We all prefer friends who are just like us … personality, age, education, social class, marital status, politics. This is simply human nature it appears – with both good and bad consequences. We tend to self-segregate. Should the church be any different?

I read an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (aka PNAS) a while back where the investigators looked at self-segregation as a function of institution size. Both simulation and survey methods were used in the study. This article, Structural effect of size on interracial friendship, explored the influence that the size of a social context has on the diversity of interactions. The article itself requires a subscription to access, but the results have also made several news stories including this one at Science Daily and this one, School size plays a role in interracial friendships, that found its way to USA Today.

The general assumption is that people prefer to interact with people who are “like them.” To quote from the paper: “Most social scientists assume that individuals prefer to make friends with people of similar social attributes, including race/ethnicity, relation, age, education, and social class. However, any individual’s likelihood of finding a satisfactory friend in terms of group similarity is constrained by the opportunities available in the person’s social context.” The purpose of the study published in PNAS was to investigate the structural effect of context size while holding everything else constant. The paper focuses on race for comparison of survey data from high schools – but the conclusions are not limited to race. They apply as well to age, education, social class and other selection parameters.

The major conclusions of this PNAS study are:

(1) Total context size has a distinct effect on interracial friendship. An increase in the size of the total group decreases the likelihood of forming an interracial friendship.

(2) The effect of size increases when the number of variables for preference increases. (Just race, race plus personality, race plus personality plus academic ability …). The groups become increasingly homogeneous as the size of the total pool increases because there is an increasing chance to find friends who match.

(3) “Noise” disturbs the trends somewhat. There will always be real anecdotal exceptions to the general pattern.

(4) The observations are not limited to interracial relations, but have application to many other parameters. While the surveys focus on race – but the simulations are far more general.

I think this study may have profound implications for how we think about church dynamics. According to this study a large church – however diverse it may be as a whole – will have less real diversity of interaction and fellowship than a smaller church of similar global diversity.

Is this good?

Is it Bad?

… or …

Is it indifferent, of minor concern?

Four observations …

First: Several years ago a megachurch (which one is irrelevant) put out a short video that was designed to encourage people to join a small group. The video opened with a couple lost in a mass of people in worship, discussed the search for a comfortable small group, and ended up with the couple happily involved in a small group of “people just like you.” The church is lines of people in the service and circles of friends “just like you.”  That phrase bothered me a bit when I first saw the video – and when this PNAS article came to my attention it put a finger on some of my unease.

Second: Around the same time I had a conversation with a person who complained that the small group facilitator at their church kept sending them “uninteresting” people. They had to tell the facilitator to stop – and provided some guidance on the type of person (just like them) they wanted in the group. The person I was speaking with felt this was an “of course” kind of issue, and there was nothing wrong with limiting fellowship to “interesting” people.

To what extent should Christian fellowship be about finding people “just like you?”

There is certainly value in affinity groups and accountability or fellowship groups of people at similar places. Sometimes we need the safety of similarity. But there is also value in diverse interaction with people who are not “just like you.”

Should a church encourage diverse interactions and fellowship?

If so, how can this be done?

Third: In a conversation with a friend where this article came up, my friend noted that some 20 or so years ago he had been part of a medium sized, relatively diverse church. The pastor of that church had commented that he was breaking every rule set forth by the church growth movement … and glad of it. He preferred his diverse relational church. I don’t bring this up as some golden example – just as a contrast to the focus on size that seems to run through the suburban (mostly white) evangelical church. Can we truly value both size and diverse relationship?

As laypeople, what should we be looking for in a church?

What kind of church should leadership try to cultivate?

To what extend should we or should we not focus on size?

Finally: We live today in a highly mobile society faced with a plethora of choices. We are not limited to a neighborhood, a denomination, or even a city. On top of the competition from a variety of churches and other social groupings, we can find people “just like us” in virtual gatherings formed on the internet. One of the authors of the original article is quoted in the Science Daily link:

One potential negative social consequence of the Internet as a social interaction medium in an ever more globalized world is to encourage social isolation and social segmentation by expanding group size immensely,” Cheng said.

This leads me to my last question:

Is valuing diversity of fellowship simply a losing battle, one the church can’t afford to worry about?

Is the answer that we need to yield to these pressures to reach and keep people?

My Opinion (take it for what it is worth): I think churches should promote a culture with multiple intersecting and overlapping groups. Rather than optional “programs” these are circles that cultivate diverse relationship. There is nothing wrong with a fellowship group of people “just like me” when also involved in a wide range of other community activities.

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

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This is a lightly edited repost – but on a topic that remains worth careful thought.

In Stephen Jay Gould’s short book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life he outlines the concept of non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA), an important concept in the discussion of science and Christian faith. On one level, the principle of NOMA is embraced by many religious scientists, including those with strong theological commitments (and that would include me). Gould calls it “bench-top materialism.” These scientists tend to …

hold that the “deep” questions about ultimate meanings lie outside the realm of science and under the aegis of religious inquiry, while scientific methods, based on the temporal invariance of natural law, apply to all potentially resolvable questions about facts of nature. (p. 84)

Certainly I assume that scientific methods based on the natural laws we know and are yet uncovering will apply to the questions about facts of nature. This informs the way I view the fossil record, and the information contained in the genomes of plants, animals, and all forms of life. There is a remarkable coherence between chemistry, physics, biology, … all the sciences. I see no reason to assume that God must have moved outside the natural realm to form the marvelous diversity of life we observe around us and find evidence for in the past.

Gould goes a step further however.

The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: “Thou shalt not mix magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science.” In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as “miracle” – operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. … NOMA does impose this “limitation” on concepts of God, just as NOMA places equally strong restrictions upon the imperialistic aims of many scientists (particularly in suppressing claims for moral truth based on superior understanding of factual truth in any subject). (p. 84-85)

And this is a step too far.

Science is ideally suited to uncover the laws that govern the behavior of material systems and to trace the chain of events that led to the world around us. Call it “bench-top materialism” if you wish. The power of scientific explanation is overwhelmingly convincing, instead of unrelated facts there is a coherent story. Complexity (and life is undeniably complex) highlights questions and current ignorance – but it isn’t really evidence for “miraculous” intervention.

On the other hand Gould’s first commandment seems to rule out the miraculous altogether. Even miracles such as those recounted in the Gospels, the healings, feeding the five thousand, calming the storm, the resurrection, are out of bounds.  This raises a number of problems.

First, the Bible relates the story of a personal God in relationship with humans created in his image. The interactions of a personal God with his creatures are not explicable through natural mechanism alone. It isn’t special interference but the normal course of such a relationship. The personal is brought to earth in Jesus.

Second, God is sovereign over creation and has a plan for the future. Jesus is not a good moral teacher wandering around dispensing truths. He is enacting the mission of God, and this isn’t neatly separated from the natural world. “What kind of man is this?” his disciples wonder, “Even the winds and the waves obey him!” The healings performed by Jesus are another powerful example. These are not psychosomatic, with natural explanation, or the actions of a tinkerer demonstrating his supernatural power (i.e. divinity). They are an enactment of the coming kingdom of God and the constitution or reconstitution of the people of God as it is meant to be.

But most importantly, Christianity is a resurrection religion. The miracles performed by Jesus are significant, but not crucial. Timothy Luke Johnson in his recent book Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation writes:

Are the claims of Christians for Christ based on the miracles he performed? On the evidence of the rest of the New Testament outside the Gospels (and Acts), we must say no. Everywhere in these writings, Jesus is understood to be Lord and God, but his resurrection/exaltation, rather than his healings and exorcisms, support that understanding. And although the history of apologetics might lead us to think otherwise, the basis of faith has remained the same from the time of the New Testament to the present. To put it bluntly, even if Jesus has worked all the wonders ascribed to him, and had not been raised, he would be only a great prophet of the past, not the life-giving spirit whose power and presence changes everything in the present.

Paul could not be more emphatic when he states, “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. … If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor. 15:14,17). It follows as well that Christian faith would survive even if all of the miracles attributed to the human Jesus were somehow discredited, for the same reason: our faith, (like Paul’s and like Peter’s) is based not on those miracles but on the sign and wonder that is Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation as God’s Son. (pp. 169-170)

We believe the miracle accounts given by the Gospel writes because they are part of a coherent narrative of the life, death, resurrection and exaltation of Jesus. But it is the ultimate reality of resurrection, most certainly a ‘miraculous’ event, that provides the foundation, first in Jesus and ultimately of all in the age to come. This world is not the sum total of reality. The future is beyond our comprehension, and certainly beyond our science.

Thoughts?

Is the Resurrection ultimately the only miracle related in Scripture that really counts?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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It is dangerous to read the Bible. I mean the whole Bible cover to cover. It may not live up to your expectations. Of course, if we take Scripture seriously, we should read and consider the whole rather than focus on favored passages. Because I’ve committed to reading (or listening) to the whole thing, I’ve happened upon passages that challenge preconceptions and introduce new ideas. One of these is found in the lament against the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 (vv.11-19).

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the seal of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden,
the garden of God;
…
You were on the holy mount of God;
you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created
till wickedness was found in you.
Through your widespread trade
you were filled with violence,
and you sinned.
So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,
and I expelled you, guardian cherub,
from among the fiery stones.

The king of Tyre is described by the sovereign Lord as blameless in the garden of Eden until he fell. What are we to make of this? The entire passage is quoted at the end of this post.

Ezekiel was a priest from Jerusalem, taken to Babylon in the first wave of exile. He wrote from the banks of the Kebar river in Babylon, 1:1). His visions are impressive. This is one of a number of prophecies against various peoples and rulers. Generally they are among the passages that seem less important. With the exception of a few lasting images (e.g. wheels within wheels and a valley of dry bones) the book of Ezekiel is not often the subject of sermons, or even of bible studies. It contains some fairly graphic sexual imagery in describing the failures of Judah, fantastic apocalyptic imagery, the repeated notion that the righteous can fall away and the wicked can turn to God with a change in final status, a massive rebuilt temple at the end of the book. There are echoes of some of these themes in the New Testament, especially in Revelation. It would seem that any interpretation of The Apocalypse of John that doesn’t take into account the Jewish context, including the book of Ezekiel, will probably miss some important points.

Ezekiel is admittedly a hard book to understand. Daniel Bodi in Ezekiel & Daniel (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary) comments that “Calvin never finished his commentary on Ezekiel and Luther put forth no major effort toward its interpretation.” (p. 403, I have the hard cover edition that includes the prophets from Isaiah to Daniel and page numbers are from this version.)

The king = Satan? According to the word of the Lord in this passage the king of Tyre was in Eden, the garden of God. Clearly this is a problem for any kind of literal interpretation of the passage. Some commentators (only a few) have assumed that the passage must be referring to Satan. After all, the garden was a real place some 3500 years earlier. The only “persons” in the garden were Adam, Eve, and Satan. It isn’t reasonable to assume the passage refers to Adam, therefore it must reference the fall of Satan. Ezekiel 28 along with a passage in Isaiah 14 “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!” are the primary references for this idea. It is highly unlikely that this is an appropriate interpretation of either passage, and it is a particularly strained interpretation of Ezekiel 28.

Most commentators I’ve found (and I haven’t been able to consult too many) agree that the passage refers to the king of Tyre and is a prophecy against Tyre and its king for their violence and greed. Daniel Block (NICOT: Ezekiel Chapters 25-48) comments on both the judgement speech against the king of Tyre in verses 1-10 and the lament in 11-19. These cannot be separated and both refer to the actual king and kingdom of Tyre (see also ch. 26-27). The king of Tyre was guilty of hubris evidenced, among other things, in dishonest trade. Application of this passage to the fall of Satan can only be made if it is ripped out of context and taken in isolation. Block quotes part of John Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah 14 and applies it to this passage as well: “But when passages of Scripture are taken up at random, and when no attention is paid to the context, we need not wonder that mistakes of this kind frequently arise. … But as these inventions have no probability whatever, let us pass them by as useless.” (p. 119)

The image of a garden and the cherub and similar winged human-animals are common in the ancient Near East with a number of parallels. Bodi notes:

Such parallels imply that in the description of a paradise-like garden, Ezekiel is drawing on stereotypical formulas, stock phrases, and traditional themes. The advantage of such a procedure is that it facilitates communication. His audience will quickly grasp the allusions made in Ezekiel’s message. (p. 467)

He also comments:

The growing collection of Phoenician ivories attests to the prominence of the cherub motif in Phoenician art and iconography. Especially noteworthy is the carving of a king-cherub, whose face appears to be a portrait of the king and under whose feet are seen alternating patterns of stylized tulip flower gardens and mountains. (p. 467)

There are better images of the cherub motif (human head, winged bull or lion body) I have found in books, but the one above is the best available image for use (credit British Museum), Phoenician origin, found in Nimrud with Egyptian influences, ca. 900 BC to 700 BC. Cherub motifs are not uncommon in the ancient Near East.

Ezekiel apparently has the Israelite story of the garden of the Lord in mind. There are multiple allusions back to Genesis 3. “In placing the king of Tyre in Eden Ezekiel is adapting a well-known biblical tradition of the garden of God as a utopian realm of prosperity and joy.” (Block p. 106) The king was (like adam) created by God, divinely authorized to rule, was not satisfied with his role and “fell,” he was punished by humiliation and death (paraphrasing Block pp. 117-118).

Joseph Blenkinsopp in Interpretation: Ezekiel comments on the garden of Eden (and points out that it is possible that both Genesis 3 and Ezekiel 28 point to some other then well known, but now lost to us, story):

It would be natural to assume that this lament draws on the familiar story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, but it is equally possible to read both as distinct forms of an ancient mythic narrative well known in the ancient Near East. Whereas here it serves to convey a political message, the Genesis version is given universal significance precisely by being placed at the beginning of the biblical story. In this, as in other instances, the first question to ask is not, Did it really happen? but, What does it mean? It invites attention to its symbolic meaning as a diagnosis of the human situation from a perspective that is both theologically and psychologically profound. Leaving aside the fate of Tyre, a matter of past history, what both versions convey is that sin emerges out of our interaction with the environment and in society … Both speak, in different ways, of the corruption of wisdom (see Ezek. 28:17), let us say of the human capacity for knowledge, mastery, and the quest for fullness of life. Both take seriously the consequences of deviating from the original purpose of creation while affirming the possibility of restoration. (pp. 124-125)

Ezekiel uses the imagery of the garden of God and Eden in chapter 31 as well, comparing Assyria and Egypt with mighty and beautiful trees, the cedars of Lebanon and trees in the garden. This use of Eden raises fewer questions because it is clearly meant as an analogy. However, it provides additional evidence for the importance of this imagery in Ezekiel’s community.

So What? Whether Ezekiel has Genesis 3 in mind, or both Genesis 3 and Ezekiel build on another story, this passage tells us something about the way the ancient Israelites viewed their stories of origin recorded for us in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, in particular in this case Genesis 3. There was not a wooden literalism here. Although it can offend our expectations, it didn’t contradict their understanding of the stories, or the imagery contained in the stories, to place the King of Tyre as a guardian cherub in the garden of Eden. Wow!

Note as well, that this passage in Ezekiel isn’t a story with a message. Nor is it a historical account told from the perspective of the Israelites as we find in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles (where other written sources were also used and acknowledged). This is the word of the Lord given to Ezekiel. If we take the inspiration of Scripture seriously this can’t be brushed away easily. Many claim Scripture as the word of God and then assert that “God does not lie” to drive home particular preferred interpretations. I have often been confronted with just such an argument when discussing the proper interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis. Of course, it is also said that we should let Scripture interpret Scripture. Genesis 3 and Ezekiel 28 should help us understand what this means and help guide our understanding of the forms and genres that can be used to convey the word of God.

In so far as we are able, we need to read the stories with ancient, not modern, eyes.

What do you make of the king of Tyre in Eden, the garden of God?

How should we interpret such passages?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

(This is a repost – but worth our consideration.)

Ezekiel 28:11-19

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“‘You were the seal of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden,
the garden of God;
every precious stone adorned you:
carnelian, chrysolite and emerald,
topaz, onyx and jasper,
lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.
Your settings and mountings were made of gold;
on the day you were created they were prepared.
You were anointed as a guardian cherub,
for so I ordained you.
You were on the holy mount of God;
you walked among the fiery stones.
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created
till wickedness was found in you.
Through your widespread trade
you were filled with violence,
and you sinned.
So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,
and I expelled you, guardian cherub,
from among the fiery stones.
Your heart became proud
on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom
because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
I made a spectacle of you before kings.
By your many sins and dishonest trade
you have desecrated your sanctuaries.
So I made a fire come out from you,
and it consumed you,
and I reduced you to ashes on the ground
in the sight of all who were watching.
All the nations who knew you
are appalled at you;
you have come to a horrible end
and will be no more.’”

It has been a very busy start to the academic year. I’ve been planning to dig into the book (and video course) by Doug and Jonathan Moo Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World, but haven’t had the time. Today, finally, we return to look at chapter 4, Members, Rulers, and Keepers of Creation (episode 3 in the video series).

We start by looking the (in)significance of humans. We are creatures like all other creatures on earth. The study of biology shows just how true this is – from our genome to the chemistry and material structures that allow us to live and function. Biblically, this extends to our very souls. Jonathan emphasizes this in both the book and the lecture.

As I begin writing this chapter, I (Jonathan) am sitting near the shore of the Pend Orielle River in the far northeastern corner of Washington State n a cool and cloudy August morning. The breeze is rustling the aspen leaves above me and causing a mixed forest of aspen, western redcedar, hemlock, Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, larch, white pine, grand fir, and lodgepole pine on the hills across the river sway gently back and forth. Three white-tailed deer bucks are slowly picking their way along the opposite shore, and a red squirrel is chattering loudly behind me. An osprey has just flown into a Douglas fir nearby. …

All of these creatures … and even the inanimate rocks and soil and water and clouds, are, I know, bringing God praise and glory simply by being what they were created to be. Yet what, then, I wonder, of me and my kind? (p. 68)

The picture at the top of this post is an osprey, although perched on a dead birch on a lake in northern Minnesota where I enjoyed watching it fish and eat rather than along a river in Washington state. Below is an image of the osprey eating the fish I watched it catch. As a human I am not a bird, or a cat, or a chimpanzee. But it is hard to identify precisely the features that set us apart. Turning to scripture it isn’t the soul. Jonathan points out: “We, like all other living things, are earthly creatures, formed from the dust of the earth, adam from the adamah. Our possession of  the life-giving breath of God, making each of us a nephesh or psychē or “soul,” does not distinguish us from other living things, all of whom are also animated by God’s same life-giving Spirit.” (p. 70)

We are reminded of our insignificance in many passages.

A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8

As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
Ps 103:15-16

Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:14

But we have a special relationship and vocation. These do set us apart. The verses from Psalm 103 above are bracketed by verses comparing God’s care for humans to that of a good father for his children.

As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.
…
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
Ps 103:13-14, 17-18

Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 take this further and identify a human vocation.

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet
Psalm 8:4-7

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

Our position in creation is defined by relationship and vocation. As humans we are created to be in relationship with God and to serve as his image in the world. To rule and subdue as his image is not a calling to destroy and deface. Rather it calls for care of the ‘garden’ extended to all of creation, to fight against God’s enemies, to rule for the good of the ruled not aggrandizement of the ruler. We rule under God, to image God’s care to all of creation as best we can.

Godly rule is described in Psalm 72 and embodied in the life of Jesus. “As Christians, we will finally only understand that humanity’s rule ought to look like by focusing on Christ.”  (p. 72)

Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.
Ps 72:1-4

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
Phil. 2:5-7

Our vocation as the image of God is a corporate human calling, it is always subordinate to God, and it is for the good of the whole of creation. God has made his covenant with all leaving creatures. Here we turn to Genesis 9:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. … God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Gen 9:8-10,17

Jonathan concludes the chapter:

But creation care is first and last simply about being human. It is about becoming who we have been created to be as God’s image bearers in the community of creation, living as God calls us to in all of life – in our eating and sleeping, our working and playing, our planting and harvesting, our buying and selling, our loving and dying. The biblical vision is a holistic, all encompassing one, and it includes us all. (p. 86)

Obviously, this is only a few brief ideas and highlights from the chapter – but covers an essential point. Creation care isn’t relegated to a small cadre of specialists, and it should flow from our nature as children of God created in his image.

How does this vision of our calling as God’s image on earth and God’s care for creation change our understanding of ‘creation care’?

How do our insignificance and our significance come together to shape our understanding of ourselves and our role in God’s creation?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

How can you be a Christian?

In my experience there are three big subtexts to this question these days, science, women, and sexuality. Other questions are important as well … but these are the showstoppers.

How can you be a Christian when it is antiscience, oppresses women, and is homophobic?

Rebecca McLaughlin addresses these as seven, eight, and nine in her book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. We’ve looked at the first two of these, and turn today to the third: Isn’t Christianity homophobic?

Rebecca argues that while Christianity does expect a rather specific sexual morality that limits intimate sexual relations to marriage between a man and a woman, the label ‘homophobic’ overstates the case. You are invited to pick up the book and read her arguments in their entirety. It would make good a good conversation starter for face to face discussion. I find this topic a hard one to address in the rather impersonal forum of a blog.

Rebecca makes a couple of points in the chapter that are worth discussing in this format, however. The focus on sex and sexuality undermines Christian community. We need friends and and extended family who walk along side us. “In modern society, we are led to believe we cannot live without sex. In fact, I believe we are more likely to wither without friend and family love.” (p. 160) Recounting a conversation with a friend, Rebecca continues:

She said it seemed unfair that same-sex-attracted Christians should be sentenced to loneliness. I was reading the book of Acts at the time. I observed that, while the first Christians faced every kind of suffering, even being stoned to death, there was one struggle they did not face: loneliness. If we reduce Christian community to sexual relationships and the nuclear family, we are utterly failing to deliver on biblical ethics.

The point is underlined by the Bible’s view of singleness. Jesus himself never married. While Paul commends marriage, he values singleness more (1 Cor. 7:38). Single people are vital to the church family – which is the primary family unit in Christian terms – and should experience deep love and fellowship with other believers. Where church culture inhibits this by overemphasizing marriage and parenting, Christians need to fight for culture change and embody the biblical reality that the local church is truly their family. Enabling same-sex-attracted Christians who choose to remain single to thrive in church means becoming more biblical, not less.

Many churches do a great disservice to many people with an over emphasis on the importance of an intact nuclear family, mom, dad, 2.5 kids and a couple of cats. (Dogs are OK too – but I prefer cats.) Adults can find themselves single through a wide variety of circumstances. For some marriage just never happens, for others it isn’t an aim as time passes, some are divorced or widowed.  A childless couple may have each other, but are all to often excluded as well. Elderly couples can feel the same detachment. But, all should feel welcome and at home in the church. Close friendships should be cultivated rather than avoided.  Families grow up. Marriage (at least the sex part of it), after all, is a temporary state …  until death do you part. The people of God is forever. Doesn’t Jesus say:

The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. Luke 20:34-36 (see also Mt. 22:29-30 and Mk 12:22-25)

There is much more that could be discussed. But this is enough for now and for this format.

What can we do in the church to foster community for all?

Is this even a role for the church?

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How can you be a Christian?

In my experience there are three big subtexts to this question these days, science, women, and sexuality. Other questions are important as well … but these are the showstoppers.

How can you be a Christian when it is antiscience, oppresses women, and is homophobic?

Rebecca McLaughlin addresses these as seven, eight, and nine in her book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. Last week we looked at the first of these – hasn’t science disproved Christianity?

The short answer to the second question doesn’t Christianity denigrate women? is a resounding no. Christianity might not go as far as some in our culture today would like, but it certainly does not denigrate women. Women play important roles in many places throughout Scripture. I’ve highlighted a wide selection of these in several posts – most recently A Look at Biblical Womanhood and Women of the New Testament.

Rebecca emphasizes the way women are portrayed in the Gospels to make the point.

The portrayal of women in the Gospels – particularly in Luke’s Gospel – is stunningly countercultural. Luke constantly pairs men with women, and when he compares the two, it is almost always in the woman’s favor. Before Jesus’ birth, two people are visited by the angel Gabriel and told they are going to become parents. One is Zechariah who becomes John the Baptist’s father. The other is Jesus’ mother Mary. Both ask Gabriel how this can be. But while Zechariah is punished with months of dumbness for his unbelief, Mary is only commended. (p. 136)

The pairings continue – with Simeon and Anna, the lost coin and the lost sheep, the parable of the persistent widow followed by the pharisee and the tax collector. The Twelve were all male – but for the most part the segregation stops there. Women were with Jesus and involved in his ministry from beginning to end, at the cross, the first at the empty tomb. And turning to Acts, they were with the apostles in Jerusalem where … They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. (1:14)

Many of the first converts in Acts or mentioned in Paul’s letters are women, important for the prominent roles they play … Junia, Lydia, Priscilla among them.

There is a reason why women are heavily represented in the church today and throughout history. For all the human failings that crop up from time to time, women acknowledged as equal before God. “Jesus’s valuing of women in unmistakable. In a culture in which women were devalues and often exploited, it underscores their equal status before God and his desire for personal relationship with them.” (p. 138)

Paul puts it succinctly in Gal. 3:26-29: So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

This is powerful stuff.

But then we come to marriage. Here Rebecca and I part ways, slightly. This isn’t surprising in a book published by Crossway and TGC. She looks at Ephesians 5:21-33 (below) and focuses on the metaphor. “Ultimately, my marriage isn’t about me and my husband any more than Romeo and Juliet is about the actors playing the title roles.” (p. 140) and later “Ephesians 5 grounds our roles in marriage not on gendered psychology but on Christ-centered theology.” (p. 141) Here is the point as I paraphrase it – when we play our proper roles in marriage we are enacting the metaphor and mirroring God to the world. Women submit as to God and husbands love as Christ.

But read the passage below. Is this really about enacting a metaphor? I would suggest that the first line interprets the whole. It is about mutual submission in a partnership before God that revolutionizes relationships. Paul uses a metaphor that illustrates the truly revolutionary nature of our relationships in Christ. Throughout history, husbands have generally been the ones with power and have often exercised it for their own benefit and women have often resorted to nagging and subterfuge (a kind of revolt) to assert and strengthen their own positions. I rather expect that this was as true in the first century Greek and Roman world as at any other time in history. But in the Christian message this should all go out the window along with many other human failings. Positions of power should be exercised on behalf of the others involved, and this includes the husband’s role toward the wife. The socially acceptable practice of women gossiping about and undermining their husbands is no better than practice of autocratic authority.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. … However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

No mere human truly stands in the place of Christ. But we are all called to follow his lead. Marriage isn’t about authority and submission. When the topper question is “who gets the last word?” the focus is entirely wrong.

But on this Rebecca and I both agree. The command to follow Christ does not denigrate women, in fact it empowers and promotes women in ways that are more often than not revolutionary in the surrounding culture.

Much more could be said. Rebecca has a discussion of abortion and sexual freedom, both issues where Christianity is said to denigrate women. And she does not really touch on the questions surrounding women in ministry. But this is a good start.

Does Christianity denigrate women?

What do you think of the marriage metaphor?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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This is the next question in Rebecca McLaughlin’s new book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion. Anyone who has read my posts over the years will know that my answer to this question is a resounding no. Rebecca agrees and runs through a number of arguments. I’ll take some of her points, but approach the question from a slightly different angle.

First, what is the essence of Christianity? The Apostle’s Creed (see below) is a good starting point. There is absolutely nothing in the Creed that is disproved, or even addressed by science. Nothing here about the age of the earth or the shape creation took. The virgin birth and the resurrection are specific acts of God, and thus not anything that science can address. They are not ‘normal’ and repeatable,  but both Christians and atheists agree here. Our future hope is for a new creation. Again not something addressed by science.

We have learned through the years that some human ideas about the nature of creation are wrong. The earth isn’t flat. It is easier to describe heavy objects moving around light ones than vice versa, the cosmos is unfathomably large and old. Humans are connected to other animals. There are not storehouses of hail above the firmament. But nothing here challenges the essence of Christianity.

The scientist believes that the ‘laws’ that govern the universe are rational and can be determined using reason, observation, mathematics, logic. The world makes sense. The Christian believes that the world makes sense because God is the creator. This belief played a role in the foundation of modern science. It hasn’t always played out as was anticipated (the earth is old, not the center of the solar system etc.), but this doesn’t challenge the underlying idea. The atheist has another ground for this belief.

Rebecca quotes William Phillips, a Nobel prize winning physicist (you can see his article Does Science Make Belief in God Obsolete?):

I see an orderly, beautiful universe in which nearly all physical phenomena can be understood from a few simple mathematical equations. I see a universe that, had it been constructed slightly differently, would never have given birth to stars and planets, let alone bacteria and people. And there is no good scientific reason for why the universe should not have been different. Many good scientists have concluded from these observations that an intelligent God must have chosen to create the universe with such beautiful, simple, and life-giving properties.

Many other equally good scientists are nevertheless atheists. Both conclusions are positions of faith. (p. 129)

The creed itself doesn’t address how the “I believe” should influence our actions, but the New Testament has a great deal to say about this as I outlined in the post last Thursday. Science can’t tell us whether such an ethic is right or wrong. Rebecca looks at the question of ‘rape’ – forced sexual attention. The practice is rather common among primates, something we observe but don’t generally label as ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ When it comes to humans the situation is different.

Christians ground human uniqueness on the biblical claim that we are made in the image of God … and charged with moral responsibility. To maintain their beliefs about goodness, fairness, justice, and so forth, a secular humanist too must hold that humans are moral beings, distinct from other primates. The question is, on what grounds? And ultimately the answer cannot be scientific. Science can tell us how things are. It can explain why, for instance, a man might have the drive to commit sexual assault as an effective means of propagating his genes. But it cannot tell us why he would be wrong to succumb to that drive.  … But to call rape wrong, we need a narrative about human identity that goes beyond what science or sociology can tell us. (p. 123)

As Phillips concluded about the orderliness of the cosmos, both are positions of faith. We can’t get away from some kind of overarching view of the way things are and/or should be that rests on faith or experience rather than cold logical deduction.

Religious faith, Christian faith in particular, faces a significant challenge in the Western world because scientific materialism and secular humanism has become the default faith for many. But science has not and cannot disprove Christian faith.

What other arguments would you add?

What would you challenge?

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Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

I began leading a discussion class last Sunday using The New Testament You Never Knew, featuring N. T. Wright and Michael Bird. In the initial session Tom Wright comments that the New Testament is explosive and powerful.

I think anyone who picks up the New Testament will find, if they give it a chance, that it is one of the most explosive books ever written. … it forms one complete, rather strange, but very powerful book.

He goes on to say that it is powerful because Jesus and his followers believed that he, Jesus, was the place where heaven and earth come together. These comments are in the first minute or so of the 5 minute preview of Session 1 that Zondervan has posted on YouTube.

In our class, two of the discussion questions in the study guide brought a conversation that is quite pertinent given the last two posts on Rebecca McLaughlin’s book (Religion->Violence? and To Tell the Truth) and the comments that followed.

In what ways could we consider the writings of the New Testament “Explosive” and “Powerful”?

Have you experienced this power unleashed in your own life through the teachings contained in the New Testament?

A friend noted that it was reading the New Testament that brought him to Christ, back when he was about middle school age. It wasn’t a Romans Road or Bridge presentation. It wasn’t any conviction of his own sinfulness or his need to be saved from fiery torment or destruction in the afterlife. Although he does believe that “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” as Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 15:3, an appreciation of the importance of that came aspect of the faith later. It was simply sitting down and reading the New Testament – in large chunks.

The explosive power of the New Testament started with a realization of the ethic of love and forgiveness and the revolutionary nature of the kingdom of God contained in the teachings of Jesus, and later in the letters of Paul. This simply isn’t like anything else. Of course, the texts can be perverted by human seeking after power and wealth. But an honest and complete reading just doesn’t support those interpretations.

I would say it is the same for me – although the realization of the explosive power of the New Testament came much later than Middle School. I’ve written about this before and gathered some of the texts that impress me and provide an answer to the question “how can you be a Christian?” so often posed in our secular culture. It is worth listing them again.

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. …Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Lk 6:27-28, 31)  (See also Mt 5:43-45)

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:25-28) (See also Mt 23:8-12, Mk 10:42-45, Lk 22:24-27, Jn 13:14)

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mk 12:29-31) (See also Mt 22:36-40, Lk 10:25-28)

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn 13:34-35)

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. (Rm 12:10)

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (Rm 12:16)

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Rm 12:18)

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, … are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rm 13:8-10)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7)

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Ga 6:2)

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ep 4:2-3)

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Ph 2:3-4)

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. … If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. (Ja 2:1, 8-9)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 Jn 4:7-8)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 Jn 4:16,19-21)

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. (2 Jn 5-6)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” … Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mk 10:17,21) (See also Mt 19:21, Lk 12:15, Lk 12:33-34, Lk 18:18,22)

This is softened a little later in the New Testament, I think because call isn’t to radical poverty, but to radical love. Love of wealth hinders, even prevents, love for one another.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Tm 6:17-19)

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. … Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (He 13:1-5)

And now a slightly different set of directions – but related to those above.

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. (Rm 13:13)

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. …   But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Ga 5:16, 19-26)

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. … Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. … Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ep 4:25-32)

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. (Ep 5:3-4)

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. …But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. … Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col 3: 5, 8, 12-14)

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  (Ja 3:13-17)

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. (1 Pt 3:8-9)

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. (2 Pt 1:5-7)

If we consider these instructions given to the people of God (aka “the church”)  in the pages of the New Testament we will have a much better understanding of Christian faith. And bear in mind the frequent warning that “by their fruit you will recognize them” – both those who are true and those who are false.

None of us will accomplish these with perfection – but they should be the aim and the ideal.  If they aren’t, then something is wrong. But it isn’t Christian faith that is wrong.

In what ways do you consider the writings of the New Testament “Explosive” and “Powerful”?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

The next question in Rebecca McLaughlin’s new book Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion turns to the Bible. How can you take the Bible literally?  The question, however, misses the point. As Christians we want to read the Bible faithfully – which means literally only when and how it was intended to be read literally. Metaphor, parable, poetry, apocalyptic imagery – all of these are featured in the Bible. We have to start by realizing that, as Rebecca puts in, “both literal and figurative language can describe reality. We can tell lies with literal words and speak the truth through metaphor. Indeed when it comes to the Bible, some of the deepest truths are metaphorically expressed.” (p. 95)

This isn’t really controversial. We all know that Jesus as word, vine, bread, water, shepherd, and lamb convey important aspects of his person and his mission metaphorically. Of course, as Rebecca points out, – sometimes we disagree. Arguments about the nature of the Lord’s Supper hinge on the issue of metaphorical versus literal. The nature of the elements remains a big issue for some of us.

How do we discern what is intended as literal and what is not? To some it seems a slippery slope. If we hold (as I do) that the story of Jonah is a parable rather than a history, doesn’t this open the door to reject the miracles of Jesus recorded in the Gospels? While recognizing that the ancient authors felt free to rearrange details in relating the story of Jesus’ earthly ministry, it is clear that the miracles are an important aspect of Jesus’ identity. In fact, they generally have both figurative and literal meaning. Recognizing the figurative meaning doesn’t require dismissing the literal meaning. On the other hand … the parables of Jesus are stories designed to tell important truths. Consider the parable of the good Samaritan.  “[T]here is no obvious clue within the text that Jesus is not recounting actual events. But if we are familiar with his teaching style, we understand instinctively that this is not a crime scene report, but a parable told for its meaning.” (p. 99)

In fact, very little of the Bible is intended to have crime scene report type accuracy. It was written and compiled under different conventions to convey the true story of God’s mission in the world culminating in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and in the establishment of the church and pointing toward the future hope.The historical portions of the Bible are “theological histories” arranged and written to convey a theological message. As Rebecca points out “our modern sensibilites make us less inclined to change the order in which events took place. But the genre of historical writing was different in the first century than it is today. … Our sense of location can also be more rigid than that of our forebears.” This is not a problem to be solved, but the nature of the documents that faithfully conveys to us the mission of God.

There are lessons here for both sides. “We are inclined to assume that we are more sophisticate than a text written thousands of years ago. But the more we read the Bible, the more we find we are not. MIT professor Rosalind Picard discovered this when she was a teenager and a “proud atheist.” She thought the Bible would be “full of fantastical crazy stuff,” but she was surprised: “I started reading the Bible,” she recalls, “and it started to change me.”  (p. 101)

My story is somewhat different – but the impact is similar. As I have read and studied the Bible without trying to force fit it into some preconceived mold, it becomes apparent that it is a very sophisticated text with layers of meaning we oft ignore.  And that brings me to the other side. The lesson for the church is to appreciate and engage with the sophistication of the text. To read it for the intended meaning rather than force fitting it to a thoroughly modern notion of the forms that we think it should use to convey truth. The fundamentalist and evangelical focus on inerrancy, culminating in some rather ridiculous (in my opinion) mental gymnastics to make everything fit thoroughly misunderstands the sophistication and depth of the Bible. More meaning is conveyed in story than in a crime scene report.

Yes we can believe the resurrection, (Rebecca has a more extended discussion of this, but see also N. T. Wright (This excellent hour long lecture for example), among others, for details.) And it doesn’t stand on the rather fragile foundation of a strictly literal approach to the Bible.

Do you agree that we tend to undervalue the sophistication of the Bible?  If so, how?

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After a long hiatus, I return to look at Rebecca McLaughlin’s book Confronting Christianity. Bertrand Russell (Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? in Why I am Not a Christian), and more recently Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) have been quick to point out an apparent connection between religion and violence. Islamic conquest of the Holy Land and Christian Crusades to retake the land play a role in the conversation. Of course we can go even earlier to the Israelite conquest of Canaan as related in Joshua and other historical narratives, including parts of Judges and Samuel.

Rebecca argues that the reality is far more complex and if we look carefully, we must attribute the cause to the depravity of the human heart. Yes, Christianity has been co-opted to support and propagate human violence against other humans. If we deny this we will lose all credibility, the history is far too clear. Christianity has been used to justify slavery, racial purity, wars, and massacres (Spanish colonization of the America’s may have resulted in the intentional killing of millions although without accurate statistics and a separation of death by disease from death by violence it is impossible to be definite).  All of “Christian” Europe and the Americas has been complicit in this to one extent or another. Nor is Africa free of sin in this regard (consider the Rawandan genocide which, while not a “Christian” war, did involve Christians in unfortunate ways as Pope Francis acknowledged).

Of course it isn’t just Christianity. Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are also guilty. The diaspora has given Jews less power, but they too have been guilty given the chance. And it isn’t just religion. Secular regimes established in Karl Marx’s aim to remove religion as “the opium of the people,” and the “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions” have no better record and arguably a worse one. Stalin and Mao effectively killed off large numbers of people. Stalin’s great purge of 1937-38 resulted in 0.7 to 1.2 million deaths. Robert Thurston puts documented executions in 1937-38 at 681,692 almost equally split between the years (p. 63 Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia). China’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution resulted in millions of deaths – perhaps 10’s of millions.

So does religion lead to violence? History tells us that it certainly can lead to great atrocities when used to define tribes of people as “us” and “them.” Power and the advancement of me and my people play a big role. But it isn’t religion itself that breeds violence.

So what about Christianity?

Looking at the New Testament rather than focusing on Western history suggests that Christianity itself is not the root cause. In fact, we would be better off if more of those who claim to be Christians put their faith into practice. None of us really know what we are capable (good or evil, heroic or cowardly) until put to the test. As Rebecca writes, and most of us must honestly agree, “But put me in a situation where violence is to my advantage, and who knows what I might be capable of. I would like to think I would have given my life to resist the Nazis. But my moral courage has never been tested in that way, and the older I get, the less confident I am of my own virtue.” (p. 93) I like to think that I would have seen the errors in US treatment of Native American tribes, African slaves and Asian immigrants, if living in the late 1800’s as I do today, but we are all blindered by our situation. We need to look carefully at the New Testament to remove these blinders. After the death and resurrection of Jesus the gospel is to be preached to all peoples. If you think about it, there is no clear dividing line between us and them when all are invited in. Even a current difference need not be permanent. Christians are called to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt. 5:44) or as Luke puts it:

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. … Do to others as you would have them do to you. … But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. (Lk 6:27-28, 31, 35-38)

We are certainly not called to use power to hurt the weak and vulnerable. Nor to topple the powerful. Aggression (hostile or violent behavior or attitudes intending to dominate, master, or eliminate another) even when done in the name of Christ, is not Christian.

Rebecca concludes her chapter:

Does religion cause violence? It certainly can. But millions of people are driven by their faith to love and serve others. And Christianity in particular, has served as a fertilizer for democracy, a motivation for justice, and a mandate for healing. If we think the world would be less violent without it, we may need to check our facts. (p. 94)

To what extent is Christianity responsible for violence?

To what extent can we separate our faith from the evil desires and actions of humans?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.