Book Write-Up: Pure God, by Gregory Wayne Edwards

Gregory Wayne Edwards.  Pure God: Finally, Answers to Your Questions!  Bloomington: Westbow Press (a Division of Thomas Nelson), 2013.  See here to buy the book.

According to the “About the Author” section of the book, Gregory Wayne Edwards has been an engineer, a reserve-deputy sheriff, a church elder, and a Sunday school teacher.  In Pure God, Edwards addresses questions about the Bible and Christianity.

Some of Edwards’ answers are pretty standard, from a conservative Christian standpoint: Edwards defends the deity of Christ, justification by grace through faith, and the inerrancy of the Bible.  Edwards also gives the customary conservative Christian justifications for why God ordered the Israelites to kill the Canaanites.  Nothing new there.

Where Edwards got interesting was when he was propounding interpretations that I had never heard before.  Edwards seemed to be arguing, for example, that I Corinthians 15, which is about the resurrection, is actually about souls leaving their physical bodies to get new spiritual bodies, going to heaven if they are saved and to hell if they are not.  There were more things like this.

Sometimes, Edwards did not appear to justify his arguments.  Edwards said, for example, that the number of the Beast is 666 because that is the number of perfection minus God.  The number of perfection is 777, and the number of the Trinity is 111, and when you subtract the latter from the former you get 666.  The point is that 666 is about being without God.  But why assume that 111 is the number for the Trinity?  Is there any evidence for this in the Bible?  Edwards also said that the 144,000 in the Book of Revelation were unsaved Jews whom God will protect and give the opportunity to be saved in the end times.  But why does Edwards think that the 144,000 will be unsaved, when there seem to be Christian things that the 144,000 do in the Book of Revelation (i.e., they follow the Lamb, according to Revelation 14:4)?

At other times, Edwards appeared to be making good points and asking good questions, but his answer fell flat because it was wrong.  Edwards was addressing the question of where Cain got his wife.  He made a good point about there being other people out there besides Adam, Eve, and Cain, since Cain was afraid that someone would kill him, which is why God gave Cain a protective mark.  Edwards also astutely raises the possibility that Cain met his wife in the land of Nod: Cain goes to dwell in Nod in Genesis 4:16, and in the next verse he has a wife.  Edwards’ conclusion is that Cain’s wife was descended from Adam’s son Seth, and that Adam and Eve had Seth before Cain killed Abel.  Before Cain killed Abel, Edwards maintains, descendants of Seth, including the woman who would become Cain’s wife, were in the land of Nod.  The problem here is that Genesis 4:25 seems to indicate that Seth was born as a replacement for Abel, after Abel had been killed.

There was one interesting discussion that somewhat convinced me, but not entirely.  Genesis 6:4 refers to nephilim who were in the pre-Flood days, and also after that, and the pre-Flood nephilim were presumably born from the sexual union of the sons of God and the daughters of men.  People have wondered how there were nephilim after the time of the Flood, when the Flood destroyed everyone except for the people and animals on the Ark.  Edwards argues that the post-Flood nephilim were descended from Noah’s son Ham and Ham’s wife.  Ham’s wife, according to Edwards, was from the nephilim.  The Canaanites, after all, were descended from Ham and his wife, and there were nephilim among the Canaanites (Numbers 13:33).  Does that mean that Ham was married to a giant, since many translations (including the Septuagint) and Jewish traditions regard the nephilim as giants?  Was the Ark big enough to accommodate a giant?  Edwards’ answer is that Ham’s wife was not a giant, and that there is no indication that the nephilim in Noah’s day were giants.  But many Jewish traditions say that they were.

Pinpointing Edwards’ denominational affiliation or the branch of Christianity to which he adhered was impossible for me.  He believes in Once Saved, Always Saved (yet he says that God may “take someone’s life to save his or her soul from utter destruction,” and I wonder why utter destruction of a believer’s soul would even be a possibility if eternal security were true).  He interprets the baptism in the Holy Spirit as all believers receiving the Holy Spirit when they believe, not as a second blessing or spiritual empowering that some believers have but others lack (and, because of this view, he disputes that the Samarians in Acts 8 who were baptized in the name of Jesus but had not yet received the Holy Spirit had authentic Christian belief).  He thinks that tongues continue to be a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit and regards the tongues of I Corinthians as ecstatic utterances rather than as human languages.  He equates prophecy with preaching.  It is difficult to stereotype Edwards, for I do not know anyone who has held all of these positions simultaneously.

Because Edwards was saying things that were new to me, as well as defying stereotypes, I was glad that he ended most discussions with a summary of his argument.  Otherwise, I would not always have been clear about what he was driving at.

This book was an interesting read, not so much from a scholarly perspective, but from the standpoint of reading an intelligent layperson trying to make sense of the Bible.  He had some good anecdotes, too, and his love of the Lord is attractive.  I did wish in reading the book that he manifested more humility—-that he acknowledged that he was presenting his own opinion rather than the unequivocal position of the Bible.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from BookLook Bloggers, in exchange for an honest review.

Ramblings on My Church's Small Group and the Holy Spirit

My church has small groups during the fall and the spring.  This fall, we are going through Robert Morris’ The God I Never Knew: How Real Friendship with the Holy Spirit Can Change Your Life.  In the past, the church’s small groups have gone through Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, and Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

I decided to go to the 10 a.m. group because I like morning meetings better than evening meetings.  Once I find a job, I may have to stop attending, depending on my hours.  But, in the meantime, I will keep on going.

I do stand out in the group.  I am the only male there.  I am also the youngest.  The group has mothers, elderly people, and soon-to-be retirees.  I hope that my presence there does not make anyone uncomfortable.  Although my presence there is probably unusual, the group has been welcoming to me.

I like the practical wisdom that I see in the group, as older people share their experiences with younger people.  People were talking last week about the grieving process after losing a loved one.

One member of the group was talking about doing church service projects with a couple of people, and those people recently “left us.”  That is a sad reminder of the reality of death.  People are with us, doing things, and then they are not.

We did not get that deeply into theology last week, but we did talk some about it.  Robert Morris, the author of the book we are reading, tells about his pastor, who told him to beware of people who talk about the Holy Spirit.  Morris was saying that a lot of Christians are reticent about the Holy Spirit, for a variety of reasons.

That made me think about how my own church background handled the Holy Spirit.  The church in which I was raised was non-Trinitarian.  It thought that God the Father and God the Son were God but that the Holy Spirit was not.  It saw the Holy Spirit as God’s power rather than as a person within the Godhead.

You would think that the church of my upbringing would not talk much about the Holy Spirit.  Morris himself argues that the Holy Spirit is a person, apparently seeing the view that the Holy Spirit is God’s impersonal power as part of the problem.  Actually, though, the church of my upbringing talked a lot about the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit opened people’s minds to God’s truth and dwelt inside of believers, enabling them to live righteous lives, if the believers yielded to it.  The person giving the opening prayer would ask for God’s Holy Spirit to be present in the congregation, helping the speaker in his speaking and the congregation in its listening.  God, through God’s power (or spirit), could do these things, the church of my upbringing reasoned.

There is a lot more that I could say about the church of my upbringing and its attitude towards the Holy Spirit.  It is rather difficult for me to determine whether it was cessationist in its stance on the spiritual gifts, or continuationist.  (Cessationists believe that things like tongues and healings ceased after the New Testament and now we should rely on the Bible for our information about God.  Continuationists think that such gifts have continued to exist, and that God can speak to people today.)  There were elements of both.  It did not believe in speaking in tongues and mocked Pentecostals and charismatics.  But it did believe that God spoke to its leaders, in some capacity.  Cessationist John MacArthur criticized the founder of the movement in Charismatic Chaos, pointing to him as an example of what can happen if one does not embrace cessationism.

Why did the church of my upbringing talk about the Holy Spirit?  I could ask “Why not?” The Holy Spirit is significant in the Bible, after all.  But I also think that many people there believed that their eyes were opened to the truth by the Holy Spirit.  That church believed a lot of things that the world does not believe in, things that are in the Bible yet not talked about that much in the outside world, even within Christendom.  How could people become aware of these things, instead of being unaware of them, like most people?  Their answer was that their minds had been opened by the Holy Spirit.  God had called them out of the world!  That was the only way to explain it!

(Note: This is not to suggest that I regard the teachings of the church of my upbringing as truth, but I can understand how people can consider them to be such.)

Back to the United Methodist Church that I currently attend, and its small group.  One of the facilitators was asking how we saw the Holy Spirit.  “He is inside of us,” one person said.  “I always believed that Christ was inside of me, but I guess that is the same as the Holy Spirit being inside of me,” another facilitator said.  Then someone said that our conscience can be the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us.

That actually raises a profound question.  I would not say that our conscience is the Holy Spirit inside of us.  Believers have the Holy Spirit, but everyone has a conscience.  That said, they are similar, in that both guide and instruct people about what is right and wrong.  From a Christian standpoint, I would say that the Holy Spirit gives people the power to do what their conscience demands, and perhaps also that the Holy Spirit elevates or enhances the conscience.  Whether I truly and personally believe that, I do not know.  There are Christians who struggle with moral weakness, and there are non-Christians who are good people.  I know that I seek strength from the Holy Spirit, but that does not make me morally perfect, not by a long shot.

I recently read a book, God, Please Rewire My MADFATS, which was about how people can essentially reprogram their brain in a positive direction.  From a Christian standpoint, one can ask: If I can reprogram my brain naturally so that it is positive, what role does God need to play?  The author did believe that the Holy Spirit was important, however: that we walk in victory through the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is what makes us truly love other people, in a self-sacrificial sense.  What we naturally have can only take us so far, the author seemed to be suggesting, so there does need to be supernatural intervention for us to live a godly, righteous life.

I’ll stop here.

Book Write-Up: Scripture and Cosmology, by Kyle Greenwood

Kyle Greenwood.  Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science.  Downers Grove: IVP Academic.  See here to purchase the book.

In Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science, biblical scholar Kyle Greenwood explores how ancient peoples understood the structure and layout of the physical universe.  He pays particular attention to the cosmology within the Hebrew Bible and the challenges it has posed to its religious interpreters, since the cosmology within the Hebrew Bible appears to differ from subsequent cosmologies, including our own. Greenwood offers suggestions about how evangelical Christians, who regard the Bible as religiously authoritative, can accept the Bible as divinely-inspired while still acknowledging and accounting for its cosmology, which differs from the modern scientific understanding of the world.

Greenwood looks at the cosmologies of the ancient Near East, which was the milieu of the Hebrew Bible.  Greenwood acknowledges the existence of some diversity in ancient Near Eastern cosmology, but he sees evidence that many in the ancient Near East believed in a flat earth, a solid dome in the sky that held back the waters and had windows for the rain to come through, and pillars that supported the land so that it did not float on the waters (though, according to Greenwood, there was a belief among some that the land did float).  Greenwood maintains that such a cosmology is present in the Hebrew Bible, but Greenwood also mentions some differences between the Hebrew Bible’s cosmologies and those of the ancient Near East.  Greenwood also discusses ancient Greek cosmologies and how they differed from the ancient Near Eastern ones: there emerged a belief in a spherical earth and spherical heavens surrounding the earth, and there was an acknowledgment that water vapor played a role in precipitation.  Rather than believing that the moon gave forth light of its own (Greenwood is not dogmatic that the ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible believed this, but he seems to acknowledge it as a possibility), there developed the view that the moon reflected light from the sun.  Later, Greenwood narrates, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler challenged the geocentric view that was part of the Greek cosmology, maintaining that the earth revolved around the sun.  This challenged religious adherents to the Bible, who thought that the Bible presented the sun moving, not the earth.

What should a religious adherent to the Bible do, when biblical cosmology differs from later scientific understandings of the universe?  Greenwood mentions how many medieval thinkers accepted a lot of Aristotle’s views of the cosmos, while not wholly embracing Aristotle’s religious views.  Aristotle believed that the universe was eternal and was supported by an impersonal prime mover, for example, whereas many medieval religious thinkers held that a personal God created the cosmos.  Greenwood may regard this as a model for how evangelicals can interact with science: accept its findings, yet still believe in a personal God.  Greenwood, like many others whom he cites, also believes in the concept of divine accommodation: that God in God’s revelation accommodated people where they were rather than attempting to correct their flawed, inaccurate cosmologies.

There are many positives to this book.  Greenwood provides documentation from ancient sources in his discussions of ancient cosmologies.  He acknowledges diversity, debate, ambivalence, and nuance in his consideration of issues, particularly issues concerning the nature of the cosmologies that he discusses, as well as religious attempts to cope with or account for biblical cosmologies.  (John Calvin, for example, believed in divine accommodation and was open to what science had to say, yet he really struggled with aspects of the Bible’s cosmology, in areas.  There is some debate about Martin Luther’s views on Copernicus.  And there are three views on the Bible and science in The Fundamentals, a crucial document in the development of Christian fundamentalism.)  Greenwood’s work is an excellent resource of information on ancient cosmologies and religious attempts to wrestle with biblical cosmology.

Regarding Greenwood’s attempts to account theologically for the differences between biblical cosmologies and our modern scientific cosmology, parts of his discussion resonated with me, but I doubt that everyone will find what he says to be convincing.  More than one Christian scholar has mentioned divine accommodation as a way to account for these differences, but what I liked about Greenwood’s discussion was that he asked the question of what would have happened had God tried to reveal to the ancient Israelites how the cosmos actually is.  Would they have understood what God was saying?  And would that have detracted from the spiritual or religious message that God wanted to reveal to them?  Greenwood cannot be accused of chronological snobbery, for he astutely notes that there are many things about the universe that we, right now, do not understand.  Greenwood’s discussion here made divine accommodation look plausible to me.  It will probably not be convincing to atheists, however, who would say that the Bible reflects inaccurate ancient cosmologies because it is not a divinely-inspired book, but rather the product of limited human beings, living in their own times.  I make this point because Greenwood indicates in the book that his book could help evangelicals who are challenged by atheists.  Maybe his book would help evangelicals to account theologically for the Bible’s scientific inaccuracies for themselves, but I doubt that it will assist evangelicals in scoring points when debating atheists.  Another point: Greenwood states that the Bible is perspicuous about how to be saved.  I would dispute that idea, considering the different Christian and Jewish views on what one must do to be saved (i.e., enter a good afterlife).

I have more questions after reading Greenwood’s book.  Job 26:7 states that God hangs the earth on nothing, and, while Greenwood convincingly argues against the idea that this means that the earth is a sphere in outer space, he did not explain what that part of the verse did mean.  I was also curious about what ancient Near Eastern cosmology had to say about the relationship between clouds and precipitation.  Greenwood mentions I Kings 8:45, in which the clouds become dark before the rain, but he does not say whether ancient Near Eastern cosmology acknowledged a connection between the clouds and rain.  If they did, would that challenge, or be an ancient alternative to, the idea that rain came from above a solid dome and was let through the dome’s windows?  (Note: see Nicholas Petersen’s website for an alternative view on the firmament in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.  http://www.hebrewcosmology.com/)  There were times when Greenwood explained technical details about ancient cosmology that shed light on how the ancient believed the world worked: Greenwood, for example, addresses the question of how people in the ancient Near East believed that salt water and fresh water were kept separate, even though they thought that the water above the earth and the water beneath the earth were part of a common structure.  I appreciated his explanation of this technicality, but there were times when I was hoping for something similar in other discussions.

I still give this book five stars, however, because it is a repository of information.  Those who are interested in biblical cosmology will find this book to be a helpful resource.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book from Intervarsity Press, in exchange for an honest review.

Book Write-Up: God, Please Rewire My MADFATS

James Bars and Blake Bars.  God, Please Rewire My MADFATS: How to Change Your Life.  Hope of Love Publications, 2012.  See here to buy the book.

“MADFATS” is an acronym for Motives, Affections, Desires, Feelings, Actions, and Thoughts.  In this book, Christian counselor and Life Coach James Bars and his son Blake talk about how people, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can rewire their MADFATS to become more joyful, God-centered, and other-centered, while reducing their self-centered fear and negativity.  James Bars received his training in Biblical Counseling from the Association of Biblical Counselors, and his training as a Life Coach from the Christian Coach Institute.  I have not done a research project to evaluate the quality or professional or academic legitimacy of these institutions, but James does refer to actual doctors in his discussions.  The book also contains a disclaimer, as well as recommends that people with clinical depression consider medication.

My guess is that James Bars is a Seventh-Day Adventist, albeit not a legalistic or perfectionist one.  He questions the doctrine of eternal torment in hell, but he does not appear to be a universalist, so he may be an annihilationist.  He quotes Ellen White on one occasion.  He refers to the great controversy between God and Satan over God’s character, a theme that appears in Ellen White’s works.  He seems to regard the Ten Commandments as authoritative.  At the same time, he emphasizes God saving people by grace through faith.  He promotes finding assurance in God’s love and grace rather than spiritual insecurity.  I should also note that he hardly ever mentions the Sabbath, which would probably be unusual for a Seventh-Day Adventist.  Bars never explicitly identifies himself as a Seventh-Day Adventist in this book, so this is my guess about his religious standpoint.  I am for evaluating the merits of what people are saying, apart from considering their standpoint; at the same time, I do find that knowing people’s standpoint demystifies them a bit for me and makes me a little more comfortable reading them.

The book had positives and negatives, in my opinion.  Let’s start with the positives.  The science that Bars presented about the brain was interesting, assuming it is accurate.  The book is correct, in my experience, in saying that we usually fall back on the same repertoire of thoughts each day, that several of those thoughts are negative, and that much of what we think has been shaped by past pleasant or painful experiences.  Bars listed different approaches that people have towards loving God.  Bars seemed to be open-minded in interacting with different sources, including one that supported meditation.  James Bars told a story about how he and a friend went camping in the woods and encountered an angel who saved their lives.  This was one of the few stories in the book, and I liked it because of its themes of camping, finding a purpose in life, and friends drifting apart due to different interests yet having a profound experience in common.  The book offered a decent perspective on forgiving others and cutting others some slack in this rough journey called life.  It offered practical nutritional tips, while referring to professional nutritionists.  The last half of the book contained places where readers could write affirmations each day of the week and reflect.  I joked to someone that this reminded me of Brian Griffin’s Wish It, Want It, Do It (think Family Guy), but Bars does make a case that writing things out can internalize them.

In terms of negatives, the book was repetitive.  It could have been more specific on how to love others.  I do not find language of self-sacrifice to be overly helpful, since I do not think that people can forget about themselves; the goal should be to get them to care more about others.  Bars would probably agree with this, but he should have been more explicit about that in the book.  Bars does refer to Gary Chapman’s book on the Five Love Languages, and I may consult that for advice on how to show love to others, as well as books on social anxiety and social skills.  Bars’ book also could have used more anecdotes or stories about people’s successes and failures.

Overall, this is a good book on having a good attitude.

The publisher sent me a complimentary review copy of this book through Bookcrash, in exchange for an honest review.

Yeast for the Dough

At church this morning, the pastor commented on Jesus’ Parable of the Yeast in Matthew 13:33, in light of the recent shooting.  The NIV’s rendition of the Parable states:

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

The pastor said that Christians are supposed to be like yeast in the dough, who cause the dough to rise.  They can do this, he said, by coming up with creative solutions to the problem of tragic shootings: by offering ideas, by contributing constructively to the discussion, and by asking the difficult questions.  The pastor said that he envisions a future in which such shootings are a thing of the past, when people can learn safely and come up with scientific and technological advancements.  The pastor also talked about the lonely and isolated finding a place where they are welcome.  

Moreover, the pastor said that the Parable does not present the yeast trying to make the dough into yeast, but rather causing the dough to rise.  It is on account of enigmatic statements like these that I love this pastor’s sermons: I wonder, “What exactly did he mean by THAT?”  I doubt that the pastor is opposed to evangelism, per se, for he talks on his blog about engaging atheists and people with questions.  His point could be that Christians can be yeast in the world and cause the dough to rise apart from a missionary agenda of trying to convert people to Christianity.

The pastor said that we may remember what our previous pastor told us after the last shooting, and that he does not really remember what he told his last congregation in the aftermath.  I do recall what the last pastor said to us—-see my write-up here—-and her message was essentially the same as what our new pastor this morning shared.  Her text was different: her Scriptural text was the one in which Jesus rebukes the disciples’ lack of faith after calming a storm at sea.  But her point was essentially the same: Christians have within them the power to make a difference in the world, to produce rippling effects, and they should not resign themselves to the current wave of violence, as if nothing can be done about it.  She also tried to tie faith to gun control, saying that people should have the faith to give up some of their rights for the sake of the public safety.  (As I get to know people in the congregation more, I doubt that everyone agreed with her on gun control.)  The pastor this morning did not go that far, but I do not know what he had in mind when he talked about asking the “difficult questions.”

I think that sermons like this are important, even if I do not know how to apply them, and even if many in the congregation may not know how to apply them.  As both our current pastor and his predecessor believed, Christianity is not just about waiting to go to heaven, as comforting as that may be.  We should also be concerned about what goes on in this world, for God is concerned about what goes on in this world.  Some Christians may say that these shootings are a sign that we are in the end times and thus look askance at dreams of humans bringing about a better future.  I doubt that we will bring about paradise, for humans are what they are.  But progress has been made in certain areas.  We still have a long way to go before we arrive at Dr. King’s Dream, for example, but I do think that we are further along than we were when Dr. King gave the speech.  Where would we be without our dreams?

I am watching ABC This Week as I write this, and various pundits and politicians are offering their ideas about what to do about the problem of shootings.  The person who made the most sense to me was Chris Christie (not that I plan on voting for him), who talked about the important of helping the mentally ill—-not closing them off from society, but giving them the help that they need.  A concern that I have is the loneliness, the stress, and the insecurity that are a part of this society.  Steve on Triablogue is probably more conservative than I am, but I agree with him that family and faith are also relevant to the problem (see his post here).  

The dream that the pastor shared this morning is the reality that I remember from my childhood: I did not have to worry about someone coming to my school and shooting people.  But things back then may not have been as bad as they are now.  Parents may have been more attentive to their children back then.    

What can be done to solve the problem of shootings?

Book Write-Up: The God I Never Knew, by Robert Morris

Robert Morris. The God I Never Knew: How Real Friendship with the Holy Spirit Can Change Your Life. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2011. See here to buy the book.

My church is using this book in its small groups. The book is about experiencing the Holy Spirit on a deeper level.

Robert Morris’ perspective strikes me as charismatic, even though he is critical in the book of those who judge the Christians who do not speak in tongues. For Morris, the Holy Spirit can perform a variety of functions in a believer’s life. He can give the believer clairvoyance about what is going on in someone else’s life so that the believer can help or pray for that person; Morris tells stories about this happening. Jesus in John 16:13 said that the Holy Spirit will guide the disciples into all truth, and Morris believes that “all truth” means “all truth,” not just spiritual truth. According to Morris, the Holy Spirit has guided people on how to make better business decisions, enabling them to act in light of future developments. The Holy Spirit can enable believers, with their cooperation, to speak in tongues, and thereby to edify themselves spiritually (I Corinthians 14:4). The Holy Spirit can bring about physical healing, since, according to Morris, “Jesus bore our sicknesses as well as our sins on the cross (see Matthew 8:17)” (page 142). Citing John 16:11-13, Morris argues that the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin and their need for Jesus and Jesus’ righteousness, as well as assures them that the judgment of Satan is inevitable (John 16:11-13). The Holy Spirit reassures Christians that they are God’s children so that they no longer feel like they are wretched (Romans 8:13-17).

According to Morris, the Holy Spirit also empowers Christians for service. He makes them into little Jesuses, who, according to Acts 10:38, was anointed by the Holy Spirit and went about doing good and healing people who were under the devil’s power. For Morris, this power did not flow from Jesus’ own divinity, for Morris interprets the hymn in Philippians 2 to mean that Jesus at the incarnation “‘emptied himself’ of all his rights and privileges as God” (page 125). Rather, as Morris notes, “Jesus didn’t perform a single miracle until after the Holy Spirit descended upon Him immediately following His baptism” (page 126). For Morris, the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus can empower us.

The Holy Spirit also empowers believers to live the Christian life. According to Morris, there are three baptisms. There is the baptism in which the Holy Spirit brings a person into the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:13). This occurs when a person becomes a Christian. There is water baptism, which symbolizes, and may even entail, the “death and burial of our own sinful self” page 102). Finally, there is baptism in the Holy Spirit, which gives Christians power to walk in a new life. According to Morris, many Christians have received the first two baptisms, but not the third. This can be for a variety of reasons. They may be scared of baptism in the Holy Spirit on account of weird things they have seen among charismatics and Pentecostals. They may fear making themselves susceptible to demons after opening themselves up to the Holy Spirit. While Morris attempts to dispel the idea that the Holy Spirit will make people weird, he does maintain that people should not place conditions on God when they ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Regarding demons, Morris points to Luke 11:11-13: God will lovingly give his children the Holy Spirit when they ask for it, not a scorpion or a serpent (which, according to Morris, represent demons in Luke 10:19).

Morris believes that a relationship with the Holy Spirit is available to all believers. People do not need to consult a prophet to receive a word from God, Morris contends, for they can go to God themselves and hear from the Holy Spirit. Even Simon the sorcerer, who was bitter because the apostles were performing miracles and taking people’s attention away from his sorcery (or so Morris speculates, and this is a reasonable interpretation of Acts 8:20-23), could have received the Holy Spirit without offering to buy it. Morris maintains that all of the spiritual gifts are available to every believer whenever God deems that appropriate, that all Christians (not just a select few) should desire to prophesy (I Corinthians 14:39), and that all Christians can speak in tongues, as a prayer language. Morris does not think that one has to be a super-Christian or a mature Christian to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, for he says that this can happen to new believers. At the same time, Morris does appear to believe that there are certain requirements to being filled with the Holy Spirit. One needs to surrender to God rather than placing conditions on God in asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit. One needs to be humble and selfless rather than proud and self-centered. One needs to try to avoid grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) and hurting others. Morris tells the story of how he grieved the Holy Spirit when he watched an inappropriate movie. According to him, this resulted in a loss of spiritual power, until he repented.

Morris shares advice on how believers can start speaking in tongues. His pastor advised him to get into a worshipful mood, listen to a praise CD, pray, and then “start praying in a language you don’t know” in abandonment to God (page 175). That sounded rather contrived to me, and yet people I know who have spoken in tongues have told me that it is an ecstatic experience that occurs to them within the context of prayer and worship. It is something beyond themselves that God does, yet they set the stage for it and cooperate with it.

What are my reactions to this book? My personal reaction is rather complex. I want to have more peace, joy, and love, so part of me does desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But do I want to be like some people who claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit, who attribute their opinions to God, even though the opinions of “Spirit-filled” people sometimes contradict each other and may even be refutable? Do I fear that having an ecstatic spiritual experience will lead me to compromise my reason, making me into one who ignores or dismisses science or historical-criticism of the Bible? This does happen, but it does not always happen, for there are critical biblical scholars, and even evolutionary scientists, who have experienced spiritual ecstasy. Maybe I fear that I cannot arrive at the state of humility, selflessness, and affection for God that is necessary to have an ecstatic spiritual experience. Plus, do I want to become a purist or perfectionist when it comes to the movies that I watch? Do I even believe Morris’ anecdotes? (As one who struggles socially, I especially appreciated Morris’ story about being stranded at a party, and how the Holy Spirit was sharing with him whom to pray for.) There are plenty of strange stories out there that I am reluctant to believe. But what if Morris is right? And do I actually want God to be that real?

My reaction to Morris’ biblical arguments is also mixed. He offered plenty of good arguments. I am not entirely convinced that every believer can have every spiritual gift or the ability to speak in tongues, for Paul in I Corinthians 12:30 seems to suggest that different believers have different gifts, and that not all believers speak in tongues. (Morris distinguishes, however, between speaking in tongues publicly in the congregation and speaking in tongues in private prayer. The latter is what he believes that all Christians can do.) Morris still presents arguments that deserve consideration.

What particularly disturbed me were Morris’ factual errors and atrocities against the Hebrew language. Morris on page 80 states that the Feast of Tabernacles is also called the Feast of Trumpets, which is untrue: they are two different festivals, which occur in the autumn. The atrocities against the Hebrew language occur on pages 108-109. Morris states that the “h” was added to Abram’s name, making AbraHam, because the Hebrew word for spirit, ruah, has an “h.” That is untrue: the Hebrew word is ruaCH, not ruah, and ruach does not have an “h.” Morris states that Sarai’s name-change to Sarah is about getting rid of the selfish “I” so one can be filled with the “ha.” “Sarai,” after all, has an “I” at the end. But “I” is an English term for I, as in me, whereas Hebrew has its own word for “I,” namely “ani.” I do not want my nitpicking to distract me from the spiritual point that Morris is making—-the importance of not being selfish. At the same time, such atrocities against the Hebrew language exemplify why I am sometimes skeptical of interpretations of the Bible that people claim to get from the Holy Spirit (not that Morris explicitly makes that claim): the interpretations turn out to be wrong.

It will be interesting to see how my United Methodist Church interacts with this charismatic book.

Book Write-Up: The Argument-Free Marriage, by Fawn Weaver

Fawn Weaver.  The Argument-Free Marriage: 28 Days to Creating the Marriage You’ve Always Wanted with the Spouse You Already Have.  Nashville: Nelson Books, 2015.  See here to buy the book.

Fawn Weaver and her husband, Keith, have an argument-free marriage.  That does not mean that they never disagree or articulate their disagreements, nor does it mean that they never hurt one another’s feelings.  Rather, it means that they do not acrimoniously attack each other.  They try to focus on attacking problems together rather than attacking each other.  They attempt to resolve their conflicts in a constructive, tactful, yet honest manner.

I myself am not married, but I decided to read this book because I thought that it might help me in social interaction, with which I struggle.  At first, Fawn seemed to me to be bragging about her marriage, her accomplishments, and her life.  When she talked about her own struggles, however, I appreciated what she had to say.

Many people may conclude that what Fawn is saying is common sense.  Those who have read a lot of books about how to have a happy marriage may think that Fawn contributes nothing new.  Some have even noted that she and Keith have no children, so they do not understand the conflict that couples with children experience.

A lot of what Fawn has to say is common sense: focus on the good in your spouse, express your hurt feelings after you have cooled down a bit, and spend within your means.  On some of the things that Fawn said, you have to decide for yourself whether or not to follow it.  She says that people should take a day of rest, which is reasonable but may not be feasible for everyone.  She supports tithing and contends that everyone she knows who tithes does well financially.  You have to decide for yourself whether or not to take that leap of faith.

Whether or not Fawn says anything new, I did find her book to be a delightful read.  You get Fawn’s story, quirks, and personality in this book.  Moreover, her writing style is engaging: it is simple, but not dumbed-down.  It is like listening to a friend.  Fawn also responds to her critics who portray her as a June Cleaver type.  Fawn dispels that impression, while also offering a presentation of marriage that I would consider both Christian and feminist.

I received a complimentary review copy of this book through BookLook Bloggers, in exchange for an honest review.