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What is the Bible's Chief Political Concern?

Well, political season is heating up in America and everyone has an opinion about what Christians should care about.

Tim Suttle, a blogger for the Huffington Post, recently asked some stalwart Biblical scholars and theologians to weigh in on what they would say is the Bible's "chief political concern." While no scholar or theologian gets to give the definitive answer to a question like this, we would be wise to listen to those who have steeped themselves in the Scriptures-- it's language and culture-- and in the story of the Church.

I have selected four from Suttle's list that are my favorite voices to "be in conversation with." (You can read the full list HERE.) You'll notice that there is an Old Testament scholar, a New Testament scholar, an ethicist (philosophical theology) and a systematic theologian. (Imagine listening to a great soundtrack in surround sound!)

Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Scholar, Columbia Theological Seminary: 
"I believe that the central political question is the management of public power in order that there should be an economically viable life for all members of the community. Thus justice is front and center and some texts, especially in Deuteronomy, are for the distribution of wealth in order that all may be viable. Obviously such justice is marked by mercy, compassion and generosity. The purpose is to create a genuine neighborhood for all the neighbors."

 

 

N.T. Wright, New Testament Scholar at University of St. Andrews: 
"The chief political concern of the Scriptures is for God's wise and loving ordering of his world to be operative through humans who will share his priorities, especially his concern for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. This concern was embodied by Jesus in his inauguration of 'God's kingdom' through his public career and especially his self-giving death, which together set the pattern for a radically redefined notion of power."

 

Stanley Hauerwas, Theologian and ethicist at Duke Divinity School:
"The chief political concern of the Bible is to worship God truly."

 

 

 

 

Miroslav Volf, Systematic Theology, Yale Divinity School:
"The vision of the city of God is the goal. We work for it not by forcing it down from heaven to earth, but by treading in the footsteps of the crucified and resurrected Christ."

 

 

 

What do you think about what they have said?

What would you add?

What would you say you don't fully understand about what they have said?

And finally ...How does this play out in our political context?

Why We Must Get Disillusioned With "Community"

Our text this past Sunday was Acts 2:42-47, a text which represents, in many ways, the DNA of the Church. The followers of Jesus devoted themselves to the Apostles' doctrine, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. When we talked about how they devoted themselves their fellowship-- koinonia-- we explored how easy it is for us to imagine Church to be an ideal community. Worse yet, we tend to bring our own ideals into whatever church we join, setting ourselves up for disappointment and disillusionment...

...which is why, yesterday, in my sermon I read portions of this excerpt from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together about the necessity of becoming disillusioned with our ideal of community:

“Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves."

Bonhoeffer calls us out. We do come into a church with a set of ideals and expectations. But Bonhoeffer does the unexpected by saying that it is God's grace that shatters those dreams. Most of us are familiar with disillusionment, particularly with Christians. But how is this a "grace"?

"By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it.

The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community, the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more that the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own laws, and judges the brethren and God himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of the brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together.

When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself."

The danger in having a visionary ideal about a community is twofold, as Bonhoeffer sees it. First, the ideal makes us demanding of others. Secondly, it makes us believe that a shared vision is the basis of the bond within the community. The dream is the community's lord, and not Christ. So, it is a grace when that dream is dashed. Bonhoeffer continues:

"Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders but as thankful recipients. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by his call, by his forgiveness, and his promise. We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what he does give us daily.”

What makes us the people of God is not our vision or even our efforts to be a "true" or "ideal community." What binds us to one another is Christ and what He has done. This explains why Paul does not exhort us to try to become the Body of Christ; he simply reminds us that we are the Body of Christ. We are members of one another. The trick is to realize it, and then, by God's grace, begin to live as if we are.

For us at new life DOWNTOWN, we are taking the risk of living like we are already the community of Christ by launching this "Freely Give, Freely Receive" board. The past two weekends, New Life Church hosted an event called "Freely Give, Freely Receive" where people could practice generous redistribution of furniture, supplies, appliances, and more. Our team decided to try to keep it going in a small way at our downtown campus. So, on this board-- made of all re-purposed materials-- the blue cards are for people who have something-- goods or services-- that they need. The yellow cards are for people who have something-- goods or services-- to offer for free. (Contact info is on the reverse side of the card to protect privacy.)

Now, this represents a massive risk, and in some ways, simply another way to get hurt by someone in the church. (What if I express a need and no one takes my card? Or, What if I offer something valuable and the person who receives it could have afforded to pay for it?) And yet, this is also an opportunity to practice the forgiveness and kindness and generousity that we have received from God in Christ.

After all, just as God has lavished His love on us in Christ, so we enter the community He has formed, the one He centers and defines, as "grateful recipients" and glad givers. This is a "Eucharistic kind of life." (More on that some day!)

Is Dawkins Right About the "God of the Old Testament"? (Pt. 5 of 5)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following six-part series of blogs are adapted from a paper I wrote this year in my Pentateuch class with Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary. These thoughts are not meant to be the final word on the matter, nor to form a sort of apologetic against atheists. This is not material for an argument. It is simply a response based on a closer reading of the Torah-- the first five books of the Bible. My hope is that it will help Christians avoid simplistic views about the "God of the Old Testament. Read Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE, Part 3 HERE, and Part 4 HERE.]

Grace and Gospel in the Torah

To briefly explore the question in the affirmative—if we ask what sort of God the Torah reveals YHWH to be—we find a portrait of a loving and gracious God. We see a God who creates the world on purpose, who blesses it and calls it good and beautiful. We see a God ho chose Abraham not because of anything Abraham had done, but simply by grace. We see a God who reminds Israel in Deuteronomy that God did not choose them, the descendents of Abraham, again in a fresh, existential way because of their size or strength. When God calls Mosese as the burning bush, He says that He has heard the cries of His people (Exodus 3). Salvation in the Torah is not dependent on obedience to the law. God saves Israel because He chose Israel, not the other way around. Then, when God gives them the commandments in the wilderness, these are not pre-requisites but confirmation of their status as His people. Just as a parent can only give a curfew to his or her own children, so YHWH give instructions to His firstborn, Israel. The commandments are not how Israel became God’s people; they were how Israel was to live since they were God’s people. In the Torah, Creation is an act of grace; covenant is an act of grace; redemption is an act of grace; even the giving of instructions is act of grace.

        How are we to explain the complex and seemingly inconsistent way that YHWH interacts with His people in the Torah? Robert Cohn suggests that God’s interactions with humans to a parent with a child. At first, God is quick to give pre-emptive warnings, as with Adam and Eve before the temptation arises, and with Cain before he commits the sin of murder. God is also quick to correct, coming with probing questions to Adam and Eve, and later to Cain. Abraham is led, Cohn suggests, like a child may be led by the hand of his or her parent. He is given instruction, guidance, and leading, often through messengers rather than direct interaction. But Abraham must act, must leave, must offer his son. Jacob is given even more latitude, perhaps like a teenager with a car. He maneuvers and controls and tricks to try to get his way. Yet God speaks in a dream, correcting his deceit yet bringing about the appointed blessing even in the midst of his poor choices—again, perhaps like a parent who pays for the repairs on the car the teenager has damaged in a “fender bender.” God’s presence with Jacob is more hidden yet still numinous. The dream and the encounter are clearly supernatural. Joseph is like a young man or woman in his or her twenties, finally learning to save money, hold down a job. In short, Joseph shows humanity coming to a kind of maturity in the chosen family. Joseph makes wise decisions, and through those decisions God enacts His plan.

        The Torah sets us on a trajectory of God’s work within His world to rescue and redeem it. The Parent is not truly standing in the distance. He is always near, always the God who Saves. The “God of the Old Testament” ought not be set in opposition to the “God of the New Testament.” Rather, the YHWH that speaks and acts and saves in the Torah anticipates the YHWH that will send His Son to suffer on behalf of the whole world and redeem His creation. Thus we do not see God in the New Testament being loving in spite of how He acted in the Old Testament, but rather being loving because of who He is in the Old Testament.

Is Dawkins Right About the "God of the Old Testament"? (Pt. 4 of 5)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following six-part series of blogs are adapted from a paper I wrote this year in my Pentateuch class with Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary. These thoughts are not meant to be the final word on the matter, nor to form a sort of apologetic against atheists. This is not material for an argument. It is simply a response based on a closer reading of the Torah-- the first five books of the Bible. My hope is that it will help Christians avoid simplistic views about the "God of the Old Testament. Read Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE, and Part 3 HERE.]

Claim # 4: "The God of the Old Testament is...a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

Is God a Malevolent Bully?

The fourth and final claim is that the God of the Old Testament is a “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Here Dawkins gives up totally on a reasoned critique and starts shooting out phrases that form poetic cadences on paper. He is saying—with one enormously large sweep—that YHWH hates gays and Gentiles, and kills babies, whole people groups, someone else’s sons and daughters, and crops and livestock for the sake of his love of self, love of suffering, and just for the fun of it, simply because He can. There are several assumptions built into this last tirade. They must be taken one by one to see what the Torah has to say about them.

        The first assumption is that just because God prohibits something He hates it. “Hate” is an interesting word in the Torah. In the ESV, hate is never used to describe how God feels about anyone. It frequently describes how humans feel about each other: a barren woman feels hated, a man divorces a wife because he hates her, people groups hate one another. But YHWH is never said to hate in the Torah. In fact, the only time hate is mentioned in connection with YHWH is when it describes how He will deal with those who hate Him (See Exodus 20:5 and Deuteronomy 5:9). There is one reference to what the Egyptians may think—that YHWH hates Israel—if Israel dies in the wilderness. But YHWH himself never declares hatred of anyone.

        Establishing codes and boundaries that prohibit certain things does not imply hatred of the people involved. A lengthy case may be made—on sociological or medical or even psychological grounds—that God’s instructions were for the good of all involved. One clear example comes from Goldingay’s explanations of the rules in Deuteronomy’s laws regarding who a man may and may not sleep with: part of the point is not to be “prudish” but to protect women in the household from being taken advantage of by men in the household.

        The second assumption is that just because God did, it must mean that God does. In other words, since God once killed all of Egypt’s firstborn sons, that must mean—Dawkins assumes—that God routinely kills firstborns. The truth is, this is the only time that God acts in this way. As Goldingay repeats in his lectures, the acts and words of God in the Torah are usually not the last and final word on the subject. In fact, oftentimes they are not even the “first word”: there is little in Deuteronomy, for example, that reveals original intent. The early part of Genesis reveal God’s loving delight in all of His creation, and His purposeful creation of it. This is the “first word” on what God thinks about the world. (A Christian would add that Jesus is God’s “last word” about what He thinks of the world, citing Barth’s phrase that Christ is God’s “Yes” to the world. But all this is beyond the scope of this series.)

        The third assumption is that if God issues judgment, it must be because He loves pain. Or worse yet, it is because God is toying with us. But even a cursory comparison of the Genesis creation story with those of the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Canaanites reveals YHWH as the furthest thing from capricious and manipulative. In fact, for YHWH, humanity are not an inconvenience to be harnessed for labor, but a crowning delight of His good and lovely creation. As a result, much of the judgment in the Torah—both what is anticipated and what is enacted—is a kind of restorative justice. It is a justice with reparations in view. For example: YHWH prevents Adam and Eve from eating of the Tree of Life so they will not live forever in their state; he sends Cain away but protects him from any who would harm him; he floods the earth but is reluctant to do so. Furthermore, even though He says He is going to “wipe from the face of the earth” what He has created, He does not fully do it. Instead, He gives meticulous instruction about taking two of each creature onto the ark—male and female—so that original creation is preserved. All this shows not only a just God who will judge but also a merciful and faithful God who will restore, replenish, and revive. Thus judgment in the Torah has as its goal not pure vengeance but a “setting right”, a “putting back together” of what was broken.

        Even when it is not clearly restorative, judgment in the Torah has more to do with revealing the consequences of sin than with simply punishing it. This is how YHWH in the Torah speaks of death. Death is the logical and natural consequence of disobedience to and rebellion against the life-giving Creator-God.

[Read  Part 5 HERE.]

Is Dawkins Right About the "God of the Old Testament"? (Pt. 3 of 5)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following six-part series of blogs are adapted from a paper I wrote this year in my Pentateuch class with Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary. These thoughts are not meant to be the final word on the matter, nor to form a sort of apologetic against atheists. This is not material for an argument. It is simply a response based on a closer reading of the Torah-- the first five books of the Bible. My hope is that it will help Christians avoid simplistic views about the "God of the Old Testament. Read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.]

Claim # 3: "The God of the Old Testament is...vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser..."-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

Is God a Vindictive, Bloodthirsty Ethnic Cleanser?

The third claim is that God is a “vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser.” There is legitimate evidence in the Torah for this claim. God kills the firstborn males in Egypt and “gives” them a land that requires cleansing it of its inhabitants. All along the way from Egypt to Canaan, there are people groups that Israel fight in battle, with YHWH providing the victory. (See: Amalekites.)

        But there is also a thread of God’s love and ultimate goal for ethnic outsiders. Right from the beginning, the plan is to bless “all the families of the earth.” As selective or exclusive as the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 appears to be, the point is always “all the families of the earth.” As C. S. Lewis once wrote, God uses the “chosen” for the sake of the “unchosen.” Abraham seems to grasp this when he prays for Sodom and Gomorrah—two cities that clearly fall in the “unchosen” category—to be spared despite their wickedness. Perhaps Abraham saw God’s redemption up close and personal in the way that God promised to bless and protect Hagar, despite her status as a discarded Gentile servant woman.

        The Torah, however, shows the good, bad, and ugly. It is not long before the people of God begin to narrow their vision and trend toward an exclusive view of themselves as the people of God. The ugliest picture of this is in Genesis 34 when Simeon and Levi kill every male in Shechem’s land, after tricking them into getting circumcised. Their reluctance to let their sister, Dinah, be married to Shechem seems to be more than for ethnic or racial reasons; they are outraged by the fact the she was “defiled” by him. Yet, their hatred and murderous actions are acted out along ethnic lines.

        The sign of hope for other ethnic groups is the story of Joseph in Egypt. Here God begins to bless Egypt and its leaders through Joseph. Joseph, one from the family of Abraham, brings blessing to Egypt, an empire outside God’s “chosen family.” Joseph gains favor first from Potiphar, then from Pharaoh. Ultimately, God gives Joseph the ability to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams in order to help them survive the years of famine. Then, in a strange twist of events, Egypt becomes the means of blessing to Abraham’s descendents—Joseph’s brothers. The fates of various ethnic groups are tied together in the Torah.

        God’s plan, His intention from the outset in Genesis 12, is to bless “all the families of the earth.” Israel, Abraham’s descendants, struggle to follow their commission, but YWHW keeps intervening to keep the plan roughly on track. The fact that YHWH commissions the killing of entire people groups—and livestock!—in Joshua is still problematic. The best we can say about this is that it is not, as Dr. John Goldingay would say, “God’s last word” on the subject. His final purpose for the nations is not one of destruction but of redemption. The book of Jonah, though not in the Torah, gives a picture of this as the entire capital city of the wicked Assyrian kingdom is spared because of their repentance. Jonah’s own resentment at God’s mercy juxtaposes for us Israel’s prejudiced attitude toward other ethnic groups against God’s attitude toward them: we may harbor prejudice and hatred, but God seeks to redeem all who would turn away from their sin.

        What the Torah reveals, then, is not a “vindictive” and “unforgiving” God, but a God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exodus 34:6b-7a). The Torah always states God’s love and compassion first, and his judgment as a warning second. More significantly, God’s love and compassion far outlast and outweigh His judgment. Punishment goes to the “third and fourth generation”, but His loving-kindness goes to a “thousand generations” (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5). Love and forgiveness, as Goldingay suggests, is at the core of YHWH’s nature, while anger and judgment are at the “fringes” of His personality. God gets angry, but He is Love.

[Read Part 4 HERE, and Part 5 HERE.]

Is Dawkins Right About the "God of the Old Testament"? (Pt. 2 of 5)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following six-part series of blogs are adapted from a paper I wrote this year in my Pentateuch class with Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary. These thoughts are not meant to be the final word on the matter, nor to form a sort of apologetic against atheists. This is not material for an argument. It is simply a response based on a closer reading of the Torah-- the first five books of the Bible. My hope is that it will help Christians avoid simplistic views about the "God of the Old Testament. Read Part 1 HERE.]

Claim #2: "The God of the Old Testament is...a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak."-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Is God a Petty, Unjust Control-Freak?

The second claim is that God is “a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak.” We will deal with the “unforgiving” claim as a subset of the next claim that the Old Testament God is vindictive. The rest of these claims could be further separated and dealt with, but they are interconnected. Let us assume for the moment that Dawkins knows that they are. It would seem, however, that he does not know how these things are connected. For example, one could make the case that to have any rules at all is to be “petty” and “controlling.” But to have no rules would be unjust. Genesis 4 shows us what happens without clear instructions from YHWH. Two brothers, left to sort out how to “love God and love each other” end up in relational tension. YHWH warns Cain to do what it is right, but he disregards it and kills Abel (as pictured above in the Il Tintorreto painting). YHWH then banishes Cain. The story serves as instruction—the word “Torah” means instruction not laws—for future generations about God’s judgment on mistreating their brother.

        Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy pick up on this theme of “caring for your brother” and elaborates on it by spelling out other ways to lovingly treat their “brother.” A fellow Israelite is to be seen as a family member. As such, one should not charge interest to him; provisions must be made for accidental harm they may cause, and more. The famous “eye for an eye” laws are not a license for vengeance; they are parameters for retribution. In fact, YHWH specifically forbids vengeance against a fellow Israelite: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Leviticus 19:18). YHWH also announces that vengeance belongs to Him (Deuteronomy 32:35).

        In many of the rules for reparations, the Exodus laws are not that different from the Hammurabi Code the ancient Egyptians used. Both sets of laws deal with reparations for wrong. Both make a distinction between wrongs done on purpose versus wrongs done on accident. Both give provision for protecting the “commoner” or the “immigrant.” Both attempt an equitable form of justice. The Hammurabi Code is quite a bit more detailed, even including fixed monetary values for paying home builders. The difference is that justice in Exodus, albeit obliquely, appears to be rooted in YHWH, whereas in the Hammurabi Code, justice is rooted simply equal reparations. Israel must know that YHWH is just and because He is just, they are to live accordingly. The laws, then, are not “petty” and “controlling”; they are there to provide a paradigm of justice.

        One further response to the claim that God is controlling can be found in the placement of two “trees” in the Garden of Eden. If God were a “control freak”, would he give people a choice? Would a control freak have given them abundantly more “good trees”—good options—than bad ones? Would a control freak place the “bad choice” in the center of the garden, in plain sight? The Garden of Eden story reveals a God who wants His creatures to lovingly and knowingly choose Him—in the face of all other options.

[Read Part 3 HERE, Part 4 HERE, and Part 5 HERE.]

Is Dawkins Right About the "God of the Old Testament"? (Pt. 1 of 5)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The following six-part series of blogs are adapted from a paper I wrote this year in my Pentateuch class with Dr. John Goldingay at Fuller Theological Seminary. These thoughts are not meant to be the final word on the matter, nor to form a sort of apologetic against atheists. This is not material for an argument. It is simply a response based on a closer reading of the Torah-- the first five books of the Bible. My hope is that it will help Christians avoid simplistic views about the "God of the Old Testament."]

Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most influential atheist of our generation, wrote in his book, The God Delusion:

“God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction:  jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

Dawkins’ claims are bold and sweeping, but we will deal with them one by one. Before doing so, however, we must deal with how Dawkins names the God revealed in the Old Testament. To Dawkins, He is simply “The God of the Old Testament,” but within the Old Testament this is not how He is named. Such a name, for obvious reasons, would not make any sense. “God” in the Old Testament is not a generic, abstract, absolute deity. He is the revealed God, the Creator-God, the God who made a covenant with Abraham and Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His covenant name—His revealed identity—is YHWH, not simply “Elohim.” This, I think, is the point Goldingay is trying to make when he refuses the term “mono-theism” to describe Israel’s faith. What God commands in the Torah is not simply monotheism—the worship of one god—but YHWH-sim—the worship of YHWH and YHWH alone. Every one of Dawkins impressions about YHWH, then, must be examined not in the abstract, but in the context of YHWH’s covenant relationship with Israel.

        The Torah—or Pentateuch—provides the perfect environment for this exploration because in it we find information about YHWH the Creator-God and YHWH the Covenant-God. Moreover, the stories are not tame. The Torah does not give us air-brushed stories of how lovely the world is, nor does it give us morality tales of how the world should be. It simply shows us the world as it is, with all the ugliness of hatred and murder, lust and envy, adultery and seduction, betrayal and manipulation. Genesis 1-11 show all these elements at work, as if to show that from the beginning humanity rebelled and brought the infection of sin into the world, and that the infection spreads quickly. But the Torah also shows how the Creator-God is working in the midst of it, calling a people for Himself, working in them to redeem them, and working through them to redeem the whole world. Genesis 12 and 15 form the hinge-point in the story and foreshadow this hope of redemption in the calling of and covenant with Abraham. We will explore Dawkins claims, then, in the light of what the Torah reveals about YHWH, dealing with each claim separately.

Claim #1: “God of the Old Testament is... jealous and proud of it..."-- Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Is God Jealous and Proud of It?
        The first is that God is “jealous and proud of it.” To tackles this claim, we must first explore what we mean by “jealousy.” When humans speak of being jealous, they think of a boyfriend or a girlfriend who does not like it when their partner spends time with anyone other then them; or they envision a stalker ex-boyfriend or girlfriend who wants them back and resorts to all sorts of crazy and manipulative tactics to do so. In short, human jealousy is wanting what we do not have.

        For YHWH—the Creator-God and Covenant-God—jealousy is wanting what He already has. Israel is His people twice over. The point of the Genesis narrative is to demonstrate that Israel’s God is the one who made everything. Genesis 1 and 2 set out to show YHWH as the good, loving creator who made the world on purpose and for His pleasure. When Genesis records the account of God’s calling of Abraham, we are meant to see that this choosing of Abraham is so that God can have a people for Himself. Moreover, this choosing is a gift. It rescues Abraham from what seems to be a lost and ignorant state, and sets him on a trajectory. For this reason, we cannot simply explore divine jealousy as simply the “God of the Old Testament” being jealous; we must see it as Israel’s God being jealous for Israel, His Israel. The Torah tells us that YHWH created Israel, YHWH chose Israel, and YHWH made covenant with Israel, binding himself to them and them to Him. In that light, God’s jealousy is a display of faithful, loyal love—which is, indeed, something of which to be proud.

[Read Part 2 HERE, Part 3 HERE, Part 4 HERE, and Part 5 HERE.]

 

Learning to Be the People of God

What is the mission of God, the missio dei? Is to save a collection of individuals? Or is to have a community for himself, to make for Himself a people?

When we think of the mission of the church, the temptation is to see the church as a sort of "sales and marketing team" for the Gospel, to think that our sole purpose is to "win more souls." But imagine for a moment if a young single man took a young single lady out on a date and said to her: 

"Look, let's cut to the chase. I'm not really interested in who you are or what movies you like or what you hobbies are. I really just want to have lots and lots of kids. I mean, I've got this big house with lots of rooms and I just want to fill it."

Now, on the one hand, the young lady might find this refreshing: a man who wants to have kids right away! But on the other hand, there is something quite disturbing about the whole thing. He almost makes it sound like any girl will do; having kids is the real goal.

As bizarre as this sounds, I wonder if this is a little bit like a pastor or church-planter saying, "I want to plant a church to reach more people." No doubt: we need to keep announcing Christ to those who have not heard. And we start new churches and campuses to enable us to announce Christ to more people. But I suspect that something can easily get out of order here. The Church is not a means to an end, a vehicle to "reach more people"; the community of the people of God is the end goal. In Acts, churches are formed because new people are coming to Christ; being formed into the community of God is the goal. Pastors who don't love the church for what it is-- an imperfect community of Christ learning to be the people of God together-- and only for what it can do-- reach more people-- are not too unlike the man who only wants to marry a woman just to fill his house with loads of kids.

Last Sunday, we began our series on the Book of Acts. Jesus' instruction to the disciples to wait together in the Upper Room is certainly significant for many reasons. But one of them may just be the notion that before they could be "on mission together", they needed to learn simply how to be together.

This point is underscored by the subject of the second half of Acts 1.  The disciples make it a priority to replace Judas so they there can once again be 12 apostles. But why? If the 12 were simply Jesus' "sales and marketing team", as we sometimes imagine, then why wouldn't 11 do for the job? Because of our tendency to only remember the words of the "Great Commission" to the disciples, we sometimes miss the symbolic act of Jesus choosing 12 disciples. Jesus chose 12 disciples as a way of saying, "This is the new community of the people of God." As a messianic act, the 12 were a kind of "eschatalogical community," a sign that the "Age to Come" had dawned. So, the disciples' concern with replacing Judas is not about simply filling a seat; it was a symbolic act to demonstrate that these new Christ-followers were indeed the new community of the people of God, a sign that the Age to Come had begun.

In this light, the Church is not simply a vehicle for multiplication; it is a sign in this world that the Age to Come has dawned, that new creation has begun, that God has come in Jesus Christ, has won a great victory and is reigning as King over the world. The Church, Jews plus Gentiles in Christ, are learning what it means to be the "new people of God" together.

To be sure, part of learning to be the people of God here and now does mean proclaiming Christ-- as we see in Acts 2! But our missiology must flow from a clear ecclessiology, which in turn is shaped by a proper Christology. In other words, if we believe that Jesus is "both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36) -- read it as YHWH and Messiah-- then the Church is a new community of the people of God, a sign in the world that Christ is the world's true Lord, the Age to Come has dawned, and new creation has begun. Our mission of proclaiming, as Peter did on Pentecost, that Jesus alone is "both LORD and Christ" flows out of this new communal identity.

Another way to think of it is this: God is within Himself a community-- Father, Son and Holy Spirit-- and His goal is to form a community that is His, drawn into His very communal life. God is not simply interested in getting more people (a collection of individuals); He is interested in having a people (a community). We are reminded of Jeremiah's poetic phrase: "They will be my people and I will be their God."

How would this change our understanding of the mission of the church?

Is God an Imaginary Friend?

This is a new billboard in our city. While some may have a strong reaction to a sign like this, I think Christians ought to listen to what our atheist friends are saying to us because it says a lot about us. The billboard is a massive mirror of how our lived faith looks. (This is not unlike Nietzshce's late 19th-century proclamation that "God is dead", which was not a statement about belief in God but an indictment of a culture that claimed to believe in God while they had functionally deconstructed a theistic worldview.) 

The uncomfortable truth is that for many Christians, God is like an imaginary friend. This is especially highlighted around Easter season by the way we talk about Jesus' resurrection. Broadly speaking, Evangelicals think the Resurrection means some combination of these three things:

1. EVACUATION: Because God raised Jesus from the dead, we know that Jesus really was God, and therefore those who believe in Him are going to be taken out of this world one day and go to heaven. God, in this view, is an imaginary Fireman who will rescue us from the flames of Hell, which are even now consuming this world.

2. COMPENSATION: Because God rasied Jesus from dead, we know that Jesus was God and so we ought to listen to what the Bible says and do good things if we want to be rewarded. God, in this view, is an imaginary Santa Claus who "knows when we've been bad or good" and will compensate us accordingly with a scolding or with ethereal rewards in heaven.

3. CONSOLATION: Because God raised Jesus from the dead, we know that Jesus is God and since He ascended to heaven, we'll go there one day too. God, in this view, is an imaginary therapist-- or grandma, if you like-- who will make us feel better and "make it up to us" for all the crummy stuff we lived through on earth.

There is something true about each of these paradigms. There is some kind of destructive judgment described with fiery imagery for those who refuse God; there is a way that our lives in the present will be judged in the future; and there is a comfort that is coming. But each of these views are non-material, disembodied, and have nothing to do with the here and now. So when an atheist puts up a billboard that says, "God is an imaginary friend," they are quite right about how we talk about our God! So much of what modern Evangelicals-- around the world, sadly!-- say about God and hope and "heaven" is escapist.

But is this what the Resurrection really means? Is this what the Resurrection meant to the first followers of Jesus? Most assuredly not. When you read the first sermons in Acts-- or even how the Gospel writers tell their story up to the climax of Jesus' resurrection-- they are not simply trying to show that Jesus is God (though John seems up to that more than the others). They are trying to show that in Jesus, God has become King of THIS world, right here, right now!

Rather than an evacuation plan or a compensation deal or a consolation attempt, the Resurrection of Jesus means that God's long-promised and long-awaited "New Creation" project has been launched-- right here in the middle of the present creation! God's Kingdom has come to bear upon the world, even now! The Church, then, is a New Community that is in itself a sign to the world that a new Age has dawned, even before the old one has ended.

Think briefly about what a difference this makes:

Instead of EVACUATION, you have a model for ENGAGEMENT: how we care for the poor and for the planet matters because redemption and not escape is God's plan. (If Jesus' resurrection body retained the scars of His death, then is it possible the "scars" we leave on this creation will be found in new creation?)

Instead of COMPENSATION, you have a paradigm for ETHICS that is based on a telos, an end goal: how we develop character now determines how much we get to "rule over" then. This is not unlike Aristotle's "virtue ethics", though Aristotle's telos (end goal) was human happiness, and the New Testament's is the preparedness of the believer to "reign with Christ." Both Jesus and Paul tie the motivation for developing character in this life to our roles in the next-- "ruler of much", "reigning with Christ," "judging angels", etc.

Instead of CONSOLATION, you have a vision of HOPE: death will give way to life, wounds will be healed scars, tears will be wiped away, and all will be set right. The comfort for the grieving is not simply that their loved one is in heaven, though it seems to be their current temporary place. The comfort is that one day they-- all in Christ!-- will receive bodily resurrection to live in a renewed creation. This isn't God "trying to make it up to us"; this is God making it right by restoration and redeeming and making it new. Moreover, it makes our hope not some ethereal, disembodied heaven but a new physical, spirit-fueled body (read 1 Corinthians 15 closely). It is easy to call the Christian hope "imaginary" when we speak of disembodied, non-material spiritual "realities." But the vision of Scripture is that the same God who made the material world does not intend to scrap it but to renew it and heal it and set it right (Isaiah 2, 25, 61; Revelation 21).

I suspect that if Christians really began to grasp just what Jesus' resurrection means-- that new creation has begun!-- we would begin to live like Jesus is the risen King over this world, here and now. Our engagement in this world would be different. It would involve caring for physical and material needs and not simply "spiritual souls". Our ethics would be different. We woud love and forgive like we believed love overcomes all. Our hope would be different. We would speak of a restored world and not a spiritual heaven as our final home.

And then maybe it would be harder to say that for us God is simply an imaginary friend.

 

"The Hero That Almost Was"

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the Titanic, here is a little known story about a nearby ship that could have rescued quite a few more passengers. The following is an excerpt from my first book, Butterfly in Brazil: How Your Life Can Make a World of Difference:

Cyril Evans is not a name you would easily recognize. He wasn’t then nor is he now well known. Evans was a radio operator aboard the Californian, a British steamship, under the command of Captain Stanley Lord. He, along with Captain Lord and the rest of the crew left London, England, on April 5, 1912, bound for Boston. Though the ship could carry as many as 47 passengers and 55 crewmen, on that particular voyage, there were no passengers on board. Nine days into the voyage, they encountered a large and dangerous ice field. They were just south of Newfoundland. Finding themselves surrounded by ice and deciding it to be too dangerous to continue, the Californian reversed its engines and stopped for the night.

        Around midnight, Second Officer Herbert Stone began his watch. When he arrived, his apprentice seaman, peering intently through a pair of binoculars, informed him of a steamship in the distance. Third Officer Groves, whose shift Stone was relieving, had been the one to spot the ocean liner. Curious to know what other ship was out in the middle of the ice field, Stone ordered his apprentice to try to establish contact. They tried their Morse lamp. No response. The apprentice left to record the unusual events.

        Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Stone saw an explosion of white light filling the night sky. It seemed to come from the direction of the other ship. Then came another. And another. Five rockets of brilliant white light exploded in the darkness right before his eyes. Shortly after, his apprentice returned to the bridge to join him. The two decided to inform Captain Lord of this peculiar occurrence. Later, Lord would claim that he was only told of one white rocket. Whatever the case, the Californian’s captain did ask if the lights were a company signal. Neither Stone nor his apprentice could be sure. Lord instructed them to only inform him if anything changed and to keep trying to contact the ship with the Morse lamp.

        Frantically, Stone and his apprentice tried to flash the beacon light, hoping for some sort of response. None was received. Instead, the cabin lights of the distant steamship seemed to be disappearing, as if the ship were leaving. Around 1:40am, they saw an eighth and final explosion of white light. By 2:00am, the cabin lights were out of sight. 

        At 2:40am, Stone notified Lord one last time of all that he had seen. That would be the last interruption of Captain Lord’s sleep that night. When he awoke, roughly after four o’clock that morning, he went out on the bridge to determine how they would navigate through the ice. Their first radio contact came a few hours later. Around 6:00am, on April 15th, they heard the shocking news. The Titanic had sunk over night. 

        There is some disagreement over the precise proximity of the Californian to the Titanic. Some estimate that the distance was 19 miles; others say it was as close as 9 miles. Either way, they were close enough to help. They certainly had the room on board and on their lifeboats to have saved a good portion of the 1523 people who died in the frozen waters that April night.

        Captain Stanley Lord was later condemned by British and American investigations of the tragedy for his inaction. Lord, however, did have many defenders. After all, why didn’t Stone or his apprentice instruct Cyril Evans to make radio contact with the Titanic?

        As it turns out, Cyril Evans had contacted the Titanic earlier that night. Slightly before 11:00pm on April 14th, Evans, Captain Lord, Third Officer Groves, and an apprentice had spotted the lights of a nearby ship. Evans, against the judgments of his colleagues and superiors, was convinced that the ship was the Titanic. Though Lord disagreed, he ordered Evans to send the Titanic a courtesy message, letting them know that the Californian was stopped and was surrounded by ice. Jack Phillips, the radio operator of the Titanic, was exhausted and busy, and perhaps slightly plagued by the impetuousness of youth—he was only 25. Because the two ships were in such close proximity to each other, Evans’ radio message blasted loudly in Phillips’ headphones. Phillips, trying to relay backlogged personal messages of passengers, shot back, “Shut up! Shut up! I’m working Cape Race [a wireless radio tower in Newfoundland].”

        Evans considered his duty done. He went to his cabin and fell asleep. All through the peculiar events of the night, he slept. In fact, he did not get up until Chief Officer Stewart woke him around 6:00am to receive messages from two vessels about the fate of the Titanic.

        It was a moment that could have made Cyril Evans a hero. It could have been his “rendezvous with destiny”. It’s true that Captain Lord could have taken more initiative or interest. It’s true that Stone and his apprentice were too paralyzed—either by fear, wonder, or simple tiredness—to find out more about the strange 8 flashing white rockets from the mysterious ship. But it is also true that had Cyril Evans stayed awake a few more hours, he could have prevented one of the greatest tragedies at sea. Had Evans been awake, radio contact would have been made. After all, no matter how passive Captain Lord may or may not have been or uncertain Stone and his apprentice were about what to do, none of them would have hesitated to simply ask Evans to make contact with the unknown ship. Evans, remember, was the one who was convinced that it was the Titanic. Had Evans been awake for just two more hours, he would have heard the signals of distress. 

        Instead, another ship, the Carpathia, heard the call and heroically sped through the icy waters. They were some 58 miles away. By the time they arrived, it was too late. It was approximately 5:00am on April 15th. Cyril Evans, a mere 19 miles away at the most, was still asleep.

        History is often made in the most ordinary moments. Looking for the epic can be quite misleading. For Cyril Evans on the night of April 14th, 1912, making a historic difference simply required staying awake.

 

What lessons do you see in this story? For me, as I note in the book, I see it as a story about how making a difference is often a matter of small faithfulness, going the extra mile, not epic actions. Share your observations below.

(Amazon PRIME Members: the e-book of Butterfly in Brazil is free HERE!)