I can’t say I believe in canonization, but I do like Mother Teresa so I’ve awakened an old series on her that focuses (eventually) on her experience of darkness. (image)

Some time ago and much to my delight, in the mail came the letters of Mother Teresa called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. The book stirred controversy because the depth and duration of her darkness became public.

We can’t understand Mother Teresa without viewing her through the lens of asceticism, something almost entirely foreign to Protestants and especially to American evangelicals. She joined a long, long list of Roman Catholics who have surrendered the pleasures of life — marriage and sexual relations, the comforts of a private life, the growth of income and savings, and the independence of making our own decisions.

Furthermore, as I’ve already witnessed on the internet, some Protestants (esp conservative evangelicals) have already rendered judgment on her eternal salvation. Not for me to judge. I want to look at her private writings to see what we can make of this extraordinary woman.

She was born Gonxha Agnes Bojaxhiu in Albania in 1910 and her native language was Serbo-Croatian. At twelve she knew she was called to the poor but it was not until she was 18 that she left home and went to Ireland to become a nun. Later she established the Missionaries of Charity. She later writes: “and since then [leaving home], this forty years, I’ve never doubted even for a second that I’ve done the right thing; it was the will of God. It was His choice” (14).

The introduction, by her editor and the director of the Mother Teresa Center, Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., emphasizes her desire that the letters and journals not be made public since they would attract too much attention to her and not to Jesus. And the introduction raises the issue of her “darkness.”

M. Teresa joined the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary (IBVM) called the Loreto Sisters and expressed over and over that her mission was to “save souls” or to bring Christ to souls and souls to Christ.

Already in 1937 (she was 27 years old), and just months before she took her vows, she said this to a Yugoslavian priest, her former confessor: “Do not think that my spiritual life is strewn with roses — that is the flower which I hardly ever find on my way. Quite the contrary, I have more often as my companion ‘darkness.’ And when the night becomes very thick — and it seems to me as if I will end up in hell — then I simply offer myself to Jesus” (20).

Here is what I see involved in M. Teresa’s darkness: her piety somehow must be involved. I would characterize it as radical self-denial, rigorous questioning introspection, perfection, radical discipline and three cardinal themes: service, sacrifice, and suffering. (But more later in this post.)

She made a vow in April of 1942 that I think shaped her life and her darkness: “I made a vow to God, binding under [pain of] of mortal sin, to give to God anything that He may ask, ‘Not to refuse Him anything’” (28). This vow to surrender all to God, regardless of what was being asked to be surrendered, led M. Teresa to a life that began the day and shaped the day and did not end until her strength was gone to give everything to God. Everything.

No matter how many other things might be involved, M. Teresa set herself up for a kind of burn-out from the very beginning of her apostolate to the poorest of the poor. I don’t have enough information to say this was the whole. But what I see is a piety driven by self-giving, self-sacrifice, and the need to enter into suffering in order to participate in the “thirst of Jesus”, the thirst Jesus had for the poor and for others to come to him.

M. Teresa lived in constant awareness not to let her “reverend I” become central.

M. Teresa said her sisters were to “be faithful in little practices of love, of little sacrifices” and she combined this with “responding immediately to the demands of the present moment” (34).

M. Teresa had a mystical encounter with Jesus on 10 Sept 1946 that led her from the convent in Calcutta to found the Missionaries of Charity, her apostolate to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. This encounter with Jesus is where she heard “Come Be My Light,” the title of the book. This vision involved the thirst of Jesus for the poor; it involved his questioning of her “Will you refuse me?” and it involved calling her to identify completely with the poor and to go to the “holes of the poor” (44).

She confided much of this vision with her spiritual director, Father Van Exem, and it can be found in this book at pp. 47-52. (Very important pages I think.)

M. Teresa had the determination of a terrier, and chps 4-6 illustrate this over and over in the book.

Here’s the big picture. M. Teresa, to fulfill the mystical vision she got from Jesus about forming the Missionaries of Charity for the poorest of poor in Calcutta, had to get permissions at various levels:

Her vow as a Loreto sister had to be annulled since it was conventual.
Her spiritual director had to give her permission.
The Archbishop of India had to give her permission.
The Pope, or Rome, had to give her permission.

When she first told her director, Fr. Van Exem, he told her to keep the idea to herself for months. Then she was given permission to work with the Archbishop, a certain Perier. The latter simply wanted time to gain clarity of her motive and the will of God. He deliberated for a long, long time — about a year. Then Rome was slow and then she was saddled with some criticisms and some envy and some politics and it took a long, long time for her to have a vision and to establish a ministry.

The determination of M. Teresa is a powerful testimony of her will, her confidence in the vision, and her commitment not to let go until God had gained the upper hand. Her determination reflects her faith.
“Day after day,” she writes to the Archbishop, “hour after hour, He asks the same question: “Wilt thou refuse to do this for Me?” I tell Him that the answer is with you” (66).

The Archbishop both knew the power was in his hands and he knew as well that he had to discern God’s will for the missionary work in Calcutta. The time of testing drew out of M. Teresa clarity as to what the Missionaries of Charity would do: essentially they would sell out for God, their fires would burn for the missionary work to the poor, they would totally depend on God and identify with the poor.

Involved in this time of testing were some potent experiences of union with Christ. I think these times of union also influenced her perception of darkness: “There [where she was then residing] as if Our Lord just gave Himself to me — to the full. The sweetness & consolation & union of those 6 months passed but too soon” (83).

She speaks of a three-fold vision of being summoned by Jesus and the crowd of the poor to “Come,” of Mary’s words for her to “Bring them to Jesus — carry Jesus to them,” and a vision of darkness enveloping the crowd and words from Jesus and Mary to go to the crowd. “Will you refuse to do this for me?”

Once she gained approval, however, there were still challenges and tests. She got final permission from Rome on August 8, 1948. 9 days later, August 17, 1948, “clad in a white sari with a blue border, Mother Teresa … set out to begin a life as a Missionary of “Charity” (121). She chose to leave with just five rupees.

Mother Teresa’s launching of the apostolate called the Missionaries of Charity was an immediate success, in all the right ways. The story is found in chp 7 of her book of letters.

How often do we know the “inside” story — in both the sense of what is going on behind closed doors and what is going on in the heart of someone — as a successful story unfolds? Should we? How many know how hard it was for many to get ministries off the ground? How many have suffered dissension over the formation of ministries?

When she left the Loreto Sisters convent, here was her prayer:

O Jesus, only love of my heart, I wish to suffer what I suffer and all Thou wilt have me suffer, for Thy pure love not because of the merits I may acquire, nor for the rewards Thou has promised me but only to please Thee, to praise Thee, to bless Thee as well in sorrow as in joy.

She struggled even to find a place to say — rules of orders not permitting her to stay in monasteries or convents. She eventually found a place to rent. On December 21, she entered the slums of Calcutta. First day reflections:

“We started at Taltala and went to every Catholic family … children were all over the place … I spoke very, very little, I just did some washing of sores, and dressings, gave medicine to some… What poverty. What actual suffering.”

She was tempted to return; her legs ached from trying to find a place to stay. She suffered some “tortures of loneliness” (134). She fought tears.

Sister Agnes, at that time Shubashini Das, joined her. Within a year she had twelve sisters.

Students from her former convent started joining her and this caused dissension at the former convent.

The Missionaries of Charity finally received an official status and this was M. Teresa’s statement of their piety:

“Those who join this Institute, therefore, are resolved to spend themselves unremittingly in seeking out, in towns and villages, even amid squalid surroundings, the poorer, the abandoned, the sick, the infirm, the dying; in taking care of them, rendering help to them, visiting them assiduously and instructing them in Christian Doctrine, in endeavouring to the utmost to bring about their conversion and sanctification … AND in performing any other similar apostolic works and services, however lowly and mean they may appear” (139).

She was deeply devoted to Mary and to the Rosary. Then she formed a hospital of sorts called the “Treasure House” and founded “second selves” — others who would pray with them and suffer with them. By the end of 1952 there were 26 members and in February of 1953 they moved to a new home, still the administrative center of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta.

In 1953, M. Teresa wrote to the Archbishop these words: “Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. I has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work’.”

Now the big one: How to understand Mother Teresa’s darkness?

Here are some of the many, many statements about darkness she herself made, statements that contradict other statements of faith and love for God/Jesus during the same period. She lived a paradox of unflinching faith and steely obedience in the face of (perceived) emotional distance from God. (Part of this emotional distance has to be explained by the glory of her own emotional union with Jesus prior to her calling to the poorest of the poor. She had been to the mountaintop and nothing seemed to count after that.)

“How long will Our Lord stay away?” (158)
“for within me everything is icy cold” (163)
“The more I want Him the less I am wanted” (164)
“He is destroying everything in me” (169)
“no faith — no love — no zeal” (169)
“I understand a little the tortures of hell — without God” (172)
“I did not know that love could make one suffer so much — this is of longing — of pain human but caused by the divine” (180)
“The child of your love — and now become as the most hated one” (186).
“If there be no God — there can be no soul. — If there is no soul then Jesus — You also are not true” (193).
“I no longer pray” (193).
“I am perfectly happy to be like this to the end of life” (198).
“I have come to love the darkness” (208).

First I want to sort out how her spiritual advisors and how she saw her darkness.

First, what was her darkness? An emotional disconnect between her soul and God — involving her relationship to Jesus and to the Eucharist and to others. As I said on Monday, I think some of this is connected to her piety — with themes like self-denial, sacrifice and suffering shaping her consciousness — and even to emotional burnout, but this does not explain it adequately.

Second, her response was three-fold: blind faith in God regardless of what she felt and “smiles” that did two things — expressed visibly her faith and showed to others that suffering can be met with the loving smile of Jesus — and near total silence with all but three advisors.

Brian Kolodiejchuk, the one who has organized these letters and private writings into a whole for the Vatican (?), routinely “interprets” her darkness.

“Interior darkness was Mother Teresa’s priviledged way of entering into the mystery of the Cross of Christ” (156).
It was her participation in the (suffering) thirst of Jesus for souls.
It was a “veritable martyrdom of desire” (180).
Jesus “was living in and through her without her being able to savor the sweetness of His presence” (212).
An identification with Christ and with the suffering of others.

Archbishop Perier:

Suggested at least once she was fatigued (158).
Her experience is the dark night of the soul of the mystics (164)
Purification and protection against pride (167)

Fr. Joseph Neuner was the most helpful of all of her advisors:

“It was simply the dark night of which all masters of spiritual life know — though I never found it so deeply, and for so many years as in her” (214). [This is why I think it is unwise, unless prefaced and followed by lots of nuance, of calling M. Teresa’s darkness the dark night of the soul. It went on for too long.]

Here’s the statement of his that changed her life: “The sure sign of God’s hidden presence in this darkness is the thirst for God, the craving for at least a ray of His light” (214). And, “Thus the only response to this trial is the total surrender to God and the acceptance of the darkness in union with Jesus” (214).

Thus, her darkness was participation in the suffering death of Jesus. It was union with Jesus’ pain for others. It was this statement that led her to say she had come to love the darkness.

Mother Teresa:

“When outside — in the work — or meeting people — there is a presence — of somebody living very close — in very me” (211).

M. Teresa did not think her suffering was the dark night of the soul. “She had the intuition and now a confirmation from her spiritual director, that, though the sufferings were similar, their purpose was different” (218). She was not being purged; she was in union with the sufferings of Christ.

It took one step for her and others to see in her darkness the experience of Paul in Colossians: “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”

One of her famous prayers and mantras: “Jesus I accept whatever you give — and I give whatever you take” (225). “If I ever become a saint — I will surely be one of ‘darkness.’ I will continually be absent from heaven — to light the light of those in darkness on earth” (230).

Now I’d like to (attempt to) put together how I understand her “darkness.” I have been asked about this wherever I’ve been and so, after reading the new book I’d like to post these thoughts. I only know what I have seen in the pages of her own writings.

She experienced her “darkness” as an emotional dryness. She said in 1967, after two decades of struggling with the darkness, this: “I know this is only feelings” (257). At the phenomenological level, as she says things herself, what she experienced was a lack of emotional bonding with God, with Jesus, with the Eucharist, with others, and even with the poor. This does not mean, it must be emphasized with utter clarity, that she came off as “flat.” In fact, M. Teresa worked at bringing the Smile of God into each situation. No one, other than those to whom she confided her darkness, knew about it. But her soul was dry in the sense that the glowing electricity of her former union with Christ never returned.

The experience of darkness led to a search for an explanation. This is natural. She asked “Why?” Her answers came in the form of theology and she baptized her darkness into the rhetoric of the cross. She tried to come to terms with the darkness as a suffering-with-Jesus. I would appeal to “attribution theory” to understand how she, and her confidants, explained her darkness. The darkness was so profound and so mysterious, they attributed the darkness to God. They came to see it as a gift from God to permit her to enter into the suffering of Christ. Personally, I’m not entirely convinced. The “dark night of the soul” explanation does not get to the bottom of it either. It was either a kind of dark night of the soul never experienced or that explanation is not enough.

I think we have to look to her context: M. Teresa’s darkness began at about the same time she entered into the slums of Calcutta. In my opinion, while all these theological explanations are explanations, attempts to put into words what she was experiencing by attributing it somehow to God, it does not seem to me that her supporters are fair enough with the emotional toll daily and constant contact with the poorest of the poor can put on a person. In part, and I have no reason to reduce it to this, her darkness is emotional shut-down because of the depth of the pain she was seeing in those around her. No one, I suppose, can encounter that much pain and not be stunned emotionally. Stunned to a profound degree. I don’t believe many could absorb that much pain. One way humans respond to such pain is deflect it but there is a price to pay for such. I believe that is in part a price M. Teresa paid.

Regardless of whether you agree with me or not, M. Teresa is a great example oftenacity. She had faith and she remained obedient no matter how she felt — and this is admirable in and of itself — and she becomes for these an heroic example of Christian faith.

As her life progressed the blessing of God was upon the work of the Missionaries of Charity. She won the Nobel Peace Prize, using those days to speak against abortion, and she had places in more than 77 countries with over 350 houses (in 1988).

Increasingly her theology of loving the poor became a theology of seeing Christ in the poor. “The Hungry One in the distressing disguise of the Poor” (279) and the famous line of Jesus’ … “you did it to me” when you did it to the least of these.

In a fitting parabolic end to her life, she died on September 5, 1997. As her life was coming to its end, the lights went out at the home and neither did the electric back-ups work. The whole house was in darkness and the one who was called by Jesus to be light to the dark holes of Calcutta died in darkness.

By Leslie Leyland Fields

My father believed in UFO’s deeply, sincerely. He watched the night skies often, ready for a revelation, for the flashing brilliance of an alien in his backyard. His faith in extraterrestrial life never wavered but his believe in God flickered off and on over his lifetime. Mostly off. He saw the two as mutually exclusive. Alien life, in his mind, proved that God didn’t exist.

If he were still alive, he’d count this week’s exuberant headlines announcing the discovery, at long last of a “habitable planet” a victory for his side. I would confuse the contest by sharing his excitement. I enjoy watching the night skies almost as much as he did. I follow astronomy news as well as I can. Who does not thrill to the latest news about black holes (one was created in a lab in Haifa this week), Saturday’s near encounter of Venus and Jupiter? Who is not anxious to see the photos from the Juno probe, coming within 2,600 miles of Jupiter’s cloud tops, the closest view ever? And now, this “Proxima B” orbiting our nearest star, harbors possible conditions for life? Glory!

While I’m a sucker for astronomy news, I’m even more intrigued by watching the astronomers who watch the skies. The constant stream of new findings and breakthroughs is announced with such superlatives, the hope and faith of its scientists is palpable, and, often just a little on the charismatic side.

Reporting on the “Epochal Discovery” of Proxima B in the Atlantic Monthly, science reporter Rebecca Boyle writes, “No one will ever find a closer alien world than this. This is it. . . . In the hunt for our cosmic neighbors, this planet is as good as it gets.” (http://theatln.tc/2bgYfIZ) Artist renderings of a planet seen only as a miniscule pale dot through our greatest telescopes show lovely pink and lavender skies, plants with crimson leaves, a veritable potential Eden.

I’m happy for their joy. There’s been little to celebrate of late, especially for scientists focused on this planet, which isn’t faring too well. How natural to look beyond our borders for another frontier, one as yet unspoiled by our presence. (image YouTube/European Southern Observatory)

But I think my father would try to clinch the score with one more headline spawned by this discovery, this one on the “Genesis Mission.” While humankind has been eager to discover life on other planets for hundreds of years, some scientists now want to bring life to other planets. In short, the biblical sounding project is the brain child of Claudius Gros, a systems theorist in Frankfurt Germany, who suggests in a just-published paper in the Institute for Theoretical Physics (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.06087.pdf) that we “seed” these inhabitable planets to jump-start their steps toward Life. He proposes that scientists send off probes to implant planet surfaces with tiny capsules of plant and animal microbes specially designed to trim 4 billion years off the evolutionary process. Ross Anderson, science writer for the Atlantic, gushes, “A successful probe would allow a planet to . . . move quickly toward a lush biosphere capable of spawning intelligent life. We could send these probes to thousands of local planets, and wait a few hundred million years. By that time, our corner of the galaxy might be the envy of the cosmos.” (http://theatln.tc/2bphWBa)

But Gros acknowledges the difficulties. It will take the probe a few hundred to a few thousands years to simply arrive at the targeted planets. Not to mention then the millions of years to crawl through the necessary evolutionary steps to produce intelligent life. Why do this, then? What’s the point? Gros’ response is fascinating: (image/ESO/M. Kornmesser)

If we take the stance that a rational action is one which benefits ourselves, or society, or humanity, then there is no explicit rationale for a Genesis mission. For me, personally, it is a question of aesthetics. Life is something beautiful, and giving life the possibility to blossom elsewhere in the universe would be wonderful.

With its biblical language, and its out-of-this-world hubristic hopes and projections, it’s easy to see the imprint of the Fall all over again: we the creatures deny our creator and take His place as the makers and bringers of life—Life!—to other worlds. And maybe this is true. But I see something more in Gros’ words. This desire makes no rational sense, as he confessed, but more, it doesn’t even make evolutionary sense. This is not how evolution works: to sacrifice uncountable amounts of money, time and expertise over thousands, millions of years—for the express purpose of bringing the blossom and beauty of life to planets we will never see or benefit from? But this makes human sense. More, this makes Genesis sense and image-of-God sense, for this is just the kind of creatures God created us to be. Out of soil he formed us, and he placed us in a garden to dress and guard it, to bring beauty, blossom, food and life from the ground we ourselves were made from, that all creatures and the earth itself would flourish under our loving care.

We’ve failed miserably in the “creation mandate” our Creator gave to us. Gros’ desire to plant life and beauty throughout the cosmos is shot through with this same hope: “A Genesis mission is meant to give life the possibility to flourish,” he says. Perhaps he wants another chance. Who doesn’t? I thoroughly admire such selfish, holy ambition, but I’d like to stick with this world and see what can be done here first before we rocket off to other worlds.

I wish I could say all this to my father, who I kept hoping would yet believe in God. And he kept hoping I would believe in aliens. I don’t think I played it right in his last days. The discovery of life on another planet wouldn’t shake my faith; it would only strengthen what I already know of God: that He is endlessly creative, endlessly loving with plans and purposes far beyond even our wildest science fiction imaginations.

In my father’s last days I finally realized I couldn’t argue him to God and I gave up trying. If I could rewrite the painful ending, I’d have us standing out under the bright night sky together, watching for falling stars and spaceships, silently sharing in the starry glory my father could not name, but loved.

My Place At The Table

By Michelle Van Loon, who blogs at patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip and at michellevanloon.com

The resolution affirmed by 82% of those voting at the recent triennial gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) calling for an end of all American aid to Israel reminded me once again that to be a Jewish follower of Jesus sometimes requires thick skin.

Writer Elliott Abrams sums up the language in the resolution:

A time bound agreement– so facts on the ground, for example the strength of Hamas or even ISIS in the Palestinian territories would be irrelevant. Stop all construction in East Jerusalem–well, not really; just construction by Jews. “Enable” an independent Palestinian state, as if the only worry about such a state, and its only problems, come from Israel–not poverty, terrorism, corruption, and repression, for example. End military aid to Israel, regardless of the threats it faces from Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Iran, and other enemies of Israel’s and ours.

And of course, these standards and these requirements apply to one single country: Israel. In a world awash in repression and human rights violations, only Israel.

This latest resolution joins a cluster of Christian denominations that have linked arms with the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement. The BDS movement seeks to apply economic pressure on the State of Israel via boycotts of Israeli-made products, divestiture of any financial holdings that could benefit the country, and branding the country as a rogue, human-rights violating state. While the United Methodist Church recently voted to distance itself from this movement, other BDS-supporting denominations have made it their mission to censure Israel in hopes of pushing the country toward their vision for justice in the region.

In my forty-plus years of following Jesus the Jewish Messiah, I’ve run into people from denominations like ELCA who insist Israel is a rogue state. “We like Jewish people,” they’ll tell me. “We just don’t like modern Israel’s politics, and our ears are tuned to the suffering of the Palestinian people.” At best, they’re telling me they may like the idea of Jewish people (“Some of my best friends are Jewish”), but they don’t particularly want Jewish people to live in Israel in any of the bounded land areas on the map since 1948. In its more noxious form, some of these people are saying they really don’t care much for Jews at all – no matter where they live. Supercessionism (simply, the belief that the church has replaced Israel) forms their understanding of and relationship with the Jewish people. As about half the world’s Jewish population now lives in the State of Israel, supercessionism is more than just an abstract idea. It becomes the foundation for decisions like the recent ELCA resolution.

I’ve certainly had my share of awkward moments with those on the opposite end of the spectrum, Christian Zionists, mostly via hyper-idealized populist pronouncements about Jewish people and/or Israel. At one time, those with this position were a dominant voice in Evangelicalism – an Evangelicalism that has at times informed some of the way U.S. foreign policy plays out in the Middle East. There has been a maturing of this idealistic zeal in some quarters. At the same time, there’s been a hard pendulum swing away from wholesale embrace of this position in other quarters, leading some Evangelicals to align with those who would brand Israel in wholesale negative terms.

I can tell you that some occasional awkwardness from those in the Christian Zionist camp is far easier for me to deal with than the barely-disguised anti-Semitism of those who’ve chosen to demonize Israel via coolly-worded resolutions and boycotts. While both groups stir suspicion among the mainstream Jewish community, the actions of the latter are far more worrisome and carry the potential for far more devastating consequences to a people group comprising about 0.2% of the world’s population.

I write these words as a Jewish follower of the Jewish Jesus, recognizing that I am an object of scorn and suspicion to much of the Jewish community. But I am also writing them as someone who has an equal place at the table with Gentiles who claim the name of Jesus, including Christian Zionists and Supercessionists. There are times, like when I read about the ELCA resolution, I am reminded how difficult it can be to stay at that table when it feels in the marrow of my bones that it’s doesn’t always feel safe to remain in my seat. But the One who invited me to the table in the first place keeps me there. I’m grateful to know that my place at that table doesn’t mean I am to use my best Emily Post table manners and remain silent when a table mate says or does something hurtful or rude.

Adrian Goldsworthy. Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.ISBN 0300178824.

Review by Michael C Thompson

One of the first aspects of life under Roman rule that a beginning New Testament student learns is the Pax Romana (Roman peace). The phrase points to an ideal that characterized certain aspects of the empire, which would have helped construct the context of Jesus and the early church. However, even among the majority of those who have been introduced to the concept, the notion of Pax Romana remains undeveloped as facet of life in the Roman world. In this volume we are reminded that history is always more complex and nuance than we might at first suspect.

Adrian Goldsworthy is a well-known historian of the Roman world, having produced a number of volumes on various aspects of the empire and its most famous characters. Here he details the historical development and nuance of Pax Romana, documenting its widespread reach into Roman life. “Whatever we think of empires in general and the Romans in particular, this was a remarkable achievement and one deserving admiration …” (415). In regards to understanding the New Testament in its context, this is a study that will prove valuable.

As readers and interpreters of scripture it is often a challenge to keep in mind the complexity of a culture that is quite different than our modern world. Even a concept such as Pax Romana can quickly become oversimplified, both in ideal and reality. On the one hand: “The empire was prosperous because it was peaceful, warfare banished to the frontiers which were protected by the army. This was the Pax Romana or Roman Peace, | which allowed the greater part of the known world to flourish” (9–10). And yet, on the other hand: “For all the talk of peace, Rome under [Augustus’] leadership was almost permanently at war somewhere in the world, just as it had been under the Republic” (169).

And this seems to be at the center of Goldsworthy’s study — namely, that Pax Romana was not simply a peaceable kingdom on earth, but rather its existence was a peace within the bounds of Roman ideals, which were build upon military conquest and strength. The Pax Romana began with Augustus’ achievement of ending the years of civil war, but also developed along the lines of imperial dominance that would come to characterize the empire. There are many aspects of life to consider in this regard, and Goldsworthy does a remarkable job in presenting such a wide range of material.

Of special interest to the New Testament reader are chapters that rely heavily on the evidence in and around Judea (chs. 8–9). Mostly centered on the Jewish rebellion, there is simply more historical data from this region than any other place in the Roman world. But here we discover an opportunity to develop a better understanding of the events leading up to the Jewish war, the political drives that played a part in motivating the Jewish leadership during the Second Temple period, the reality of responsibility for Pontius Pilate in dealing with the Jewish aristocracy in regards to Jesus, and the significance of being labelled lestai (as those crucified alongside Jesus). These realities did not exist in a vacuum, but were part of a larger context of Roman rule, notably the Pax Romana.

“The ancient world was a dangerous, warlike place” (56). That Rome was able to effectively put an end to local skirmishes and tribal fighting, relegating the majority of military conflict to the border areas, is quite an accomplishment. It should not surprise us that many Roman historians and poets praised the Pax Romana and the emperors who saw to its establishment and maintenance. This, of course, did not eliminate crime and banditry, but it did bring about a new world in which the military strength of the empire kept order throughout its provinces.

Nevertheless, “Rome and its emperor infiltrated every aspect of public life until it was hard to imagine a world where this was not the case” (281). One of the realities that came along with the Pax Romana was creation of a culture in which Roman ideology became normative among various tribes and peoples. Those who would live out-of-step with these ideals (most notably in the ancient world, the Jews and the Christians), would be seen as odd and suspect. Hence, the message of the gospel would be culturally subversive not because it was against societal peace, but rather in its evaluation of militarism and conquest, both of which served as foundations of the Pax Romana.

To effectively capture a major concept such as Pax Romana is a challenging task, and Goldsworthy does well to provide a rather comprehensive portrait of the ancient Roman world. If a book such as this can only provide an introduction to the many ins and outs, ups and downs, and rules and exceptions to such a prominent characteristic of this great empire, then a simple review will undoubtedly fall short. Suffice to say, there is an entire world behind the phrase Pax Romana, and our ability enter into this reality of daily life in the empire will certainly assist our quest in understanding the message of the New Testament.

Goldsworthy intentionally stops short of offering critique of our modern world, remaining instead on the footing of ancient historian. As pastors this would be the next logical step, especially in reading the documents from the early church, written under this same Pax Romana. In describing Rome he states, “Their empire was created and then maintained by the frequent use and ever-present threat of military force” (410). In our world today this hope for peace is often found in the same militarism that characterized the Roman Empire. But will the church collude with those who trust in the weapons of war, or will we find a greater peace in that which has been accomplished in Christ?

(Image from Wikipedia: credit)

The evidence for an ancient earth – far, far older than the <10,000 year timeline defended in young earth creationism – is abundant and independent of any hypothesis concerning the mechanism of biological evolution. There are only two reasons to doubt the great age of the earth: (1) an ignorance of the data or (2) a prior commitment to a young earth (usually from a specific approach to Genesis). In my experience, adamant defense of a young earth has always been tied to the bible. The necessary result of any investigation of geological features is thus predetermined. The data must fit this model. But, the data does not really fit the model.

I’ve been reading a new book that uses the geology of the Grand Canyon region to outline the evidence for an ancient earth, The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth: Can Noah’s Flood Explain the Grand Canyon? This book contains abundant pictures and diagrams to educate the reader about geology and the shortcomings of flood geology. Most of the authors are Christian and all are experts in the science contained in their respective chapters. Interestingly, I once shared a shuttle with two of them from Boston airport to Gordon College. Despite the fact that four Christian science professors (a geologist, a paleontologist, a chemist and a biologist) were in the van, the driver shared that he was convinced that science disproved Christianity, with evolution and the age of the earth at the top of his reasons.

My first post on this book (A Grand Canyon) looked at Part 1: Two Views, a comparison of the time frames of flood geology and modern geology. Today we turn to Part 2: How Geology Works.  This chapter is a brief primer on the basics of geology and dating. Three chapters explore the structure and formation of different types of sedimentary rock, three chapters explore the methods used to date the different layers of rock observed in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere and the final two chapters provide an introduction to plate tectonics and the evidence for the motion of plates left in the rock layers at the Grand Canyon and elsewhere around the world.  If you have little or no scientific training, and have wondered how geology works and why the overwhelming majority of Christian geologists have little patience with Flood Geology this section is for you. It is informative and easy to read accompanied by great illustrations and pictures.  In what follows I will focus in one one or two points from each of the three subsections.

Sedimentary Rocks – The most impressive formations in the Grand Canyon result from water carving through layers of sedimentary rock of different color and composition. There is sandstone, limestone and shale. These layers contain a number of fossilized clues the the past environment. Along with the more familiar shell and body fossils there are ripples from long gone wave or wind action, raindrops, ancient mudcracks, and trackways (Ripples image source, raindrops source Rygel, M.C., tracks source). These come in various strata throughout the canyon. The formation and preservation of such marks can be tested in the laboratory and compared with modern sites.  High velocity currents will not produce fossilized ripples or allow for the preservation of raindrop splats or fine detail in trackways left by small animals.  The evidence in the canyon supports repeated long cycles of immersion and drying-out. This is inconsistent with a violent year-long flood placing the layers.

Geological Time – The layers of sedimentary rock with intrusions of igneous rock from below provide an excellent framework for determining the relative timing of the various layers of rock in the American Southwest and around the world. In the walls of the canyon there is evidence for ancient riverbeds eroding through various layers. The sketch to the right illustrates some of these features and the march of time that produces them.  There are a number of photographs in the book (and a much larger range of better sketches) that illustrate the various phenomena present in the layers below the rim of the Grand Canyon. The sketch to the right is my own simplified rendition of some of the features and phenomena discussed.

Although layering and fossils provide a robust relative timeline for the layers, and numerous features suggest a very long span of time for deposition of rock and then formation of the canyon, it is necessary to turn to other methods to establish absolute dates. Roger Wiens has provided a chapter with an excellent lay-level description of radiometric dating and the strengths and weaknesses of this method. Radiometric dating is a sophisticated method with samples tested in a variety of different ways.  There are natural phenomena that can confound the results, but these are known, most are well understood, and they are controlled for. Wiens also considers some of the data put forward by YEC organizations to try to discredit radiometric dating.  All of these represent misuse of the method or exhibit the normal range of error in scientific investigation.

Radiometric dating has proven to be accurate in dating ancient historical events such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The same methods show that the Grand Canyon cannot be younger than a million years old, based on the age of lava that flowed into the gorge, and that some of the basement rocks into which the canyon was carved are more than one billion years old. (p. 97)

Tectonics and Structure -The final two chapters by Bryan Tapp and Ken Wolgemuth provide a basic introduction to plate tectonics and examine a number of geological features traced to the influence of the motion of the earth’s crust. One interesting point of connection between radiometric dating and plate tectonics is found in the increasing separation of the North American and African plates. GPS measurements demonstrate a motion of about 1 inch per year today. Radiometric methods were used to date the lava that has welled up through the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This rock is youngest near the ridge and oldest near the continents.  Over 180 million years the rate of separation has averaged 1.2 inches per year with a range of about 1.1 to 1.7 inches/year.

Fractures, faults and folds throughout the Grand Canyon region testify to a number of different kinds of motion over the last 500 million years or so. The fractures demonstrate motion of solid compacted rock, with relatively little folding of softer sediment. This is powerful evidence against a flood active in the formation of the Canyon and the sedimentary layers through which it cuts. The evidence simply does not fit the necessary timeline. Violent plate tectonics a mere four thousand years ago would violate many different laws of physics. There simply is no evidence at the Grand Canyon or anywhere else for a recent global cataclysmic event shaping the crust of the earth.

The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth provides many more details on all of these topics and should provide a good introduction and conversation starter for anyone interested in the issues.  Independent of any discussion of evolution, the evidence for an ancient earth is overwhelming.  The contortions required to argue a young earth from a scientific look at the geological data are daunting, and should send us back to the Bible, not in search of error but in search of understanding.

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 post introduces to Jesus Creed readers one of my favorite authors, Leslie Leyland Fields. Author of numerous books, including Forgiving our Fathers and Mothers as well as Crossing the Waters. She and her family live in Kodiak Alaska and are commercial fishers — on an island off an island! She has taught at Seattle Pacific and speaks all over the USA on a variety of topics, including parenting. She blogs here.

The Olympics are nearly over. I’m relieved. How much perfection, beauty and grace can a person stand? How much pathos? How much love? Watching the trio of women sweep the high hurdles (image), gaping at Usain Bolt’s insane speed, seeing Michael Phelps move through water slick as a seal undoes me. I do not mean to, but I fall in love. I am astonished. I think of the Scriptures,

“What is man that you are mindful of him? The son of man that you would care for him? You have made him a little lower than the angels and have crowned him with glory and honor.”

We do indeed crown these victors with glory and honor, as such mastery and discipline deserves. But then it comes. At some point, all this glory and honor can depress a body. Can depress this body. When the music fades, when we’re left with instant replays of triumph, when we stand before the mirror before bed. Are they truly human, these athletes from Olympus? I would prefer them to be gods and goddesses, possessing bodies at least half-divine, half more divine than mine. If they are not, if they are mere mortals, they indict us all. Don’t most of us have the potential to be more muscled, more graceful, more coordinated, more competitive than we are? Couldn’t we all be faster, stronger, more agile than we are? Wouldn’t just an hour or two of practice and discipline sculpt our bodies more closely toward their God-made potential?

When I look out my windows here in Alaska, I am doubly indicted. The creatures I watch—those who fly, swim, soar, run, and dive with such beautiful animal force—are also perfectly formed. Their bodies precisely fit their habits and their habitat. And they do us one better: they are also made without the capacity for dissatisfaction or self-loathing. Creatures large and small, creatures Olympian and animal, among all of these we are, all the normal rest of us, the odd creatures out, twice over.

So I am wondering, amid all this perfection, muscle and discipline, does God love our bodies, the bodies of the rest of us? Our out-of-shape, overfed, so-much-less-than-they-could-be bodies? If we evangelicals are truly healed of our body/spirit divide, if we honor the sacredness and unity of our God-made beings, what do we do with this? We’re not athletes or models, though surely, some of us could be, if we worked hard enough. Aren’t we all colossal disappointments to our Creator, who does, after all, love beauty, self-control, speed, and grace?

Photographer Howard Shatz perhaps looked in the mirror and wondered this as well. A few years ago, he photographed 125 of the world’s most elite athletes, each one an Olympian. (http://www.boredpanda.com/athlete-body-types-comparison-howard-schatz/)   The lineup of the men and women’s wildly disparate bodies and vastly differing skills not only returned my breath, but reminded me of what I so often forget: perfection is neither singular nor static. Nor is it always visual. Not all of these Olympians will make it to magazine covers.

And then I remember the fin whales, our front and backyard neighbors whom we watch every day. They’re the second largest whale in the world but they’re not photogenic. They don’t spyhop or breach or enter the air with any sort of drama. Their 45 ton 70 foot bodies simply perform a serpentine arc from water to air, then a curling dive below, like ships sinking into the deep. They’re monstrously slow, these whales. Not spectacular. And their skin is mottled. Almost ugly.

I think of the tufted puffin, who paddles about our bay, who can barely lift off the water. He belly flops through the tops of waves, wings beating madly, and often gives up in a defeated splash. Is he meant to fly or not? He’s not sure. The oystercatchers on our beach know only one trick when we come too close to their nest in the gravel—they feign a broken wing. But the foxes are seldom fooled. I watched a bald eaglet learning to fly last summer. She spread her massive wings on the edge of a cliff, then crashed into the sea below, missing the rocks by just feet. She almost died and then attempted to fly with wet wings. It was the most pathetic attempt at flight I’ve ever seen. When I look clearly, I see that God’s creatures, too, struggle with their limitations. They too suffer from disease, imperfection and disabilities. We are not alone.

But neither are we the same as our creature-brethren. Our Father and Creator not only formed and shaped our bodies individually and particularly before they saw light, but he loves us, that is, our bodies enough to inhabit them. He loves us enough to join us here in and through our bodies, however muscled or weak they are, however ravishing or plain. For this is how we know Him. We cannot know him any other way. In every breath that lifts our lungs, every bite we swallow, every landscape and face and sunrise we see, every mile we walk, every thought we wonder–in all of this we are made to know more of Him.

But we are slow learners, and stubborn. I prefer body-hating and shaming at times. It’s easier and it feels more spiritual, but some writers and friends won’t let me get away with it. Rob Moll’s What Your Body Knows About God  reveals the inextricable connections between our bodies and God’s presence. Brent Bill and Beth Booram give us another vital resource with Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God (https://goo.gl/ejcVn4)

I cannot escape the centrality of my body to my knowledge and experience of God.

And lest I think good health, perfect vision, or Olympian skill or speed is required to truly know God, my friends set me straight. One of my dearest friends has dystonia, which delivers great pain and renders her unable to move some days. Her body is teaching her immense patience and gratitude, qualities I often lack in my healthy state. Other friends have cancer, one with a terminal diagnosis. They tell me they have never known God more deeply than through their illness.

We cannot wrestle death or outperform our mortality no matter our fitness or grace. We will always wrestle with our declining health, our shape, our age, our vast imperfections, which feel as though they sink us like whales. But, like the fin whales in our bay, no matter how deep we dive, we will keep rising to breathe for as long as God gives us breath. For in Him, we live and move and breathe and have our being, a being loved, beautiful, spirit-indwelt, redeemed, and—-rising again, God willing. And He is.

By Michelle Van Loon, patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip at michellevanloon.com

There are some very good reasons for church leaders not to trust a congregant. Some are obstructionists, determined to resist all change. Others engage in politicking and clique-forming. Still others enter the church with agendas, addictions, or abusive tendencies.

There is wisdom in maintaining good boundaries with a member possessing toxic tendencies that must be balanced with the call to shepherd even the balky or difficult sheep, not just the lovable ones.

But sometimes distrust originates with a leader. If a leader perceives a congregant as a threat or problem instead of a gift, the relationship will stall out or break down entirely. Three examples:

(1) Earlier this week, an old friend told me about her experience moving to a small town about five years ago. She and her husband faithfully attend a small Bible church. She grew up on the mission field, has a servant’s heart and years of ministry experience. She’s a quiet, grounded woman, without any agenda beyond simply being a friend and helping where she can. Even after five years, she told me the congregation’s leaders still treat her husband and her as outsiders who are tolerated rather than welcomed.

There are always at least two sides to every story and I’ll affirm I don’t have that of the leaders or other congregants. Perhaps my friend is simply running into entrenched small-town, small-church dynamics. However, I was sad to hear of the deep loneliness my friend experiences each week. Because she lives in a fairly remote area, she and her husband don’t feel there are any other realistic church options available to them, so they hang on, resigned to relationships characterized by a sense of low-level chronic distrust.

(2) Several years ago, my husband and I attended a church very upfront about its commitment to complementarianism. Though we didn’t share their conviction on this issue, we had no desire to debate or try to change anything about the church. We knew what we were getting into when we began attending. We valued the church’s commitment to prayer, to meaningful relationship with the surrounding community, the fact that they offered communion as a part of worship each week, and offered sturdy Biblical exposition in the sermons without a lot of extracurricular opining.

The pastor knew I was involved in ministry outside of the church that put me in some public leadership roles. He was cordial when he initially inquired about these things. I let him know I respected where the church stood on these issues, and kept that part of my life separate from my involvement in the church. I wasn’t interested in rocking the boat.

I thought no more about it until he launched a short sermon series designed to communicate to the congregation where the leadership team stood on various hot-button issues. The first two messages covered gender roles.

The entire time he was speaking, I had the distinct and uncomfortable feeling he was looking in my direction as he spoke. When I asked him about it afterward, he said, “Yes, actually I was looking at you.”

I appreciated his honesty, and told him so. When I asked him “Why did you feel you needed to do that?” He looked away, laughed uncomfortably, and changed the subject. The exchange startled me, but I elected not to pursue it further. He’d communicated clearly I was tattooed onto his watch list.

(3) At a different congregation, a staff member and I were collaborating on a project. When I suggested inviting a long-time congregation member to join us, the staffer balked. He told me the congregant had a history of being unreliable. I couldn’t imagine it of this gentleman, so I asked the staffer for examples. He gave one or two, but they were clumsy mistakes he’d made several years earlier. “Is it possible this person has grown and changed since those things happened?” I asked. The staffer then confessed he hadn’t really thought about removing the invisible “Do Not Trust” label he’d placed on the man.

I offer these anecdotes all the while realizing that these things don’t happen in a vacuum. We each carry our history into the church with us, our own collections of triggers and regrets, strengths and spiritual gifts. Whether it is a culture of distrust of “outsiders”, a defensive judgment about a particular congregant’s theology, an old label that no longer applies, or one of dozens of other scenarios, a leader’s unmerited, unexamined distrust of a congregant may keep things “manageable” in a church, but “manageable” isn’t exactly what Jesus had in mind for us.

If you’ve been the object of a leader’s suspicion, how have you navigated it? And leaders, how have you worked through distrust of a congregant?

I have a good friend named Ibrahim. He is a North African refugee and he works as a guard and compound manager at my home just outside the refugee camp. Nineteen years ago Ibrahim was a younger man living back in his home village across the border. One day his community was celebrating a traditional ceremony and everyone was gathered in the open, singing, dancing and eating together. And then the army showed up. Whether because of their skin color or the fact that too many of their young men had started joining the rebels in their ongoing resistance movement, Ibrahim always tells this story by saying “And that was the day that the war first came to our home.”

The government soldiers surrounded the village firing guns into the air and shouting “Allah hu akbar!” Even though Ibrahim and the entire village were in fact Muslims too, the soldiers rounded everyone together in a central place – men, women and children. They then pulled community leaders out of the terrified crowd – sheikhs, umdahs, prominent men – and bound them with ropes to trees. And then they executed them, either with a bullet to the head or a knife across the throat.

Ibrahim was only a young husband and father at that time, not the respected grandfather and elder that he is now, and he survived that day. But his much loved older brother Ayoub did not. Ibrahim fled his home soon after, vowing that if what he had seen and experienced was of Islam, then he would no longer have any part of it. He headed North and began living with other displaced people in a safer town.

It was here that he first came into contact with Christians. There was a small church made up of other displaced peoples from a neighboring tribe. Ibrahim began slipping into the back of their meetings on Sundays and leaving before the service ended. He didn’t speak their language, but he began learning. The words I heard were sweet, he says now. The words I heard were true. Eventually he stayed all the way to the end of the service and some of the church leadership struck up a conversation with him. Over the next few months and years, Ibrahim’s language skills deepened as did his relationships with the Christian community. Eventually, Ibrahim committed to becoming a follower of Jesus, becoming the first Christian from his sub-tribe of over 20,000 people (there were several other believers from the single other sub-tribe).

Today, in a refugee camp of almost 50,000 people who have fled the oppression of the same government that attacked Ibrahim’s village 19 years ago, Ibrahim is a respected church leader in his small local church, and four generations of his family fill the log pews. Many young men look to him as an example, a person who was willing to choose another way even when it went against tradition and propriety.

When a lot of people hear Ibrahim’s story, their response is often horror and indignation. How can Muslims do such awful things in the name of God? How can Islam allow such atrocities? The questions are fair to say the least. I never knew the deep evil of religious extremism as personally as I do now that I live next door to its victims. But if you look closely, you will see that there are two kinds of Muslims in Ibrahim’s story. And the narrative of the first kind – the kind that raids a village firing guns and shouting “God is Great!” – is told a lot these days and it is disproportionately loud, bloated with fear and horror. The narrative of the second kind of Muslim is harder to find; it is whispered under all the chaos of 24-hour news feeds and hysteria-inducing blips on social media. But the whisper is powerful. And it is deeply, shockingly true.

The whisper speaks of Muslims like Ibrahim and so many others like him. Men and women who are honest, courageous, and hospitable beyond belief. They are the kind of Muslims that are so eager to have a relationship with God that they meet him in prayer five times a day and devote an entire month of the year to fasting. And sometimes, they are the kind of Muslims who will learn a whole new language to simply hear more about him. Sometimes they will risk losing everything – family, community, respect, their very lives, to devote themselves to Him. They are the kind of Muslims, that, when given half an introduction to Jesus, turn out to be some of his most devoted followers.

I sometimes get the impression that the world thinks that the comfortable, free, middle-class, Christian West is the greatest victim of Islamic extremism. But the truth is that Muslims are in fact the greatest victim of Islamic extremism. More Muslims are killed by terrorists than anyone else, by a long shot. (According to a report published in 2011 by the US Government’s National Counter-Terrorism Center, Muslims account for between 82% and 97% of the victims of terrorism). So for those of us who are deeply concerned about terrorism in the world today, and who bear little risk of ever actually being killed by a terrorist, perhaps the best thing we can do in this world of fear and violence is to reach out with love to radical Islam’s greatest victims: Muslims.

Because you see, people like Ibrahim are eager for a relationship with God. But so many of them have never met a follower of Jesus. Ever. They live in villages that have no churches, healthy or unhealthy. They speak languages into which the Bible has never been translated, not that they could read it even if it was. And they are so often victims of a radicalized form of the only path they have ever known to reach God. But they are ready. And they are open. They have just never heard.

So the next time you see that horrible story on the news, instead of spending energy being angry and afraid and disgusted by terrible people who do terrible things, think about people like Ibrahim instead. Pray for them and then do something. Help make sure their first encounter with Christianity is not just another politicized religion so reminiscent of the very one they are running from, but is instead the true Gospel of Jesus.

The author of this blog is a missionary in North Africa with Pioneer Bible Translators. She, along with her husband and three little girls, lives on the outskirts of a refugee camp working to facilitate disciple-making, Bible translation and mother tongue literacy among two least-reached Muslim groups. Her favorite things about North Africa include drinking scalding hot mint tea, wearing colorful tobes, watching her daughters play on ant hills, and hearing people’s stories. Her least favorite things include rats in the kitchen and dry season dust storms.

How can we hold a reasonable conversation on a controversial issue?

There are many issues on which reasonable, dedicated, and devout Christians disagree. The form and intent of the Lord’s Supper (communion or Eucharist), the appropriate age for baptism, the mode of baptism, appropriate roles for women in the church, politics, economics, the age of the earth, evolution, and much more. In some cases there may be clear “better” answers, in other cases the biblical evidence is entirely ambiguous.  Some questions are probably better ignored than engaged (in most cases I’d put politics in a category that churches are better off ignoring),but others should be engaged. I am particularly concerned with the last two – the manner in which the church can engage in a profitable discussion of the issues at the interface of modern science and the Christian faith. These are questions that shouldn’t be ignored, at least not in a church where the questions are active in the community – as in the University community where we worship.

I suggest the following rules of engagement for discussion of origins.

1. The question of origins is one on which reasonable, devout Christians disagree.

All Christians agree that God is creator, but there are genuine disagreements over young earth, old earth progressive creation, and old earth evolutionary creation. To put names to some general positions, Ken Ham, Hugh Ross, and Francis Collins are all genuine devout Christians. It is not appropriate to impugn the motives or devotion of fellow Christians even while arguing for the truth of a different view on the question of origins.

It is seldom helpful to describe Christian thought on origins in terms of discrete positions. There are a continuum of views held by Christians (and non-Christians) when it comes to origins. We need to appreciated the continuum and the uncertainty.

2. Ad hominem arguments are to be avoided at all costs.

Arguments emphasizing persons and personalities simply drag the argument into the mud and give Christians everywhere a dirty name.  It is never appropriate to accuse a Christian scientist arguing for an old earth and/or evolutionary creation of bowing to the pressure of colleagues in order to get ahead Nor is it appropriate to accuse a biblical scholar of bowing to the pressure of either liberal colleagues or conservative colleagues, donors, or pastors. Respect the intellectual integrity of others and argue the issues.

3. Guilt by association and slippery slope arguments are inappropriate.

We can only make progress if we discuss the issues and do not allow the conversation to deviate in unproductive directions. Personally, I think that “slippery slope” arguments add wax to the floor and jack up one end … without options or the ability to discuss complex issues the floor becomes slippery  and sloped.

4. Avoid ridicule.

This should go without saying, but I remember returning from graduate school to my home church one Sunday to a movie (one emphasizing apologetic and defense of the faith) encouraging the faithful to resist the the scientists portrayed as white coated buffoons doing weird things in a lab. This didn’t help my faith any and would have been disaster for a technically trained unbeliever.

Of course it goes the other way as well. It doesn’t help at all when a scientist (especially a Christian scientist) ridicules fellow Christians for their beliefs.  Focus on the ideas and the issues.

5. Don’t assume your neighbor holds the same position you hold.

The mob mentality of many groups and presentations – with “us” versus “them” and inspirational propaganda – hinders both evangelism of non-Christians and deeper growth for many Christians with real questions.

6. Discussions are better than lectures.

There are some powerful presentations that can open up the possibility for significant questions. It isn’t necessary to avoid lectures altogether – but always leave time for questions and discussion.

7. Work to understand the other person’s point of view.

Until you can explain the other’s position in terms they would agreement you cannot truly engage with the issues.

8. Start with Scripture, but avoid “proof-texting.”

Biblical authority requires us read Scripture carefully (and often) and to dig into the intent and meaning of the text. Genre, historical context, and authorial intent must all be considered. It isn’t a matter of conforming the text to “modern science” but of being faithful to the intended message of the text. Respecting the authority of Scripture also requires us to consider all of the text in context. Proof-texting is one of the great weaknesses of evangelicalism.

Differences in interpretation do not necessarily mean a lower or higher view of Scripture.

9. Distinguish between scientific categories and biblical-theological categories.

The point here is that Christians should look to the questions that the author was attempting to address in the text. The questions are often not the questions that we bring to the text … and thus the answers taken from the text are some ricochet off from the intended meaning. The author of Genesis was not addressing issues of modern science. The point of the text is theological. Thus we shouldn’t expect modern science in the text.  As John Walton has argued “Genesis is written for us but it isn’t written to us” and “in the Bible there is no scientific revelation.”

10. Take the science seriously.

Science isn’t a deeply flawed and agenda driven pursuit. There is a general openness to question and correction.  Of course, it is important that we learn to distinguish scientific theories, laws, and data from metaphysical conclusions.  Often scientists, being human, will mix the science with metaphysical and philosophical beliefs.

Science is a study of God’s creation. Belief in God as creator means that we should have respect for the information contained in God’s creation.

11. Don’t forget worship.

The discussion needs to start with the who (God) and the why of the text – the theological agenda of the author. In his essay in Reading Genesis 1-2, Kenneth Turner notes that Gen 1 “is a doxological narrative,” which reads with a certain cadence (even in English) that attracts the reader and invites reverence and wonder.” This is also true of the other passages that invoke God as Creator, in the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Isaiah. The Old Testament passages challenge the ancient Near Eastern view of many gods confined to creation, gods with human foibles engaged in divine struggles and often in sexual conquest. The Bible presents God as an awesome and transcendent creator.  This should evoke an attitude of worship.

It can help a great deal when a discussion of these sticky issues includes a time of prayer and worship alongside conversation, even when in disagreement.

 What would you add to this list?

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.

 By Michelle Van Loon, who blogs at patheos.com/blogs/pilgrimsroadtrip and tweets at michellevanloon.com

Once upon a time – and for most of Judeo-Christian history following – there were no Sunday School classes or parachurch youth programs that focused on transmitting faith from one generation to the next. There was simply the kind of lifestyle God prescribed in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

Certainly other forms of apprenticeship, and eventually, more formalized forms of theological education, emerged over time. But those were built on the Hebrew foundation of practicing faith with family, in community. From the time of the Exodus, an essential structure for community discipleship and identity was the cycle of feasts described in Leviticus 23. The Chosen People were discipled by God in time, living their sacred story celebrating God’s creation and redemption by participating in it each year – from generation to generation.

My own “lightly-religious” Jewish upbringing offered me a window on that festal calendar. I came to faith in Jesus during my teens, and That window left me wondering why the non-denominational congregations my husband, our children and I attended didn’t do much thinking at all about the way in which our church community moved through a year. The annual worship cycle in most of those congregations included various themed or expository sermon series punctuated with these special days:

• Valentine’s Day – marriage sermon and/or couples banquet
• Good Friday – somber, sad service or play
• Easter – special service aimed at visitors, resurrection celebration
• Mother’s and Father’s Day – heavy on sentiment, flowers for moms!
• Church picnic – often held in conjunction with VBS
• Veteran’s Day (optional) – time during the service to honor vets and active military
• Thanksgiving – because giving thanks is biblical
• Christmas – Bethlehem-themed reminder that Jesus is the reason for the season

Eventually, I served on a production team at one of the churches we attended, where it was emphasized to me that that the calendar driving all programming for our worship services was the American civic calendar, except for Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas.

As my husband and I are both Jewish believers, we continued to maintain a modest connection to the Hebrew festal calendar, as we hoped to form in our children a connection with their Jewish birthright. I learned during those years that while connection to a calendar can be an important learning tool for families, it carries a different weight in a family when an entire community is formed by its rhythms.

After a relocation a few years ago, we found our way to an Anglican church, which ignited the questions that had been bubbling just under the surface in me about what it meant to be formed spiritually in time, in community. The church calendar emphasizes the story and redemptive mission of Jesus. I appreciated being discipled in time, in the context of community.

I began wondering about how the Hebrew calendar Jesus knew became the church year calendar used by the church. After a trip to Israel, I began researching the topic on my own. A kind church history professor at Northern Seminary allowed me to root around in academic sources for a term paper. I emailed a few scholars I knew. I asked lots of questions because I valued both the Hebrew festal and the Christian calendars, and knew both calendars framed time in terms of God’s salvation story. These calendars do not exist so we can pencil in days of celebration and sorrow alongside our oh-so-important schedules. Instead, each calendar demands we prioritize our lives according to their rhythms, because their rhythms represent God’s saving work in our lives and in the world.

Eventually, all of my questions became a book: Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith, published by NavPress and releasing September 1. Scot McKnight was very kind to give it some lovely words of endorsement, for which I’m grateful. I’m praying it’ll spark new conversations about discipleship in time among individuals, families, small groups and churches.

God tells us in Deuteronomy 6:7 we are to repeat and keep on repeating to our children the commands he has given us. This repetition was meant to take place within the structure of a family’s daily life and inside the context of an entire community participating in a weekly and yearly rhythm of feasts, fasts and festivals.

A religious calendar certainly doesn’t impart instant faithfulness to adherents. A cursory glance backward through history reminds us that the Chosen People had a calendar given them by God and still drifted into idolatry. The church developed her own calendar and has her own messy, chaotic, divisive history. Evangelicals and some from Mainline traditions moved away from religious calendars for a variety of reasons, but the civic calendars (punctuated with a few special event days) cut off those congregations of the richness of community-based discipleship.

I’d love to hear from you. What sort of calendar does your church use? How has this calendar formed your congregation’s identity? In what ways does it compete with (or complement) popular culture’s feasts and festivals?