BAS/BAR - How December 25 Became Christmas

A blanket of snow covers the little town of Bethlehem, in Pieter Bruegel’s oil painting from 1566.

Although Jesus’ birth is celebrated every year on December 25, Luke and the other gospel writers

offer no hint about the specific time of year he was born. Scala/Art Resource, NYOn December 25,

Christians around the world will gather to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Joyful carols, special liturgies,

brightly wrapped gifts, festive foods—these all characterize the feast today, at least in the northern

hemisphere. But just how did the Christmas festival originate? How did December 25 come to be

associated with Jesus’ birthday?

How December 25 Became Christmas

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/how-december-25-became-christmas/

by Andrew McGowan

December 2, 2015

Read Andrew McGowan’s article “How December 25 Became Christmas” as it originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2002. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in December 2012.—Ed.

The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.

The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.

This stands in sharp contrast to the very early traditions surrounding Jesus’ last days. Each of the Four Gospels provides detailed information about the time of Jesus’ death. According to John, Jesus is crucified just as the Passover lambs are being sacrificed. This would have occurred on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, just before the Jewish holiday began at sundown (considered the beginning of the 15th day because in the Hebrew calendar, days begin at sundown). In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, the Last Supper is held after sundown, on the beginning of the 15th. Jesus is crucified the next morning—still, the 15th.(a)

Easter, a much earlier development than Christmas, was simply the gradual Christian reinterpretation of Passover in terms of Jesus’ Passion. Its observance could even be implied in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 5:7–8: “Our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival…”); it was certainly a distinctively Christian feast by the mid-second century C.E., when the apocryphal text known as the Epistle to the Apostles has Jesus instruct his disciples to “make commemoration of [his] death, that is, the Passover.”

Jesus’ ministry, miracles, Passion and Resurrection were often of most interest to first- and early-second-century C.E. Christian writers. But over time, Jesus’ origins would become of increasing concern. We can begin to see this shift already in the New Testament. The earliest writings—Paul and Mark—make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide well-known but quite different accounts of the event—although neither specifies a date. In the second century C.E., further details of Jesus’ birth and childhood are related in apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Proto-Gospel of James.(b) These texts provide everything from the names of Jesus’ grandparents to the details of his education—but not the date of his birth.

Finally, in about 200 C.E., a Christian teacher in Egypt makes reference to the date Jesus was born. According to Clement of Alexandria, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups. Surprising as it may seem, Clement doesn’t mention December 25 at all. Clement writes: “There are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord’s birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the 28th year of Augustus, and in the 25th day of [the Egyptian month] Pachon [May 20 in our calendar] … And treating of His Passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the 16th year of Tiberius, on the 25th of Phamenoth [March 21]; and others on the 25th of Pharmuthi [April 21] and others say that on the 19th of Pharmuthi [April 15] the Savior suffered. Further, others say that He was born on the 24th or 25th of Pharmuthi [April 20 or 21].”(2)

Clearly there was great uncertainty, but also a considerable amount of interest, in dating Jesus’ birth in the late second century. By the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized—and now also celebrated—as Jesus’ birthday: December 25 in the western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East (especially in Egypt and Asia Minor). The modern Armenian church continues to celebrate Christmas on January 6; for most Christians, however, December 25 would prevail, while January 6 eventually came to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between became the holiday season later known as the 12 days of Christmas.

The earliest mention of December 25 as Jesus’ birthday comes from a mid-fourth-century Roman almanac that lists the death dates of various Christian bishops and martyrs. The first date listed, December 25, is marked: natus Christus in Betleem Judeae: “Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”3 In about 400 C.E., Augustine of Hippo mentions a local dissident Christian group, the Donatists, who apparently kept Christmas festivals on December 25, but refused to celebrate the Epiphany on January 6, regarding it as an innovation. Since the Donatist group only emerged during the persecution under Diocletian in 312 C.E. and then remained stubbornly attached to the practices of that moment in time, they seem to represent an older North African Christian tradition.

In the East, January 6 was at first not associated with the magi alone, but with the Christmas story as a whole.

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in mid-winter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

There are two theories today: one extremely popular, the other less often heard outside scholarly circles (though far more ancient).(4)

The most loudly touted theory about the origins of the Christmas date(s) is that it was borrowed from pagan celebrations. The Romans had their mid-winter Saturnalia festival in late December; barbarian peoples of northern and western Europe kept holidays at similar times. To top it off, in 274 C.E., the Roman emperor Aurelian established a feast of the birth of Sol Invictus (the Unconquered Sun), on December 25. Christmas, the argument goes, is really a spin-off from these pagan solar festivals. According to this theory, early Christians deliberately chose these dates to encourage the spread of Christmas and Christianity throughout the Roman world: If Christmas looked like a pagan holiday, more pagans would be open to both the holiday and the God whose birth it celebrated.

Despite its popularity today, this theory of Christmas’s origins has its problems. It is not found in any ancient Christian writings, for one thing. Christian authors of the time do note a connection between the solstice and Jesus’ birth: The church father Ambrose (c. 339–397), for example, described Christ as the true sun, who outshone the fallen gods of the old order. But early Christian writers never hint at any recent calendrical engineering; they clearly don’t think the date was chosen by the church. Rather they see the coincidence as a providential sign, as natural proof that God had selected Jesus over the false pagan gods.

It’s not until the 12th century that we find the first suggestion that Jesus’ birth celebration was deliberately set at the time of pagan feasts. A marginal note on a manuscript of the writings of the Syriac biblical commentator Dionysius bar-Salibi states that in ancient times the Christmas holiday was actually shifted from January 6 to December 25 so that it fell on the same date as the pagan Sol Invictus holiday.(5) In the 18th and 19th centuries, Bible scholars spurred on by the new study of comparative religions latched on to this idea.(6) They claimed that because the early Christians didn’t know when Jesus was born, they simply assimilated the pagan solstice festival for their own purposes, claiming it as the time of the Messiah’s birth and celebrating it accordingly.

More recent studies have shown that many of the holiday’s modern trappings do reflect pagan customs borrowed much later, as Christianity expanded into northern and western Europe. The Christmas tree, for example, has been linked with late medieval druidic practices. This has only encouraged modern audiences to assume that the date, too, must be pagan.

There are problems with this popular theory, however, as many scholars recognize. Most significantly, the first mention of a date for Christmas (c. 200) and the earliest celebrations that we know about (c. 250–300) come in a period when Christians were not borrowing heavily from pagan traditions of such an obvious character.

Granted, Christian belief and practice were not formed in isolation. Many early elements of Christian worship—including eucharistic meals, meals honoring martyrs and much early Christian funerary art—would have been quite comprehensible to pagan observers. Yet, in the first few centuries C.E., the persecuted Christian minority was greatly concerned with distancing itself from the larger, public pagan religious observances, such as sacrifices, games and holidays. This was still true as late as the violent persecutions of the Christians conducted by the Roman emperor Diocletian between 303 and 312 C.E.

This would change only after Constantine converted to Christianity. From the mid-fourth century on, we do find Christians deliberately adapting and Christianizing pagan festivals. A famous proponent of this practice was Pope Gregory the Great, who, in a letter written in 601 C.E. to a Christian missionary in Britain, recommended that local pagan temples not be destroyed but be converted into churches, and that pagan festivals be celebrated as feasts of Christian martyrs. At this late point, Christmas may well have acquired some pagan trappings. But we don’t have evidence of Christians adopting pagan festivals in the third century, at which point dates for Christmas were established. Thus, it seems unlikely that the date was simply selected to correspond with pagan solar festivals.

The December 25 feast seems to have existed before 312—before Constantine and his conversion, at least. As we have seen, the Donatist Christians in North Africa seem to have known it from before that time. Furthermore, in the mid- to late fourth century, church leaders in the eastern Empire concerned themselves not with introducing a celebration of Jesus’ birthday, but with the addition of the December date to their traditional celebration on January 6.(7)

There is another way to account for the origins of Christmas on December 25: Strange as it may seem, the key to dating Jesus’ birth may lie in the dating of Jesus’ death at Passover. This view was first suggested to the modern world by French scholar Louis Duchesne in the early 20th century and fully developed by American Thomas Talley in more recent years.(8) But they were certainly not the first to note a connection between the traditional date of Jesus’ death and his birth.

The baby Jesus flies down from heaven on the back of a cross, in this detail from Master Bertram’s

14th-century Annunciation scene. Jesus’ conception carried with it the promise of salvation through

his death. It may be no coincidence, then, that the early church celebrated Jesus’ conception and

death on the same calendar day: March 25, exactly nine months before December 25. | Kunsthalle,

Hamburg/Bridgeman Art Library, NY

Around 200 C.E. Tertullian of Carthage reported the calculation that the 14th of Nisan (the day of the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John) in the year Jesus diedc was equivalent to March 25 in the Roman (solar) calendar.(9) March 25 is, of course, nine months before December 25; it was later recognized as the Feast of the Annunciation—the commemoration of Jesus’ conception.(10) Thus, Jesus was believed to have been conceived and crucified on the same day of the year. Exactly nine months later, Jesus was born, on December 25.(d)

This idea appears in an anonymous Christian treatise titled On Solstices and Equinoxes, which appears to come from fourth-century North Africa. The treatise states: “Therefore our Lord was conceived on the eighth of the kalends of April in the month of March [March 25], which is the day of the passion of the Lord and of his conception. For on that day he was conceived on the same he suffered.”(11) Based on this, the treatise dates Jesus’ birth to the winter solstice.

Augustine, too, was familiar with this association. In On the Trinity (c. 399–419) he writes: “For he [Jesus] is believed to have been conceived on the 25th of March, upon which day also he suffered; so the womb of the Virgin, in which he was conceived, where no one of mortals was begotten, corresponds to the new grave in which he was buried, wherein was never man laid, neither before him nor since. But he was born, according to tradition, upon December the 25th.”(12)

In the East, too, the dates of Jesus’ conception and death were linked. But instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the easterners used the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in their local Greek calendar—April 6 to us. April 6 is, of course, exactly nine months before January 6—the eastern date for Christmas. In the East, too, we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.”(13) Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.(e)

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6).

Connecting Jesus’ conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together. One of the most poignant expressions of this belief is found in Christian art. In numerous paintings of the angel’s Annunciation to Mary—the moment of Jesus’ conception—the baby Jesus is shown gliding down from heaven on or with a small cross (see photo above of detail from Master Bertram’s Annunciation scene); a visual reminder that the conception brings the promise of salvation through Jesus’ death.

The notion that creation and redemption should occur at the same time of year is also reflected in ancient Jewish tradition, recorded in the Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud preserves a dispute between two early-second-century C.E. rabbis who share this view, but disagree on the date: Rabbi Eliezer states: “In Nisan the world was created; in Nisan the Patriarchs were born; on Passover Isaac was born … and in Nisan they [our ancestors] will be redeemed in time to come.” (The other rabbi, Joshua, dates these same events to the following month, Tishri.)(14) Thus, the dates of Christmas and Epiphany may well have resulted from Christian theological reflection on such chronologies: Jesus would have been conceived on the same date he died, and born nine months later.(15)

In the end we are left with a question: How did December 25 become Christmas? We cannot be entirely sure. Elements of the festival that developed from the fourth century until modern times may well derive from pagan traditions. Yet the actual date might really derive more from Judaism—from Jesus’ death at Passover, and from the rabbinic notion that great things might be expected, again and again, at the same time of the year—than from paganism. Then again, in this notion of cycles and the return of God’s redemption, we may perhaps also be touching upon something that the pagan Romans who celebrated Sol Invictus, and many other peoples since, would have understood and claimed for their own, too.(16)

---

“How December 25 Became Christmas” by Andrew McGowan originally appeared in Bible Review, December 2002.

Andrew McGowan is Dean and President of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and McFaddin Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School. Formerly, he was Warden and President of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne, and Joan Munro Professor of Historical Theology in Trinity’s Theological School within the University of Divinity. His work on early Christian thought and history includesAscetic Eucharists: Food and Drink in Early Christan Ritual Meals(Oxford: Clarendon, 1999) and Ancient Christian Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2014).

Notes

a. See Jonathan Klawans, “Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?” Bible Review, October 2001.

b. See the following Bible Review articles: David R. Cartlidge, “The Christian Apocrypha: Preserved in Art,” Bible Review, June 1997; Ronald F. Hock, “The Favored One,” Bible Review, June 2001; and Charles W. Hedrick, “The 34 Gospels,” Bible Review, June 2002.

c. For more on dating the year of Jesus’ birth, see Leonara Neville, “Fixing the Millennium,”Archaeology Odyssey, January/February 2002.

d. The ancients were familiar with the 9-month gestation period based on the observance of women’s menstrual cycles, pregnancies and miscarriages.

e. In the West (and eventually everywhere), the Easter celebration was later shifted from the actual day to the following Sunday. The insistence of the eastern Christians in keeping Easter on the actual 14th day caused a major debate within the church, with the easterners sometimes referred to as the Quartodecimans, or “Fourteenthers.”

1. Origen, Homily on Leviticus 8.

2. Clement, Stromateis 1.21.145. In addition, Christians in Clement’s native Egypt seem to have known a commemoration of Jesus’ baptism—sometimes understood as the moment of his divine choice, and hence as an alternate “incarnation” story—on the same date (Stromateis 1.21.146). See further on this point Thomas J. Talley, Origins of the Liturgical Year, 2nd ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 118–120, drawing on Roland H. Bainton, “Basilidian Chronology and New Testament Interpretation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 42 (1923), pp. 81–134; and now especially Gabriele Winkler, “The Appearance of the Light at the Baptism of Jesus and the Origins of the Feast of the Epiphany,” in Maxwell Johnson, ed., Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 291–347.

3. The Philocalian Calendar.

4. Scholars of liturgical history in the English-speaking world are particularly skeptical of the “solstice” connection; see Susan K. Roll, “The Origins of Christmas: The State of the Question,” in Between Memory and Hope: Readings on the Liturgical Year (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 273–290, especially pp. 289–290.

5. A gloss on a manuscript of Dionysius Bar Salibi, d. 1171; see Talley, Origins, pp. 101–102.

6. Prominent among these was Paul Ernst Jablonski; on the history of scholarship, see especially Roll, “The Origins of Christmas,” pp. 277–283.

7. For example, Gregory of Nazianzen, Oratio 38; John Chrysostom, In Diem Natalem.

8. Louis Duchesne, Origines du culte Chrétien, 5th ed. (Paris: Thorin et Fontemoing, 1925), pp. 275–279; and Talley, Origins.

9. Tertullian, Adversus Iudaeos 8.

10. There are other relevant texts for this element of argument, including Hippolytus and the (pseudo-Cyprianic) De pascha computus; see Talley, Origins, pp. 86, 90–91.

11. De solstitia et aequinoctia conceptionis et nativitatis domini nostri iesu christi et iohannis baptistae.

12. Augustine, Sermon 202.

13. Epiphanius is quoted in Talley, Origins, p. 98.

14. b. Rosh Hashanah 10b–11a.

15. Talley, Origins, pp. 81–82.

16. On the two theories as false alternatives, see Roll, “Origins of Christmas.”

Desperately Seeking Biblical Relevancy (DSBR)

Scientific American carried a recent article asking the question of whether string theory was science or philosophy? As a theologian, what little I know of the subject presages me to answer in the affirmative. Yes. I think its a little bit of both. Or a lot of bit of both and a little of bit of each. Which is not a way to be silly but in effect, to say we should always be open to the helpfulness of uncertainty and the tension of not knowing (the article itself is provided further below).

The larger question which looms overhead for me is how the church absently discounts science and philosophy's ground-moving discussions as specious while not even questioning itself as to why it may be important to pay attention to these disciplines in the larger scheme of things. Mostly, I'm sure, the church responds this way because it feels these discussions are not "spiritual" or "biblical" or "pertinent" and hence, do not fit into the rhetoric of biblical topics as it presses the bible closely against its martyred breast.

However, it cannot be said too often that the newer insights by science and philosophy of the 21st century must demand a fundamental re-evaluation between the church's theologies and its apprehension of academia. If not, we do the Christian faith an injustice. An injustice which puts it "above" academic reproach in the minds of its congregants who are all too ready to disbelieve anything that it doesn't hear from the pulpit or read in the holy pages of Scripture.

But this is not a good thing, its a bad thing. It makes God irrelevant to the world at large as well as to the church without. It causes the God of the bible to be too-separate from His creation when we as Christians do this. And it subsequently casts doubt on God's presence in humanity when we begin to think of Him as an "unapproachable deity" by any other means than by the mystical (or subjective) approach of belief. Moreover, it causes God to be held as a "fictional reality" to the world at large whom the Christian is to witness to of God's truths in Jesus (who then becomes "myth" Himself, unfortunately). And so, in reality, the church must wrestle with postmodern science and philosophies whether it wants to or not for if it doesn't, it affects both itself, and its witness, if nothing else.

As example, a couple years ago quantum theory provided quite a bit of fertile ground in rethinking the basic ingredients of life, the cosmos, time, ontology, etc. More so, it caused the church to confront its hallowed, classically-based doctrines and dogmas, built up over eons of time on outdated foundations of Hellenism, medievalism, scholasticism, enlightenment theory, and secular modernistic philosophies. However, since the occurrence of these older outlooks another kind of foundation has come. One that is postmodern, postsecular, post-structural, and post-Christian. And one which is very conversant with science and philosophy. A conversation which can be quite helpful in addressing the church's static conversations with itself and the world by questioning "what it thinks it knows in the bible when faced with newer interpretations questioning its quasi-foundational biblical beliefs."

Contemporary theologic (biblical) investigations and dialogue keeps faith's relevancy wide, exploratory, and expansive. It allows the church to question things it never really allowed itself to question before (like, fear, uncertainty and doubt, for instance). Or by providing more answers than it would've had clinging to older theological forms of "biblical thinking" (shorthand for "popularly approved" church doctrines and dogmas).

By way of another example, science is a lot like listening to the recent fallen political theories and conducts seen on social media of the 2015-2016 presidential candidates and their proposed policies. Proposals and conducts which seem to soar until confronted with biblical truths that say, "Hey, not so fast, here's why this doesn't work anymore! Here's why this policy or action must come under scrutiny!" (Think gay rights; protection of individual Constitutional and legal rights; immigration; equality of women and genders in society; the value of peace over the heinousness of going to war in closely connected global economies; gun control; and, etc). By all accounts, these popular candidates who are supposedly the best our society can produce have each shown a gross incomprehension across a multitude of issues when landing in the area of ethics and morality. And its been a very difficult campaign season for voters to listen to or decide within. Worse, in watching the response of the church as it throws out the gospel of Jesus in favor of discrimination, racism, sexism, misogynism, war, the trampling of constitutional rights, and a whole host of other sordid issues.

Consequently many contemporary theologians are rethinking and rewriting every doctrine they have grown up with by replacing (where necessary) each part with larger ideas they hadn't grasped until more recently because of the biblical systems they were indoctrinated within. Why? Because many of those systems were forcing furious apologia rather than constructive dialogue with the sciences and philosophies. And when practiced either socially or politically, could be seen as totally without personal or community affect upon its listeners, readers, and respondents.

More simply, if God is real, if we are finite human beings, if we struggle with existentially grasping another's life circumstance, than most assuredly our epistemologies (what we think are true) must require re-examination. Thus the labor I and others have been giving ourselves to in deeply rethinking the centers and meaning of the historic Christian faith. An orthodox faith which must become current, contemporary, and relevant, if it is to be missional.

Or, as fellow Christian friends repeatedly ask, "Do you ever wonder why the old timey rants and gospels don't work anymore?" My response? "Its not because they are untrue but because they are no longer communicating into people's lives. They need another basis, direction, level of depth, or meaning altogether that cannot be found when using anti-academic, anti-science, anti-intellectual rants and dogmas." Consequently, this means that the gospel we speak must not only embrace the sciences and academia but also the lives of those whom we minister to. And it must certainly convict even the politics and political policies we espouse to one another and to the world at large. If America is a Christian nation than let's act like it and press for social justice, world peace, and global cooperation. These things are not hard to do unless we fear and distrust one another wishing to be empire builders instead of kingdom builders. Than they become impossible to accomplish. Let's begin with changing our attitudes of one another.

One last example... I can no longer vote for a political party but for the gospel itself. I wish to see its message of service, love, peace, and mercy displayed in the Constitution as America's legal charter and no longer can vote for a political party or personage which under-represents - or opposes - basic gospel moralities and ethics. As a Christian, I strive to create a redeemed society and not a fallen one - however worldly (or Christian) I may think it might be (or once was).

And so, yes, change must be embraced, listened to, and not goal-posted around as something sinful or harmful because we don't like it or fear its results. God is there, but most likely not in how we think He is there. And if God is there (or here), than I might find that I, as the church, might speak of His truths in a more relevant conversation with the world once I let go of past unhelpful church doctrines and dogmas which refuse to be so conversant with the very world we are to restore, redeem, heal, and resurrect through Christ Jesus in the power of God's Holy Spirit. Amen.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 23, 2015

Wikipedia - The Fabric of the Universe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabric_of_the_Cosmos

Wikipedia - String Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory

Brian Greene - The Fabric of the Cosmos (parts 1-4)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html

Universe or Multiverse? New String Theory ☆ Parallel Universes & Timelines

☆ Best Full Documentary

Published on Aug 13, 2014

Part 4/4: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Universe or Multiverse? - by Scientists, hosted by Brian Greene

Program Description

"The Fabric of the Cosmos," a four-hour series based on the book by renowned physicist and author Brian Greene, takes us to the frontiers of physics to see how scientists are piecing together the most complete picture yet of space, time, and the universe. With each step, audiences will discover that just beneath the surface of our everyday experience lies a world we'd hardly recognize—a startling world far stranger and more wondrous than anyone expected.

Brian Greene is going to let you in on a secret: We've all been deceived. Our perceptions of time and space have led us astray. Much of what we thought we knew about our universe—that the past has already happened and the future is yet to be, that space is just an empty void, that our universe is the only universe that exists—just might be wrong.

Interweaving provocative theories, experiments, and stories with crystal-clear explanations and imaginative metaphors like those that defined the groundbreaking and highly acclaimed series "The Elegant Universe," "The Fabric of the Cosmos" aims to be the most compelling, visual, and comprehensive picture of modern physics ever seen on television.

* * * * * * * * *

The idea that our Universe is part of a multiverse poses a challenge to philosophers of science.

Credit: R. Windhorst, Arizona State Univ./H. Yan, Spitzer Science Center, Caltech/ESA/NASA

Is String Theory Science?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-string-theory-science/

A debate between physicists and philosophers could redefine

the scientific method and our understanding of the universe

By Davide Castelvecchi, Nature magazine

December 23, 2015

Is string theory science? Physicists and cosmologists have been debating the question for the past decade. Now the community is looking to philosophy for help.

Earlier this month, some of the feuding physicists met with philosophers of science at an unusual workshop aimed at addressing the accusation that branches of theoretical physics have become detached from the realities of experimental science. At stake is the integrity of the scientific method, as well as the reputation of science among the general public, say the workshop’s organizers.

Held at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany on December 7-9, the workshop came about as a result of an article in Naturea year ago, in which cosmologist George Ellis, of the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and astronomer Joseph Silk, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, lamented a “worrying turn” in theoretical physics (G. Ellis and J. Silk Nature 516, 321–323; 2014).

“Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe,” they wrote, some scientists argue that “if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally”.

First among the topics discussed was testability. For a scientific theory to be considered valid, scientists often require that there be an experiment that could, in principle, rule the theory out — or ‘falsify’ it, as the philosopher of science Karl Popper put it in the 1930s. In their article, Ellis and Silk pointed out that in certain areas, some theoretical physicists had strayed from this guiding principle — even arguing for it to be relaxed.

The duo cited string theory as the principal example. The theory replaces elementary particles with infinitesimally thin strings to reconcile the apparently incompatible theories that describe gravity and the quantum world. The strings are too tiny to detect using today’s technology — but some argue that string theory is worth pursuing whether or not experiments will ever be able to measure its effects, simply because it seems to be the ‘right’ solution to many quandaries.

Silk and Ellis also called out another theory that seems to have abandoned ‘Popperism’: the concept of a multiverse, in which the Big Bang spawned many universes — most of which would be radically different fromour own.

But in the opening talk at the workshop, David Gross, a theoretical physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, drew a distinction between the two theories. He classified string theory as testable “in principle” and thus perfectly scientific, because the strings are potentially detectable.

Much more troubling, he says, are concepts such as the multiverse because the other universes that it postulates probably cannot be observed from our own, even in principle. “Just to argue that [string theory] is not science because it’s not testable at the moment is absurd,” says Gross, who shared a Nobel prize in 2004 for his work on the strong nuclear force, which is well tested in experiments, and has also made important contributions to string theory.

Workshop attendee Carlo Rovelli, a theoretical physicist at Aix-Marseille University in France, agrees that just because string theory is not testable now does not mean that it is not worth theorists’ time. But the main target of Ellis and Silk’s piece were observations made by philosopher Richard Dawid of Ludwig Maximilian University in his book String Theory and the Scientific Method (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013). Dawid wrote that string theorists had started to follow the principles of Bayesian statistics, which estimates the likelihood of a certain prediction being true on the basis of prior knowledge, and later revises that estimate as more knowledge is acquired. But, Dawid notes, physicists have begun to use purely theoretical factors, such as the internal consistency of a theory or the absence of credible alternatives, to update estimates, instead of basing those revisions on actual data.

Dynamic discussion

At the workshop, Gross, who has suggested that a lack of alternatives to string theory makes it more likely to be correct, sparred with Rovelli, who has worked for years on an alternative called loop quantum gravity. Rovelli flatly opposes the assumption that there are no viable alternatives. Ellis, meanwhile, rejects the idea that theoretical factors can improve odds. “My response to Bayesianism is: new evidence must be experimental evidence,” he says.

Others flagged up separate issues surrounding the use of Bayesian statistics to bolster string theory. Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Stockholm, said that the theory’s popularity may have contributed to the impression that it is the only game in town. But string theory probably gained momentum for sociological reasons, she said: young researchers may have turned to it because the job prospects are better than in a lesser-known field, for example.

Historian of science Helge Kragh of Aarhus University in Denmark drew on historical perspective. “Suggestions that we need ‘new methods of science’ have been made before, but attempts to replace empirical testability with some other criteria have always failed,” he said. But at least the problem is confined to just a few areas of physics, he added. “String theory and multiverse cosmology are but a very small part of what most physicists do.”

That is cold comfort to Rovelli, who stressed the need for a clear distinction between scientific theories that are well established by experiments and those that are speculative. “It’s very bad when people stop you in the street and say, ‘Did you know that the world is made of strings and that there are parallel worlds?’.”

At the end of the workshop, the feuding physicsts did not seem any closer to agreement. Dawid — who co-organized the event with Silk, Ellis and others — says that he does not expect people to change their positions in a fundamental way. But he hopes that exposure to other lines of reasoning might “result in slight rapprochement”. Ellis suggests that a more immersive format, such as a two-week summer school, might be more successful at producing a consensus.

---

Davide Castelvecchi is a freelance science writer based in Rome and a contributing editor for Scientific American magazine. He has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University​ and a science writing degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has been a staff editor atScientific American and a reporter at Science News magazine.

A Christian Message to the Violent Reading of the Bible

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible

is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s

fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior). Jesus IS the

point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems

to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus. - Jacob Wright, 12.19.15

Three cheers and a hearty welcome to Jacob Wright's thoughtfully produced vision of why we should read the bible with a Jesus-lens and not proceed with our own religious group's boundary thinking version of God.

Violence in the OT is one of the ways we can see this type of "outcome theology" which produces "outcome politics" as we stated in a recent article. If a bible reader comes to the bible treating all parts of it with equal authority-and-force than this is what is known as a "flat reading or projection of its parts across its breadth." A flat reading does not distinguish societal era, cultural event, or humanitarian movement under this kind of interpretive microscope. Rather, it equally weights biblical teachings about God from a society's "outcome-based" theological perspective preferring one's own interpretation of God and the world over other interpretive frameworks.

Importantly, the bible is not only a "book about God" (theology) but it is also a "book about people" (anthropology). It tells us of our motives, our struggles, our sin and our self-righteousness by projecting our actions upon a God whom we define through the lenses of ourselves. When Jesus came to humanity in the NT He declared to His people that the only lens of God you will ever need is Jesus' own interpretation of God by His gospel teachings and examples of sacrificial ministries to others. This is a very important observation to make. It should stop us cold in our minds and hearts demanding of us to hear Jesus and do this very thing.

As a result, Jesus is the new standard bearer for interpreting the Old and New Testaments. For example, how might we read the Book of Revelation? If from a flat, literalistic perspective we might read it as a violent apocalyptic led by a bloody Jesus forcifully imposing His rule upon an unwilling mankind. But if from a Jesus-centric reading we might rather think of God's Lamb as warring upon the sin and ruin bourne within our souls in a metaphorical sense. Which thus asks the further question as to what kind of freedom might God allow? Is God ultimately in the business of meticulously controlling us or, if not, than what kind of freedom does God allow for a divine-human cooperative to exist?*

If we read the bible through a Jesus-lens then we must allow this understanding to challenge our doctrines and dogmas of God, the church, and even mankind itself by asking the following questions... "Did God really proclaim the things we read of Him in the OT or were they re-interpreted by His people as something else? Or, "did Yahweh's eager followers mis-proclaim Yahweh's divine love for divine violence upon their neighbors?" More so, the OT shows us the progression of God's people from an ancient society built on violence to a more conscientious society seeking the social graces of peace and mercy upon all. Or, if not, of failing altogether in this task, even as we in the church of Jesus Christ do today - both now, as well as in ages past of the historical church.

Much like the rainbow in Noah's sky promising "never again," Jesus has become the cleft-in-the-rock-of-mankind whom we must now see God through (sic, even as God protected Moses from His glory by placing him "in a cleft in the rock" so God protects us through Jesus). Effectively, even in the task of God revealing Himself to Israel in the OT they still comprehended one thing for another thing. As counterweight to this fallen/sinful comprehension, the very God Himself came by flesh and by bone to reveal Himself once again as clearly as He could to a people dull of hearing and readily blind of mind and purpose. A dullness and blindness of mind and heart portrayed in Israel's theologic scholars of their day as they proclaimed Jesus as Satan's false devil to then later unjustly/mercilessly crucify Him with the criminals of His day.

Without Jesus as our guide and interpreter we are left with the many assorted versions of the God of heaven which we read of in the OT. Hence, for myself, as for many, when interpreting the bible we must now remember to read it anthropologically and existentially. If so, we will begin to ask questions like, "Why was the bible written in this way? What does it reveal to us about God's followers back then and their comprehension of God in their ancient times? In what way is this picture of God helpful (or unhelpful) to Israel's pursuit of the living God?" Or even, "How does this new understanding of God change my doctrines and dogmas I've held so dear over the years?" and so forth.

It removes a flat reading of a literal bible methodology by moving it up the evolutionary scale of societal examination socially, spiritually, and personally by using not only context, grammatical, and historical tools, but also anthropologic and existential tools of societal/biblical examination. It is but one more layer to God Himself and why our misunderstanding of His will-and-ways seem so incomprehensible to the simpler tools of literal interpretation when not applied. Outcome theology, like outcome politics, is all in the eye of the beholder. Let us then be the more humble before God refusing to declare what is untrue of Him by our own wisdoms and worldliness when seeing the truth in Christ so plainly revealed in the NT.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 21, 2015
edited December 22, 2015

*Regarding "God's Sovereinty"... we've asked these questions before under the topics of "divine determination" vs. "divine insistence." This latter speaks to God's oneness/presence with(in) a fallen creation in process to congruency with His personage, will, and decrees. In essence, God has granted to His creation (us) "maximal freedom" based upon who He is, which would necessarily include both the weak and strong anthropic principles (go to these links here, here, and here) - both scientifically (WAP) as well as philosophically (SAP). We've also argued this position from a "weak theological" perspective using Arminianism (Wesleyan theology) as versus the "strong theological" perspective of Calvinism (Reformed theology) using Relational-Process Theology and Radical Theology (both the anti-Christian and post-Christian variants which argue for a religionless Christianity centralized in Jesus as the gatekeeper to any faith) as divine "maximal-freedom" conveyance systems. Obviously this discussion of biblical interpretation can become both ontologically and metaphysically technical so I have deferred it to this subsection here.

Jesus Is The Antidote To Our Delusions Of A Violent God, Made In Our Own Violent Image

http://brazenchurch.com/jesus-violence-old-testament/

by Jacob Wright

December 19, 2015

Comments

Since the beginnings of Christian theology, people have recognized the tension between some of the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament versus the revelation of God in Christ.

We like to pretend that these views are not contradictory. We’ve created a dance of fancy theological footwork to merge the image of violence with the image of peace. We try to say it’s not “contradiction”, and use words like “paradox” and “mystery” instead. We say things like “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

All the while, we know it doesn’t add up. The reality is that we see two opposing portraits of God in the scriptures: a violent God of wrath slaughtering his enemies and commanding his people to do the same, and Jesus… saying his Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, saying he loves his enemies and commanding us to do the same.

While I can’t claim to perfectly resolve this dilemma, my goal today is to provide a compelling case for why Jesus is, as Paul describes, “the image of the invisible God,” and THE standard by which all other images of God must be held accountable.

A God Made In Our Image

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” – 1 John 4:181

For a while now, I’ve been trying to sift my way out of all the confusion that comes from a flat reading of the Bible, where everything every biblical author over thousands of years says about God is equally true.

With such a conglomeration of opposing divine portraits, I had no peace of mind. I never knew how God felt about me. He loves me infinitely but also plans to destroy me if I don’t live right? This view held me in fear my whole life. In fact, the majority of people I see holding this view are also enslaved by fear, incapable of thinking reasonably about the nature of God or love.

“God’s love is a different kind of love then ours” is confusing and just another way of saying God isn’t loving. If we remove divine love from what we relate to as love, then it becomes something else and there is no use in calling it love. Such “love” has no power to cast out fear.

Today and through history, I see the this dichotomous view of God breeding self-righteousness and fear. I see people using whatever portrait of God they can find on the biblical smorgasbord of divine portraits to excuse whatever kind of violent and unloving attitude they have against people they hate or disagree with. I see condemnation of others who have different views as “heretics” and no general consensus on the truth of God’s nature.

The Bible has been used throughout history to excuse slavery, war, genocide, torture, vengeance, capital punishment, and the superiority complex of the “chosen”. The reality is that all of this can be found in the Bible. And yet, these things are the opposite of Jesus.

This is not an exclusively religious problem, nor is it a reason to think low of the Bible. Atheists are good at pointing out the violence in the Old Testament and making the Bible into an immoral, unethical book. However, the violence of the Bible is a human problem, a case study in primitive ethics and human violence which were projected onto “the gods” throughout history, our God included among them.

The Bible reveals anthropology just as much as it reveals theology

The Bible shows the Spirit at work within our messy societal evolution, as he progressively leads us out of our delusion and into the revelation of Christ. I believe the Bible reveals that God’s love is big enough to allow humanity’s violent projections, as he works with us where we are at to bring us into a higher revelation of truth and love. After all, the Bible also inspires the most powerful visions of compassion, social justice, kindness, peacemaking, and love of enemies.

So I’ve had to wrestle into a new understanding of God, where the higher way revealed by Jesus trumps the violent projections of mankind onto the God of their forefathers. I have resolved to simply focus on Jesus, since I believe he is the highest revelation of God – a God who gives me peace and hope and yet never lets me be comfortable in sin or apathy. A God who demonstrates reckless, furious, self-giving love and pro-active empathy for humanity and is dedicated to justice for the oppressed and victimized. A God who is with us and for us. A God like Jesus.

There are several ways that we can make a God of our own liking instead of the one found in the gospels. Many accuse those who believe in a nonviolent God of making a God in their own image, but those who believe in a nonviolent God are getting their views first and foremost from Jesus, who as Paul describes, is the perfect “image of the invisible God.” Since their faith is based first and foremost in Christ rather than the Bible – since they are called “Christians” rather than “Biblians”, this is commendable.

Yes, we get Jesus from the Bible, but on this matter Brennan Manning hit the nail on the head:

"I am deeply distressed by what I can only call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word – bibliolatry. God cannot be confined to a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.

"The four Gospels are the key to knowing Jesus. But conversely, Jesus is the key to knowing the meaning of the gospel – and of the Bible as a whole. Instead of remaining content with the bare letter, we should pass on to the more profound mysteries that are available only through intimate and heartfelt knowledge of Jesus."

– Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, 1996, p. 174-175

It is never okay to quote the Old Testament to endorse something that Jesus clearly forbids

Those who easily dismiss and rationalize away the radical, counter-cultural teachings of Christ by quoting random Old Testament scriptures are not followers of Jesus; they are followers of whatever they happen to get from the myriad of conflicting images they can find in the Bible.

If someone cuts them off in traffic, maybe they can follow the “love your enemy” verse, but if someone physically threatens them, it’s time to take their pick from the smorgasbord of examples of retribution in the Old Testament (or at least the apocalyptic symbolism of the book of Revelation!). By doing this, they are able to create a God exactly in their own image by choosing whatever image of God fits what they need in the moment.

We have done this all throughout history. As Brian Zahnd so aptly put:

"Even if we restrict our inquiry into the nature of God to the Bible, we are likely to find just the kind of God that we want to find. If we want a God of peace, he’s there. If we want a God of war, he’s there. If we want a compassionate God, he’s there. If we want a vindictive God, he’s there. If we want an egalitarian God, he’s there. If we want an ethnocentric God, he’s there. If we want a God demanding blood sacrifice, he’s there. If we want a God abolishing blood sacrifice, he’s there. Sometimes the Bible is like a Rorschach test — it reveals more about the reader than the eternal I AM.

– Brian Zahnd, from his forward to A More Christlike God by Brad Jersak

A nonviolent God is really hard to make in your own image, particularly because all humans naturally see violence as an acceptable or even glorious means of shaping the world. Violence is the foundation of civilization and comes instinctively to us. This is what is so ironic about the accusation that believing in a nonviolent God is making a God in our own image.

If we want a God in our own image, a nonviolent God is NOT the way to go.

Jesus says God loves his enemies, and that we are to emulate him in this. If that does not rule out God killing and torturing his enemies, then there is no reasonable thing we can conclude from Jesus telling us that God loves his enemies, nor is there any example we can follow as to what loving one’s enemies might actually look like.

Jesus tells us to be like our Heavenly Father who is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked”, and THEN we will be his true children.

Old Testament Portraits Vs. Christ

“Kill them all. Men, women, children, and babies. Show them no mercy.”

– God in Deuteronomy 7 and1 Samuel 15

“Love your enemies. In so doing, you will be like your Father, who is kind to the

wicked. Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” – Jesus in Luke 6

Here we have juxtaposed two images of God. One is an image of God in the Bible from thousands of years before Christ and one is the words of Christ himself who is “the image of the invisible God” and the “exact representation of God’s being.” Like it or not, this demonstrates a black and white contradiction.

The answer is not to throw out the Old Testament, as Marcion did in the 2nd century. Because the Old Testament has the second voice too: an ever progressing understanding of Gods unconditional love – how he pleads the cause of the victim and hates violence.

Rather, the answer is to acknowledge the obvious problem and recognize two views of God wrestling with each other in the people of God and the writers of scripture, culminating in the higher way revealed in Christ.

The Son, not the Bible, is the perfect representation of the Father. You cannot overemphasize Jesus. You cannot believe in Jesus too much. Don’t try to “balance” Jesus with other stuff. Believe in him. This is the Son, with whom God is well pleased. Listen to him!

The writings of numerous authors over the changes of thousands of years within one religious tradition which we call “the law and the prophets” or “the Old Testament” by no means presents a univocal view of God. There is a conversation going on [in the OT] – a progressive, evolving understanding of the divine. Later writings sometimes critique earlier writings, and later prophets critique earlier prophets.

Just as we see the progression and evolution of ideas and awareness throughout human history, so too do we see a progression in the Jewish people’s revelation of God

When the time was right, the Messiah came forth into history, and while many prophecies foretold him, he represented the fullness of truth in a way that went far beyond the limited, immature framework Israel had received and processed revelation through. Christ respected the law and the prophets because he recognized and affirmed the progressive revelation of God, and they, through the limited framework they knew, were inspired by the Spirit to come into agreement with the righteousness and truth of God being established on the earth.

Jesus was the fulfillment of this progressive revelation. This is why he said in Matthew 5:18, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

In Christ, the Law was fulfilled. And in Christ, the prophets’ framework of righteousness and truth being established through violence became an allegory for the “violent” aggression of God’s inescapable love.

The law of Moses helped humanity progress out of the law of the jungle – the primal, survivalist humanity bent on conquest, where the powerful subjugated the weak. A more primitive humanity which followed the survival instincts of conquest needed a strict code of conduct, with the threat of punishment, in order to progress. It was their paradigm. It’s what they understood.

This is the beginning of bringing humanity out of a reality where violence was the foundation. The law was a product of its time, and therefore reflects that time. Its values were actually quite progressive for the day they were written. It served as a stepping stone. It sent them on a trajectory towards a societal order that valued justice for all instead of survival of the fittest.

As Israel progressed, we see the prophets giving an increasing voice to the oppressed. We see mercy and justice becoming the greater focus. We see the vision of a tribal God who demands sacrifice fading and becoming the God who “desires mercy and not sacrifice” (a phrase Jesus quoted twice) – a God who loves the nations and desires to be a father to all peoples, just as Abraham had envisioned in the beginning.

While the law put us on a progressive trajectory, it was ultimately unable to usher in the true image of God. Only love could do that. Only love incarnate could show us that

The law therefore set us on a trajectory towards societal order and justice, finally concluding in the revelation of our need for the rebirth experience through Christ. The law is therefore perfected in love. The law is fulfilled by the indwelling Christ who through us shapes a new humanity – the kingdom of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of grace are revealed as the children of God.

As Peter Enns says:

"The New Testament leaves behind the violent, tribal, insider-outsider, rhetoric of a significant portion of the Old Testament. Instead, the character of the people of God–now made up of Jew and Gentile–is dominated by such behaviors as faith in Christ working itself out in love, self-sacrifice, praying for one’s enemies and persecutors."

Having a “biblical” defense for anything is easy. You can have a solid biblical defense for slavery, genocide, war, polygamy, nationalism, sexism, and racism. But when we hold these things accountable to the image of God revealed in Christ, we find them to fall short.

When people hold the nonviolent teachings of Jesus to be the truest image of God, it doesn’t make sense to say, “You’re trying to make God into your own image! His ways are higher than ours!” In truth, these short-tempered, violent, demanding portraits of God look strikingly similar to you and me, or at least, how we would be without Jesus.

[Facetiously,] it seems that the God many of us believe in needs to ask Jesus into his heart!

God’s Ways Are Higher

Violence is not a way that is higher than man. Violence is exactly like us. It is perfect altruism that is so much higher than our ways and our thoughts.

A God who slays his enemies, we can relate to, but a God who dies for his enemies… that is incomprehensible.

And a God that commands us to do the same? This is where it starts getting uncomfortable for us.

Jesus is the way of God that is so much higher than sinful man. In fact, in Isaiah, when God declares that his ways are higher than ours, it is in the context his lovingkindness and mercy, which is so unlike our human ways.

“’Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:7-8

The chapter literally goes on and on in extravagantly describing the outlandish lovingkindness that God has for us, detailing the overflowing peace and joy we’ll have – for the mountains will burst forth in joy before us and the trees will clap their hands for us – when we turn back to him.

So how are God’s way higher than ours? He has outrageous mercy and he freely pardons.

In fact, when Jesus finishes teaching us to love and do good to our enemies, he then says, “Then you will be children of the MOST HIGH who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” This is the only place Jesus calls God the “Most High”. In other words, you can’t get any higher above human thought than this, and it is against all natural violent human instincts of selfishness and survivalism and revenge.

This reveals, without question, God’s core essence of love: the Most High is kind to his enemies. If someone were to strike God on the cheek, God would turn to them the other cheek. If someone were to kill God, God would not fight back. He would submit. And his submission would be his triumph over all powers. This is Jesus. This is the way of the cross. This is the high way of God.

Allow me to suggest that God never deviates from this highest way. God never deviates from being like Jesus. God is the high way. God is like Jesus.

The title “Most High” is used in the Old Testament to speak of God’s power, particularly his power over the nations as well as over all other powers and “gods”. Jesus usually spoke of God in terms of his Abba, Father, but when Jesus speaks of God in terms of his power as the “Most High”, he does so in terms of loving enemies and being kind to the ungrateful and wicked. This is typical of Jesus – subverting our ideas about God and about power.

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” – Luke 6:35

This is how God is the Most High. This is how God has power over the nations and above all spiritual powers: God loves his enemies and is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. In the way of the world, power is who has the biggest muscles, the biggest bombs, the most resources that can do the most destruction, who has the most skill, etc.

But as 1 Corinthians 1 says, it is the cross that is the power and wisdom of God.

God’s power is greater than the power of the world, not because he operates in the same manner only with bigger muscles, but because he operates in the opposite manner: humility, servanthood, kindness, forgiveness.

This is the tenacity and strength of the truth. This is Jesus. This is the cross. This is how the kingdom comes.

Children Of The Most High

But Jesus not only says that is how God is the “Most High”, but that is how we are children of the Most High. In other words, we are participants in this power. When we love our enemies, we become examples of the Most High’s nature.

Scripture even goes as far as to describe us as “gods” in this sense. Yes, when Jesus used the phrase “children of the Most High”, there is one other place that phrase is used, “You are gods; you are all children of the Most High.” – Psalm 82:6

When we learn the way of love and the Christ-heart takes form within us, it causes us to become peacemakers in a world of hostility – to reject tribalism, enmity, and retaliation – to have such an empathy for humanity as to seek the best for even our enemies. This is when we become like “like gods”. We become images of our Maker – children of the Most High.

There is a theme in Jesus’ thinking concerning this idea of being “children of God” or “sons of God.” (The phrase “children of God” and “sons of God” is interchangeable. Some use “children” instead of “sons” to be gender inclusive).

First, Jesus says if we love our enemies then we are children of the Most High. And again, in theSermon on the Mount, Jesus makes the connection: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Sonship is not just a small part of the gospel. It IS the gospel

John says that “To all that received him, he gave the power to BE CALLED SONS OF GOD.” Where else did we hear that phrase? Who will “be called sons of God”? Peacemakers.

So here we have receiving Christ made synonymous with becoming a peacemaker. The gospel, after all, is the gospel of peace and the good news of the kingdom of God, of “peace on earth and good will toward men”. Christ is the Prince of Peace. Jesus says the most prominent feature of the sons of God is peacemaking. To all that received the Son, he gave the power to be called sons of God – to be peacemakers – to usher in the kingdom of God.

Paul also uses this phrase “sons of God” in Romans 8, when he says all of creation is eagerly anticipating the revealing of the sons of God, for within this revelation creation will be liberated into glory. The renunciation of hostility towards our fellow man and the fostering of the Spirit of God within, of such great love, humility, and compassion, that we become peacemakers: creating family, destroying hostility, standing against the powers of injustice in the power of the Spirit, laying our lives down, shaping a new world, liberating this creation into the Fathers kingdom.

Peacemakers. This is when the righteous shine like stars in the kingdom of our Father.

Regarding peacemaking, why don’t we as Christians take this seriously, when Christ emphasized it over and over? Why do we not seek to live out the commands of Jesus, who we profess to be our Lord. “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?” – Luke 6:46

Good question, Jesus, let me think about that.

Violence is easy, instinctual, and natural. It’s all of our default. It takes but a quick glance at the world to know this is true. But as Jesus said, loving our enemies and bringing peace is what makes us true children of God.

Being a peacemaker is challenging. It takes far more creativity, imagination, and sacrifice than violence ever required.

And yet I love how Jesus gives us zero outs on this. Nowhere does he endorse or demonstrate violence. The best people can come up with is the temple episode, where we see Jesus at his most intense, but nowhere does it say he inflicted injury on anyone’s person.

So then it’s back to the Old Testament to vindicate our violence. Or at least the extreme apocalyptic imagery of Revelation! Yes, we can use that metaphorical apocalyptic imagery to vindicate our not taking Jesus seriously! John the Revelator to the rescue! Whew.. Almost put us in a bind there, Jesus. (For a better way to read the book of Revelation, click here)

Even with zero “outs” from Jesus, we are fishing, fishing, fishing, for some way… ANY way… to excuse our violence. We have a western world full of professed followers of Jesus, 99% of whom completely ignore his blatant command to love one’s enemies and renounce violence – who see peacemaking as weak and “not pragmatic”.

In this way, our “Christianity” has become like the Pharisees Jesus spoke so forcefully against, who “look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead.”

The Sword Jesus Came To Bring

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” –Matthew 10:34

Many people seem to think this verse throws a giant monkey wrench in the idea of a peaceful Jesus. Only in a world of one-line, out-of-context verse quoting is this the case.

In this verse, Jesus is not suddenly contradicting his ENTIRE message. Obviously! He is not discussing a literal sword, but rather, the sword of his mouth, just as the book of Revelation portrays.

This sword is his message of the kingdom of God, that wages war on the principalities and powers, the mindsets and ideological strongholds in people and cultures which individually and collectively form strongholds of oppression over humanity. As the apostle Paul said,

“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” –Ephesians 6:12

The message of God’s humanity in Christ and his solidarity with the marginalized and victimized is a seed that begins to grow and infiltrate the thinking of this world, deconstructing ideologies of violence and injustice, and bringing into reality the angelic announcement that came with Christ’s arrival into the world, “Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.”

Christ’s command to peacefully love our enemies forces us to see common humanity in our rivals. It overturns tribal scapegoating, condemns the oppressive hoarding of wealth, and teaches us to care for the poor. Jesus demonstrated purity of heart, union with Abba, reconciliatory cosuffering, the ethics of peacemaking, and what it means to lay down one’s life.

When we enter into the message of Jesus, it begins a radical transformation within us and becomes a prophetic announcement of the kingdom of God in this world. In births in us a new way of being human… truly human. Human as Christ is human, as sons and images of Abba, who do what they see the Father doing.

This is how the lamb and his community of followers “wage war” and triumph over the beastly systems of this age, by the peacemaking blood of the lamb, by the testimony of those who have become like the lamb, and by those who have embraced the sacrificial, nonviolent love of the lamb, even if it means their own deaths.

The image of God on the cross deconstructs all images of a violent God. The Crucified God simply hangs lifeless, bloody and marred, as a symbol to humanity, drawing out empathy, exposing victimization, condemning violence, demonstrating forgiveness, making peace, deconstructing false images of God, casting down powers, and creating a new humanity with resurrection life.

Summary

Nothing makes me desire to be merciful more than knowing my Father is like that. My desire is to emulate him. Like Jesus, I want to do what I see my Father doing.

If my Father smites his enemies and pours retribution upon them, I will view my own enemies through that lens. Rather than responding with Jesus’ radical compassion and mercy, I’ll gleefully think about how those I dislike will be destroyed or tortured eternally.

But if, as Jesus said, my Father loves his enemies, is kind to the wicked, and gives to them without expecting anything back, then I will find myself hoping the best for my enemies, looking for the gold within them, keeping no record of wrongs, and seeking redemption in their lives.

In an odd twist to the “imago dei”, we become made in the image of the God we worship. The God you worship will be the God you become like.

A violent god is not the God we see in Christ. It’s a god fashioned in our own image. A nonviolent God is so very unlike us – so much higher – calling us into our true image.

Our violent God does not exist. But neither does our easy-going Jesus exist. His love is both tender and furious. It comes to level the mountains and raise up the valleys. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It continuously shakes us out of our delusions to expand our awareness of the cross’ divine wisdom – kenosis (self-emptying of one's wisdom for another's) and theosis (coming into union with God) – self-emptying love and partaking in the divine nature. It lures and pushes us forward to become peacemakers and lay down our lives for one another – to grow into the true image of God – children of our Father. This is the kingdom come. This is peace on earth, good will toward men.

A violent and retributive God makes followers who don’t take radical forgiveness and peacemaking very seriously. Jesus is not that God. Jesus lays down his life for his enemies.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior).

Jesus IS the point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus.