MENU

Theology
Category

On August 3, 2017 By In Theology

Ballet and Biblical Interpretation

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

My wife and I attended the Houston Ballet’s performance of Aladdin a few years ago. It was my first ballet and a great experience. I found the costume design enchanting, the music salubrious, and the choreography mesmerizing. Even though we were way up in the first balcony, we enjoyed a true feast for the senses. Aladdin is a classic tale, but many people are more familiar with the Disney version than the original story from The Arabian Nights. In the ballet, Aladdin marries the princess at the end of Act II and they share a wedding dance that ends with the two dancers in a pose that tastefully resembles a coital embrace. In act III the evil magician deceives the princess and spirits her away to become a slave in his harem. When the man, the Adam, pursues his wife to the uttermost, infiltrating the magician’s palace, they share the same dance, ending with the same pose before going on to face the deceiver together. It was sublime!

My favorite scene occurs in the first act when Aladdin first arrives in the cave of wonders. The audience sees that the floor is covered in gold coins by way of the set design and lighting, but Aladdin’s survey of the cave is not complete until he beholds the precious gemstones which fill the cave. Dancers represent the gemstones.

A parade of precious stones dazzles Aladdin, who simply sits to watch. Time slows down as first a group of onyx and pearl dances, giving way to a routine by the silver and the gold, leading into a sapphire solo, moving into a passionate couple’s dance for a hot pair of rubies, after which the emeralds have their go, and finally, the diamonds. My favorite was the dance of the diamonds. They were dressed in silver, white, and black. They wore tutus, and I now understand why ballerinas wear them. The effect of their shiny tutus waggling as they pranced about en pointe was wonderful to behold and, furthermore, totally convincing. I was really, truly, seeing diamonds.

But what if I refused to accept this way of conveying a cave full of gems? What if I rejected the art form? What if I rejected ballet as the best way to tell the story unfolding before me? What if, after the show, I walked up to the director and said, “I think that your dancers represented the gemstones poorly; you should have used props?” Or, what if someone asked me what the scene in the cave was about and I said, “It was about people dancing in colorful costumes?” What if I stood before an assembled body of ballet aficionados and complained that the passage of time in the cave seemed unrealistic. “There’s no way it would take Aladdin that long to survey the gemstones. Each set of dancers danced for seven whole minutes!” That would be utter foolishness. They would laugh at me and shake their heads for seeing it so woodenly and I would walk away, disappointed in the artist.

Some people read the Bible this way, especially Genesis and Revelation. Genesis and Revelation are history, but not as modern people would tell it. Scripture is literature; scripture is the finest art. I heard a preacher once who proclaimed that there is a physical city of gold and jewels, the exact dimensions of the one mentioned in Revelation 21, presently traveling through outer space. This city will descend upon the earth at the end of time. I laughed inside. His view is what many people would call a “literal view of scripture.” Not so. A literal view of scripture is one that considers its genre and historical context and pattern of symbolism.

Scripture tells us early on that gemstones symbolize God’s people. The gemstones on the breastplate of the high priest of Israel symbolize the tribes of Israel. Paul applies this symbolism to the church in 1 Corinthians 3, saying that the church is God’s temple. The gold and precious stones of that temple are people. Ballet uses people to symbolize gemstones, but the Bible uses gemstones to symbolize people. The city that comes down like a bride prepared for her husband is tribes and peoples and nations. This may be a disappointment with the Artist to those who were looking forward to actual streets of gold, but this is God’s art and He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read more

On July 28, 2017 By In Theology

The Seed and the Serpent: Genesis 3:15 fulfilled in Exodus, Part 2

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

According to Genesis 3:15 the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head. This post argues for a near fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Israel as a nation and the crushing of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Part one dealt with the “seed of the woman” facet of the prophecy. This part deals with “crushing the serpent’s head.”

Pictures of King Tut’s sarcophagus offer a visual clue that Pharaoh might indeed be an embodiment of the Serpent, his royal headdress clearly resembling the hood of a cobra rising up to strike. The new Pharaoh who did not knowJosephh “rose up” to strike Israel by drowning Hebrew boys in the Nile. It might have been an aggressive or violent rising with a change of regime; the language may reach back to Genesis 4 where Cain “rose up” to kill his brother.[1]

Passages in the writings of the prophets offer the strongest evidence that Pharaoh is the embodiment of the serpent of old. They call Pharaoh the dragon of the Nile (Ezekiel 29:3), the dragon of Rahab (Isaiah 51:9). The word translated “dragon” is not the same as the word for serpent in Genesis 3, nahash, but it is the same word, tannin, used in Exodus 7:9 and 12 when God instructs Moses to throw Aaron’s staff on the ground for it to become a serpent. This differs from the word used in Exodus 4 when God instructs Moses to throw his staff on the ground for the first time where it turns into a nahash. One finds that a serpent and a dragon are in the same family of animals in the Bible. The tannins might be seen as “super serpents.” They are the often serpentine chaos monsters of the Bible and the Bible refers to nations and rulers as embodiments of these beasts. Furthermore, Isaiah 27:1 places tannin and nahash in parallel with one another. Pharaoh and Egypt are thus the embodiment of the same enemy that tempted Adam and Eve, only escalated.

In Isaiah 51:9-10 the speaker urges the “Arm of the LORD” to wake up and put on strength.  At one time, according to this passage, the Arm of the LORD “cut Rahab to pieces and pierced the dragon.” In the same instance He “dried up the sea,” making the depths of the sea “a way for the redeemed to pass over.” In the crossing of the Red Sea God made a way for His people to cross over, but He also drew Rahab the dragon, embodied by Pharaoh and his army, into the depths to leave him there, crushed by the flood of water.

There is yet another clue in Exodus 3 when God commands Moses to throw his staff on the ground that it might become a serpent. Humorously, Moses flees from the serpent when he sees what has become of his staff. This seemingly insignificant detail has great literary import. Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh when his Hebrew brothers rightfully accused him of murdering an Egyptian slave-driver. Now, Moses is fleeing from the serpent. But God tells him to reach out his hand and grab it by the tail. Soon, Pharaoh will be the fleeing serpent. God hardens his heart when he hears that Israel has fled from Egypt. This incites him to give chase. God commands Israel to encamp by the Red Sea. Yahweh is laying a trap for the serpent so that the salvation of Israel and the destruction of the serpent occur in the same act of redemption and judgement. The serpent pursues, but when it becomes apparent that Yahweh is fighting for Israel, the Egyptians flee, only to be swept into the sea and destroyed.

As Israel emerges from the water alive, Miriam is there once again. She was like a midwife for her brother’s new birth from the waters of death and now she is a midwife who has helped birth the nation. She takes a tambourine in her hand and leads forth all the women of Israel who have seen Yahweh’s victory over Pharaoh. Yahweh has vindicated their courage and faith.

As Isaiah said, it was the “Arm of the LORD” who ultimately did this and readers of Isaiah 53 find that the “Arm of the LORD” is a suffering servant who “was pierced for our transgressions,” and  “crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” This is Jesus and His crucifixion was a baptism in the wrath of the gentiles. As with the Exodus, the Serpent was drawn out to pursue Him into death. The Kings of the earth assembled and took counsel together, but it was a trap! God condemned Sin in His body on the tree.  Jesus is Israel and the ultimate seed of the woman who would crush the Serpent’s head.  All the faithful who are united to Him by baptism have gone with Him through death and are thus born again.

[1] Bodner, Keith. “Old Promise, New King.” In An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784074.003.0003.

Read more

On July 27, 2017 By In Theology

The Seed and the Serpent: Genesis 3:15 fulfilled in Exodus, Part 1

Guest Post by Jacob Gucker

If Moses wrote the Pentateuch and it is one continuous story, readers might expect the prophecy of Genesis 3:15 concerning the seed of the woman bruising the serpent’s head to be fulfilled some time before the end. This post argues for a near fulfillment of this prophecy in the birth of Israel as a nation and the crushing of Pharaoh in the Red Sea. Part one will deal with the “seed of the woman” facet of the prophecy and part two will deal with “crushing the Serpent’s head.”

Exodus is primarily about the birth of God’s son. Israel is the national son of God born out of slavery in Egypt at Passover and into the house of Yahweh. Passover was an exchange of “sons of the herd” for firstborn sons, and Israel is the firstborn of a planned new creation. Whereas Genesis has a theme of birth despite barrenness, Exodus begins with outright fruitfulness, though it is overshadowed by the dragon who waits to devour.

Keith Bodner’s An Ark on the Nile shows from Exodus 1-2 that Moses’ rescue from the Nile is a recapitulation of Noah’s Ark. It looks back to Noah’s rescue from the primordial waters of the flood even as it foreshadows Israel’s rescue from the waters of the Red Sea. Noah’s Ark was not built for seaworthiness but as a floating temple that anticipates the Mosaic Tabernacle that will go with Israel through the wilderness.[1]

Bodner highlights the important role of women who are the only protagonists in the beginning to go up against Pharaoh. Moses’ father is silent and the elders of Israel take no action. There are the vigorous Hebrew women who give birth quickly, the midwives who resist Pharaoh’s decree to throw every Boy into the Nile, Moses’ mother who hid her good son for three months, Moses’ sister who stationed herself to watch what would become of her brother, Pharaoh’s daughter who seems to be willing to defy her father, and the maidservants who go with her to bathe. They share in drawing Moses from the waters of the Nile in his little Ark. They are a corporate woman bringing forth a singular “seed” to be the covenantal head of the nation that will be born. In bringing Moses forth from the waters they participate in bringing the nation forth from bondage.

Bodner argues that Miriam and Pharaoh’s daughter play more significant roles than modern readers might think. He posits that Miriam is a shrewd mediator who speaks so as to suggest to Pharaoh’s daughter that an adoption is in order. He notes that Miriam is referred to here as an Almah, indicating that she too is capable of bearing children. He suggests that she is a “rhetorical midwife” in Moses’ new birth[2]. Taking the initiative here, Miriam seems to guide Pharaoh’s daughter and will have a similar role with the women of Israel at the Red Sea.

The naming of Moses brings the Egyptian princess into the tradition of phonetic naming that began with Eve naming Cain. She names him Moses because it sounds like the Hebrew word for “to draw out.” But there is more to his name because it is etymologically Egyptian, based upon the verbal stem msy which means “to be born” and the noun ms means “son.”[3]  Pharaoh’s daughter is participating in bringing forth the seed of the woman. This anticipates God including gentile women at numerous points in the long story of bringing forth the Messiah. Although Mary is the special maidservant chosen to bear the Son of God, all of the women in the Messianic genealogy are participants.

The serpent crippled Israel by hard labor and by Pharaoh’s heinous decree, but this seed will crush the serpent’s head. Part two will show how Pharaoh, the head of Egpyt, is the embodiment of the serpent in the book of Exodus.

Jacob Gucker is a librarian at BMA Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Texas. He lives with his wife and baby daughter at Preacher’s End Farm where she raises vegetables and pastures chickens and he looks up from his books to help out.

[1] Keith Bodner, An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus (Oxford University Press, 2016).

[2]Bodner, Keith. “The Waters of Chaos.” In An Ark on the Nile: Beginning of the Book of Exodus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2016. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198784074.003.0005.

[3]Ibid.

Read more

On July 24, 2017 By In Theology

The Spirit of Sonship and Warfare.

Once upon a time, there was this little boy who was growing up in a horrid home situation. His parents were abusive to one another and to him. They were cooking Meth, shooting up heroin, engaged in sexual perversions, and living in squalor. They neglected him and left him for days at a time to fend for himself. The outlook for his life was bleak at best. As he grew up, this was the only life he knew. He thought that this was the way that life was to be lived. Consequently, he adopted this way of life for himself, following the pattern of his parents who had, by the culture they developed in the home, developed this way of thinking and living in him. He knew nothing else.

One day a man and his wife learned of the situation and decided to try to help the boy. The biological parents objected strongly (as parents in these situations are sometimes prone to do even though they don’t care at all for the child). However, the child saw something in this man and his wife that was attractive. He wanted to be a part of their family.

Arrangements were made, and, at great expense, the young boy was adopted by the man and his wife. His new life was beautiful. He was treated with great love. Life wasn’t always easy because his parents required discipline from him, but it was incomparably better than it was before. His new parents provided for him richly, not only with food, clothing, and shelter but with the affection he had never known. Living as their son he would not only be provided for now but in the future. He was an heir to everything his new parents owned.

He had been rescued from a horrible situation. He was grateful. However, the ways he had learned in the years he spent in his original home were not forsaken easily. He constantly fought attitudes and desires that pulled him back to that old culture. He hated those ways of his biological parents, but they were also comfortable in a sick sort of way. Now, on the one hand, he felt this obligation, this debt, as it were, to his biological parents. On the other hand, he felt a debt to his adoptive parents because of the kindness and love showed to him in rescuing him. This new life was beautiful and held great promise for the future. But was this what he really wanted?

If he goes back to his old way of living, he is forsaking his inheritance and it is certain misery and death. If he stays where he is, his future is secure and beautiful. What will he do?

I don’t know. You tell me. You are that child, Christian.

Because of our heritage in Adam, we still have a pull toward the thinking and ways of the flesh; thinking and living that questions the goodness of God’s purposes and commandments and wants to go in the opposite direction. There are times we might even think that we just can’t help ourselves because we are in these bodies of death (or mortal bodies; cf. Rom 6.12). However, we are not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh (Rom 8.12). That old flesh was crucified with Christ in baptism (Rom 6.1-11). All the debts have been paid. There is no reason to be under the sway of sin. If we adopt the old fleshly ways of living, no matter the profession of our lips, we will die (Rom 8.13). That is the fruit of allegiance to the flesh.

We are no longer debtors to the flesh, but we are debtors: debtors to God the Father, his Christ, and his Spirit. The Triune God has bound us to himself in a covenant that requires that we pay the debt of loving him with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. This love expresses itself in willingness to engage in warfare against the flesh, putting to death the deeds of the body through the power of the Spirit. This is the way of life (Rom 8.13).

Those who engage in this battle with the sinful deeds of the body manifest that the Spirit of God is truly working in them. God’s Spirit bears witness with their spirits in this way. They are desiring the same thing. They are walking in the same direction. They love the Father and the Son as the Spirit loves the Father and the Son and want nothing more than to please them with the way that they are living. They want to hear, “Well done!” Those who live this way, those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Being led by the Spirit doesn’t mean that the battle with the deeds of the body will be easy or without pain. In fact, it means just the opposite. The children of Israel were led by the Spirit of God into the inheritance of the Promised Land, but that leading meant doing battle with giants in the land. Jesus was led (actually driven!) by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. The Spirit leads us into and through battle, not around it. The Spirit has always led God’s sons into battle. The Spirit of adoption or sonship is the Spirit of warfare.

Furthermore, there is no silver bullet that will end the battle. God has called us into a fight that ends either in the death of the deeds of the body or our own eternal death. He gives us everything that we need through the power of his Spirit, but you will have to fight day in and day out.

One day the fight will end. It may not be this day, but that day is coming. Those who have suffered with Christ in these battles will inherit glory with Christ (Rom 8.17). Our promised rest is coming. Our future is beautiful and secure in Christ Jesus. Don’t turn back to the ways of the flesh. Keep fighting!

Read more

On July 11, 2017 By In Theology

Family Solidarity & Genesis

The Bible encourages love and community in families, and sees that love as a way to spread harmony in wider society, but it doesn’t assume family solidarity is natural.

A while ago I was listening to an expert on twin studies as an effort to come to some conclusions on the problem of “nature v. nurture.” She said something I didn’t expect and yet immediately reminded me of the Bible. She said there is no such thing as “identical twins.” Yes, that’s the name we give twins who are genetically identical. But in the womb, she stated, they don’t get equal access to limited resources. By the time they are born, they are already showing developmental differences.

Naturally, I immediately thought of Jacob and Esau.

 

In the Bible, family solidarity is often invoked as the key to social peace. When the tribes offered to be subject to David, they appealed to it: “Behold, we are your bone and flesh.”

But it is a mistake to assume this means that family solidarity is natural or in any way easy. Laban said the same thing to Jacob, yet that family connection meant exploitation and competition for limited resources. Jacob’s struggle in the womb with his twin brother became a struggle to get out of slavery and poverty against his father-in-law and his brothers-in-law.

I’ve understood the start and finish of Genesis as being significant. It starts with the exalted Adam who loses his kingdom when he seizes what is forbidden. It ends with Joseph who refuses to touch forbidden “fruit” though he is a slave, and is exalted to rule a kingdom as a result.

But thinking about twins has led me to another observation.

The first two brothers mentioned in the Bible, and indeed the first brothers in human history, are also the characters in the first homicide. The second Fall in Genesis is the story of Cain and Abel. Adam was driven out east of Eden, but Cain was driven further east to the land of Nod.

Genesis tells us that the first homicide was a fratricide.

The last story in Genesis is also about brothers. All Joseph’s brothers hated him. The majority of his brothers wanted to murder him. One of the brothers schemes to save his life but that plan is partially thwarted when an opportunity arises to profit by selling Joseph to slave traders.

The rest of the story of Joseph depends on that event: brothers acting in murderous hatred against a brother much like Cain and Abel.

Between those two stories, Genesis has several other stories recording God’s covenant to save humanity. The majority of those stories are about domestic strife. If they don’t feature sibling rivalry, they present us with other conflicts such as father against son, mother against father’s son, father-in-law against son-in-law, and father against daughters. Reading Genesis, one would think the kingdom of God depends on a soap opera. Perhaps Jesus was thinking of Genesis when he said

For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:52-53; ESV)

But why should this surprise us?

All the temptations and anxieties of life that would cause a person to selfishly try to exalt himself over others are concentrated in the family. Siblings compete for real and imagined rewards, whether financial resources or honor in the sight of their parents. Parents love their children but, in seeing their children as blessings, can impose themselves on their children, not even realizing how selfish they are being. Isaac and Laban have different motives but both exploited Jacob.

All the trials a person will face in outside life are there in his or her family relationships. If anything, the problems in the family as a society are more intense.

Perhaps that is why Genesis seems to spend so much space on soap-opera-like stories.

Family solidarity isn’t natural, but it is a great blessing to society. If one can master oneself in the way one functions in the family, one will be an asset in other relationships. If an entire family can do this, they will be a city on a hill.

 

Genesis starts with fratricide. It ends with the solution to fratricide: faith in God’s providence and forgiveness:

So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:4-8; ESV)

And then it repeats the lesson later, as a second witness that this is what the story of Joseph teaches us, as the climax of the stories of family conflict in Genesis.

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.” So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died: ‘Say to Joseph, “Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.”

Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:15-21; ESV)

Jesus our brother says the same thing to us.

Read more

On July 4, 2017 By In Theology

Upgraded Humanity: What was Biblical history for? (Part 1)

One of my favorite novels of the nineties was the “cyberpunk” thriller Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. (Content warning: not a Christian book.) The most unrealistic element in the book, however, was the posited “true meaning” of the story of the Tower of Babel. In the book’s retelling, humans used to be programmable using something a lot like machine code. Consciousness and free will came about through a virus introduced into the human race at Babel.

To repeat: this was the most unrealistic part of the novel, but it allows conflict as Hiro Protagonist (his real name—the novel doesn’t take itself too seriously) discovers a global conspiracy to reverse the virus and make humans programmable again. I took it as a metaphor for the quest for unity versus the value of freedom despite the social costs.

How Do You Upgrade Human Software?

But recently I’ve been thinking again about this fictional alternative to the Biblical story and the Bible’s own information about how humans are upgraded. After all, at Babel, something like a change in human “software” did miraculously take place. God wiped out a vocabulary and rules of grammar in people’s brains and uploaded new words and grammar rules in their place. The analogy to computer programs isn’t that much of a reach.

But when God called Abram (the story that follows the story of Babel and the scattering of humans into diverse nations), he does so in a way that makes clear that Abram is his “tower.”

And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:3-4; ESV)

Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3; ESV)

We know from the miracle of Pentecost that God wanted the divisions imposed at Babel to be ameliorated so that a unity could be provided through the Gospel.

But what was the purpose of history between Babel and Pentecost? What was God doing?

Maybe we should ask ourselves how human “software” is normally “installed” or changed. Unlike what some science fiction may lead you to imagine, one can’t change thinking and behavior simply by plugging the brain into a computer. Brains are part of bodies, not machines.

How do people normally acquire language? Outside of the events of the special creation of Adam and Eve and the tower of Babel, we get our language from being immersed in a speaking and acting culture from the time we are born. We learn language not only by listening, or listening and watching, but by bodily interacting with others. We learn through our bodies.

And perhaps that’s the answer. Consider what the Bible tells us about God feeding Israel with manna in the wilderness. He gives them food to gather day by day six days a week. Any attempt to save up for the next day is frustrated because it becomes inedible except on the sixth day. On that day, they can gather for the daily bread and for the seventh day. And on the seventh day no manna appears on the ground.

God didn’t simply tell the people to work six days and rest on the seventh; he trained them to do so. (more…)

Read more

On July 3, 2017 By In Culture, Politics, Pro-Life, Theology

Abortion and moral schizophrenia

Last Saturday here in London, UK, we read about the heartbreaking case of the youngest victim of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Logan Gomes. The child of Marcio and Andreia Gomes, Logan was as yet unborn when the fire struck. His mother Andreia was taken to hospital following her escape, where doctors discovered that poisonous fumes from the blaze had claimed the life of the unborn child. Logan was born while Andreia was in an induced coma, and Mr Gomes was faced with the unthinkable task of breaking the news of his youngest child’s death to his wife and the couple’s other daughters, Megan and Luana.

Just a few days previously, we read that “the UK’s largest doctors union”, the British Medical Association, “has called for the complete decriminalisation of abortion and for women to have access to terminations on demand.” The article continues, “If the BMA gets its way, medics would not face criminal sanctions for providing, or women for procuring, an abortion in any circumstances, at any stage in a pregnancy.”

That is to say, the largest union of doctors in the UK is calling for the legalisation of the deliberate killing of children at precisely the same stage of life as young Logan Gomes. The BMA (an association of doctors – people with the job of saving lives) wants the law make abortion legal for any reason whatever, at any stage of pregnancy, right up to birth.

What are we to make of this?

(more…)

Read more

On June 22, 2017 By In Theology, Wisdom

Face to Facebook

I sit here in my office and poke around on a keyboard that is not even physically connected to my laptop and characters appear on a screen. I have a phone in my pocket through which I talk to someone around the world, send a text message, and to which I can ask questions and give commands. Usually, when all things are working as they should, the phone responds. At times it will even talk back to me asking me clarifying questions or telling me it doesn’t quite understand me.

I still marvel at this technology. As a child, I watched television shows such as Star Trek and dreamed of a time when those communicators would be real. Not only did they become real. The flip phone that they resemble is already technologically passé. One generation’s science fiction dream world is the next generation’s relative necessity.

These technological dreams and advances are an aspect of our being created in the image of a creative God. As such, they are not only good; they are also necessary. We are created to take dominion over the world, making it fruitful in every way. When God created Adam and told him to tend and guard the Garden, Adam had to figure out new and creative ways to plow the ground and, eventually, fight the thorns and thistles. He and his descendants created new and more effective and efficient ways to accomplish their tasks, making the world an ever-increasingly fruitful place.

Throughout history, man has continued to create new technologies for these purposes. From farm implements to the vast array of computer technologies, we have made our lives and the world flourish. But there is something interesting about the technologies that we create. As Sherry Turkle observes in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology And Less From Others, “We make our technologies, and they, in turn, make and shape us.”a Our technology begins to drive and shape the culture.

This is not inherently bad. It is simply the statement of a fact. One generation invents the automobile. The culture of the next generation is driven (pardon the pun) by the automobile. Schedules, work, play, markets, and other cultural matters assume the use of the automobile. What was a luxury to the culture of one generation becomes the necessity of the culture in the next? Electricity, phones, and computers are now the staples of the culture. We have developed our technologies, and our technologies, in turn, have shaped the way we live our lives.

As a pastor, I have been especially intrigued by the world of “relational” or “social” technology; that is, technologies designed to keep us connected in some form of communication. How are these relational tools affecting our relationships? How do these technologies affect the expectations that people have when they come to be a part of a local church? Is there a dark side of these technologies that the gospel must address? As Christians, we are called to engage the culture. What kind of culture are we engaging? How much of that culture has affected (infected!) the church? How does the church counter those cultural trends?

It is becoming painfully evident that our social technology is being used in such a way to make us more lonely. We are connected more than ever by telephones and social media, yet we are more and more isolated from one another. This is not the conclusion of some Bible-thumping Luddite. Non-Christians are recognizing it. Ironically, I suppose, you can find articles online such as Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? , The Loneliness Epidemic: We’re More Connected Than Ever – But Are We Feeling More Alone? , and The Age Of Loneliness Is Killing Us. Here is a video that explains how our connectivity is isolating us. That video is based on a TED Talk delivered by Sherry Turkle summarizing her full-length treatment of the subject in her book Alone Together. None of these is an explicitly Christian evaluation of the situation, but they are all recognizing that our social technology is developing a culture that, while connected, is becoming disconnected from full human interaction.

This technology gives each of us the sense of control that we haven’t had in the past. We always have a measure of control to be sure, but today’s technologies give a perception that we are more in control than ever before. Looking at a sliver of the metanarrative of our culture, we can see huge cultural shifts and, consequently, how we have gained more and more control of our lives and interactions with others.

There was a time in our country when, by and large, to have a job, one had to go to a place of work, was forced to work with others he didn’t know and submit to “the man.” A man was “forced” to learn to interact with others in an amicable way and, generally, wanted to keep his job for forty years and retire with a gold watch. Though we still go to places of business, internet technology has changed our situations tremendously. Now we can be employed by a huge corporation and rarely go into “the office.” We connect online, control our schedules, and control our interactions with people.

This was brought home to me at a dinner with a young couple who were both urban professionals. We talked about their work. The lady to whom I spoke worked from her home and only chose to go to the coffee shop to work when she felt as if she needed to be around people. She was in control of her interactions. In the previous generation, unless you were a farmer, you weren’t able to isolate yourself to this degree. Now technology has allowed us to interact only as much as we feel comfortable doing so. (more…)

  1. Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology And Less From Others (New York: Basic Books, 2011)  263.  (back)

Read more

On June 21, 2017 By In Family and Children, Theology, Wisdom

How to fail in the pursuit of godliness

I want to say a few words about a common way in which we often fail to grow in godliness. As it happens, parents also sometimes make a similar mistake in raising their children, with the result that their kids go off the rails as they approach independent adulthood.

(more…)

Read more

On June 12, 2017 By In Interviews, Theology

Is Genesis History? – Changing the Question

Thomas Purifoy has set out to reframe a debate.

The maker of the documentary style film, “Is Genesis History?” is doing his part to provoke a public conversation about science and the Bible, and he wants to change the main question from being about science, to being about history.

The Film and the Interview

“Is Genesis History?” came to theaters in February – and in June, it has come to Netflix. You can find it on Amazon video as well. The recent video release of the film prompted me to call Thomas, who is an old friend, and discuss the film in an interview for Kuyperian Commentary – that interview will be the content of the podcast here on Wednesday.

An Evolution in Theological Thought

When Thomas and I spoke, he and I shared our common concern over what he called, “the incursion of evolutionary thought” into the current stream of evangelical theological (more…)

Read more