Church Write-Up: Memorials and Skeptics

I visited two churches last Sunday.  I will write about one service today, and the other service tomorrow.

The first church that I visited last Sunday had a guest speaker, since the pastor was away.  This person belongs to the congregation, and I think he is a lawyer.  Last Sunday was Memorial Day, so he was talking about memorials in the Bible.

Here are some points that he made, along with my thoughts:

A. The speaker talked about II Peter 1:16-21. This passage talks about the transfiguration, in which Peter, James, and John saw Jesus’ glory, and a voice from heaven told them that Jesus is God’s son and that they should listen to him.  But the passage goes on to say that the Scriptures are a surer word of prophecy, presumably surer than the transfiguration.

I remember a conversation that I had in college with a Christian who was in the process of deconverting from Christianity.  At least that was the end result of his search: he became an agnostic.  I was talking with him on the phone, and he asked: “How come people in the past saw all these miracles, and all we get is a book?”

I think that is a good question.  At the same time, I do appreciate the Bible.  In my opinion, when we want to learn about God, we can go to the Bible and read about him.  God has given us something tangible and accessible to feed upon for spiritual nourishment on a regular basis: the Bible.  Miracles are probably good for periodic encouragement, but the Bible is good for the long haul.

B. The speaker then talked about how the rainbow is a sign that God will never again flood the earth. The speaker made clear, though, that God will one day destroy the earth by fire, in accordance with II Peter 3:7, 10.

In college, an atheist friend of mine was reading the Bible, and the Flood story puzzled him, a bit.  In the Flood story, God promised never again to destroy the earth by water.  Yet, according to II Peter 3:10, God will destroy the earth by fire.  What value is God’s promise to Noah, my atheist friend wondered, if God is going to destroy the earth anyway?

Again, a good question.  During the service, I was thinking about this interaction.  My mind went to something that C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity: that there will come a time when the play comes to an end, and the author goes out to take his bow before the audience.   God’s promise to Noah applies to human history.  But God’s eschatological plans transcend human history: they concern the end of human history.  Maybe that response is unsatisfactory, but I think that there is something to it, even if it needs to be developed, somewhat.

C. The speaker was talking about his legal work.  He said that there are cases in which a person can break the law inadvertently, and the person will be considered innocent in a court of law.  For example, suppose that a man is pretending to be a police officer and tells someone to do something that may be technically illegal.  The person who obeys the pretend police officer will be declared innocent in court, because he thought that he was obeying an actual police officer.  I may be mangling some details, but the speaker said something to that effect.

I do not know how that point actually fit into his sermon, but I somewhat liked it.  I have attended conservative Christian churches in the past, and the pastor says something like, “You can be sincere, but sincerely wrong!”  His idea is that God will condemn people to hell who are sincerely wrong, especially if they have the “wrong” religion.  Well, at least our judicial system takes into consideration people’s sincerity and motivations in deciding whether to pass judgment, in certain cases.  It was refreshing to hear the speaker point that out.

D. The speaker was saying that, in order to be transformed, we need to acknowledge our need for a Savior.  We need to realize that we are sinners, and we need to receive God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

Of course, the speaker was bringing into the equation that God is perfect and, in order to be in God’s presence, we need to be covered with the perfect righteousness of Christ, almost as if God needs to be appeased before he has anything to do with us.

Still, the way that the speaker phrased the Gospel intrigued me, somewhat.  For us to be transformed, we need to recognize our flaws.  I was thinking that maybe the Gospel is as it is to educate and to transform us, not so much to appease God.  God wants us to have insights that can transform our character.  Which is more conducive to good character: pride, or a humble recognition of our flaws?  The latter, I think.  Why is it that God in the Old Testament had a decorum for people to enter his presence, or for God to dwell among them?  Because God wanted to impress on their minds God’s holiness: that God is above them, that God is not just one of the fellas but is set apart, that God is majestic.  Believing in a power greater than oneself can also lead to good character.

Book Write-Up: Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?, by Gerald R. McDermott

Gerald R. McDermott.  Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?: Jesus, Revelation & Religious Traditions.  Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2000.

I would like to thank Intervarsity Press for my review copy of this book.

Can Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?  Professor Gerald R. McDermott answers yes.  McDermott sees examples in Scripture of God using concepts or people from non-Israelite religions to teach God’s people.  There is Abraham’s equation of the Canaanite god of Melchizedek with his own God, the ancient Israelite appropriation of the Canaanite god El, the way that God functioned as Abraham’s personal deity (a type of deity that was common in ancient Mesopotamia), and Jesus’ appeal to certain Gentiles as exemplars of faith.  McDermott looks at church history, noting times when concepts in non-Christian religions helped notorious Christian thinkers through intellectual snags, providing them with resources to arrive at reasonable explanations for puzzles in the Christian faith.  McDermott also discusses how concepts from Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Islam can instruct evangelical Christians, as they highlight to evangelicals elements of Christianity that might be neglected, teach evangelicals a new way to understand and apply their tradition, or demonstrate piety and devotion to evangelicals.

Another significant feature of this book is that McDermott interacts with the question of how God might be involved in world religions.  McDermott notes that non-Christian religions have concepts that overlap with Christianity, and McDermott believes that God is somehow behind that, revealing himself to non-Christians.  Why doesn’t God provide people in non-Christian religions with a fuller revelation, rather than just dropping some concepts here-and-there that overlap with Christianity?  McDermott notes that there are times when God does provide a number of people with a revelation that is incomplete: Jesus, for example, spoke to the multitudes in parables, while offering fuller explanations to his disciples; ancient Israel had a conception of God that was incomplete, at least in comparison with the revelation in Jesus Christ.  According to McDermott, God may be using “veils to protect His pearls from being trampled by swine” (page 102), or God may be basing his level of revelation on where people are spiritually.  God may not want to reveal grace fully to some cultures, preferring instead to allow them to be in a system of salvation by works so that they can learn human inability.  McDermott also refers extensively to Jonathan Edwards, who offered reasons that God put Israel through a system of animal sacrifices rather than revealing to them grace through Jesus Christ at the outset: so that ancient Israelites could learn respect for God’s law and the necessity for atonement, whereas ancient Israelites might take God’s mercy for granted had they been permitted at that time simply to flee to God’s mercy.  Similarly, McDermott contends, God has reasons for giving an incomplete revelation of himself within non-Christian religions.

Does God reveal bits and pieces about himself within world religions to bring non-Christians to salvation?  McDermott says a couple of times that his focus in this book is revelation within world religions, not the question of whether or not non-Christians can be saved within those religions.  But McDermott does say on page 103 that “some of the religions may be providential preparations for future peoples to receive the full revelation of God in Christ” (page 103).  Whether or not McDermott believes that people in non-Christian religions can be saved with the light that God gives them, or that non-Christian religions can provide the soil for non-Christians in the afterlife to receive salvation through Jesus Christ, McDermott does appear to maintain that God’s incomplete revelation of himself in non-Christian religions may have a salvific purpose: that God could be setting the stage for future generations to receive Christ.

On some level, I have encountered the sorts of arguments that McDermott presents in other sources.  C.S. Lewis stated in his chapter “Nice People or New Men” in Mere Christianity that “There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it.”  (Not that McDermott explicitly believes that those non-Christians are saved, for he does not take a position on that in this book, but C.S. Lewis, like McDermott, talks about people in world religions responding to Christian-like themes within their own religions.)  David Marshall’s books talk about areas in which world religions overlap with Christianity.  Ron Dart, a preacher I listened to growing up, said that the sacrificial system within the Old Testament was designed to reinforce to ancient Israelites that they needed a substitutionary death to atone for their sins.  (I don’t know if I agree with Dart on this, for I don’t think there is evidence that the animals were expiating sin by dying in place of the sinners, but I don’t want to get too deeply into that topic here.)  Paul Knitter and William Placher discuss what Christians can learn from non-Christian religions, and how non-Christian religions can deepen Christians’ appreciation of themes within the Christian faith.


I cannot say, however, that McDermott’s book was boring to me, or that it was a “Been there, done that” sort of book, as far as I was concerned.  I learned from McDermott’s book about the differences between fundamentalism and evangelicalism (since I, as one who is rather liberal, tend to conflate the two), and the significance of the filoque (the idea that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son) to the question of whether God is involved in other religions.  I also found McDermott’s discussion of practical ways that world religions can teach evangelicals to be quite edifying.  As one who is insecure about whether people like me or not, I especially appreciated McDermott’s discussion of how certain Asian religions address what attitude one should have when one is disliked.

I was recently telling my Mom that McDermott’s book is actually one of the best books about theology that I have read as of late.  (I distinguish theology from biblical studies.)  I have been reading more liberal theologians, and their language is often dense, plus I wonder where exactly they are going with their arguments, if anywhere.  McDermott, however, managed to be deep and scholarly, and yet lucid and practical.  While some of his abstract discussions were not exactly neat (since, well, conceptualizing things accurately with all of the exceptions to the rule can be a difficult task), I did appreciate that he provided examples from church history of the sort of thing that he was talking about: Christians learning from other religions.

Do I have any disagreements with McDermott’s arguments in this book?  Well, I have questions that are rooted in some of my own outlook.  I tend to gravitate towards the historical-critical method of interpreting the Bible—-a method that interprets the biblical writings in light of their own historical contexts.  I believe that there are areas in which the historical-critical method overlaps with and diverges from McDermott’s approach.  Where the two overlap is that both essentially acknowledge that biblical religions have been influenced by other religions.  (Well, some scholars would minimize that influence, but my impression is that many biblical scholars acknowledge it.)  Where the two diverge is that historical criticism would say that we should attempt to understand the Hebrew Bible in light of its ancient Near Eastern context, while denying that we can understand it in reference to early Christianity, Asian religions, Neo-Platonism, or Islam.  My impression is that historical criticism would also treat the biblical writings as rather static—-that they meant something to their original authors and audiences, within their historical context, and that is their meaning—-whereas McDermott presents a more dynamic process in which the Spirit supposedly highlights fresh implications to the biblical writings and brings the church to newer understandings (without contradicting earlier orthodoxy).  A historical critical reading, to use an example, would probably say that the Hebrew Bible was okay with slavery, and that’s that, whereas McDermott argues that the Spirit brought the church to the realization that slavery was wrong.  McDermott also apparently disagrees with how historical criticism highlights tension within the Bible, for he believes that the Bible has a coherent narrative.

I wouldn’t exactly say that McDermott should have devoted a section to the topic of historical criticism, but I do believe that the topic is relevant to the sorts of issues that he is discussing.  How can we justify hermeneutical approaches that go beyond the historical-critical method, as McDermott's approach seems to do?  On what basis can we justify interpretations of the biblical text that don’t limit themselves to the text’s original, historical meaning?  Reader response?  Intertextuality?  McDermott's approach is arguably rather intertextual in that McDermott, as a reader, juxtaposes the Bible with the teachings of other religions, allowing the latter to influence his understanding of the former.  But, in contrast to many reader response and intertextual approaches, McDermott does not seem to locate interpretive authority in the reader, but rather he appears to believe that the Spirit helps people to interpret the text as God desires.  I find that approach rather subjective, but I do admit that McDermott's intertextuality does generate interesting thoughts.

I also question whether McDermott should be so quick to dismiss the tension within Scripture (if I am correct that he does that).  Perhaps biblical diversity has the same theological significance that McDermott sees in the existence of diverse religions throughout the world: that God is interacting with people in different ways, based on where they are.

That said, this is an excellent book.  Click here for information that Intervarsity Press provides about it.

To Be Truly Yourself

I finished M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.  Something that Peck said on page 264 stood out to me.  On that page, Peck argues that evil people are dull ("Once you've seen one evil person, you've essentially seen them all"), whereas saints are unique and interesting.  Peck states:

"If one ever has the good fortune to meet a living saint, one will have then met someone absolutely unique.  Though their visions may be remarkably similar, the personhood of saints is remarkably different.  This is because they have become utterly themselves.  God creates each soul differently, so that when all the mud is finally cleared away, His light will shine through it in a beautiful, colorful, totally new pattern.  Keats described this as 'the vale of soul-making,' and whether they know it or not, when they help their patients clean away the mud, psychotherapists are engaged in the activity of saint-making.  Certainly psychotherapists know it is their task routinely to free their patients to be themselves."

This reminds me of something that C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity: that, when we become Christian, we are finally free to be ourselves.  This can easily strike some people (like me) as counter-intuitive.  Doesn't Christianity teach that we should all be like Jesus?  Aren't there Christian settings that push for conformity and homogeneity rather than diversity and freedom of thought?  Couldn't one say that many evangelical Christians act similarly: they're happy-happy types?

What I just said could definitely be nuanced.  Yes, Christianity teaches that we should be like Jesus, and, yes, there are Christians who use this teaching to push people to think and to act in the same way.  But there are other Christians who understand this teaching differently, who believe that we should be like Jesus in terms of becoming kind people, not in the sense of being homogeneous.  There are Christians who recognize and appreciate that there are different personality types----extroverted and introverted, happy and melancholy----and all of them play an important role in the body of Christ.

As Peck argues, even evil can compromise our uniqueness.  There are plenty of people who look out for number one.  And I have to admit that I have character flaws that hinder me from truly being myself.   Granted, if people were to push me to be an extrovert, then they'd be barking up the wrong tree, for that is not who I am.  Or can I be more extroverted, if I let go of my fears and insecurities?  It depends, I suppose.  I'll probably long struggle to come up with things to say in social interaction.  Once I learn things to say, I'd hardly consider any sociability I gain from that to be me being myself, for it's me playing a role.  And yet, perhaps that could create opportunities for me to share who I am, and for me to learn who others are.  In that case, authentic community develops.

Another consideration: It seems as if society, not just the Christian part of it, pressures people to be inauthentic.  It's hard for me to feel comfortable with myself, when there are so many people out there who know more than me and do things better than I do, and society values those who are superior.  I suppose that I can work to improve myself.  There are limits to that, however.  I can read lots and lots of books, and I still wouldn't know as much as some people.  There should probably be a balance between me seeking to improve myself and become competent, and me being comfortable with who I am right now.

Differences Between The Road Less Traveled and Further Along the Road Less Traveled

On pages 156-157 of Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth (copyright 1993), M. Scott Peck states:

"I became a Christian several years after The Road Less Traveled was published----and remember, the very first sentence in that book is the great Buddhist truth 'Life is difficult'----although subconsciously I had been tending in that direction for quite some time, and The Road Less Traveled is full of Christian concepts.  An important man said to me, 'Scotty, it was so clever of you the way you disguised your Christianity in The Road Less Traveled in order to get the Christian message across to people.'  And I replied honestly, 'Well, I didn't disguise my Christianity.  I wasn't a Christian.'"

Indeed, my impression is that there are differences between The Road Less Traveled and Further Along the Road Less Traveled.  I'll talk about three issues in which this appears to be the case, while in some cases wrestling with the question of whether or not it truly is the case.

First, in The Road Less Traveled, Peck talks about humans growing to become like God in terms of having power in a number of situations.  In Further Along the Road Less Traveled, however, Peck criticizes Theomania, which is "the delusion that we human beings can be God" (page 192).  Now, one can argue that Peck is not really contradicting himself but is talking about two separate issues.  When Peck talks about human beings becoming like God, he means that therapy can help us to grow and arrive at a state in which we can navigate our way through life (including life's hardships) with a degree of poise and control.  When Peck criticizes Theomania, he's saying that human beings should accept that life does not always turn out as they'd like.  Can both concepts co-exist?  I'd say that they can, in the form of the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  Overall, though, I'd say that Further Along the Road Less Traveled has more of a God-focus than The Road Less Traveled.

Second, in The Road Less Traveled, Peck speaks about homosexuality as if it's a condition that needs to be cured.  In Further Along the Road Less Traveled, however, Peck acknowledges that homosexuality is complex, as some are homosexual due to nurture (i.e, dysfunctional families), some due to nature (genetics), and some due to a combination of the two.  Peck says on pages 104-105 that "when we regard homosexuality as just this or just that, we do violence to the subtlety and complexity of God's creation."  In response to the question of whether or not homosexuals should be ordained as priests, Peck says that "It depends on the homosexual" (page 105).

Third, Peck talks more about the afterlife in Further Along the Road Less Traveled.  He says that the Christian (or, in the case of purgatory, Catholic) belief in a post-mortem heaven, hell, and purgatory makes sense to him, but he's drawn more to C.S. Lewis' depiction of hell than he is to the notion that God will torment God's own creation forever and ever, without possibility of redemption.  Peck refers to Lewis' story about a professor who did not like heaven because there was no room there for him to advance above others, and so he chose hell.  Peck says on page 171: "My vision of Hell is distinctly like that of Lewis.  The gates of Hell are wide open.  People can walk right out of Hell, and the reason they are in Hell is that they choose not to."

Spiritual Experiences: Discipline and Quiet

On page 286 of Circle of Life: Traditional Teachings of Native American Elders, James David Audlin talks about attitudes to avoid when one wants to receive a vision:

"If we decide in our own minds, 'I am never going to have a vision,' or 'I insist on having a vision,' we make it harder to have the vision that the Grandmothers and Grandfathers may want to bring to us.  It's like telling yourself, 'I could never learn to play the piano' or 'I insist on learning to play the piano.'  If you tell yourself either, it becomes much more difficult to learn to play the piano.  Rather, chant[e] ishta, seeing with the heart, is learning to be quiet within and not make presumptions, so the vision, if there is to be one, may come to us.  Gautama Buddha taught well that desire (including anti-desire, or fear) blocks us from progress.  Zen Buddhism in particular teaches us how to be quiet within so the delicate wakan presence of a vision, like the sighting of a rare bird or of an albino deer, such as I once saw in Vermont, is not chased off by our loud desires or fears."

What I get out of the above passage is that sometimes we need to get out of our own way in order to have a spiritual experience.  Does this accord with what I have seen, read, or heard?  I'd say that many have told me that I need to work hard in order to have a spiritual experience.  "Keep seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit", a Pentecostal once told me.  "You have to do the first eight steps of the twelve step program, then you will have the spiritual experience that Step Nine talks about", people in twelve-step recovery groups are told.  The first century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria believed that, in many cases, an ecstatic spiritual experience came after rigorous asceticism and contemplation.  And James David Audlin himself, on pages 273-277, quotes a story about someone who fasted from the comforts of modern life (i.e., hamburgers, television, etc.) and repeatedly cried out to the Great Mystery, but he eventually felt great peace when he accepted the wilderness around him and, in turn, felt accepted by it.

I think that having a spiritual experience does require work, discipline, and preparation.  Even James David Audlin says in the passage that I quoted at the beginning of this post that Zen Buddhism has a technique that helps practitioners to become quiet within.  I'm sure that takes discipline!  But it seems to be the case that the spiritual experience comes when we are at a state of quiet and peace, when we're just open----when we're not despairing that we will never have a spiritual experience, on the one hand, and we're not obsessed over having one, on the other hand.  Sometimes, the spiritual experience may come when we're not expecting it.  An old man once told me a story about how he was praying on his tractor and, out of the blue, just started speaking in tongues!  C.S. Lewis at the end of Mere Christianity says that we will find Christ when we look to Him and not to ourselves.

We can take steps to make ourselves receptive, but when, how, and if we have a spiritual experience is the prerogative of God, as the spirit blows wherever it wishes.  But, at the same time, I believe that God loves us, even if we don't have a spiritual experience.  That realization can take off of me the pressure to have one, or the despair at not having one, and perhaps it can put me in the position of enjoying God for God's company and being open, whatever happens.

A Goal and a Mission

I read the itinerary in Numbers 33 for my daily quiet time.  What I'd like to write about today is the goal of life.

I started by thinking about the broad-sweeping history in the Hebrew Bible.  When did it come to be, and why?  At what time would a people develop a broad-sweeping history that would assert that she as a nation had a significant mission or goal as a people?  As far as I know, you don't see too many other nations in the ancient Near East that believed that they had a divine mission.  (Or did they?  The king of Egypt, to use an example, thought that he was supposed to uphold the stability of the cosmos.)

In my opinion, Israel developed a sense of divine mission in exile, as she was searching for something to keep her as a people together, when her national institutions had collapsed.  Israelites were now among Gentiles and were even ruled by other countries.  In the midst of this, I think, Israel embraced the view that God had a plan for her even in this situation----to bring the Gentiles to the worship of God.

Before the exile, Israel probably had a cult and worshiped a national God, like other nations.  Israel may have even had stories about her ancestors and her God, as other nations had stories about their gods.  Israel could have even believed that her God rewarded her for obedience and punished her for disobedience, as other nations thought about their gods.  But would Israel before exile have developed a large-scale narrative about her having a mission to bring the nations to the worship of God and a state of blessedness?  I'm rather skeptical, but I'm open to different ideas on this.

Then I thought about the goal of life.  Israel in Numbers 33 had a goal, the Promised Land.  That sort of story may have developed in exile, when there were a number of Jews who were away from their country and wanted to return to it.  Early Christianity, specifically the Epistle to the Hebrews, offered a spiritualized interpretation of the Promised Land, seeing it as a post-mortem rest that believers will enter (or so I understand Hebrews). 

What is the goal of life?  Is it to go to heaven or the good afterlife?  If that were the case, then why are we even here?  Why didn't God put us in heaven at the outset?   In my opinion, the goal of life is for us to become like Christ----to have a good character.  And I agree with something that C.S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity: that God wants to make us perfect, and he will spend as much time as it takes----in this life and, if necessary, the next----to realize this goal.

But do things work out that way?  There are many people with character defects even when they become old and die.  And there are people who don't even get a chance to develop character because they die early on in life.  And yet, in terms of coming up with a goal that can get me out of bed each morning----a goal beyond mere survival----I'd say that becoming like Christ is a worthy goal.

Forgiving Each Day in Prayer

When I was doing my daily quiet time recently in the Book of Numbers, studying Numbers 28, I checked my notes on that chapter that I took a few years ago.  Numbers 28-29 is about the sacrifices that are offered on each day, each Sabbath, each new moon, and each festival.  In my notes on Numbers 28, one thing that I wrote was the following:

"Mark 11:25----forgive others when praying.  Matthew 6:11----prayer is daily.  Maybe God wants us to forgive others each day in prayer.  It is an occurrence----aorist----yet occurs each day."

I don't remember if I came up with that thought myself or learned it from somebody else (such as a renowned Christian commentator of the past, or a modern evangelical preacher, or both).  The connection between this point and Numbers 28 is that both are about honoring God each day.  Numbers 28 commands Israel (probably, more specifically, the priests) to offer sacrifices each day.  And Jesus presents prayer as a daily occurrence, since Matthew 6:11 asks God to give us this day our daily bread.

Forgiveness has long been a thorny subject with me, the reason being that I have a hard time doing it.  One time, in an evangelical small group, some students and I were talking about Matthew 6:14-15, which affirms that God will forgive us if we forgive others, and will not forgive us if we don't forgive others.  One lady said that she understood forgiveness to be a process rather than an act, and she said that how to understand "forgive" in Matthew 6:14-15 may depend on what the Greek word's form is: is it an imperfect, which describes a continuous action up to this point, or is it an aorist, which concerns a completed action?  Do we have to officially have forgiven someone----the action is complete----for God to forgive us?  I sincerely hoped not, for I could not really complete an act of forgiveness----I could forgive, and then I'd remember the reason I was mad at the person in the first place, and the unforgiveness would continue.

Incidentally, we did not have Greek New Testaments with us at that evangelical small group that day----although a couple of people in the group could read New Testament Greek.  When I checked the Greek word for "forgive" in Mark 11:25, Matthew 6:12, and Matthew 6:14-15, I saw some variety, as I beheld the word in the present, in the aorist subjunctive, and in the future.

But perhaps forgiveness could be a process, even when it is in the aorist subjunctive in Matthew 6:14.  There is an aorist of occurrence----which somehow I knew about when I wrote that note in my notebook.  An aorist can describe something simply happening, and we don't have to get bent out of shape about the aorist having to concern a completed act rather than a process.  When we come before God in prayer, we forgive others.  This forgiveness can be described as an occurrence.  And yet, we may very well have to repeat that act of forgiveness on multiple occasions.  I like what C.S. Lewis once said: it's not necessarily the case that we have to forgive a different sin against us seventy times seven; in many cases, we may have to forgive the same sin against us that many times!

But, in any case, prayer can be a forum for forgiveness, as we remind ourselves that we are sinners and need forgiveness from God and others, and therefore we should forgive others' sins against us.  And, if we find that we forgive the person and resentment creeps up again, we repeat the act of forgiveness in prayer.  Sometimes, our forgiveness of others will be more complete than at other times.  I think that God honors our efforts, not necessarily us being perfect in terms of forgiving others.

UPDATE: The meaning of the Greek word translated as "this day" in Matthew 6:11 is debated, for it is rare.  The following meanings are proposed by Gingrich on my BibleWorks: "daily, necessary for existence, for the following day, for the future."

Lazarus and Osiris?

For my write-up today on Lee Harmon's John's Gospel: The Way It Happened, I'll comment on Lee's comparison of Jesus' resurrection of Lazarus in John 11 with the ancient Egyptian story of Osiris.  In John 11, Lazarus has two sisters (Mary and Martha), and Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead on the fourth day after Lazarus' burial.  On page 203 of John's Gospel: The Way It Happened, one of the characters, Ruth, draws parallels between John 11 and the Osiris story.  Ruth says to Matthew:

"Osiris has two sisters who weep for him when he dies.  It is said of him, 'You have slept, but you will awake; you have died, but you will live.'  He is instructed while dead not to decay, not to smell.  Just like Lazarus.  So his tomb is opened on the fourth day, like Lazarus.  Horus approaches and commands, 'Go forth: wake up!'  And his wrappings are removed...John's story has been around for a long, long time Matthew."  John then says, "Before Abraham was, I AM."

I should add that another point that is often made by people who draw parallels between the story of Lazarus and that of Osiris is that the names "Lazarus" and "Osiris" are similar.

The idea that there are parallels between the Gospel story about Jesus and Egyptian mythology is particularly popular in freethought circles, which seek to portray the Gospel story as a rip-off or as just another savior tale that draws on stock-elements.  See this clip from Bill Maher's Religulous.  Some Christian thinkers, such as C.S. Lewis, have contended that such parallels are actually compatible with Christianity, for Egyptian mythology could have been foreshadowing the coming of Christ.

But there are also a number of Christian apologists, as well as scholars who are not beholden to Christian apologetics, who dispute that many of these so-called parallels indeed are parallels.  See here at Yahoo Answers (only the answers here to the question about Lazarus and Osiris are not particularly well-documented), and also Maurice Casey's critique of D.M. Murdock's work here. 

In this post, I'll share some of what I found when doing online searches on this topic.  I'll be referring to wikipedia, which many consider to be a no-no.  But the wikipedia article that I'll be using cites scholarly sources.  Plus, I'm not claiming that my post here is the final word on Osiris.  Far from it.  I'm not an Egyptologist.  There's a lot that I do not know.  I'm writing this post to start a discussion rather than to end it.  And your comments are welcome, as long as you don't put me down. 

Okay, here we go!  D.M. Murdock/Acharya S is an author who believes that there are parallels between ancient Egyptian mythology and the Gospel story of Jesus.  She wrote a book, Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection, which I would like to read someday, but I'm not buying it right now because it's price is too high for my budget!  On this site, Murdock has a chart listing what she considers to be parallels between the story of Osiris and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus in John 11.  The reason that this chart is useful is that it actually refers to primary sources for the Osiris story.  I do not know what all of those abbreviations mean, but "PT" stands for "Pyramid Texts."  You can find an English translation of one of the Pyramid Texts here.  I myself have not plowed through the Pyramid Texts to see if I agree with Murdock's interpretation of them.  Trying to understand verse takes more work than I'm willing to put into this topic right now.  But I'm linking to the texts, in case you or I choose to take a look at them sometime, for research purposes or out of curiosity.

The thing is, when wikipedia and the site here sum up the story of Osiris, I don't see in their summaries much that resembles the story of Lazarus' resurrection in John 11.  Yes, Osiris has two sisters, Isis and Nephthys.  But there are elements of the Osiris story that are not in the Lazarus story.  Osiris' brother Seth conspires with others to kill Osiris, out of an attempt to take Osiris' throne and also Osiris' wife-sister, Isis.  Seth succeeds in his plot, and he scatters the body-arts of Osiris throughout the land of Egypt.  But Isis, Nephthys, and others find most of those body parts and resurrect Osiris so that he can impregnate Isis with a son, Horus, who would be the new king.  Osiris' resurrection appears to be temporary, however.  Osiris becomes the ruler of the afterlife, and Horus and Seth battle for kingship.
But what about Murdock's reference to the parts of the Pyramid Texts that appear to present Horus resurrecting Osiris?  The closest that I could find to this in the wikipedia article was the following paragraph:

"With great celebration among the gods, Horus takes the throne, and Egypt at last has a rightful king.  The divine decision that Set is in the wrong corrects the injustice created by Osiris' murder and completes the process of his restoration after death.  Sometimes Set is made to carry Osiris' body to its tomb as part of his punishment.  The new king performs funerary rites for his father and gives food offerings to sustain him—often including the Eye of Horus, which in this instance represents life and plenty.  According to some sources, only through these acts can Osiris be fully enlivened in the afterlife and take his place as king of the dead, paralleling his son's role as king of the living. Thereafter, Osiris is deeply involved with natural cycles of death and renewal, such as the annual growth of crops, that parallel his own resurrection."

You can click here to see the footnotes and the scholarly sources that the article sites for this particular paragraph.  What appears to be the case is that Horus is enlivening Osiris, on some level, but Horus is doing so in order that Osiris might serve as king of the dead in the afterlife.  The idea is not for Osiris to roam the earth once more, but rather for Osiris to serve his function in the realm of the dead.  I wouldn't say that there's a perfect match between the Osiris myth and John 11, for the stories are different.  And yet, I hope that I've taken some steps (however inadequate or preliminary) towards understanding the context for what Murdock considers to be parallels.

(UPDATE: On pages 205-210, Lee has a more extensive discussion about the parallels between elements of the Jesus story and other religions.  He talks about scholars who are skeptical about many of the parallels, as well as refers to attempts by Justin Martyr and Tertullian to account for them, attributing them to mimicry by the devil.)

Gabe Dimas and C.S. Lewis

I finished Season 3 of Six Feet Under last week.  In one of the episodes that I watched, Claire Fisher's departed Dad takes her to heaven, or some realm of the afterlife.

In a park in heaven, Claire sees her ex-boyfriend, Gabriel Dimas, playing frisbee with his little brother.  Gabe's little brother shot himself in an earlier episode of the series while Gabe and his friend were using drugs.  As for Gabe, we did not know what had happened to him up to now.  Gabe was engaging in destructive behaviors, and he even robbed a grocery store for beer.  At some point, he disappeared.

As Gabe and Claire talk in heaven, Gabe says that he could not handle life, in which he was selfish.  In heaven, however, he feels free to give to others.  He is even home-schooling his little brother!  What I got from what Gabe was saying was that, in life, Gabe was weighed down by so much inward baggage and burdened by outward pressures, that he really could not give to others.  In heaven, however, he was liberated from all that, and thus he felt at peace and was free to give.

That reminded me of something that I read by Rodney----Mere Trinitarianism: C.S. Lewis, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Evangelicalism.  Rodney says as he discusses C.S. Lewis' view on human participation in the Triune God's greatness:

"Lewis goes on to expand on this idea of participation in 'The Three-Personal God': 'It is only the Christians who have any idea how human souls can be taken into the life of God, and yet remain themselves–in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.' In the Bios or natural, we are bundles of self-centered fears, greeds, hopes, self-conceit, and jealousies ('Let’s Pretend') but in Christ, (according to 'Counting The Cost') God 'said (in the Bible) that we were ‘gods and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him,–for we can prevent Him, if we choose–He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom, and love as we cannot imagine[.]”

Like Gabe Dimas, C.S. Lewis thought that people in this life were weighed down by inward baggage----self-centered fears, greed, jealousy, etc.  Gabe believed that he could only be free from that in the afterlife, where he could truly be himself.  Lewis, however, appeared to maintain that we can be on the path to freedom right now, as we participate in the Triune God's greatness and thus become who we truly are.

I agree with Gabe Dimas and C.S. Lewis that I am a victim of inward baggage and outward pressure.  I don't think that the solution is to forsake this life in favor of an afterlife, however, because we're in this life for a reason.  Perhaps this life prepares us for the afterlife by allowing us to mature in character, or it makes us long for a realm of righteousness and goodness, and that longing makes us better people in the here-and-now.  Does embracing evangelical Christianity provide people with a foretaste of heaven----the sort of thing that Gabe Dimas experienced in the afterlife?  It can.  It does for many people.  Others enjoy happiness through other paths, such as twelve-step programs, or other religions.  In my case, things are messier.  Simply believing in doctrines does not make my life a bed of roses.  Giving is something that I struggle to learn and to do, but, hopefully, I'm growing.

Linville's Carnival and Babinski on C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell

Jim Linville’s Biblical Studies Carnival is now up! And, while I was looking at Dr. Jim’s site, I noticed that ex-fundementalist Edward Babinski is on his blogroll, and I decided to visit Babinski’s blog. Babinski has an excellent post contrasting C.S. Lewis with John McDowell. Conservative Christians have long told me and others to read C.S. Lewis, hoping that Lewis will somehow convince us to adopt their brand of Christianity. The thing is…Lewis was much more liberal than many of the people who recommend him, not to mention more thoughtful and likeable.