.”
Second, people are rightly
skeptical about the efficacy of common activist tactics, or means, such
as liking a Facebook page or retweeting a message. They’re just too
easy, and incommensurate with the causes at hand.
Despite these
two trends, however, the third aspect of the waning innocence is an
abiding commitment to issues like justice. The passion for a better
world is still there, amidst doubt about how and whether sweeping change
is possible.
That’s why I wrote this book: to map the practical
and spiritual pitfalls that dot today’s landscape, and to cast an
alternate vision for establishing a deep connection between an activist
spirituality and the heart of a lifelong faith.
What do you see as the leading causes of “cause fatigue” or “compassionfatigue”?
At a surface level, three things. First, the huge number and variety of causes vying for
Christian attention and support – how can I decide between them?
Second, the overwhelming litany of global misery on display – how can I
care enough? Third, the disconnect between global need and individual
capacity – how can I make any sort of meaningful difference? Each of
these factors pushes us simply to “turn off.”
Going a bit
deeper than that, though, I think another real problem is the
commodification of causes – which is also the “causification” of
commodities – resulting in Christian antipathy toward genuine political
commitments.
What I mean is this: today, anything can be a cause. I
saw an ad for some soda that said something like, “Drink X, join the
movement.” Really? What movement is that? The protest language of the
1960s evolved out of the need to articulate identity and worth for
minority-status groups, around race, gender, sexuality. But today,
consumerism means that our identities are formed by consumptive
preferences: the amalgam of brands and choices that we use to construct
and identify our selves. (Incidentally, this is the point of my first
book, Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age.)
Today’s consumerist identity-formation project has coopted the movement
rhetoric of the 60s. But if everything’s a movement, nothing is.
The
difference between then and now – and I think that people are not
paying sufficient attention to this – is that our cultural logic is
shifting from the political to the economic. Genuine political
commitments require shared commitment to a common cause,
across individual differences. An economic cultural paradigm, however,
tolerates nearly infinite fragmentation into niche micro-markets. And
that’s why so many causes today seem unsatisfying. They’re often not
about a big, audacious, common commitment, but rather are the
expressions of one particular community’s preferences, however
well-intentioned. The apotheosis of identity politics is the market, a
bazaar of causes – and the end of politics altogether.
I can’t help but think of the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr and his vision ofthe whole of Christian life. There is a “heroic journey” for many young people,especially young men — and setting out to change the world through activism caneasily be wrapped up in our own delusions of heroism. You even have a chaptercalled “Don’t Be a Hero.” For Rohr, what’s critical is how we respond when ouryouthful vision of religious heroism is thrown down. Do you see it similarly? Doescause fatigue provide a teachable moment?
I’m
embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read Richard Rohr, though he’s on
my reading list, and your question just bumped him to the front of the
line! So, without claiming to speak directly to his work, I’ll just say
that the logic of the hero’s journey is as compelling as it is deeply
problematic for Christians. For example, the trope of “slaying the
dragon” pervades the activist sensibility: what’s the big bad thing that
I need to get rid of? But the Christian life is not a call to save the
world. It is the proclamation that God has done so in Jesus Christ. And
so the hero’s journey for the mature Christian is slaying the dragon
inside myself. It is putting to the sword that in me that which hates
God, which hates being saved, which wants to be the savior, which loves redemptive violence.
In
that sense, yes, cause fatigue is absolutely a teachable moment.
Because it’s the moment just after I’ve realized that the world has more
monsters than I have swords to swing, and that the most ferocious of
all of them is beating away beneath my ribcage.
How does a proper understanding of calling or vocation help? Can you flesh thatout?
In
the book I talk at length about vocation entailing an acceptance of
limitations and finitude. If I’m called to this, I’m not called to that.
There’s an opportunity cost to deep commitments. We’re seeing this
lived out in the number of Christians who are deciding to pour out their
lives in one city, one place. Christianity Today’s “This Is Our
City” project tells a lot of these stories, and people like Shane
Claiborne in Philly and Leroy Barber in Atlanta come to mind.
Of
course, our singular calling is to follow the discipline of Jesus
Christ, and in so doing grow in resemblance to his image. But the beauty
of an incarnational faith is that this conformity can take billions
upon billions of forms. So the question to each of us is “what/where/how
has God given me to be?” And starting with that understanding,
rather than frantically running from crisis to global crisis, we can
discern how it is that each of us might pour out our lives in love of
God and neighbor over the long haul.
Hebrews 11 talks about the
Old Testament saints “welcoming from a distance” the promises of God.
That’s how I think we’re supposed to relate to the coming kingdom where
pain and crying and death will be no more. We welcome it from a
distance. And that transforms our every today.
It’s now been 10 years since the launch of the Iraq War. And some
religionists have exploited the anniversary as a time for national
regret and spiritual repentance.
Former McCormick Theological Seminary President Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, in a Washington Post online
column, represents many of these voices by condemning the Iraq War as a
“moral, fiscal and geopolitical disaster for the United States,” which
“broke the rules of war by ignoring them or so completely ‘re-defining’
them that they lost their meaning.”
Thistlethwaite cites “enhanced
interrogation,” which is really “torture,” while also remembering the
degradation at Abu Ghraib, as evidence of America having “lost our
soul.” She also cites polls ostensibly showing most evangelicals
support “torture,” although she declines really to define “torture,” as
many critics of “enhanced interrogation” have.
The
Iraq War was a “war of choice, a pre-emptive war,” violating Just War
principles, Thistlethwaite also complained. The early church was
“pacifist,” she asserts, and Augustine and Aquinas developed Just War to
emphasize “self-defense” and defense of the “vulnerable other.”
Instead, the U.S. waged a “preventive war” with an absence of “imminent”
threat and with no discoverable weapons of mass destruction, which she
rather conspiratorially claims the U.S. government actually knew. She
also claims that pre-emptive war has been “subtly corrosive” and
facilitated public support for the U.S. drone program as “ pre-emptive violence.”
Thistlethwaite
asserts that the Iraq War created “more terrorists” and “more enemies”
instead of “reducing the threat to our nation from terrorism.” She
concludes: “Ten years is a long time and it is long past time for the
people of the United States, and our leaders, to engage in
self-examination in how we got to such a state that we are willing to
unilaterally attack another nation, engage in torture, deceive about the
pretext for war, and count the real costs, morally, fiscally and
geopolitically.”
In a similar but more explicitly pacifist vein,
Florida pastor and peace activist Craig Watts, writing for Tony
Campolo’s “Red Letter Christians,” denounces the Iraq War as “immoral
and unjust.” Indeed, “only those who view the world through the
thickest ideological lens and those who have benefited the most
economically claim the war was ‘worth it.’” He cites 134,000 dead
Iraqis, nearly 4500 U.S. dead service personnel and 3400 U.S.
contractors killed. He claims “increased radicalism in the region.”
And he also notes the exodus of Iraqi Christians since the war. “The
American public and nationalistically inclined religious leaders too
quickly and uncritically accepted the dubious justifications for
invading Iraq,” Watts claims, specifically criticizing U.S. evangelicals
for supporting the war. Unlike Thistlethwaite, he does not cite Just
War teaching, because presumably he does not believe in it.
Watts
and Thistlethwaite, like most secular critics of the war, don’t dwell on
the downside of Saddam Hussein’s reign, nor do they describe preferred
alternatives to removing Saddam circa 2003 or beyond. Their critique
would be more serious if it admitted Saddam directly murdered hundreds
of thousands, while robbing, torturing and raping many more, waged war
against at least 4 of his neighbors, was effectively still at war with
the U.S. and other coalition nations since the ceasefire of the 1990
Persian Gulf War, had ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had
attempted to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush, was funding
Palestinian terrorism, had links with a network of terror groups
including al Qaeda (although not an ongoing collaborative relationship,
as the 9-11 Commission specified), had joined Afghanistan’s Taliban
regime as one of only two governments in the world to publicly endorse
9-11, had an ongoing chemical warfare program that was resurrecting
although lacking discoverable, deployable weapons, and was exploiting
the international sanctions against his further weapons procurement to
enrich himself and his Baathist Party at the expense of reputedly
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were prematurely dying for lack of
food, clean water, and medicines, even as those international sanctions
were eroding, thanks partly to Russians, French and others who were
themselves profiteering off Iraqi oil.
The war critics, religious
and otherwise, usually omit that Saddam’s continued reign required an
ongoing U.S. troops presence in Saudi Arabia, which was politically
problematic and perhaps unsustainable. Osama bin Laden cited this
infidel presence in the land of the Prophet as a specific motive of
9-11. There was also in 2003 the by then 13 year U.S. and British air
force no-fly zones imposed upon Iraq to prevent Saddam’s further
slaughter of the Kurds to the north and Shiites in the south. This
largely humanitarian military project was perhaps also unsustainable and
would now be 23 years old. Of course, Saddam’s rule also necessitated
U.S. troops in Kuwait, which he previously invaded.
Hardheaded
realists have argued and do argue that continued military containment of
Saddam, even with all his ongoing murderous horrors, was preferable to
war in 2003. These realists are at least transparently consistent. But
more idealistic religious critics of the Iraq War, and of usually all
wars, simplistically assert a stark choice between war and peace,
without admitting more may die and suffer from a supposed peace than
from war, or that avoidance of war may in fact only delay it, often
facilitating an even wider and more horrific war.
Christian
pacifists of today reject all war at all times, while only rarely
admitting the increased suffering that may actually result. Many
religionists who profess Just War adherence often demand maximalist,
unattainable standards that default towards a functional pacifism.
Actual policymakers, many of whom are often Christian and seriously
regard church teachings, cannot and should not heed utopian demands from
academics, activists and clergy who intone from on high and do not
plausibly transmit the Just War tradition to which the vast majority of
The Church has long adhered.
Serious Christians must apply their
teachings with discernment about the real world, not a preferred dream
sequence. There must also be historical perspective. Would the world
really be better today if Saddam’s murderous Baathist regime were still
in place? How so? American anti-war activists, religious and otherwise,
have been in high dungeon since the Vietnam War, but rarely if ever
consider the genocide, slavery and suffering that ensued after the U.S.
withdrawal they sought. The Korean War killed 10 times as many
Americans and Koreans as the Iraq War, and was far more disastrous in
many ways, leaving North Korea’s tyranny in place and South Korea a
dictatorship for another 40 years. Yet historically, 60 years later, it
is now considered a measured success, a key moment in the West’s
survival during the Cold War that spared now prosperous and democratic
South Koreans from North Korea’s dark, impoverished servitude. World
War II was the “good war” that killed over 400,000 Americans in under 4
years and that entailed the U.S. air force’s incinerating countless
German and Japanese cities while in alliance with a Stalinist tyranny
little if at all morally better than the Nazis, and leaving half of
Europe in captivity to that surviving tyranny. And yet the alternatives
were even worse.
The U.S. war most resembling Iraq was the now
largely forgotten Philippines Insurrection after the Spanish American
War, which killed about the same number of Americans, with Filipino
deaths on par with Iraqis. U.S. forces were accused of torture and
atrocities against the guerrillas. Like Thistlethwaite, critics of U.S.
imperialism like Mark Twain and William Jennings Bryan warned America
would lose its soul. At the start, President William McKinley told his
fellow Methodists he chose to retain the Philippines for America after
prayerful consideration that other imperial empires would have gobbled
them up otherwise. Likely he was right, and probably Japan would have
seized the Philippines about that time as it did Korea, inflicting
decades of notorious cruelty until overthrown by American force of arms
over 40 years later.
Christians must address the world as it is,
not as we wish, advancing incremental justice when possible, with the
available instruments at hand. We must realize that power vacuums will
always be filled by some force, and some earthly powers are decidedly
preferable to others. We also have to admit that all human endeavors,
warlike or peaceful, even when noble, are flawed by human sin and finite
wisdom, and usually will have unintended negative consequences.
Sometimes relative justice has been advanced by the severity of war.
And sometimes injustice and disaster are precipitated by the inept
pursuit of peace.
In his marvelous new book Shaking Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda,
United Methodist theologian William Abraham of Southern Methodist
University notes the “world is shot through with evil and sin; people
deliberately and systematically reject the full resources of grace in
their private and public lives; the default position in human life is
war not peace.” Theologically grounded Christians should understand
this basic truth, but how many truly do?
Americans of both left
and right, religious and otherwise, are inherently idealistic and often
expect a perfection impossible in war or peace. Such perfection will
be possible only when God’s Kingdom is fully consummated. Until then,
Christians can modestly work for what is attainable by God’s grace.
The book of Hebrews is the grand
finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman
fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the
Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the
twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a
different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two
curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad
and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For the Morgan House freshmen,
Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes
tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson
House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes
the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie
Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of
the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament
histories and Hebrews.
Beginning with Greek epics and
ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester
since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have
been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The
reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it
works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the
epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and
then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable how well the classic
works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read
at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read
Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson
House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and
fall in Paradise Lost.
The connections between the classics
and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to
Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of
Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action
(in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the
divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first
significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who
have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and
Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and
Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in
Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If the Old Testament books
recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of
Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the
classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old
Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant
he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The
author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of
Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is
greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on
Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests
and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike
the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can
enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ
has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that
there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with
Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it
with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan
House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we
see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and
then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to
come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being
a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he
like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out
of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into
holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the
presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental
fireworks start exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting
finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites
all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of
the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly
foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has
reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to the freshmen “in many
times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in
Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”
The
book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey
Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s
two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a
roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in
senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each
semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a
significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For
the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to
Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some
philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s
epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning
with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic
plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other
semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic
places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester
has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is
let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante)
open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the
Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable
how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for
the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students
reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account
of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just
finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The
connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis
1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman,
who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words”
(the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of
the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine
blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first
significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen,
who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in
Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in
the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to
their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If
the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books
earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and
transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be
expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its
foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has
inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The
author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order
of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that
Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater
tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater
priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater
sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who
perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the
Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has
inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that
there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ
can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in
mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy
or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman
who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in
this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and
then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good
things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews
10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about
Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not
knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a
verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with
hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on
our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start
exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first
semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in
heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory
of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows.
Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached
humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to
the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read
in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he
speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf
The
book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey
Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s
two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a
roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in
senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each
semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a
significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For
the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to
Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some
philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s
epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning
with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic
plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other
semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic
places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester
has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is
let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante)
open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the
Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable
how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for
the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students
reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account
of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just
finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The
connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis
1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman,
who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words”
(the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of
the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine
blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first
significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen,
who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in
Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in
the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to
their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If
the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books
earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and
transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be
expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its
foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has
inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The
author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order
of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that
Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater
tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater
priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater
sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who
perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the
Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has
inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that
there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ
can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in
mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy
or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman
who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in
this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and
then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good
things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews
10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about
Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not
knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a
verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with
hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on
our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start
exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first
semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in
heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory
of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows.
Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached
humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to
the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read
in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he
speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf
The
book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey
Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s
two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a
roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in
senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each
semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a
significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For
the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to
Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some
philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s
epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning
with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic
plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other
semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic
places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester
has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is
let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante)
open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the
Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable
how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for
the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students
reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account
of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just
finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The
connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis
1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman,
who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words”
(the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of
the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine
blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first
significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen,
who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in
Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in
the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to
their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If
the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books
earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and
transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be
expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its
foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has
inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The
author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order
of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that
Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater
tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater
priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater
sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who
perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the
Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has
inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that
there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ
can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in
mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy
or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman
who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in
this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and
then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good
things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews
10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about
Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not
knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a
verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with
hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on
our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start
exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first
semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in
heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory
of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows.
Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached
humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to
the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read
in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he
speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf
The
book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey
Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s
two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a
roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in
senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each
semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a
significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For
the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to
Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some
philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s
epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning
with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic
plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other
semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic
places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester
has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is
let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante)
open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the
Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable
how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for
the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students
reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account
of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just
finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The
connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis
1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman,
who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words”
(the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of
the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine
blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first
significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen,
who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in
Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in
the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to
their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If
the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books
earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and
transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be
expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its
foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has
inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The
author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order
of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that
Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater
tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater
priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater
sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who
perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the
Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has
inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that
there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ
can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in
mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy
or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman
who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in
this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and
then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good
things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews
10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about
Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not
knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a
verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with
hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on
our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start
exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first
semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in
heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory
of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows.
Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached
humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to
the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read
in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he
speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen, brother: If you don’t want
your children to roast forever in hell, you should buy this teddy bear from
John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product
commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently on his blog.
You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial has since
vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for Barnabas, the
Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here. Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly
companion” that quotes nine Bible verses. The video shows a little girl
who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all the biblical wisdom out of this poor
talking bear.
Since Matthew Paul Turner was
snarking about the bear, and since I’m a contrarian, I was prepared to
counter-snark. I don’t find the bear “creepy,” as MPT did. But I
did find the advertisement strategy rather loathsome. It was just about
that stark: You don’t want your kids burning in hell, right? God has made
you responsible to deliver them from the hands of Lucifer. Ergo, you
should buy this teddy bear, which by the way my son Matthew Hagee helped
develop, and which also brings money into John Hagee ministries through our online store. If you
don’t buy this bear, then you just may be falling short in your obligation to
save your kids from hell. Perhaps the Hagees reconsidered their
hellfire-missile marketing strategy and that’s why they removed the video.
If so, good for them.
This is all a very, very pointed way
of bringing up a question I’ve been mulling recently, and a question I intend
to address in a series of posts here in the coming weeks. I’ll frame the
question in more nuanced ways as the series goes along. Even now, my
savvier readers will find themselves crying out for distinctions. The
distinctions will come. But let me start by putting it broadly:
What is the value of Christian
culture?
It’s become popular in more
fashionable evangelical circles to cheer the demise of American cultural Christendom.
Gabe Lyons (whom I like) proclaims “The Good News About the End of
Christian America.” The assertion seems to be that the collapse
of “Christian America” will clear the way for a more pristine Christian
community and confession — one that would, in the words of World Vision’s Richard
Stearns, be more “authentic,” more “back to basics.” We could
stop fighting over the Ten Commandments at courthouses and manger scenes in
city parks, and instead focus on, you know, serving the least of these and
living lives in the imitation of Christ. It’s a festival and false
dichotomies in a carnival of caricatures, but here’s what Stearns says:
There was a time when Pastor Curry
might have worried about things like posting the Ten Commandments in
courtrooms, but today he’s too busy changing the city of Tacoma and world. This
is the work Christians are called to do. Christians can stop worrying about the
symbols of the decline of Christian America and get back to the mission Jesus
gave us to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the
great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his forgiveness
and his reconciliation.
It all sounds so patently obvious,
doesn’t it? So obvious that you wonder how anyone could possibly disagree.
Stop fighting for political power. Stop scrambling to protect the
vestigia of Christian culture. Stop worrying so much. (Hey man,)
They’re only symbols. Focus on the substance of Jesus’ mission.
Just love the world.
It’s at this point that I find the
slow bilious burn of skepticism rising up in my throat. Aren’t symbols
important? Don’t they remind us of important truths? Don’t they, at
least potentially, have a leavening effect upon the culture? And aren’t
we talking about more than mere symbols anyway? Aren’t we talking about a
whole set of assumptions and ideals about the true, the good and the beautiful?
While a cultural hegemony can certainly be abused, and may be gone for
good, aren’t there things to be said for a cultural pervasiveness, for sowing
seeds of divine truth and goodness and beauty into the culture?
”Christian America” can mean, after all, about a thousand different
things.
In my thirty-six years, I’ve lived
in/around the San Francisco Bay Area, in Princeton, in Cambridge/Boston and now
in Atlanta. I was prepared to find the “Christian culture” of the South
off-putting. I expected to find it superficial, artificial, hypocritical.
But that’s not really what I found. I’m sure it’s out there. I
expected to find lots of plastic-grin men and big-haired women for whom being
“Christian” was all about listening to Steven Curtis Chapman, reading Karen
Kingsbury and plastering Thomas Kinkade on every wall. Instead I’ve found
a lot of people who are deeply earnest about their faith and willing to make
dramatic sacrifices for it. And if they have Christian kitsch on the
walls it’s because they want to remind themselves of the truths they hold dear.
So I’m left with a question I intend
to address in a series of thought experiments here: What value Christian
culture? What can we really expect to happen to our society if it’s
increasingly uprooted from the classical Judeo-Christian cultural inheritance?
What if it would actually be unloving in the extreme to evacuate the
culture of Christian symbols, to dilute the pervasiveness of Christian cultural
assumptions? Or, to put it more pointedly, while I abhor the way in which
Barnabas was advertised, is there a place for Bible Bears?
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpufsdfasd
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpufASDfasdf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.9ItcnDDv.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpufawdasdf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
- See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
Since
Matthew Paul Turner was snarking about the bear, and since I’m a
contrarian, I was prepared to counter-snark. I don’t find the bear
“creepy,” as MPT did. But I did find the advertisement strategy rather
loathsome. It was just about that stark: You don’t want your kids
burning in hell, right? God has made you responsible to deliver them
from the hands of Lucifer. Ergo, you should buy this teddy bear, which
by the way my son Matthew Hagee helped develop, and which also brings
money into John Hagee ministries through our online store. If you don’t buy this bear, then you just may be falling short in your obligation to save your kids from hell.
Perhaps the Hagees reconsidered their hellfire-missile marketing
strategy and that’s why they removed the video. If so, good for them.
This
is all a very, very pointed way of bringing up a question I’ve been
mulling recently, and a question I intend to address in a series of
posts here in the coming weeks. I’ll frame the question in more nuanced
ways as the series goes along. Even now, my savvier readers will find
themselves crying out for distinctions. The distinctions will come.
But let me start by putting it broadly: What is the value of Christian culture?
It’s
become popular in more fashionable evangelical circles to cheer the
demise of American cultural Christendom. Gabe Lyons (whom I like)
proclaims “The Good News About the End of Christian America.”
The assertion seems to be that the collapse of “Christian America”
will clear the way for a more pristine Christian community and
confession — one that would, in the words of World Vision’s Richard Stearns,
be more “authentic,” more “back to basics.” We could stop fighting
over the Ten Commandments at courthouses and manger scenes in city
parks, and instead focus on, you know, serving the least of these and
living lives in the imitation of Christ. It’s a festival and false
dichotomies in a carnival of caricatures, but here’s what Stearns says:
There
was a time when Pastor Curry might have worried about things like
posting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, but today he’s too busy
changing the city of Tacoma and world. This is the work Christians are
called to do. Christians can stop worrying about the symbols of the
decline of Christian America and get back to the mission Jesus gave us
to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the
great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his
forgiveness and his reconciliation.
It all sounds so
patently obvious, doesn’t it? So obvious that you wonder how anyone
could possibly disagree. Stop fighting for political power. Stop
scrambling to protect the vestigia of Christian culture. Stop worrying
so much. (Hey man,) They’re only symbols. Focus on the substance of Jesus’ mission. Just love the world.
It’s
at this point that I find the slow bilious burn of skepticism rising up
in my throat. Aren’t symbols important? Don’t they remind us of
important truths? Don’t they, at least potentially, have a leavening
effect upon the culture? And aren’t we talking about more than mere
symbols anyway? Aren’t we talking about a whole set of assumptions and
ideals about the true, the good and the beautiful? While a cultural
hegemony can certainly be abused, and may be gone for good, aren’t there
things to be said for a cultural pervasiveness, for sowing seeds of
divine truth and goodness and beauty into the culture? ”Christian
America” can mean, after all, about a thousand different things.
In
my thirty-six years, I’ve lived in/around the San Francisco Bay Area,
in Princeton, in Cambridge/Boston and now in Atlanta. I was prepared to
find the “Christian culture” of the South off-putting. I expected to
find it superficial, artificial, hypocritical. But that’s not really
what I found. I’m sure it’s out there. I expected to find lots of
plastic-grin men and big-haired women for whom being “Christian” was all
about listening to Steven Curtis Chapman, reading Karen Kingsbury and
plastering Thomas Kinkade on every wall. Instead I’ve found a lot of
people who are deeply earnest about their faith and willing to make
dramatic sacrifices for it. And if they have Christian kitsch on the
walls it’s because they want to remind themselves of the truths they
hold dear.
So I’m left with a question I intend to address in a
series of thought experiments here: What value Christian culture? What
can we really expect to happen to our society if it’s increasingly
uprooted from the classical Judeo-Christian cultural inheritance? What
if it would actually be unloving in the extreme to evacuate the culture
of Christian symbols, to dilute the pervasiveness of Christian cultural
assumptions? Or, to put it more pointedly, while I abhor the way in
which Barnabas was advertised, is there a place for Bible Bears?
-
See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.OebZ9dPk.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
Since
Matthew Paul Turner was snarking about the bear, and since I’m a
contrarian, I was prepared to counter-snark. I don’t find the bear
“creepy,” as MPT did. But I did find the advertisement strategy rather
loathsome. It was just about that stark: You don’t want your kids
burning in hell, right? God has made you responsible to deliver them
from the hands of Lucifer. Ergo, you should buy this teddy bear, which
by the way my son Matthew Hagee helped develop, and which also brings
money into John Hagee ministries through our online store. If you don’t buy this bear, then you just may be falling short in your obligation to save your kids from hell.
Perhaps the Hagees reconsidered their hellfire-missile marketing
strategy and that’s why they removed the video. If so, good for them.
This
is all a very, very pointed way of bringing up a question I’ve been
mulling recently, and a question I intend to address in a series of
posts here in the coming weeks. I’ll frame the question in more nuanced
ways as the series goes along. Even now, my savvier readers will find
themselves crying out for distinctions. The distinctions will come.
But let me start by putting it broadly: What is the value of Christian culture?
It’s
become popular in more fashionable evangelical circles to cheer the
demise of American cultural Christendom. Gabe Lyons (whom I like)
proclaims “The Good News About the End of Christian America.”
The assertion seems to be that the collapse of “Christian America”
will clear the way for a more pristine Christian community and
confession — one that would, in the words of World Vision’s Richard Stearns,
be more “authentic,” more “back to basics.” We could stop fighting
over the Ten Commandments at courthouses and manger scenes in city
parks, and instead focus on, you know, serving the least of these and
living lives in the imitation of Christ. It’s a festival and false
dichotomies in a carnival of caricatures, but here’s what Stearns says:
There
was a time when Pastor Curry might have worried about things like
posting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, but today he’s too busy
changing the city of Tacoma and world. This is the work Christians are
called to do. Christians can stop worrying about the symbols of the
decline of Christian America and get back to the mission Jesus gave us
to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the
great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his
forgiveness and his reconciliation.
It all sounds so
patently obvious, doesn’t it? So obvious that you wonder how anyone
could possibly disagree. Stop fighting for political power. Stop
scrambling to protect the vestigia of Christian culture. Stop worrying
so much. (Hey man,) They’re only symbols. Focus on the substance of Jesus’ mission. Just love the world.
It’s
at this point that I find the slow bilious burn of skepticism rising up
in my throat. Aren’t symbols important? Don’t they remind us of
important truths? Don’t they, at least potentially, have a leavening
effect upon the culture? And aren’t we talking about more than mere
symbols anyway? Aren’t we talking about a whole set of assumptions and
ideals about the true, the good and the beautiful? While a cultural
hegemony can certainly be abused, and may be gone for good, aren’t there
things to be said for a cultural pervasiveness, for sowing seeds of
divine truth and goodness and beauty into the culture? ”Christian
America” can mean, after all, about a thousand different things.
In
my thirty-six years, I’ve lived in/around the San Francisco Bay Area,
in Princeton, in Cambridge/Boston and now in Atlanta. I was prepared to
find the “Christian culture” of the South off-putting. I expected to
find it superficial, artificial, hypocritical. But that’s not really
what I found. I’m sure it’s out there. I expected to find lots of
plastic-grin men and big-haired women for whom being “Christian” was all
about listening to Steven Curtis Chapman, reading Karen Kingsbury and
plastering Thomas Kinkade on every wall. Instead I’ve found a lot of
people who are deeply earnest about their faith and willing to make
dramatic sacrifices for it. And if they have Christian kitsch on the
walls it’s because they want to remind themselves of the truths they
hold dear.
So I’m left with a question I intend to address in a
series of thought experiments here: What value Christian culture? What
can we really expect to happen to our society if it’s increasingly
uprooted from the classical Judeo-Christian cultural inheritance? What
if it would actually be unloving in the extreme to evacuate the culture
of Christian symbols, to dilute the pervasiveness of Christian cultural
assumptions? Or, to put it more pointedly, while I abhor the way in
which Barnabas was advertised, is there a place for Bible Bears?
-
See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.xDrFNLeX.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
Since
Matthew Paul Turner was snarking about the bear, and since I’m a
contrarian, I was prepared to counter-snark. I don’t find the bear
“creepy,” as MPT did. But I did find the advertisement strategy rather
loathsome. It was just about that stark: You don’t want your kids
burning in hell, right? God has made you responsible to deliver them
from the hands of Lucifer. Ergo, you should buy this teddy bear, which
by the way my son Matthew Hagee helped develop, and which also brings
money into John Hagee ministries through our online store. If you don’t buy this bear, then you just may be falling short in your obligation to save your kids from hell.
Perhaps the Hagees reconsidered their hellfire-missile marketing
strategy and that’s why they removed the video. If so, good for them.
This
is all a very, very pointed way of bringing up a question I’ve been
mulling recently, and a question I intend to address in a series of
posts here in the coming weeks. I’ll frame the question in more nuanced
ways as the series goes along. Even now, my savvier readers will find
themselves crying out for distinctions. The distinctions will come.
But let me start by putting it broadly: What is the value of Christian culture?
It’s
become popular in more fashionable evangelical circles to cheer the
demise of American cultural Christendom. Gabe Lyons (whom I like)
proclaims “The Good News About the End of Christian America.”
The assertion seems to be that the collapse of “Christian America”
will clear the way for a more pristine Christian community and
confession — one that would, in the words of World Vision’s Richard Stearns,
be more “authentic,” more “back to basics.” We could stop fighting
over the Ten Commandments at courthouses and manger scenes in city
parks, and instead focus on, you know, serving the least of these and
living lives in the imitation of Christ. It’s a festival and false
dichotomies in a carnival of caricatures, but here’s what Stearns says:
There
was a time when Pastor Curry might have worried about things like
posting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, but today he’s too busy
changing the city of Tacoma and world. This is the work Christians are
called to do. Christians can stop worrying about the symbols of the
decline of Christian America and get back to the mission Jesus gave us
to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the
great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his
forgiveness and his reconciliation.
It all sounds so
patently obvious, doesn’t it? So obvious that you wonder how anyone
could possibly disagree. Stop fighting for political power. Stop
scrambling to protect the vestigia of Christian culture. Stop worrying
so much. (Hey man,) They’re only symbols. Focus on the substance of Jesus’ mission. Just love the world.
It’s
at this point that I find the slow bilious burn of skepticism rising up
in my throat. Aren’t symbols important? Don’t they remind us of
important truths? Don’t they, at least potentially, have a leavening
effect upon the culture? And aren’t we talking about more than mere
symbols anyway? Aren’t we talking about a whole set of assumptions and
ideals about the true, the good and the beautiful? While a cultural
hegemony can certainly be abused, and may be gone for good, aren’t there
things to be said for a cultural pervasiveness, for sowing seeds of
divine truth and goodness and beauty into the culture? ”Christian
America” can mean, after all, about a thousand different things.
In
my thirty-six years, I’ve lived in/around the San Francisco Bay Area,
in Princeton, in Cambridge/Boston and now in Atlanta. I was prepared to
find the “Christian culture” of the South off-putting. I expected to
find it superficial, artificial, hypocritical. But that’s not really
what I found. I’m sure it’s out there. I expected to find lots of
plastic-grin men and big-haired women for whom being “Christian” was all
about listening to Steven Curtis Chapman, reading Karen Kingsbury and
plastering Thomas Kinkade on every wall. Instead I’ve found a lot of
people who are deeply earnest about their faith and willing to make
dramatic sacrifices for it. And if they have Christian kitsch on the
walls it’s because they want to remind themselves of the truths they
hold dear.
So I’m left with a question I intend to address in a
series of thought experiments here: What value Christian culture? What
can we really expect to happen to our society if it’s increasingly
uprooted from the classical Judeo-Christian cultural inheritance? What
if it would actually be unloving in the extreme to evacuate the culture
of Christian symbols, to dilute the pervasiveness of Christian cultural
assumptions? Or, to put it more pointedly, while I abhor the way in
which Barnabas was advertised, is there a place for Bible Bears?
-
See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.xDrFNLeX.dpuf
Listen,
brother: If you don’t want your children to roast forever in hell, you
should buy this teddy bear from John Hagee ministries.
That was the message of a product commercial that Matthew Paul Turner noted recently
on his blog. You’ll have to take my word for it, since the commercial
has since vanished from the interwebs. But you can see a basic ad for
Barnabas, the Bible Bear, sans John Hagee, here.
Barnabas is a “soft, cuddly companion” that quotes nine Bible verses.
The video shows a little girl who is sweetly addicted to squeezing all
the biblical wisdom out of this poor talking bear.
Since
Matthew Paul Turner was snarking about the bear, and since I’m a
contrarian, I was prepared to counter-snark. I don’t find the bear
“creepy,” as MPT did. But I did find the advertisement strategy rather
loathsome. It was just about that stark: You don’t want your kids
burning in hell, right? God has made you responsible to deliver them
from the hands of Lucifer. Ergo, you should buy this teddy bear, which
by the way my son Matthew Hagee helped develop, and which also brings
money into John Hagee ministries through our online store. If you don’t buy this bear, then you just may be falling short in your obligation to save your kids from hell.
Perhaps the Hagees reconsidered their hellfire-missile marketing
strategy and that’s why they removed the video. If so, good for them.
This
is all a very, very pointed way of bringing up a question I’ve been
mulling recently, and a question I intend to address in a series of
posts here in the coming weeks. I’ll frame the question in more nuanced
ways as the series goes along. Even now, my savvier readers will find
themselves crying out for distinctions. The distinctions will come.
But let me start by putting it broadly: What is the value of Christian culture?
It’s
become popular in more fashionable evangelical circles to cheer the
demise of American cultural Christendom. Gabe Lyons (whom I like)
proclaims “The Good News About the End of Christian America.”
The assertion seems to be that the collapse of “Christian America”
will clear the way for a more pristine Christian community and
confession — one that would, in the words of World Vision’s Richard Stearns,
be more “authentic,” more “back to basics.” We could stop fighting
over the Ten Commandments at courthouses and manger scenes in city
parks, and instead focus on, you know, serving the least of these and
living lives in the imitation of Christ. It’s a festival and false
dichotomies in a carnival of caricatures, but here’s what Stearns says:
There
was a time when Pastor Curry might have worried about things like
posting the Ten Commandments in courtrooms, but today he’s too busy
changing the city of Tacoma and world. This is the work Christians are
called to do. Christians can stop worrying about the symbols of the
decline of Christian America and get back to the mission Jesus gave us
to show the world a different way to live — a way that demonstrates the
great character of God: his love, his justice, his compassion, his
forgiveness and his reconciliation.
It all sounds so
patently obvious, doesn’t it? So obvious that you wonder how anyone
could possibly disagree. Stop fighting for political power. Stop
scrambling to protect the vestigia of Christian culture. Stop worrying
so much. (Hey man,) They’re only symbols. Focus on the substance of Jesus’ mission. Just love the world.
It’s
at this point that I find the slow bilious burn of skepticism rising up
in my throat. Aren’t symbols important? Don’t they remind us of
important truths? Don’t they, at least potentially, have a leavening
effect upon the culture? And aren’t we talking about more than mere
symbols anyway? Aren’t we talking about a whole set of assumptions and
ideals about the true, the good and the beautiful? While a cultural
hegemony can certainly be abused, and may be gone for good, aren’t there
things to be said for a cultural pervasiveness, for sowing seeds of
divine truth and goodness and beauty into the culture? ”Christian
America” can mean, after all, about a thousand different things.
In
my thirty-six years, I’ve lived in/around the San Francisco Bay Area,
in Princeton, in Cambridge/Boston and now in Atlanta. I was prepared to
find the “Christian culture” of the South off-putting. I expected to
find it superficial, artificial, hypocritical. But that’s not really
what I found. I’m sure it’s out there. I expected to find lots of
plastic-grin men and big-haired women for whom being “Christian” was all
about listening to Steven Curtis Chapman, reading Karen Kingsbury and
plastering Thomas Kinkade on every wall. Instead I’ve found a lot of
people who are deeply earnest about their faith and willing to make
dramatic sacrifices for it. And if they have Christian kitsch on the
walls it’s because they want to remind themselves of the truths they
hold dear.
So I’m left with a question I intend to address in a
series of thought experiments here: What value Christian culture? What
can we really expect to happen to our society if it’s increasingly
uprooted from the classical Judeo-Christian cultural inheritance? What
if it would actually be unloving in the extreme to evacuate the culture
of Christian symbols, to dilute the pervasiveness of Christian cultural
assumptions? Or, to put it more pointedly, while I abhor the way in
which Barnabas was advertised, is there a place for Bible Bears?
-
See more at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2013/02/26/can-a-teddy-bear-save-your-child-from-hell/#sthash.xDrFNLeX.dpuf
