How many Bible verses do you know by memory that you can recite right now? How much of the Bible have you read? Why would you bother, you ask?
In times of trouble, what is oldest and deepest returns to mind. When there was a fire in my house and I had a bit of smoke inhalation I called a fire department in a town I hadn’t lived in for twenty years ( I should have called 911 but because we got the people out my muddled mind didn’t register emergency). The young not only memorize more easily, but memorizing young sets verses deep down where they will be recalled in times of trouble and will provide resilience, the kind of resilience our forefathers had when there were no pain pills or antibiotics or even effective civil authorities to keep the peace.
Since moving to AZ, I’ve noticed many churches here have a program for kids we’d never heard of where I was from back east. It combines activities and memorizing verses and is called AWANA. AWANA is no walk in the park where every kid gets an AWARD. AWANA is intense.
Older elementary students memorized forty-one verses this year, and perhaps the top third to fifth of the class achieved that where I watched awards get handed out tonight. That is forty-one valuable gems stored inside them that no one can take away per year. Congratulations to the ones who got that award! If you have kids and don’t have something like AWANA, start one. I wish I had known to do that when the kids were small.
I’ve noticed that many that scoff at the Bible’s authority haven’t read it. You wouldn’t do that to another book. Reading it is valuable at a minimum because it contains accumulated human wisdom for thousands of years but at maximum because it is God’s revelation, His instructions for how to operate humankind. Holding it close enough to recite it back is priceless. One way to learn more from Bible reading is by listening to an expert who has really studied that part of the Bible. That is what Albert Mohler provides in his podcasts of his Sunday School lectures, which are free.
Originally published on Medium in We are all Overcomers.
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With software we continually improve by removing bugs and adding features. Eventually we get to the point we want to do something dramatically different and we call the last release a terminal release. At that point we don’t spend time on it anymore and it is stable. If you want the next set of improvements, a bigger upgrade is required.
Oddly, history has a similar rhythm. The nature of people telling stories in print means they stabilize into the accepted versions of history. Those versions remain distorted by what we’ve had access to remember. With mass digitization memory aided by computational search is more thorough than ever before. All that thoroughness comes to nothing unless someone takes the time to re-examine the sources and retell the story.
Sometimes the real story screams to be liberated from the archives and retold.
The Roger Williams previously remembered by history sounded almost secular compared to his original works. His interpretations of the Bible were dashed as novel and inappropriate by his enemies, theologian Perry Miller believed him inconsequential. The Baptists in my neighborhood weren’t quite sure if they really wanted to talk about him or not, given the cloud of heresy surrounding him, though “soul liberty” was unanimously attributed to him. Yet he studied the original languages and used methodologies used by St. Augustine, and it is many of Williams’s views that survive, while the Puritan orthodox views are largely discarded. Many of his conclusions are standard today across major Christian thought streams. To me, the dog-earred Dutch Bible and the gap between his writing (he did not ever write fiction) and what Cotton Mather (Williams’s rivals John Cotton’s and Richard Mather’s grandson) perpetuated was wide. The Cotton Mather perpetuated view of Williams was meant to make Williams look heretical, but was easily mistaken for a secular mindset. Attributing the word “secular” to Williams, a man who strove for a purity in the invisible true church while tolerating a fallen civil world, is error, and a part of why his story screams to be retold.
Here are some other things I learned since the historical notes at the back ofRekindled were put together:
- The Throckmorton child Freegift was quite likely a boy (sites claiming he was boy or girl can be found) but this seems persuasive:https://familysearch.org/photos/stories/13333456
- My source about John Gallop was largely the Winthrop journals, and that was summarized here http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=10866775 However, John Gallop’s wife was found on a manifest three years later. The story that goes along with that view has his son was with him in during the Oldham incident as one of the lads.http://www.gallupfamilyassociation.com/family-history/
- Joseph Weld may have been Rev. Thomas Weld’s brother, not his son. The issue is, Joseph Weld had prodigious offspring who do not often list Rev. Thomas Weld as a brother. But that is the Puritan way…erasing things they did not like from memory.
None of these change the plot of the story. They are like severity 3 bugs that must await a something worth driving larger release to be incorporated.
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The Latin translates to the Joy of Love, and it was released on Friday. It clocks in at 263 pages. The news media focuses on “rules” that weren’t changed to make popular first world stuff ok. They miss the boat.
I hope everyone reads the original, downloadable here. I recognize no one has time. The document is 325 paragraphs. Read one paragraph a day and you’ll have it done within a year.
This document is ground-breaking, inspirational, and potentially church unifying all in one breath. It is an easy read. OK maybe I’m biased there…I spend a lot of time in 17th century documents that are not such an easy read.
No, it didn’t change any rules. Instead, in easy-to-read scripture-based (citations provided) language that feels like a gentle father talking to his children it inspires us to ideal. It sets that ideal up and relates it to the modern world. Over and over again as a family member in a fallen imperfect modern world I felt, “He got it!” I don’t know how an aging guy sitting in the Vatican could do that, but he does. He went to great effort, even consulting the married Catholic clergy from the Eastern church. That effort comes through in every paragraph. Even if we can’t attain the ideal in our own fallen lives, he helps us explain in relevant language why our children will still want to shoot for that ideal.
Pope Francis recognizes in simple language that we are fallen, often incapable of fully reaching those ideals especially after a wayward period, and wants us in the church accepting salvation and being welcome in the church anyway (e.g., paragraph 243). He talks a great deal of mercy and grace. You can’t receive mercy or grace unless you learn the ideal and how you are apart from it.
First Read Highlights:
- In paragraph 37 he blasts away a religion based solely on rules and commands the church to help people form consciences capable of determining right in situations beyond the rules, encouraging the faithful to get as close to the ideal as their unique complex situation would allow. It is in this area some media missed the whole point. He’s not going to amend the ideal as revealed by God in scripture to take into account fallenness, he is rather giving God’s children, with the help of the local church, dispensation to figure out the right ethical response to real life situations.
2. In paragraph 156 he eliminates from Catholic teaching (and I hope from all Christian teaching) erroneous interpretations of the Bible about submission of wives to husbands in favor of the mutual submission interpretation combined with at-that-time cultural examples. That correction validates a broader view of marraige Jesus feminists have been advocating toward for a long time. In paragraph 156 and 286 he comes down hard on patriarch-based systems that enslave, subjugate, or disempower the leadership of women. That seems revolutionary in a church with an all male priesthood. It corrects the foundational definition of the ideal at the base in a way as important as the elimination of slavery.
3. The strongest language in the document is used four times to declare unacceptable and therefore worthy of civil disobedience if needed certain practices. Paragraph 42 condemns forced state intrusion in favor of contraception; paragraph 54 condemns customs inconsistent with the full human rights of women including verbal, physical and sexual violence, access to work, and the exploitation of the female body; paragraph 92 condemns setting aside the elderly, and paragraph 251 condemns states that would pressure a local church to deviate from scripture in the definition of the ideal marraige (e.g. to perform a gay marraige, international agencies withholding aid to a poor country based on that state’s definition of marraige).
4. Paragraph 250 declares every sign of unjust discrimination of persons who experience same-sex attraction is to be carefully avoided. While paragraph 251 makes it clear same-sex and other irregular unions (a.k.a., civil marriages) are not Catholic marriages, the document would seem to imply any civil benefits extended to married persons should not be out-of-reach to those with irregular unions (especially those with innocent children, he says in paragraph 267) so that unjust discrimination is avoided. For some types of irregular unions (paragraph 78) he provides that they may with time become regular and lead to Catholic marraige, but not all types of irregular unions are able do this, specifically not same-sex unions.
The above list does little justice to the inspirational tone of the original.
Some of the most eloquent language in the document characterizes the church as a family of families. It is with a family strength bond that Christians belong to each other.
Paragraph 273 distinguishes voluntary choice from free choice by using the example of a drug addict who while voluntarily choosing to obtain a fix has no practical alternative and therefore is not free. Many women facing pregnancy in our pro-choice countries can relate to situations where while the choice is voluntary, the economics of life are stacked such that they do not feel free in choosing an alternative to abortion — and that is on all of us to change.
Family in the church’s definition does not release children as they come of age, though it frees them to form a new hearth if they enter a marraige. The family is an extended organization, and parents have influence so long as they draw breath. Like Saint Monica of paragraph 288, it is most honored to pray for a wayward child no matter how long it takes.
Pope Francis declares the individualism of the West to be extreme and flawed. He draws us back to each individual as part of a larger family, and family of families, something once called institutional individualism. In this he draws back to a mindset more familiar to the likes of Roger Williams than to today’s self-centered mind. However, no one in Roger Williams’ day foresaw the breadth of justice, mercy, and grace declared in Amoris Laetitia.
Addendum:
Dr. Albert Mohler hears something I did not in paragraph 297. Pope Francis says no one can be condemned forever, that is not the logic of the gospel. Dr. Mohler worries that means universalism, a path to salvation without repentance and acceptance of Jesus as Lord. But Pope Francis said his statement is in order to be consistent with the gospel — which is that all can repent so long as live, no matter how wayward. All can be saved upon acceptance of Jesus as Lord.
Before, Catholicism gave no path forward for wayward children of certain types of sin to return, but now that teaching is corrected to be gospel teaching. That is what I saw in paragraph 297. Dr. Mohler has perhaps never been Catholic and experienced the foreverness of its prior shunning — no matter the repentance — to understand why Pope Francis would need this paragraph. The apostle Paul addressed those who persist in active sin, while Pope Francis points toward situations that are consequence of past sin, and of being continually inviting to those still called to repent (which by the way is all of us).
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I admit to multitasking the March 3rd Republican debate with Robin Dreeke’s new book. That is, until Donald Trump’s response “Just look at the size of those hands,” crossed the screen. It was a response to Marco Rubio’s prior unfortunate joke “And you know what they say about guys with small hands” that occurred at a campaign rally the prior week. I had the feeling I was watching a campaign end, watching it go into free fall before my eyes, but I couldn’t have told you why, and it wasn’t confirmed until the Florida primary results arrived.
Which rules?
- Good heroes do not win by countering villainous with villainous.
Marco Rubio was branded as a values candidate, and he was applying for a heroic position. When he stepped in to counterpunch a joke with a crasser joke, he told one that crossed a line for most of his values watchers, and Trump made sure to allude to it so that we could all reimagine it. Robin Dreeke tells a story about road rage, and how he disarmed a passionately angry driver with smiles and calm empathy. Now, no one would expect Rubio’s opponents to be affected by such measures. Dreeke claims biology backs his claims though, so most viewers would be inclined to react positively to calm empathy (for the viewer), assuming it was also witty enough not to be entirely forgotten. Dreeke calls this ego suspension.
Worse, connections have to be encouraged with sincerity. When Rubio broke character, as a viewer it seemed we could perceive one of three choices, all bad for Rubio: 1) if he was insincere it could come off as uncaring and cold (especially to viewers with children watching) 2) if he was sincere he was showing his character could be broken — and if by this opponent here, what about it other higher stakes situations for our country? or 3) he was immature, young and belonged in the school yard. Stick with sincerity in character, on message.
2. Accommodating body language includes slower speech so that people can follow.
When Rubio gets excited he effervesces policy with rapid speech, as if he was speaking English as fast as he thinks, not at the rate we can hear. It may be great policy and yes there is a time limit at the debate, which is what makes us so willing to tune in and listen. But fewer words at a slower pace would make him sound more credible.
3. Listen
When the candidates intentionally talked over other repeatedly, on purpose and incessantly they all broke a cardinal rule — not only were they not listening, we couldn’t listen. When one candidate did it as a tactic, it was amusing if annoying. When they all did it, it was a turn off.In my opinion, however, he lost it at the first point, and the second two points are window dressing. If so, he lost an entire campaign by not rejecting one joke he will never forget — and taught a lesson we would do well never to forget.
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A review of Reza Aslan’s Zealot, The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
Reza Aslan is one of the voices in the USA media explaining Islam to Christians today. He is popular, because he makes most Muslims seem anti-extreme, a comforting thought and one that helps promote the unity of humanity against extremism in our time. I read his book about Jesus in part to calibrate his credibility. My theory is he will be similarly accurate when evaluating Islam’s faith history, and that errors in his view on Islam would not be something I can so easily detect.
The book provides valuable historical context and there is much to learn from it. However, Reza suppositions in the story at crucial junctures that seem hard to justify. Other reviewers have commented it is possible footnotes would have helped to decipher the sources of his hypotheses. In any case, these changes have consequences, and need examination.
Here are key examples I see:
Both Reza Aslan and Christian tradition have Luke and Paul hanging out together after Saul’s conversion to become Paul. Christian tradition is Luke was a respected competent historian and a likely mentor to Paul. Aslan thinks less of Luke. The divide becomes one of Luke mentoring Paul vs. Paul mentoring Luke. As with any relationship the relationship was likely two-way. Why does it matter? Because Aslan frees himself to say Luke is putting in fiction or covering truth over to create a dispute that he believes is larger than what was documented by Luke between Paul and the other apostles. In the end Christians rely on the judgement that Luke is competent by Irenaeus(2nd century), and by the Nicaean council (4th Century) that made his books part of the scriptural canon. This judgement was further confirmed by the archeological research of Sir William Mitchell Ramsey (20th Century) who said “You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian’s and they stand the keenest scrutiny and the hardest treatment.”
1) Aslan seems to discount some scriptures while elevating others, sometimes based on historical analysis, but not always. Most Christians stand guilty of this same crime. An example Aslan does not justify well concerns the story of the Good Samaritan. Aslan clearly recognizes this parable is in response to the question “Who is your neighbor?” and that Jesus really told the parable (p. 100–101). Christians believe this story shows Jesus came for everyone. However, later in the book (e.g. p. 134–135) Aslan decides that Jesus would have had a traditional Jewish view of what the messiah should be and do and therefore that he would come for the Jewish nation only. Aslan purports the church changes the scope of Jesus’s audience. Believing Jesus to be inspired, Christians believe that Jesus saw the scriptures in ways previously unseen. Jesus would come to be the light to the nations that the Jewish people had been intended to be, but had not been faithful enough to God to fulfill to date. In the end, saying Jesus provided the new interpretations showing he would come to Israel first to be light to all the world vs. the body of Christ the Church provided the new interpretations need not be such a large distinction except that Aslan would make the divide so large as to represent two different faiths (p. 196). Scriptures Aslan finds contradictory do not seem so in their context, as other analysis (e.g. Robert Allen King: though you will have to endure some lengthy opinion to get to the detail), explains. For Christians it is Aslan that is in error, but with a cleverness, along the lines of the tradition of the serpent seducing Eve in Genesis 3. Because Christians believe God to be the final authority behind scripture, Christians believe He expects us to know it well enough to find a other author’s errors.
2) Aslan seems to actually believe what he says on page 177, that even though Jesus says “it is written” when he prophesies being destroyed and rebuilt in three days there is no such scripture. This is a beautiful case in point of Jesus putting scriptures together in ways previously unseen. He takes the substitution of messiah for the light of Israel from Ezekiel — and realizes his own body is a temple of the Lord. He is quoting Hosea 6:2 and applying these substitutional insights. These are common concepts in the Christian faith especially given the writings of Paul but would, as Aslan correctly notes, have seemed strange and novel and mysterious when Jesus first spoke them.
3 ) James the Just vs. Paul the Inspired …. hmm. Surely there was a controversy, that much is documented. However, Christians believe that is the honest tension between a man who knew Jesus as human since his childhood and one who only knew him first hand as vision and in prayer. Jesus’s transformation had to be one hard to completely comprehend. Christians can be vicious as they argue, but Luke documents that they did come out on the other side of that argument united. Great leadership allows that to happen —Jim Collins calls is facing the brutal facts — the passion in the arguments enables a better resolution. But Aslan hypothesizes that the argument never really ended, that one side of the argument was silenced in the temple destruction. Even if Aslan is correct, a Christian would have said there are no accidents, if God had wanted a remnant of that other argument to survive he would have made it so. If Luke is competent, he explicitly says the controversy was resolved while all the parties were alive.
In any case, it is Paul who seems like us, experiencing the risen Jesus in vision and prayer. We can all be like Paul, we cannot all be like James the Just. Paul’s way of meeting Jesus we can all know first hand. In that sense, Paul was the first of our kind.
Reza Aslan is most caught when he approaches the resurrection. He does a great job here. He is caught because, as he points out, the loyalty of the witnesses is a remarkable testament the depth of their testimony. Yet if he says as modern historian that a miracle occurred he will lose his Western secular credentials as historian. That is a sad fact of our age. Many would-be Christians stumble at this point. The good news Christians proclaim is you can meet Paul’s Jesus in prayer first, while unable to suspend disbelief. You can follow Jesus asking him to help in your remaining unbelief. Reza Aslan says you can also meet a James the Just version of Jesus in history … and that may be so. If one continues to pray for help with remaining unbelief, that too is good news. It may be worthwhile to get additional introduction to that historical Jesus by Craig Keener or N T Wright.
Originally published on Medium in About Rekindled
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The Blue Ink Review beat out the competition to provide the first professional review of the book Rekindled, posted here. I was warned to have a thick skin on this review business. Really, it is a fine review. It gets the spirit of the book right. What they say about what I did is true — I certainly did not make the characters use archaic language as that would have made the story really hard to read. I stand by that, even as I claim I did try to map their worldview into our language.
The review however might have made poor Roger roll over in his grave. Let me explain.
My favorite line in the review includes “this is an absorbingly detailed portrait of 17th-century Christendom”. Yikes!! Roger wrote an entire pamphlet denouncing the use in his day of the word “Christendom”, and its common use now isn’t that different. Specifically many Europeans did not follow Jesus — and so Europe should never have been called Christendom in his view. The Algonquian people that came to hear Roger preach may have followed Jesus — he would never have claimed he could be sure — but would never follow European customs. If they did follow Jesus, they would be part of the true “Christendom” for sure. Roger’s point is that the true Christendom is always invisible (in any century) and will never be a single geographic region or culture. Thus, the separation of church and state is critical to church’s success as well as the state’s.
Another line in the review says of Roger’s expectation of the Algonquian people “Because he doesn’t view them as “heathens,” he decides they shouldn’t have to adhere to biblical customs.” Sounded good at first, but wait. On the one hand, he certainly didn’t think Algonquian people should have to follow European customs.
Roger would have said all of the Algonquian people started as heathens, just as we all do. Until we decide to give our lives to following Jesus we are all heathen — Algonquian included. But the deeper meaning of the term “heathen” as the author of the review may have meant is that Roger did not view them as sub-human — and that is most certainly true. Roger certainly would have said all Jesus followers will want to follow the Bible’s commands, even commands that seem impossible to follow. It will be the power of the Holy Spirit that will enable them to come closer to following Jesus, not a person’s own power.
But Roger asked no person that did not want to follow Jesus to obey anything other than laws to keep the civil peace. So in that sense, when a person is heathen (European or Algonquian), he does not expect them to follow biblical custom.
For Christians, for his own life, the Bible was everything. The Old Testament taught concepts physically as a teacher might give a young child large physical letters to teach the alphabet. The New Testament graduated the student to word and sentence level concepts teachable at a more abstract level. As the inspired word of God, every drop, every morsel has significance.
Every culture has a moral code, and Roger would claim the Bible says every moral code in every culture is authorized by God as God is the ultimate delegator of the authority behind every civil ruler. He also would have said we all are doomed to fail the moral code, no matter what it says. As fallen humans (to use his words “Adam’s degenerate seed”) we are all rule-breakers (aka sinners). Just as the Bible reveals, he would have claimed following Jesus is the only way out of that paradox, for any century.
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