christian
Book Review: “C.S. Lewis in America” by Mark A. Noll
C.S. Lewis in America: Readings and Reception, 1935-1947 is a fascinating look at how C.S. Lewis was received in the United States as he published theological and other works. Mark Noll is one of the most prodigious and intriguing historians of the church in America writing today. The book is mostly focused on the question of how Lewis was received in America, but other contributors introduce a number of other topics that broadens the appeal even more.
Noll’s comments are centered around the initial, largely positive American Catholic response to Lewis, then on his reception among secular writers, and finally on Lewis’s reception among American evangelicals. Responses to these chapters focus on race and religion in America at the time of Lewis, the interplay of The Catholic Hour and The Lutheran Hour on American audiences, and the way Lewis helped foster ways of communication with Christian themes. These responses introduce a number of additional topics that are sometimes only tangentially related to C.S. Lewis, but are all well worth the time to read.
C.S. Lewis in America is a fascinating read, especially for those wanting to know more about C.S. Lewis’s reception. Noll and the other contributors introduce a number of topics that make the book quite readable and with broader appeal.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Joshua and Judges as contrasting accounts- Archaeological evidence and apologetic import
Joshua and the Conquest Narratives- Archaeology says otherwise
Dever’s work, Beyond the Texts: An Archaeological Portrait of Ancient Israel and Judah is hyper-focused on the archaeological evidence related to Ancient Israel and Judah. There’s a lengthy section at the beginning about the differences between looking at archaeological evidence and its (largely) “given” nature (eg. a soup bowl is a soup bowl-that’s its use, and arguing otherwise doesn’t change it) as opposed to texts like the Bible or other writings which have interpretation, memory, hyperbole, fictionalization, etc. built in.
The book is full of major insights, and Dever continues to rely almost exclusively upon archaeological evidence to make his points. Eventually, he gets to the conquest narratives of Joshua-Judges. Of the 30+ sites mentioned as being conquered in those books of the Bible, only 3-4 have any signs of destruction in the right time period. Writes Dever:
“[I]n the light of the overwhelming archaeological evidence, there was no large scale warfare on the thirteenth- and twelfth-century horizon, except that initiated by the Philistines along the coast… The inevitable conclusion is that the book of Joshua is nearly all fictitious, of little or no value to the historian. It is largely a legend celebrating the supposed exploits of a local folk hero.” (186)
I kind of knew this already–a major impact point for myself as someone who literally got a degree in apologetics was looking at the evidence in ANE history and trying to reconcile that with the Bible. And broadly speaking, evangelicalism has a severe problem when it comes to the archaeological evidence here.
Dever, however, doesn’t simply unload on the Joshua account and move on. He shows the marked contrast between how Judges shows the inhabitation of the land and how Joshua does so, noting the difference in themes between the two books. Dever concludes regarding the two books:
“The conclusion in light of archaeology is inevitable. The book of Joshua looks like a late, Deuteronomistic construct preoccupied with theological concerns, such as the Sinai covenant, centralization, and the temple, that were paramount particularly in the exilic and postexilic era. Its authors were scarcely familiar or concerned with life in the early Iron Age settlements. The book of Judges, by contrast, has the ring of truth about it. The core of the narrative consists of stories about everyday life in the formative, prestate era, when ‘there was no king in Israel [and] all the people did what was right in their own eyes’ (Judges 21:25). The portrait of as much as two hundred years of struggles under charismatic leaders with other peoples of the land–of a long drawn-out process of socioeconomic, political, and cultural change–is more realistic than that of the book of Joshua, which is really the celebration of a legendary hero” (187-188).
These conclusions are supported broadly by Dever’s own look at the way people of that time period were living, with fascinating insights into the lack of states and lack of even defensive positions throughout the region at the time (see 133ff). Additionally, the conclusions are supported by Dever’s noting of the contrast between how Joshua does not accurately represent that region at the time while Judges even has details of how the people lived at the time portrayed in accurate ways (188). A careful reading of the two books reveals these contrasts, to go along with the list complied by Dever which includes things like Israel being a huge territory immediately conquered in Joshua compared to a small, decentralized entity in Judges. Again, the latter, a group of settlements with little to unify them and no central state, reflects the time period and the archaeological data far more than the concept of a vastly populated land ripe for dramatic, swift conquest. This is all buttressed even more by the fact that many of the sites mentioned in Joshua have been excavated and shown to either be unoccupied or unconquered with no layers of destruction in the time period it supposedly would have taken place.
These aspects present a series of problems for the conservative apologist as one who wants a unified, inerrant text with total historical accuracy. We’ll look at one attempt to do just that below, but for now I want to note the import of moving beyond such a view. Dever’s point of Joshua being theologically oriented to questions of the time in which it was written is vastly important. To say that Joshua doesn’t present an accurate view of what actually happened in the land does nothing to undermine its intent. It is not intended to be historically accurate as an account of Iron Age settlement in the region. Instead, it is focused upon questions of the land, the temple, and the strict monotheism, sprinkled with a heaping helping of hero worship of Joshua and classic Ancient Near Eastern hyperbole. It is only when the book is forced into modern boxes that it becomes problematic. The genocidal violence it portrays did not happen, and therefore does not present a problem for God’s character. While some may press that even this portrayal calls into question the character of God, I’m much less interested in that argument, because once we acknowledge that it is a work of humans attempting to understand God, it becomes, for me, much more understandable that sometimes they get it wrong.
A Contrasting, Evangelical View and Some Problems
Evangelical apologists, a group which once would have included me, have had a confrontation with this evidence in sight for a long time. In Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?, a group of evangelical authors published with a conservative press (Crossway, 2012) a collection of essays attempting to confront some of the “modern and postmodern” challenges to Scripture. John M. Monson’s chapter is entitled “Enter Joshua: The ‘Mother of Current Debates’ in Biblical Archaeology.” Monson notes that apart from the most conservative scholars, the Joshua conquest account has been taken to be historically unreliable (431).
Monson confronts this presumed unreliability by calling into question a few things related to consensus views of archaeology. First, he plants the seeds of doubt by complaining that archaeology has been “given a privileged role of proving or–through assumed lack of evidence–disproving the biblical record” (431). Note the wording of this first contention. The use of the word “assumed” here carries a lot of weight in the sentence. Monson is implying that people are simply assuming the biblical text is mistaken on the conquest (and other) accounts. But that implies that there simply hasn’t been anything found, and so people are assuming with “lack of evidence” that there is no evidence. That is not the case, however, as Dever and others have demonstrated. Dever’s book outlines a list of 35+ sites mentioned in the Biblical conquest accounts. Of those sites, only 3-4 have any evidence of even possibly being threatened by Israelite incursions, and the majority of those which have been excavated do not show a layer of destruction in the right timeline for the conquest narratives. Thus, it is hardly fair to say people are assuming the biblical account is unreliable based on a “lack of evidence.” Instead, there is positive evidence to suggest that the Joshua conquest accounts are indeed inventions.
Monson, however, goes on in his defense. He argues that archaeology is a younger discipline and that combining its findings with other disciplines remains “fraught with challenges” (435, 439), he suggests that archaeology is simply assumed to be the discipline to confirm ancient writings but implies that such a use is perhaps mistaken (438-439), and he maintains that archaeology, due to its “scattered, random, and incomplete nature” struggles to find the right place alongside the Bible’s account which “is selective, ancient, and theologically oriented” (439). Many of these points are points that resonate with me, particularly the latter. Archaeology, like paleontology, relies quite a bit on luck. Now, both disciplines can rely increasingly on technology to help guide their finds, so “random” isn’t necessarily correct, but there is no corrective for discovering things which simply no longer exist. Like ancient creatures whose entire fossil record may have been destroyed by vulcanism, excavation, construction, or simply lack of preservation, with archaeology there are any number of figments of the past which no longer exist for any number of reasons. To rely too heavily upon archaeology for the construction of the ancient past seems to be the wrong approach. However, Monson’s own words about the Bible being “selective, ancient, and theologically oriented” should suggest to him and other apologetically oriented and/or evangelical readers that perhaps it is their own view of Scripture which is at fault here. If they are going in assuming that a text written with a theological (or other) purpose is supposed to yield faultless history, then perhaps that assumption itself is worth questioning as well. Indeed, why not simply acknowledge that Joshua is attempting to make theological and selective points rather than convey a 100% accurate historical picture of what happened in Israel?
Monson, for himself, goes on to make an argument that Joshua records geographically accurate accounts of coming into the land. When I originally read the book about 10 years ago, I found this utterly convincing. However, reflection now suggests that Monson’s argument is too neat. For one, while it is elegant in attempting to show that Israel’s conquest as recorded in Joshua would make sense along geographic lines, that doesn’t account for the fact that whatever ancient writers/editors of the book would also be well-familiar with the geography of the region and so would be unlikely to invent or embellish an account which did not correspond to the geography of the area. Second, Monson claims that his argument from geography shifts the burden of proof such that it “lies with those who would deconstruct these stories” (452). That may be, but having two alleged campaigns correspond geographically with the reason does not somehow undermine or disprove the archaeological evidence directly showing that multiple sites allegedly conquered during this time period either show no signs of occupation or no signs of conquest. This, notwithstanding Monson’s claims that some of these sites were uninhabited and so wouldn’t have had such signs (I believe I’m understanding his argument correctly on p. 436-438).
Monson’s argument appears to be revisionist and reactionary. While he provides one positive evidence in support of his claim, his entire argument for these two supposed campaigns relies not upon the actual evidence of destroyed sites but rather on the lay of the land. Fascinatingly, Monson is forced into analogical language even in this geographic argument, such as spending extensive time arguing that the Hebrew word for “gate” can refer to geographical features (448-449). That may well be the case, but it is hard to credit Monson for making an argument that supposedly buttresses the Joshua conquest narratives against archaeological evidence when he is to be found arguing not just that “gate” means a geographical feature, but also that Ai, the region being considered, can be referred to as “The Ruin” due to another lengthy argument relying upon the definite article being used with “ruins” (443-444) and that Ai, apparently problematic for a number of archaeological regions, could have, “For all we know,” been “nothing more than a small squatter’s settlement in the vicinity of the imposing ruins of the mighty Early Bronze Age City of the third millennium BC” (437-438). Well sure, but for all we know, that “squatter’s settlement” would then not make a lot of sense as the sight for two massive military campaigns that crisscrossed a whole region!
Finally, the real motivation between Monson becomes clear at the very end of his chapter. After pointing out the text of Joshua shows him remaining faithful to God, Monson writes: “Over a millennium later, another Joshua walked through this same region. He too remained faithful. If we dismiss the real Joshua ben-Nun and his times, what is to stop us from dismissing the later Joshua, Jesus of Nazareth?” (457). This remarkable final sentence of Monson’s chapter is a case study in a loaded question. First, it implies that only by agreeing with the conquest narratives in toto can one agree there was a “real Joshua ben-Nun.” Second, it implies that there is an evidential link between Jesus and Joshua’s conquest narratives. That may be true, but it is unargued for here. Third, it uses scare tactics. Only those who agree with a slippery slope type argument will acquiesce to it, but for those people–presumably inerrantists–it’s a powerful way to thwart disagreement. After all, if the Bible isn’t historically accurate on Joshua, then that somehow means we have to question Jesus! This, of course, is ridiculous, but it’s exactly what Monson is implying. And frankly, this scare tactic shows where Monson is coming from in the earlier parts of his chapter. There’s not a genuine engagement with the evidence happening. Rather, the evidence needs to be massaged, evaded, or simply denied in order to maintain the story of Joshua at all costs; because for Monson, Jesus and the literal, genocidal conquest of Canaan stand or fall together.
Conclusion
It is probably clear to the reader at this point that I think Dever’s account is much more convincing than Monson’s. Yet, I say this as one who remains a Christian. Reading Dever actually gave me a sigh of relief. For so long, I had a bunch of issues with these accounts. Initially it was the ethical problem–why would God destroy these peoples? Later, I had the archaeological problem–now that I’d sacrificed my ethical impulse to condemn the slaughter, what if it hadn’t actually happened? To have someone who studies the archaeology simply lay out the evidence and say “This did not happen, and it was likely a fictitious invention to celebrate a folk hero” is, in a way, a relief. For one, his following that up with arguing that Judges is likely a much more accurate account makes me convinced yet again of something I’ve thought for a while–that once one leaves aside inerrancy, the biblical text becomes not just more readable but less scary in some ways–it doesn’t require you as a reader to constantly defend the indefensible. For another, setting aside the conquest narratives means that it is what I had long leaned towards–that these parts of the Bible are really just people trying to hyperbolically make “their guy” sound better than “the other guy”–seems backed by archaeological evidence. And Christians, we should truly be concerned with truth rather than attempting to support a pet doctrine, inerrancy, that doesn’t work on its own terms anyway.
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Reconstructing Faith– Links for posts related to my own faith journey and how I have been reconstructing faith (scroll down for more).
Inerrancy With No Autographic Text?– Even those looking to defend inerrancy are having difficulty with the concept of the autographic text. But what if it is not just that we can never find such a text, but rather that no such text existed to begin with? I argue that such is the case at least for some works and that inerrancy therefore does not work.
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Inerrancy With No Autographic Text?
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, perhaps the most well-known and oft-cited affirmation of biblical inerrancy, declares that inerrancy as a doctrine applies explicitly to the autographic text of Scripture- “Article X. WE AFFIRM that inspiration, strictly speaking, applies only to the autographic text of Scripture, which in the providence of God can be ascertained from available manuscripts with great accuracy.” The reality is that inerrancy as defined by the majority of inerrantists, including the Chicago statement, simply cannot stand up to the reality of how the Bible was formed. What makes this point most starkly, in my opinion, is that conservatives who affirm inerrancy are now finding themselves in the unenviable position of learning and having to acknowledge that for some of the Bible, the very concept of an autographic text is an impossibility.
One example of this is Benjamin P. Laird. Laird is associate professor of biblical studies at the John W. Rawlings School of Divinity of Liberty University. Liberty University’s statement of faith includes a clause about the Bible which states, in part, “We affirm that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, though written by men, was supernaturally inspired by God so that all its words are the written true revelation of God; it is therefore inerrant in the originals and authoritative in all matters.” Once again, at question is the “original” text of Scripture. But what if there is no original? I want to be clear, I’m not asking the question, which is oft-discussed in inerrantist writings, of what happens if we don’t have the original. Textual preservation has made that almost impossible for any ancient text, and inerrantists have long argued that this is no problem because while inerrancy only applies to the original or autographic text, the Holy Spirit has worked to preserve the text faithfully to the extent that we can be assured that we know enough to have proper faith and practice.[1] No, the claim I’m discussing isn’t whether we have the original text, but whether we can definitively point to any (imagined) autographic text as the original or the autograph at all.
Laird’s discussion of autographs in his book, Creating the Canon, is informative. The book focuses on the formation of the canon of the New Testament. Laird notes that the longtime assumption of [some] scholars was that the original text was the inerrant one. However, he goes on to look at how letters and other works were produced in antiquity, including a number of difficult questions this raises: “When we refer to an original autograph, are we referring to the initial draft of a work, a later revision or expansion, the edition that first began to circulate, or to the state of the writing at some later stage in the compositional process?” (48). Additionally, after noting that “it would seem most appropriate to identify the original autograph of a work not as the initial draft but as the final state of the writing that the author had reviewed and approved for public circulation” (49), he notes that letter writing in the ancient world often included the writer using a scribe and having that scribe produce “one or more duplicate copies” for themselves, including copies that may have differed depending upon the audience to whom they were sent (49, 54ff).
A concrete example is the ending of Romans, which Laird notes has some problematic textual history (56-57). After noting the difficulty of determining just how long the “original” letter to the Romans was, Laird notes various scholarly responses, including the possibility that there were two different “original” editions of Romans, one with a longer doxology that would have been intended for local audiences and one which omitted it, which were eventually combined (60-61). This leads to the remarkable conclusion that “it is a strong possibility that at least three copies of the text of Romans were produced at the end of the compositional process: one for the Romans, one for those in Corinth, and one for Paul and/or his associates” (61-62). In the conclusion of this fascinating section, Laird states, “Rather than assume that the compositional process of the canonical writings culminated with the production of a single ‘original autograph,’ it is therefore best to think of something that might be described as an original edition” (64).
I admire Laird’s dedication to highlighting the problematic nature of the concept of “autograph” when it comes to the biblical text, but have to wonder what kind of cognitive dissonance that might create for someone who teaches at a place where the statement of faith explicitly refers to inerrancy in the “originals.” Sure, Laird could punt the issue to whatever he means by “original edition” as opposed to “original autograph,” but at that point, what does inerrancy even mean?
I affirmed and defended inerrancy for many years. I finally let go of it for a number of reasons which are largely beyond the scope of this post. But I understand inerrancy, and understand how to defend it. I have even done so on this very blog. What I know included things like we defended the doctrine as applying to the autographic text. But if, as Laird and many, many others are pointing out, it’s true that there is no autographic text for at least some of the Bible, how can a defense of inerrancy even make sense? It’s like a constantly retreating battle for inerrantists: declare the Bible inerrant; but which Bible?; declare it only applies to the autographs; but we don’t have the autographs; so say that the autographic text is preserved at least to the extent that it doesn’t impact essentials of the faith; but autographs don’t exist to begin with. What’s supposed to follow that? For Laird the answer seems to be “say the original edition is inerrant.” But what is an original edition? And Laird’s questions, which are quite helpful, would absolutely apply to any such discussion- is it the drafts made along the way to the “final product,” and which final product- the one(s) Paul kept for himself or the one(s) to the local church or the one(s) to the church(es) at large?
The massive import of these questions for any doctrine of inerrancy must be made explicit. The Chicago Statement makes its stand upon the autographic text. If there is no autograph to which we can point, that statement falls. Almost every definition of inerrancy in modern times does the same. They are written as if we could travel back and time and point to a text, fresh off the pen of a scribe or writer, and say “this text is inerrant.” The reality is that not only do we not have such a manuscript today, but it is becoming increasingly clear that such a scenario needs to be rewritten, with a number of different texts directed towards different audiences, with different inclusions and exclusions in the text. Would the time traveler have pointed to a text of Romans with a doxology or without it? Would they point to a work in progress or a final draft? Would certain stories that seem to have been edited into the text be part of the inerrant text or not? The time traveler scenario is now complicated beyond imagining. We don’t have a single text of Romans we could point to definitively and say “there it is.” This is admitted even by those who wish to affirm inerrancy. And so again, what does it even mean to affirm that doctrine?
It’s worth at this point stopping the discussion to ask a simple question: is inerrancy worth it? Is there something about inerrancy that makes it an unassailable doctrine that all Christians must affirm such that we must continue to circle the wagons in ever smaller circles in order to try to be able to point at something that is inerrant in Scripture? Or–hear me out–or is it possible that evangelicals have made the wrong thing inerrant? Instead of making a text inerrant and essentially equivalent to God, what if we allowed that place to stay with Christ, the God-Man Himself, and the person whom the Bible attests as the divine Word of God? This has been, historically, the position of the church[2], and is a position which requires far less retreating whenever a new discovery is made that seems to call into question some potential error in the Bible or some problem with how modern statements on how the Bible must work are read. Rather than trying to constantly revise and salvage a doctrine that appears to need a revisiting every few years, Christians should focus instead upon God, whose steadfast love never changes.
Notes
[1] See, for example, the Chicago Statement, again Article X- “WE DENY that any essential element of the Christian faith is affected by the absence of the autographs. We further deny that this absence renders the assertion of Biblical inerrancy invalid or irrelevant.”
[2] A history of the doctrine of inerrancy is very revealing and shows it to be a largely American invention in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. The statements on this doctrine were not found in ecumenical councils, nor creeds, nor really anywhere until the 20th century. Efforts to read the doctrine back onto history are just that- reading into history rather than reading history. For example, there is not discussion of the “autographic text” in early Christian writings on the canon. They didn’t even have a concept of why that would be important. The doctrine is totally dependent upon post-Enlightenment and modernist categories. Ironically, it is parasitic upon textual criticism, developing essentially in opposition to that which those who affirm the doctrine wished to deny. When textual criticism pointed out difficulties in the text as it stood, inerrantists punted the doctrine to the autographs. This is just one example of how inerrancy is entirely dependent on categories foreign to historical Christian doctrine or to the Bible itself.
As a Lutheran, an additional note- I mention here the Lutheran church explicitly because even in the earliest times for Lutherans, some Lutherans–including Luther–had questions about the canonicity of some accepted books of the Bible, along with some other issues that were raised. Lutherans have held almost from the beginning that, as Luther said, the Bible is the cradle of Christ; the Bible is not God. Some Lutheran denominations today hold explicitly to inerrancy (eg the LCMS and WELS), but this does not seem continuous with global Lutheranism or Lutheran doctrine specifically.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality” by Zachary Wagner
Content Warning: Discussion of Sexuality and related topics throughout this review
Toxic Masculinity is a hot-button topic. One question that often gets asked once someone acknowledges the problematic nature of a lot of masculinity-oriented ideas is “What does healthy masculinity look like?” Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality by Zachary Wagner seeks to answer that question.
After an introduction discussing the ways in which people have been awakened to the problems of toxic masculinity (eg. through the #MeToo movement, Harvey Weinstein, and many others), Wagner dives into purity culture and how that movement helped create cultural norms that ended up causing damage not just to people harmed by men but harmed men as well. This is evident in Wagner’s discussion of the promises purity culture made to men, essentially claiming that if men behaved in certain ways it would guarantee satisfactory sexual activity, among other things (33ff). Included in this messaging was a mixed appeal to sexuality as a dangerous thing that was portrayed as nearly out of control in men while also selling it as an endgame or goal of male behavior. Indeed, this portrayal meant that both girls and boys were seen as inherently dangerous sexually, requiring girls to “cover up” while men were portrayed as potentially violent sexually at a moment’s notice.
Wagner does an excellent job of showing how toxic masculinity and purity culture are harmful to men qua males. That is, many forms of alleged masculine behavior or advice is harmful to men in ways that are quite insidious, selling essentially “prosperity sex” type mythos to men. Additionally, the way men were portrayed as inherently sexual meant that men with lower sex drives were seen as less than male or less masculine because of it. Obviously all of this ties into harmful views of women, such as the hypersexualization of women and objectification thereof.
Next, Wagner turns to a reforming of masculine portrayal, offering helpful ways to see masculinity that avoid the problematic nature of toxic masculinity.
There were a few issues I had with the book, however. First is that any discussion of reforming masculinity almost inevitably lends itself to a dichotomy of human nature that fails to see humanity as bell curve. Men and women aren’t opposite extremes–and to be clear, I’m not saying at all Wagner portrays them as such. Books that speak exclusively to femininity or masculinity almost require a dichotomy that doesn’t account for the wide range of human gender expression, even within traditional conceptions of male/female expression. I found this book to be no exception, and wondered what people from LGBTQ+ perspectives might think of it. Wagner does point out that many traditional comments about gay sexuality are off base and often show difficulties with traditional sexual ethical expectations as well (see, for example, the discussion of marriage on 40-41).
Another sort of strange note was the discussion of masturbation, in which Wagner suggests that it might necessarily include dehumanizaiton of others, interestingly because he argues that it includes lust and non-consensual sexual performance in a sense (127). After giving these nods to an anti-masturbation stance, Wagner says he “want[s] to allow for some nuance and disagreement around masturbation…” This nuance includes the fact that many who denounce it are doing so from cisgender heterosexual married people and thus from the easiest ground to do so. Additionally, he notes that we shouldn’t burden people with additional rules that aren’t easy to find or define biblically. I honestly thought this whole aside was strange, but thought-provoking. The concept of tying masturbation to nonconsensual sexual behavior was particularly provoking, but also made me wonder more along the lines of whether thoughts are inherently sinful/etc. And there seem to be things that would counter some of the arguments Wagner offered. What if, for example, a partner gives permission to the other to think of them sexually in such a way? That would seem to remove the problems regarding consent. Overall I admit some skepticism of the whole arguments in this section.
A final, tiny note is that there is no index in the book, and I think basically any book of this kind would benefit from indices.
Non-Toxic Masculinity has many helpful parts, though I wasn’t entirely sold on everything. It would serve as a good conversation starter that might help direct future discussion of the topic for many readers. The discussion of how men are harmed by masculinity-movements was especially helpful.
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Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Why I left the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod: Still Faithful
Still Faithful
It has taken me a long time to work up to writing this post. It’s actually been more than a year since I last made a post in this series, in part because of my own processing of the events. However, I’ve been asked time and again by many who have left the LCMS or who have left evangelicalism or other restrictive Christian groups to tell about why I am still a Christian. Why did I stay, despite the abuse, despite so many things I saw as wrong, despite everything? And, an oft-unspoken part of the question that I’ve heard is “How?” How is it, that after all these observations, after coming to a place in which I found much of what I was taught and thought was true is totally wrong, that I continue to believe anything?
Faithful?
Part of my hesitancy to write this post is because I know from bitter experience how many might read it and scoff. “‘Still faithful,’ he says? He’s a heretic/wolf in sheep’s clothing/demon-possessed!” I have heard each of these from various people, including people in person. And, while it’s easy to say to ignore those people who dress up their power trip in theological garb, it is so much easier said than done. When you had a true fear of literal hellfire for many years, it’s very harmful to be confronted by people who use that fear to try to silence and oppress. So yes, I know the scoffers are out there, and that I’ll hear or see some of those awful comments again. But I still think it’s important to write on this because there are so many out there who are wondering if it is okay to still be faithful when so much harm comes from within. I write this for you–and for me.
I Still Believe… what?
One thing that is easy to trip up on as people are deconstructing and/or reconstructing faith is the constant refrain of questions pushing to get at exactly what we believe. I get that a lot from more conservative Christians and especially apologists, who are often, unfortunately, seeking to argue about whatever beliefs I espouse instead of engage with me honestly. I know this is true. I have my degree in Apologetics. Literally. I did this same thing from the other side, and I repent of that. Engaging online is often helpful because it opens you up to others who might be on the same path, but it also invites in those who simply out to argue with everyone. And so often, the way people are taught about Christianity is a “my way or the highway” mentality such that any divergent view isn’t just seen as wrong, but actually excludes the person who holds that view from the Christian community.
Suppose I told you that I believe trans people are worthy and loved by God not in spite of but for who they are. If your visceral reaction to that is to immediately turn to argument, then that is that same upbringing or that same background of beliefs I’m referring to. You, the one reading this, are using that belief I hold in order to “other” me. I am now “less than” on your view.
It is this black and white, either/or thinking that I have broken away from. It has taken more than a decade, and it has taken so much pain and spiritual agony and angst, but I have finally broken beyond the dichotomy in my thinking. None of this means that I don’t think that reality has things that are true or false, or that some theological positions are correct, while others are not. No, it’s the inherent urge to repress/correct/change those who disagree with me that I’ve broken out of. And, more importantly, it’s the urge in myself to stand upon certainty in all things that I am still in the process of breaking away. It’s okay to say “I don’t know” as a response to theological questions. It really is. And maybe you are fairly sure about some things. That’s okay, too. What I’m talking about breaking away from is that inherent tension, fear, and othering of anyone who disagrees or any belief that is different. Some things I do still hold fairly strongly to. Others, not so much. There are so many things I hold now that while I may be able to answer “I believe this about that,” I am also comfortable saying, “but I’m not really sure about it.”
All of this is to say I’m not as interested in the “nail down the answers to theological questions A, B, C, ….Z” approach anymore. Sure, there are many theological positions I still hold, and may hold firmly. But to me that’s so much less interesting than God in Christ.
False Gods
Recently, I went to a retreat for a bunch of progressive Christians or formerly-Christian people still interested in theology. It was incredibly life-giving. It was filled with praise. It was filled with questions. It was uncomfortable at times.
One song that I heard live was “Some Gods Deserve Atheists” by Derek Webb. I’d never heard it before. He prefaced his singing by saying we should constantly be trying to kill our gods. Any god we could kill simply by thinking hard enough about it would deserve such a death. And some gods deserve atheists–they aren’t real; they’re formed of hate or fear. For me, a god who created people for the express purpose of condemning them to an eternal hellfire is one such god. Such a god deserves atheists; that god is not worth our time or worship. That’s a god of “othering” when the God I believe in, the God I learned about in Christ, is a God of Love, a God who is literally described as love itself on the highest possible level. God is love; and any God who doesn’t reflect that deserves atheists.
Does this mean I’m putting myself in judgement of God? Well, only if that god is small enough to be able to be judged by me. Any god that can be so contained into a box that I can sit back and disprove that god in my head, or by that god’s fruits on Earth, is no god.
Still Faithful
One thing that has shocked me, and that I am by turns disturbed and comforted by, is that a big part of why I still believe is that I still tend to think a lot of Lutheran answers to big questions are correct. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Christian theologian in Nazi Germany who was executed, in part, for his participation in the Confessing Church, a tiny minority of Christians in Germany who opposed the Nazis even as the overwhelming majority of Christians capitulated to or joyfully joined hands with them. Before he was murdered, some of his writings feature him speaking of “religionless Christianity.” Misinterpretations of his theology here have him lionized by various movements. But at the core of his thought wasn’t the overthrow of churches–that wouldn’t have made sense for a man whose theology included seeing sacraments such as Baptism as integral to Christian faith. The core, rather, is the stripping away of the structures that prevent Christians from living wholly into Christ or mirroring Christ to others. Bonhoeffer wrote of the maximal importance of living for the people around us and for the world. One helpful summary of religionless Christianity is found in Tom Greggs’s work, Theology Against Religion. Therein, he writes in part that religionless Christianity is “fiercely anidolatrous”–its doctrine of God seeks to constantly fight against the human tendency to create God in our own image or a God who defends our preconceptions; it is “resolutely unwilling to engage in articulating binaries“–it doesn’t seek to “other” but to unite; it is “not differentiating between sacred and secular spaces“–our lives are lives reflecting Christ in whatever spheres we enter; and it is “seeking to meet people in the fullness of their lives” (emphasis his, 218).
All of this is an extended way to get at some things I want to highlight. First, I think that the faith I hold now welcomes others in radical ways. Second, it remains tied inherently to streams of thought in Christian tradition, often reaching back to the earliest Christian theologians like Origen or Gregory of Nyssa. Third, it remains a faith radically against Christianity empowered by structures of state or hierarchies of power. That is, my faith stands against any use of Christianity for oppression. And yes, the church has so much to answer for here.
Finally, I must turn to a few concrete beliefs and affirmations because without them it doesn’t make sense of the question “How do I remain Christian” in a meaningful way.
The evils of the world, merely contemplating them, left me broken for a time. School shootings that could have easily been prevented if humans would have acted also call into question why God wouldn’t act. I mean, if God could really drop a stone on anyone at any point, why wouldn’t God do so–just once–in order to stop a school shooting in progress even as humans failed to do so? And the tired apologetic answer I used to rely on–that we don’t know how many such tragedies God has prevented by whatever means–just doesn’t work for me anymore. If God really could just intervene, why don’t we just see it?
I know all the answers to this question. Like, really. I studied theodicy so much while getting my degree. Molinism, open theism, process thought, free will defense, etc. The answers range from God doesn’t intervene because God has greater goods planned (free will, or whatever) to God can’t actually prevent such evil, so that’s why God doesn’t. And I have a confession: none of them are really satisfactory to me. Why does God allow evil? I don’t know. And the more I suffered over this question, the more I fell into holes of anxiety looking at the latest news of a massive shooting or some other horrible evil, the more I realized that I just don’t know, but I feel like I know other things that make me live in tension on this question. For example, I feel I know Jesus Christ is real, and that God is love. And since those feel real to me, and I believe them, I live in tension on the question of evil. If I were a really good Lutheran, I’d fully embrace an appeal to mystery here. And that’s kind of what I’m doing, in a way. But it’s deeper; I just don’t know that we can know. Whatever answer is given here is going to be unsatisfactory in some way. If it’s because God can’t prevent evil; to me that seems to make God smaller in ways I don’t understand. If it’s because God has some greater good in mind, it seems to underplay the real horrible suffering of people now. If it’s because God can’t prevent evil due to allowing for free will, it seems that it would be worth suspending free will–even entirely–in order to prevent so much suffering. And so I just… I don’t know. And I’m learning to be honest with myself in holding to that uncertainty.
Other theological questions have led to rethinking of positions. One such question was that of the fate of the lost. Why would a God who claims to be loving form people who that same God would then sentence to suffer for eternity? For a time, I held to conditional immortality, also known as annihilationism. That view, which I still think is better attested Scripturally than any kind of eternal conscious torment view, holds that those who don’t believe in Christ for whatever reason are ultimately annihilated or destroyed by God. Immortality, that is, is conditional upon faith in Christ. But I continued to struggle with this, whether it’s the reality that so many never get a chance to even hear about Christ, or that so many hear about Christ only through systems of colonialism and oppression, it didn’t make sense to me. Additionally, many verse in Scripture suggest that God wants all to be saved. So why not do so? More than that, long Christian tradition reaching back to the earliest teachers of Christianity affirms universal salvation. So, a short answer to the question of the lost and how I stay Christian regarding that question is that I think God will really reconcile the whole world to Godself, so that God really will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).
Ah! One might immediately challenge that with other scriptural verses that strongly suggest that not all are saved. And to that, another answer I have come to is that the Bible is polyvocal. It doesn’t speak with a united front on these topics. And, while that is annoying and has caused confusion and so much pain, it also is somewhat freeing and beautiful. God didn’t pigeonhole the authors of Scripture into losing their opinions and voices. It’s far more complex than that.
There are so many more, but these are some of the big questions I personally faced that I hadn’t addressed yet in the series, and some of the answers I continue to settle upon. I offer them not to try to convince you, but to try to answer the question of how I remain Christian. I remain Christian, in part, because I reconstructed my faith, and I came to answers that I think make more sense of reality than the answers I had before.
Concluding Thoughts
I have so much more to say. I wish that for those readers who ask me the question “why/how do you stay Christian” who are genuinely wondering about it, that I could sit and have brunch with you and talk about it for hours. I mean, isn’t that question so far reaching, so fascinating? And I look back over what I wrote and it all seems so small, and so inadequate to even begin the conversation.
For me, Jesus Christ is so fascinating, so loving, and so central still, that it compels me to come back time and again. When I see the awfulness that is so much of Christianity; the latest report of a Christian pastor using a position of power to assault or degrade others, for example, I find myself fleeing back to Christ. And I don’t mean a trite “that’s not real Christianity” type answer to the evils Christians perpetrate. The links of Christianity in America and power are too interwoven to pretend that real Christians don’t bring about much harm. Rather, what I mean is, I flee back to a God who came into our world, who suffered, and who rose, and who intentionally brought so much powerful goodness to the world that our lives, when viewed from eternity, will all be for good.
Links
Formerly Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) or Wisconsin Synod (WELS)– A Facebook group I’ve created for people who are former members of either of these church bodies to share stories, support each other, and try to bring change. Note: Anything you post on the internet has the potential to be public and shared anywhere, so if you join and post, be aware of that.
Leaving the LCMS/WELS– Not sure about whether to leave or thinking about leaving? Do you want to others who are thinking along the same lines? I created a group for those who are contemplating leaving these denominations, as well.
Why I left the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod Links Hub– Want to follow the whole series? Here’s a hub post with links to all the posts as well as related topics.
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “The God of Monkey Science” by Janet Kellogg Ray
The God of Monkey Science: People of Faith in a Modern Scientific World by Janet Kellogg Ray explores the interactions of Christians and science in a post-Covid world.
The book explores many topics related to Christianity and science. Kellog Ray includes historical notes about the ways Christians have interacted with science, examples from more recent events such as the rise of the Intelligent Design movement and associated anti-evolution arguments, and even the recent Covid-19 pandemic and Evangelicalism’s largescale embracing of anti-science positions in that time period as well.
A particularly fun aside- one of my blog posts is quoted in the book. Kellogg Ray quotes from one of my posts about leaving my former denomination and how science was a big part of that.
What is especially helpful in the book is how so many real examples of anti-science thinking are provided and then contrasted with context. Some of the examples are especially egregious, such as the attempts to portray Anthony Fauci as anti-mask because of an early video in which he talked about not needing to wear masks at the time but then later, following additional, substantial studies, switching the messaging. This is part of how sciience works–updating guidelines and expectations based on additional or new evidence.
The book is not at all a bash-fest on Christians, either. The author is unabashedly an evangelical Christian, but she writes the book as a kind of long form exhortation to Christians to do better, have humility, and perhaps listen to experts when it comes to science. It’s written in a winsome manner, and will hopefully make some rethink the way they approach science reporting and misinformation.
The God of Monkey Science is a refreshing look at the need for Christians to interact with science more honestly and fruitfully. It is recommended.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “The Uncontrolling Love of God” by Thomas Jay Oord
The Uncontrolling Love of God: An Open and Relational Account of Providence by Thomas Jay Oord is the kind of book that I would have either intentionally sought out to pick apart or steered clear of a few years ago. Why? Oord unabashedly challenges traditional conceptions of divine providence, especially digging at the wounds of evil to argue that such accounts are insufficient answers to the problem of evil that we face in the real world.
Before turning to evil, though, Oord argues for the establishment of actually random events. That is, events that are not predetermined by anything. This randomness is real, not apparent, and is balanced by laws of nature which are to be read as regularities, not as comprehensive explanations of reality in lawlike terms (43-44). Going along with this, non-predetermined free choice is another factor in the world which must be accounted for in accounts of providence.
A central concept of the book is the notion of “genuine evil.” Oord notes that philosophers tend to distinguish between necessary and gratuitous evils. He essentially labels gratuitous genuine evils. These evils are “events that, all things considered, make the world worse than it might have been” (65). That doesn’t mean there can’t be goods that might come from them; rather, they are events where the actors involved could have chosen something better instead (65-66). Most Christian theological positions are keen to prevent God from being the primary cause of evil or the one predetermining evil, and there are various attempts to avoid doing this. Oord presses the point though, arguing that even having God as a secondary cause for evil, or attempting to portray overriding goods or ultimate goods as somehow overcoming evil is insufficient to adequately respond to genuine evils (chapter 4 on Models of God’s Providence delves into this deeply).
Ultimately, Oord offers an alternate model of providence, which he calls the “essential kenosis model.” As the name implies, this focuses on the notion of kenosis–divine emptying of the divine self or power–for the sake of other. The model holds that God is essentially, not accidentally good. That is, God does not choose good, but rather is good. Along with this, Oord’s position, in contrast with almost every other position of providence, argues that “God cannot unilaterally prevent genuine evil” (167). Such a position, Oord argues, is aligned with views that God cannot do logically impossible actions. On this position, God preventing all genuine evil unilaterally is a logical and actual impossibility. Thus, Oord’s position avoids the difficulty of needing an overriding good for ultimate resolution of good and evil. The palatability of this will vary, but Oord makes a compelling case for his position.
The Uncontrolling Love of God presents a challenge to more traditional conceptions of divine providence. Oord takes the position to the logical extremes, which will likely alienate some readers. For those seeking an alternative to all-controlling views of God and evil, the book will resonate.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Paper “The Character and Ethical Consequences of Religious Determinism” and Theodicy
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about divine action in the world, theological determinism, and related topics. It’s honestly been a tough part of my reconstructing faith journey–trying to figure out how it all fits together. Questions about God’s action and evil have been particularly vexing. And the trite answers I received and even argued through my apologetics training just don’t seem to work for me as well as they once did. Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been a major–indeed the major–figure in my theological journey. I was shocked to come yesterday upon a paper I know I’d read before but that hadn’t registered as I read all of his works. That paper was about the very topic I’ve been agonizing over of late. It is entitled “The Character and Ethical Consequences of Religious Determinism.” The paper is found in print in Volume 10 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works in English, Barcelona, Berlin, New York 1928-1931.
First, I should note that Bonhoeffer is not concerned in this paper with theodicy as a primary or perhaps even secondary concern. Bonhoeffer tends to treat evil as a fact of the world rather than attempting to downplay or explain it away. That said, I think the points he makes in this paper are highly relevant to those who are wondering about divine control and theodicy.
Bonhoeffer argues that there is a threefold way to think about determinism in the world. He doesn’t say this is totally expansive of every option. Rather, this is how he divides the possibilities. First, there is philosophical determinism. This largely relates to causal determinism of events in nature. Because of this, he states that this kind of determinism is irrelevant to the question of ethical consequences. While I don’t fully agree with him here–natural evil is a category that is often discussed–I get the point he is getting at. He says it is irrelevant because his next two categories encompass what would be the case if God is involved in such evils.
Thus, his second category is religious determinism. Here, God determines all. A consequence of this view is that evil is good, actually. Bonhoeffer goes on to note the problems with such a view. If one holds this, then “I always know that evil has already been overcome; it follows from my concept of God, which I always have at my disposal in order to explain ‘rightly’ all misfortune in the world…” This, Bonhoeffer says, makes evil and good a “synthesis of nondifference… evil is merely a paradoxical means of actualizing the good” (DBWE10 441-442) Another problem is that it conflates “Creator” with “world cause.” God is the former, not the latter, so God isn’t causing all the evil. To say God causes such is not “Christian determinism.” Here Bonhoeffer gets at the heart of my difficulty with more traditional views of God, because so many of them either bite the bullet on this or try some other means to make it so that while God determines every event that happens, God is still not the cause or direct actor of evil. Bonhoeffer undercuts those claims by noting that they destroy the differences between good and evil, making good and evil ultimately the same. On such a view, as Bonhoeffer states, evil is just a “paradoxical means” of doing good.
It is important, too, to reflect on Bonhoeffer’s brief point about the conflation of God as “Creator” and God as “world cause.” Bonhoeffer only briefly touches on this topic, but he is quite clear that he believes the two are actually opposed to each other. “God is conceived as the world cause, rather than as Creator. The two are completely distinct so that the one excludes the other, something rarely taken into account even though everything follows from this premise.” God, instead, is Creator–the one who brought the world into existence–rather than the one who is causing every event in the world.
From this, Bonhoeffer gets, finally, to what he calls Christian determinism. Here, he argues that Christian determinism merely holds that justification–salvation, if you prefer the term–is the act of God alone. Human beings aren’t capable of doing this act, so God must do it–as “God’s free and sole act” this makes “huma beings… completely in God’s omnipotence” (DBWE 443). The question of human freedom and lack of freedom, says Bonhoeffer, ultimately relates only to… “the ultimate, to salvation” (ibid). Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran, also comments briefly that he thinks this is the point of Luther’s Bondage of the Will; not that all things are determined by God, but that human beings cannot act on their own related to salvation. Bonhoeffer admits Luther goes beyond this, but attributes it instead to Luther’s propensity to “not always clearly distinguish this idea [that of freedom in salvation] from others of a more speculative of cosmically interpretive nature” (ibid).
The ethical consequences of this view of determinism, Bonhoeffer argues, are that evil is actually evil against God. “Good does not stand behind every evil” in contrast to the notion that God intends for evil to happen. Instead, “God wants the good” (ibid). The good that God brings about in salvation is one that “makes human beings free… for God” (444). He turns again to Luther’s assertion that “God brings about both evil and good,” calling it the “ultimate speculative insight that should not itself be used to interpret other circumstances.” This view leads to an antinomy–back to the paradox of religious determinism. Bonhoeffer says this question may remain open, but it seems clear that his Creator vs. world cause (and the opposition here–the vs.–is intentional in Bonhoeffer’s writing) would allow for some interesting spaces to explore here. Bonhoeffer himself notes that the notion “That God as the Creator hates evil and that nonetheless nothing can occur in the world that God does not want is an insoluble antinomy…” However, he goes on to say it is “no longer antinomy… as soon as one believes oneself able to draw conclusions from it for a Christian devaluation of evil” (ibid). He essentially leaves it at that, later saying that the God of guidance is derived from the God of justification, not the reverse. The point here seems to be that the God of determinism in salvation is only arrived at through a God of guidance–eg, non-omni-determinism.
Ultimately, Bonhoeffer’s view remains largely within Lutheran thinking on the issue. He gives credence to Luther’s views of God as ultimate cause of even evil, while arguing that this is mere speculation. His point seems to be that Luther and others who draw that thinking from Luther’s basic positions on justification are doing the reverse of what they should be doing–drawing the God of world cause from the God as Creator. Does Bonhoeffer ultimately appeal to antinomy or mystery? No, he doesn’t. But his position is left somewhat vague, then. What do his final lines about antinomy being defeated by conclusions “for a Christian devaluation of evil” mean? I am not clear on this. However, I think the distinctions between Creator/world cause and his differences between Christian and religious determinism are on the right track of where I’d like to go. Lutheran theology allows for paradox and mystery at times, and I admit that makes me uncomfortable. But Bonhoeffer’s positions in this paper may make it easier to wade into those waters while living in a kind of happy space between speculation and antinomy.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer– read all my posts related to Bonhoeffer and his theology.
Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World” by Winfield Bevins
Liturgical Mission: The Work of the People for the Life of the World by Winfield Bevins seeks to highlight how liturgy and mission can coordinate to create a fuller life of the church.
Bevins notes the ways that liturgy can contribute to the life of the church, such as a story-filled and formed worship style that invites listeners to actively participate (40). After highlighting the impact and import of liturgy, Bevins turns to the notion of a missional church and how liturgy and mission can go hand-in-hand to disciple the people of God.
Liturgical Mission is a call to action both to see liturgy for what it can be and for those in liturgical denominations to practice the call to mission.
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Be sure to check out the page for this site on Facebook and Twitter for discussion of posts, links to other pages of interest, random talk about theology/philosophy/apologetics/movies and more!
Book Reviews– There are plenty more book reviews to read! Read like crazy! (Scroll down for more, and click at bottom for even more!)
SDG.
——
The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public and J.W. Wartick makes no claims of owning rights to the images unless he makes that explicit) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of J.W. Wartick and is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (J.W. Wartick) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show less than half of the original post on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.
Book Review: “When Children Come out: A Guide for Christian Parents” by Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets
When Children Come Out: A Guide for Christian Parents by Mark Yarhouse and Olya Zaporozhets is a fairly even-toned look at how Christian parents can navigate some of the difficulties that come up within and without their tradition related to children coming out.
What sets this book apart from many books about Christianity and sexuality is its avoidance of culture war narratives. Rather than giving hard yes or hard no answers to questions about what parents can or should do, Yarhouse and Zaporozhets use research to show how different approaches yield different outcomes with parents and children. Many stories are included throughout the text, from both affirming and non-affirming parents and their children. These stories help highlight the application for the research the authors bring to the forefront.
The book has 7 chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of Christianity and how the journey about children coming out can change things with faith, the church, parents, where parents seek help, and more. One of the major takeaways from the book is to be proactive, nurturing relationships with one’s children and with their church to help bring about positive change in lives.
When Children Come Out is a useful resource for Christian parents. I would imagine that parents from all over the political spectrum would find it beneficial reading.
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