Month: April 2020

Did Jesus Die and Rise Again to Save Us or to Rule Us?

My title for this post is an attempt at summarizing a current online debate, involving Greg Gilbert, Scott McKight and others, about the nature of the Gospel message in the New Testament.

Honestly, I don’t follow “theological debates” online for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here, so I confess that I am only responding to a good post I read today at Patheos from Michael Bird. (This is a very old, very tired debate.)

Michael is an excellent New Testament scholar, and I recommend that you read his new post, especially if you have been following the debate online. Michael is spot on in his conclusions.

(As a side-note, I originally tried to hook my blog up with the Patheos blog site, but couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do it. Given the site’s  drift towards right-wing craziness, it was probably for the best.)

Michael’s post is entitled The Gospel of the King. Click on the title to read it all.

Or you can read an excerpt below:

“Gilbert wants to make the cross and a transaction within the atonement the centre of the gospel with kingdom and kingship as a kind of back story. McKnight and Bates emphasize Jesus’s kingship, Israel’s story, fulfilment of Scripture with justification and forgiveness as benefits of the gospel. Gilbert is not entirely absent of kingdom/kingship, but neither are McKnight and Bates arguing for ‘mere kingship.’

“Truth be told, I think that Bates and McKnight have the better end of the argument in terms of what the NT emphasizes. If one surveys Acts 2:29-36, 13:32-33, Rom 1:3-4, 1 Cor 15:3-4, and 2 Tim 2:8 then it is pretty hard to deny the fact that the gospel is a king Jesus gospel – it is a bit of slam dunk for my mind. The gospel is a royal summons to believe and obey Jesus as God’s messianic king, a king who has shown his might and power by laying down his life for his people to make them right, forgiven, and reconciled, etc. Or, as I define the gospel in my Evangelical Theology: ‘The gospel is the announcement that God’s kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord and Messiah, in fulfillment of Israel’s Scriptures. The gospel evokes faith, repentance, and discipleship; its accompanying effects include salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

Further on in his post, Michael addresses the New Testament passages that explain “justification by faith,” the touchstone for evangelical orthodoxy in many people’s minds.

I would only add to Michael’s argument by pointing out something that is widely overlooked: the apostle Paul only talks about “justification by faith” in those letters where he is combating some sort of Judaizing influence within the church. “Judaizers” were the folks who insisted that Gentiles must become good Jews in order to become real disciples of Jesus. This meant circumcision and adherence to the Torah.

So, Paul’s argument for “justification by faith alone apart from works (signifying works of the law)” always (maybe I should say only) arose in a very specific polemical environment. That does not offer much of a basis for insisting on its “centrality.”

To my mind the conclusion is pretty obvious.

Justification by faith was not the irreducible, central component to Paul’s way of understanding the work of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

It was one important aspect of the gospel. But not its essence.

For both the root and the branch of the Good News, we must turn to Jesus of Nazareth. What was essential to him?

Read the New Testament Gospels and the answer becomes obvious: the Kingdom of God and the Lordship of Jesus over God’s kingdom.

I just happen to have written a book about it.

The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump

Ron Sider has gathered an impressive group of contributors for what I believe will be a very important and much needed new book, The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth and Moral Integrity.

The book becomes available on June 1st from Wipf & Stock publishers (also the publisher of my next book about Israel-Palestine). I have already pre-ordered my copy, and I am anxious to dig into it.

While the partisan political blindness of the “Court Evangelicals” (to use the extremely apt term coined by historian John Fea, professor at Messiah College) has gone a long way towards identifying the evangelical label with their own far-right, Christian nationalism, this new book is a much needed antidote to their hijacking of the movement.

Here is the publishers’ description:

What should Christians think about Donald Trump? His policies, his style, his personal life?

 Thirty evangelical Christians wrestle with these tough questions. They are Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. They don’t all agree, but they seek to let Christ be the Lord of their political views. They seek to apply biblical standards to difficult debates about our current political situation.

Vast numbers of white evangelicals enthusiastically support Donald Trump. Do biblical standards on truth, justice, life, freedom, and personal integrity warrant or challenge that support? How does that support of President Trump affect the image of Christianity in the larger culture?  Around the world?  Many younger evangelicals today are rejecting evangelical Christianity, even Christianity itself. To what extent is that because of widespread evangelical support for Donald Trump?

 Don’t read this book to find support for your views. Read it to be challenged—with facts, reason, and biblical principles.

With contributions from:
Michael W. Austin
Randall Balmer
Vicki Courtney
Daniel Deitrich
Samuel Escobar
John Fea
Irene Fowler
Mark Galli
J. Colin Harris
Stephen R. Haynes
Matt Henderson
Christopher A. Hutchinson
Bandy X. Lee
David S. Lim
David C. Ludden
Ryan McAnnally-Linz
Steven Meyer
Napp Nazworth
D. Zac Niringiye
Christopher Pieper
Reid Ribble
Ronald J. Sider
Edward G. Simmons
James R. Skillen
James W. Skillen
Julia K. Stronks
Chris Thurman
Miroslav Volf
Peter Wehner
George Yancey

Please, order your copy now, and help to make this book an important factor in educating the church:

  • to regain its footing in the gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than Republican politics
  • to live as citizens of the kingdom of God, rather than “culture warriors” eager to destroy their enemies
  • to prioritize the poor, the needy, the sick, and the disadvantaged, rather than the opulent corporate enrichment policies of president Trump, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Shumer
  • to work as true peace-makers, at home and around the world, rather than cheering on the global war-mongers, happy to expand American Empire at the expense of destroying others

ISIS Says Covid19 is Divine Punishment on Apostates

Today’s edition of Haaretz has an editorial by Fiyaz Mughal explaining the religious logic of Muslim fundamentalists – extremists (to use his word) who are using the corona virus pandemic as a recruitment tool. The headline reads “Jews and Apostate Muslims Deserve Punishment.”

Click on the title above for the entire article. Or read an excerpt below:

” . . . extremist individuals and groups are using this period of trepidation to try and promote hatred, racism and extremism. Their narratives are simple and sound much like a broken record, though they will have some traction with the disaffected, misinformed and unaware. They are feeding off fear, and – especially for modern societies – the unusual and dispiriting experience of individual powerlessness in the face of the pandemic.

“The narratives espoused by Muslim extremists are depressingly familiar: the ‘other’ is blamed. One target is inevitably history’s favorite scapegoat, the Jews. But ordinary Muslims are in the extremists’ sights as well. . . .

“As Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, director of research at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism notes, ‘Jihadis see the [coronavirus as] manifestation of the wrath of God, both upon the non-believers for their rejection of God’s law and crimes against Muslims, and upon those Muslims who have forsaken the duty of Jihad.'”

In a similar vein, the internet is swamped these days with US church “leaders” proclaiming a similar, if not identical, message.

Obviously, one religion’s fundamentalists are not much different from another’s.

Whether “Muslim” or “Christian,” jihadists all sound alike.

I’ll offer only one example. You can easily find more if you look.  Watch the clip below:

So, what’s the difference between this man and an ISIS spokesman?

Idolatrous Israel Continued to Worship Yahweh, Just as Evangelicals Continue to Worship Jesus

The God of Judaism and Christianity does not like company.

Yahweh (for Jews and Christians), the eternal Father of Jesus Christ, the Son

A painting on a large jar from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, presenting two masked figures, a male and a
female. Unlike most publications, the right figure is shown here with no tail or a penis, since it was not
indicated on the original drawing on the jar. The Hebrew inscription above addresses “Yahweh of
Shomron and his Asherah” (After Meshel, Z. 1978. Kuntillet ‘Ajrud: A religious Center from the
Judaean Monarchy on the Border of Sinai. Israel Museum Catalogue No. 75. Jerusalem, Fig 12, with
correction of the right figure).

of God (for Christians), is the one and only creator God throughout both the New Testament and the later writings of the Old.

It’s called monotheism.

Although the Old Testament prophets condemned ancient Israel for both idolatry (the worship of false gods) and apostasy (the abandonment of their religion), their condemnations were aimed at a people who never stopped worshiping Yahweh.

How could that be?

If Israel never stopped worshiping Yahweh, why did the prophets foretell judgment and captivity as divine punishment for abandoning Yahweh?

Israel’s error was their syncretism.

Syncretism is the mixing of different religious elements from a variety of cultural sources. So, I doubt very much if any Israelite ever stopped praying to Yahweh, the God of their fathers. But they added other items of devotion to their liturgies and turned Yahweh into a god of cultural appetites.

Images of Asherah, the Canaanite mother goddess

Read the books of 1 and 2 Kings for its many references to these idolatrous Canaanite additions to Israel’s Yahweh worship. For example, in Canaanite religion, Asherah was the mother goddess of creation who was typically married to a male deity such as Ba’al.

The holy of holies in the Arad temple of southern Judah. The two masseboth towards the back of the small room to the left represent Yahweh and Asherah, his “consort.”

Well, guess what. During their periods of rebellion, the Israelite’s — deciding that they must conform to the society around them — played match-maker and married off their Yahweh to the Canaanites’ Asherah. They even made room for her masseboth (the word for a “standing stone” commonly erected to symbolize a deity) inside the Jerusalem temple (2 Kings 23:6; one of the reasons it was finally destroyed by the  Babylonians)!

No, the Israelites never abandoned their prayers to Yahweh, but they finally bore the brunt of Yahweh’s condemnation because they couldn’t help but “punch up” their worship by adding a few cultural icons to the mix.

So, what does all this have to do with American evangelicalism, you ask?

As I argued in my book, I Pledge Allegiance, our favorite idols are worshiped  through the pervasive influences of nationalism, patriotism, militarism, American exceptionalism, politics, and consumerism. These are the evangelical idols of today.

No, we have not given up worshiping Jesus. Jesus Christ remains the deity on evangelical lips, but he is no longer Jesus of Nazareth.

We worship an image of the Son of God who is wrapped in an American flag, singing the national anthem as He returns on the clouds, swinging a sword to cut down our political enemies (because the opposition must be demonic, never a sincere person with an honest difference of opinion), all in order to protect our materialistic, consumerist way of life.

God bless America!

Today I came across this video of an “Evangelicals for Trump” rally held in a “Christian church.” Take a look (it’s a little over 19 minutes long; this congregation should immediately be stripped of its tax exempt status).

I will give you a preview: it is 19 minutes of idolatry, led by false prophets and pagan priests.

President Trump has replaced the goddess Asherah. He surrounds himself with false teachers who tell him what he wants to hear, just like the false prophets in the days of king Ahab, the apostate.

Red baseball caps, “God Bless America,” and fire-breathing Republican  prophets of Democratic doom have replaced the court prophets that jumped, flailed, and prophesied nationalistic lies for king Ahab and his wife, Jezebel.

Yet, the same fate awaits all false religion, even when the worshipers still call out in the name of Jesus.

The Dangers of Anti-Science Evangelicalism During the Trump Presidency

Rodney Kennedy is a professor at Palmer Theological Seminary. He recently posted an interesting article at Righting America: A forum for scholarly conversation about Christianity, culture, and politics in the US, analyzing evangelicalism’s antagonism to modern science.

Perhaps the most dangerous — at least, from a public health standpoint — expression of the tragic alliance between anti-science evangelicalism and right-wing politics is the decision at Fox News to (1) downplay the dangers of covid19 transmission by (2) demeaning the medical professionals who disagree with Trump and (3) promoting the early end of current stay-at-home orders.

Kennedy’s article is entitled “A Scopes Trial Redux: Evolution, Coronavirus, and the Evangelical War on Science.”

You can read an excerpt below:

“…From the Scopes Trial to the coronavirus pandemic, the pandemonium among evangelicals has always been about opposition to evolution. The symbolic epicenter of the anti-coronavirus movement is the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Inside the tech-savvy Disney theme park edifice is

Anti-Evolution League, at the Scopes Trial, Dayton Tennessee From Literary Digest, July 25, 1925. Image by Mike Licht – Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons

enthroned the king of anti- evolution – Ken Ham. Neither scientist nor theologian he routinely rips apart science and theology. He assures his adoring fans that he doesn’t interpret the Bible; he merely reads it and its message is at once plain and clear. Ham is perhaps the quintessential example of the evangelicals who routinely believe that the Bible gives up its treasures to nothing more complicated than “common sense.” 

“The Creation Museum is the Temple of Doom, as it defiles, denies, and attacks science. Ham’s obsession with painting evolution as the “beast out of the bowels of Darwin” provides the foundational ideology for the anti-coronavirus movement. Behind the mistrust of science and expertise, behind the denial of the pandemic’s scope, behind the spectacle of pastors holding mass services in states where people are fighting for their lives : behind all this is the anti-evolution movement.

“Ken Ham’s message has found ardent support among the millions of evangelical Christians who are easily persuaded that science and scientific expertise is an attack on the Bible, the American way of life, and on Christianity itself. So, it is that the ghosts of fundamentalism’s last stand at the Scopes Monkey Trial have returned in evangelicals like ancient witches and wizards gathering for the triumphant return of Voldemort. At the opening of the Creation Museum Ham expressed this residual resentment against Darrow and spoke of repairing the damage: The Scopes Trial “was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America. We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum.” 

“The declaration of the continuing war could not be clearer. Every week, some business person or politician with evangelical ties adds to the creationist-inspired movement against science movement. Hobby Lobby, in direct violation of orders to be closed, reopened its stores, before announcing they would close again. The mayor of Cummings, GA rescinded his lock-down order and re-opened his city. The governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, has chosen prayer over following the recommendation of health officials. The governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, resisted issuing any order to shut down before relenting by telling the people of Alabama a shutdown was the only way to salvage football season. Jair Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, has appealed to Christian convictions in his call to reopen schools and businesses. 

“But with the coronavirus pandemic, evangelicals may have overplayed their hand, and finally exposed the soft underbelly of their anti-science, anti-intelligence, anti-history bias. Evolution isn’t as scary as COVID-19. Evangelicals may have once again picked the wrong enemy, allowing Americans, who usually pay no attention to evangelicals, to see just how dangerous they can be. This seems like a foolish attack akin to Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. When General Lee told General Pickett to rally his division, Pickett allegedly told him, “Sir I have no division.” When this current battle over science plays itself out, one can only hope that the forces of anti-science evangelicals will have been shredded and sent back to the woods from whence they emerged. Perhaps we will look back and say that the Trump presidency was the “high watermark of the evangelical movement,” before its collapse. If that is the case, it will be a tragic end to a once proud movement.”

Read the entire piece here.

American Health or Global War? Guess Which One Our Government Chooses

Journalist Murtaza Hussain has a good article at The Intercept entitled, “Corona Virus is Exposing How Foreign Crusades Bled America’s Domestic Resources Dry.”

He details some of the ways our entrenched establishment leaders have

Murtaza Hussain

prioritized and heavily funded US military adventurism around the world, leaving the domestic cupboard bare in the face of national emergencies like the one we now face.

I have an excerpt below, or click on the title above to see the full article.

But first let me also plug the newest film (16:30) from journalist Abby Martin at The Empire Files. It is called “US Empire Exploits COVID-19 For More War.” Click on the title to watch.

Abby graphically explains the president’s escalation of US military attacks around the world, few of which have received any coverage in the corporate media, while the public is distracted by the corona virus pandemic.

Here is the article excerpt:

“THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC now ravaging the United States should lead every American to a series of important questions: What are the real threats that I face? What has my government been prioritizing in terms of my — and the nation’s — security? And where has all my tax money been going?

“Considering these questions, it’s hard not to conclude that the American government’s national security priorities have been so askew of reality that they

left the country dramatically unprepared for an acute threat to millions of its people.

“. . . Over a period of two decades, the United States spent trillions of dollars waging wars and occupations across the region. These confrontations have won America an ever-growing list of enemies around the world. They are still making life miserable for millions in the Middle East. But their impact on the United States itself is now also being painfully revealed: a country that has spent trillions on foreign wars but is unable to defend its citizens from basic threats like disease and economic collapse.

“The last few weeks have revealed a spectacle of a federal government apparently incapable of doing what is required to stop the spread of a pandemic

An Italian nurse falls asleep during a night shift at a hospital in Cremona, Italy March 8, 2020. Francesca Mangiatordi/@france_exa/via REUTERS.- THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. MANDATORY CREDIT. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY – RC20JF99B9HL

on American soil. Not only has testing capacity lagged far behind much smaller and less wealthy countries like Taiwan and South Korea, but shortages of critical health infrastructure will likely mean the excess deaths of potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans in the foreseeable future. Governors of large states have been publicly begging the federal government for ventilators, masks, and other basic tools to deal with the outbreak. There is little sign that the capacity even exists at present to respond to these requests.

“Meanwhile, the avalanche of military spending that was released after the September 11 attacks continues to roll onwards. According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, the U.S. government has spent a staggering $6.4 trillion on its wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan since 2001. This gargantuan number

GLENDALE, ARIZONA – MARCH 13: General view of empty shelves at a Target store on March 13, 2020  (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

does not even account for interest payments on the borrowing needed to pay for the wars, which could run to as much as $8 trillion by midcentury, let alone the opportunity costs to American society of this massive spending on foreign adventurism. Then there are the attendant inflations of the Pentagon’s base budget; domestic “war on terror” spending at the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security; and of course the wild expansion of our intelligence apparatuses, all but unaccountable to the general public in both their acts and spending.

“That American counterterrorism wars have killed hundreds of thousands of people while failing to achieve any clear political or strategic benefit makes the squandering of this generational wealth even more bitter.”

Fundamentalist Pastors and Haredi Rabbis Both Put Their People in Danger

Israeli soldiers confront Haredis violating quarantine orders

The tightly woven communities of Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Israel are being devastated by the covid19 pandemic. Their neighborhoods are the nation’s “hot spots” for this contagion.

Check out any of these recent articles from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz — here, here, and here).

One reporter goes so far as to say that Israel’s Haredi community is facing its greatest threat since the Holocaust. They literally may be wiped out.

The explanation for this tragedy is simple: insular, anti-intellectual religion very similar to American Fundamentalism.

First, Haredi families do not allow their children to attend school with “unfaithful unbelievers,” which includes non-Haredi Jews. Their children are required to attend Haredi religious schools with strict curricula where they can only mingle with other Haredi children.

Second, the Haredi curriculum excludes the study of modern science so their communities are ignorant of even the most basic knowledge of modern medicine. In addition, they are forbidden from listening to the radio or watching TV. They live in an information bubble.

Third, they are convinced that faith and Torah will always keep them safe. A firm enough belief in God, the authority of Scripture, and their tradition is all they need to be protected from infection.

Of course, this means that they must continue to gather together in the synagogues for services.

The government finally is deploying soldiers to Haredi neighborhoods in order to enforce government quarantine orders. These soldiers are frequently attacked, physically, by the devout who accuse them of being Nazis and the enemies of religious freedom.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Soldiers in Tel Aviv challenging Haredi man. Haredi folks have been very slow to wear face masks

Now, thousands upon thousands of these fervent believers are now dying, not in spite of their faith, but because of their faith.

I know. A fringe of religious-right, anti-Semitic nutcases are saying that their suffering is God’s punishment for being Jews. (Oh dear Jesus, please deliver your church from such destructive, apostate imbeciles. Amen.)

The obvious American parallel to this part of the Israeli story is seen in the U.S. pastors and churches that continue to defy the medical advice coming from places like the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute for Health by continuing to hold weekly services.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. is good friends with Fox & Friends, is as president Trump

Or University presidents such as Jerry Falwell, Jr. at Liberty University, who parroted Fox New/president Trump talking points about the covid warnings being a “hoax” propagated by “Trump haters” and now insists on keeping the university open.

I cannot help but wonder how many of their followers are living inside their

own information bubbles, sealed off from the rest of the world by the disabling combination of Fox News with a heavy dose of Christian radio and TV.

Many of them subject to an irrational fear – propagated by their leaders –  that our government is just waiting for the chance to shut down Christian

Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne leads his congregation during a service Sunday, March 29, 2020 at The River at Tampa Bay Church. [Photo from Facebook]
churches.

I am sure that most of us are now familiar with the mug shot of Rodney Howard-Browne, the mega-church pastor arrested for endangering his Tamp Bay congregation by continuing to hold church services.

Please, if your pastor is anything like Howard-Browne or Jerry Falwell, I urge you to find another church (or synagogue).