Michael Kruse on Christian Economics

Michael Kruse is a guest blogger on Jesus Creed discussing Christian economics. It's fascinating stuff.

His first article was on the concept of scarcity--the basis of economic theory. Economic scarcity is the idea that there are not enough resources in the world for everyone to have everything they want. (Note that this is different than what most people mean by the term "scarcity," i.e., "rarity." Economic scarcity does not mean that there are not enough resources for everyone to survive, but not enough for everyone to have as much as they want.) The discussion revolves around whether ecnomic scarcity contradicts Christian belief in God's provision, so that theology and economics are against each other from the start.

The second article is on the distinction between "positive economics" and "normative economics." Positive economics deals with the system as it is. Normative economics deals with the system as it should be. Kruse says that too often theologians enter the discussion wanting only to discuss normative economics, so that they are written off by economists as impractical idealists.

I will definitely be following this series.

Are We Sure This Isn't a WIN?

see more Fail Blog

The Parables

Two more of my parables have been uploaded to the church's website. You can listen here. My latest additions are the Parable of the Sower and the Parables of the Mustard Seed and Leaven.

In related news, I think I might try to turn the parables (and the one that I am doing on October 4th) into a book. This was not my original plan, but I have been encouraged by many people to do it.

One change that I will have to make is adding longer explanations. In the sermons I only spent about five minutes explaining the parables, but in the book I would expand these sections to be as long as the parables themselves. I think I will divide the book up into an introduction, conclusion and five sections. Each section would be on a topic and would consist of two chapters--a parable and an explanation. Here are the titles of the sections, all related to the kingdom of God:

I. Good News (The Parable of Great Banquet)

II. Awaiting Redemption (October 4th Parable)

III. Transformation (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

IV. Faith (The Parable of the Sower)

V. Grace (The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard)

The Parable of the Mustard Seed would go in the introduction.

John Meier on Jesus and the Law

All too often in the past, Christian questers for the historical Jesus have created an opposition between the 'ritual,' 'cultic,' or 'legal' elements in the Law on the one hand and the 'moral' or 'ethical' elements on the other. One can see the problem immediately. This sort of distinction usually carries with it implicit value judgments that owe more to the European Enlightenment of the 18th century and American individualism of the 21st century than to Jewish views on the Law in 1st-century Palestine. To many modern minds, as they evaluate matters religious and spiritual, what is external, ritual, ceremonial, public, legal, or institutional is of little importance, is easily dispensed with, or is downright dangerous and to be avoided. In contrast, what is internal, private, personal, spontaneous, emotional, or unstructured belongs to true religion or spirituality, and it is in this sphere that true morality is to be found.

...For the ancient Near East, human beings were not Platonic souls entombed for a while in bodies; human beings were bodies enlivened by a vital force having a mind, will, and emotions. A religion that remained locked up in the inner recesses of the psyche, a religion that had no bodily expression in visible and communal actions, was quite literally non-sense.

...To sum up: an implicitly hostile opposition between 'cultic,' 'ritual,' or 'purely legal' elements of the Mosaic Law on the one hand and the 'truly moral' or 'ethical' elements on the other would have been alien to the mind-set of ordinary Palestinian Jews of Jesus' day. For such a Jew, what was 'moral' (if we may use that term) was to do God's will and to walk in his ways as laid out in the Torah God had given to Israel. (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 4:43–45.)

Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it.

A Marginal Jew and the Quest for the Historical Jesus

For the past few months I have been plowing through John P. Meier’s monumental A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Originally slated to be four volumes, Meier has written four books totaling 3040 pages and still has to cover the parables, Jesus’ self-designation, and his arrest and crucifixion. But, his work will no-doubt survive as the authoritative work on the historical Jesus.

The purpose of Meier’s project is to find out what a hypothetical “unpapal conclave” consisting of a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Muslim, and an agnostic would say about Jesus if they were locked in the library basement at Harvard University and were not allowed to come out until they had produced a document on which they could all agree. On what can everyone agree about Jesus, regardless of their faith?

Meier is careful to distinguish this “historical” Jesus from the “real” Jesus. Just as there was more to George Washington than what is available to us through the historical method, there was more to Jesus than what we can recover through historical investigation. Meier is a Roman Catholic priest and a professor at the University of Notre Dame, so he has beliefs about the real Jesus that go beyond what he can prove through historical investigation. He would call these beliefs “Christology,” a sub-discipline of theology, not history.

For example, the unpapal conclave would be able to affirm the line from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that Jesus “was crucified under Pontius Pilate and suffered death” because this statement is verifiable by historical inquiry. However, they could not affirm the full version of the statement, that Jesus “for us human beings and for our salvation . . . was crucified under Pontius Pilate for our sake, [and] suffered [death].” The above italicized phrases are theological claims not verifiable by the historian.

Is work like Meier’s valuable to the evangelical community?

First, there are some reasons why it is not.

1. Meier’s method rejects the inerrancy of the Scriptures. You may wonder how Meier has managed to write 3040 pages on Jesus, when the Gospels only take up about 100 pages of most Bibles. In addition to interacting with relevant extra-biblical materials, Meier spends a lot of time discussing which biblical statements about Jesus are authentic, and which are inauthentic or unverifiable. For instance, Meier accepts that Jesus was a miracle-worker, but rejects the story of Jesus walking on water. He claims that this story was invented by the early church. Because evangelicals believe in the inerrancy of the Scriptures, they cannot agree with this conclusion. So, given the evangelical presupposition that the Scriptures are inerrant, Meier’s project is doomed to fail before it begins.


2. Meier presupposes a distinction between “the Jesus of history” and “the Christ of faith.” He writes, “the quest for the historical Jesus is by definition a strictly historical endeavor. Of its nature, it prescinds or brackets Christian faith. This does not mean that it denies, rejects, or attacks such faith. The quest simply prescinds from Christian faith in the way that a world-class astronomer who happens to be a believing Christian would prescind from a theology of God the Creator when she is examining the outer reaches of the galaxy.”
   
   However noble Meier’s motives in making this distinction, it is methodologically problematic. What if the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history are one and the same? Does presupposing their distinction compromise the investigation? In distinguishing between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, are you adopting a worldview alien both to Jesus himself and to his followers? It may be outside of the realm of historical investigation to prove that Jesus is the second member of the Trinity, but the truth of that theological claim influences the way in which one approaches the historical Jesus.

Second, there are some reasons why Meier’s work is valuable to the evangelical community.

1. Apologetics are only valuable when they are meaningful to those outside of the community. I had a professor in college who used to say, “I can prove everything I believe if you grant me two presuppositions, neither of which can be proven or disproven: (1) There is a God, and (2) The Bible is the Word of God.” Now, it’s great to be able to defend your beliefs, but who would you be defending them to with those presuppositions? Does anyone accept those two presuppositions without also accepting the claim that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”? If not, then you are limiting your dialogue partners to those who are inside the community of faith. If you limit yourself in that way, are you truly doing apologetics? No. In order for evangelicals to have a meaningful apologetic, we have to be able to defend our beliefs without presuppositions like “there is a God” or “the Bible is inerrant.”


2. The Christ of faith is the Jesus of history. We are not Docetists. When we worship the second member of the Trinity, we are worshipping a Jew from Nazareth who walked the earth 2000 years ago. Belief in God only makes sense if that God intervenes in history. (Why would it matter if there were a God if He didn’t intervene in our reality?) We believe that God intervened in history in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. To reject the Jesus of history is to become a Gnostic or a Deist.


3. Evangelicals’ belief in inerrancy should not continue uncritically. Note that I did not say that their belief in inerrancy shouldn’t continue, but that it shouldn’t continue uncritically. If you’re going to believe something that the rest of the world rejects, you should have a good reason for doing so—not just because it makes you more comfortable. If the Scriptures are inerrant, then we have nothing to fear from people who claim they’re not. If they’re not, then we need to be alerted so that we can wake up from our delusion.

Personally, I find Meier’s work to be fantastic. I love the skeptical approach. I have written here before that I find Wolfhart Pannenberg’s apologetic to be the most satisfying. The truth of any god’s existence is directly related the “truth” of the god’s religious claims. If a god claims to be able to raise the dead, and the dead are not raised, then that god is not the true god. In theological dialogue, the prophets of Baal call down fire, Elijah calls down fire, and whichever god brings the fire is the true god.

The God of the Bible claims to be able to raise the dead. He promises victory over sin and a kingdom of justice and peace. He claims that these things are coming about through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The extent to which we can prove that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead is the extent to which we can prove that God exists. Meier’s research on the historical Jesus is a huge leap in that direction (although he might cringe at my using it to that end, as he wrote in A Marginal Jew 4:6).

What Is Good Preaching?

I’ve been forced to reflect lately on what “good preaching” is. It’s funny how two people can talk to me after a sermon—one saying, “that sermon was your best ever” and the other saying, “that sermon was fruitless.” What is good preaching? What makes a sermon good? Here are some things to consider: (by the way, don't read into the picture placement)

1. How much does delivery matter? Most people prefer a good speaker to a bad one. Can we justify this? Jonathan Edwards read most of his sermons, and he is considered by many to be the greatest American preacher of all time. Paul contrasted himself to Apollos and said that his inferior oratory skills meant that his sermons depended on the power of God for success (1 Cor 2:1–5). On the other hand, Paul may have been speaking tongue-in-cheek in 1 Corinthians. It is highly doubtful that Paul was a poor rhetorician. His speeches in Acts are fantastic, and his epistles are well thought-out and argued.
   
   
   
2. How much does interpretation matter? Can a good sermon misinterpret a text? If you speak truth, but from the wrong text, can your sermon be good? If you’re a Calvinist, are all Arminian sermons therefore bad preaching? If you’re post-mil, are all Dispensationalists bad preachers? Can a non-trinitarian sermon be good? (I’ll answer that last one—“no.”)
   
   
   
3. How much does the preacher matter? We see high-profile preachers fall all of the time. The inconsistency of their lifestyles and their message destroys the credibility of their sermons. Are all of their sermons, therefore, bad preaching? I heard John Piper give a sermon on evangelism in which he admitted up front that he was not a good evangelist and therefore this sermon was hard for him to give. He said he was convicted by his own words but that he just wanted to be faithful to what the Bible said. If he wasn’t living his message, was that a bad sermon?
   
   
   
4. How much does style matter Does a sermon have to be expository (going through the Bible verse-by-verse), or is there room for topical preaching (say, on parenting, or worship, or evangelism, or money)? Do we have biblical examples of either of these? Does a sermon have to be christocentric (i.e. about Jesus), or can we preach on behavior? Do we have examples from the Bible? If I am preaching on Paul’s command to “Flee sexual immorality,” do I have to preach about Jesus, or can I preach about sexual immorality and the reasons we should flee it (as long as my reasons are theological)?
   
   
   
5. How much does the audience’s response matter? The purpose of a sermon is to change lives. If lives aren’t changed, was the sermon a dud? If the audience hated your sermon, was it bad? If they loved it, was it good?
   
   
   
6. How much does context matter? Does a good sermon have to happen in church? Can you get good preaching in a chapel or at a conference? Were the Billy Graham crusades good preaching?



7. How much does relevance matter? Does a sermon have to be contextually relevant? Isn't the Bible timeless?
   
   
8. What does it mean to “Preach the Word”?
   
   
9. What other factors should be taken into account?

Allen Yeh's Review of The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah

Allen Yeh has written a great review of The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah. He says everything I thought when I read the book but was afraid to say because I am white.

Dr. Soong-Chan's book is important, but I agree with Dr. Yeh's critiques.

War and Peace--I Chickened Out

I brought War and Peace with me on my vacation, but I never worked up the nerve to start it. I have a thing about starting books and not finishing them, and I knew that was going to be a long road to go down. Maybe next year . . .

Second Skin

This is a fascinating documentary on MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games). HT: BHT

iMonk on Letting the Church Be Wrong

Great thoughts by Michael Spencer on churches that are too right for their own good.

Heretic

I saw a great quote somewhere, and sadly I can't remember the exact wording or who said it. But it was something along the lines of "If your preaching isn't drawing criticism, you aren't preaching the truth." It's easy to fall into the trap of preaching what people want to hear--not what they need to hear.

That being said, I received my first letter of hate mail (from an internet listener who does not attend my church) about one of my sermons.

I almost posted the letter on the blog, but it is long. Essentially, the guy didn't like my sermon on the Parable of the Good Samaritan (which, not coincidentally, I think may have been my best-written sermon ever). The issue was my comparing a Samaritan to a homosexual. He said that the Samaritan was an unlikely hero because of his race, not because of his behavior. In my story, the homosexual is the unlikely hero because of his lifestyle. The analogy "at its best was poor and at its worst, heresy."

Now, I graciously responded to the guy. I thanked him for listening and contacting me, and I showed him that the Samaritan in Jesus' parable was an unlikely hero because of his lifestyle, not just because of his race. The Samaritans were syncretists--blending worship of YHWH with worship of pagan gods. The point of the parable is: "The pagan got it right and the holy men got it wrong." I think my modern analogy was spot on.

But I bring up the issue because I want to say something: It hurts to be called a heretic, regardless of the substance of the accusation. Certain people need to be called heretics--those who teach against the deity of Christ, the trinity, the resurrection, and the other "big" issues. But heretic is a strong word. People get burned at the stake for heresy. Let's not rob it of its power by calling everyone we disagree with a heretic. Let's not call people heretics because they have differing millennial views, or because they teach Calvinism (or Arminianism), or because they question a doctrine like imputation, or because they are postmodern. There is a difference between being wrong and being a heretic. A heretic is grossly wrong.

Then again, maybe language is changing and I just need to get with the times. Chuck Swindoll used to say "God is awesome in the way the word meant before pizza was awesome." Maybe I need to say "Arius was a heretic in the way the word meant before Brian McLaren was a heretic."

The Parable of the Great Banquet

Gary and I are in the midst of a sermon series on the parables of Jesus. On July 26th, I taught on the Parable of the Great Banquet.

My approach to the parables has been different than what you typically hear in church. Instead of preaching a sermon about the meaning of the parables, I have rewritten them in contemporary settings. I'm not going to use this approach forever (it takes a lot longer than writing a sermon), but it has been a lot of fun to do for the parables.

You can listen to the Parable of the Great Banquet here.

Derek Webb

I love Derek Webb. What do you think about this song?

There are rumors that his label felt the song to be too scandalous for release. As he often does, Webb uses some colorful language to make a point.



I agree with Jeff Wright's take on it.

By the way, I think I like the electronica direction Webb is going in. I love the folk stuff, but I think he pulls this off. And the album title--Stockholm Syndrome--if he means what I think he means by that it is one of the greatest titles ever.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Gary and I are in a series on the Parables of Jesus. On June 28th, I taught on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Afterward, several people independently told me, "I will never forget that sermon." No one has ever said that to me about anything else I have ever said. Someone else told me, "That sermon made me SO mad . . . in a good way."

I am trying something different with this sermon series--instead of doing my traditional three points and a poem at the end, I have rewritten the parables for modern ears. It just kind of makes sense to me to explain a story with a story. It's different (and it's not something I will do forever), but I like it.

You can listen to it, my sermon on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, or any of the other sermons in the series here.

Evangelicalism and Higher Criticism of the Bible

What are your thoughts on "higher criticism of the Bible" (source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, literary criticism)? Is it anathema, or does it have its place in evangelicalism? Have you ever even heard any of these terms?

I am curious to read what your response is to the following "problem" in New Testament studies, dealing with historical agreement between the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and John.

In the Synoptic Gospels, the cleansing of the Temple occurs at the end of Jesus' ministry, after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem for the last time (Matt 21:12–13, Mark 11:15–19, Luke 19:45–46). In John, the cleansing of the Temple occurs at the beginning of his ministry, right after the turning of water into wine at Cana (John 2:13–22). Which of the following "solutions" to this "problem" are you most comfortable with? Which do you absolutely reject?

1. Since the Bible is inerrant, and since there are clearly contradictions in the timing of these two events, there must have been two cleansings of the Temple--one at the beginning of Jesus' ministry and one at the end.


2. The Bible may be inerrant, but these two passages look like they are describing the same event. Perhaps John is not arranging his material chronologically, but theologically. The cleansing of the Temple occurs early in John, not because it happened early in Jesus' ministry, but because John the theologian wanted to make it clear from the start that Jesus was replacing the Temple.


3. The Bible is not inerrant. These two stories are clearly two accounts of the same event, and the internal contradictions prove that there are errors in the Bible.

I am interested in your take on the proposed solutions to the problem, not because I want to advocate a position, but because I want to get a sample of how evangelicals approach the issue of higher criticism and "problems" in the Bible.