Southern Baptist Call for Siebert's Removal re "Violence in the OT"

More Bullying by the Southern Baptists: but this time someone crossed the line
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/03/more-bullying-by-the-southern-baptists-but-this-time-someone-crossed-the-line/

by Pete Enns
March 7, 2013
Comments

Recently, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary broadcast another “panel discussion,” this one taking to task Eric Seibert for his views on God’s violence in the Old Testament. Seibert posted a three part series on my blog, the first of which is here, and has written two books on the subject, The Violence of Scripture and Disturbing Divine Behavior.

 

In brief, Seibert argues, “At times the Bible endorses values we should reject, praises acts we must condemn, and portrays God in ways we cannot accept. Rather than seeing this as a sign of disrespect, we should regard engaging in an ethical and theological critique of what we read in the Bible as an act of profound faithfulness.” (from the above linked blog post)

 

The panel, consisting of Al Mohler, Phillip Bethancourt, Denny Burke, and Owen Strachan (more on Strachen below), were predictably alarmed about Seibert’s handling of the issue of God’s violence. Seibert’s position is certainly outside of their universe of theological discourse, and they felt strongly enough to record their hour long session and post it. There is nothing at all wrong about that.

 

As for the content of the discussion, the panel’s position amounted to a marginalizing, if not dismissal, of the moral and theological difficulties with Yahweh acting like every other tribal deity of the ancient world. [In their estimation,] since the Bible is God’s Word, whatever it says holds as valid and binding, the standard by which our sinful human hearts are to be searched and tried rather than that which must be judged by sinful humans. God says it, and that’s that. Disagreement on that point is an attack on the Bible and God himself. [Hence,] they are welcome to publicize their position to any and all who would listen.

 

I won’t take the time here to rehearse the arguments themselves. They are transparently driven by the need to protect perceived theological non-negotiables, and they have been raised and answered many times. If they do not feel the need to engage their critics, their arguments are not worthy of serious attention.

 

What concerned me more than the content of the discussion was the calculating manner in which Seibert was set up not only for failure but demonization. I don’t know how else to interpret Mohler’s opening where he juxtaposed Psalm 106 (“the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever”) to–and here I was waiting for a good old genocide passage like Deuteronomy 20, but instead Mohler read a rather inflammatory excerpt from Richard Dawkins about the God of the Old Testament being a moral monster.

 

Apart from the fact that Psalm 106 speaks to God’s steadfast love for the Israelites and is therefore 100% irrelevant for the discussion of violence toward outsiders like Canaanites, the implication of the juxtaposition is quite clear: Battle lines must be drawn, and Seibert and others who wish to discuss how to rethink God are on the wrong side of the Psalm 106/Richard Dawkins divide.

 

Mohler is stacking the deck, but I think alert readers won’t be taken in by it.

 

Next, the specter of Marcion was raised (2nd century heretic who called for a dismissal of the Old Testament and significant portions of the New Testament that made God sound too–well–Old Testament like). The rhetorical stab being made here was that Seibert’s rethinking of the God of the Old Testament because of things like the violence God is nothing more than a repetition of old heresies. It’s all been said before.

 

I might have asked the panel to speak to the Orthodox tradition that saw these same violent portrayals of God as incompatible with the nature of God and so allegorized these portions of the Old Testament, but I would venture to guess that the tradition of Orthodoxy would not carry much weight at SBTS. Regardless, rather than juxtapose Seibert to Marcion, perhaps an acknowledgment that the violence of God has been a perennial theological conundrum in Church History would have been a more noble way of setting up the discussion.

 

Elsewhere the panelists juxtaposed Seibert to Nietzsche and then repeating the accusation of Seibert’s “postmodern reading strategy.” I think an objective observer would be able to recognize quickly the use of scare words, and so engaging Seibert’s thinking was not the primary focus of the meeting.

 

I feel that both the content and the rhetoric displayed by the panel are unbecoming of learned Christian discourse, but we all have our blind sides and those factors alone are not motivating me to respond. I am far more alarmed by an episode involving Owen Strachan, Assistant Professor of Christian Theology and Church History at Boyce College.

 

When Seibert’s first post came out, Strachan quickly registered his shock. Of course, it’s Strachan’s blog and if he wants to be shocked he can, and if he wants to rail against Seibert and warn others of him, that is fine, too. But what he does next is not fine, but reprehensible, and something of which I feel he needs to repent publicly.

 

Strachan apparently felt that he was serving Christ and furthering his kingdom by driving home what he considered to be the incompatibility of Seibert’s views with those of Seibert's employer, Messiah College. I was incredulous as I read the following, and I feel I must quote Strachan at length (my emphasis):

 

[Seibert] is subverting the faith of his readers and, I assume, his students. I don’t know what could be more problematic for a biblical studies professor than this. Remember–these aren’t my interpretations. I’m pulling direct quotations from his piece. He’s put his argument out there in public on a widely-read evangelical blog. He’s invited engagement; his unbiblical and spiritually dangerous argument deserves it.

 

It will be interesting to see how Messiah College responds to this. Will it take its own statement of faith seriously, as Steffan and Christianity Today pointed out? Or will it treat its confession as unimportant? Do professors at Christian schools need to abide by their doctrinal statements, or not? Is a statement of faith just a piece of paper with some well-intended but ultimately inconsequential thoughts, or does it shape the life and health of the students entrusted to the school by God?

 

Confessions aren’t for policing. They are for health. Doctrinal statements aren’t designed to punish, though that should happen if needed. They are intended to lead people to flourishing. In this doctrine, a school or a church says, you find the core of biblical teaching. This is what will give you life. This is what will bless you and lead your feet on sure paths. We offer this to you to guard you, protect you, and keep you. We will answer to God in some sense for your soul, and we are doing our utmost to shepherd you to glory.

 

It is therefore good and right and gracious when a school upholds its own standards and protects its students so that Satan cannot destroy them. And it is devastating when a school allows it standards to grow lax.

 

**Will Messiah College leadership allow this to happen? We’re all watching and waiting to see.**

 

With many others, I am praying that good will come from this, that error will be corrected, that the truth will be vindicated, that God’s Word will not be attacked but will be seen as right and true and without error and loving and good and life-giving.

 

And that students, young men and women who are put in the care of professors by their parents and churches, will thrive in Jesus Christ, triumphing over darkness and doubt and sin.

 

This is not a veiled comment. Strachan is publicly challenging Messiah College to terminate Seibert–which is to say he feels both called upon and competent to insinuate himself into a matter that, if I may be blunt, is none of his business. I cannot fathom the level of either self-delusion or a confused sense of spirituality that would lead a Christian professor to do such a thing.

 

What complicates the matter is the Christianity Today article Strachan mentions. The author, Melissa Steffan, in what strikes me as an incendiary piece of journalism, for some reason raised the specter of Seibert’s fitness to teach at Messiah, though hardly as confidently as Strachan. But, in what appears to be nothing more than a dig, Steffan felt it was of high priority–while writing under a strict word count–to cite a critical comment by Scot McKnight from his blog when Seibert’s Disturbing Divine Behavior was being discussed.

 

The use of the quote strikes me clearly as an attempt to cast Seibert in a bad light rather than simply report a story of interest. I know McKnight and contacted him, and, although he was clear he disagrees with Seibert’s position, he was not pleased with how his quote–in the midst of a lengthy vetting of the book–was used.

 

Far more disturbing was the deliberate use McKnight’s name in the title of the Facebook link to the article–thus giving the impression that the core of the CT piece and Strachan blog was McKnight condemning Seibert. The link has since been reworded after McKnight contacted Strachan.

 

All this is bad enough, and I was hoping that the issue would be raised in the panel discussion and that Strachan might give some account of his actions. Mohler did raise the issue, and Strachan justified his actions thus: ”I wanted to look at Seibert’s argument in light of his school’s confession of faith.”

 

Really? Why? Just because? And after “looking,” Strachan made it the core element of his post. Again, why? The lengthy quote above makes clear why. Strachan wanted to nail Seibert and get him fired--for the good of the kingdom so that Satan could no longer destroy Messiah college students.

 

But Strachan had more to say. He next relayed anecdotes of students he has known who entered Messiah with a strong faith and left with a weak faith. As Strachan put it, the pieces fell into place, knowing now what Seibert teaches there. (Apparently Strachan is unaware that all schools, including his own, have all sorts of anecdotes.)

 

Strachan’s use of anecdotes in a public forum to build a case against a professor, a department, and a school is at the very least unwise, and at worst borders on immaturity. Such rhetoric will safely be ignored by wiser heads, but, to mimic Strachan’s words, “Will Boyce College leadership allow this this type of public display? We’re all watching and waiting to see.”

 

Without any disrespect intended, in my opinion the position of the panel on divine violence is theologically and hermeneutically naive and untenable, and their rhetoric unfair to Seibert. But neither should cause us to lose sleep because these things can be ignored. But Strachan crosses a line.

In exercising zeal to maintain sound doctrine, Strachan and others should also remember the biblical admonition to lives lives that reflect that doctrine (Titus 2:1). As a Christian college professor myself, that is something Christian college students need modeled for them, not public personal attacks [yes, it IS personal when someone is gunning for your job] against Christian brothers with whom you have a theological disagreement.

 

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Scott McKnight, Disturbing Divine Behavior

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2010/01/disturbing-divine-behavior.html

it is not uncommon for an innocent Bible reader to read a text like the flood of Noah or the death of the firstborn in Egypt and wonder how in the world God can be involved in such actions, and then to ask what such acts would inform the Bible believer about what God is like.

Some just tell such folks to knock it off or to silence such critical thoughts or they offer thoroughly unacceptable theories, but others want to ponder such texts and to do so within the faith and within some kind of traditional view of the Bible. One such scholar is Eric Seibert at Messiah College, and his new book is called Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God.

 

After sketching the principle passages, Seiberts makes a few suggestions, and I want to call your attention to three and see what you think:

 

1. The God who really is and the God who is sketched in the Bible, that is, the Textual God vs. the Actual God, must be distinguished. And here he is saying that the Bible’s depictions of God are from a human point of view and reflect Ancient Near Eastern views of God that are not modified.

 

2. The God of the Bible, he says, must be judged by God in Jesus or Jesus as God so that what conforms to Jesus is the Actual God and what doesn’t may be the Textual God.

 

3. And he argues that the Bible’s inspiration is “general” instead of “comprehensive.” He doesn’t care for accommodation theories and finds the traditional evangelical view of plenary inspiration too problematic so he concludes that inspiration is general instead of comprehensive.

 

Thoughts?

- Peter Enns

To be Continued -

Who Is the God of the OT? Is the Jesus of the NT that same God?

 

 

 

 

Repost: Thinking Through an Emergent Christianity, by R.E. Slater

In my spare time this past year-and-a-half I have been working through a newer form of theology to help deepen the poems I wish to someday bring to life. Under the web blog title, relevancy22, I have taken both an academic and contemporary approach to the issues of the day that have unnecessarily narrowed the Christianity I grew up in; and, have tried to give newer life-and-breadth by reconsidering non-apropos issues which friends and family have lately been taught to criticize, or not consider, by this past generation of overly-conservative theologs and hasty pulpiteers. It is known as emergent Christianity, which in its own way is a more moderate (or is it progressive?) form of evangelical Christianity become politically unbalanced by the rightist issues of today. And consequently, has limited the gospel of Jesus to our postmodern, 21st Century, pluralistic, and multi-cultural societies. Societies that we as humanity apparently struggle to live within given the many incidents of civil warfare and terroristic atrocities witnessed globally between religious, ethnic, and ideological temperaments rather than seeing the good, the beautiful, the helpful within our human differences.

For myself, I don't pretend to live in the failed eras of yesteryear, nor to pursue the enlightened, late-modernism issues of the 50s and 60s by revisionistic historical practices (from either side of the political aisle). Mostly because I firmly believe that today's Christian faith can be as vital now as it was fifty years ago without having to artificially create invasive thought-barriers and protective screens to shield the faithful from the dialectic events occurring around us in contemporary society. That the life of Jesus was one of action combined with a broadening-out of Jewish theology, itself become constricted and divisive in His day of revelatory illumination. That our actions count as much as our words. That seeing the value of human life is more important than clinging to the traditions of a rich, and faithful, church heritage become insular to the criticisms and needs of the 21st Century. That the human faith must allow for the majesty and mystery of God while doubting the foibles and wisdom of man. Especially as considering God's love as the prime motivator in our Creator-Redeemer's communion with man (and the cosmos) in everything He has done - and is now doing - within our expanding worlds of knowledge and industry and societal evolution.

Consequently, I have spent many recent days and nights digesting the current affairs of Christian theology and practice, and have re-positioned those issues alongside the thoughts and actions of fellow Christian contemporaries excited by the same possibilities as myself of a newer, more gracious form of faith than presently being discovered or practiced. Along the way I have contributed what articles I could to this emerging discussion through personal insight and experience to help lend vocal support to those fellow "miscreant" theologs that my conservative branch of Christianity has purposely flagellated, or worse, ignored, in its struggle to update itself and embrace the unknown, the feared, the obvious and the unavoidable. So that in my first six months of blogging I began unsure of myself, but passionate to the burden placed upon me, by adopting the pseudonym skinhead (which in hindsight more probably indicated mine own personal deconstruction at the time) until feeling surer of myself to hazard my name to that signatory list of evolving practitioners and writers, elocutioners and philosophers, poets and minstrels. I find that I write best in prose but have attempted during that same time to duplicate the more pedantic form of my brethren to help readers along who are likewise investigating the root forms, and basal energies, of their faith. What poetry I attempt (and in truth it has been very limited) is written hastily to match the temperament of the article of that day's contribution or edition. And usually, I save my best prose for the concluding portions of the posting trusting the reader to better appreciate its words when having first read through the opening structures of the ensuing proposition and juxtaposed teaching.

Overall, I have not so much personally blogged as to try to create more of a timeless biblical index to what I consider an emerging form of theology and practice in need of definition, sorting-out, and topical discussion. One that can appreciate the contributions of the church's past creeds and confessions, beliefs and practices of yesteryear, but is willing to move beyond any current mis-conceptions or mis-representations of the bible. Or even the faith of the faithful seeking cultural acclamations rather than the biblical charter and precedence shown to us by the prophets of earlier times struggling with their generation of well-meaning religious priests and temple guardians. An emerging faith which has come to understand that "the human language is both a problem and a gift" - a problem because we wish to make it so mathematic-like. So precise and formal when it is anything but that (credit the Enlightenment for this effort of definitive syllogism and logistical precision found in Evangelical Christianity's popularly acclaimed systematic theologies of today!). And a gift, because through it we may use all the forms of human language and human presence to speak of God - whether poetically, or musically; in chants or in liturgical practice; or even non-verbally by our actions, body-language, and symbolic usage (art, film, etc).

To understand that "last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words are awaiting another voice" and by that mean that each generation has its own concerns and frames of reference that must be addressed. That if we don't learn to speak to one another between our generations - from old to young, and young to old - that we instead will speak past one another. To be aware that the Christian faith is meant to be expanded and stretched past any previous thought categories and semantic definitions into newer thought forms and meanings (Jesus showed us that in the Gospels, even as His disciples and the old guard of Judaism struggled with the same). This is because language itself can be both time-bound to the generation it lives within, as well as timeless to the generations to come. To recognize that human language bears a fluidity, or metamorphosing ability, which allows for its continual reconstitution and reconfiguration through the many eras and societies of mankind. So that we may use this uniqueness of human communication that it might breathe and find new lands of discovery and settlement amongst a wider variety of human habitat and mental conception. That how we might "think" in our people groups may be different from how other societies and generations "think" in their regional (and era-specific) people groups. That one is neither wrong nor right in their Christian thoughts and language. And that by this process we learn to communicate with one another from within our differing philosophical reference points without feeling threatened that our Christian faith is under attack every time we do. For me, Emergent Christianity is just this. No more and nor less. And because it is a different animal from Evangelical Christianity it gets undeservedly bad press by its different look and feel when it is simply learning to speak to the younger generations more attuned to their own issues and needs of their era.

Or, in another sense, we might say "it is of no use to going back to yesterday's voice (or being) because I was a different person then." And by this learn to appreciate and recognize the epistemologic and existential (e/e) growth of a person as experience catches up with the age of our time-worn souls and personhood. As example, I began life within a pre-modern enclave of farming families carrying on the deep traditions of their remembered past (from the mid- to late- 1800s) even as they were trying to absorb the industrial, World War 1 and 2 eras of the early- to mid- 1900s. They began as homesteading families to the wilderness areas of West Michigan when black bear and aboriginal natives were still common to the land. My brothers and I were the sixth generation of a farming lifestyle quickly going out of existence (as well as inheritors to a Scandinavian heritage newly come to America from the "Old Country"). And with it, all the ingrained traditions and agrarian practices of the past. We were left "out-of-time and out-of-place" with a modern day era of public schooling, gas and electricity, TV, music and an encroaching urban lifestyle far more diverse than our own. And when entering university during the upheaval of the Vietnam War era with its civil unrest, angry riots, peace sit-ins, LSD drug experimentation, and societal turmoils, I struggled to "adopt" this strange new land I found myself within which later caused me to enter into a bible school environment which held closer life values to my own remembered background. And yet, over the years I have learned to wean myself away from this (e/e) dependency and to finally make the leap these past dozen years or so towards a more metropolitan way of thinking. So that in a way, its been my third revision of myself, though more probably, my older soul still lives deep down inside of my fractured being even though I am more accepting of contemporary change. And by nature, am predisposed to understand the change I am confronted with, not being content to simply allow it to haunt my pysche without pursuing its causes, permutations, and dissatisfactions.

And yet, this gives me hope that through personal adjustments, whether small or great (however personally painful or disorientating these can be), our God may arightly affect both ourselves and succeeding generations to become fuller participants to this precious life we have been given and seem daily seem to fail to embrace as completely as it could be. To receive each day with thanksgiving. And to learn to behave ourselves more wisely with one another through the service of our gifts and talents, strengths and weaknesses. And at the last, to allow for the mystery and majesty of life itself through Jesus our Lord and Saviour. That language can be a problem, but it can also be a gift, as we accept the fact that we must grow in our communicational strengths with those different from ourselves. And by this communication allow it to bind us into a stronger, healthier society of men and women that celebrates our differences and sees those differences as the key to a brighter future not fraught with warfare, hate, fear, and distrust. May this then be our prayer. Our practice. Our desire. And in all things may we learn to share the grace of God with one another. To allow God's grace to become a vital part of our language with one another... and even within our very selves matriculating with age and experience to adopt God's love and forgiveness within our own lives and livelihood. Family structures and friends. Communities, churches, and workplace. Amen.

R. E. Slater

October 13, 2012

reposted from "the poetry of r.e.slater"

 

 

 

 

Relevancy22 - Emergent Thoughts and Observations

by R.E. Slater

 

 

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Adam" Just Got Older - And So Did the Regional Variance in Modern Mankind

 

Human sex-determining chromosomes:

X chromosome (left) and the much smaller Y chromosome.

 

Geneticists Discover the Oldest Known Genetic Branch of the Human Y Chromosome

http://scitechdaily.com/geneticists-discover-the-oldest-known-genetic-branch-of-the-human-y-chromosome/

 

March 7, 2013 by Staff 

 

Geneticists at the University of Arizona have discovered an African American Y chromosome with lineage that diverged from previously known Y chromosomes about 338,000 ago, pushing back the time the last common Y chromosome ancestor lived by almost 70 percent.

 

UA geneticists have discovered the oldest known genetic branch of the human Y chromosome – the hereditary factor determining male sex.

 

The new divergent lineage, which was found in an individual who submitted his DNA to Family Tree DNA, a company specializing in DNA analysis to trace family roots, branched from the Y chromosome tree before the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in the fossil record.

 

The results are published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

 

“Our analysis indicates this lineage diverged from previously known Y chromosomes about 338,000 ago, a time when anatomically modern humans had not yet evolved,” said Michael Hammer, an associate professor in the University of Arizona’s department of ecology and evolutionary biology and a research scientist at the UA’s Arizona Research Labs. “This pushes back the time the last common Y chromosome ancestor lived by almost 70 percent.”

 

Unlike the other human chromosomes, the majority of the Y chromosome does not exchange genetic material with other chromosomes, which makes it simpler to trace ancestral relationships among contemporary lineages. If two Y chromosomes carry the same mutation, it is because they share a common paternal ancestor at some point in the past. The more mutations that differ between two Y chromosomes the farther back in time the common ancestor lived.

 

Originally, a DNA sample obtained from an African American living in South Carolina was submitted to the National Geographic Genographic Project. When none of the genetic markers used to assign lineages to known Y chromosome groupings were found, the DNA sample was sent to Family Tree DNA for sequencing. Fernando Mendez, a postdoctoral researcher in Hammer’s lab, led the effort to analyze the DNA sequence, which included more than 240,000 base pairs of the Y chromosome.

 

Hammer said “the most striking feature of this research is that a consumer genetic testing company identified a lineage that didn’t fit anywhere on the existing Y chromosome tree, even though the tree had been constructed based on perhaps a half-million individuals or more. Nobody expected to find anything like this.”

 

About 300,000 years ago - the time the Neanderthals are believed to have split from the ancestral human lineage. It was not until more than 100,000 years later that anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record. They differ from the more archaic forms by a more lightly built skeleton, a smaller face tucked under a high forehead, the absence of a cranial ridge and smaller chins.

 

Hammer said the newly discovered Y chromosome variation is extremely rare. Through large database searches, his team eventually was able to find a similar chromosome in the Mbo, a population living in a tiny area of western Cameroon in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

“This was surprising because previously the most diverged branches of the Y chromosome were found in traditional hunter-gatherer populations such as Pygmies and the click-speaking KhoeSan, who are considered to be the most diverged human populations living today.”

 

“Instead, the sample matched the Y chromosome DNA of 11 men, who all came from a very small region of western Cameroon,” Hammer said. “And the sequences of those individuals are variable, so it’s not like they all descended from the same grandfather.”

 

Hammer cautions against popular concepts of “mitochondrial Eve” or “Y- hromosome Adam” that suggest all of humankind descended from exactly one pair of humans that lived at a certain point in human evolution.

 

“There has been too much emphasis on this in the past,” he said. “It is a misconception that the genealogy of a single genetic region reflects population divergence. Instead, our results suggest that there are pockets of genetically isolated communities that together preserve a great deal of human diversity.”

 

Still, Hammer said, “It is likely that other divergent lineages will be found, whether in Africa or among African-Americans in the U.S. and that some of these may further increase the age of the Y chromosome tree.”

 

He added: “There has been a lot of hype with people trying to trace their Y chromosome to different tribes, but this individual from South Carolina can say he did it.”

 

The study came about by combined efforts of a private business, Family Tree DNA, the efforts of a citizen scientist, Bonnie Schrack, and the research capabilities at the UA.

 

Publication: Fernando L. Mendez, et al., “An African American Paternal Lineage Adds an Extremely Ancient Root to the Human Y Chromosome Phylogenetic Tree,” The American Journal of Human Genetics, 28 February 2013; doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2013.02.002

 

Source: Daniel Stolte, Univeristy of Arizona News

 

Image: Univeristy of Arizona News 

 

 

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Y-chromosomal Adam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Y chromosome in descendants of one human male

In human genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam (Y-MRCA) is the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all living people are descended patrilineally (tracing back only along the paternal (male) lines of their family tree). Recent studies report that Y-chromosomal Adam lived as early as around 142,000 years ago.[1] Older studies estimated Y-MRCA as recent as 60,000 years ago.[2]

All living humans are also descended matrilineally from Mitochondrial Eve who is thought to have lived earlier, about 190,000–200,000 years ago. Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve need not have lived at the same time nor at the same place. A 2013 paper reported that a previously unknown lineage had been found, which pushed the estimated Y-MRCA back to 338,000 years ago.^[3]

Nomenclature

Y-chromosomal Adam is named after the biblical Adam. This may lead to a misconception that he was the only human male alive during his time, even though he co-existed with other human males,[4] including, perhaps, his own father who was not the "most recent". However, unlike himself and his paternal line, each of his male contemporaries failed to produce a direct unbroken male line to all males living today.

 

Hypothesis

 

The existence of a Y-chromosomal Adam was determined by applying the theories of molecular evolution to the Y chromosome. Unlike the autosomes, the human Y chromosome does not recombine with the X chromosome but is transferred intact from father to son. Mutations periodically occur within the Y chromosome and these mutations are passed on to males in subsequent generations. These mutations can be used as markers to identify shared patrilineal relationships. Y chromosomes that share a specific mutation are referred to as haplogroups. Y chromosomes within a specific haplogroup share a common patrilineal ancestor who was the first to carry the defining mutation. A family tree of Y chromosomes can be constructed, with the mutations serving as branching points along lineages. Y-chromosomal Adam is positioned at the root of the family tree as the Y chromosomes of all living males are descended from his Y chromosome.

 

Researchers can reconstruct ancestral Y chromosome DNA sequences by reversing mutated DNA segments to their original condition. The most likely original or ancestral state of a DNA sequence is determined by comparing human DNA sequences with those of a closely related species, usually non-human primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas. By reversing known mutations in a Y-chromosome lineage, a hypothetical ancestral sequence for the MRCA, Y-chromosomal Adam, can be inferred.

 

Determining Y-chromosomal Adam's DNA sequence, and the time when he lived, involves identifying the human Y-chromosome lineages that are most divergent from each other—the lineages that share the least unique mutations with each other when compared to a non-human primate sequence in a phylogenetic tree. The common ancestor of the most divergent lineages is therefore the common ancestor of all lineages.

 

The existence of Y-chromosomal Adam was confirmed by a worldwide sample of Y chromosomes that included individuals from all continents. A number of Y-chromosome lineages, or haplogroups, from Africa were found to be the most divergent from each other, and non-African lineages were determined to be subsets of a few lineages found in Africa. This suggested Africa was the most likely home of Y-chromosomal Adam.



Different MRCA's



Variable Adam

 

The title "Y-chromosomal Adam" is not permanently fixed on a single individual. Because knowledge of human Y chromosomes is still incomplete, Y-chromosomal Adam's DNA sequence, his position in the family tree, the time when lived, and his place of origin, are all subject to future revisions. In addition, demographic changes during the course of human evolution would have frequently caused the title of Y-chromosomal Adam to change hands.[5] The following events would change the individual designated Y-chromosomal Adam:

• Further sampling of Y chromosomes could uncover previously unknown divergent lineages. If this happens, Y-chromosome lineages would converge on an individual who lived further back in time.
• The discovery of additional deep rooting mutations in known lineages could lead to a rearrangement of the family tree.
• When deep rooting haplogroups are permanently lost from the world's population, living human Y chromosomes converge on a more recent common ancestor. A Y-chromosome lineage is halted when a male dies without leaving any male offspring (although this individual may or may not have had daughters). Phenomena such as bottlenecks and genetic drift during human evolution would have caused the total extinction of several basal haplogroups. Because of these factors, the title "Y-chromosomal Adam" has changed hands numerous times.^[5]



The revised y-chromosome family tree by Cruciani et al. 2011 compared with the family tree from Karafet et al. 2008



Family tree

Y-chromosomal Adam had at least two sons and two of his sons have unbroken lineages that have survived to the present day. Initial sequencing of the human Y chromosome suggested that two most basal Y-chromosome lineages were Haplogroup A and Haplogroup BT. Haplogroup A is found at low frequencies in parts of Africa, but is common among certain hunter-gatherer groups. Haplogroup BT lineages represent the majority of African Y-chromosome lineages and virtually all non-African lineages.[6] Y-chromosomal Adam was represented as the root of these two lineages. Haplogroup A and Haplogroup BT represented the lineages of the two sons of Y-chromosomal Adam.

 

However, a recent paper^[1] places this event around 142,000 years ago. Cruciani et al. 2011, determined that the deepest split in the Y-chromosome tree is found between two previously reported subclades of Haplogroup A, rather than between Haplogroup A and Haplogroup BT. Subclades A1b and A1a-T, now descend directly from the root of the tree and now represent the lineages of Y-chromosomal Adam's two sons. The rearrangement of the Y-chromosome family tree implies that lineages classified as Haplogroup A do not necessarily form a monophyletic clade.^[7] Haplogroup A therefore refers to a collection of lineages that do not possess the markers that define Haplogroup BT, though Haplogroup A includes the most distantly related Y chromosomes.

 

The M91 and P97 mutations distinguish Haplogroup A from Haplogroup BT. Within Haplogroup A chromosomes, the M91 marker consists of a stretch of 8 T nucleobase units. In Haplogroup BT and chimpanzee chromosomes, this marker consists of 9 T nucleobase units. This pattern suggested that the 9T stretch of Haplogroup BT was the ancestral version and that Haplogroup A was formed by the deletion of one nucleobase. Haplogroups A1b and A1a were considered subclades of Haplogroup A as they both possessed the M91 with 8Ts.^[6][7]

 

But according to Cruciani et al. 2011, the region surrounding the M91 marker is a mutational hotspot prone to recurrent mutations. It is therefore possible that the 8T stretch of Haplogroup A may be the ancestral state of M91 and the 9T of Haplogroup BT may be the derived state that arose by an insertion of 1T. This would explain why subclades A1b and A1a-T, the deepest branches of Haplogroup A, both possess the same version of M91 with 8Ts. Furthermore Cruciani et al. 2011 determined that the P97 marker, which is also used to identify Haplogroup A, possessed the ancestral state in Haplogroup A but the derived state in Haplogroup BT.^[7]

 

Origin

 

Initial studies implicated East Africa and Southern Africa as the likely sources of human Y-chromosome diversity. This was because the basal lineages, Haplogroup A and Haplogroup B achieve their highest frequencies in these regions. But according to Cruciani et al. 2011, the most basal lineages have been detected in West, Northwest and Central Africa. In a sample of 2204 African Y-chromosomes, 8 chromosomes belonged to either haplogroup A1b or A1a. Haplogroup A1a was identified in two Moroccan Berbers, one Fulbe and one Tuareg from Niger. Haplogroup A1b was identified in three Bakola pygmies from Southern Cameroon and one Algerian Berber. Cruciani et al. 2011 suggest a Y-chromosomal Adam, living somewhere in Central-Northwest Africa, fits well with the data.^[7]

 

In November 2012, a new study by Scozzari et al. reinforced "the hypothesis of an origin in the north-western quadrant of the African continent for the A1b haplogroup, and, together with recent findings of ancient Y-lineages in central-western Africa, provide new evidence regarding the geographical origin of human MSY diversity".^[8]

 

Time frame

 

The time when Y-chromosomal Adam lived is determined by applying a molecular clock to human Y-chromosomes. In contrast to mitochondrial DNA, which has a short sequence of 16,000 base pairs, and mutates frequently, the Y chromosome is significantly longer at 60 million base pairs, and has a lower mutation rate. These features of the Y chromosome have slowed down the identification of its polymorphisms and as a consequence, reduced the accuracy of Y-chromosome mutation rate estimates.^[9] Initial studies, such as Thomson et al. 2000,^[9] proposed that Y-chromosomal Adam lived about 59,000 years ago. This date suggested that Y-chromosomal Adam lived tens of thousands of years after his female counterpart Mitochondrial Eve, who lived 150,000–200,000 years ago.^[10] This date also meant that Y-chromosomal Adam lived at a time very close to, and possibly after, the migration from Africa which is believed to have taken place 50,000–80,000 years ago.

 

One explanation given for this discrepancy in the dates of Adam and Eve was that females have a better chance of reproducing than males due to the practice of polygyny. When a male individual has several wives, he has effectively prevented other males in the community from reproducing and passing on their Y chromosomes to subsequent generations. On the other hand, polygyny doesn't prevent most females in a community from passing on their mitochondrial DNA to subsequent generations. This differential reproductive success of males and females can lead to fewer male lineages relative to female lineages persisting into the future. These fewer male lineages are more sensitive to drift and would most likely coalesce on a more recent common ancestor. This would potentially explain the more recent dates associated with Y-chromosomal Adam.^[11][12]

 

The 2011 study by Cruciani et al. found that Y-chromosomal Adam lived about 142,000 years ago, significantly earlier than previous estimates, such as the 59,000 years ago estimate proposed by Thomson et al. 2000. The older TMRCA was due to the discovery of additional mutations and the rearrangement of the backbone of the y-chromosome phylogeny following the resequencing of Haplogroup A lineages. According to the study, determining the precise date when Y-chromosomal Adam lived depends on the accuracy of the mutation rate used. But the repositioning of the MRCA from the root of Haplogroups A and BT to the root of Haplogroups A1b and A1a still entails that Y-chromosomal Adam is older than previously thought. According to Cruciani et al., the much older date is easier to reconcile with models of human origins.^[7]

 

Current Research

 

A 2013 paper reported that a previously unknown very distinct Y chromosome had been found, which changed the estimated Y-MRCA to 338,000 years ago (237-581 kya with 95% confidence).^[3]

 

The discovery emerged when a relative of Albert Perry, an African American man with ancestry in the Mbo-speaking region in Cameroon^[3], submitted his DNA for commercial genealogical analysis by Family Tree DNA.^[13]. Perry's Y-chromosome haplogroup was named by the researchers as the A00 haplogroup (so named as it separated from other extant lineages prior to A0's separation), and later testing in Cameroon found this haplogroup also included a small number of Mbo males, though Perry's Y-chromosome was the most genetically distinct in terms of number of mutations.^[3] The age of Adam was estimated from the mutations within the Y-chromosome genome (based on known mutation rates), and was found to be in excess of the estimated age of the current Mitochondrial Eve and the oldest known fossils of anatomically modern humans.^[3]

 

 

 For Further Reference

 

Genomic Observations About Adam and Eve







 

The Morphing of the Emergent Church

I wandered unto the templed mountains of Thy holy hills and there found My Redeemer...

In light of the Emergence Christianity 2013 conference that met in Memphis, Tennessee, this past January, a few evangelicals have proclaimed Emergent Christianity dead and its birthright to a second Protestant Reformation not to have happened. Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt were its hosts, providing a short Q&A on the eve of the event. And later this fall, the AAR is hosting an Open and Relational Theology conference around the theme of Emergent Christianity. To which Homebrewed Christianity is likewise calling for papers from all walks of life to this same conference. Add to this John Caputo's conference in April in Springfield, Missouri, re postmodernism and the church and it seems that Emergent Christianity is doing quite nicely with its lower profile. Mostly because I suspect that many Emergent Christians have been quietly absorbing what Jesus' message and mission must mean to them, their church, and community.

 

Around West Michigan, Cornerstone University is hosting a conference on creation and Scripture, which doesn't mean that they have changed their position on 7-Day Creationism so much as they have felt the necessity to revisit the issue of what evolution and science means to the church theology today. And though Rob Bell has left Mars Hill Church for a breather from the evangelical flames of diatribe and rhetoric, Mars Hill itself is still progressing along the courses set for it a decade earlier - living out a Jesus faith, serving others, and ministering to the poor and needy.

 

After two decades of emergent passion and output one would expect a movement to pause, regather itself, and probe through the many directions and meanings of its past self, images and identity. And it is this sort of pause that is allowing non-emergent believers and churches to catch up and begin absorbing what the emergent movement has been focusing on these past many years. So that, rather than remaining as a loose movement of emergent affiliates, emergent Christianity is morphing into a generalized emergent attitude of contemporary Christian thought and action. And given the choice between being a nationally recognized (or global) movement - or that of living out a Jesus faith - I believe we would all hope for the latter course as an investment of minds, bodies, energy and prayer.

 

Consequently, the article I've included today, though written by a Dallas Seminary group of editorialists (Dallas, TX) believing the Emergent Christian movement is dead and gone, has quite thoughtfully pointed out to us the many helps, twists, and turns, that Emergent Christianity has brought to Evangelical Christianity from all walks of life. And rather than brushing it off as another "I told you so" mindset, am actually believing it to have helpfully shown Emergent Christianity's significant spiritual impact and legacy to date.

For many Christians, Evangelicalism is the religion that is dead, not their faith in Jesus, nor their belief that the contemporary church must be more affective in its outreach, ministries, and witness. And I suspect that Satan and his leagues are now having a harder time than ever before in extinguishing the Jesus flames of repentance and commitment when compared to the state of the Christian church at the end of late Modernism (1980s - 1990s). Under the mighty hand of God, and by His Holy Spirit, the secular modern church has been scattered. And we should not despair of holding to a past movement and tradition that must die and be put away. Including yesteryear's denominationalism. For it is to the mind of Christ, and to the attitude of unity and fellowship, that the postmodern church of today must join itself to. Not to a felicity of program, media supremacy, and ideological might and muscle.

We are servants of Christ, and the reformation presented by another kind of Christianity - that of Emergent Christianity - has been used mightily of God to remove the hardness of hearts, and delusion of religious faith for that of a truer Jesus faith. I have nothing but thanks to express towards all past emergent Christians who have prayed and laboured for the Son of Man raised to the right hand of our Creator Redeemer. These faithful have been the brave, martyred, believers willing to question Christian tradition and ideology against that of a nonliving, unconfessing faith. Now let us build upon this foundation laid by building wisely, humbly, in grace and fellowship, regardless of name or labels to come, that we be one in the body of Christ, in His Spirit, and by His Word.

 

R.E. Slater

March 7, 2013

 

 

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What Happened to the Emerging Church?

http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/01/what-happened-to-the-emerging-church/#commentspost

 

by Michael Patton

January 14, 2013

What happened to the emerging church? I don’t know.

 

For many years, it was the talk of the town. From its advocates to its antagonists, the emerging church gave everyone fodder for conversation. Bloggers knew every day what they were going to blog about. Revolutionists always had a distinguished place in the world. Revisionists had many friends who would take up the same rifle and shotgun. Deconstructionalists all held their distinguished hammers. If you were an emerger, you were not alone.

 

However, today things have changed. No one blogs about it. No one claims the name anymore. No publisher would dare accept a book about the emerging “thing” that happened in the forgotten past. Why? because around the year 2009, the identity of the emerging church went silent and many (some enthusiastically) put a gravestone over its assigned plot. In fact, I even paid my respects.

 

What happened to the emerging church? Which emerging Church?

 

Defining the “emerging church” is as difficult today as it was in the bygone days. No one ever agreed. It touched so many issues: ecclesiology, soteriology, epistemology, anthropology, and sociology. You could ”emerge” with any or all of these issues. In general, the emerging church represented a disenchantment with the traditional methodology and beliefs, primarily within the Evangelical church. It was an ununified movement of deconstructing. Many deconstructed theology. Some deconstructed liturgy. Others deconstructed truth altogether. The key unifying factor was that people were disillusioned with the folk religion they had been given, and were willing to stand up as reformers in whichever area housed their ensuing bitterness. But there was not much unity with regard to their beliefs. They just did things differently. They believed differently than their parents.

 

What happened to the emerging church? Who was involved in this?

 

The “movement” claimed advocates as diverse as Mark Driscoll, Scot Mcknight, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, and Dan Kimball. For many of these, it was their only claim to “fame.” Now that it has died out, many of us cannot even spell their names. Some were reassumed back into their parental fold of Evangelicalism, others continue their crusades without much fanfare or publicity.

 

What happened to the emerging church? Emerging what?

 

Well, maybe I do have a good guess. The emerging church never unified and, therefore, was never a movement at all. It was doomed from the beginning. Those who were percieved as leaders rarely agreed with each other. Some just wanted to change the way the Lord’s Supper was handled; others wanted to redefine the atonement of Christ. Some simply wanted to identify with the culture and get a tattoo here and there; others wanted to get rid of Hell. Some wanted to distance the church’s identity from politics; others wanted to change the church’s stand on issues such as homosexuality and abortion. Some wanted to have incense burning in their church building; others wanted to get rid of the church building altogether.

 

In 2006, people began to distinguish between the “emerging church” and the “emergent church.” Internally, I think many thought this would save the emerging church from being identified with its more radical and liberal representatives who were teaching doctrines that fell outside of the historic Christian faith. These more radical representatives, such as Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, were called “emergent.” The more orthodox brand was labeled “emerging.” However, this rebranding did not help. Eventually, everyone disassociated with the name altogether (at least as far as I know).

 

What happened to the emerging church? No landing gear.

 

I suppose one could say the plane never landed. The emerging church asked Christians to re-think their faith. They asked us to deconstruct our beliefs. They asked us to doubt everything. They asked us to take a ride in the emerging plane and fly for a bit. This was to gain some perspective and let us know that we Evangelicals are not the only ones out there. They asked us to look at Christianity with new eyes. Many of us jumped on this plane with great excitement. Many of us were already on a plane very similar to this. We all wanted to gain some perspective. However, the emerging plane never landed. It soon became clear that there was no destination. There was no runway on which to land and the emerging plane did not even have landing gear. The deconstruction happened with no plans of reconstructing. The emerging journey became an endless flight that did not have any intention on setting down anywhere. Many people jumped out, skydiving back home. The rest, I suppose, remained on the plane until it ran out of gas.

 

What happened to the emerging church? It is still around.

 

There will always be reformers needed in the church. In fact, the Great Reformers said that the church is reformed and “always reforming” (semper reformanda). Every one of us must go through a deconstructing process, questioning our most basic beliefs. This can do nothing but make us more real to a world who believes we are fakes. Therefore, in some sense, many in the emerging church were reformers who served the church well. Others were part of a more radical reformation and suffered from their complete detachment from the historic Christian faith.

 

But certian aspects of the ethos of the emerging church should be within all of us. We should never be satisfied with the status quo. We should always be asking questions and bringing to account our most fundamental beliefs. We need to identify with the culture at the same time as we hold on to the past. I believe Robert Webber, though never really called an emerger, was a great example of our continued need to reform. His Ancient-Future Faith was a great example of how we can hold on to, respect, learn from, and identify with our past, yet push forward into an exciting future.

 

The name “emerging” became tainted by the radical reformers associated with the movement. But the “best-of” the emerging church lives on. Indeed, the ethos of the emerging church never dies, as the church is reformed and always reforming.