Tag: Bible

Check Out My Recent Article in the “Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies”

Today the Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies published my article  titled “Echoes of Slavery, Racial Segregation and Jim Crow: American Dispensationalism and Christian Zionist Bible-Reading.”

Below is the abstract, that is a brief summary of the article:

The apologetics of pro-slavery, pro-segregation Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were identical to the methods of biblical interpretation used by Dispensationalist Christian Zionists today. The ideology’s specific rules of ‘literal interpretation’ and ‘antecedent theology’ led both groups to similar conclusions about slavery and racial segregation, on the one hand, and Jewish privilege and Palestinian displacement, on the other. Abolitionist efforts to promote a Christ–like hermeneutic rooted in Christian morality points the way forward to correcting modern theologies, such as Dispensationalist Christian Zionism, that continue to sanction human oppression.

I believe that clicking the highlighted title above will allow access to the article online. However, if this does not work for you, let me know and I can send you a copy.

Yes, I too am disappointed by the numerous formating and editorial errors in my article. Yuck! Unfortunately, it is too late for me to do anything about it now…sigh…

Wheaton College Prof, Vincent Bacote, says US Evangelicalism is Fractured Due to a Lack of Discipleship

I have been reading Tim Alberta’s new book, The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory (HarperCollins, 2023). The book analyzes the rise of Donald Trump and MAGA Christianity within American evangelicalism.

How is it that Christian devotion to such a pagan politician has succeeded in splintering American evangelicalism?

I believe that Vincent Bacote, theology professor at Wheaton College, hits the nail on the head when he accuses American evangelical leaders of failing to disciple, to catechize, their people.

I couldn’t agree more.

For instance, the so-called “Great Commission” is not a command to evangelize unbelievers. It is a command to disciple, to teach and rigorously instruct believers into faithful Christian discipleship. Evangelism is crucial, but it is only the entry point for the radical demands of true Christianity.

Jesus commands his followers, “Go and make disciples of all nations . . . teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19-20).

A Christian disciple is someone who puts into practice all the upside-down, crazy, counter intuitive, radical lifestyle choices that Jesus taught his disciples, and us, to embrace. That requires a lifetime of sacrificial self-denial and devotion.

Along these lines, Alberta quotes Professor Bacote:

“Jesus loved them [the 12 disciples] but he did not infantilize them. Time and again, when His disciples got something wrong — or even when they simply showed human weakness — Jesus rebuked them. He chided them for being faithless. He censure them for the vanity and biotry and prejudice. He criticized them for not grasping His instruction.”

This is what discipling loopks like And this . . . is what’s absent inside much of the American evangelical Church.

“If you ask me what’s the biggest problem with evangelicalism, I’d say it’s a catechesis problem. It’s a formation problem, a discipleship problem. These are people who are supposed to have a knowedge of the Bible, but many of them don’t . . . A lot of these people are just not going deep enough.”

By remaining shallow in the scriptures, Bacote said, too many American Christians have avoided a necessary showdown between their own base cultural proclivities and God’s perfect standard. When Christians are discipled primarily by society, inevitably they look to scripture for affirmation of their habits and behaviors and political views. But if the Bible is the word of God, then God ought to be interrogating those things.

Palestinian Ethnic Nationalism is Not the Answer to Zionism

I have recently attended and participated in several online seminars that thankfully included Palestinian Christians from the West Bank.

These brothers and sisters in Christ were offering their observations and feelings about the ongoing war against their people in Gaza (and the West Bank; yes the war has expanded beyond Gaza).

I am grateful for such opportunities because, when witnessing such horrendous tragedy, it is vital that we hear the voices of those who are actually enduring the suffering. We must listen to the words of the persecuted, the victims, those who are experiencing abuse, those who weep and mourn, those for whom imminent death is a real possibility.

Their voices are essential to understanding any conflict.

At the same time, I feel the need to humbly express a note of reservation about one theme that I see threading its way throughout the several webinars I have seen. Several Palestinian speakers have referred to the special spiritual connection that Palestinians typically feel toward their land.

I have noted two written instances hinting at such “blood and soil” sentiments below. (The second example was written on a PowerPoint slide without a reference):

We affirm that every citizen must be ready to defend his or her life, liberty and land (Kairos Palestine Document, para. 4.2.5)

Our land is meant to be a witness to God’s love manifested on the cross for all the people of the earth…

If I am misunderstanding the meaning of these oral and written references, then I invite correction. If a Palestinian believer can address my misunderstanding, please do.

Otherwise, I must voice my concerns.

For I fear that two errors are waiting to pounce on those believers who hold such convictions about their spiritual connection to the land of Palestine:

First, political Zionism (which is the basis of the Israeli state) is founded upon just such a purportedly psychic, spiritual, even ontological connection between the Jewish people, on the one hand, and the land of Israel, on the other.

This imagined, age-old people/land connection lays the cornerstone to their conviction that the land belongs exclusively to the Jews. For the land and the people are eternally bound together, according to political Zionism.

In this way, political Zionism reveals its roots in European blood and soil ethnic nationalism, the 19th century, Romantic philosophical belief that “the soul” of a national people-group was intertwined with the geography and landscape from which they trace their origin. So the Scots are bound to the land of Scotland; the Welsh are bound to Wales; etc.

This blood and soil ideology was the basis for Adolf Hitler’s Aryan doctrine and his horrific efforts to purify German territory of all non-Aryans/Germans. The parallels with Israel’s current work to “Judaize” the West Bank (and Gaza?), replacing Palestinians with Jewish settlers, are crystal clear to anyone who knows this history.

Nazism and political Zionism are kissin’ cousins.

Therefore, I cannot see the usefulness of the church of Jesus Christ adopting the language of blood and soil ethnic nationalism as its own.

Second, the New Testament clearly teaches God’s people that this world is not our home. No matter the warm memories created by lovely times of togetherness at hearth and home in our native vale, followers of Jesus Christ have no homeland in this fallen world. Rather, we are “aliens and strangers in this world” (Heb. 11:13, 16; 1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11).

Therefore, there is no spiritual obligation for Christians to defend their land. Nor did Jesus ever appoint the “holy land” to be a witness to God’s grace. This is a secularization of both the gospel and the meaning of our citizenship in the kingdom of God. 

Yes, we must resist and condemn injustice.

When people are beaten and murdered, their homes demolished, families displaced and land stolen, then the prophets call us to protest, to cry out for justice, even to non-violently resist the oppressor. But this happens because injustice is sin. Oppression is wickedness.

Imputing imaginary spiritual qualities to one’s homeland is neither the answer nor a proper motivation to resist oppression because it is not biblical. And the history of its application shows damning results.

Zionist ethnic nationalism cannot be defeated by Palestinian ethnic nationalism. Nor do Christians have any business allying themselves with the toxic ideology of blood and soil, ethnic nationalism.

That is the error of Jewish-Christian Zionism, where Jews who say they follow Jesus compromise their allegiance to God’s kingdom – a global, multi-ethnic, international kingdom – by taking up the secular, ungodly  standards and constraints of Zionist blood and soil nationalism.

Therefore, I ask my Palestinian brothers and sisters in Christ to reconsider their current flirtations with blood and soil, ethnic nationalism as they justly resist Zionist efforts to rob them of what is theirs.

Who are the Sheep and the Goats on Judgment Day? Reading Matthew 25:31-46 in Context

In a previous post, I reviewed the book, Decolonizing Christianity. I mentioned that the author, Dr. de la Torre, roots his critique of “white Christianity” in an ancient, but completely erroneous, interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46).

Here is the follow-up post that I promised where I will explain the proper interpretation of Jesus’ parable. Yes, there are right and wrong ways to read scripture.

According to the interpretive tradition of the sheep and the goats followed by Dr. de la Torre, the exalted Jesus will determine who is and who is not received into his eternal kingdom according to the good works they performed for the poor, the needy, and the imprisoned (see verses 35-36). Here Jesus identifies himself with the disenfranchised:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

The sheep respond by asking, “When did we ever do such things for you, Lord?” (verses 37-39).

Jesus offers this famous response:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

The message is clear, or so it appears: the resurrected Jesus identifies himself so completely with those who suffer in this world that whatever we do for them we also do for Jesus.

Jesus frequently taught that his true followers will be recognized “by their fruit” (Matt. 3:10; 7:16-20; 12:33); that is, the obedience they demonstrate to Jesus’ teachings (the parable about judgment in Matt. 7:24-27 is comparable to Matt. 25 in this way). So, it is conceivable that the message of Matthew 25:40 could be integrated into this “faith without works is dead” perspective that characterizes Jesus’ teaching.

However, when taken on its own – which is typically what happens when people read the gospels – this interpretation suggests that the major criteria for eternal judgment are our works of charity. Period.

This conclusion is curious, however, since there is nothing else comparable to it in the gospel of Matthew. Furthermore, nowhere else does Jesus make such an immediate, personal identification with the poor qua poor.

What should we make of this?

If we read the entire gospel of Matthew attentively and consider this parable in Matthew 25 as part of the book’s concluding episode, then several items will catch our attention and resonate with earlier episodes.

[Sadly, too many Christians read the Bible as if it were a collection of Hallmark greeting cards. When we do that, we blind ourselves to understanding the Bible correctly and grasping the depth of any book’s intended message. We must learn to read each book as a whole, literary unit.]

The key phrases and issues to notice are:

Who are the “brothers of mine” with whom Jesus identifies?

Where else has Jesus suggested that doing things for someone else is the same as doing things for him?

Are there other places where Jesus identifies with people who are imprisoned, are strangers, or hungry and thirsty?

I will give you a hint about where this is going. In Matthew’s gospel all of these traits and relationships apply only to Jesus’ disciples. Jesus is telling us that he will eventually judge the world on the basis of how it has treated his followers, the church.

Note that this outcome is the very opposite of the way Mother Teresa, de la Torre, and many others have read the parable.

Here are the crucial observations to make while reading Matthew’s gospel:

First, Jesus radically redefines family relationships. His brothers, sisters, mother, and family members are exclusively those who accept and follow him as their messiah. No one else is ever called a brother in Matthew. Jesus explains this shocking redefinition of family in 12:46-50 where the context makes it clear that “doing the will of the Father” means allegiance to Jesus (also see 28:10):

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Second, when Jesus commissions the Twelve to preach his gospel to others throughout Israel, he warns them that many will treat them with hostility. In fact, he admits that he is sending them out “as sheep among wolves” (10:16). Righteous people will open their doors, receive the gospel, and care for the needy disciples. But many others will reject them and even ensure that they are imprisoned (10:11-20).

By implication, only those who received Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom, and have become disciples themselves, will be interested in helping Jesus’ missionaries by feeding them and visiting them in jail.

In fact, while warning his missionary-followers about the rigors of discipleship, Jesus also comforts them by describing his essential, intimate identification with those who suffer on his behalf:

Whoever acknowledges me before others [while on trial], I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others [to save their skin], I will disown before my Father in heaven. (10:32-33)

Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (10:40-42)

On the basis of this literary evidence, I am convinced that the long-standing interpretation promoted by Dr. de la Torre, and many others including Mother Teresa, is the last thing in the world this parable could mean. It is wrong because it does not read Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats in context.

Jesus’ parable envisions the Final Judgment when all humanity is called before God’s throne. The goats are all those who ranged from politely indifferent to openly hostile to the gospel of Jesus. Their antagonism was expressed by failing to assist Jesus’ disciples when they needed help in fulfilling their mission.

The sheep, on the other hand, are all those who opened their doors, hosted, believed, and assisted Jesus’ disciples as they endured the hardships of testifying to the gospel in this hostile world.

Typically, it is only fellow believers who are willing to visit their imprisoned brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. I have heard more than one story about entire churches ending up in prison together as members persisted in visiting those who had been arrested.

I realize that those who embrace the “social gospel” alternative interpretation of this parable are likely to be offended by the church-community reading I am advancing here. They will see it as an abandonment of the church’s calling to care for society’s poor and needy. They will see it as an expression of privileged and chauvinistic religion, promoting in-group, religious believers above all others.

But then, a great deal of Jesus’ teaching is rejected by people for one reason or another – even by those who profess to be disciples. It is not my place, or anyone else’s, to rewrite Jesus’ teaching. Allow me to make a few counter arguments:

  1. Matthew 25 is not the sole basis of the Christian church’s teaching on social responsibility. This is a prominent theme throughout scripture which does not stand or fall on the basis of this one passage alone.
  2. The need for Christians to prioritize their care and concern for fellow believers is another important theme throughout the New Testament. Jesus is beginning an emphasis that will be continued by the apostle Paul (Gal. 6:10; 1 Tim. 5:17).
  3. Jesus assumes that suffering for the cause of the gospel, and finding oneself in need of kindness and generosity from others, will be a common experience for his disciples. Reflecting of this issue and its relevance to our own lives is an ever-present challenge for anyone calling him/herself a Christian.
  4. Nothing in this alternative reading limits the scope or the diversity of those who become Jesus’ brothers and sisters. By the time a reader gets to Matthew 25, the gospel mission has opened up to include those Gentiles and Samaritans who were previously excluded. In fact, Jesus’ final words in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-25) anticipate an inter-racial, multi-ethnic, international community of brothers and sisters from all classes and walks of life prioritizing their devotion to each other as Jesus’ exemplary New Humanity.

Christian Prayer vs. Magic, Part 5

(This is the fifth and final post in my series comparing and contrasting Christian prayer with a magical worldview.  If you missed the previous posts, you can find links to them all in here in part 4.)

I would summarize the differences between the magical and the New Testament views of prayer like this:  Magic focuses on the manipulation of spiritual power in order to gain a measure of control over life’s circumstances.

One of the most notable features of ancient magical texts/prayers/spells/incantations is the frequency of words of command.  I offer two short examples from the book Ancient Christian Magic:

First, a spell for healing –

Osphe, Osphe, Osphe, Yosphe, Yosphe, Yosphe,

Bibiou, Bibiou, Bibiou

Yasabaoth Adonai, the one who rules over the four corners of the world,

In whatever I want – I, [supply name], child of [ supply name], —

Now, now, at once, at once!

Second, an incantation for the power of blessing and cursing –

Yea, yea, for I admonish you by your manner of going in and your manner of going out and your manner of going up and your manner of coming down, that you shall listen to the words of my mouth and you shall act in accordance with the actions of my hands in every work of mine – every one, whether love or hate, whether favor or condemnation, whether binding or loosening, whether killing or vivifying, whether assembling or scattering, whether establishing or overthrowing…

Notice the various elements discussed in previous posts:  the magician uses secret words, names and phrases, repetition, and words of command for the exact result desired.  Notice, too, the language of “binding” and “loosing” for the power of blessing and cursing others; language that many Christians use today for their supposed “control” over demonic forces.

These traits all fit with my earlier description of magic as Utilitarian, focused on Immediacy achieved by mastering proper Technique.

In these different ways, the magician became a Master in control of his/her medium. Some people practice to become master musicians, others master woodcarvers, magicians became masters at imploring the spiritual powers to accomplish what they desired.

Petitionary prayer was a method of spiritual control.

I hope it is obvious that the magical goals of power and control are antithetical to Jesus’ own priorities in prayer.

Christian prayer is always directed by the understanding that our heavenly Father is in control, not us.  Remember how Jesus taught the disciples to pray in (what we call) The Lord’s Prayer,

Jesus Alone in the Garden, painting by Mikhail Shankov

“Father in heaven, cause your kingdom to come, cause your will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

At his most desperate moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed, “Father, not my will, but your will be done.”

Whatever else may be involved, true Christian prayer begins by surrendering control to God.

We must stop trying to use prayer as a tool for getting what we want, when we want it, as we want it.  Because, frankly, we are all too stupid, narrow-minded, selfish and short-sighted to have the foggiest notion of what’s best for us, or what God’s plan may be for us at any given moment.

Recall that even the apostle Paul admitted that his prayer life was entirely dependent on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit because he didn’t understand how he ought to pray or what he ought to request.  Paul is wonderfully candid when he writes in Romans 8:26,

…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through groans that words cannot express.

We do not know what we ought to pray for.

This is not an excuse to stop praying.  It an invitation to surrender our conspiracies at twisting prayer for pious manipulation.  I will often stop in the middle of my prayers when I am feeling particularly lost or confused and simply ask the Lord to hear the Spirit’s prayers for me and do whatever the Holy Spirit is requesting — through His “groans that words cannot express” — on my behalf.

No, that’s not a cop-out. It is learning to pray like Paul. It is praying like Jesus.

It is not an excuse to stop bringing our requests before God’s throne.  It is a reminder that our final request must always be a heartfelt “not my will, but your will be done.”

How Bad Theology Can Lead to Spiritual Masturbation

I stumbled upon a good collection of articles discussing the gruel-thin, emotional foolishness that characterizes so much of the music and singing that passes for “worship” in many evangelical churches today.

The articles are listed below, all making good points:

“3 Reasons Contemporary Worship IS Declining, and What We Can Do to Help the Church Move On“

“8 Reasons the Worship Industry Is Killing Worship“

“Masturbatory Worship and the Contemporary Church“

“’M’ Worship, Exhibit A: Bethel Church Worships Themselves” (complete with an accompanying video to illustrate the problem)

Allow me to add a few observations of my own.

  1. Much of the problem, I believe, is due to deliberate theological ignorance among church leaders, especially so-called “worship leaders” (typically, a person who couldn’t give you the Biblical definition of worship or praise if his/her life depended on it; sadly, their employment status never seems to depend on it).  When Biblical and theological foundations are abandoned, foolishness always ensures with predictably damaging consequences.  You can count on it.
  2. I have made my own humble attempts to address these problems by offering occasional studies in the Biblical theology of praise, worship (here, here, here, here and here) God’s holiness (here, here, here, here, and here), and few book reviews discussing the “juvenilization” of the American church (here and here).
  3.  A widespread, disastrous confusion about both the goals and the distinctly different, intended audiences of (a) seeker-targeted services vs. (b) seeker-sensitive worship (an absolutely horrible idea, regardless of its apparent “effectiveness”) has been a main driver of these problems.  See my post addressing the issue here.

 

How the New Captain Marvel Illustrates Both Toxic Feminism and Original Sin

Michael McCaffrey has an interesting op-ed on the RT Question More

The next generation’s Captain Marvel

website entitled, “Toxic femininity: ‘Badass’ US women demand right to torture and kill for Empire… just like men.”

McCaffrey provides a good analysis of where and how mainstream feminism has gone wrong through its blind endorsement of America’s cultural/economic status quo.

I have copied an excerpt below and encourage you to read the entire piece.

First, however, I want to add what I believe is a more fundamental problem that has always dogged the heels of secular feminism — the Biblical doctrine of original sin.

Yes, woman are and always have been as sinful as men.

That means that women are as prone to selfishness, violence and destruction as men continually show themselves to be.  They may pursue their goals by different means, at times.  But the corrupted ends remain the same.

The oft repeated refrain, “If only women were in control of the world, THEN we would see the end of war, famine, and all manner of evil!” has always been a patronizing Utopian dream, as ignorant as it is blind.

Didn’t these feminist champions pay attention to the presidencies of Golda Meir in Israel, or Indira Gandhi in India?  How about Hillary Clinton’s gleeful laughter over the brutal murder of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi at the hands of an angry mob?

Have they willfully ignored the current debacle of president Aung San Suu

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize winner turned patron of Rohingya genocide in Myanmar

Kyi in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) as she blesses her military’s Rohingya genocide?

Below is the excerpt of McCaffrey:

“Thanks to a new wave of feminism and its call for equality, it isn’t just toxic men who can kill, torture and surveil in the name of US militarism and empire, women can now do it too!
“This past weekend was the third annual Women’s March, which is a protest originally triggered by Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election that encourages women across America to rise up against misogyny and patriarchy.

“As sincere as these women are in their outrage, in their quest for power they are inadvertently reinforcing the immoral and unethical system that they claim to detest. This is most glaringly apparent when this new feminism boldly embraces the worst traits of the patriarchy in the form of militarism and empire.

“The rise of #MeToo, Time’s Up and the anti-Trump Women’s Movement, has brought forth a new wave of politically and culturally active neo-feminists. This modern women’s movement and its adherents demand that “boys not be boys”, and in fact claim that the statement “boys will be boys” is in and of itself an act of patriarchal privilege and male aggression. The irony is that these neo-feminists don’t want boys to be boys, but they do want girls to be like boys…

“…Other toxically-masculine women in government are also being hailed as great signs of women’s empowerment.

“Gina Haspel is the first female director of the CIA and women now also hold the three top directorates in that agency. Ms. Haspel proved herself more than capable of being just as deplorable as any man when she was an active participant in the Bush-era torture program. No doubt the pussy-hat wearing brigade would cheer her “competitiveness, dominance and aggression” when torturing prisoners… most especially the traditionally masculine ones.”

Why Capitalism Can’t Be Redeemed

Sojourner’s Magazine has a published a good article by Tylor Standley entitled “Virtue Can’t Redeem Capitalism.”  His argument is built around a critique of Kenneth J. Barnes’ book, Redeeming Capitalism.

You can find an excerpt from the article below.  The entire piece can be found here.  It makes for worthwhile reading.

“The essential virtue, the single most important characteristic needed for

Adam Smith, the father of capitalist economic theory. He gave us ideas like “the invisible hand of the market” and the priority of self-interest

survival in this [capitalist] system, is self-love. As Adam Smith [the ‘father’ of capitalist theory] himself wrote,

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

“Barnes argues, ‘Capitalism can be changed only through a wholesale change of hearts and minds as people consciously seek to create an economic system that serves the common good.’ But we don’t go to the baker and say, ‘I’m hungry and I need food.’ Instead, we say, ‘I’ve got five dollars, and it could be yours if you give me some bread.’ The baker isn’t expected to care about my hunger; he should care for himself, and I will care about my own hunger. Any social good is secondary; it is a byproduct of the self-love of the individuals who buy and sell.

“Ayn Rand, the philosopher and advocate for capitalism whose writings have enjoyed renewed interest among conservatives in recent years, gave a new name to the concept of self-love. She called it the ‘virtue of selfishness.’ Capitalism, as Rand and Smith demonstrate, has no interest in charity or benevolence — characteristics that Barnes and other virtue ethicists say are necessary for justice. The capitalist system is not designed to make a charitable society; it is designed to make a society of individuals who, above all else, love themselves.

“Capitalism is the single most powerful tool for habit formation in Western society — so much so that our identities are wrapped up in what role we play in the market. We instinctively answer questions like ‘What do you do?’ and ‘Who are you?’ with our job titles. If our very survival depends on putting self first, what sort of habits does that form in us? When grasped by the ‘invisible hand,’ into whose image does it craft us?”

You can find my own critique of free-market capitalism, Ayn Rand, consumerism, and the “virtue of selfishness” from a Biblical-theological perspective in chapter 10 of my book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

What is Christian Worship? Part 5  Dispelling Two Common Errors

We have come to the end of this study in New Testament worship vocabulary, but I cannot close without taking note of two common obstacles that frequently hamper leaders who wish to act on the theology we have discovered by putting our theological conclusions into practice.  Perhaps you would like to review that theology in parts one, two, three and four.

 The key theological issue at stake is the New Testament’s elimination of the Old Testament distinction between the sacred and the profane (recall, especially, part four in this series).

Jesus Christ has made the Old Testament/Covenant idea of special/sacred space (a temple), personnel (priests), and activities (ritual offerings) obsolete.  The New Testament even goes so far as never to identify baptism or the Lord’s Supper as acts of “liturgy” or “worship,” as surprising as that may be.

But, for some odd reason, many churchgoers prefer living in a quasi-Old Testament world. Here is where we encounter the first obstacle.

Perhaps many churchgoers secretly prefer the idea of living life day-to-day as a truly profane existence.  After all, stepping in and out of God’s presence, spending the majority of our time free from the presence of God, seems preferable for those who don’t want to deal with Christ’s Lordship.

In any case, humanity’s predilection for an obsolete manner of religious thinking appears in our need to invent new ways of importing Old Testament structures into the New Testament church.  It happens all the time in every tradition.  Think of the many ways we reinstall the

Cathedral of St. Mary

sacred/profane distinction into the Christian life.

We create uniquely sacred people with ordination ceremonies.  We even call them “priests,” as opposed to all of the other Christians who become the “laity.”

We Christianize sacred spaces via grand cathedral/church architecture, and we then refer to these places as “God’s house.”

We elaborate uniquely sacred acts through sacramental liturgies that may only be performed by the appropriately sacred personnel (i.e. the ordained) inside the proper sacred space.

All of this, every last bit of it, is absolutely wrong as far as the New Testament is concerned.  All I can say is, thank God that the grace of Jesus Christ is so bloomin’ big that it extends even to wrong-headed people like us.

The second obstacle issues from the first.  It becomes the rational justification for the ecclesiastical mistakes described above.

One of my former colleagues loved to repeat this standard rationale, imagining that he had slain his opponent (usually me) with a single thrust, “If everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred!”  Have you heard that one?

In other words, by this logic we’ve got to create ‘special’ moments/places/personnel in order to preserve some sense of the divine majesty.  Otherwise, familiarity will breed contempt, and it’s only a matter of time before any sense of awe before God is melted away into the mundane mix of inattentive daily living.

Right?  If so, let’s reintroduce Old Covenant thought and its priestly structures from stage-right.

No.  This is exactly the wrong thing to do.  Let’s think about it for a moment.

The first flaw in my friend’s argument is a matter of simple logic.

Notice that my colleague’s objection to the New Testament perspective on worship must assume the continuing validity of the sacred/profane distinction in order to make its point.

In other words, it ignores the very assertion it pretends to refute.  To put it another way, it tries to dismiss New Testament teaching (i.e. there is no more sacred/profane distinction for those who know Jesus) by keeping its feet firmly planted in the Old Testament framework (i.e. we must observe the sacred/profane distinction if we want to truly worship God).

The next time you hear someone using this invalid claim calmly inform them that you reject the premise of their conclusion.  Ha!  Not really.  They probably won’t know what you mean.

At the end of the day, this “sophisticated” sounding refutation of New Testament teaching is really nothing more than a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the newly redeemed creation awash with God’s unfettered grace now available through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

While I certainly understand the pragmatic concerns that lead people to cling to Old Covenant distinctions, I remain convinced that any practical decision contrary to biblical teaching, no matter how “helpful,” will ultimately prove crippling to God’s people.

It is better to wrestle with the difficult implications of sound theology than it is to ease the burden of church leadership by choosing expediency.
Yes, the innate limits of the human attention span may well require that we demarcate certain times and places for special events, i.e. a designated place…at a designated time…to gather together…for particular events and practices…as a community of faith.
BUT let’s never confuse the pragmatic needs born of human limitations with the proper theology of the New Covenant.  We do such things to accommodate human weakness, NOT because there are any real differences between different times, special places, or specially ordained people.

Christian worship, New Testament worship, is an obedient lifestyle where every day is received as the gift of God’s holy presence, personally indwelling us through the Holy Spirit, conforming us to the perfect image of His one and only eternal Son as we sacrifice ourselves in following His call.

Live out THAT life and you will worship and glorify our holy God all day every day without fail.

What is Christian Worship? Part 4

Thus far we have made several important, and unexpected, discoveries as we studied New Testament worship vocabulary.

First, we discovered that the New Testament never describes Christian gatherings as “worship services.”  New Testament believers didn’t “worship” when they gathered together.  Rather, they created group opportunities for edification and upbuilding of the Body of Christ.  Disciples use their spiritual gifts, confess their sins, sing new songs, praise and glorify God, encourage each other and meet one another’s physical and spiritual needs.

And, believe it or not, the New Testament does not call that “worship.”

Second, we found that the New Testament insists that Christian worship is the stuff believers do in their day-to-day lives as they obediently follow Jesus.  We worship God when we do the things Jesus has called us to do as members of his upside-down, counter-intuitive kingdom.
Worship is a lifestyle not because we sing praise songs and lift our hands while driving, but because we make the radically hard choices of actually being like Jesus and obeying his not-of-this-world teaching in our daily lives with others.

This is the point where I frequently hear an objection: If worship is an everyday affair, aren’t I minimizing the idea of worship as a “sacred/special” activity? 

To put the question more negatively, people sometimes object, “If everything is worship, then nothing is worship.”  (One of my former colleagues used to say this regularly).

“There must be something unique or ‘special’ about worshiping God,” they insist.  “Otherwise giving God our focused attention simply melts away into the repetitious fabric of mundane existence, and it will never really happen at all!”

This worry arises from a legitimate concern, but I believe that its impulses are misguided.  My response to this objection has two parts.   Here I will offer part one.  Part two must wait for the next post.

 First, the New Testament has dramatically eliminated the Old Testament distinction between the sacred & the profane within the Christian life.

In the Old Testament, the “sacred” was conceived of in terms of proximity to God.  God’s presence appeared at certain shrines, in the Tabernacle or in the Temple.  These places involved sacred locations (like altars), sacred personnel (priests), sacred objects (vestments, incense burners) and sacred acts (sacrifices, offerings).

The profane, on the other hand, was excluded from the sacred.  Profane things involved the mundane, day-to-day, worldly affairs of normal life, normal places and normal people.

Old Testament saints lived within two different sets of distinctions:

One was the sacred/profane distinction described above.

The second was the covenantal distinction between Israel’s membership in the Abrahamic & Sinai covenants, compared with everyone else in the world who lived outside of God’s covenants.  Israel and Israel alone were the Lord’s covenant people.

These two dimensions of (a) sacred/profane and (b) inside the covenant/outside the covenant intersected Israel’s existence in significant ways.

All those living inside the covenant were God’s chosen people.  As God’s covenant people, Israel was commanded to maintain the distinction between the sacred – i.e. they went to the Temple, offered sacrifices and understood God’s presence to be centered in the Holy of Holies – and the profane – i.e. they believed that God always saw them and heard their prayers, but they never entered into God’s presence at home as they did when they entered into the Temple.

All of Israel’s life was lived within the covenant, but covenant life was not identical with the sacred way of life.  Even Israel’s priests – who were always members of the covenant – moved  back and forth between the sacred and profane, depending on their times of temple service.

With the coming of Christ, however, God instituted a radical change of affairs.  The Lord Jesus inaugurated the NEW Covenant, or the New Testament.

With the coming of God’s New Covenant, what had previously been two different distinctions (sacred/profane and in covenant/out of covenant) are now fused into one.  In other words, every member of the New Covenant is always living a sacred existence in sacred space. Those outside the New Covenant, because they do not know Jesus, live a profane life in profane space.

Anyone participating in the resurrection life of Jesus Christ can know that the previously profane has been transformed into the perpetually sacred.  The covenantal distinction is now identical with the sacred/profane distinction.  All disciples of Jesus are holy people.  Every Christian is a priest.  Every act of obedience is a sacred act, an offering of praise, a sacrifice acceptable to God.

I am convinced that this New Testament “universalizing” of the sacred, scattering sacredness throughout all of the Christian life, is a sign of Christ’s intention to restore the universe to God’s original design.

When Adam and Eve walked through the Garden of Eden, all of life was sacred.  The entire cosmos was sacred.  Sacred space was everywhere.  There was no place that was not a sacred place.  The Creator walked and talked with the first man and woman as they strolled through the aspen groves and smelled wild roses in the overgrown thickets along the bubbling stream.

Sacred space was all there was.

So now, since the coming of Jesus, the apostle Paul can describe his lifestyle of obedient discipleship as “his priestly service” (note the language of a sacred person offering a sacred activity – i.e. worship) given up to Jesus Christ from the dirty streets and dark alleyways of every Greco-Roman city where the apostle sets the light of the Good News ablaze.

Worship becomes a lifestyle of faithful kingdom citizenship, first and foremost, because of who we are.

Jesus makes us saints and priests whose every breath drawn in thanksgiving, every thought of God’s glory, every word spoken in the light of Christ’s presence, every decision made in accordance with God’s intention, becomes a moment of worship offered up by a sacred individual inhabiting God’s new world.

Now, is that amazing, or what?

Praise be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for His indescribable gifts to us all!