Monday, February 6, 2012
The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say About Human Origins
I Could Have Used This Book Twelve Years Ago: A Review of “The Evolution of Adam” by Peter Enns
by Rachel Held Evans
February 2, 2012
Within the first week of my freshman year of college, my Introduction to World Literature class included a reading of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian myth about a hero who is described as 1/3 man and 2/3 god.
As we read the text together in class, I couldn't help but notice some striking similarities between this text and the familiar texts of Genesis and Ecclesiastes, but when we got to the part where Gilgamesh speaks with Utnapishtim, a survivor of the Great Flood, I disintegrated into a full-fledged faith crisis. So much of the Gilgamesh flood story sounded just like “my” flood story from Genesis: Both accounts included a boat in which just a few people, along with animals, are saved from a universal flood. In both stories, the boat comes to rest on a mountain and birds are sent out to find land. And both stories end with a sacrifice to a deity. And my literature book dated the writing of Gilgamesh before the [date of] writing of Genesis!
I was at a conservative Christian college, and so my professor insisted that the texts had been misdated and that the story of Gilgamesh represented some sort of distortion of the historical/scientific account of Adam and Eve, Noah, and the flood. But my literary instincts had kicked in and I just wasn’t buying it.
“The similarities between these texts must mean that they are of the same genre and share a similar context,” my English-major mind was screaming. “Why would we regard one as history and the other as story when they use such similar images, styles, symbols, and plotlines? That just doesn’t make sense.”
Twelve years later, Old Testament scholar Peter Enns has confirmed my suspicions, but in a way that has somehow managed to strengthen my faith rather than weaken it, through a fantastic book entitled The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins.
“The early chapters of Genesis are not a literal or scientific description of historical events but a theological statement in an ancient idiom, a statement about Israel’s God and Israel’s place in the world of God’s people,” Enns explains. “The core issue raised by ancient Near Eastern data has helped calibrate the genre of the biblical creation accounts. The failure to appreciate that genre calibration is responsible for much of the tension in the evolution discussion.... To observe the similarities between the creation and flood stories and the literature of the ancient Near East, and to insist that all of those other writings are clearly a-historical while Genesis is somehow presenting history—this is not a strong position of faith, but rather a weak one, where Scripture must conform to one’s expectations.”
Enns goes on to remind readers that “a text’s meaning is rooted in its historical and literary context,” and to argue that the historical and literary context of much of the Old Testament can be found in the questions and concerns of post-exilic Israel.
I first heard Enns present these ideas at a conference hosted by the BioLogos Foundation in 2010, and it was as if a light clicked on in my head. As a lover of literature, it made perfect sense to me that the best way to understand an author’s meaning is to study the time and culture in which the author wrote, to get a sense of the sort of questions people were asking at the time. Taking this approach to the Bible does not weaken it, but rather respects it for what it is, not what we want it to be.
The Evolution of Adam not only answers just about every question I had after Enns’ Biologos lecture, but also includes a lengthy and thoughtful treatment of the apostle Paul’s Adam, again seeking to understand Paul’s intent within his unique context and culture. Enns is quick to note that it is Paul’s view of Adam rather than the Genesis account itself that causes most Christians to wrestle with the implications of evolution, and so it is Paul’s view of Adam that must be investigated.
“Paul’s use of the Adam story,” Enns concludes, “serves a vital theological purpose in explaining to his ancient readers the significance for all humanity of Christ’s death and resurrection. His use of the Adam story, however, cannot and should not be the determining factor in whether biblically faithful Christians can accept evolution as the scientific account of human origins—and the gospel does not hang in the balance.”
This may seem like an impossibly complicated topic to cover in a mere 147 pages, but Enns manages to do so with astounding clarity and insight. He is of the best scholarly writers I’ve ever encountered because he somehow manages to be thorough, personable, and readable all at the same time.
In The Evolution of Adam, you’ll find accessible introductions to everything from source criticism to the New Perspective on Paul, which will make you feel oh-so-caught-up on all the important trends in biblical scholarship. (Try not to show off at parties.)
For me, this book served as both a reality check and an inspiration—a rare combination that you just won’t find in most books that take historical and literary criticism seriously. I wish I could get into all the details of what made this book so helpful, but this would require a series of posts that will have to wait for a later time.
For now, just know that The Evolution of Adam comes with my heartfelt, enthusiastic recommendation. Learning to love the Bible for what it is, not what we want it to be, means taking its context and history seriously. Enns has managed to do that in a way that both enlightens and encourages.
I’ll conclude with a quote from The Evolution of Adam that ties together perfectly yesterday’s post and today’s:
For many, it is important for the future viability of faith, let alone the evolution-Christianity discussion, that we recognize and embrace the fact that the Bible is a thoroughly enculturated product. But it is not enough to merely say so and press on, with a quaint nod or an embarrassed shuffle of the feet. It is important for future generations of Christians to have a view of the Bible where its rootedness in ancient ways of thinking is embraced as a theological positive, not a problem to be overcome. At present there is a lot of fear about the implications of bringing evolution and Christianity together, and this fear needs to be addressed head-on. Many fear that we are on a slippery slope, to use the hackneyed expression. Perhaps the way forward is not to resist the slide so much as to stop struggling, look around, and realize that we may have been on the wrong hill altogether.
Be sure to check out the Brazos Press Web site this week. You can enter win a giveaway in which the grand prize is a book package that includes:
- The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
- Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns
- The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith
- Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible by John Polkinghorne
- The Mind and the Machine by Matthew Dickerson
(Five runners up will receive copies of The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns).
If some of these titles sound familiar, it’s because most of them are on my list of books to read and discuss on the blog. So go enter!
What I want to say to my daughter someday...
If I become the father of a daughter someday this is what I want her to know...
by Brian LePort
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My beautiful, intelligent, strong wife and I in front of Notre-Dame de Paris. |
For many men our earliest interactions with women are from our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins, along with peers at school. Some of these relationships include being nurtured for a time, but eventually we go through the process of finding our own identity as adolescents. Our mother’s kisses cause us to blush in front of our friends. Other relationships are competitive like sisters and peers at school. Some day we will compete with them for scholarships, jobs, raises, and the like. Even our relationship with our wives can be quite complex. We are nurtured, we nurture, and there is always the day-to-day challenge of learning to live with each other. Some men assert that they are the final authority in the home and that may make things easier on them but it often is not received well by their wives. Others work to share authority and responsibility in the home, seeking to understand our roles in relation to each other, not in relation to the predetermined standards of our society.
When it comes to the role of women in the church of God many men bring the experiences of these relationships to the discussion. I’ve heard men say they can’t imagine a woman as their pastor. Often they think of the woman as being “overbearing” like their mother, “competitive” like their sister, or the uniqueness of their relationship with their wife is projected onto said woman pastor.
I wonder if we men would be better at this discussion if we asked, “What would I want for my daughter in this world?” Sometimes we men do not realize that we are playing games for power with our spouses, yet there is something in us that creates a different posture toward a daughter. I say this as a man without children, but I imagine that if I become the father of a daughter someday this is what I want her to know: you can be anything and do anything a man can do in society.
Now I hear some complimentarians chirping about how women and men are different biologically, emotionally, this and that. I am not denying that we are not the same. I am denying that these characteristics mean a woman can’t be a CEO, or a senator, or the pastor of my local church.
When I realize that I want this for my future daughter it forces me to rethink how I treat my wife who is another man’s daughter. Do I want her to be everything she can be? Yes! My wife is intelligent, she is talented, she is charismatic and personable. I want her to know that her gender doesn’t prohibit her from being fully human. (She knows this already; she is strong!) If I had a sister I’d want her to be everything God has called her to be.
If I have a daughter and she tells me, “Dad, I think I am called to be a pastor,” and someone with their Bible in hand tell her that she cannot follow that calling, let me tell you it will be a bad day for that person. I won’t stand for men using their Bibles to tell a daughter or wife of mine that she can’t be what they can be for the simple reasons that she is a woman. When Scripture was written it was written in a patrilineal society. I won’t allow someone to tell my future children who will be part Latino that their race prevents them from being what they want to be. I wouldn’t allow someone to use Scripture to tell a victim of human trafficking that “you should obey your master like Scripture says.” I know people have their portions of Scripture to quote, but this is where it is essential to stand against misguided biblicism.
If I become the father of a daughter someday I want her to know she is equal to me. She is fully human. She is loved by God. She is called by Christ. She is a vessel of the Holy Spirit. I want to be the type of man that Philip must have been to cultivate not one daughter who was a prophetess, but several!
So dear Christian pastor, scholar, theologian–if a few decades from now I have a daughter who says she is called to the pastorate you can give her your opinion, but tread lightly, she’ll have a father whose been telling her for years to follow God’s calling no matter where it leads.
Continued: Part 1 - Christianity began in a patrilineal society...
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/02/christianity-began-in-patrilineal.html
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/02/christianity-began-in-patrilineal.html
Christianity began in a patrilineal society
Christianity began in a patrilineal society
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The resurrection was witnessed by women first. |
Christianity began in a patrilineal society. This influenced the language and concepts that became “biblical”. But does that make Christianity inherently masculine in nature?
I haven’t heard the audio of the recent talk given by John Piper where he claims that “God has given Christianity a masculine feel.” But I have seen quite a few people talking about it. All that I have available to me are these excerpts (from “John Piper: God Gave Christianity a ‘Masculine Feel’”) to which I would like to respond:
“God revealed Himself in the Bible pervasively as king not queen; father not mother.”
Is it a coincidence that the powerful rulers in the ancient Near East has been men? If God is to depict himself as the most powerful ruler it makes sense to communicate this through imagery understood by the audience. That said, Scripture doesn’t avoid depicting God as having motherly qualities, some examples including Genesis 1.27 where the image of God is male and female, God as mother-bear in Hosea 13.8, a woman in labor in Isaiah 42.14, a comforting mother in Isaiah 66.13, and I am sure there are others. In other words, yes, God is depicted as masculine more than feminine, but that he is depicted as feminine at all invalidates Piper’s argument. If God was gendered in any significant way there would be no reason to describe particular traits of God using prototypical feminine characteristics of the audience culture. When God is depicted in male language it is the same idea.
“Second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son not daughter; the Father and the Son create man and woman in His image and give them the name man, the name of the male.”
Again, fathers were considered the head of homes in the biblical world. It was thought that the man’s seed was what brought forth the “begotting”. Likewise, most Kings and their heirs were male. Piper’s point about Genesis 1.27 makes little sense to me since all that passage is saying is that God created “human” and he created “human” with the genders male and female.
“God appoints all the priests in the Old Testament to be men; the Son of God came into the world to be a man; He chose twelve men to be His apostles; the apostles appointed that the overseers of the Church be men; and when it came to marriage they taught that the husband should be the head.”
God appoints male priest in a patrilineal society. Surprise? Also, it seems that many pagan temples often used women in an overly sexualized way. In other words, it doesn’t mean it is God’s ideal, per se. God had no trouble with female nation leaders like Deborah who was a prophetess (Judges 4.4) and Huldah who according to 2 Kings 22.15-20 speaks with authority on behalf of Israel’s God to Israel’s King! The story is told in 2 Chronicles 34.23-28.
The apostles are a reconstruction of the twelve tribes of Israel. The males chosen are significant because of this reconstruction and likely because of the intimate nature of their time with Jesus. Even then, Jesus has female disciples whom he taught and commission, who were present to receive the Spirit at Pentecost, and who could even be apostles (e.g. Junia in Romans 16.7).
Other offices were available to women as well in the church like Philips prophetess daughters and those women given permitted to use their prophetic gifts in 1 Corinthians 11.
While Piper may ignore the debates over the nature of Paul’s statements regarding male headship (I’m a bit surprised when this is argued so matter-of-factly when the same hermeneutic can be used to justify the master-slave relationship and has been used this way), this doesn’t mean his interpretation (and all of his friends at CBMW) isn’t full of problems both exegetically and hermeneutically.
“Now, from all of that I conclude that God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And being God, a God of love, He has done that for our maximum flourishing both male and female.”
If this is so then there is little we can do. Often I ignore people like Piper, Grudem, and Driscoll. I came into Christianity through Pentecostalism where this is often less of a problem than evangelicalism (though a problem still). As Gordon D. Fee once said in an interview when asked about women as clergy, “It just isn’t an issue for me.” But I know many of my sisters in Christ who feel various calls from the Spirit cannot ignore this type of misguided rhetoric. They must stand for themselves and I stand with them.
I have many close friends who are some form of complimentarian. I disagree with them, but we can be civil (my local church has male elders only). But I disagree when they tell women “You can’t do this because….” Sorry, wrong. If the Spirit which is poured out upon our sons and daughters choses to anoint someone their gender doesn’t stop that. I’ve been in a church where one of the pastors was a woman and I thought she was wonderful in her calling. When she left our church to plant one elsewhere it was sad to see her go. She preached. She prayed. She functioned in the gifts of the Spirit. We lost something when she left.
Christianity is not a man’s religion. It is not a story where men should be in the spotlight while women stand back. While this may have been so in Israel’s past and the church’s, this is not what the prophets foresaw when they said God’s Spirit makes sons and daughters into God’s prophets. At the heart of the Gospel is Paul’s claim that there is neither “male nor female”. While Paul wrestled with the practicality of this, and we have wrestled ever since, it is my starting point, and I hope for people like John Piper it can become their’s as well.
Continued: Part 2 - What I want to say to my daughter someday...
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-i-want-to-say-to-my-daughter.html
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-i-want-to-say-to-my-daughter.html
Give Me a God Who Raises the Living!
Your God Raises the Dead? Give Me a God Who Raises the Living!
by Peter Rollins
posted 19/1/12
No matter how great a song is it cannot raise the dead, cure cancer or make your lost lover return. Music does not change the world you live in, reverse time or change history. It does not promise snake oil solutions to life’s woes. But music is anything but impotent; indeed it can be experienced as one of the most potent forces in our universe. For music can assist us in changing the way that we interact with the world we live in.
Great music can help us to affirm life, embrace it, face it and sublimate it. In other words music can help sensitize us to, and celebrate, the life that we participate in.
The poet is one who helps us experience life as inscribed with a rich and sensuous texture. S/he helps us to call forth, confront and confirm our existence. Inviting us to find the courage that might enable us to say “yes” and “Amen” to life in the midst of its complexity and in spite of our anxiety.
In light of this we might begin to understand how a divine miracle is not something that simply raises the dead but one that is able to raise the living to a place where life is not experienced as death. For without the latter the former would appear to be nothing more than the work of an evil demon.
I guess that is why I was never that interested in gods who raise the dead. The real power lies in raising the living: something that is testified to in the act of love.
Love is that which experiences another as worth more than the mundane matter of which they are composed. In love we find a cause for which we would be willing to die, and it is there that we experience life as worthy of living. In love we find a world worth dancing in and celebrating.
The claim that “God is love” testifies to this miracle. It points to the idea that, in the act of love, we encounter a transcendent depth and mystery that sets our world ablaze, a depth and mystery that we cannot grasp, but which renders our world worthy of being grasped. In other words it hints at the idea that the highest good is not some object that we should love, but a reality we participate in through the act of love itself.
Love is then the true miracle; it is in love that the living are raised from death to life. In love we do not run from our world, but learn to embrace it and raise it to the level of the sacred.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
"Nothing New Under the Sun:" 19th Century Theology v. Today's Late 20th Century Contemporary Theology
Finding roots and gems in old theologies
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/02/finding-roots-and-gems-in-old-theologies/
by Dr. Roger Olson
February 2, 2012
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/02/finding-roots-and-gems-in-old-theologies/
by Dr. Roger Olson
February 2, 2012
For the past month I’ve been immersed in nineteenth century theology: Schleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Ritschl, Hodge, Catholic Modernism (Blondel, Loisy, Tyrrell), Troeltsch, Dorner, Bushnell. It isn’t the first time, but this time I’m reading more primary texts and writing about these almost forgotten theologians.
One thing I’m finding confirmed is my long-standing opinion that there’s really nothing new in “contemporary theology.” That’s one reason I chose historical theology as my primary field of research and teaching. Every time I hear that there’s a “new thing” afoot in theology or church life or among Christians I easily find how it’s not really new at all!
For example, “relational theology” is all the rage now in certain theological circles. It’s a catch-all phrase for viewing God as affected by what happens in the world. It’s a reaction against strict classical theism that says God is simple substance, pure actuality with no potentiality, absolutely immutable, etc. Process theology is one form of it, but there are more “conservative” forms as well. (Open theism is a form of relationship theology.) I wish they would read Isaak August Dorner! In his three essays on divine immutability he completely overturned classical theism without denying God’s essential sameness through time. He made a strong distinction between God’s “ethical immutability” and God’s changing experience in relation to the world (which he regarded as an expression of his ethical character as love). Dorner clearly also influenced Barth’s doctrine of God as “He who loves in freedom.”
Dorner’s “progressive incarnation” idea struck me immediately as similar to, if not identical with, Norman Pittenger’s neo-Antiochian Christology in The Word Incarnate.
Bushnell’s idea of all language, and especially God-talk, as symbolic and metaphorical anticipates many postmodern ideas about language and theology. (Fortunately he did not take it to the extent that, say, Sallie McFague takes it.)
Troeltsch’s historicism foreshadows “religious pluralism” (e.g., John Hick). He even talked about an “Absolute” that transcends history and religious diversity that is very much like Hick’s “The Real.”
Catholic Modernism paved the way for the “Nouvelle Theologie” that created Vatican 2 and found expression in de Lebac, Rahner and von Balthasar. But even much of the Modernists thought was influenced by Newman, a previous Catholic thinker.
Kierkegaard, of course, sounds like all kinds of dialectical Christian thinkers from Barth to Peter Rollins!
When I was reading Hodge, of course, I almost thought I was reading Grudem or David Wells!
So to what conclusion does all this lead me? There are new ways of expressing old ideas, but most “new ideas” are, at core, recycled old ideas–repackaged, updated, sometimes reconstructed. But it’s very difficult to find anything truly new.
Did the nineteenth century see anything truly new come about in Christian theology?
Well, the whole idea of a “secret rapture” among fundamentalists is totally new in about the 1830s. It first appeared in circles associated with Edward Irving, the pre-Pentecostal Presbyterian preacher in Great Britain. (That was meant somewhat tongue-in-cheek as most believers in the “secret rapture” think true believers have always believed it!)
Sure, there were some new developments in theology in the nineteenth century, most of them not particularly helpful (because they were somehow related to modernity–as accommodation to, or over reaction against, it). Schleiermacher’s idea of religion as “the feeling of utter dependence” was relatively new, although it stood on the shoulders of Pietism and Romanticism. Dorner’s idea of progressive incarnation seems new even if it parallels Nestorianism.
But what’ s really new in twentieth century or twenty-first century theology? The God-is-dead movement (that is still alive with certain radical postmodern theologians)? Perhaps. But, of course, that was heavily dependent on Nietzsche, Hegel, Feuerbach and Blake!
Show me something claimed to be “new” in twentieth or twenty-first century theology and I’ll show you its roots in nineteenth century (or earlier) theology. Now, maybe that’s a good thing. I’m sure many would say it is. I’m not making a value judgment here. I’m just being descriptive. My point is that perhaps we need to go back and rediscover nineteenth century theology; at the very least it will help us understand and put contemporary theology in perspective.
31 Responses to Finding roots and gems in old theologies
*as always, comments, highlighting, etc, are mine own observations! - resJoe Canner says:
How would you characterize recent efforts (Peter Enns, for example) to re-evaluate in a more reasonable way the historical and archaeological findings that led to radical criticism and attempts to eviscerate the Scriptures? For me, it has been a very refreshing development (even if not entire novel) that we can look at the implications of these findings carefully without having to to throw out Scripture, and without having to reject the evidence out of hand because of an a priori commitment to strict inerrancy.rogereolson says:
Horace Bushnell, allegedly the “father of American liberal theology,” was opposed to “radical biblical criticism” even though he didn’t believe in inerrancy. There were voices raised against radical biblical criticism (e.g., Baur and Strauss) when it first raised its head and ever since. I doubt anything new is being said now, although perhaps some new archeological discoveries are relevant to the contemporary discussion that weren’t available a century ago or more. The problem with radical biblical criticism (e.g., Bultmann’s) is its presuppositions. Bushnell pointed that our over a century ago. He was a supernaturalist and accused the radical critics of operating out of an anti-supernatural world view.Robert says:
I’ve started to read Sparks’s “God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Biblical Criticism.” One of the arguments he makes is that, although there are indeed certain aspects of “liberal” biblical criticism that are driven or constrained by naturalistic assumptions, this is not always the case and is too often used as a convenient ad hominem argument to dismiss biblical criticism.- Basically, if you take a broad brush and say that the conclusions of biblical criticism are all (mostly, etc.) simply artifacts of naturalistic assumptions, then you can dismiss such criticism out of hand as being nothing more than materialistic naturalistic bias. That’s the same basic argument against evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory [sic, Darwinism/Scientific Naturalism - res] is nothing but an artifact and outgrowth of (atheistic, materialistic, naturalistic) assumptions, and that if you set aside those assumptions, then evolutionary theory (biblical criticism) is nothing but a shaky house of cards.
- I’m not going to re-produce Sparks’s arguments. But his basic thesis is that this often is simply not true and not intellectually honest. Many biblical critical conclusions are based on the same basic methodology that shapes other historiographical work and which has been used to, e.g., successfully decipher various “dead” languages. And if you take the time to work through those arguments to their conclusions, it requires considerable interpretive heroics (special pleading) to explain them away.
- Again, I’ll leave it for Sparks to advance those arguments in detail, b/c I’ve not mastered them myself. But I found him pretty credible and compelling, at least as far as I’ve gotten.
- I think there are two types of higher criticism of the Bible–those based on naturalistic assumptions (e.g., Bultmann and Perrin) and those not based on naturalistic assumptions. The problem is, it’s harder to come up with names of those practitioners of higher criticism (form, redaction, etc.) who explicitly hold a supernatural worldview.
ME says:
I’ve read a lot of Kierkegaard, and love it. Besides Barth, what 20th or 21st century theologians have been strongly influenced by the great Dane?- Many! Brunner, of course. Reinhold Niebuhr, Rudolf Bultmann, every existentialist theologian is at least indirectly influenced by K. About a year ago I was reading a lot of John Caputo and recognizing the influence of K. all over the place in his writing even though Derrida is his muse. I’d say Peter Rollins is influenced by K. I’d say K. is one of two or three most influential Christian thinkers of the modern world.
ME says:
Thanks! I don’t think I’ve read any of those you mentioned, but, from the very little I do know I have a negative opinion of Niebuhr (strongly negative!) and Derrida. K wrote with “two hands” so to say. I love most the things he wrote from the ideally Christian point of view and suspect Niebuhr and Derrida were more influenced by what K wrote with his “other” hand. Just an uninformed guess, though.
- I think it’s a good thing
If you think about, e.g., salvation, you have inclusivism, restrictivism, universalism. I mean, as an example, what else is left that isn’t in some respect derivative?
Brian says:
Hello, it’s interesting to see how the hottest “new” trends in theology aren’t so new. Now my question deviates a little from your article, but I am pretty sure that all “new” forms of heresies (with a capital “H”) have their roots set in early heresies. Now, my question is, is it possible for new heresies (with a capital “H) to just pop up? If this isn’t the case, is heresy (with a capital “H”) defined only by the early church’s creeds? (For example, the Nicene Creed) Or is it actually possible for new heresies (ones that the early church may not have addressed) to pop up onto the theological scene?- I guess I’d have to hear an example to decide. But I can’t think of any new ones; they all seem to be new versions of old ones. Now, if we step outside of Christianity, of course there are lot of invented religions–religions simply invented by entrepreneurs. In virtually ever case, they are just new, eclectic expressions of old traditions such as gnosticism. Don’t ask me to name any; some of them have batteries of lawyers that sue people who mention them in a negative way. But they’re pretty easy to spot.
Sean says:
Funny–I’m presently reading Schleiermacher (TCF) for the first and last time in my life. While there is an occasional gem (or at least shiny stone) amidst the mounds of problems and the work explains a lot of what happens later–my goodness, is his prose ever impenetrable! (And I say that as someone who enjoys reading Barth’s CD as a morning devotional!) It makes me wonder how much his recognition as brilliant is actually deserved or if people concluded that simply because he’s so difficult.- Yes, he’s difficult to read. No doubt about it. But he’s worth wrestling with just because of his influence on later theology.
Holdon says:
“Well, the whole idea of a “secret rapture” among fundamentalists is totally new in about the 1830s. It first appeared in circles associated with Edward Irving, the pre-Pentecostal Presbyterian preacher in Great Britain.” That it first appeared in Irving circles is a myth, not historical. And that it was totally new has been debated as well. But “new” has various meanings, so you could be right. It was never really a secret since Paul wrote: “I don’t want you to be ignorant brethren….” .- I stopped believing in the “secret rapture” when I studied Paul’s eschatology closely for myself. There’s not even a hint of it there. As for how and when belief in it arose, read The Incredible Cover-Up by Dave MacPherson.
- “As for how and when belief in it arose, read The Incredible Cover-Up by Dave MacPherson.” I suspected as much, that you would rely on that source. But it isn’t a good source. Nor was his’ a “new” discovery. Something similar was uttered a long time ago and refuted then as well. See: http://stempublishing.com/authors/kelly/7subjcts/rapture.html. Paul never said that the rapture would be “secret”. He plainly told the Thessalonians that he didn’t want them to be ignorant and then explained the rapture. I don’t know who came up with calling it a “secret” rapture. I suspect it came rather from the opponents as the proponents allude to them calling it such in the 19th century.
- I didn’t say MacPherson’s discovery was “new,” did I? But I am convinced by it. As a historical theologian, I cannot find any reference to a pre-tribulation rapture, secret or not, before the originating events MacPherson talks about. Can you? Name a Christian biblical scholar or theologian before the 1830s who believed in such. I do not know of any. The issue isn’t “secret” or not; the issue is “pre-trib” or not. However, all the people I know who write about a pre-tribulation rapture describe it in ways that could rightly be called “secret” meaning Jesus does not appear to everyone in that event.
Jeremy Patterson says:
What are the historical roots of liberation theology?- I find “the preferential option for the poor” for in Rauschenbusch’s writings. And the there were the Zealots and the Fraticelli and Thomas Muntzer and many groups throughout Jewish and Christian history that advocated and practiced revolution against injustice and oppression.
Bev Mitchell says:
What is really new in the last 100 years is our understanding of the nature of the biological and physical world, along with phenomenal advances in our understanding of the facts of history and archaeology. All these new discoveries have their various interpretors, of course, but the mountain of new facts is enormous – major truths have come to light and they are very different from what was known in the past. Many of these new truths have yet to find there way into general evangelical thought and theology/interpretation of Scripture. If we hold to the idea that theology is faith seeking understanding, which I take it means starting with a solid faith and then considering all truth as from God, and considering it seriously, there is much work to be done.Fortunately, many are hard at work on this front. Unfortunately, many evangelical leaders, inside and outside the academy, prefer to spend their time ignoring or severly criticizing this work – or re-dissecting/defending age- old positions with little reference to modern advances. As you say, there is little new when one considers the scope of theological positions taken through the centuries.- What is very new is the good fruit yielded by recent secular studies that can be used to support/elaborate various of those positions that were once more speculative. Even in working together, generally creed-afirming Christians reveal a reluctance to be as cohesive as they should be. Consider the following, four multi-authored books. While the scope is very broad, they are all very Christian works and strongly related at various levels. Yet, there is practically no overlap among the 67 authors.The Work of Love: Creation as KenosisJohn Polkinghorne ed. 2001
11 authors
The Bible Tells Me SoRichard P. Thompson and Thomas Jay Oord eds. 2011
32 authors
The Art of Reading ScriptureEllen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays eds. 2003
13 authors
Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s BibleMarcus Bockmuehl and Alan J. Torrance eds. 2008
11 authors- The sheer amount of theology being written and published these days is staggering. Who can keep up? Yet, as I approach books like these I’m prone to think I won’t find anything all that new in them (except new packaging and new evidence). The basic theological views and arguments seem to be recycled.
Rob says:
Question. At what point would you say that theologians in the U.S. and Britain stopped reading the contemporary philosophy of their own language? 19th century? 20th century? Seems as though many of the ones you mention were well-read in the 19th century German philosophy and that their theology is unintelligible apart from it.- To be sure, Germany became the “Mecca” for theologians from all over the world, probably beginning in the early 19th century [sic, thus the need to be able to read German b/c of all the literature being produced at that time! Theology for today requires one to be able to read English to keep up with current trends. - res]. All American and British theologians who could traveled to Germany (and later Switzerland) to hear Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Tholuck, then Barth, et al. I’m not sure that Hodge was all that influenced by German theology; he traveled in Germany and met leading German theologians and heard them lecture, but he was more influenced by Reid than by them. Bushnell was mainly influenced by Coleridge. Without doubt, however, German language philosophy and theology has led the way in modern theology (for better worse).
- Buddy Jesus is new
- I’m not sure about that. The language may be new, but think about Zinzendorf’s talk about Jesus as “our little lambkin” (and friend).
- I need to become a better proof reader – “find their way” not “find there way” – sigh!
Fred Smith says:
Your reading of the 19th Century is a bit “one-sided”–diverse as these theologians were they were very much in the “classical liberal” wing of 19th Century theology. Important work was done by such men as John L. Dagg, Charles Hodge, B. B. Warfield, Charles G. Finney, A. A. Hodge and Augustus H. Strong, to name a few. Many of these were Calvinists, but not all (but then, Calvinism was a leading intellectual movement in the 19th century). Every one of them had an influence on the life of the churches, often across denominational lines, at least as much so as the classical liberal theologians on your reading list.- Especially the conservatives you mention would deny introducing any new ideas. In fact, at the celebration of Hodge’s 50th anniversary of teaching at Princeton he famously declared that during that time no new ideas had been taught at Princeton. Finney? Even his “New Measures” were anticipated by Whitefield and Wesley and certainly by the revivalists of the Cane Ridge Revival. But my main point was that contemporary (late 20th century/early 21st century) theology doesn’t seem to have anything new to offer. My point was that today’s “trends” in theology seem to bed recycled from the 19th century. Also, I included some non-liberals in my list of 19th century theologians. Dorner was not a liberal.
- Donald Bloesch had an intersting idea in his volume on the Church in his Christian Foundations series. He wrote that the emergence of sects and cults, and the emphasis of second order truths to first order status, is a result of the Church not fully living up to her high calling in a holistic sense. In other words, where there is a deficiency in the life and thought of the Church, the tendency is to overcompensate with some ‘new’ movement or ‘new’ school of theological thought.
- Bloesch was a good Pietist (in the best sense of the word). He tought that spiritual vitality was first and doctrine second (without in any way making doctrine unimportant). His early books on evangelicalism modeled for me what it means to be “generously orthodox.”
Friday, February 3, 2012
Devising a Meaning for David Guetta's, "Titanium ft. Sia"
[If you have not already done so, please first listen to the music video
link below before proceeding to the commentary... Thanks.]
David Guetta - Titanium ft. Sia (Official Video)
David Guetta has produced a phenomenally mesmerizing, haunted song, and when sung by the Australian songstress Sia we find here a full range of psychological and sociological meanings that overwhelms our soul with empathic pain beyond the societal conventions of decorum. It leaves one disturbed on a number of levels adding to a slight touch of addictiveness because of its back beat of incessant tonal vibrations as we keep waiting for some kind of interpretation to tell us what we are seeing and hearing. And yet, this is the beauty of the song because as we wait for an interpretation we become caught-up in the inner turmoil of a young boy trying to make sense of his devastated world. There is no help to be found. Significant people in his life have left him totally and fully on his own. There are no friends to turn to. Teachers are fearful of him. Joggers are indifferent to him. His parents have left him with a house emptied from their usual presence of nurturing love and care. Even authority figures that are normally protective are actively seeking his harm and destruction. This boy has nowhere to turn for help. He is totally alone in a world that has blown up. That holds no answers for his soul as he implodes from within to the external forces bearing down upon him like a great weight that he cannot shake off causing him fear, pain and confusion.
We are left with an ache of emptiness for this young man so lost within himself. So alone at a time when all the barriers and constraints have been removed from his small life. He literally does not know where to go or how to act in this brave new world of reconfiguration and self-perception. All the signposts have been removed. There is no ground of reality. His very foundations have slipped their moorings. It is ultimately left up to himself to figure out what is happening as he runs from all the past consolidating forces held within his life into a dense netherlands of thickets and brier growing darker and more wild with every racing footstep until finally forced to deal with a world that he does not comprehend and collapses to the ground folding himself into a fetal ball of helplessness marked with overwhelming hurt and disillusionment. All that he has known has been shattered and removed from his sense of being and purpose, feeling and touch, into an unfamiliar world of fear and unknowing.
How often have we survivors come to these very same places within our own frail lives and literally found no help from anywhere, or anyone, to whom we have turned? As if we had been laid bare upon our own crosses of pain and death just as Jesus was when forsaken by his heavenly Father to resolve the ruin and wreck of our lives held in sin's dark hand of daily destruction? Broken, dispirited, withdrawn, we cry for mercy and hear only the echoing silences of death carrying away what's left of our broken, hollow spirits. But can the mystery of life be anything other than this? As it births a reconciliation of resolve within our trembling hearts that would cause us to let go of all that once was important and familiar? Moving us to a braver determination of allowing our completed death at the imaginary illusions of life's rhyme of jokers and comedians taunting us to follow their minstrel paths of farce and humor?
I think yes. The state of death is a most necessary experience to our own personal understanding of existence and spiritual resurrection. And until we have come to a place of personal devastation that leaves us lying utterly alone with nothing-and-no-one to relieve our pain and misery, then must we still continue down our minstrel lanes of deception, lies, and deceit. Nowhere does God promise to us that this world should hold any final satisfactions or enjoyments until He is allowed into our lives to reconfigure its divine solemnity with the healing balms of reconciliation to His own spirit of rebirth, fullness, meaning, and love. What we would use to avoid facing these ultimate issues, God must strip away from our hands, until all our successes, failures and miseries come crashing down upon our souls to find us fully alone without any final choices that would prevent us from admitting defeat and devastation gained from our crumbling worlds of personal turmoil and valiant spirits. This is conveniently pictured by the spinning bears held up in the air of what was left to the twin childhood illusions of undefeated love and dark hopelessness each forcing open a locked door that refuses admittance to the larger world of undiluted pain requiring renewal and inner sanctum from spiritual brokenness, emptiness, and meaning if one were to enter its brave new world.
For it is at this very moment when we have been magnificently imploded by God's truth and beauty that would shatter all our remaining worlds and sustaining illusions, can we bade entry into a newer world we knew little existed, nor knew we needed, until death had finally come and absolved us of ourselves and our imagined necessities and false assurances found at world's end. Absolved into the eternal, limitless, selfless, redemptive fellowship of a faithful Creator God. Come to rescue us at death's very door. So then, be at peace and know that you were never alone during this time of torn blackness and deep desperation. That the eternal hound of heaven ever betrayed your lost paths that wended beyond the streams of humanity to the very doors of hell itself and there found you when beyond all hope or help. When at that moment, when facing a final death, a death that can never come to the child of God, even while you thought you had been utterly cast off and forsaken by all around you. Yet was God there patiently waiting.
Therefore, be at peace. For God is love and love must see the end of ourselves before we can see the beginning of creation's beauty. For Eternal love will never forsake you - even as God Himself never forsook His Son held in hell's vile grip - regardless of the crosses that you have bourne in this hard life. Your pain and failures. Your miseries and hardships. Your sufferings and the agonies that have burned away upon your broken spirit. Even as God was there in His Son's healing death so He will ever be with you in yours having once gone ahead of you bearing this same pain. This same death. This same destruction. And like Jesus you will know the power of God's resurrection unlike any you have ever experienced before when once separated from God's truth and beauty. Real life, true life has come. It is a resurrection that is meant to be lived out and known this side of heaven's door. For God has done you a great mercy by giving you clear sight in the midst of death's greedy hand. Your scales of blindness have fallen off and divine healing by God's Spirit has come to you. Come then and find eternal peace. Unending. Unbroken. Sublime. Infinite. Eternal.
For Love can be as disturbing as death's burden but as boundless as divine hope's freedom that death could never promise except through Love Incarnate. Found in the person of Jesus, God's son, become our Saviour. Become our Messiah, sent to redeem a people for His name. Become our Immanuel, the sent One from God to our divine need. Become our Priest, absolving our sin. Become as God's Lamb, bearing our sin away in His own body and spirit. Become as the divine Spirit of Love, bringing healing balm and salve to the mortal wounds of our lost hearts and soul. For Incarnate Love had once lain patiently at death's door waiting to grasp whosoever came to death's foreboding entrance and chaining darkness. Now Love lies within you - and is ever yours - even when you knew it not. Your salvation has come, and truth is, you were never titanium except in God's love that would protect you from the lies and harms and deceits of this world. Be ye therefore at peace.... Be still.... Rest, rest.... World's end has come. True life becomes.
R.E. Slater
February 3, 2012
Fog - http://reslater.blogspot.com/2011/10/re-slater-fog.html
"... It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
"But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”
– Sam Gamgee, the Wise
Fog - http://reslater.blogspot.com/2011/10/re-slater-fog.html
"... It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
"But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”
– Sam Gamgee, the Wise
The Two Towers, by J.R.R. Tolkien
David Guetta Ft. SIA – Titanium Lyrics
you shout it loud
but i can’t hear a word you say
i’m talking loud not saying much
i’m criticized but all your bullets is brick of shame
you shoot me down, but i get up
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
i’m bulletproof nothing to lose
fire away, fire away
brick of shame, take your rain
fire away, fire away
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
i am titanium…
[Sia]
[Sia]
cut me down
but is you who had offered there to fall
ghost town, haunted love
raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones
i’m talking loud not saying much
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
i’m bulletproof nothing to lose
fire away, fire away
brick of shame, take your rain
fire away, fire away
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
i am titanium…
[Sia]
[Sia]
stone-hard, machine gun
firing at the ones who rise
stone-hard, thus bulletproof
[chorus]
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
you shoot me down but i won’t fall
i am titanium
Wikipedia Music Review - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanium_(song)
Single Review: David Guetta ft. Sia - 'Titanium'
“‘Titanium’ fruits from arguably fresher soils than the
bargain-basement thrills and of his previous commercial work” 3 STARS
Digital Release: December 9, 2011
Physical Release: January 22, 2012
Never the first thought in anyone’s head when it comes to songs about finding inner strength to triumph over adversary, David Guetta prefers a far more formulaic route to selling single after single. But since working with the disparagingly predictable Who’s Who of practically everyone in US music world, it was only a matter of time before pressure from DJ competition expanded from it’s caged roots of two-person audiences in council flats and stumbled into full-on wide-screen confrontation. Suffice to say with the temporary demise of the now idea-void Timbaland, the crown of best commercial DJ was up for grabs, and for a number of years since exploding back into public presence with ‘When Love Takes Over’, Guetta’s been it’s proud owner and the go-to guy for success, swatting away the momentary surges of popularity between then and now that magnetised anyone in need of a quick hit towards RedOne, Dr. Luke, J. R. Rotem or, if you were looking for arguably more prestige, Stuart Price (we’ll ignore Scissor Sisters’ viciously subcultural ‘Night Work’ in this instance).
And that in itself is one of the most startling contrasts to Guetta’s norm here on ’Titanium’. With Australian songstress Sia long overdue some commercial attention, she’s penned a song which fruits from arguably fresher and mineral-rich soils than the bargain-basement thrills and half-promises of their own appeal his previous commercial work is infested with. There’s a welcome alteration of musical direction and a vast improvement in lyrical sense. Sia isn’t moaning about the fickleness of love as some kind of misandrous woman scorned, nor is she gloating of the audacity of her adventures with love, or even her own sheer awesomeness when it comes to love. Listeners will actually have to comprehend the lyrics on a level far more profound than what is simply sung with her mighty vocals. Sia creates room for the listeners to adapt each phrase that cements the virtue of resilience to their own lives, which is something the narrow-minded, repetitive bravado of Guetta’s 2009-2011 work lacked on almost every instance.
Sia also overcomes the main worry for an artist approached by Guetta; it’s not that she’s skilfully evaded the possibility of tarnishing her own chances of succeeding commercially, but more the fact that she, much like the song’s lyrics, has stood strong against the powerhouse assembly of synthesisers by upping her own game, with her distinctive vocals ringing clear and commanding her presence with a mighty chorus. And for the very same reason, ‘Titanium’ isn’t the kind of song that’ll bring a tear to your eye with it’s rampaging pathos and sky-high vocals, but it’s just the right amount of dramatic angst to nestle comfortably on a fence between the realm of generic radio pap for the masses and a song with a real message.
Continue to -
Coming Home to Phillip Phillip's "Home"
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/06/coming-home-to-phillip-phillips-home.html
For Further Challenge -
Despair and Disillusionment: "It's All Rubbish"
Coming Home to Phillip Phillip's "Home"
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2012/06/coming-home-to-phillip-phillips-home.html
For Further Challenge -
Despair and Disillusionment: "It's All Rubbish"
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