Church Write-Up: Deliverance from the Trap; I John 2:9-14

Time for my weekly Church Write-Up.

A.  There was some overlap between the LCMS service and the “Word of Faith” service, so I will consider them together.  Both talked about how we can become free from a trap.

According to the LCMS pastor, we are trapped in sin, guilt, and shame.  We try to make ourselves feel better by assuring ourselves that we are not as bad as some people, or that we keep at least some of God’s commandments.  But we are fully aware that we think and act in ways that are not holy.  What is more, our nature, who we are, orients us towards going our own way and wanting to be God ourselves.  Is there a way out of this?  The pastor likened our situation to that of the boys in Thailand, who could not rescue themselves from that cave but needed somebody from the outside to come into their situation and do so.

The key to our deliverance is that we are loved and forgiven: God chooses not to see our sins and our flaws.  He told a story about a couple that he married years ago.  Both had gone through horrible divorces and had checkered pasts.  He asked a rhetorical question, not expecting an answer: Do you feel holy?  The groom replied that he did, because he is loved by his bride.  I could identify with this story, not because I am married, but rather because I can understanding how feeling loved and valued can redress feelings of guilt, shame, and inadequacy.  My long struggle has been that, in the past, Christians have said or implied to me that I cannot rest secure in God’s love, if I fall short in certain areas.  It often feels as if God’s love has strings attached.

The “Word of Faith” pastor referred to a conversation that he had with a non-believer.  The non-believer said that his problem with Christianity is that it teaches that we should give credit to God for the good things, while taking blame ourselves for the bad things.  The pastor’s response was twofold.  First, he said that all was made by and for God.  Within this context, there is no “us” to take credit, for it is all about God.  Second, we are not entirely to blame for our sins.  The pastor referred to Romans 7, which states that there is a force within us, pulling us in the direction of sin.  In a sense, “the devil made us do it.”  We are inclined towards idolatry: we make our desire for credit into our idol, or the things that we feel we have to do.  But our idols can lead us to become hateful or jealous towards others, or to work ourselves to death.  The way out is for us to declare and to affirm allegiance to God.  God can transform us in ways that our idols cannot, as can us giving Christ the credit that we try to take for ourselves.  The pastor made this point within the context of a series that revolves around the Book of Revelation.  The Book of Revelation is about how, in the midst of turmoil and persecution, God is creating a world of justice, peace, and love.  Worship can be a place of peace in the midst of this turmoil, as Revelation emphasizes the worship of God in heaven, along with God’s supremacy and sovereignty.

B.  The Sunday school at the LCMS church discussed I John 2:9-14.  The pastor opened the class with a quote by Martin Luther stating that it is not enough not to hate people, but we actually have to do good to them.  The pastor found this to be an apt quotation because we often tell ourselves that, as long as we do not hate someone, we are doing all right, even though we may willfully ignore or overlook that person.  According to Luther, however, love should bubble out of us and overflow to others.  If someone does not want anything to do with us, we can pray for that person and leave the light on, indicating that we are open to that person being in our lives.  Sometimes, for our own safety, we may have to shake the dust off our feet.  These points long have been a challenge to me, as I struggle with resentment, and the question of how often I need to reach out to people to satisfy God’s demand.  I always feel as if I fall dramatically short in the love department.

I John 2:10 affirms that loving one’s brother is walking in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in the one who does so.  The Docetists believed that they had light, that internal meditation could lead them to transcend their flesh and have a spiritual experience.  But they were forsaking the true Christ, who died for their sins, was resurrected, and valued the physical world, so they were walking in darkness.  They were a stumblingblock to believers in that they were encouraging believers to walk on a wrong path.  Christians who walk in the light, by contrast, try not to be a stumblingblock to others.

Were the Docetists unloving, though?  They were teaching others to pursue what they considered to be light.  Ultimately, however, they pulled away from the body of Christ and did not care that they were splitting it up with their doctrine; their doctrine also made them feel superior to others.  Many may think that the same can be said about a number of orthodox Christians.  Indeed, there are similarities: Christians think they have the truth, they try to enlighten others with that truth, and there may be cases in which their commitment to said truth pulls them away from people.  But, somewhere within them, there should be a principle of love.  They do not desire to pull away from the body or the people in it, or even people outside of the body, for they wish what is good for people.  They do not feel superior on account of their truth but recognize their own need for grace.

Then there is the issue of being a stumblingblock.  Simply put: Is highlighting that there are errors in the Bible or one’s problems with a fundamentalist worldview being a strumblingblock to people?  I think that there have been times in the past when I have done so from a standpoint of arrogance, not caring about the spiritual impact of what I was saying.  I was so upset by what I considered to be the arrogance of Christians, and their attempts to exercise power over others on what I thought was a facile basis.  I can acknowledge that I was partially wrong in my approach, but, on the other hand, I do not believe that the right approach is to pretend that everything is well in fundamentalist-land.  If I believe that an apologetic talking-point has problems, then that should be highlighted, even if a Christian may be basing his or her faith on that talking-point.  Now, context and setting are important.  I am not going to go to the LCMS church and tell people that I think that the Bible has errors.  That is not the place for that.  Not only will people dislike me, but church is a place to affirm the faith.  But, on my blog, I may refer to counter-apologetic arguments, as well as apologetic arguments.  That does not mean that I need to be a stumblingblock in doing so.  I need not do so with the intent to destroy or undermine other people’s faith or spiritual lives.  Perhaps doing so can lead people to a deeper level of faith, as Christians present answers to questions and show that there is no question that needs to be feared.  Or it can encourage people to value important aspects of their faith, rather than making an idol of certain talking-points.

I John 2:12-14 may be a hymn that John drew from another source.  John is making these points to reassure a church that has been ransacked by division.  He starts by assuring the people there that they are forgiven.  Our identity in Christ comes before the question of what we are supposed to do.  John addresses fathers, leaders with influence in the church.  But he also addresses young men.  The pastor told a story about a dentist he had who went to a church for ten years before he was asked to serve in some capacity.  It was after ten years that he was married and had a family of his own; when he was single, the church did not know what to do with him, where exactly to put him.  The pastor was saying that, according to John, young men are in a special position to serve, for they are strong, the word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one.

Current Events Write-Up: 7/14/2018

Time for my weekly Current Events Write-Up.

“Wider Consequences of U.S. Withdrawal from the UN Human Rights Council,” by Richard Falk

Falk interviews Daniel Falcone.  Among other things, Falcone states the following about Europe’s reaction to President Donald Trump, which is relevant to this past week’s NATO visit:

“Trump’s crude pushback against European allies has generated confusion. On the one side, there is a European sense that the time has come to cut free from the epoch of Cold War dependence on Washington, and forge security and economic policy more independently in accord with the social democratic spirit of ‘Europe, First.’ At the same time, there is a reluctance to risk breaking up a familiar framework that has brought Europe a long period of relative stability and mostly healthy economic development to Europe. Such considerations create a mood of ambivalence and uncertainty, perhaps thinking that Trump is a temporary aberration from reestablishing a more durable framework versus the idea that Trumpism has given Europe and the separate states an opportunity to achieve a political future more in accord with the values and interests of the region and its member states than its longtime deference to the shifting moods and priorities of Washington. Also, Europe is now facing its own rising forms of right-wing populism, chauvinistic nationalism, and a resulting crisis of confidence in the viability of the European Union under pressures from the refugee influx and the unevenness of economic conditions in northern Europe as distinct from Mediterranean Europe.”

Clarissa’s Blog: “Will of the People”

“It seems that many people have forgotten this, but at first and for years Putin was very pro-American, pro-Western, pro-EU, pro-modernization, and pro-NATO expansion into former Soviet Republics. He was positively glowing with approval when the Baltics joined. I have quotes if people have forgotten.”

Clarissa offers an idea about what influenced Putin to change his mind.

Townhall: “Wait–How Many Immigrants Are On Welfare Again?”, by Matt Vespa

A number of low-skilled immigrants receive some sort of welfare, but Vespa does not specify how many of them are legal or illegal.  Some on the right argue that the parents may be low-skilled and receiving welfare, but their children will grow up, become educated, and enter the middle class, putting money back into the system.

The Nation: “What Does It Mean to Abolish ICE?”, by Julianne Hing

Ever since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning victory in New York, more and more Democratic politicians are saying that we should abolish ICE.  What exactly do they have in mind?  Julianne Hing explores this question.  Progressive activists are rather nebulous.  Democratic politicians are seeking to be pragmatic about it.

The Federalist: “How Obama’s Medicaid Director Andy Slavitt Sabotaged Obamacare,” by Christopher Jacobs

The subtitle says: “If the Trump administration wanted to use the risk adjustment ruling to ‘sabotage’ Obamacare, it would have halted the program immediately after a February court ruling.”  The article argues that the Trump Administration is not seeking to sabotage Obamacare in this case, and that Andy Slavitt created the problems that set the stage for the current series of events.  I cannot say that I understood everything in this article, and I am sure that there is another side to the story, but this particular perspective deserves a hearing, too.

“Is Norway a Model for Democratic Socialism?”, by Daniel J. Mitchell

“But it’s an artificial number when looking at Norway since the government controls the nation’s oil and also has a big sovereign wealth fund that was financed by oil revenue.  In other words, Norway is geographically lucky because all that oil boosts Norwegian GDP. It makes Norwegians relatively prosperous. And it definitely helps partially offset the economic damage of big government.  But it’s nonsensical to argue that oil-rich Norway somehow provides evidence for overall notion of democratic socialism. It’s sort of like looking at data for Kuwait and asserting that the best economic system is a hereditary sheikdom.”

National Review: “Brett Kavanaugh Won’t Shield Trump from Robert Mueller,” by Andrew C. McCarthy

President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, and critics are saying that Kavanaugh supports exempting the President from prosecution.  “How convenient for Trump!”, they proclaim.  Andrew C. McCarthy contends that Kavanaugh was not suggesting that the President is above the law.

Reason: “Kavanaugh and Executive Power—-The Good, the Bad, and the Overblown,” by Ilya Somin

Reason is a libertarian publication, and there has been libertarian concern about Kavanaugh.  Ilya Solyin states that Kavanaugh said that Congress should pass a law minimizing prosecution against a sitting President.  Congress would need to pass a law, so it is not as if Kavanaugh would try to exempt Trump from prosecution as a Supreme Court justice.  Solyin likes some of Kavanaugh’s record, while seeing other aspects as a cause for grave concern.

The Federalist: “Left Cries Extremist, but Brett Kavanaugh Has Supported ‘Common Sense Gun-Control,'” by Margot Cleveland

Kavanaugh is not against all gun control, but he is against banning semi-automatics because a number of Americans own them.

Ralph Reed on Criminal Justice Reform

Ralph Reed is head of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition.  He made the following heartening statement: “The next time someone tells you bipartisanship is dead, remind them that one of the top legislative priorities of Faith & Freedom Coalition, The First Step Act, passed the House of Representatives yesterday 360-59, the first major criminal justice reform bill to move through Congress in a generation. It gives prison inmates a second chance at a better future be gaining early release from prison by pursuing educational, vocational, and addiction treatment programs. We need a prison system that gives offenders a chance at redemption, not long-term incarceration, which only leads to more crime and recidivism. Special thanks to Congressman Doug Collins for sponsoring the bill and to President Trump for strongly supporting it.”

Book Write-Up: The Tempting of America, by Robert H. Bork

Robert H. Bork.  The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law.  Free Press, 1990.  See here to purchase the book.

Robert H. Bork was a professor at Yale Law School, a Solicitor General, and an appellate court judge in the District of Columbia.  In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court.  He was a controversial choice, as many deemed him to be overly right-wing, and he was rejected by the U.S. Senate.  His historic confirmation battle is still mentioned when Republican Presidents nominate someone to the U.S. Supreme Court, including today, with President Donald Trump’s choice of Brett Kavanaugh.

In the Tempting of America, Bork explains his judicial philosophy of originalism.  Essentially, Bork maintains that courts should interpret the U.S. Constitution according to its original understanding, rather than their preferences for how the country should be.  He is critical of judicial attempts to create rights that are not explicitly in the U.S. Constitution, particularly the right to privacy, which undergirds Roe vs. Wade.  The book also has an autobiographical component, as Bork provides some details about his professional background and offers his own perspective on his confirmation battle, as well as its aftermath.  Not surprisingly, Bork believes that he was treated unfairly and that his record was distorted by his opponents.  He fears that the legacy of his battle is that judges will continue to create law from the bench rather than interpret it, and that legal scholars will be discouraged from being honest and open with their legal opinions as that could open them up to attack and distortion.

This review will comment on select chapters.  It will not be comprehensive, but it will highlight points that the chapters made, discussing when appropriate how they coincide with themes elsewhere in the book.

Chapter 1: “Creation and Fall”

This chapter opens with Bork’s critical look at an opinion by Justice Samuel Chase in 1798.  According to Bork, Chase “was prepared to strike down laws that violated no provision in any constitution, federal or state” (page 19).  Chase’s rationale flowed not from legal interpretation but rather from his concept of the “great first principles of the social compact” (Chase’s words).  Bork proceeds to narrate the origins of judicial review, the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court can review government laws and actions on the basis of their consistency or lack thereof with the U.S. Constitution.  This goes back to the 1803 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Marbury vs. Madison.  Bork states that, “In order to reach that issue, [Chief Justice John] Marshall had not only to ignore the fact that his Court had absolutely no jurisdiction, he had as well to distort the statute in order to make it a fit subject for a holding of unconstitutionality” (page 23).  Bork is still understanding about Marshall’s approach, as the United States was in its infancy and its structures and existence were on the line.  Now that the country is established, Bork does not believe that Marshall’s overreach should be applied by judges, though he does note that even judicial review supports the rule of law, not unelected judges’ subjective ideas about how the country should be.

The 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Dred Scott vs. Sandford, exemplifies the poor legal reasoning that Bork criticizes.  Chief Justice Roger Taney declared that the slave Dred Scott needed to be returned to his slavemaster, even though Scott had been in a free state.  The reason was that Scott was the master’s property, and, under the Fifth Amendment, no one shall be deprived by the federal government of life, liberty, and property without due process.  Bork believes that Taney is misapplying the due process clause: it is about receiving a fair trial and has nothing to do with a person having an absolute right to property, free from federal intervention.  After the Fourteenth Amendment declared that states, too, cannot deprive people of life, liberty, and property without due process, the Supreme Court continued to misinterpret and misapply due process.  In the late nineteenth century, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state regulations to protect workers, claiming that they violated liberty and property.  Bork’s discussion here coincides with a point that he makes elsewhere in the book: that judicial activism and overreach are not only things that liberals do, for conservatives have done them, too.

Chapter 2: “The New Deal Court and the Constitutional Revolution”

The Tenth Amendment establishes federalism: specific powers are given to the national government by the U.S. Constitution, and the powers not delegated to the national government are reserved to the states and the people.  Bork appears to see value in this principle: people could vote with their feet.  If they did not like how a state did things, they can move to another state.  The New Deal sought to centralize power in Washington D.C., and a number of judges thought that it exceeded the powers that the U.S. Constitution gave to the federal government.  The Supreme Court struck down certain laws of the New Deal as unconstitutional, but President Franklin Roosevelt eventually got justices on the Supreme Court who upheld his policies.  Bork believes that the new court misapplied the Commerce Clause, which permits Congress to regulate interstate commerce.  According to Bork, “a regulation of commerce had to be done for commercial reasons and not as a means of effecting social or moral regulation,” as the New Deal was doing (page 56).

Bork’s view on the role of the federal government is rather nebulous, at least in this book.  On the one hand, he seems to believe that the national government should only do what the U.S. Constitution specifies.  On the other hand, on page 147, he treats the 1964 Civil Rights Act as a legitimate statute, which expanded people’s rights beyond what the U.S. Constitution specified.  The U.S. Constitution prohibited federal and state discrimination against people on the basis of race but not private discrimination, as the Civil Rights Act did.  For Bork, legislation, not judicial activism, is the correct way to give people more rights than what are in the U.S. Constitution.  At some point in the book, Bork denies that the Supreme Court today should overturn the New Deal and the Great Society, as these have become established institutions in society and to overturn them would be catastrophic for the national order.  Roe vs. Wade, by contrast, is a polarizing decision, as people are divided over whether abortion should be legal, so Bork supports its overturn, thereby making abortion a matter for the legislature.  Overall, Bork believes that the courts should sin no more rather than dramatically overturning previous mistakes, but what does sinning no more mean?  Is Congress under the Tenth Amendment forbidden to create new welfare programs, or new federal attempts to solve problems?

Bork in this chapter also discusses the 1942 Supreme Court decision, Skinner vs. Oklahoma.  The Court here struck down an Oklahoma statute requiring the sterilization of two-time felons.  “A certain Skinner,” Bork narrates, “had been convicted of felonies three times, once for stealing chickens and twice for robbery with firearms” (page 62).  The Court ruled that this statute violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as it distinguished what crimes deserved sterilization and what crimes did not: “The three-time larcenist was subject to sterilization, the three-time embezzler was not” (page 63).  Moreover, the law, according to Justice William Douglas, violated “one of the basic civil rights of man” (Douglas’s words).  Bork disputes the Court’s legal reasoning.  For one, the Fourteenth Amendment is about racial discrimination, not the right of states to distinguish among crimes.  Second, there is no constitutional right to fertility.

This is a difficult point-of-view to accept.  It resembles Bork’s views on other issues: there is no constitutional right for married couples to use birth control, there is no constitutional right to engage in homosexual sex.  A key question is this: are there basic human rights that go beyond what is explicitly in the U.S. Constitution?  Bork shares a story about a student asking him if, under his view, a state government could prohibit marriage, since a right to marry is not explicitly in the U.S. Constitution.  Bork replied that the framers would not have conceived that the government could be so tyrannical.  Should a belief that certain government acts are simply tyrannical guide courts in their assessment of laws, even if the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly touch on them?

The Ninth Amendment states that the Bill of Rights does not abrogate rights that are not explicitly in the U.S. Constitution.  Bork thinks that appeals to this argument are better than other legal scholars’ arguments against originalism that are out there.  Still, Bork believes that this argument, too, falls short.  The Ninth Amendment, he argues, was saying that the Bill of Rights does not abrogate rights that the states already recognize, not allowing federal courts to create new rights that are absent from the U.S. Constitution.

Chapter 3: “The Warren Court: The Political Role Embraced”

Bork in this chapter defends Brown vs. the Board of Education, the landmark decision that prohibited racial discrimination in public schools.  He has issues with the Warren Court’s rationale behind that decision, but he agrees with the decision itself.  Bork acknowledges that, originally, the Fourteenth Amendment was not intended to prohibit racially segregated schools.  Still, it was intended to prohibit the government from racially discriminating, and racially segregated public schools, in effect, were doing that.  This discussion coincides with Bork’s explanation of originalism: that it is not entirely about the original intent of the law’s framers but is also about what the law says, and the principle that the law sets forth.  Elsewhere in this chapter (and in the book), Bork will embrace a similar approach to what he does with Brown: he will say that there is a legitimate, originalist way to arrive at a progressive goal. He thinks that the Warren Court overreached in a decision about legislative districting, but he acknowledges that the Court can constitutionally challenge districting that severely undermines the rights of majorities to choose their own leaders.  He did not care for the reasoning that courts used to strike down discriminatory racial covenants, seeing it as arbitrary and detached from the law, but he did say that there was a legal basis to challenge racial covenants, due to statutes on the books.

Bork’s personal experiences and ideological evolution are mentioned in this chapter.  Bork tells a humorous story about a time when he was asked to redistrict a state.  He also talks about how he changed his mind on an issue of constitutional law: he used to believe that court decisions should follow a consistent neutral principle (liberty) in evaluating laws, but now he thinks that courts should simply stick with what the law says.

The right to privacy is introduced in this chapter.  Griswold vs. Connecticut struck down a law criminalizing the usage of contraception by married couples.  Bork states that this law was not taken seriously or rigorously enforced (he later says the same about the anti-sodomy law that Bowers vs. Hardwick affirmed), but that people decided to challenge it in order to advance their own sexually individualist agenda.  Bork argues that there is no right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution, and he notes that a lot of laws legitimately challenge privacy: people cannot use drugs in the privacy of their own homes, for example, or abuse their wives or kids.  Bork raises a good point there.  Still, the Constitution in the Third and Fourth Amendments does seem to value privacy.  Bork could say that the Fourth Amendment related to criminal investigations and not a general right to privacy, but perhaps a regard for privacy undergirds what the Fourth Amendment says about criminal investigation.

Speaking of criminal investigation, Bork is critical of the Warren Court’s decisions on the right to remain silent and the exclusionary rule.  He does not provide much detail in this discussion about the rationale for his views.  He seems to disagree mildly with the view that the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the states the Bill of Rights, and yet he accepts that as the lesser of two evils: it is better to say that the states must follow the Bill of Rights, than to say that courts can invent new rights that are not explicitly in the Constitution.

Chapter 4: “After Warren: The Burger and Rehnquist Courts”

Bork criticizes Supreme Court decisions that allowed for racial quotas, seeing those as violations of the Civil Rights Act.  He criticizes Roe vs. Wade.  He states that he himself does not support criminalizing homosexual sex but that states have a right to do so.  He states that a Texas law banning flag burning did not violate the First Amendment: “Texas had not prohibited the desecration of the American flag because the idea expressed was offensive but because the mode of expression was” (page 127).  The topic of the First Amendment will recur in this book.  Bork said that pornography was not protected by the First Amendment, yet he seemed to acknowledge that seemingly non-political speech or expression that is provocative may be protected because it is making a political statement.  Bork wrote that the First Amendment does not protect encouraging people to break the law, since the presumption behind the First Amendment is the rule of law: speaking out and debating what laws are appropriate for society.  People criticized Bork on this, saying that he was criticizing civil disobedience and that his view would entail that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s civil disobedience lacked First Amendment protection.  Bork replied that King was not undermining the rule of law but was challenging segregation laws as being inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution.

Chapter 7: “The Original Understanding”

Bork makes this clarification of original understanding on page 144: “If someone found a letter from George Washington to Martha telling her that what he meant by the power to lay taxes was not what other people meant, that would not change our reading of the Constitution in the slightest…When lawmakers use words, the law that results is what the words ordinarily mean.”

Chapter 8: “Objections to Original Understanding”

One argument Bork addresses is that the Constitution must change as society changes.  Bork asks a good question: can we truly say that society is changing on a given topic, when the Supreme Court is striking down laws that people through their representatives enacted?  For example, let’s take the death penalty.  Some argue that we are more civilized now and so we should interpret the Constitution as banning the death penalty, even though the Constitution presumes the legitimacy of the death penalty.  But Bork asks: is society now truly against the death penalty?  People through their elected representatives have supported it!  Bork does not think that liberal judges are following the new consensus of society but rather their own controversial morality, which cannot win at the ballot box.

A question that I wish Bork had addressed more deeply is how we can discern original intent, when the framers themselves seemed to disagree about aspects of constitutional interpretation.  Some preferred a strict interpretation of the Tenth Amendment, while others were not so strict.  Some thought that the First Amendment banned Congress from having chaplains, whereas others were not so draconian.

Chapters 14-16 contain Bork’s telling of his confirmation battle.  There were humorous anecdotes.  Bork says that he was patient in discussing the First Amendment with Senator Arlen Specter, and that people might mistake their conversation for a serious constitutional discussion, when Specter was completely missing Bork’s point.  Bork talks about Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 1988 Presidential race due to charges of plagiarism, and how Biden told the embattled Bork that their situations were similar.  Bork could not see the similarity!  Bork also talks about how people have confused him with Surgeon General Koop, and Koop with him, because they both have beards!  Bork defends himself from the accusation that he consistently ruled against minorities and labor, highlighting numerous examples to the contrary.  He rejects that idea that he was outside of the mainstream, noting the Ivy League professors and Supreme Court justices who supported his nomination.

This review has not covered several of Bork’s attempts to refute arguments against originalism.  If Bork’s portrayal of those arguments is accurate, then those arguments are pretty weak!  The book could get tedious, but it is still worthwhile to read.

Church Write-Up: Sent, I John 2:7-3:3, the Seven Churches

Here is this week’s Church Write-Up about last Sunday’s church services.

A.  At the LCMS church, the pastor preached about Mark 6:1-13, in which Jesus sends his disciples out two-by-two to preach the Gospel, heal, and cast out demons.  Jesus instructed his disciples to take no bread, staff, or money with them.

The pastor asked why Jesus sent them out, and why Jesus sends Christians out.  Would we not rather want to stay, being blessed and uplifted by Jesus’ teachings, as opposed to going out?  The pastor said that many of us discuss the details of mission, and practicalities are important, but such discussions may hide a fear about mission itself.

The pastor talked about ways that we go out.  A group from the church is going to Houston to help people devastated by a hurricane.  The church will be teaming up with a local Catholic church to fill up backpacks for kids who do not have enough money for school necessities.  A couple from the church spent two weeks in Romania.  We may go out to the store.  We may go to work, and the person in the cubicle next to us may be going through a divorce and the gaps in his or her heart can be filled by Jesus.  In all of these cases, God and who we are in God (beloved) goes with us.  Similarly, the youth pastor in the children’s sermon talked about how, even if we have nothing to give, we have Jesus and can pass on Jesus’ love and forgiveness to others.

According to the pastor, Jesus sent the disciples out two-by-two because that got the mission done.  The pastor shared about how he used to do door-to-door evangelism by himself, and he would circle around the house a few times, afraid to knock on the door!  When he was with another person, however, they both went up and knocked on the door without hesitation, for they had each other for support.  Another point that the pastor made is that the disciples needed to see that the Gospel worked, at more than on a theoretical level.  They were surprised when they went out and the demons were subject to them!

I may help on that backpack project.  I know the Catholic church is within walking distance (I lack a car).

B.  The LCMS’s Sunday school is continuing to study I John.  The pastor focused on I John 2:7-3:3.  Some points that the pastor made:

—-John talks about the darkness not overwhelming the light, Jesus.  Apollo was the god of light in Greek mythology, and Hades was the god of darkness.  Both essentially were equal in power and influence.  John, however, has a different perspective.  Darkness is not an entity unto itself but is merely the absence of light.  Jesus shines in the darkness and overcomes it.  He did so on earth, as he brought the Kingdom of God wherever he went, in bringing healing, exorcism, and forgiveness to people.

—-The false teachers, the Docetists, thought that they were walking in light, but they were walking in darkness because they lacked love for the church: they thought that they were superior to other Christians because they felt that they had greater intimacy with God on account of their mental spiritual techniques, and they split the church.  The pastor likened this to a charismatic movement that struck the Lutheran church when he was growing up.  Some Christians were acting as if one had to have certain charismatic experiences to be a good Christian.  They looked down on those who lacked such experiences, and they left the church.  Eventually, they came back because the movement dissipated, as happens with darkness: it fades away.

—-Someone asked if John was being unloving by opposing the Docetists.  The pastor replied that we can easily find ourselves hating those we correct, if we are not careful.  John’s aim was loving: to show the Docetists the damage that they were causing to the community.  Eventually, we may find, though, that we need to shake the dust off our feet and hope that God reaches the people we rebuke in some other way, if they are not receptive to what we are saying.  We are not avoiding them out of hatred, but to protect ourselves from being negatively influenced.

—-The pastor talked about how the Gospel is new and old.  The Word who became Jesus was around at the beginning, and he was foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament.  Yet, at his coming, he brought something new: something new was coming into effect, having an impact, bringing heaven to people.  It is like laws: they were passed, but they come into effect on July 1.  Their authority and impact is felt then.  Another way that newness was relevant was that some of the Christians in John’s church were enamored by Docetism because it was new to them.  People like what is new.  But John encouraged them to stick with the Jesus they already knew, the one who died for their sins and rose from the dead for their salvation.

—-John calls the Christians to whom he writes “Beloved.”  The love that God has for them forms the context of his exhortations to them.  Similarly, John was the Disciple Jesus Loved.

—-Someone asked what the Third Use of the Law was.  The pastor replied that it was the post-conversion use of the law.  It is keeping the law out of gratitude to God, and it is the law fulfilling its true function: for God’s people to live as God’s people.  It is obedience out of love rather than obligation, flowing from a transformed heart that wants to live that way.  The pastor noted that the word that John uses for commandment is entole.  That can refer to a rule, but it can also refer to instruction.  Instruction is more relational, personal, educational, and related to spiritual transformation and growth than merely obeying a rule.  Similarly, the pastor last week highlighted that the Torah used the Hebrew word shamar for obedience, and shamar is about more than obeying: it concerns guarding God’s instruction, especially in one’s heart.

C.  The pastor at the “Word of Faith” church was preaching about Jesus’ message to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3.  Among the lessons that the pastor derived from (or read into) the text are:

—-Forgiveness.  The church at Ephesus was correcting others but was not doing so in love.  Jesus was encouraging the church at Pergamum that God has manna—-provision—-for them, and exhorted them to be priests (the meaning of the white stone) to others.  We can find ourselves resenting those who do not pay us back, but we should remember in those situations that God is our provider.  When we do not forgive, we trap ourselves in a pit of torture from which God wants to deliver us (Matthew 18:34).  Forgiveness includes seeing the potential of those who have hurt us as sons or daughters of God.  It includes blessing others.

—-Christ assures the Philadelphians that he is the one who opens doors that no one can shut, and that the synagogue of Satan will acknowledge the love that God has for the Philadelphian Christians.  Similarly, God may put a dream in our heart, but legalists will tell us that we are spiritually unqualified for that dream.  We need to look to God as the one who opens doors that no one can shut.

—-The church at Thyatira was yielding to sexual immorality.  Jesus stated that the one who overcomes will receive authority over the nations.  The church today lacks authority in the eyes of many people due to its immorality.

—-The Laodiceans thought they were rich, but they were not.  The pastor likened them to the prodigal son: he had the wealth of his father’s inheritance, but he was actually poor because he lacked a relationship with his father.

Current Events Write-Up: 7/7/2018

Time for my weekly Current Events Write-Up!

The Federalist: “Why Americans Should Care about Mexico’s Presidential Election,” by Helen Raleigh

Leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador was elected President of Mexico this week!  I first learned about him from this article by Helen Raleigh.  The article is critical of him, and maybe his policies will have downsides.  Still, I respected him as I read this article, particularly his populism and his desire to move Mexico towards economic independence.  Raleigh talks about the effects that his election can have on illegal immigration to the United States.  She has written a book about immigration entitled The Broken Welcome Mat, in which she proposes solutions.  I hope to read it soon.

The Federalist: “Potential Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Has a Troubling Record on Religious Liberty,” by Anonymous

Brett Kavanaugh is one of the people on the list to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.  Some social conservatives have not warmed up to him.  This article critiques his conclusions in certain religious freedom cases, as well as the legal reasoning that led him to those conclusions.

Townhall: “Trump Needs Allies to Usher In a New World Order,” by Rachel Marsden

Rachel Marsden is a conservative who hopes that President Trump does not sound the war drum against Russia and Iran.  On Russia, she is optimistic: even war hawk John Bolton is attempting to quiet fears about Russia!  On Iran, she is a little more pessimistic.

HuffPost: “How A Populist Europe In Thrall To Russia Threatens Climate Change Action,” by Arthur Neslen

Marsden mentioned an area in which Germany and Russia are cooperating.  Nelsen sees examples of Russian cooperation with some of the other European countries, and he does not believe this bodes well for attempts to take action on climate change.

Christian Research Institute: “Theology of Morgan Freeman”

This podcast episode evaluates Morgan Freeman’s television series, The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.  It critiques aspects of Freeman’s beliefs and presentation, but it also finds things to praise.

Book Write-Up: The Lost World of Scripture

John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy.  The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority.  IVP Academic, 2013.  See here to purchase the book.

John H. Walton teaches Old Testament at Wheaton College, and D. Brent Sandy teaches New Testament and Greek there.  In The Lost World of Scripture, Walton and Sandy discuss the production of the books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in the ancient world and how they believe that this relates to the authority of Scripture.

The book has twenty-one propositions, followed by “Faithful Conclusions for Virtuous Readers,” which comments on issues pertaining to biblical authority.  This review will highlight three primary points that the book makes.  In the course of this discussion, I will offer some evaluation and critique.

A.  A point that is reiterated throughout the book is that the ancient context of the Bible was an oral culture.  In the ancient Near East, writing was not the commonplace method of communication.  It existed for archival purposes, to communicate with a god or future generations of kings, as a display of power, or so a king can communicate his will to his subjects.  But people mostly told stories.  The Greco-Roman culture that surrounded the New Testament was similar.  Classical Greek and early Christian figures expressed a preference for oral communication over writing, as oral communication allowed for more give-and-take.  Throughout the New Testament, there is an emphasis on the spoken word.  The New Testament documents came to be written, as the Gospels were used in churches, and as Paul wrote letters.  Even then, the documents were read aloud orally, in communal settings.  According to Walton and Sandy, the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament both show signs that they are based on oral traditions.  The Hebrew Bible contains expressions that sound appealing when spoken, and the diversity within New Testament stories probably reflects the different memories that people have when they tell stories.

How do Walton and Sandy relate this point to biblical authority?  For one, they believe that the oral nature of the traditions that entered the Bible should shift the focus away from the question of how and whether the written words were inspired.  Oral tradition allows for some fluidity and flexibility, so faithful Christians need not be disturbed by, say, the different recensions of the biblical text (i.e., the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, etc.), with their different readings.  The New Testament authors obviously were not disturbed by them!  Walton and Sandy seem to be suggesting that we should go with the big picture of the biblical message, rather than focusing on every single written word in the text.  At the same time, they appear to shy away from abandoning a commitment to the verbal inspiration of Scripture, maintaining that God providentially arranged for Scripture to have the words that it does.  Second, Walton and Sandy employ their model to argue against certain historical-critical models.  JEPD is probably false, they claim, since JEPD focuses on authors writing the text, when that culture was largely oral.  The Gospels are based, in large part, on actual memories that people had.

There may be something to this model.  The book is somewhat lacking, however, in discussing possible purposes and settings of the oral traditions that made their way into the Bible.  Where did the stories originate?  What historical issues or problems were they addressing?  Also, the book perhaps should have addressed the rabbinic focus on every single word of Scripture, as if every word is inspired and contains deep meaning.

B.  Another point that Walton and Sandy make is that the biblical writers considered themselves, not to be authors, but rather to be tradents of already existing tradition, going back to an authority.  When scribes added clarification to the text of the Pentateuch, they were acting within the authority of Moses.  When disciples of Isaiah applied Isaiah’s teaching to new situations as they composed new material, they were acting within the authority of Isaiah.  (Walton and Sandy actually express agnosticism about whether there is more than one Isaiah, but their point is that more than one Isaiah need not pose a barrier to faith.)  Similarly, Darwinism, Freudianism, and Platonism build on the authority of the figures whose names they bear, yet they are not the same as what Darwin, Freud, and Plato taught.

How far Walton and Sandy take this insight is unclear.  On page 223, they say that “we should no longer feel that authority or inerrancy is threatened by those who suggest that some legal sayings might be later additions or that some offer alternatives to other sayings’ way of dealing with issues.”  Walton and Sandy express skepticism about JEPD, but could one argue, using their model, that both P and D are acting within the authority of Moses, albeit are taking Moses’ teaching in different directions?

C.  A key point in the book is illocution-locution-perlocution.  On page 41, Walton and Sandy state: “The communicator uses locutions (words, sentences, rhetorical structures, genres) to embody an illocution (the intention to do something with these locutions—-bless, promise, instruct, assert) with a perlocution that anticipates a certain sort of response from the audience (obedience, trust, belief).”

Walton and Sandy believe that this insight can help resolve a number of problems that perplex faithful readers of the Bible.  Some faithful readers are perplexed because they think that the Bible contradicts science.  Walton and Sandy argue that God accommodated God’s communication to the cosmological views of the ancients, which form the locution.  Our focus should be on God’s spiritual intent behind the communication, as we recognize that the locution is merely cultural.  Some faithful readers wonder if the Bible contains historical inaccuracies.  Walton and Sandy argue that we should look at how history was written in antiquity: it focused on the outcome of events rather than showing pristine accuracy on every factual detail.  Some numbers in biblical narratives may have served a rhetorical purpose.  (Overall, Walton and Sandy believe that the Hebrew Bible talks about actual historical events and characters, as historiography in the ancient world did so, and as the events and characters give shape to the biblical passages’ message.  If the Exodus did not happen, for example, can we really learn anything about God’s character by reading the Exodus story?)  A much discussed problem is whether New Testament authors misinterpret Old Testament passages, as they apply the passages in ways that seem to go against the passages’ original contextual meanings.  Walton and Sandy contend that we should consider the illocutions: there is a purpose behind the Old Testament passages, and there is a purpose behind how the New Testament applies them; the New Testament writers were not necessarily aiming at interpretative accuracy when they applied Old Testament passages.

In the “Faithful Conclusions for Virtuous Readers,” Walton and Sandy appear open to the idea that the biblical writings reflect different political ideologies.  But they believe that God may still be behind their inclusion in the Hebrew Bible: for instance, God uses the pro-David material to highlight the good things that David did, and the anti-David material to show that David was a flawed sinner in need of God’s grace.

One may wonder how we can discern God’s intent.  Plus, could not people stuff inconvenient messages of the Bible into the cultural “locution” category to argue that they are not authoritative but only applied to the past?  Perhaps, but Walton and Sandy’s model can still be helpful to believers who wonder how to apply spiritually a document that originated in an ancient culture, different from their own (at least for Western believers).  There are times in the Bible when God appears to express an intent, or a message that can edify people from a different time and culture from those of the original audiences.

I checked this book out from the library.  My review is honest.

Church Write-Up: 7/1/2018

Here is my weekly Church Write-Up about last Sunday’s services that I attended.

A.  The text on which the LCMS pastor preached was Lamentations 3:22-33.  In the midst of the disaster that Jerusalem had experienced, Jeremiah finds hope in God’s faithfulness and the newness of God’s mercies each morning.  The pastor asked how we in the United States could identify with the political situation of Jeremiah’s time.  The center holding everything together had collapsed, as Jerusalem had fallen.  We in the United States, by contrast, are about to celebrate the 242nd birthday of our nation; our nation has had its crises, but our center has held for over two centuries.

The pastor likened Jeremiah’s situation to World War I, as the pastor referred to a poem about the aftermath of that war, “The Second Coming,” by the poet William Butler Yeats.  The agreements preserving a fragile peace had collapsed.  So many people died in that war that people felt that a generation had been lost.  The pastor said that many of us have had experiences where we feel as if it is the end of the world, or as if we ourselves have to hold everything together lest it collapse.  Jesus, however, unites us to himself, such that we are in Christ, and Christ is in us.  We ourselves do not have to hold everything together.

In saying “we” and “us” in this summary, keep in mind that the audience of the sermon was Christians in the United States.  But Christians elsewhere can certainly identify with aspects of this message.

B.  The pastor was continuing his series on I John at the Sunday school class.  I would like to highlight three issues that came up in that.  The first two issues contain more than one issue.

First, there is the topic of commandments and how to read the Bible productively.  Some people were struggling with John’s emphasis on obeying the commandments, saying that John emphasizes works, whereas Christians are saved by grace through faith.  Moreover, John writes so that people might not sin, yet John acknowledges that the Christians in his audience inevitably will sin, and Christ will forgive them.  The pastor said that he sees John’s emphasis on obedience to the commandments, not in the sense of slavishly obeying rules, but rather in terms of the fruit that comes out of Christians’ love-relationship with God, namely, love for fellow believers and neighbors in general.  The pastor agrees with the school of thought that says that John wrote I John after writing the Gospel of John, meaning that John in I John presupposes what is in his Gospel.  That said, the pastor interprets John’s emphasis on keeping the commandments in light of what Jesus says in John 15 about bearing fruit by abiding in Christ.  Christians will sin and can receive forgiveness, but John warns about the sin unto death in I John 5:16.  That sin is rejecting the faith, and the reason that is not forgiven, according to the pastor, is that people are deliberately shutting themselves off from what the Holy Spirit would use to bring them forgiveness and spiritual restoration, namely, their faith in Christ.  Someone in the class asked the pastor how Christians could arrive at these conclusions without the pastoral commentary.  The pastor replied that it is good to have a Bible that has cross-references, and that Christians should also ask first in reading a biblical passage how it relates to Christ and Christ’s work of salvation, then they should ask how it relates to themselves.

Second, John frequently calls his audience “little children” in I John.  That is because John had been their pastor for 40 years.  The pastor likened that to Pastor B. (my abbreviation).  Pastor B. had been the pastor of that Lutheran church for three decades, and he and his wife have continued to attend it during the decades after he retired.  Pastor B. has known a lot of people in that congregation for a long time, and they have known him.  He is like their spiritual father.  Similarly, John is writing to the congregation at Ephesus from a standpoint of affection, fostered and strengthened by decades of relationship.  John, as the spiritual father, is concerned about the heresies that are present in the Ephesian church, as teachers are denying Christ’s work of salvation and saying that people become saved through mental work, finding the God within.  These were not just people with strange ideas, but they were actually teaching in the church, undermining people’s commitment to the Christian faith and splitting the body.

Third, the pastor talked about Matthew 18, where Jesus lays out a three-staged process of church discipline.  If someone in the church does not repent after the first two stages, he or she is to be treated as a tax-collector.  Does that mean that the church should have nothing to do with that person?  The pastor asked how Jesus treated tax-collectors: Jesus ate with them.  The church should still engage that person but should approach him or her as a non-believer.  I asked the pastor how he reconciled this with what Paul said in I Corinthians 5, forbidding Christians to eat with those who profess to be Christians yet live in certain unrepentant sins.  The pastor replied that Paul is warning Christians to be careful when they engage unrepentant Christians, lest they fall into the same sins.  Christians are to remember who they are when they engage unrepentant Christians.  In some cases, as when an unrepentant Christian is totally unwilling to abandon fornication, a Christian may do well not to eat with that person.

C.  I went to the “Pen church” afterwards.  I ordinarily attend the “Word of Faith” church, but it was meeting outside, and I was unclear as to whether it was actually having a service last Sunday.  At the “Pen church,” the pastor preached about finding one’s purpose.  His primary texts were Ezra and Nehemiah, and the pastor referred to anecdotes to illustrate his points.  Nehemiah was distressed at the walls in Jerusalem still being unbuilt, leaving the city unprotected, so his purpose was to supervise the reconstruction of those walls.  Similarly, our problems can lead us to our purpose.  The pastor told the story of a pastor he knows and a former judge.  Their daughters were both murdered, so these men have come together to start a Bible college at the prison to become part of the solution.  Ezra was determined to go to Jerusalem and to teach God’s law.  Similarly, our purpose can give us determination.  The pastor referred to his grandfather, who got up early each morning and prayed for two hours for his family and for missionaries.  This man saw his family collapsing and resolved at a specific point in time to pray each day.  The pastor confessed that he himself does not get up early each morning to pray for two hours, and I doubt that he was suggesting that everyone has to do that.  Rather, he was highlighting his grandfather as an example of one who found a purpose.

The pastor said that part of our purpose as Christians is to do our role in bringing about what Jesus said in Matthew 6:10: to make earth like it is in heaven.  That is a helpful insight, in terms of framing Christian mission.  It encompasses evangelism: we want people to know God on earth, for God is known, loved, and worshiped in heaven.  It includes giving to the poor and showing compassion to the sick, as heaven is a place where love reigns and where needs are met.  Yes, Jesus will ultimately make earth like heaven at his second coming, but the Kingdom of God also has a present reality.