This is a picture of the “Cappidocian Bar” at the Credo House.

We had lights installed over the bar. I worked on them all day today to get them just right.

Look closely. What do the lights signify?

(Hint: Think of Eastern paintings and something you might find in them)

It is hard…I will be surprised if anyone gets this.

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For the past twelve months, I’ve been on sabbatical from my teaching duties at Dallas Seminary. The sabbatical officially comes to an end on June 30, but the work goes on. We photographed about 80,000 pages of text, went to ten different countries, and discovered almost forty manuscripts. We have been granted permission to post several of these manuscripts on line. Some recent postings at the CSNTM website (www.csntm.org) are as follows:

36 MSS from Athens have been uploaded to the web site in the past several weeks. The uploads include 30 MSS from the Benaki Museum and six from the National Historical Museum; 17 are continuous-text manuscripts and 19 are lectionaries for a total of nearly 14,000 images. They cover a range in date from the 8th century to the 18th and include five palimpsests.

More will be uploaded in the next few weeks from other sites as well. Many readers of Parchment & Pen support our mission, and we are extremely grateful.

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For those that don’t know, I have been widowed almost 5 years, since August 2004. Due to the nature of the relationship with my late husband and his chronic illness for 5 years before he passed, it feels like I have been without a husband for much longer than 5 years. While I do desire to be married again, I do understand the need for learning contentment in whatever state we find ourselves in. Honestly, that does become a challenge at times, especially lately as I have witnessed many unions around me. Nonetheless, I look to God as my source and know that my spiritual walk cannot suffer because of deferred hope.

Of course, I am not alone. I have heard many women who have either been in my position as a single mother or currently are single and have to go it alone, including parenting and bring up the reference of God as their husband, that He has to fill the void of the missing spouse. In fact, I remember prayers that were offered up on my behalf when my husband passed away, for God to be a husband to me. While I do understand the need to look to God for fulfillment, I do have a problem with this particular reference.

I believe marriage is a most special relationship, designed by God for a man and woman to share the most intimate of earthly relationships – emotionally, spiritually and physically. When God created man, he indicated that it is not good for man to be alone, so he created woman. Now, I do believe that that also has a broader application to humanity in general in that men and women are needed to balance out this thing we call life. But there is also an intimacy shared between husband and wife that I believe are unique to that marital relationship. Consider what Ephesians 5:31 says (cf Genesis 2:24-25), that a man leaves his folks, cleaves to his wife and two become one. This is a mystery, the text says, that is analogous to Christ and His church as stated in Ephesians 5:32. But I don’t think this supports in anyway drawing the analogy of God as husband. And let’s be honest, there are certain aspects of the marital relationship that God cannot fill.

Contrarily, there are characteristics about God and His relationship to His creation that are unique to Him. He is above all else and there is none like Him. He is holy, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, and depends on nothing or no one. Yet, He exercises communicable attributes with His creation: love, wrath, justice and has identified specific relational aspects towards us including,

God as Father

God as Provider

God as Protector

God as Healer

These are characteristics of God that I can look to Him and expect for Him to be. And this is applicable to those He considers His own whether they are married or single. While I can derive these benefits from earthly relationships, only God alone can be truly counted on and fulfill His role according to these attributes, purely and truly. I believe He does desire a particular intimacy with His children, made possible courtesy of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross. Through faith and trust in what Christ accomplished, we have direct access and can enjoy His presence of God via God the Holy Spirit. There is sheer delight in this communion. The Westminster Shorter Catechism sums it up aptly. What is the chief end of man? It is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And enjoy Him we should simply for who He is. But it is not a substitute for a husband. And particularly in His role as Father, I have a hard time drawing an equal role of husband.

But you might be thinking of particular passages that cites God as husband. Yes, the Bible does draw a comparison to God as husband but it is not in the context of a substitution for a marital relationship. Rather, it is always in the context of a covenant relationship between God and His people, namely Israel. This can be seen in Jeremiah 31:32 and also the book of Hosea, where Hosea’s unfaithful wife is likened to an adulterous Israel. The identification of God as husband is not used to show that God serves as a substitute spouse but to draw out the significance of covenant and the picture of what breaking that covenant looks like.

So to use these verses as justification for God as a substitute husband I think misses the point. I understand fully the lure to consider God as such, especially since our tendency is to look to earthly mates to fill internal voids that only God can fill. And let’s face it, there are some who might consider it spiritually immature to have such desires, that one should be so contented that they could possibly do without human companionship. No, God does not appreciate idolatry, something that our earthly relationships can quickly become as we place a higher value and affection on them than our heavenly ones. But I do believe such desires cannot be dismissed and swept under the God as husband rug. Furthermore, I think it is both unwise and Biblically infeasible to consider God husband as a substitute for a spouse. Each relationship has a special place and should not be confused with each other.

It is not easy being alone and desiring an earthly relationship, especially the most intimate form designed by God Himself. The waiting gets wary, the isolation can be numbing and the desires can be overwhelming. In these times, it is prudent and fruitful to place an increasing dependence and delight in God the Father, for who He, what He has done and what He has called us to be. I can call and count on God to be many things but I will reserve the title husband for an earthly one, should that request ever be fulfilled. Hopefully. God willing.

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I was recently asked to participate in a group that is creating curriculum in the area of “spiritual formation.” I have never really written much on this or spoken to the subject, but my nerve endings are a bit sensitive when the subject is introduced. In other words, I can hang with it for a bit, but when it is talked about in terms of “curriculum” or “discipleship” or forming the “whole spiritual person,” I back out.

What is “spiritual formation”? I am trying to be fair and representative of this but I know that there will be those who feel I have left something out. Nevertheless, here it goes:

“Spiritual formation describes a process or path to spiritual wholeness though a practice of specific disciplines including prayer, meditation, study, fasting, solitude, confession, and worship. The end goal is that the person would be more Christ-like.”

In the last ten years, “spiritual formation” seems to be quite a rave. I took a course called “Spiritual Formation” in seminary. Many well respected colleges and seminaries are even offering masters degrees in spiritual formation. It is nothing new, but the current strand seems to have evolved into some sort of perceived spiritual antibiotic to all sin, malnutrition, and disease. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, just Google it.)

At one time I tried to get in with the spiritual formation thing. At least, I tried to understand it. I am not going to mention any of the gurus in these circles (many of whom I have great respect for and from whom I have learned much), but I do have some things about which I don’t mind taking liberty to be overly offensive.

For me, listening to and reading books of this genre is like listening to an organ. I know, you love the organ. I don’t. I can’t stand it. It drains all the life out of me. I only have enough breath to make it though half a sentence in each song and the sentences are not long. When I read spiritual formation books, it is the same. It takes me half a day to get through a paragraph and the paragraphs are not that long. When I finish the book, I usually think to myself, “That could have been said in about one-one hundredth the space. Did I just lose a week off my life? I would have rather smoked a pack of cigarettes. It would have taken less life away.” Dramatics? No. But I am speaking for myself here.

(Calm down and keep reading.) Continue Reading »

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Just think in a few weeks I will be saying that to the patrons of Credo House. Last call … for coffee that is.

For now though it is last call for the apologetics special we have been running.

It ends this weekend!

The Apologetics Program (Special Ends Friday… no Sunday!)

Three new courses on audio CD to help you prepare to defend the

Christian faith. Taught by scholar, author, and Evangelical apologist

Robert Bowman, these courses will be a welcome addition to your

library.

Normal Price: $195

Special Price: $120

Purchase Now

Included:

1. Apologetics I – An Introduction to Apologetics: An introduction

to key issues in defending the faith.

2. Apologetics II – Apologetic Methods: Next, learn about the

different approaches that Christians take to defending the faith.

3. Apologetics III – Understanding Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses:

Here you will learn everything you need to know about the Mormon and

Jehovah’s Witness faith and how to give a gracious answer.

Combine The Theology Program and The Apologetics Program

Get both all sixty sessions of The Theology Program’s and all three

courses in The Apologetics Program at a special discount.

Regular Price: $909

Special Price: $545

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It is not quite done, but close enough to post this.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

With the opening of the Credo House, we have taken a considerable step in the life and history of our ministry. As well, with this comes great opportunity to join with us in our mission to reclaim the mind by filling a significant need in the church today – theological discipleship. Our ministry budget has increased as we have taken this step. So many of you have taken this step with us by partnering with us through your financial support; we need many more of you to join us.

If you believe in what we are doing, please consider joining us. It is a great mission that we are on.

Give a one time gift or become a monthly supporter.

We need $25,000 to complete this month in the black. Every donation counts!
To get a .pdf copy of this post or to forward it to someone who might be interested in what we are doing, please provide the appropriate email below.

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We are looking at what is God? Not who is God? or what has God done? We are looking at what his essential nature must be in order to qualify for the title.

One thing I am going to do throughout this series is something that many of you might be very uncomfortable with. You should not be, but you might. However, if you have studied the history of Christian doctrine and are, like me, standing on the shoulders of giants, you will have no problem with what I am advocating necessitating for this study. I believe that we must look to nature and philosophy in order to understand the nature of God. This means that I believe that extra-biblical information is required, yea demanded, by God himself.

My reasoning is simple. There are certain things that the Bible assumes. In other words, there is an information base that God requires before we can handle the Scriptures and biblical doctrine with integrity. These things are areas that are presupposed. For example, the Bible does not teach anyone how to read. It simply assumes such an ability. The Bible does not define its words. It assumes a knowledge base that is equipped to handle the vocabulary. Epistemologically (the justification of knowing), the Bible does not argue for the the law of non contradiction (i.e. that A cannot equal non-A at the same time and in the same relationship) or that propositions have meaning. It simply assumes that you know that. Theologically, the Bible does not make a case for God’s existence, it simply assumes that there is a sufficient base from which to make such a conclusion. There are other things as well, but these examples should suffice for you to understand and follow. (I hope!)

When it comes to making a case, such as I am going to make, about the “what” or “stuff” of God, I am going to be drawing as much from natural theology as I am from biblical theology—and for this I make no apologies. Natural theology is the theology that comes through nature or general revelation. It is a theology that is rationally based and relies much on philosophical deduction.

Continue Reading »

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My very first book “True for You, But Not for Me”—the one with the purple cover—came out in 1998. The reason I wrote the book was that no one was really offering an accessible, practical step-by-step guide to commonly-heard relativistic and pluralistic slogans. Thankfully, the book found its niche and has done very well, and it is used as a textbook in Christian colleges and universities as well as a book study for many small-group discussions and adult Sunday school classes. Moreover, I have been heartened and encouraged by many letters and people, informing me how instrumental the book has been in their own lives.

Ten years later, I started working on a second edition (the one with the white cover), not realizing how much effort would be required to pull this off. “True” 2.0 has been significantly expanded (half a dozen or so new chapters) and completely overhauled; I left very few sentences unrevised. The result is, in my estimation, a much stronger, updated book that more effectively cuts through today’s thickening relativistic and pluralistic haze, offering a defense of objective truth and morality as well as of the uniqueness of Christ in the face of the world’s religions. I have posted an study guide online for small-group discussion at my website, www.paulcopan.com.

I hope you’ll help spread the word and put in a good word for the book in places like Amazon.com. To make the job easier, I’ve included the new table of contents as well as endorsements from Lee Strobel, J.P. Moreland, William Lane Craig, Josh McDowell, Gary Habermas, Mark Mittelberg, and Kenneth Samples. Thanks to many of you for contributing to the success of the first edition. May God’s Spirit use the second edition as well for the advancement of His kingdom! Continue Reading »

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I don’t know about you, but over the last few years I have had some bad experiences with Christians in the business world. This may get me in hot water, but I have come to the point where I would rather do business with unbelievers than with believers. I have been burned one too many times.

Building on this, I have found that the world often does things better than the church. At least they take many things more seriously and don’t think that there is an assumed liberty of tolerance.

However, this all has a lot to do with my theology. I work under the presupposition that culture (including the business world) in-and-of itself is amoral (neither good nor bad). Along with this is the further assumption that culture can and has evidenced the characteristics of God. This comes from the truth that all people, fallen and redeemed, retain God’s image. Whether they realize it or not, all people can and sometimes do give God glory, even if it is against their will. Often times, the glory that the secular culture presents before the Lord is better than that of the church.

Remember when Christ was entering Jerusalem just before the crucifixion and his followers were saying “Blessed is He who comes in the name of God”? The account is worth posting:

Luke 19:37-40 ³⁷ As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, ³⁸ shouting: “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” ³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” ⁴⁰ But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”

Christ said, if His people do not glorify Him, the rocks will. Christ did not literally mean that the rocks will miraculously receive cognition and the gift of verbal articulation. He was speaking in hyperbole. He meant that if His people don’t glorify Him, then the rocks will. In other words, God will receive His glory. If it does not come from the most likely source (His people), then it will come from the most unlikely source (the rocks). If this does not humble us, I don’t know what will.

How about you? Have you ever been burned by Christian’s in the business world?

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Not much, just that it is keeping me from writting any blogs as we are finishing things up. I don’t think I have ever been so busy and so tired before. But we are having fun.

We should pick up on the blog in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, also, if you want, stop by the Credo House this week. Although we still have a lot to do, it looks great and is ready for a soft opening.

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I came across this article in Christianity Today on ending homelessness in 10 years.  I mused considering that for the past several years, this is the professional field I have been involved in.  In fact, in my position back in Rhode Island, I was responsible for managing one of the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homeless funding program for the state, worked with most of the homeless service agencies statewide and coordinated and packaged the annual funding application to HUD for the state.  As noted in the article, every geographic region that receives these funds has to include in their funding application to HUD, a description on how they are going to end homelessness in 10 years through a coordinated effort with major public-private stakeholders.

More specifically, HUD has been focused on ending chronic homelessness, which comprises approximately 15% of the homeless population roughly.  These are the more severe cases of homelessness – folks that have been continually homeless for at least a year or experienced continual cycles of homelessness (at least 4 episodes in the past 3 years) and suffer from some type of disabling condition, including mental illness and substance abuse.  The idea is that since these are the high end users of emergency services, it is more cost efficient to put them into permanent supportive housing, which provides a team of licensed professionals to address the barriers to independent living.  In other words, stabilize them in housing first, then provide intensive services so they will stay there.  So the person who has lived ensconced in a particular state of existence for an extended period of time will now be moved to a different state of existence and expected to succeed.

I think this is a great theory in concept.  I don’t think anyone reading this post, especially me, wants to see people homeless.  But I had a major philosophical conflict in that I recognize, no matter how attractive you make housing, no matter how much you demonstrate that this would be something beneficial, there will be some, who for whatever reason are more comfortable on the streets.  It’s not that they want to be homeless but they don’t want to be uprooted from a way of living that they have become comfortable with.  The comfort of where they are supersedes the discomfort of being uprooted.  Now some of my professional colleagues might disagree, but information that I have received from front line workers would suggest otherwise, not to mention, the human nature factor.

I cannot but help consider this application pertinent to where we live doctrinally and theologically.  We have learned.  We have studied.  We have drawn conclusions.  We find our nest and settle in.  And it is great, isn’t it, when we draw conclusions about what the Biblical text says and perchance take sides with notable theologians who have gone before us, especially considering the effort they put forth?  Or maybe, we have found comfort in that fact that we have followed no man but instead have relied on our own interpretations of Scripture, guided of course by the Spirit.  Or perhaps we have allowed our particular church denomination or tradition to influence and shape the body of facts we call truth.  Whatever our course of action has been, there is a certain degree of comfort that we can rest it.

I suppose that our comfort has very much to do with our epistomology, how we have come to know and understand what we consider truth.   There has been a determination made on the best avenue to discover what truth is, and we have followed that. And whatever that path is, whether through “academic” study, experience, tradition or a particular hermeneutic (yes everyone has one but not everyone uses the same hermeneutic), following that course can in and of itself, transition us into an ease of understanding.  After a while, we can proudly say that we have arrived at truth.  However, it does beg the question, ‘is it that we have arrived at truth OR that we have satisfied the mechanics of whatever epistomology we have used to arrive at truth?  The latter will certainly not guarantee the former but probably will make us more comfortable about the process.

The truth is that nobody likes tension.  Nobody likes to be uncomfortable and definitely, nobody wants to be wrong.  The guy on the street doesn’t resist moving from his abode because he loves waddling in the mire.  He won’t move because he doesn’t want the tension.   Nor do we.  It is uncomfortable to wrestle with ideas and the internal conflict that ensues when our sense of satisfactory knowledge has been disrupted.  It is far easier to stay in the bed we’ve made than to rip the sheets off and move it; it is far easier to rely on the truth we know than the contradiction we don’t know, or rather, don’t really want to know.  So we set up our fortresses, load the arsenal known as proof-texts, strawmen and maybe even historical data and throw them to protect our fiefdoms of knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think there are some truths that are absolutely essential to Christianity, truths that have been tested and stamped with the historical seal of approval of which Christianity would not exist without.  I also believe that within the mysteries of God, what He has revealed is meant to be understood (Deuteronomy 29:29), not cumbersome or burdensome and maybe even a little logical.

But it can be arduous to bridge the communication gap between God’s revelation, which is what He has made known and our understanding.  It is no small task to engage in a process of grasping who is God, what has He accomplished, what He has planned and where do we fit into that picture, in a way that acknowledges our abilities to apprehend but denies our prejudices and presuppositions.  There is tension.  There is discomfort.  Often, there are no easy answers.  Yes, the Spirit is involved but so is our fallibility.  This is not an easy place to live because it will always encourage running for cover and resorting to safe and tension free harbors.

So I think where we live doctrinally and theologically has so much to do with the level of resistance we can tolerate.   If we’ve wrapped our arms around conclusions so tightly that no amount of historical or Biblical evidence could sway opinions, especially those that deviate from Christianity’s historical roots, then I fear intended truths might be missed for the sake of ease.  And yes, I do think fear can be involved, fear of losing, fear of failure, fear of humility.  Then where we live can become a prison rather than a place of freedom.  It is no different for that chronically homeless individual who refuses to give up his abode for something better.

But just as the guy on the street must go through the tension of disruption for the greater goal of a warm and safe place of permenency, so must we.  There is a prize at stake of knowing what God has so graciously revealed to that we can know Him, His plan and ourselves better.  We’ll never arrive but must always learn and be willing to be a little disrupted in the process.

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In this series of posts I am going to write about God. “Wow! That is revolutionary for a theology blog: thanks for being so specific, Michael!” Slow down, you are already wearing me out. We are going to talk about God, but I want to focus on something that I believe is the most neglected aspect of theology proper (the formal doctrine of God) in the church today. This is a serious charge, but I don’t think I am overstating it. We will see . . .

I don’t want to deal with who is God; neither do I want to deal with what God has done. Here, I am going to focus on the “what” of God. What is God? In other words, what, essentially, makes God, God. What characteristics must a being have to be called “God”? Personality? Goodness? Activity in our lives? Power? Grace? Or could God lack these things and still be God in the proper sense? What does God have to be to be God?

This might sound rather unspiritual and beyond our ability when dealing with the ineffable (that which is incapable of being expressed), yet I contend that it is essential and should be among the prolegomena (”first words”) in the study of theology proper. What I mean by this is that if you don’t get this right, all other questions about God will suffer to a great degree. This will in turn affect your view of everything, from Christ to morality, from inspiration to eschatology, and much more.

(Stay with me . . . I will explain as we move forward. One step at a time.)

By the time this study is finished, I believe that we will have discovered that many of our understandings and concepts about God do not really qualify for the title. In other words, some people’s views of God lack essential qualifying properties for God to bear the name “God.” This is prevalent among Christian cults and other world religions.

However, I must preface these strong propositions with a confession: I don’t believe a person must have a perfect concept of God to be in a true relationship with him. This is a matter of discipleship, essential as it may be.

In short, I will be arguing for what is called “Classical Theism,” something that has been under heavy attack the last couple of decades. As usual, I will try to help you understand why those who are straying from the classical theistic tradition are doing so and why I believe they have taken a wrong turn. I will also join them in the challenge of classical theism at one point, so be ready. Continue Reading »

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Do any of you know where to get very large pictures, either in print or electronic of these two pictures? We are trying to have large sizes of them made for the Credo House and no matter what I do in Photoshop, I can’t get them to look good blown up to a very large picutre (poster size at least).

If anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated.

Luther at worms.

Or, better, this one.

Christian Martyrdom

Someone please make these work! Help!

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Now open for business.

Check out the grand opening special.

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When I first started teaching the Bible about fifteen years ago, I was given a Sunday School class at my church. It was a “college and career” class. I was inexperienced in teaching and was very nervous every Sunday, but I had such a strong desire to teach I was willing to endure the stress each week. I remember that I had red splotches all over my neck and my chest evidencing my green nervousness. (I still am nervous each time I teach, but just in a different way).

When teaching the class one Sunday (I don’t remember the subject), a certain gentleman raised his hand. I thought it was going to be a question concerning the subject we were on, but it was not. He began to complain to me and to everyone there how much he did not like the way I taught and how, exactly, he thought I should change. I was speechless, embarrassed, humiliated, angry, and hurt.

Looking back all these years I have been able to see his problems more objectively. In fact, I think he was right on in his criticism. Everything he said was true about my teaching style and it did need to change. However, he was also very wrong and he should not have said what he said. While nothing that he said was wrong, he lacked a great deal of wisdom in his tact and approach.

The point of this post is this: Saying the right thing without tact is wrong. This is true of Sunday school or any other venue. We are not only called to say the right things, but to say the right things at the right times in the right ways.

Here are a few things to remember when you are the learner.

You are not the teacher

No matter where you are when you are not the teacher, do not act as if you are. So many times I see people who are looking to spring board off other people’s platform. I have been in classrooms where I know who’s hand not to call on. Some people just take over and want to show the class how much they know. You may have the best intentions when you do this and what you say may be right, but, unless the venue expects this, you are not called by God to teach at that time. I am sorry. That is just the way it is.

If the teacher is wrong, and I mean dead wrong, you are still not called to teach. You are called to respect the teacher and listen. Even if the teacher asks you your opinion, you must be very careful not to dishonor the platform that this person has been given.

You don’t have the respect of the people

You must remember that people have gathered to listen to someone else, not you. No matter how smart you are, people don’t care that much about what you have to say. In fact, attempting to be the teacher will be counter-productive. No matter how learned you are in the subject, your arrogance will turn all the others against you and you will only serve to annoy the audience. Continue Reading »

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My wife, Kay, was born in the jungles of the Amazon in Peru, her parents were missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators where she lived on a compound with nearly 100 missionary families. Everything that was done there was somehow related to translation of the Bible into the many as yet unwritten languages of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. What has been accomplished among the tribal peoples of the jungles in Peru is nothing short of miraculous. But, transferring a missionary kid who’s whole life has been immersed in an environment where the dominant value of life is the visible furtherance of the gospel among those who have never had even an opportunity to hear, to the secular environment of Western culture is a recipe for crisis, or if not crisis at least for ongoing tension.

When we first got married over 35 years ago, this tension was not immediately obvious. I was involved in full-time ministry with Youth for Christ in Orange County, California. During that time, Kay assisted me in ministering to the high school kids of Costa Mesa and Irvine. When I left Youth for Christ, we packed up our trailer, and headed to Dallas Texas, where for the next 10 years I was involved in ThM and PhD study. In 1984, ten years and one month later we left Dallas. We set our sights on the San Francisco Bay area, where I had been hired as Asst. Prof. of Theology at Simpson College. Her life was focused on the home, raising the children. As the children grew and got off to school. It became necessary for her to venture out into the workplace. Feeding four voraciously hungry boys on a professor’s salary became more than a challenge. It became an impossibility (at one point our food bill was regularly larger than our monthly rent!).

As she moved out into the workplace, the tension of the secular versus sacred raised its ugly head. It wasn’t that she objected to working, but if she had to work outside the home, she wanted to be involved in something that counted for the Kingdom, to be in some kind of ministry work. Many, many nights when she would come home, she would share her frustration. She was working in an office for an electrical contracting company and although there were several Christian friends who worked in the office with her it was still a secular job. It wasn’t involved in building the Kingdom. Several years later, she changed jobs. She was now an executive assistant and office manager in a small financial planning firm. But in some cases, this was even worse. She was faced day-to-day with the pursuit of money and felt the tension between God and mammon. About 2 ½ years ago, she changed jobs again. She is working at a small startup company that manufactures a medical device to deal with chronic back pain. Again, it is a secular environment, although in this job she loves the environment and the people, even though she is the only Christian in the office. However, she continued to feel the sacred-secular tension.

As a student of the Reformation, I have been convinced for decades that the sacred-secular tension that my wife feels and that many who have grown up in the evangelical community feel, arises from a misreading of Scripture, and a misunderstanding of the nature of God and his relationship to creation. Beginning in the ancient church there was a wedge driven between the material and the spiritual with a corresponding wedge drawn between the secular and the sacred. During the medieval period, this wedge became a veritable wall. Anyone who was serious about his or her own salvation became a priest, monk or a nun (speaking in broad brushstrokes here). Also during this period the incarnation of Christ and his full participation in the same type of life that we share faded into the background and He became progressively viewed as the divine judge who condemned humanity for its failure to achieve the standard of perfect legal righteousness. (By the way, it was during this period that the we see the rise of Marion devotion as well as the cult of the saints in an attempt to find a sympathetic intercessor who would get the ear of the righteous judge.) This was the issue that tortured Luther—he hated the righteousness of God for it was the basis on which he damned sinful humanity. Ultimately, Luther discovered the true nature of divine righteousness. It was this discovery that kicked off the Reformation. Continue Reading »

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Albert Einstein once said “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing . . . so is a lot.”

I have been in discussions with a gentleman who reads this blog and, occasionally, will take one of my theology courses. The main topic of discussion is the necessity of theological discourse for the average Christian. Whether it be big words, concepts, or ideas, this gentleman does not think such things are necessary for the Christian life. He prefers the simplicity of loving God and leaving the rest to the theologians. His basic argument is that such things can and often do take away from our ability to live the Christian life due to their “side-tracking” nature.

Let me paraphrase a comment he would typically make:

“Whether you are a Calvinist or an Arminian, a traducianist or creationist, believe in soul sleep or intermediate bliss, believe in transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or memorialism, none of these ultimately makes any difference. In fact, these beliefs serve more to bring about sinful divisiveness than anything else.”

This attitude with regard to theology is not uncommon at all. In fact, it seems that it has a lot of truth to it. It would seem that simplicity in our confession and faith would ultimately bring about the most unity and acceptance as well as provide more energy for the things that really matter. Right?

Well, if you are saying that more knowledge is dangerous, I agree. Knowledge can puff up. Knowledge can provide ground for strong opinions, lack of perspective, and, ultimately, division. But if you are saying that because of the dangers of knowledge it is not worth the risk, I disagree.

Let me give you an illustration that I think provides a sufficient parallel to the current issue. Knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot. Knowledge of what? Well, anything. But most specifically, we could apply this to relationships. When we enter into a relationship with someone, we take risks. Relationships involve us becoming vulnerable. When we allow someone to get to know us, there is always the possibility of misunderstanding, rejection, and a sort of Trojan horse pregnability of our heart. The same is true concerning those with whom we enter a relationship. Knowledge about them is dangerous. Not only for them, as they expose themselves, but for us as we put our own ideals about them on the line. In other words, you may know someone from a distance who you have placed on an idealist pedestal. Once an opportunity comes for you to deepen that relationship, closing the blissful distance, you are entering into dangerous territory. Why? Because now you are opening yourself up to coming to know the real person. All masks will soon come off and then you will have to nuance this relationship based upon your more up-to-date and accurate knowledge of the person. This process is certainly reciprocal and it is risky—it is dangerous—for both parties. While new discoveries will certainly bring about joy and depth in the relationship, they can also bring about a great deal of pain and emotional distancing.

When the fear of relational knowledge becomes so great that people guard themselves against all forms of vulnerability, disorders follow: schizoid personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder (AvPD), social anxiety disorder. Here, people become closed and guarded hoping that this will leave their lives protected, safe, and secure.

While people might rationalize their timidity due to the reality of the dangers that are involved when knowledge is attained, this rationalization is misleading. The avoidance of knowledge causes us to neglect a basic need of humanity—relationships.

I fear that this is often the case when people rationalize their avoidance of theology. Theology is simply coming to understand God at a deeper level. Yes, there are risks, just the same as any relationship. There are risks of misunderstandings, changing your ideals, opening yourself up to criticism, and coming to know both the wonderful and, what might be perceived to be, the not so wonderful things about God. There is also the possibility of division and strife as you defend what you believe to be true. But is this really any different than any other relationship? Continue Reading »

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The longer I am in ministry, the longer I teach theology, the more I see that some things are not quite as clear as they used to be. At one time, I had pretty much everything figured out. Ministry was just about transferring this information effectively. That is the peril of theology. If you want to have it all figured out, don’t get into this business!

At the same time, there are many things that I have believed and about which I continue to grow in conviction. One of these, ironically, is the simplicity of the Christian life. The center point is really not too difficult. God wants us to believe him. Trust, belief, conviction, assurance. These are all words we use to describe this act of the will – faith.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines faith this way:

1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one’s supporters.
4. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.
5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
6. A set of principles or beliefs.

Each one of these, in the right context, could describe some aspect of the Christian faith. But we need to go one step further in understanding this term “faith” in a particularly Christian way.

The Reformers sought to distinguish true faith from false faith. The battle cry of sola fide (justification by faith alone) demanded that they define faith in a precise manner.

As started by Luther and developed further by Melancthon and others, the understanding of faith was expressed in three separate yet vitally connected aspects: notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

1. Notitia: This is the basic informational foundation of our faith. It is best expressed by the word “content.” Faith, according to the Reformers, must have content or substance. You cannot have faith in nothing. There must be some referential, propositional truth to which the faith points. The proposition “Christ rose from the grave” or “God loves you” for example, provide a necessary information base or notitia that Christians must have.

2. Assensus: This is the assent, confidence, or assurance that we have that the notitia is correct. Here we assent to the information, affirming it to be true. This involves evidence which leads to the conviction of the truthfulness of the proposition. According to the Reformers, to have knowledge of the proposition is not enough. We must, to some degree, be convinced that it is really true. This involves intellectual assent and persuasion based upon some degree of critical thought. While notitia claims “Christ rose from the grave,” assensus takes the next step and says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”

But these two alone are not enough, according to the Reformers. As one person has said, these two only qualify you to be a demon, for the demons both have the right information (Jesus rose from the grave) and are convicted of its truthfulness. One aspect still remains. Continue Reading »

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1. Young Earth Creationism

The belief that the universe and all that is in it was created by God around ten-thousand years ago or less. They insist that this is the only way to understand the Scriptures. Further, they will argue that science is on their side using “catastropheism.” They believe that world-wide biblical catastrophes sufficiently explain the fossil records and the geographic phenomenon that might otherwise suggest the earth is old. They believe in a literal Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, snake talking, and world-wide flood.

2. Gap Theory Creationists

Belief that the explanation for the old age of the universe can be found in a theoretical time gap that exists between the lines of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. God created the earth and the earth became formless and void. Therefore God instituted the new creation which begins in Genesis 1:2b. This theory allows for an indefinite period of time for the earth to exist before the events laid out in the creation narrative. Gap theorists will differ as to what could have happened on the earth to make it become void of life. Some will argue for the possibility of a creation prior to humans that died out. This could include the dinosaurs. They normally believe in a literal Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, snake talking, and world-wide flood.

3. Time-Relative Creationism

Belief that the universe is both young and old depending on your perspective. Since time is not a constant (Einstein’s Theory of Relativity), the time at the beginning of creation would have moved much slower than it does today. From the way time is measured today, the succession of moments in the creation narrative equals that of six twenty-four hour periods, but relative to the measurements at the time of creation, the events would have transpired much more slowly, allowing for billions of years.  This view, therefore, does not assume a constancy in time and believes that any assumption upon the radical events of the first days/eons of creation is both beyond what science can assume and against the most prevailing view of science regarding time today. This view may or may not allow for an evolutionary view of creation. They can allow for in a literal Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, snake talking, and world-wide flood.

4. Old Earth Creationists
(also Progressive Creationists and Day-Age Creationists)

Belief that the old age of the universe can be reconciled with Scripture by understanding the days of Genesis 1 not at literal 24 hour periods, but as long indefinite periods of time. The word “day” would then be understood the same as in Gen. 2:4 “. . . in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” While this view believes the universe and earth are billions of years old, they believe that man was created a short time ago. Therefore, they do not believe in evolution. They believe in a literal Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, snake talking, and world-wide flood. Continue Reading »

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